LRC Blog

Flake Is a Flake

Former senator Jeff Flake, a darling of conservatives when he was in Congress, has joined other Republicans like John Kasich and Christine Todd Whitman and endorsed Joe Biden for president. It is one thing to not like Trump (as a libertarian, there is not much I find likeable about him), but to endorse Biden is unconscionable. Flake once called Trump’s attacks on the press “Stalinist.” If you really want to see Stalinist, just wait until Biden and Harris get elected.

8:41 pm on August 24, 2020

Freedom Action! – The Forgotten German Anti-Nazi Uprising 1945


The amazing story of Rupprecht Gerngross, the German officer who organised and led an uprising against the Nazis in Bavaria in April 1945, culminating in armed conflict between rebel Germany army units and the SS. (Audio only).

8:39 pm on August 24, 2020

A Leftist Smear

Adrian Vermuele, a law professor at Harvard, has recently been attacked for a post on Twitter. According to his critics, Vermuele prefers  a Trump dictatorship to the American Constitution. Both ordinary leftists and neocons hate Vermuele because he is a Catholic integralist.  Accordingly any smear against him will do. It’s clear from his post that he is praising the Habsburgs, not the US president.

4:54 pm on August 24, 2020

Conspiracy…Or Ignorance? Why World Leaders Are Covid Copycats.

12:47 pm on August 24, 2020

What Is The Libertarian View On Property Abandonment?

From: Morgen Mogus
Sent: Friday, June 12, 2020 9:59 PM
To: wblock@loyno.edu
Subject: Question Concerning Abandoned Private Property

Hi Dr. Block,

I’m Morgen Mogus. I’m currently a college student attending XYZ University majoring in Business Management and Fine Arts and considering a degree in Economics. As of late I have been educating myself on right-libertarian theory, having been recently converted to a libertarian and having previously identified as a “classical liberal”. I’ve been getting involved in the Libertarian Party through the Libertarian Party Mises Caucus, so on and so forth.

Of all the topics that have been discussed in libertarian and Austrian economic circles, I have yet to see any information on the topic of abandoned private property. Regardless of if it is done intentionally by the owner of said property or is simply neglected because it may not be a priority to the owner, I am not sure what can be done through the libertarian lens. Living in rural western Pennsylvania, there is no shortage of abandoned plots of land or houses. There are also legal methods that exist where you can acquire abandoned private property by filing to transfer the title to your name with the intent to own it, since you are the one to “discover” it.

Can abandoned private property be considered to be owned? Are these legal methods of acquiring private property a violation of the non-aggression principle? And if they are, what could be done about the negligence of private property in a libertarian lens?

Thanks in advance,

Morgen Mogus

(more…)

11:15 am on August 24, 2020

What Is Libertarianism All About?

Dear Jeremy:

Yes, in my view, the NAP of libertarianism should over ride any element of the US Constitution incompatible with it.

Here are some examples “of constitutional law that is contrary to anarchism”: taxes, post office, govt roads

What is the “anarchist method for changing such laws”: I advocate peaceful means. Publishing books, engaging in debates, voting, etc.

My (Rothbardian) view of anarchism is that it is both evolutionary and revolutionary (since it would imply the absence of government)

(more…)

11:11 am on August 24, 2020

I Edited A Special Issue of Studia Humana Devoted Entirely to Libertarianism

Studia Humana.

Walter E. Block, Ph.D.

11:07 am on August 24, 2020

Twitter Censors Trump Again

Twitter censors Donald Trump again, as is its custom. Twitter is taking political sides. Twitter’s programs, people and operatives do not possess objective truth. They can’t unerringly say that what Trump tweets is wrong, inaccurate, dangerous, misleading, misinformation, or not in the public interest. They cannot justify their censorship in terms of good and bad tweets. They are way out there on a very shaky censorship limb.

Twitter is discriminating against Donald Trump. Censorship is discrimination. It’s subjective discrimination. In this case, it’s political. Twitter’s people claim to know what’s good for us to read and what’s bad. They claim to know what’s good for us to say and what’s bad.

Why is Twitter’s discrimination not criticized heavily by those self-made and self-proclaimed activists among us who keep harping on the most minor slights imaginable? Obviously, it’s because they do not mind discriminating against people with political and social views they dislike. In fact, we now have a crew of activists who consider anyone who does not join in and approve their speech as doing them violence! And if your speech happens to go against their speech, why, to them, that automatically qualifies as violence, worthy of attack and suppression. So Twitter’s censorship becomes, in what passes for the minds of today’s activists, a perfectly right and acceptable thing.

To perverted activists who give activism a bad name, if a silent statue is an insult to one’s integrity and well-being, if plate glass is something that must be smashed, if all police are people who don’t catch lawbreakers but kill random black people, if looting is perfectly okay, then surely Trump must be shut up and it’s okay. In this view, Twitter is absolutely doing the right thing, and the only wonder is why they don’t do more of it.

A shooting incident involving police and a black man has occurred in Kenosha, Wisconsin. This has triggered rioting and looting. Widespread race riots in America have occurred before, most memorably for those now alive in the 1960s. The 1992 Los Angeles riots didn’t spread. The 2014 Ferguson riots were a warning sign for those now happening.

Chicago’s Mayor Lori Lightfoot belatedly changed her tune in now speaking out against the looting of the Magnificent Mile. A lot more like this is needed from the opinion leaders in many quarters of our society in order to help stem the social instability. And that’s only one step in what we need to do in order to right the ship and generate positive momentum. Unluckily, the habitual Trump-haters are not about to change their tune. Unluckily, our authorities have done great damage to our social, political and economic systems in their management of the novel virus. The powers that they have so woefully misused are powers we allowed to accrue over decades, and now the chickens have come home to roost.

10:33 am on August 24, 2020

“Honors” College designs curricula around BLM, Inc.

An announcement was sent out recently to all students (including myself) in the “Honors” College, saying that classes would now be built around “social justice” and BLM, Inc. If this is the future of the academy, this is very scary. Whatever happened to the liberal education?

Writes my “honors” college:

Dear Honors Students: 

Though the initial shock of the many tragic, vivid, and visible instances of racial injustice over the past months may have receded in the minds of some, systematic racial oppression has not receded – it continues to reverberate through our institutions, culture, and social relationships. Thus, we must keep our attention focused on this important social problem and be part of the solution.

I write on behalf of the FSU Honors Program during what is still a highly emotional and fragile time for our nation. Repeated public acts of violence against Black women and men are powerful reminders of long-standing and deeply entrenched structural and cultural forces that perpetuate racial inequality. Millions of Americans from all walks of life continue to take to the streets in peaceful protest against oppression and racism and have provoked a national reckoning with the dire reality of ongoing racial injustice. This moment emerged out of the intensive and brave work of many activists over time who have mobilized against the oppression of Black people.  

We in the Honors Program are grateful to the Black Lives Matter movement and to the many people who work for racial and social justice in the United States. Their actions have led us to the current moment of hope and possibility. Now we must unite in our mission to attain justice and equity for all. The FSU Honors Program is committed to creating equity in our program and in our community. Social justice is central to the Honors Experience Program curriculum and to the mission and values of the Honors Program. Still, we have much work to do.

The Honors Program is committed to addressing the longstanding barriers and practices that lead to underrepresentation and exclusion of Black students in our program. To these ends, we are addressing racism through the following actions.

  • Our Intentions
  • We will draw on the fundamental principles and research about social inequalities to foster dialogue among honors students about how structural inequalities play out in our personal lives and in the institutional structures at FSU and beyond.
  • Dedicated recruitment of Honors Colloquium Leaders and other honors student leaders to assure diverse student leadership in the program; these student leaders are important peer mentors, particularly for incoming freshman honors students.
  • We are committed to increasing the diversity of honors students and staff and providing a foundation for meaningful inclusion. In accordance with state and federal laws, we will actively prioritize recruitment of Black faculty and staff.
  • We will work with the Diversity and Inclusion staff in FSU Admissions and other offices to develop outreach and recruitment strategies that increase recruitment, retention, and inclusion of students of color, particularly Black students.
  • We will seek information from students, faculty, and staff that will help us develop policy, programs, and communication strategies that support diversity and inclusiveness.
  • We will facilitate and support a student leadership team that can advise the honors program by suggesting specific action steps to make the Honors Program more diverse and inclusive and can hold us accountable.
  • What We Have Done
  • Honors has developed a partnership with the Power of We FSU, an evidence-based social justice program that supports effective and inclusive dialog across difference. We have recruited and are in the process of training students to lead programming designed to facilitate the development of skills essential for meaningful inclusion and equity. The cornerstone event series, Shared Spaces, provides opportunities for people of different backgrounds (e.g., race/ethnicity, social class, political perspective, sexual identity and other dimensions of difference) to engage in unflinching, productive, and inclusive discussions about pressing social issues as a foundation for being effective citizen-leaders and agents of change. We have identified and selected diverse student leadership and are seeking feedback from identity groups on campus to shape program goals. We plan to hold the first event during the upcoming school year.
  • We now publish a monthly honors newsletter designed to educate students, staff, and faculty alike on the depth and significant adverse consequences of racial injustice. The newsletter will provide resources for all of us to educate ourselves about the important contributions of Black people to our collective history, base of knowledge and, indeed, the wealth and power of our nation. I thank Christina Archipolo who launched the newsletter and who serves as primary author and curator. In addition, I thank Black students, faculty, and staff at FSU who have worked tirelessly to share their knowledge and gifts to educate us through their work, including this powerful and important message to students:  http://myweb.fsu.edu/jelsner/Letter_to_Black_Students_From_Black_Faculty.pdf
  • We are strengthening our Honors Experience Program curriculum and related co-curriculum by: 1) including more works by Black authors; 2) continuing our steadfast mission to examine the relationship between the histories and social forces that create and sustain injustice; and 3) developing more courses that teach the skills required for civic literacy that are foundational for inclusion.
  • We have invited faculty whose research and teaching centers around racial justice to present on their work in the first-year honors colloquium. Their presentations will facilitate dialog about important issues of equity and justice in the colloquium breakout sections.

Sincere thanks to a diverse and insightful group of students, staff, faculty, and administrators who provided comments on this letter. I am grateful for their work and their continued support of the FSU Honors Program. 

The FSU Honors Program affirms our commitment to racial justice and to overturning inequities and underrepresentation in the program. And we rely on you, students, to help us make significant and lasting social change toward racial justice. You truly are our collective future and you are the reason we do the work we do in the Honors Program. 

In hope and good faith,

I have to laugh at “you truly are our collective future.”

 

8:17 am on August 24, 2020

Covid-19 and “Social Distancing”

Christopher Caldwell has an excellent article in the New York Times (August 21) on the views of the Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben about Covid-19. Agamben points out that “The emergency declared by public-health experts replaces the discredited narrative of ‘national security experts’ as a pretext for withdrawing rights and privacy from citizens. Biosecurity now serves as a reason for governments to rule in terms of ‘worst-case scenarios.’ This means there is no level of cases or deaths below which locking down an entire nation of 60 million becomes unreasonable. Many European governments, including Italy’s, have developed national contact tracing apps that allow them to track their citizens using cellphones.”

Agamben is especially critical of “social distancing.’ Caldwell says, “He believes that the fateful inheritance of the coronavirus will be social distancing. He is puzzled by the term, ‘which appeared simultaneously around the world as if it had been prepared in advance.’ The expression, he notes, ‘is not “physical” or “personal” distancing, as would be normal if we were describing a medical measure, but “social” distancing.’ His point is that social distancing is at least as much a political measure as a public health one, realized so easily because it has been pushed for by powerful forces.”

11:10 pm on August 22, 2020

Down Under Going Under

Leviathan excels at pitting people against one another. Our latest example comes from Australia, where tyrants have invented “COVID marshals.

As of the 21 August 2020 a COVID Marshal must supervise prescribed operations.

In other words, these nannies will nag Australians into complying with COVIDiocy every time they leave home for such “prescribed operations” as:

  • The onsite purchase and consumption of food or beverages (indoor and outdoor). This does not include take-away only operators.
  • Religious or faith-based ceremonies.
  • Supermarkets and hardware stores.
  • Distribution centres (including associated transport operations).
  • Gymnasiums and fitness centres.
  • Swimming pools used by the public.
  • Social and sporting clubs.
  • Any activity where a COVID Management Plan is required.
  • Any operation which may be defined by the state coordinator.

If you manage such an enterprise and you “reasonably [expect]” “fewer than 200 people … to participate,” the despots will graciously allow one of your employees to add hectoring your customers to his other duties. If you attract more than 200 folks, you must hire a full-time busybody. Talk about a jobs progam!

Either way, I can see everyone absolutely loathing these pests. Worse, as Vinnie Terranova sardonically noted in sending me the link, “But it can’t happen here.”

1:43 pm on August 22, 2020

An Honest Mistake

Darrel Sipes of California is a PK (Preacher’s Kid) whose father closed his church last spring before re-opening on Easter. Darrel explains his dad’s reasons—but he also points out that pastors should have seen through this lunacy from the start. 

I told my dad he should have never closed.

And I used his own logic to prove it.

I remember being young and working with my dad (he was a full-time carpenter and unpaid pastor for 10 years).

Ahem. I have known so many godly men in this situation, serving without pay or recognition in spreading the Gospel. Yet when Christianity’s many enemies attack the Church as a money-making racket, they speak as if only “megachurches” populate the country.

One day while driving we were talking about “Global Warming” and I was saying (something like), “Oh, man, dad, everyone is saying this could be very bad.”  And he responded with, “Well what is the ultimate thing ‘they’ say will happen?”

I said, “The whole earth will be flooded…”

And he stopped and said, “Well son, then we know the whole thing is either an outright lie, or they are just mistaken, because we as Christians KNOW the earth will never again be flooded.”

So I used that same logic, the logic that would NEVER trust evolutionary, Pro-Choice, pedophile, satanists (whom I DO pray find Jesus) when they tell me that part of what “needs to be done” is the “forsaking gathering together.”

And the SAME pastors who preached for YEARS that “online church is NOT church” all of a sudden said, “We can gather online and still fulfill the mandate to gather together.”

Yo, Parson Goat: if the church-thing doesn’t work, you could always apply to the CDC or the WHO. They hire personnel willing to change their principles on a dime like that.

So I saw through it from literally Day 1.

My dad saw it a little different.  When he saw billionaires be willing to cancel the sports and events that make them billionaires he thought, “If these greedy people are willing to lose money, maybe there IS something to it.”

Of course we know that the government “bailed out” those billionaires with OUR children’s labor, and future labor, so the reason it “might have been real” was not a reason at all.

My dad knew where I stood.  He knew that it was his raising of me to “trust the Bible, not man” that made me disagree with him ever closing.  But he has stood firm ever since Easter, repented of ever closing, and if I didn’t live on the other side of the country I’d be proud to call him my pastor. 

Thank God for Pastor Sipes’ devotion and humility. May the Goats follow his example.

11:54 am on August 22, 2020

Seems We’re Missing Much of the Church Militant

Why Won’t Orthodox Bishops Fight for California?

Why indeed? This cri de coeur that Yvonne Lorenzo sent me points out that

churches in California … are closed for in-door worship, but [an Orthodox priest] named Father Josiah went through a list of Protestant pastors that are defying these orders and who are suing to protect the Constitutional and natural-rights of their parishioners to worship God.

No Orthodox jurisdiction or parish was mentioned by Father Josiah among the churches fighting for the right to worship God as He has commanded. In fact, the Orthodox appear perfectly content to live stream worship services from empty churches. 

Christians of all denominations can either stand now with those churches that are defying Leviathan or die with them later, whether in concentration camps, “religious cleansing,” or battle.

11:13 am on August 22, 2020

Hold Yer Britches

JD from Louisiana saw

Masks in the store: Hanes. 100% cotton.

Underwear for the face.

Meanwhile, governments justify this medical tyranny by insisting they must save lives:

Los Angeles County’s first and only objective is to save lives and protect the health of our residents and communities,” county officials said in a statement, adding that “we will continue to work through the legal system to ensure that the health officer orders are upheld, as these are the best tools we currently have to slow the spread of this lethal virus.”

But illness isn’t at all what the Founders had in mind when they wrote, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed…” The only threats to life from which governments should protect us are violent ones arising from “danger from without or convulsion within.” Yet I note a great many fatalities from the Marxist “convulsions” this summer—and little urgency to “save those lives” from Our Rulers.

10:54 am on August 22, 2020

The Persecuted Church in Californiastan

Megachurch pastor John MacArthur and his congregation can continue to meeting [sic] indoors for worship, a California judge ruled Friday (August 14).

But they must wear face coverings and practice social distancing, according to a California Superior Court judge’s order. …

…[T]hey [must] post the judge’s order. County health officials must also be allowed on the church property to verify that the order is being complied with. 

And how did Pastor MacArthur respond to this intimidation? With half a loaf:

“I am very grateful the court has allowed us to meet inside and we are happy for a few weeks to comply and respect what the judge has asked of us because he is allowing us to meet,” MacArthur told Fox News in a statement. “This vindicates our desire to stay open and serve our people. This also gives us an opportunity to show that we are not trying to be rebellious or unreasonable, but that we will stand firm to protect our church against unreasonable, unconstitutional restrictions.”

Scott in Colorado, who forwarded this story, notes that it’s “sad” MacArthur bowed to some, even if not all, of this bullying, “[b]ut still, he is moving in a better direction than in April,” when he closed his church entirely.

If you’re like me, you want your heroes full-throated and unflinching. For that we look to Pastor Rob McCoy—and pray for him, too, per Scott’s request:

A Ventura County judge fined Godspeak Calvary Chapel in Newbury Park $3,000 today for continuing to host indoor worship services in violation of a temporary restraining order granted Aug. 7.

Legal counsel representing Ventura County Public Health had recommended a penalty of $6,000 and attorney fees, neither of which the judge agreed to.

Broken down, the fine comes to $500 per indoor worship service (six over two Sundays) at Godspeak since the injunction was put in place.

The penalty is for the church specifically and not its pastor, Rob McCoy, who reopened the church in May and continued to hold indoor services even after Gov. Gavin Newsom’s July 13 order banning a host of indoor activities …

The judge explained his reasoning:

“The issues are narrow today, as I mentioned at the start,” O’Neill said … “I fully understand that there’s a reason that freedom of religion is protected by the very first amendment, but I have a duty to uphold the court’s order that was duly issued.” …

“There was jurisdiction for the order. There was knowledge of it and ability to comply and clearly willful disobedience, although well-motivated.”

O’Neill said the church’s failure to indicate it would stop holding services inside its Dos Vientos sanctuary dictated that some punishment had to be meted out.

“What I’m not hearing . . . is any suggestion that there will be any modification of the way the services have been held and in terms of future behavior,” he said.

The judge said it was significant because Godspeak has other options. Churches throughout the county have been meeting outdoors, which is allowed under the governor’s order provided congregants wear masks and practice social distancing.

“It’s not the government telling people not to worship or even congregate,” O’Neill said.

Such legal “logic” is why we should not count on the courts for relief from tyranny. If we mean to live free, we must defy these despots consistently and en masse.

That means all pastors must re-open their churches now, not three months from now after receiving permission from bureaucrats and politicians. They must also reject the unscriptural nonsense of masks and anti-social distancing while standing with these brothers—shoulder-to-shoulder, not six feet apart—against Leviathan’s tantrums.

 

10:33 am on August 22, 2020

No Flu For You

Big Pharma has been pushing for this for a very long time. Mandatory vaccination everything.

If *they* get a flu shot because they think it works, why do the “theys” care whether or not you get one?

Recall the ‘chewing gum’ statement from Merck’s CEO Henry Gadsden, when he told Fortune magazine it was a shame that the company’s products could only be limited to “sick people.” As cited in the book “Selling Sickness: How the World’s Biggest Pharmaceutical Companies Are Turning Us All Into Patients” by Ray Moynihan and Alan Cassels (2006), that sits on my bookshelf:

Suggesting he’d rather Merck to be more like chewing gum maker Wrigley’s, Gadsden said it had long been his dream to make drugs for healthy people. Because then, Merck would be able to “sell to everyone.”

9:38 am on August 22, 2020

The Communist Home Invasion Tactic

Virtual learning is proving to be more invasive and Commie than the standard fare. This invasion into homes in Tennessee is one reason I believe the Marxist teacher’s unions are pushing for no in-person school attendance. It’s a control and surveillance tactic. In Maryland, a teacher surveilling a home and her school principal sent cops out to the home because she spied a big, old, meanie BB gun on the wall.

9:31 am on August 22, 2020

Goldman “Sached”

A few years ago this would have been a great satire piece in The Onion. And 2020 keeps rolling along.

The totemic tycoon revealed in filings late last week that he has scooped up more than 20 million shares of mining giant Barrick Gold Corp. even as he unloaded nearly all of his nearly 2 million shares in Goldman Sachs.

The 89-year-old investing icon’s sudden embrace of the precious yellow metal — which has has previously derided as “useless,” saying that “anyone watching from Mars would be scratching their head” at the idea of investing in it — took many on Wall Street by surprise.

 

8:58 am on August 22, 2020

Tulsi Gabbard Gets Snubbed By the DNC, Why the Surprise?

A woman of color with more delegates than Kamala, so the DNC makes her invisible. Tulsi, Tulsi, you gave away whatever leverage you still had, not for posterity but Party, endorsing the establishment that worked overtime to destroy you.  In the end, you became just another pol, despite so many so fervently hoping otherwise.  Have fun performing technical maintenance for the U.S. empire in AK.  You could have been so very much more.

4:06 pm on August 21, 2020

The Slingshot of Freedom

This morning, I was thinking about Pastor John MacArthur and our brothers and sisters in California, meeting in defiance of Nuisance—ah, Governor Newsom. You’ll recall when last we surveyed these heroes, the State was threatening them with fines and arrests and other horrors for worshipping when Nuisance ordered them not to. I wondered what’s happened since.

Fortunately, Rocco Piserchia and Vinnie Terranova came to my rescue with updates. The battle for our religious liberty has moved to the courts, with the thieving State still trying to milk the church for all the money it can get. Leviathan’s arguments boil down to one word: COVID. It chants the term like a magic spell to obliterate liberty, the Constitution, and civilization as we know it. On the other side, the pastor and church battle for freedom—the freedom to assemble without government’s approval or “guidance,” to worship and sing as the Lord directs, to conduct themselves as human beings sans masks or anti-social-distancing. 

May God grant these Christians as exhilarating a victory as He did David over Goliath.

2:36 pm on August 21, 2020

Petitioning For Redress in the Most Humble Terms

This petition to “Policymakers at all levels of government” asks that they rescind their abominable mandates on masks. 

I’ve signed and urge you to as well. I hope the tyrants heed us—but I doubt they will. They are too drunk on power to hear anything other than the whine of bullets. But when the Revolution comes, we can say with the Founders that we tried everything short of war, including petitions.

10:40 am on August 21, 2020

Milking the herd

9:58 am on August 21, 2020

Freedom “Hinders”

Damn that freedom! It “hinders” so many things, including the ability of a multi-billionaire to become an untethered megalomaniac in charge of world health matters.

8:14 am on August 21, 2020

Don’t Do Your Own Research!!!


In this perceptive video, the great James Corbett exhorts his viewers — “Do your own research! Read it for yourself! It’s in the show notes! How many times have I uttered these words? These exhortations represent the founding ethos of The Corbett Report. I want you to read the source documents for yourself and come to your own conclusions. But guess what? The establishment doesn’t want you to think for yourself, and now that the Corona World Order is beginning the Great Reset, they are coming out and saying as much.”

I absolutely agree with every word Corbett said. In all my over 1800 articles and blogs at LRC I have provided background sources of books, videos, articles, book/DVD lists, documents, essays, and reports for my readers to study and reflect upon in order for you to do your independent research and analysis. Ignore the gatekeepers and presstitutes of the establishment mainstream media and find out the truth for yourself.

7:10 am on August 21, 2020

Patriots Rise And, With Them, Your Spirits

Cheer yourself hoarse at this video of Virginians marching to protect their rights from Comrade Northam and the legislature as that diabolical duo tries to void the Second Amendment.

Now imagine this same column advancing on BLM. And on state capitols that refuse to rescind COVIDiocy.

Told you that would boost your mood!

1:03 pm on August 20, 2020

Happy Birthday Dr. Ron Paul!

Today is Dr. Ron Paul’s 85th  birthday. He has always been a voice of wisdom, from the End the Fed campaign to his fight against the Iraq War to his current voice of sanity in the Covid-19 hysteria. He is a great American and one one of the foremost people ever to serve in Congress. Happy Birthday!

12:48 pm on August 20, 2020

Rebels’ Ranks Grow!

In response to Two Rebels in a Row!, Mr. Anonymous testifies:

Our church in the San Francisco Bay Area has packed parking lots every Sunday and meets indoors in defiance of Gruesome & our loathsome County officials – Acts 5:29 – We ought to obey God rather than men.  Most church members practice social distancing and wear masks, but it is a Christian liberty issue for each one, rather than a diktat from on high.  We serve Jesus Christ.

Amen! So why is Parson Goat collaborating with godless politicians to abuse us? Hasn’t he read of God’s hatred for oppression in Scripture? No, he probably hasn’t since the only text he considers regarding the State is Romans 13. Which he conveniently misinterprets.

12:31 pm on August 20, 2020

“Back to Business as Usual”

Its [sic] High Time to Get Back to Business as Usual,” proclaims a website dedicated to listing those enterprises that treat folks as customers, not walking petri dishes. No masks, no anti-social distancing, no lunacy. If you own such a business, you’ll want to register here while the rest of us  patronize and pray for these heroes!

10:45 am on August 20, 2020

Know Your Enemy—and His Rationalizations

Rick from Oregon extracts this paragraph from a website entitled, “JOIN ANTIFA – JOIN THE ANTIFA MOVEMENT! Tools and resources to make you an Antifa Warrior!”:

…we should not imagine that coercive force can solve everything, nor permit fascists and state repression to put us so on edge that we see enemies everywhere we look and begin to attack people when it is not strategic.

Yeah, you want to beat the crap out of them only when it’s strategic.

In the words of an elder anti-fascist veteran from Germany, fascist violence aims to exterminate, while anti-fascist violence aims to educate. [That’s Rick’s emphasis.] We should not hurry to put fascist martyrs in the ground next to Heather Heyer. We must never risk coming across as bullies. 

Ahem. I think it may be a tad late to worry about that.

It must always be clear that we are here to protect the public at large, not to assert our own authority. 

Ditto.

Imagine the derangement and delusion of the Marxist who can write such twaddle after 150 years of his fellow-travelers “asserting their own authority” via gulags, killing fields, concentrations camps, starvation, Long Marches, genocide, and communism’s myriads of other atrocities.

When we are compelled to use coercive force, we must make sure that the ways we do so don’t centralize power or legitimacy within our own movement.

Poor babies. Just so loathe to assault innocent bystanders, but boy, you know how it is when someone holds a gun to your head and compels you to use coercive force. Or, as Rick summarizes this double-speak, “Violence is educational when we do it….”

9:49 am on August 20, 2020

Jimmy Dore: 2020 Democrats Are a Failed Pro-War Party (8.19.20)

When your top advisers are all big fans of the 2003 Iraq War, that’s a very bad sign indeed.

9:41 pm on August 19, 2020