The Mainstream Media and Both Political Parties Lie About Black America’s Views

Guest Editorial at RedState

The political and media environments routinely create a narrative about black voters (and black people in general) that does not line up with reality. They get away with it because they are counting on you to not know enough about us to be able to call them out on it.

According to Pew Research Center, 43 percent of Black Democrats (!) self-identify as “moderate” and 25 percent self-identify as “conservative”. Also according to Pew, almost eighty percent of Black Americans identify as “Christian” and only 3 percent identify as “atheist” or “agnostic.”

Politically, 58 percent of Black Democrats support charter schools. Republican Ron DeSantis is governor of Florida today as a direct result of black women voting for him in unusually large numbers over the issue of school choice. Also, over 62 percent of Black voters in Georgia support requiring an ID in order to vote. Only 28 percent of Black Americans support “Defunding the Police.” Only 19 percent of Black Americans said that they wanted police to spend less timein their area.

In other words, far-left political viewpoints are a distinct minority in the Black Community. But if you judged us based on what you hear from most national black political commentators, you would never know that. The Mainstream Media elevates some of the most politically extreme viewpoints in our community while presenting them as representative of the community as a whole. It is not. The people in power know it. But both political parties have an incentive to keep the charade going.

The powers that be on the left want to present their views as part of the black mainstream (even when it isn’t) because it gives those views credibility. If you push back, they get to frame opposition to their viewpoint as opposition to black people. The political right (who plays a version of the same game by elevating their own black people with extreme views) also benefits because it allows them to blame their poor performance with black voters on the voters themselves and not on their own ineptitude.

The people who have been in charge of the Republican Party for years do not want their grassroots to know how many black moderates and conservatives actually exist. If you knew how much of their poor performance among Black voters was their own fault, many of you would challenge Republicans in power on their incompetence. They do not want a bunch of white conservatives showing up to town hall meetings demanding that they put forth a serious effort to attract black voters.

So Republicans in power pretend that black voters are unwinnable. Black voters interpret that as “you don’t want us” and therefore continue to vote for the people who will at least give enough of a damn to show up.

There are plenty of places that elevate black far-left views. Many outlets on the right (when they have black voices at all) do the same in the opposite direction. But who represents the voice of the Black majority?

This site has done an exceptional job elevating and supporting the voices of the Black majority.  My network has also fought to elevate those voices. But there needs to be more. We are working against the tide as long as there are incentives in place to encourage the elevation of the extreme at the expense of the majority. You can remove the incentive by refusing to allow the people in power to keep playing the game. They know what they are doing, and they are counting on you to not recognize it or call them out. Political parties fear nothing but the anger of their grassroots. Do not allow them to continue to get away with lying to you about black people.

I personally think that most of the time, both political parties are trash. However, as a black man, I also believe strongly that it is not in the best interests of black people to have all of our political capital invested into only one party. Doing so creates the dilemma that we have today, where one party ignores our issues and the other one exploits them. The only way to provide better political outcomes for black people is to have competition for our votes. If you care about the future of this country, you should want that competition to take place. A strong Black America is good for all of America.

Joe Biden’s Happy Things

Joe Biden plays an ambiguous role in this 

malevolent charade. He is not the prime mover 

but merely the public face of the machine. 

by Roger Kimball for American Greatness

McDonald’s has its “Happy Meals,” so it’s only fair that Joe Biden has his “Happy Times.” The Fourth of July weekend is one of those bright, smiling occasions that normally begets happiness, though in truth the White House occupant was not smiling on Friday when reporters ventured to ask him about the decision (I won’t say his decision) to turn over Bagram Airfield to the Afghans after nearly 20 years, $2 trillion in taxpayer money spent, and thousands of U.S. casualties. 

Question for the future: what did we get for all that blood and treasure? Don’t answer now, just put it on your mental to-do list. 

Anyway, the leader of the free world didn’t want to talk about Afghanistan. “I want to talk about happy things, man,” he snapped. The Taliban is such a downer, you know, and besides “It’s Fourth of July” weekend. “I’m going to celebrate it. There’s great things happening.” 

Like gasoline prices about double what they were last year? Out-of-control inflation? A humanitarian and national security crisis on our Southern border? 

Mr. Happy did not mention those items. 

Nor did he dwell on the deeper question, viz what are we celebrating on the 4th of July? After all, many college students say they are “embarrassed” to be Americans. “Are you proud to be an American?” an interviewer asked. “Hell no,” was the answer, or words to that effect. 

Not that this is surprising. Most of the major institutions of the country have been telling us that America is irredeemably racist, sexist, and exploitative. The wretched “1619 Project,” which argued that America was founded as a “slavocracy” and that the American Revolution—whose culmination we celebrate on July 4—was fought to perpetuate the institution of slavery, was promulgated by the New York Times, supposedly our paper of record. The tendentious and historically inaccurate contentions of that disgusting anti-American broadside were then packaged for school curricula by the Times and other outlets of dubious national loyalty. As of this writing, elements of the 1619 Project’s ideology are part of the curricula of more than 4,500 schools. 

Then there is critical race theory, a catechism that teaches students to hate their country and whites to hate themselves. As Christopher Rufo has shown in meticulous detail, the wild ideas of CRT are being force-fed in mandatory training sessions not only to students but also to government employees. 

This is old news by now, but we should not let familiarity breed complacency. (Contempt is something else: there is plenty of room for contempt here.) Is it a “happy thing” that the U.S. Treasury, for example, has spent more than $5 million on indoctrina—, er “training” sessions teaching its employees that “virtually all white people contribute to racism”? The 8,900 employees of the National Credit Union Administration are being treated to a similar catechism. America was “founded on racism,” they were told in a scripture right out of the 1619 Project, and “built on the backs of people who were enslaved.” 

America’s nuclear arsenal is manufactured at the Sandia National Laboratories. You might think that such an institution would be careful to distance itself from radical, anti-American sentiment. But Rufo has shown that Sandia held a “three-day reeducation camp for white males,” teaching them to “deconstruct their ‘white male culture’ and forcing them to write letters of apology to women and people of color.” Similar programs have infested many other agencies, including the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI, whose “Office of Diversity and Inclusion” (who knew?) hosts weekly “Intersectionality Workshops.”

No wonder Joe Biden is looking forward to happy things this weekend. 

So, I have no doubt, are most of us. But amid the requisite chirpings about the real meaning of July 4, and the rote attestations about what a great (“the greatest”) country the United States is—in between the reels with Ronald Reagan and JFK and other telegenic patriots—behind all the happy times and invocation of Lincoln, Jefferson, and Washington, once we’ve dabbed the uplifting teary moments from our eyes, I wonder whether it might be worth pondering what happened to the United States to make possible something like the 1619 Project or the tsunami of self-hatred that fires critical race theory. 

Alas, all that is the veritable tip of a hitherto unfathomable iceberg. We can’t take its measure yet, but we have tasted the jagged outcropping that accuses millions of citizens of being “domestic extremists,” even “terrorists” because they persist in questioning a questionable election and continue to declare their support for a cancelled politician. Other hard minatory planes lurk close to the surface, which is why hitherto respected institutions like the FBI are now regarded by large swathes of the public with fear and loathing; the military, once unimpeachable, is increasingly regarded with derision and contempt. 

Nancy Pelosi is just about to launch her investigation of the free-for-all at the Capitol on January 6, but the more we know about that event, the less it looks like an “insurrection” or attack on “our democracy” (which is not, by the way, your democracy). On the contrary, with every passing day it becomes clearer that the protest at the Capitol was to a large extent managed if not organized by the very forces that now thunder in denunciation while exacting horrible retribution on those caught by their surveillance machine. In the fullness of time, we will learn that the real danger to America are not the sad sacks who populate the tiny ranks of the Oath Keepers, Proud Boys, or QAnon but rather those wielding the police power of the state to stymie their political opponents and perpetuate the perquisites of their bureaucracy. 

It may almost go without saying that Joe Biden plays an ambiguous role in this malevolent charade. He is not the prime mover but merely the public face of the machine. 

I remember the sad history of King Henry VI. He succeeded a wildly successful warrior king when he was only nine months old. He knew no other life but life at the Court. Mentally feeble, he was always directed by a battery of advisors who took most of the real decisions upon themselves. Foreign emissaries who got an audience reported that he said virtually nothing but smiled a lot. Later, when his powerful wife, Margaret of Anjou, was overseeing a battle, he is said to have sat under a tree singing. Eventually, he broke down entirely. For a while, others managed the affairs of state. He sort of recovered, but was consumed by forces beyond his ken and was deposed. 

The record does not specify what flavor of ice cream Henry favored, but I have no doubt that he, too, looked forward to happy times. 

 

 

Article by Trevor Thomas in The American Thinker

Revival Lit the Fire for the American Revolution

As I note in The Miracle and Magnificence of America, between the colonial and Revolutionary periods of American history came what historians have dubbed the (first) "Great Awakening."  The lack of passionate Christianity, along with the coinciding adoption of certain liberal interpretations of Scripture and a turn toward the secular, greatly concerned ministers such as Jonathan Edwards, Thomas Prince, and William Cooper.  By the 1730s, passionate and animated pleas for the souls of the lost became widespread.

The earliest principal figure of this period of spiritual revival was the brilliant and pious Puritan minister Jonathan Edwards.  Edwards succeeded his grandfather as pastor of the church at Northampton.  Later, he accepted a role as pastor of a church in Stockbridge, Massachusetts.  Jonathan Edwards loved the pulpit, and according to BJU Press, he was more teacher and preacher than pastor.  In late 1734 and early 1735, revival broke out in Northampton.  By the summer of 1735, it ended, but the seeds for something more lasting were planted.  Enter the mighty George Whitefield.

Whitefield is generally considered "The Father of the Great Awakening."  Born in England in 1714, Whitefield entered Pembroke College at Oxford at age 17.  There he joined a group called the "Holy Club," where he befriended John and Charles Wesley.  John Wesley led the group, and as a result of their "methodical" ways, critics took to calling them "Methodists."  The name stuck.

In 1738, Whitefield left for North America.  It was not long before most of Georgia had heard of this young preacher with the booming voice and wild pulpit antics.  News of Whitefield and his preaching soon spread throughout the colonies.  In 1739, after a brief return to England in hopes of securing land and funding for an orphanage in Georgia, Whitefield came back to America and would preach throughout the colonies.  Jonathan Edwards invited Whitefield to preach in Northampton, Massachusetts.  Whitefield's message resonated with rich and poor, farmers and tradesmen, churchgoers and sinners — virtually everyone within earshot, which, according to Ben Franklin, in open space, was 30,000 people!

Whitefield was not alone.  Along with Edwards, men like Isaac Backus, David Brainerd, James Davenport, Samuel Davies, Theodore Frelinghuysen, Jonathan Mayhew, Shubal Stearns, the Tennent brothers (Gilbert, John, William), and others implored settlers and Natives alike to trust in Christ and Christ alone for salvation.  Their message of repentance caught fire up and down the American East Coast.  In the words of Brainerd, the ongoing revival was like an "irresistible force of a mighty torrent or swelling deluge."

After the event at Pentecost as recorded in the Bible in Acts Chapter Two, and after the Protestant Reformation of the sixteenth century, many evangelicals of the eighteenth century considered the revival that was The Great Awakening as the third extraordinary outpouring of the Holy Spirit.

Such spiritual power can spawn change felt worldwide.  This was certainly the case with the First Great Awakening, for it was in the pulpits of American churches that the seeds of revolution were sown.  The British certainly thought so, as they blamed what they derisively described as the "Black Robed Regiment" for the thirst in the colonies for American independence.  Modern historians have noted, "There is not a right asserted in the Declaration of Independence which had not been discussed by the New England clergy before 1763."  The Great Awakening played no small role in helping to unite the American colonies against the British.

For example, in 1750, the Rev. Jonathan Mayhew, a Harvard graduate, Congregationalist minister, and pastor of West Church in Boston, published A Discourse Concerning Unlimited Submission and Non-Resistance to the Higher Powers.  Out of this was born a sermon entitled "The Morning Gun of the American Revolution."  In this, Mayhew uses Romans 13 to justify throwing off the tyrannical yoke of England.

In 1765, Mayhew gave a powerful sermon railing against the evils of King George III's hated Stamp Act.  Mayhew declared:

The king is as much bound by his oath not to infringe on the legal rights of the people, as the people are bound to yield subjection to him. From whence it follows that as soon as the prince sets himself above the law, he loses the king in the tyrant.

According to historian Alice Mary Baldwin, joining Mayhew in leading the opposition to the Stamp Act were the Reverends Andrew Eliot, Charles Chauncey, and Samuel Cooper.  George Whitefield accompanied Ben Franklin — whom he had befriended — to Parliament to protest the Act.  Franklin revealed to Parliament that Americans would never willingly submit to the Stamp Act.  A month later, in March of 1766, celebrating the repeal of the Act, Whitefield recorded in his journal, "Stamp Act repealed, Gloria Deo."

John Witherspoon, Presbyterian minister, signer of the Declaration of Independence, and president of the College of New Jersey (Princeton) — in 1776, on a national day of prayer and fasting, preached a sermon entitled The Dominion of Providence over the Passions of Men.  The sermon included the following:

There can be no true religion, till there be a discovery of your lost state by nature and practice, and an unfeigned acceptance of Christ Jesus, as he is offered in the gospel. Unhappy are they who either despise his mercy, or are ashamed of his cross. Believe it, 'There is no salvation in any other.' 'There is no other name under heaven given amongst men by which we must be saved.' ...

If your cause is just, you may look with confidence to the Lord, and intreat him to plead it as his own. You are all my witnesses, that this is the first time of my introducing any political subject into the pulpit. At this season, however, it is not only lawful but necessary, and I willingly embrace the opportunity of declaring my opinion without any hesitation, that the cause in which America is now in arms, is the cause of justice, of liberty, and of human nature.

Preachers and teachers like Witherspoon had a profound impact in forming the United States of America.  Among his students included James Madison, future U.S. president and "Father of the Constitution"; Aaron Burr, future U.S. vice president; twelve future Continental Congress members; forty-nine U.S. representatives; twenty-eight senators; three Supreme Court justices; and a secretary of state.  As America's schoolmaster, Noah Webster, would later note, "[t]he learned clergy ... had great influence in founding the first genuine republican governments ever formed and which, with all the faults and defects of the men and their laws, were the best republican governments on earth."

According to historian David Barton:

When Paul Revere set off on his famous ride, it was to the home of the Rev. [Jonas] Clark in Lexington that he rode. Patriot leaders John Hancock and Samuel Adams were lodging (as they often did) with the Rev. Clark. After learning of the approaching British forces, Hancock and Adams turned to Pastor Clark and inquired of him whether the people were ready to fight. Clark unhesitatingly replied, "I have trained them for this very hour!"

As a result of this First Great Awakening, America was beginning to unite.  Americans were beginning to rediscover the Covenant Way.  One nation under God became the political as well as the spiritual legacy of the Great Awakening.

Contrast the faith-filled, Spirit-led American Revolution with the godless, lawless, mindless demands for "revolution!" in today's America.  Instead of revival, the mob that has burned, looted, assaulted, and killed its way through the U.S. is motivated by pure evil.  They are more rotten fruit of the liberalism that's so prevalent in much of America today.  Thus, we again see that any "revolution" not born of the Spirit of God is doomed to disaster, destruction, death, and failure.  In other words, the only way to real, lasting positive change in any family, community, or nation is the way of the cross.

 

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2021/07/revival_lit_the_fire_for_the_american_revolution.html

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Article by Walter Johanson in The American Thinker

Our Debt to Homer on Independence Day

Classically-educated colonial Americans learned to be wary of monarchy from the Iliad and the Odyssey.

It is very likely that, in July 1776, many Americans heard sermons based on the text of Psalm 143:6 -- “Put not your trust in princes….”  One suspects that ministers used words even more harsh than those in the Declaration of Independence, where “the present King of Great Britain” was assailed for “repeated injuries and usurpations, all having their direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States.” 

George III had been much admired by colonials. They had erected an equestrian statue to him in New York’s Battery in 1770, but in what was probably our first statue take-down, it was toppled after the Declaration was read to Continental troops on July 9, 1776. 

Americans had blamed Parliament for the political crisis that began with the Stamp Act in 1765, and for the war which began in April 1775.  They hoped to reform relations between colonies and Britain,

Americans knew about many bad kings: John, Richard II, the Tudors, the Stuarts, and others, but Thomas Paine’s Common Sense, published in January 1776, argued that the problem was not the moral or intellectual weaknesses of individual kings; instead the problem was monarchy itself, and the only solution was independence.  Paine’s arguments were convincing, but Americans’ classical education prepared them for Common Sense.

In Polybius they learned about how the parts of government functioned.

In Livy, they saw Romans establishing their republic by throwing off Etruscan King Tarquin.  

In Tacitus, they saw Queen Boudicca raising the Britons in rebellion against abusive Roman colonizers. 

In Homer, they were thrilled by accounts of battles in which bronze-age battlefield weapons inflicted mortal wounds in every way possible, but he also gave them a political education. The Iliad and the Odyssey show how harm can result when power is conferred by circumstances of birth.  In the former poem the Greek army suffers harm from the presence of King Agamemnon; the latter, Ithaca suffers harm from the prolonged absence of King Odysseus.  

The Trojan War was caused by the need to satisfy royal honor:  Helen, the wife of Menelaus, king of Sparta, had been taken away by Paris, prince of Troy; Troy refused to return her, so  Agamemnon, brother of Menelaus and king of Mycenae, the leading Greek state, called on lesser kings to join his punitive war against Troy. 

Agamemnon sought to ensure victory by sacrificing his daughter, Iphagenia, but ten years have passed and Troy stands defiant, no doubt because of the incompetence of the supreme allied commander.  In a merit-based army, Agamemnon would have been a lance corporal at very most.

The poem’s theme, the wrath of Achilles, was provoked by Agamemnon, who greatly dishonored Achilles.  One must not dishonor a Greek hero, let alone a most capable subordinate.  Having gone to war to defend his brother’s honor, Agamemnon risks losing the war by dishonoring the commander of a major contingent in his army.  Book I explains how this conflict began.

Agamemnon had left Troy to take the Greeks on a booty-seeking raid on Chryse, an island some 35 miles west in the Aegean Sea.  The operation eased pressure on Troy, and, in an application of the law of unintended consequences, led to tension between Agamemnon and Achilles. 

The Iliad begins as Chryses, a priest of Apollo and father of Chryseis, a girl who had been awarded to Agamemnon after the raid, comes to request her return. Although he offers treasures in compensation and the Greek soldiers see the justice of his appeal, Agamemnon ignores them, abuses Chryses, and unceremoniously evicts him although, according to custom, he should have been honored as a guest. 

Chryses responds with an appeal to Apollo, who sends a plague to the Greek camp.  Days pass.  Achilles summons an assembly of the Greek army to inquire into the cause of the plague and seek a remedy.  A prophet, Calchas, knows the cause, but because his explanation would anger Agamemnon, he asks Achilles for protection.  Achilles grants his request.  Calchas reveals that Agamemnon’s mistreatment of Chryses caused the plague; it would end by returning Chryses.  Agamemnon reluctantly agrees but demands compensation: Achilles’ prize from the raid, the girl Briseis.  Achilles, publicly dishonored, angrily complies, but his wrath is aroused.  He and his contingent will leave the army and sail home. 

Eventually reconciliation eventually occurs, but first we observe Agamemnon’s incompetence.  Though a courageous fighter, he is no competent general.  Agamemnon is boastful, vindictive, greedy for gain.  He insults subordinates, often in front of their own men.  Prudent he is not.

Twice Agamemnon issues the order for the army to retreat to its ships and depart.  The first time he foolishly decides to test the morale and obedience of the troops.  Odysseus and other counselors prevent disaster.  On the second occasion Agamemnon has an all-is-lost panic attack.

An assembly of the army follows the first run to the ships.  A soldier, Thersites, rises to denounce Agamemnon.  Although Odysseus beats him down, Homer has allowed this lowly dissident to attack the king in terms that none -- troops, nobles, or readers -- can dispute.

One asks why the Greeks stood by Agamemnon for ten years in an inconclusive war.  Only acceptance of the principle of monarchy explains it.  Agamemnon possesses great formal power but he abuses it; without capable and loyal counselors, he would have been lost all.  And the final victory, result of the Trojan Horse stratagem, was Odysseus’s idea, not Agamemnon’s.  We learn from the Odyssey that Agamemnon was assassinated on his return to Mycenae.  One suspects that few Greeks mourned his passing.

The Odyssey tells of Odysseus’s ten-year return to Ithaca.  In his absence his palace has been taken over by 108 men, suitors for the hand of Penelope, his queen.  Soon after she reluctantly agrees to select one, Odysseus returns in disguise. 

Telemachus, who was an infant when his father Odysseus departed, convenes the assembly for the first time since then.  He rebukes the people for failing to act against the suitors, ungrateful guests who dishonored Odysseus by their uninhibited consumption of their king’s food and drink.  The assembly votes Telemachus funds for a ship to use in search of his father.  Odysseus and Telemachus meet and attack the suitors in a scene that rivals the violence in the Iliad.

In the fictional world of Homer’s poems show how the parts of government function in wartime.  Monarchy is discredited by a bad king’s acts of commission (Agamemnon’s incompetent leadership), and a good king’s acts of omission (Odysseus’s twenty years’ absence from Ithaca).  The popular assembly provides in the Iliad a vehicle for a demagogue to speak against Agamemnon; but it is powerless to prevent Agamemnon’s foolhardy action against Chryses.  And in the Odyssey, the assembly was inert for twenty years.  Only the aristocratic advisory council proves its worth: with the wise Nestor standing out, it rescues Agamemnon from self-inflicted catastrophe. 

In the real world of 1776, the well-meaning King George III was ill-served by foolish advisers and catastrophe does result.  Paine’s evidenced-based arguments raised the wrath of Americans, who decided to leave the British Empire and its monarchy, much as Achilles decided to leave the Greeks.  Agamemnon prepared them for Paine.  But unlike Achilles they did not return.  Far better, they concluded, to risk trusting the people, even if a Thersites might appear someday. 

 

 https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2021/07/our_debt_to_homer_on_independence_day.html

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7 Signs You Might Have Been Radicalized On Facebook

Babylon Bee🐝

So you're at a 4th of July cookout when all your friends and family start discussing Facebook's Orwellian alert about being exposed to extremism - when it dawns on you that everyone you know has received this alert except for you! Are you the person Facebook is warning everyone about? Did you become radicalized, and not even know it? Here are seven helpful clues to look for to know if you've become a dangerous extemist on Facebook:

1. You don't immediately start shrieking in terror whenever you see an American Flag: The American Flag is one of the most extreme and evil symbols of hate and white supremacy ever. If you don't have a severe fit of blinding rage followed by angry posts on Facebook every time you see an American flag, you are complicit! Test yourself by looking at this hate emoji: 🇺🇸 

2. You liked a quote by Thomas Sowell: believing in capitalism and individual merit is like enacting your own private insurrection, every day of the year. Repent! 

3. You clicked on a link from the Daily Wire: the Daily Wire is like the insurrectionist newsletter. When insurrectionists are tired from overthrowing the government, they sit down and read the Daily Wire to learn more reasons why they should overthrow the government. 

4. You engaged in outrageous COVID conspiracies about hydroxychloroquine, COVID originating in Wuhan's lab, and schools being safe to open: at least, if you said these things before June 13th, 2021 at 4:56 p.m. when all of that became cool.

5. You did not press "like" when one of your friends said that Trump was Hitler: believing that Trump was not the second coming of Hitler is a gateway to the Alt-Right. Didn't you know Facebook sees you every time you scroll past a "TRUMP IS HITLER" comment without liking it? They're always watching. 

6. You gave a thumbs up to one of those videos of Israel's 'Iron Dome': this one is extra bad, because it's like saying you are on board with the atrocities committed by the white supremacist state of Israel. They are brazenly oppressing indigenous missiles, and all you have to say is 'me like'? 

7. You post videos of yourself dressed as a buffalo storming the Capitol: a tell-tale sign, though this does require context. Violent revolts can be mainstream and peaceful if done for the right reasons, so just make sure there are no Republicans around if you're taking selfie videos while attacking federal buildings. 

Check your feed carefully, and if you notice any of these signs in one of your friends, be sure to report them! We're not going to stamp out extremism without you turning in your friends and family - one step closer to utopia!

 

Article by Eric Utter in The American Thinker

A few words of wisdom on Independence Day

The U.S. Capitol building has been an iconic symbol of democracy for well over two hundred years, much like the U.S. itself.  It remained so through the Civil War, World Wars I and II, and too many lesser crises to count, all while remaining largely accessible to the citizens whose interests those who work there are supposed to represent.  However, this Independence Day finds the Capitol off limits to all but a select few.  Our elite overseers can't be expected to open themselves up to a possible "insurrection," can they?  Sad.

The tragic events of the past year and a half and our "representatives'" reaction to them, as well as our own response, have left me wondering what the Founders and other astute political observers might say to us now if they had the chance.  Then I realized they would say pretty much what they said back then.  Here are some of the most profound, universal — and yet timely — words of wisdom ever uttered with regard to societies, governments, and freedom:

"They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." —Benjamin Franklin.  COVID-19?

"Whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freeness of speech." —Benjamin Franklin.  Sound familiar?  I wonder what Franklin's preferred pronouns were.

"For true patriots to be silent, is dangerous." —Samuel Adams.

"The price of freedom is eternal vigilance." —Thomas Jefferson.

"But a constitution of government once changed from freedom can never be restored.  Liberty, once lost, is lost forever." —John Adams.  We might want to take this one to heart.

"When the people fear the government there is tyranny, when the government fears the people there is liberty." —John Basil Barnhill.  One of the great truisms of all time.  

"My definition of a free society is a society where it is safe to be unpopular." —Adlai Stevenson.  Stevenson was a Democrat.  He would've been summarily canceled today.

"Certainly one of the chief guarantees of freedom under any government, no matter how popular and respected, is the right of citizens to keep and bear arms." —Hubert H. Humphrey.  Trigger warning!  Humphrey was a Democrat!

"When plunder has become a way of life for a group of people living together in society, they create for themselves in the course of time a legal system that authorizes it, and a moral code that glorifies it." —Frédéric Bastiat.  We are seeing this now with our elites on Wall Street, in Big Tech, and in government.  So sad.  

"The urge to save humanity is almost always a false face for the urge to rule it." —H.L. Mencken.  The most accurate description of leftists ever stated, in my humble opinion.  No truer words have ever been spoken.

"I hope we once again have reminded people that man is not free unless government is limited.  There's a clear cause and effect here that is as neat and predictable as a law of physics: as government expands, liberty contracts." —Ronald Reagan.  Absolute and irrefutable.

"Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves." —Abraham Lincoln.

"We shall nobly save, or meanly lose, the last best hope of earth." —Abraham Lincoln.

The last quote is from Lincoln's message to Congress on December 1, 1861.  It is just as true today.  We are once again at a tipping point, an existential moment.

And I leave you with another quote, this one from Toby Keith's new song, "Happy Birthday America":

"Seems like everyone's pissin' on the red, white, and blue.  Happy birthday America, whatever's left of you."

 

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2021/07/a_few_words_of_wisdom_on_independence_day.html

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Article by Kurt Voss in The American Thinker

What would Jefferson say on this July Fourth?

Consider the following thought experiment as we approach the Fourth of July.  What would Thomas Jefferson say about conditions in America today? 

His eloquence cannot be matched, of course, but one may speculate about his views.  Perhaps he would agree with the following words:

When citizens in a constitutional republic confront threats to their freedoms, duty requires them to enumerate the evils plaguing the land and to restore the blessings of liberty for themselves and their posterity.

Habits of deference nurtured by the passage of time induce caution in reassessing institutions whose leaders are entrusted with the sacred obligation to safeguard and perpetuate our democratic way of life.

But a half century of contempt for the moral foundations of our constitution and the rule of law compels a renewed examination of public and private institutions to prevent further aggressions by officials who are accountable only to themselves.

Accordingly, we hearken to our founders who created a Republic based on self-evident truths, stating that all persons are created equal and “are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights” that governments are instituted to protect, “deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”

Traducers of these principles have consigned them to historical irrelevance, ignoring that their views also may be dismissed on the same grounds.  But while critics perish, the principles they disdain endure through the ages, granting to all generations justification to restore limits on governmental powers and to check schemes of other institutions determined to destroy our freedoms.

These considerations bring us to our present exposition, for which a clarification of terms is in order.  Names change and circumstances vary, but categories of the political order remain the same.

Hence, “we,” “us,” and, “our” refer to citizens of the United States of America.

“You” are heirs of King George III, and you command hordes of vassals swayed by the casuistry of scribblers and driven by the furies of mobs.

Let the following charges be submitted to the judgments of rational persons:

You have perpetrated lies about our country to generate despair among Americans and prepare us for servitude to your commands.

You have exhumed racism from its Confederate graves to wield as a weapon against millions of Americans with whom you disagree.

You have expunged “the better angels of our nature” and empowered charlatans to corrupt the minds of our youth and render them ignorant and subservient to your will.

You have perpetrated hoaxes against American citizens and officeholders, relegating our democracy to an object of contempt at home and abroad.

You have bestowed a veneer of rectitude on the drivel of America’s death-wish demagogues who exempt themselves from the miseries they plan to inflict on others.

You have arrogated yourself to God-like status by presuming that the order of nature can be cancelled by the stroke of a pen.

You have spun fables of Armageddon to appease fanatics whose claims are debunked by the infallible tests of human experience.

You have divided citizens by race, sex, customs, and beliefs and provoked animosities among us while granting rewards to those who have gained your favor and inflicting punishments upon those who have incurred your wrath.

You have sacrificed generations of Americans to the maw of Moloch.

You have corrupted our language with a witch’s brew of perfidies and absurdities under the rubric of wokeness and other petty tyrannies.

You have waged war against the freedom to express ourselves without fear of incurring retributions fatal to our lives, livelihoods, and dignity.

You have conjured fantasies about those with whom you disagree and attributed to others the malice of your own thoughts, words, and deeds.

You have plundered responsible citizens to pay off profligates who control governments that violate the public trust.

You have waged war against women, treated minorities with contempt, and coddled terrorists in our land.

You have usurped authority from our States and local governments by issuing decrees that take our lands, confiscate our property, and throttle our energies.

You have corrupted our judicial institutions by subordinating our laws and our constitution to the whims of judges, the vengeance of lackeys, and the passions of the times.

You have mocked our faiths and threatened our freedom of religion.

You have demolished our monuments, obliterated our history, and perpetrated falsehoods conjured by those who hate America and plot its destruction.

You have rendered aid and comfort to our adversaries by bowing to dictators, enriching their coffers, and placating their allies.

You have colluded with our country’s enemies, foreign and domestic, to destroy American jobs and reduce citizens to a condition of degradation and dependence.

You have endeavored to disarm citizens to render them helpless against the depredations of thugs inflamed by slogans that incite odium and calumny.

You have destroyed America’s self-sufficiency by forbidding the use of our natural resources and rendering us subservient to the machinations of foreign autocrats.

You have accepted financial bribery from adversaries abroad, corrupting our officeholders and debasing our system of justice.

You have exploited the tragedy of a pandemic to rescind Americans’ civil liberties and civil rights.

You have vilified the guardians of our society and celebrated criminals who ravage our cities.

You have broken laws that secure our borders and permitted the invasion of aliens who endanger our citizens and claim the fruits of our toils.

You shrug when cities far from your homes burn to the ground but burst with theatrical indignation when disorder touches your doorstep.

For too long in a spirit of good will and forbearance have citizens granted tacit consent to those entrusted with their welfare, only to be betrayed by officials whose decisions degenerated from transient errors in judgment to complicit madness by design.

This madness launched a sorcerer’s trove of defamations spewed by your willing executioners, who either do not grasp the evils lurking behind your slogans, which is inexcusable, or do understand the wickedness of your schemes, which is depraved.

Either way, our duties are clear:

We reaffirm our status as a free and independent people whose consent is the foundation of government and the sole justification for its existence.

We pledge allegiance only to governments that honor our consent and remain committed to the moral principles underlying our constitutional order.

We declare our sovereignty to repel functionaries who are dispatched from a distant capitol on the fringe of a vast continent to dictate the details of our lives and treat citizens as conquered subjects.

Sober minds acknowledge that countering a half century of Intolerable Acts requires commensurate efforts to rebuild and defend the last bastion of freedom in the world.

Thus, we embrace the resolve of our founders, who pledged to each other their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor to support America’s Declaration of Independence from Tyranny.  Nothing less than this commitment is incumbent on us in these times. 

 

 https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2021/07/what_would_jefferson_say_on_this_july_fourth_.html

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Facebook Is Now Identifying And Reeducating You And Your ‘Extremist’ Conservative Friends

Evita Duffy reporting for The Federalist

Facebook users started receiving notifications Thursday in a new campaign to “provide resources and support to people on Facebook who may have engaged with or were exposed to extremist content or may know someone who is at risk.”

The Big Tech giant is sending out two notifications to certain users. One asks, “Are you concerned that someone you know is becoming an extremist?” The Facebook message then goes on to suggest that “you can help” by joining their support group. “Hear stories and get help from people who have escaped violent extremist groups.”

The other notification reads, “You may have been exposed to harmful extremist content recently.” The message continues, “Violent groups try to manipulate your anger and disappointment. You can take action now to protect yourself and others.” Finally, Facebook prompts users to “Get support from experts.”

The new initiative is being carried out via a partnership between Facebook and “Life After Hate,” an organization Facebook says, “provides support to anyone who wants to leave hate behind and solve problems in nonviolent ways.”

This, however, is not what “Life After Hate” says on their website, which reads: “‘Life After Hate’ is committed to helping people leave the violent far-right to connect with humanity and lead compassionate lives.” The group asserts that “Today, far-right extremism and white supremacy are the greatest domestic terror threats facing the United States.”

“Life After Hate,” which “partners with [tech companies] to identify and defuse potentially violent extremists online” received a $400,000 federal grant from the Obama administration, but had it rescinded under the Trump administration. Additionally, according to “Life After Hate’s” website, race hustler and former football quarterback Colin Kaepernick donated $50,000 to the organization in 2017.

Under “You may have been exposed to harmful extremist content recently,” Facebook prompts users to “get support from experts,” which leads to a section asking, “What arguments do violent groups use to gain followers?” Examples of arguments from violent groups include “violence is the only way to achieve change,” and “minorities are destroying the country.” Under each example are bullet points where Facebook debunks each argument.

When asked by The Federalist, a Facebook spokesperson refused to answer how it defines extremism or what it defines as “far-right.”

Another big question is if Facebook is trying to curb “extremism,” why are they partnering with a group that solely focuses on “far-right violence.” The Federalist asked Facebook whether they are also surveilling and combating left-wing extremism. They would not say.

More explicitly, The Federalist asked whether or not Facebook would be censoring Antifa content and notifying those who have been exposed to it, given the leftist anarchist group has for years been so violent that former Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf said they meet the standards of a “domestic terrorist group.” Facebook would not say.

“Black Lives Matter” is another major violent left-wing organization that is linked to up to 95 percent of 2020 U.S. riots. Facebook would not say whether BLM falls under extremism, if Facebook is censoring BLM-related content, or if Facebook is notifying users who have been exposed to BLM-related content.

A Facebook spokesperson instead told The Federalist that the notifications were part of a test running in the US that “is a pilot for a wider, global approach to radicalization prevention,” and is connected to Facebook’s “Redirect Initiative.” Facebook’s website says their “Redirect Initiative” “helps combat violent extremism and dangerous organizations by redirecting hate and violence-related search terms towards resources, education, and outreach groups that can help.”

The new extremism notifications are also connected to the Christchurch Call to Action, an organization that “outlines collective, voluntary commitments from Governments and online service providers intended to address the issue of terrorist and violent extremist content online and to prevent the abuse of the internet…”

“We continue to work with expert academic and NGO partners to develop this important work, and to share knowledge and expertise through GIFT,” continued the spokesperson. GIFT, the Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism, is an organization that, according to their website, develops surveillance technology for “companies committed to preventing terrorist and violent extremists from exploiting their platforms while protecting human rights.”

“We identify users who have been potentially exposed to violating content and other users who have been the subject of prior enforcement,” the Facebook spokesperson said. “We are providing these additional resources to give people exposed to this content more information and help others intervene or talk to friends or family off-platform.”

The new notifications come after tech giants like Facebook have come under fire for political censorship. Indeed, the Facebook warning messages are being perceived by many as a direct attack on free speech and further targeting and suppressing conservatives on the platform.

One of the most pointed examples of Facebook’s campaign against conservative thought is its ban on former President Donald Trump, who the company said will remain banned on its platforms, including Instagram, through the 2022 midterms until January 2023. With no evidence, Nick Clegg, Facebook’s vice president of global affairs, said that the former president is a “risk to public safety.”

If former President Trump is a “risk to public safety,” then does that mean his supporters are too? Facebook wouldn’t say. However, it is obvious from their partnership with “Life After Hate” and from those who reported that they received either notification that the people Facebook is identifying as “extremist” are conservatives.

Many are arguing this new development is yet another example of why Section 230 of the federal Communications Decency Act should be revoked. Section 230 serves as a liability shield for online social media companies, like Facebook, that are increasingly acting more like publishers, not platforms.