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COVID-19 Has Replaced Osama bin Laden as the Fall Guy for Lost Liberties
COVID-19 Has Replaced Osama bin Laden as the Fall Guy for Lost Liberties
The government and media have dumped at the doorstep of the coronavirus many of the political, economic and social afflictions that are now ravaging much of the global population. In reality, they need to point the finger at themselves.
As the mainstream media saturates the airwaves with a daily overdose of coronavirus fear porn, the majority of journalists have given their governments a free pass to enact any draconian measure they see fit. From the closure of public beaches to forbidding power boats on waterways, the insanity seems to have no limits or logic. And as the media would have us believe, it was the coronavirus that enacted these measures, as opposed to living, breathing, unthinking humans.
Anti lockdown Protest went well. #Antilockdown #COVID19
What dirty deeds does the new and improved villain of our times stand accused of? First and foremost, the coronavirus singlehandedly destroyed the global economy as only ‘essential’ businesses may continue to operate. Thus, thousands of small businesses have been ordered shuttered, de facto destroyed, while countless numbers of people around the world have been ordered to ‘shelter-in-place’ with dwindling financial reserves.
Again, this wanton destruction of a large swath of the economy is not due to bad government decision-making, at least according to the media, but Covid-19.
‘Jobless claims jump another 4.4 million — 26 million Americans have lost their jobs to the coronavirus,’ reported MarketWatch. ‘It could take two years for the economy to recover from the coronavirus pandemic,’ screamed another headline.
Perhaps it was also the coronavirus that decided that it would make perfect sense to keep abortion clinics and state-owned liquor stores open during the pandemic, while shutting down houses of worship and gun shops. Clearly, the coronavirus is an equitable and non-partisan distributor of pain and suffering!
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“Scarier Than Contracting The Virus” – Pandemic-Tracking Tech Raises Fears Of Global Surveillance State
“Scarier Than Contracting The Virus” – Pandemic-Tracking Tech Raises Fears Of Global Surveillance State
The world is sleepwalking into a surveillance state, under cover of the virus pandemic.
For the last several months, governments on both East and West hemispheres have been quickly imposing new digital surveillance measures to track and monitor citizens in quarantine. Governments have told their citizens that digital surveillance is being used to combat the virus and is temporary.
Citizens of the world must remember the freedoms they had in a pre-corona world will likely not all exist in a post-corona world. The “new normal” is a global surveillance state that would make President Xi Jinping blush.
The emergence of digital surveillance to combat the virus originated in China, then spread to South Korea, Taiwan, and Japan, all governments in these respected countries used cellphone location data to identify if people were abiding by the public health orders to stay-at-home.
In Europe and the US, similar digital surveillance measures have been used, but have been implemented at a much slower rate because of more stringent regulation.
France admitted last week that it was working on a “StopCovid” app that would march the country, and even maybe the bloc, towards an Orwellian society.
In the US, government agencies have been pulling data from mobile apps to monitor social distancing in states, counties, cities, and or even right down to the neighborhoods.
We mentioned last month that a company called Unacast, launched a mobile app called “Social Distancing Scoreboard,” which tracks the GPS location of smartphones and grades geographical regions, such as a town, county, and or even a state, on how well residents in those areas are abiding by the government-enforced social distancing rules. The app creates an index, ranked from A to F, for whether people are staying home or not.
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Government Overreach Is Taking Away Your Freedom
Government Overreach Is Taking Away Your Freedom
It is important to recognize the value of individual freedom, many people have sacrificed their lives to protect this valuable commodity. With this in mind, I write, it is the right and duty of every citizen to question the actions of their government. Are governments across the world currently looking out for the interest of their citizens or using the current crisis as a way to grab power at the expense of the people. If this is the goal of those in power, here in America, they gain in several ways by maximizing this crisis to exercise their authority. First, they train the masses to follow instructions and do their bidding. Second, they decimate the economy destroying small businesses and making us more dependent on their larger brethren which the government can control. Third but not least they increase the number of people relying on government handouts.
This also allows the government to ramp up surveillance for the “greater good.” The power of fear and propaganda are powerful tools in the manipulation of general consensus. This is one of the main flaws in a democracy, it allows a simple majority to force their desires upon a minority. This is why our forefathers set checks and balances in the Constitution, however, even these do not guarantee freedom will remain. Today, the burden of risk and skin in the game is not equally shared by all. Over time our financial system and institutions have been corrupted by crony capitalism and a political system that panders to the masses by exchanging favors for baubles.
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What Comes After the Coronavirus, Freedom or Despotism?
What Comes After the Coronavirus, Freedom or Despotism?
The coronavirus crisis that has enveloped the world has brought about calls for society and economy-wide action on the part of governments that has been matched by the imposing of radical shutdowns and compulsory mass quarantining as tens of millions of people are told to not to go to work and to stay at home instead.
Governments have also been redirecting essential medical and related supplies in some places. In the United States, direct governmental commands for companies and industries to change what and how they produce has been declared to be in the executive hands of the president of the United States, when it is deemed necessary to meet the needs of the health crisis.
President Donald Trump’s recent order for the automobile manufacturer, General Motors, to shift its production potentials to the manufacturing of ventilators for those stricken severely by the virus, under the authority of a Korean-war era piece of legislation, is merely an especially high-profile example of the central planning powers that governments have been asserting the right to implement.
Fundamental to everything that governments have been doing is the presumption that the crisis can only be handled and solved through a comprehensive system of political command and control. The chorus of voices making this case, along with their own proposals as to what should be the ingredients of “the plan,” has been deafening.
The Deafening Chorus of Voices for Central Planning
John Cassidy, writing for The New Yorker (March 28, 2020), insists that “the most effective stimulus policy is doing whatever it takes to get some control over the virus’s trajectory.”
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Draconian Lockdown Powers: It’s a Slippery Slope from Handwashing to House Arrest
Draconian Lockdown Powers: It’s a Slippery Slope from Handwashing to House Arrest
“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms — to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”—Viktor Frankl
We still have choices.
Just because we’re fighting an unseen enemy in the form of a virus doesn’t mean we have to relinquish every shred of our humanity, our common sense, or our freedoms to a nanny state that thinks it can do a better job of keeping us safe.
Whatever we give up willingly now—whether it’s basic human decency, the ability to manage our private affairs, the right to have a say in how the government navigates this crisis, or the few rights still left to us that haven’t been disemboweled in recent years by a power-hungry police state—we won’t get back so easily once this crisis is past.
The government never cedes power willingly.
Neither should we.
Every day brings a drastic new set of restrictions by government bodies (most have been delivered by way of executive orders) at the local, state and federal level that are eager to flex their muscles for the so-called “good” of the populace.
This is where we run the risk of this whole fly-by-night operation going completely off the rails.
It’s one thing to attempt an experiment in social distancing in order to flatten the curve of this virus because we can’t afford to risk overwhelming the hospitals and exposing the most vulnerable in the nation to unavoidable loss of life scenarios. However, there’s a fine line between strongly worded suggestions for citizens to voluntarily stay at home and strong-armed house arrest orders with penalties in place for non-compliance.
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Global Pandemic Response Handing Governments Sweeping Powers They May Never Relinquish
Global Pandemic Response Handing Governments Sweeping Powers They May Never Relinquish
While the response to the coronavirus pandemic have ranged from mocking the disease (such has Brazil’s Bolsonaro) to physically sealing people inside of apartment buildings in China, governments are deploying an array of legislative and technical measures to track and control citizens during the outbreak which has killed over 21,000 in roughly three months.
As the situation deteriorates, many fear that the current efforts to control the virus will have dire consequences for individual freedoms long after the danger of COVID-19 has passed, according to Bloomberg‘s Ian Marlow – who notes “In desperate times like these, leaders on all levels are going to extraordinary lengths to do whatever possible to contain the virus.”
Like the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the U.S., the coronavirus pandemic is a crisis of such magnitude that it threatens to change the world in which we live, with ramifications for how leaders govern. Governments are locking down cities with the help of the army, mapping population flows via smartphones and jailing or sequestering quarantine breakers using banks of CCTV and facial recognition cameras backed by artificial intelligence.
The restrictions are unprecedented in peacetime and made possible only by rapid advances in technology. And while citizens across the globe may be willing to sacrifice civil liberties temporarily, history shows that emergency powers can be hard to relinquish. –Bloomberg
“A primary concern is that if the public gives governments new surveillance powers to contain Covid-19, then governments will keep these powers after the public health crisis ends,” says Adam Schwartz, a senior staff attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation based in San Francisco. “Nearly two decades after the 9/11 attacks, the U.S. government still uses many of the surveillance technologies it developed in the immediate wake.“
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From Quarantine To Tyranny To Rebellion: Where Is The Line In The Sand?
From Quarantine To Tyranny To Rebellion: Where Is The Line In The Sand?
America is in a haze right now. It seems like half the country is in denial of the danger while the other half is awaking from apathy and frantically trying to prepare. This is creating a fog of confusion as one side screams “it’s nothing but the flu, stop buying up the grocery store…!”, and the other side just keeps stocking goods, though in an inexperienced way that prioritizes comfort over practicality.
The other day I went by the grocery store to grab a few peripheral items while they still exist on sale, and this was the first time since the Covid-19 situation began that people in my area actually seemed…different. The usual carefree obliviousness was gone from their faces and they all had a deer-in-the-headlights look, their eyes wide as saucers as they nervously scrambled around the store. None of them were absorbed into their cell phones. All of them were alert as many people huddled over their cart, quickly snatching items from the shelves as if protecting themselves from potential thieves. It seems that reality is finally hitting the masses square in the face like a sucker punch.
Suddenly, the prepper movement doesn’t look so “crazy” after all, and average people are now turning to prepper forums and websites to ask us for information on how to plan more effectively. Instead of stacking piles of toilet paper for psychological comfort, they are now buying food supplies. The people who used to accuse us of being “chicken littles” and “doom mongers” are eerily silent. I almost miss them. At the very least, everyone is now concerned about the situation, if not for different reasons.
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Localism in the 2020s (Part 2) – Facial Recognition, Psilocybin and Beyond
Localism in the 2020s (Part 2) – Facial Recognition, Psilocybin and Beyond
Contrary to popular opinion, I think a loss of faith in Washington D.C. and its institutions is entirely rational and healthy. Maintaining faith in something due to tradition or the fumes of hope won’t lead to anything productive, rather, it’s preferable to honestly assess the reality of whatever situation you’re in and reorient your worldview and priorities accordingly.
Whether the issue relates to above the law criminal bankers, a Federal Reserve which systematically funnels free money to the already wealthy and powerful, the societal dominance of free speech and privacy-despising tech giant monopolies, or the national security state’s undeclared forever wars for empire, there’s no good reason to maintain any faith in the federal government and the oligarchs/special interests who control it.
Philosophically speaking, I’ve come to conclude the only way to truly have self-government where community life reflects the desires and needs of the people who live there is by concentrating decision making at the local level. I’ve become increasingly interested in the general idea of localism not just because I agree with it in theory, but because it seems more and more people will begin to gravitate toward this perspective and life strategy out of necessity and frustration.
Rather than groveling to Washington D.C., grassroots movements should focus more on the local level where community can be built and things can get done to reflect the desires of the people living there. The entire notion of a one-size fits all approach to virtually all aspects of life dictated via laws passed by corrupt egomaniacs in the swamp is certifiably deranged.
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The Surrender of Liberty in the Name of Security
The Surrender of Liberty in the Name of Security
QUESTION: It seems that as we get closer to a change-over of economic systems that as a society we are more willing to give up our rights to the State. Is that part of a pattern during these types of events? Was it seen as Britain, Rome, and other countries lost power after their peaks?
DS
ANSWER: Unfortunately, the trend first materializes when people need the government to protect them usually from an external force. The British used this tactic against both the French and the American colonists. That prompted Ben Franklin to comment on this trend.
After the 3rd Century Monetary Crisis bottomed in the Roman Empire in 268 AD, there was a surge to build a wall around Rome by Emperor Aurelian following the same pattern. Aurelian saw the corruption that led to the debasement of the currency because those minting the coins were robbing the treasury. Aurelian moved to DRAIN THE SWAMP in Rome. When Aurelian returned to Rome in 271 AD after fighting off barbarians, he had to pacify a terrified city. He immediately halted the rioting and restored order to the capital. The controller of the mint in Rome began a rebellion over the monetary reforms laid out by Aurelian. He ordered that all the debased currency be purchased back and replaced with a new currency of higher content in silver. The rebellion was led by Felicissimus.
It appears that those who had been running the mint were embezzling the intended silver and issuing the debased coinage at least in part on their own authority. Obviously, any reform to the monetary system that called for an increase in silver content would have been unprofitable for those running the mint for personal gain.
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A Society Is Only As Free As Its Most Troublesome Political Dissident
A Society Is Only As Free As Its Most Troublesome Political Dissident
You wouldn’t know it from any western mass media reporting as of this writing, but musician Roger Waters is about to perform the iconic Pink Floyd song “Wish You Were Here” in front of the office of British Home Secretary Priti Patel in order to draw attention to the persecution of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.
Earlier this year, billionaire Richard Branson staged a “Live Aid”-stye concert in Colombia near the Venezuela border with the purported goal of helping the Venezuelan people. In reality the stunt was nothing other than a ploy to advance the entirely false narratives that President Maduro was blockading bridges and turning away all foreign aid, and the funds raised ended up being embezzledby the Trump-backed regime change opposition group led by US puppet Juan Guaido. The British mass media, however, went absolutely bananas over the story. Each word in this sentence ishyperlinked to a different story about the concert from mass media outlets in the UK alone. And that was a concert on the other side of the planet, while the Assange event is happening right in London, in front of the office of a prominent British official, featuring one of the greatest British rock musicians of all time.
This discrepancy tells you everything you need to know about the so-called “free press” in western society, and indeed about western society itself.
This discrepancy tells you everything you need to know about the so-called “free press” in western society, and indeed about western society itself.
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Why Critical Thinking is Inseparable From Freedom
Why Critical Thinking is Inseparable From Freedom
Click here to listen to an audio recording of this entire article.
Critical thinking is inseparable from freedom as much as gold is inseparable from sound money and sound banking. In fact, one can consider this article as the perfect companion to the article I wrote ten years ago calledGold and Economic Freedom, Reinterpreted for the 21st Century. The reason I founded the comprehensive online education academy, skwealthacademy, which I am readying for launch, is because of my observation of the rapid deterioration of critical thinking skills, which has sparked the creation of social environments in which it is nearly impossible to present an opposition view to a mainstream narrative without this view being politicized for political agendas instead of being analyzed for its merit, or lack thereof. Owners of the most popular social media apps like Instagram, YouTube and Facebook have weaponized social media to create maximum dissension and minimum intellect and rationality, and have created forums of discourse in which it is nearly impossible to disagree with someone over an issue that is prominent in the national or global media and expect a civil response. One of the marks of a civil society has always been the ability to have civil discussions about topics and to consider the merits of an opposition view before dismissing it, and as these types of civil discussions are quickly disappearing, it also marks the disappearance of civility and humanity from society. The owners of social media have weaponized social media for crowd control purposes, to instill obedience in the masses and to dumb us down. Before observing people blankly staring at their phones in every aspect of public life, in theaters, in restaurants, in schools, in offices, in public transit systems and even when walking down the street, can you recall a time in which the world was as polarized as it is now?
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America Is Not Going To Be A Free And Open Society Any Longer
America Is Not Going To Be A Free And Open Society Any Longer
Whenever a tragic act of violence makes national headlines, the calls to give up more of our freedoms and liberties in exchange for the promise of increased security become deafening. But if we take another step toward becoming an authoritarian society every time something horrible happens, eventually we won’t have any of the basic liberties and freedoms that previous generations of Americans fought so hard to secure for us. Unfortunately, voices like mine are becoming increasingly rare, and the American people seem to want a society that will shelter them from anything that could possibly go wrong. Of course there has never been such a society in all of human history, and we won’t be able to create one either. No governmental system can eliminate the problem of evil, and bad things sometimes happen to good people. And without a doubt, the mass shootings that we witnessed over the weekend were absolutely horrific. In less than 24 hours, 29 American lives were lost between these two mass shootings, and this has greatly shaken the entire nation…
On Sunday, Americans woke up to news of a shooting rampage in an entertainment district in Dayton, Ohio, where a man wearing body armor shot and killed nine people, including his own sister. Hours earlier, a 21-year-old with a rifle entered a Walmart in El Paso and killed 20 people.
In a country that has become nearly numb to men with guns opening fire in schools, at concerts and in churches, the back-to-back bursts of gun violence in less than 24 hours were enough to leave the public stunned and shaken.
Sadly, these are not isolated incidents. As our society has become less moral, we have seen an escalation of violence all over the country.
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Are We Really Free? Maybe It’s Time for a Personal Declaration of Independence
Are We Really Free? Maybe It’s Time for a Personal Declaration of Independence
Some time between throwing some burgers on the grill and shooting off fireworks with a beer in one hand and a lighter in the other, ask yourself this question:
How free and independent are you?
How independent are any of us, really? We like to think we live in the “free-est” nation in the world, but do we really? Think about it.
- You never own your home outright, even when the mortgage is paid off. Every year, you must make your extortion payment to the city or trust me, you won’t be living in that house for long.
- The same thing with your car. If you don’t pay your annual extortion payment on your vehicle and pay a hundred bucks for a tiny sticker that gives you permission to drive it, it will be promptly towed away by the city with the government’s blessing. Then, like a hostage negotiation gone wrong, you’ll have to pay even more money to cover their theft and storage of YOUR vehicle.
- On a regular basis, you must pay a fee and ask the government for permission to do any number of things, such as driving a car, traveling outside the country, running a business, adding another bathroom to your home, or even catching a fish for dinner.
- Permits and licenses are big revenue generators from start to finish – and if you proceed without asking permission, they will extort more money from you in the form of fines. If you refuse to pay the fines (or if you can’t) they’ll kidnap you and lock you in a cage, where you’ll be forced to perform manual labor for 10 cents an hour for whatever length of time the legal authorities feel is sufficient to teach you a lesson.
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Technological Dependence And The End Of Freedom
Technological Dependence And The End Of Freedom
Technology can be dazzling but also debilitating to real human progress, and when I say “progress” I do not mean advancements in the world of machines but advancements in the world of people, and one does not necessarily lead to the other.
First, I fully recognize that whenever anyone attempts to criticize technological innovation they take the risk of being labeled a “crackpot” or an “outdated fossil”, a barbaric relic of a foregone era. However, this attitude is an ignorant one. It assumes that the path we are on as a species is one of perpetual improvement as long as we continue to follow the great technology god; but what if this assumption is completely wrong? What if we are actually devolving rather than evolving?
I’m not here to grunt and shake my spear at the wheel and the combustion engine and the programmable computer – I like all these things. But, what I don’t like is the dark future I see when humanity turns machinery into a great metal, polymer and digital “nurse maid” and we lose our ability to take care of ourselves. Dependency is the cornerstone of slavery, and our civilization is becoming increasingly dependent.
In my time on this earth I have had the privilege and suffered the pain of watching the digital age come to fruition. I’ve witnessed the creation of the home computer, the birth of the internet, the proliferation of cellular technology, and now the spread of “artificial intelligence” and 5G. I have also seen the decay of an entire generation of millennials into uselessness and despondency, lacking any practical skills of production or survival and completely reliant on digital technology for everything, including building up illusions of friendship and intimacy. I have witnessed the pussification of America.
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The Income Tax is Destroying the World Economy
The Income Tax is Destroying the World Economy
It is imperative that we MUST eliminate the income tax. It is a purely a Marxist development that is destroying the world economy. The income tax has become such a tyranny that our liberty, freedom of movement, and world economic growth are all at great risk. Never before in the history of human civilization do we find an income tax. It is true that Ben Franklin once said that the two certainties in life were death and taxes. It is equally true that taxes, in general, have been around since the beginning of civilization. We do know that the earliest recorded tax was implemented in Mesopotamia over 4500 years ago, where people paid taxes throughout the year in the form of livestock, which was the preferred currency at the time. The ancient world also had inheritance taxes, also known as estate taxes or death taxes. The earliest recorded evidence of a death tax came from ancient Egypt (700 BC), where they charged a 10% tax on property transferred at the time of death.
The most serious crisis we face is that with the dawn of Marxism (Communism/Socialism) the way we pay taxes has changed significantly. Yet, one for the record took place in 2006 when China eliminated what was the oldest existing tax in history. The agricultural tax was created 2,600 years ago and was eliminated in 2006 to help improve the well-being of rural farmers in China.
Taxation in the United States can be traced to the colonists when they were heavily taxed by Great Britain on many things from tea to newspapers. Legal and business documents were required to display a Stamp Tax. Most colonists objected to this form of taxation, since they had no political input about the creation of new taxes, giving rise to the term “taxation without representation.”
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