Showing posts with label GOD. Show all posts
Showing posts with label GOD. Show all posts
Fw: [External] RE: F.F.F.
Begin forwarded I REMEMBER DOING THIS IN GRAMMER SCHOOL BUT I DON’T REMEMBER HIGH SCHOLL.
LORD'S PRAYER: WRITTEN BY a 15-YEAR-OLD SCHOOL KID WHO GOT an A+ FOR THIS ENTRY (TOTALLY AWESOME)
Whether you agree or not, totally YOUR choice, this is pretty powerful!
Lord's Prayer
By a 15-year-old school kid who got an A+ for this entry (TOTALLY AWESOME)!
The Lord's Prayer is not allowed in most U.S. Public schools any more.
A kid in Minnesota wrote the following NEW School Prayer:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Now I sit me down in school
Where praying is against the rule
For this great nation under God
Finds mention of Him very odd
If scripture now the class recites,
It violates the Bill of Rights.
And anytime my head I bow
Becomes a Federal matter now
Our hair can be purple, orange or green,
That's no offense; it's a freedom scene.
The law is specific, the law is precise.
Prayers spoken aloud are a serious vice
For praying in a public hall
Might offend someone with no faith at all.
In silence alone we must meditate,
God's name is prohibited by the State.
We're allowed to cuss and dress like freaks,
And pierce our noses, tongues and cheeks.
They've outlawed guns, but FIRST the Bible.
To quote the Good Book makes me liable.
We can elect a pregnant Senior Queen,
And the 'unwed daddy,' our Senior King.
It's 'inappropriate' to teach right from wrong.
We're taught that such 'judgments' do not belong.
We can get our condoms and birth controls,
Study witchcraft, vampires and totem poles.
But the Ten Commandments are not allowed,
No word of God must reach this crowd.
It's scary here I must confess,
When chaos reigns the school's a mess.
So, Lord, this silent plea I make:
Should I be shot; My soul please take!
Amen
If you aren't ashamed to do this, please pass this on.
Fwd: Pre-Election MUST READ
Rowboat Comes For You...
True success is always a work of the Spirit within us
By: Bob Dervaes
July 24, 2020
I am forwarding this to a lot of people, but I already know my democrat friends will immediately get turned off and will probably not finish reading it.
We are in a world of trouble, and if Trump is not re-elected in November, then for the first time in my life I will be glad I am in my twilight years. God please be with our children and grandchildren.
This may be the best and most honest political promotion statement you will ever read. It decidedly does not brush objections aside.
You hate Biden? READ it. You hate Trump? READ it. You think there's no choice? READ it. And, read it with your grown-up hat on.
READ THIS. Read every single word. It'll take you about three minutes. Be sure to read to the end.
We've all been dealt huge responsibility with this election. The first step toward accepting responsibility is accepting it, and the first step toward accepting it is recognizing it.
Are you sickened and despondent with the current campaign and upcoming presidential election?
I consider myself a conservative and do truly believe our country is at a political/economic/moral/ social crossroads. I need to let you know I could/would never vote for Joe Biden to lead this country. To me, he represents everything that is wrong with our current political structure. On the flip side, I look and listen to Donald Trump and I cringe at every rude, insulting comment he makes.
If you find yourself in a similar state of mind, please read the following article:
A Message For Christians About Donald Trump:
Here's a famous joke about God and how he talks to us.
A deeply faithful Christian man is stuck on roof at home with massive flooding up to the 2nd floor.
Rowboat comes. He says, "No, I'm waiting for God. I prayed and I know he's coming."
2nd Rowboat. "No, I'm waiting for God."
3rd Rowboat. "No, I'm waiting for God."
Water rises. The man drowns.
Now he's meeting God in heaven. The religious man says, "Where were you God? I prayed. I was faithful. I asked you to save me. Why would you abandon me?"
God says, "Hey, I sent you 3 rowboats."
Did you ever consider Trump is our rowboat?
Maybe God is trying to tell us something important--that now is not the time for a "nice Christian guy" or a "gentleman" or a typical Republican powder puff. Maybe now is the time for a natural born killer, a ruthless fighter, a warrior. Because right about now we need a miracle, or America is finished. Maybe the rules of gentlemen don't apply here. Maybe a gentleman and "all-around nice Christian" would lead us to slaughter.
Or do you want another Mitt Romney, Bob Dole, John McCain, Gerald Ford or Paul Ryan? Did any of them win? Did they lead the GOP to "the promised land?" Did they change the direction of America? No, because if you don't win, you have no say.
Paul Ryan couldn't even deliver his own state, Wisconsin! Nice, but obedient. I mean Paul Ryan...not my dog. My dog is actually a pretty good defender and loyal.
Maybe God is knocking on your door loudly, but you're not listening.
Maybe God understands we need a "war leader" at this moment in time.
Maybe God understands if we don't win this election, America is dead. It's over. The greatest nation in world history will be gone. Finished. Kaput. Adios.
And with one last breath, maybe what we need to save us at the last second, is someone different. Someone you haven't ever experienced before-- because you weren't raised in rough and tumble New York where nothing good gets accomplished unless you're combative, aggressive, outrageous, on offense at all times, and maybe just a tad arrogant too.
Someone with a personality you've never seen on stage at your church. Maybe, just maybe, being a nice gentlemanly Christian would not beat Biden and his billion dollars, and his best friends in the media who will unleash the dogs of hell upon the GOP nominee.
I guess you think God is only nice and gentlemanly. Really? Then you've missed the whole point of the Bible. When necessary, God is pretty tough. When necessary, God strikes with pain, death and destruction. When necessary, God inflicts vengeance.
Maybe you think God couldn't possibly be associated with someone like Trump. Trump is too vicious, rude and crude.
When we won WWII, was God "nice?" Were we gentlemanly when defeating Hitler? Were we gentlemanly when firebombing Germany? Were we gentlemanly when dropping atomic bombs on Japan ? Is God ever "nice" on the battlefield? Or does he send us vicious SOB's like General George S. Patton so the good guys can defeat evil?
It's pretty clear to me God sends unique people to be "war leaders." That's a different role than a pastor or church leader. God understands that.
And maybe it's time to re-define "nice." Maybe Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan aren't nice at all--because they led us to defeat. And losing again would mean the end of America . And God can't allow that. Maybe Romney and Ryan mean well, but the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Or maybe they're just jealous they had their chance and blew it. Maybe they'd rather help elect Biden than allow a Trump victory that would make them look weak, feckless and incompetent.
"Even the youths shall faint and be weary, And the young men shall utterly fall, But those who wait on the Lord shall renew their strength; They shall mount up with wings like eagles, They shall run and not be weary, They shall walk and not faint." (Isiah 40:30-31)
God is about miracles. We don't need a "nice guy" or a "gentleman" right now. It's the 4th quarter and we're losing 14-0. We need a miracle.
So let me repeat my message to Christians:
"YOU'RE MISSING THE BOAT."
I believe Trump is our miracle. I believe Trump is our rowboat. Except he's more like a battleship!
No one is saying Trump is perfect. No one is saying Trump is a perfect conservative. But he is a patriot. He is a warrior. He is a capitalist. He is the right man, at the right time. Yes, he's a bit rude and crude and offensive. But that may make him the perfect warrior to save America, American exceptionalism, capitalism and Judeo-Christian values. The choice should be easy for Christians.
It's Trump...or it's the end of the American dream.
Fwd: Fw: READ S-L-O-W-L-Y and Understand!
READ S-L-O-W-L-Y and Understand!!
I have never
heard this said as simply or as well.
Class war at
its best.
The folks who are getting the free
stuff don't like
The
folks who are paying for the free
stuff , because
The
folks who are paying for the free
stuff can no longer
Afford
to pay for both the free
stuff and their own stuff.
And
the folks who are paying for the free
stuff
Want
the free stuff to stop.
And
the folks who are getting the free stuff want even more Free stuff on top of the free stuff they are already getting!
Now..
The people who are forcing the people who pay
For
the free stuff have told the people who are RECEIVING
The free stuff that the people who are PAYING for the
Free stuff are being mean, prejudiced, and
racist.
So..
The people who are GETTING the free
stuff have been convinced they need to hate the
people who are paying for the Free stuff by the people who are forcing some people
to pay for their free
stuff and giving them the free stuff in the first place.
We
have let the free stuff giving go on for so long that there are
now more people getting free
stuff than paying for the Free stuff .
Now
understand this.
All
great democracies have committed financial suicide somewhere between 200 and 250 years
after being founded.
The reason?
The
voters figured out they could vote themselves money
from
the treasury by electing people who promised to give
them
money from the treasury in exchange for electing them.
The
United States officially became a Republic in
1776 ,
243 years ago.
The
number of people now getting free stuff
outnumbers
the people paying for the free
stuff .
Failure
to change that spells the end of the United States
as
we know it.
ELECTION 2020 IS COMING
A
Nation of Sheep Breeds a Government of Wolves!
I'M 100% for PASSING THIS ON !!!
For all our sake PLEASE
Take a Stand!!!
Borders : Closed!
Language
: English only
Culture
: God, Constitution, and the Bill of
Rights!
Drug Free
: Mandatory Drug Screening before
Welfare!
NO freebies to:
Non-Citizens!
Only 86% will send this on.
Should be 100%
..
Fwd: COVID-19 (A Big Lie)
Here is one man's opinion on the Covid-19. Interesting! Something to consider.
Here is one man's opinion on the Covid-19. Interesting! Something to consider.
The ‘Big Lie’ Behind COVID-19
Recently, an old friend said, “Porter, I’m almost afraid to ask… but what do you think about all of this madness, about the government telling everyone they have to sit in their houses? How long do you think this can go on?”
What do I think? You probably won’t like it…
We are going through the greatest mass delusion in history. Never in my life have I ever been more ashamed of our elected officials. And never in my wildest dreams did I think our entire country would fall for such complete nonsense on such an enormous scale.
Never in my wildest dreams did I think our entire country would fall for such complete nonsense on such an enormous scale.
I’ll show you why virtually everything we’ve done so far has made the impact of this virus worse than it would have been if we had done nothing at all. And I’ll also show you how simple doing the right thing could have (and should have) been. I can also predict what will (eventually) happen next – the only steps that can actually protect those most at risk from this virus.
But before I get to the facts that inform my view… I would like to review how completely inane and idiotic our political leaders have become in the midst of this health problem.
My favorite example so far? The thousands of outdoor recreational activities that have been closed or forbidden – including those that involve individual pursuits, like surfing. And what did CBS News publish as a headline above the story documenting a surfer being chased down by patrol boats? It read: “Scientist Says Beaches Are Dangerous Right Now.”
How does anyone read this stuff and not laugh out loud? It’s impossible to watch the video of a surfer being chased down by patrol boats in the name of public health and not think something has gone terribly wrong in America.
But what’s the root of the problem today? What’s the foundation of all of these bad ideas?
At the heart of every mass delusion, there’s a “big lie.” The big lie is a falsehood so outrageous and so obviously wrong, in retrospect people can hardly believe that anyone took it seriously.
The big lie is a falsehood so outrageous and so obviously wrong, in retrospect people can hardly believe that anyone took it seriously.
The most famous example of the “big lie” is the Salem Witch Trials, where four bored teenage girls convinced their pastor they were possessed by the devil and that dozens of people in their community were agents of Satan. The pastor, in turn, convinced most of Massachusetts that the colony was inundated with witches. Even though it’s hard to imagine today, some 200 people were arrested over the next year. One poor man, Giles Corey, was crushed to death under a pile of giant rocks because he wouldn’t confess to being a witch. And what happened to those who did confess? They were forced to name more witches. Then they were hanged. Before anyone came to their senses, 30 people were put to death.
We “modern” Americans look back at these events and wonder how anyone could have taken seriously a bunch of teenagers prattling on about witches and devils. But don’t be too proud… A court in Arkansas sent three teenage boys to prison in 1994 for murders they couldn’t have possibly committed, mostly because the jury firmly believed they were devil worshippers and thought they’d used black magic to pull off the crime.
And with COVID-19, Americans have become just as irrational as those Salem witch hunters or that Arkansas jury.
What’s the big lie today?
The big lie today is that “we” are all in “this” together.
It’s utter nonsense. “We” – the people of the world, the people of our country, of my state, of this city (Baltimore), and even the people in my neighborhood – do not share the same values, ideals, or circumstances. We do not have anything like the same immune systems or face the same risks of this virus.
While it might sound friendly to say “we’re all in this together” – the reality is that we are not. And enforcing policies that treat all of us the same is the very worst approach we could take to dealing with this health crisis.
Some of us are at much greater risk of serious harm by this virus. Some of us are much more susceptible to infection. Some of us own businesses or work for companies that haven’t been impacted at all. Others have seen their livelihoods, their careers, or even their life savings wiped out.
We are NOT in this together. As with everything else in our lives, our abilities and our priorities and the risks we’re willing to take all differ. We are individuals – not a monolithic polity. Saying “we’re all in this together” sounds like Mao’s China, where people abandoned the cities to die from starvation on communal farms. It seems like a disaster in the making… because it is.
Rather than assessing our own risks and our own priorities and then making our own decisions, we have decided to allow the government – really just a handful of governors and the president – to make one decision for all of us. And we’re told not following the rules means we’re putting other peoples’ lives in jeopardy.
What’s putting all of us in jeopardy is the idea that Washington D.C. knows best and we could follow directions – because “we’re all in this together.”
It’s complete and utter nonsense. What’s putting all of us in jeopardy is the idea that Washington D.C. knows best and we could follow directions – because “we’re all in this together.”
Adolf Hitler in his book Mein Kampf explained why such “big lies” are at the foundation of all tyranny. If you want to understand how despots operate, you should consider how one of the worst in history manipulated large groups of people…
“In the big lie there is always a certain force of credibility; because the broad masses of a nation are always more easily corrupted in the deeper strata of their emotional nature than consciously or voluntarily; and thus in the primitive simplicity of their minds they more readily fall victims to the big lie than the small lie…”
Not only are “we” not in “this” together, we shouldn’t strive to be either.
The strength and resilience of a free society is NOT based on the idea that we are all the same or should share the same goals – but upon precisely the opposite.
A free society recognizes a fundamental truth of nature: We are not the same.
A free society recognizes a fundamental truth of nature: We are not the same. We do not have the same strengths, the same ideas, the same histories, or the same goals. There’s no such thing as “The Public Good.” There’s a myriad of competing interests, as Adam Smith explained in The Wealth of Nations more than 200 years ago.
What we do share, however, is a common philosophy that champions the rights of the individual and limits the power of the State. We do not exist to serve the State. The State exists to serve us. That distinction lies at the very heart of what it means to be an American, and I think our leaders have completely forgotten this fact.
Why is this idea so important, not merely for philosophical reasons, but for the best possible outcomes? Why do free societies produce so much more wealth and happiness than countries led by tyrannical governments?
America has proven, again and again, that the “spontaneous order” of free people and free markets evolve far superior solutions to every human need and want. If you want to botch something up, just ask the government to take over. If you want efficient solutions that work, allow people to compete in a free market.
That’s why America has long led the world in the creation of wealth and innovation. That’s why we produce the highest-quality creative art, entertainment, design, and technology.
But… what about when we fail?
Look back at all of our country’s biggest blunders and you won’t find freedom or free markets. You’ll find a government that has far overstepped its constitutional limits.
When we allow our liberty to be taken from us in the name of a political theory, disaster will follow.
It happens every single time: When we allow our liberty to be taken from us in the name of a political theory, disaster will follow. Consider the Vietnam War, for example. Did Congress declare war as the Constitution requires? Nope.
Instead, the country was sold on yet another “big lie”… And it was a whopper. We were told that propping up a corrupt dictatorship in a tiny Asian nation was the key to stopping communism from spreading around the world. Meanwhile, without our involvement in that country’s internal politics, no one in America would have ever known who Ho Chi Minh was… or cared.
And ironically, all we had to do to stop the spread of communism was simply leave it alone. Empty grocery store shelves and hopeless lives were the only bane needed to wipe out that stain virtually everywhere. Yes, some folks still seem determined to adopt those ideas and destroy their societies (Venezuela), but we seem to have finally wised up to the fact that the only thing we have to do to make sure it fails is simply wait a decade or two. It’s certainly nothing worth sending our kids to die over.
And today… Should we all sit in our home prisons, with our freedom to work, to associate, and to speak taken away from us – all to universally support “flattening” a curve, because “we” are all in “this” together?
Or is this the public health service’s Vietnam?
I have a prediction for you… By the time this virus is thoroughly understood, what will become extremely clear is that these shutdown orders did virtually nothing to stop the spread of the disease or to reduce its lethality in the population.
Why do I believe that? Because it’s apparent already that at least 5 times more people have been infected than are reflected in the number of “confirmed cases”… and the real number may be much, much greater than that.
In a town in Germany, one of the only places where a reliable statistical sampling has been done, 14% of the population has antibodies for the virus, which means they have already been infected. Germany has a population of 83 million… so that’s more than 10 million people who have potentially already had this virus. And that’s only in one country.
Germany has also tested twice as many people per capita as we have, so they know far more about the actual spread of the virus and its real lethality.
So, how dangerous is this virus?
The official confirmed infected count in Germany is only 135,000. And almost 4,000 Germans have died because of this virus. That’s a 3% “case rate” mortality – that is, out of the population that has been proven to be infected, about 3% have died. That sounds really bad and scary. After all, the average annual flu has a mortality rate of between 0.1% and 0.2%, depending on the year. So, for example, in 2015 to 2016, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that 30 million people got the flu and around 60,000 people died, or 0.2%.
But, wait… we know for sure that far more people have gotten this coronavirus than have been tested for it. As I just noted, the statistical sampling of antibodies in Germany suggests a much, much lower lethality rate. And the real mortality rate is probably somewhere closer to the regular flu, as there are going to be a lot more deaths to come from people who are presently infected.
So what do you want to bet that we eventually figure out that the population-wide mortality rate for this virus is about the same as all of the other coronaviruses?
But what if I’m wrong? I might be. Nobody knows how widespread the virus is already in the U.S. But since we don’t know for sure, why in the world are we ordering everyone to stay in their homes? Why don’t we find out and then decide?
Knowing the real lethality of the virus (which can only be calculated if you know how many people are infected) informs us how dangerous the virus is for most people.
We already know that this virus isn’t a significant killer for people under the age of 50. Virtually no one without serious existing conditions has died from this virus under the age of 50.
And we also know from places that have actual data that this coronavirus is no more dangerous than the other viruses that we know circulate around our country on a regular basis every year.
Knowing how many people are infected is also critical to figuring out which policies are needed to mitigate the impact of the disease on the hospital system.
If tens of millions of people already have the virus, you’re not going to stop it by making people stay in their homes… It’s already too late.
After all, if tens of millions of people already have the virus, you’re not going to stop it by making people stay in their homes… It’s already too late. I strongly suspect that was the case here. I suspect we will eventually learn that this virus had been circulating undetected in the U.S. since at least December.
And what is certainly different about this virus, as compared with the regular flu, is that when it emerged, there was zero existing immunity to it… which meant it spread like wildfire.
But the good news is that super-contagious viruses also burn out quicker because herd immunity impacts the growth rate.
So… should we have shut down our entire economy for a month in March, long after the virus had spread to millions? No! What we’re doing will not reduce the total infection rate or the mortality rates of this virus. It’s far too late for the strategy we’re using.
How do I know? The best evidence of how widespread the virus has become comes from studies of fecal matter in wastewater treatment plants.
A group of researchers from Harvard, MIT, the Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and medtech startup company Biobot Analytics has published research submitting that viral loads in the wastewater from an area in Boston suggests at least 2,300 people in the water treatment area are infected with COVID-19, roughly five times more than the official 446 confirmed cases. No one wants to go to a hospital or a doctor’s office right now unless they absolutely have to, so it makes sense that the vast majority of these infections go unreported.
And that’s not all we know about how fast this virus spreads. Although nobody in Washington, D.C. wants to mention it, one group of people was thoroughly tested. This group offers a striking example of what happens when you lock people into their homes after this virus has been circulating amongst them.
We know exactly how many people on the Diamond Princess cruise ship were infected. We know when the virus appeared on the boat. And we know exactly how many people died.
There were 3,711 people on the boat (passengers and crew). We know that 712 people were infected, despite restricting everyone to their cabins as soon as the infection was discovered. That’s an infection rate of almost 20% in a matter of days. This is a very, very contagious virus. Keep in mind, the lockdown on the boat began on February 5, which was only four days after the first case was discovered in Hong Kong. This virus spreads like wildfire.
On the other hand, even in a population that is much, much older than average and that featured substantial population-wide comorbidities like high blood pressure and obesity, only 12 people died. That’s 1.7% of the people who got infected. Yes, that’s much worse than the average flu – but not if you adjust for the age and relative health of the population.
Researchers who have studied the cruise ship outbreak in detail estimate that this virus will have 0.5% lethality in the general U.S. population – which is, again, comparable to the regular annual flu.
We have already seen that the initial forecasts of more than 2 million deaths are complete nonsense.
We have already seen that the initial forecasts of more than 2 million deaths are complete nonsense. When the president ordered the economy to shut down, he claimed that if we didn’t take this step of cowering in our homes, then millions would die. “People will be dropping dead on the subway,” Trump claimed, as though Ebola was on the loose.
All bullshit.
This virus is definitely dangerous to the old and the sick. To everyone else, it’s going to be a nonevent… just like any other flu season.
Here’s a prediction.
In a “bad year” for the flu, between 50,000 and 100,000 Americans die from the virus. I’m willing to bet that by the end of this year, roughly the same number of people will have died from this virus. And I’m also willing to bet that there’s zero difference in either the total per capita number who become infected and the mortality rate between our country (which ordered a shutdown) and Sweden’s, which has refused to order anyone to shut down their business or stay in their homes.
If you accept that the virus had been circulating in our population for months by the time the lockdown orders arrived (which is certainly the case) and if you know it’s highly contagious, then ordering everyone into their homes in mid-March was closing the barn door when the horses were already long gone.
What does work to control the spread of a novel virus? Herd immunity. Humans have immune systems. They work great, especially in younger people. We can handle viruses.
What we should do is tell older and sicker people to put on a mask. Wear rubber gloves. Avoid crowds at all costs. Avoid hospitals. Stay home whenever you can.
What we should do is tell older and sicker people to put on a mask. Wear rubber gloves. Avoid crowds at all costs. Avoid hospitals. Stay home whenever you can.
We should have told everyone else: Go about your lives. Yes, we should also add that some of you – probably about 20% – are going to get this novel coronavirus this year. (Normally about 9% of the population gets the flu every year… so your chances of catching COVID-19 this year are about double what you’d normally face with the regular flu.) And if you get it, it’s probably going to suck. But the younger you are and the healthier you are, the more likely it is that you won’t have any symptoms at all. So, let’s not cancel school. Let’s let the kids go and get exposed to this virus when they are young, when they can handle it, and when they can quickly develop immunity.
That’s the best way to build the herd immunity we need – allow everyone who can manage the virus to get exposed. As quickly as possible. After all, the sooner the herd immunity we need develops naturally, the safer we will all be.
If the media hadn’t gotten hold of this story and if our political leaders hadn’t panicked, this year would have just been a really bad flu season – nothing more.
And whether you agree with me or not, one thing is certain… Hiding in our homes will not make us any safer – not for long. As soon as we leave our isolation, the virus will spread again. There’s no way to stop a virus that’s this contagious and this widespread in a population this large.
It will take at least a year to build a vaccine. And until then, what we desperately need is for people who aren’t at risk of dying to expose themselves and build immunity.
And guess what… That’s exactly what’s going to happen – eventually. The only question is when. It can happen six months’ from now if we want to cripple our economy and lose $10 trillion to $20 trillion (plus all of our liberties). Or it can happen in about six weeks if we all just go back to work and deal with it like adults.
So what should we do? If you’re over 60 or if you’re in poor health, by all means, do everything you can to avoid catching the flu this year. The hospital isn’t going to be able to help you. You have to make sure you don’t get sick!
But if you’re in good health, and especially if you’re under 50, simply ignore everything and live a normal life. It’s no big deal.
Interestingly, if we had respected people’s civil liberties, that’s almost certainly what would have happened. A lot of people would have gotten sick at first because nobody knew a new virus was circulating. But as soon as people saw what was happening, the old and the sick would have taken much greater precautions. The rest of us would have gotten exposed – probably about 20% of the population in 60 to 90 days. And then it would have burned out as immunity in the population grew – just like the regular flu.
Meanwhile, there are tens of millions more people who have far more to fear from the economic consequences of these policies than they have of the virus. And guess what? There’s no way to develop immunity from the State. This situation sets a precedent that will surely be exploited for years to come. The government’s getting used to ordering us all around. It isn’t going to stop.
Meanwhile, God gave us the ability to reason – to judge for ourselves what risks to take and which to avoid. God also gave all of us the liberty to live our lives as we see fit. Our leaders don’t have the right to make these choices for us. When we let them, we doom our country to the worst possible outcomes.
Just imagine what John Hancock, Patrick Henry, or Paul Revere would say to themselves in our current situation. Do you have any idea what our Founding Fathers were up against? They took on the greatest army in the world with little more than a bunch of starving farmers. They had no navy… against the greatest navy in the world. They didn’t even have the support of all Americans. And if they lost… they would all been hanged for treason.
Why take on those terrible odds? For liberty… to establish the greatest society the world had ever seen – a grand experiment to find out how much better our world could become with civil rights for the common man and free markets.
And what do you think these men would say today, watching a governor ordering millions of people to stay locked up in their apartments while their businesses fail? Can you imagine what our founders would say looking at us cowering in our homes like whipped dogs?
I guess we’ve all forgotten about Valley Forge, where two-thirds of our soldiers died because of the flu! Trust me, they didn’t have ventilators either. But did George Washington go home? Hell no.
If our country’s willingness to kowtow to the most blatantly unconstitutional orders in the history of our nation doesn’t bother you because you still believe in the “common good”… or because you buy into the big lie that we’re all in this together… I think you should be ashamed of yourself.
First, because you’re stupid to have any faith at all in our leaders’ ability or willingness to make good decisions. They don’t even know how many people have the virus already and they never bothered to find out!
They’ve completely ignored the Diamond Princess cruise ship case study, the German data, and the wastewater studies. They’re doing the only thing they can with their very limited understanding of this virus: Ordering everyone to stay home. Meanwhile, plenty of hard evidence shows why this strategy won’t work and isn’t necessary.
But beyond all of the facts and the medicine… there’s another reason I believe every American ought to be ashamed of the way our government has behaved. We’ve acted just like the communists in China behaved – ordering everyone around, telling them they can’t travel, telling them they can’t work.
That ain’t what we do here. By all means, if you want to wear a mask, be my guest. And if you are older or if you have health problems, please, take sensible precautions. But those decisions are rightfully yours to make…
We aren’t in this together. You have your health and your priorities… And I’ve got mine.
We aren’t in this together. You have your health and your priorities… And I’ve got mine.
I hope you’ll join me in calling out anyone who supports these tyrannical and unconstitutional new laws. I believe every American should willingly risk death before surrendering an iota of his liberty.
“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive… those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.” – C. S. Lewis
Editor’s note: We suspect we’ll get plenty of feedback from this essay. Tell us what you think by writing to us here. And please, share it on Facebook by clicking here – love or hate Porter’s conclusions, his contrarian viewpoint is a must-read in today’s world of tyrannical lockdown orders and government overreach.
Porter Stansberry is well-known for doing some of the most important – and often controversial – work in the financial advisory business. Since he founded Stansberry Research, his string of accurate forecasts has made his research some of the most widely read in the world and has helped his readers both avoid catastrophe and make incredible gains.
Fwd: a sobering read - Bill
Curator Note: First Left-wing forward I've seen in a long time. Had to share.
On Apr 28, 2020, at 9:34 AM, wrote:
Another sobering look at our situation. We must do all we can to assure Trump is not re-elected.
From one of my Emory classmates.
-On Apr 27, 2020, at 6:45 PM, wrote:
Subject: a really good editorial from the Irish Times......
Fintan O’Toole: Donald Trump has destroyed the country he promised to make great again
The world has loved, hated and envied the US. Now, for the first time, we pity it
April 25, 2020
By Fintan O'Toole
Over more than two centuries, the United States has stirred a very wide range of feelings in the rest of the world: love and hatred, fear and hope, envy and contempt, awe and anger. But there is one emotion that has never been directed towards the US until now: pity.
However bad things are for most other rich democracies, it is hard not to feel sorry for Americans. Most of them did not vote for Donald Trump in 2016. Yet they are locked down with a malignant narcissist who, instead of protecting his people from Covid-19, has amplified its lethality. The country Trump promised to make great again has never in its history seemed so pitiful.
Will American prestige ever recover from this shameful episode? The US went into the coronavirus crisis with immense advantages: precious
weeks of warning about what was coming, the world's best concentration of medical and scientific expertise, effectively limitless financial
resources, a military complex with stunning logistical capacity and most of the world's leading technology corporations. Yet it managed to
make itself the global epicentre of the pandemic.
As the American writer George Packer puts it in the current edition of the Atlantic, "The United States reacted ... like Pakistan or Belarus - e and a dysfunctional government whose leaders were too corrupt or stupid to head off mass suffering."
It is one thing to be powerless in the face of a natural disaster, quite another to watch vast power being squandered in real time - willfully, malevolently, vindictively. It is one thing for governments to fail (as, in one degree or another, most governments did), quite another to watch a ruler and his supporters actively spread a deadly
virus. Trump, his party and Rupert Murdoch's Fox News became vectors of the pestilence.
The grotesque spectacle of the president openly inciting people (some of them armed) to take to the streets to oppose the restrictions that save lives is the manifestation of a political death wish. What are
supposed to be daily briefings on the crisis, demonstrative of national unity in the face of a shared challenge, have been used by Trump merely
to sow confusion and division. They provide a recurring horror show in which all the neuroses that haunt the American subconscious dance naked
on live TV.
If the plague is a test, its ruling political nexus ensured that the US would fail it at a terrible cost in human lives. In the process, the idea of the US as the world's leading nation - an idea that has shaped
the past century - has all but evaporated.
Other than the Trump impersonator Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil, who is now looking to the US as the exemplar of anything other than what not to
do? How many people in Duesseldorf or Dublin are wishing they lived in Detroit or Dallas?
It is hard to remember now but, even in 2017, when Trump took office, the conventional wisdom in the US was that the Republican Party and the
broader framework of US political institutions would prevent him from doing too much damage. This was always a delusion, but the pandemic has
exposed it in the most savage ways.
Abject surrender. What used to be called mainstream conservatism has not absorbed Trump - he has absorbed it. Almost the entire right-wing half of American politics has surrendered abjectly to him. It has sacrificed on the altar of wanton stupidity the most basic ideas of responsibility, care and even safety.
Thus, even at the very end of March, 15 Republican governors had failed to order people to stay at home or to close non-essential businesses. In Alabama, for example, it was not until April 3rd that governor Kay Ivey finally issued a stay-at-home order.
In Florida, the state with the highest concentration of elderly people with underlying conditions, governor Ron DeSantis, a Trump mini-me, kept the beach resorts open to students traveling from all over the US for spring break parties. Even on April 1st, when he issued restrictions, DeSantis exempted religious services and "recreational activities".
Georgia governor Brian Kemp, when he finally issued a stay-at-home order on April 1st, explained: "We didn't know that [the virus can be spread by people without symptoms] until the last 24 hours."
This is not mere ignorance - it is deliberate and homicidal stupidity. There is, as the demonstrations this week in US cities have shown, plenty of political mileage in denying the reality of the pandemic. It is fueled by Fox News and far-right internet sites, and it reaps for these politicians millions of dollars in donations, mostly (in an ugly
irony) from older people who are most vulnerable to the coronavirus.
It draws on a concoction of conspiracy theories, hatred of science, paranoia about the "deep state" and religious providentialism (God will protect the good folks) that is now very deeply infused in the mindset of the American right.
Trump embodies and enacts this mindset, but he did not invent it. The US response to the coronavirus crisis has been paralyzed by a contradiction that the Republicans have inserted into the heart of US
democracy. On the one hand, they want to control all the levers of governmental power. On the other they have created a popular base by intent is innately evil and must not be trusted.
The contradiction was made manifest in two of Trump's statements on the pandemic: on the one hand that he has "total authority", and on the
other that "I don't take responsibility at all". Caught between authoritarian and anarchic impulses, he is incapable of coherence.
Fertile ground. But this is not just Donald Trump. The crisis has shown definitively that Trump's presidency is not an aberration. It has grown on soil long prepared to receive it. The monstrous blossoming of misrule has structure and purpose and strategy behind it.
There are very powerful interests who demand "freedom" in order to do as they like with the environment, society and the economy. They have
infused a very large part of American culture with the belief that "freedom" is literally more important than life. My freedom to own assault weapons trumps your right not to get shot at school. Now, my
freedom to go to the barber ("I Need a Haircut" read one banner this week in St Paul, Minnesota) trumps your need to avoid infection.
Usually when this kind of outlandish idiocy is displaying itself, there is the comforting thought that, if things were really serious, it would
all stop. People would sober up. Instead, a large part of the US has hit the bottle even harder.
And the president, his party and their media allies keep supplying the drinks. There has been no moment of truth, no shock of realization that
the antics have to end. No one of any substance on the US right has stepped in to say: get a grip, people are dying here.
That is the mark of how deep the trouble is for the US - it is not just that Trump has treated the crisis merely as a way to feed tribal hatreds but that this behavior has become normalized. When the freak
show is live on TV every evening, and the star is boasting about his ratings, it is not really a freak show any more. For a very large and solid bloc of Americans, it is reality.
And this will get worse before it gets better. Trump has at least eight more months in power. In his inaugural address in 2017, he evoked "American carnage" and promised to make it stop. But now that the real carnage has arrived, he is reveling in it. He is in his element.
As things get worse, he will pump more hatred and falsehood, more death-wish defiance of reason and decency, into the groundwater. If a new administration succeeds him in 2021, it will have to clean up the toxic dump he leaves behind. If he is re-elected, toxicity will have become the lifeblood of American politics.
Either way, it will be a long time before the rest of the world can imagine America being great again.
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