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Brands

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The Left call their endless criticism and negative prejudgment of non-Leftist people and policies “social justice.” Get woke to their hypocrisy of labeling prejudgments as any form of justice because justice cannot be prejudged. Prejudgment is merely prejudice in practice.

The Left’s power dynamic consists of an antisocial oppression that elevates their voting constituents to advantageous legal status over non-constituents. To create constituents, the Left amplify virtually all human differences into good and evil identity proxies. Conveniently, their constituents are the good identities; non-believers are the bad.

So, the Left’s activist believers can have no compunction about committing offenses against the Left’s enemies who are – de facto – bad. Moreover, such demonstrations signal to the rest of the world that resistance is futile and will incur the Left’s unbridled wrath. The Left’s enemies are subhuman resource consumers who will ultimately be purged from the planet. They deserve contempt, ridicule, and legal subjugation.

Note well: None of the Left’s identification proxies refer back to any objective measures of value or human accomplishment. The Left’s human classification system says nothing about what individuals have personally done. And because many of their identity proxies can be assumed ad hoc, there are low barriers to entry into many of their protected classes.

The Left’s constituent identities are brands, not unlike the labels burned into the hides of cattle to signify ownership – only in this case the Left dictate the terms of ownership, a deal they glorify as social justice.

There is no equality at the end of the Left’s utopian rainbow. There is only submission.

Everyone should get woke to this scam.

The Long View

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Last night after sunset, before the moon had risen, our dark skies revealed a few constellations for us to enjoy. From our front porch on a warm late summer night, my wife and I saw a very clear Scorpio due South of us with Libra to the West. Saturn and the bright Jupiter were up just above Sagittarius.

We shared these permanent views with countless ancestors throughout the ages, unchanged, just as they saw them in ancient times.

And we talked about how lucky we are to be so oriented in these timeless perceptions while, meanwhile, we see from afar, crowds of disoriented people, united in their disorientations, externalizing and inflicting mass confusion upon our city centers.

The confused are masters at filling the little electronic boxes we observe them through. They seem united in the conviction that the little slices of theater they present as reality represent all human experience.

But they don’t. Not at all. They are the 1%. And they don’t appear to see themselves that way. Or maybe they do know this on some unconfessed level, and that’s partly what makes them so angry.

Anyway, their clamor will eventually burn out along with them. But for now, they seem intent upon inflicting more damage before they lay down their arms.

But they’re not touching the permanent things. Not in the sky, and not in human hearts. I wish they could see the real scale of their demonstrations in the long view. They might not so eagerly inflict damages upon their surroundings and upon the people around them if they understood the true scope of things a little better.

Kiowa Trustees say “No” to Pot

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The Town of Kiowa Board of Trustees voted 4 to 2 with 1 non-vote, against placing a measure on the November ballot to hold a vote on allowing a marijuana store to open in the town.

Below is an audio recording of the discussion on the motion. Trustee Trevor Smith gave an  eloquent and persuasive rebuttal to the motion. Non-voting town administrators argued in favor.

In public comments prior to the discussion, Sheriff Norton gave the most concrete analysis of the negative consequences to Elbert County from bringing in a marijuana store – numerous and serious.

Had I been given a chance to speak, I would have recalled my experience with child protection and the stressors that can combine to cause bad outcomes to kids. Some time ago, over a span of many years, I provided citizen oversight on Elbert County’s child protection team – a weekly meeting between social workers, law enforcement, and child advocates to discuss ongoing cases.

The common elements to many cases were substance abuse, alcohol abuse, divorce, single parents, unemployment, poor education, etc. Life without these complications is plenty difficult, but add in the above elements and things can get toxic – especially to the kids least able to self protect. That’s when kids got harmed and the harm was often lasting.

Now come the marijuana advocates who talk about filling potholes with marijuana tax revenues and allowing the people to have a vote. They talk about marijuana as if it’s an alternative to alcohol, not an addition to other substances. It’s not an “OR” proposition. It’s an “AND”.

Child protection services were busy 10 years ago. I doubt the case loads have diminished. Oddly, no one from Elbert County was present at the meeting to make the CPT case to the town.

The State of Colorado decriminalized marijuana, but subordinate government bodies have no obligation to accelerate the negative consequences of marijuana by facilitating the marketing of it.

Kiowa Trustees made the right decision. Just barely.

the Mob

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Leftist provocateurs – community organizers – play the mob each day by teasing it with power. Mob feedback loops come from acting out physical rage, command of urban turf, and the kowtows they get from government authorities, police, media, sports and entertainment figures.

The mob will not allow appeasement. They will always demand more because dissatisfaction is their source of power.

Any vehicle to generate dissatisfaction will do, and the media provides an endless supply of carefully crafted media images, audio and video to encourage the aggreived.

Racism is particularly useful because it’s an infinitely adaptable thought crime with no limits. One doesn’t have to actually do anything to be classified a racist. All that’s necessary is to find one’s self in the path of the mob, ideologically or physically.

The mob will decide who are racists. The mob will decide their punishment.

With endless marching and mind-numbing repetition of banal slogans that actually prevent any reasonable conversation from occurring, we have long passed any potential for communication contemplated by the 1st Amendment’s “right to peaceably assemble, or the right to petition the government for redress of grievances.”  

Don’t be a tool. Be against the mob. Don’t allow it to overtake our American republic.

Govern best by governing least

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In the new post-viral economy, people must limit their exposure to germs from other people. So, all of the physical structures in our world that involve close contact between strangers must now, theoretically, be adapted to the new requirement.

Sports venues, theaters, restaurants, public transportation modalities that carry multiple people, transit stations, office and apartment high rise buildings, hotels, convention centers, all built under the economic principle of economies of scale, became obsolete overnight under traditional operational behaviors. The economics that made all of these activities profitable at scale no longer exist. *Poof* – the virus burst the proximity bubble we didn’t even know existed.

Humans adapt their environment. It’s what we do. This next adaptation is going to be major.

Now that health safety risk is an established concern, people will not re-engage with mass exposure environments unless the risk is mitigated.

Mitigation may come through immunity, inoculation, identification, protective devices, mutation of the virus, changing usage of social modalities to the extent they can remain profitable under new usage methods, and lastly, re-engineering the things that were built for mass usage and economies of scale into new forms that provide similar function with mitigated risk and are still profitable. We must discover and engineer for the new profitability mix.

Will applying a mask to every human face out in public be enough of a remedy to get people back into the seats? Doubtful. You can’t eat or drink through a mask. You can’t smile or frown through a mask.

Relying upon government to rebuild our social infrastructures to assure health safety in our proximity situations is, to use a medical metaphor, a prescription for disaster. Government does not have the creative reservoir to conceive of how best to adapt all of our social interactions and infrastructure, let alone the capacity to implement their typical one-size-fits-all types of solutions at a country-wide scale.

This is a job for the private sector. We have a massive economic recovery task ahead of us. This is the time for government to govern best by governing least – to get the regulations and the bureaucracies out of our way, to free private citizens, companies, corporations, etc. to solve this problem in the millions of ways that only they can discover and successfully implement.

Government can continue to play with their models and issue general guidance. Otherwise, we know about the problem, and we will figure out how to live with it.

Speculation in a crisis

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On the subject of masks, gloves, breathing machines, and pharmaceuticals:

Clichés of Socialiism #71

“Speculation should be outlawed.”

In 1869 John Fiske, noted American philosopher, scholar and literary critic, wrote an essay on “The Famine of 1770 in Bengal” (The Unseen World and Other Essays. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1876), Pointing out that a major reason for the severity of the famine was the Prevailing law prohibiting all speculation in rice. The following is excerpted from that essay.

THIS DISASTROUS piece of legislation was due to the universal prevalence of a prejudice from which so-called enlightened communities are not yet wholly free. It is even now customary to heap abuse upon those persons who in a season of scarcity, when prices are rapidly rising, buy up the “necessaries of life,” thereby still increasing for a time the cost of living. Such persons are commonly assailed with specious generalities to the effect that they are enemies of society. People whose only ideas are “moral ideas” regard them as heartless sharpers who fatten upon the misery of their fellow creatures. And it is sometimes hinted that such “practices” ought to be stopped by legislation.

Now, so far is this prejudice, which is a very old one, from being justified by facts, that, instead of being an evil, speculation in breadstuffs and other necessaries is one of the chief agencies by which in modern times and civilized countries a real famine is rendered almost impossible. This natural monopoly operates in two ways. In the first place, by raising prices, it checks consumption, putting every one on shorter allowance until the season of scarcity is over, and thus prevents the scarcity from growing into famine. In the second place, by raising prices, it stimulates importation from those localities where abundance reigns and prices are low. It thus in the long run does much to equalize the pressure of a time of dearth and diminish those extreme oscillations of prices which interfere with the even, healthy course of trade. A government which, in a season of high prices, does anything to check such speculation, acts about as sagely as the skipper of a wrecked vessel who should refuse to put his crew upon half rations.

The Capture of Antwerp

The turning point of the great Dutch Revolution, so far as it concerned the provinces which now constitute Belgium, was the famous siege and capture of Antwerp by Alexander Farnese, Duke of Parma. The siege was a long one, and the resistance obstinate, and the city would probably not have been captured if famine had not come to the assistance of the besiegers. It is interesting, therefore, to inquire what steps the civic authorities had taken to prevent such a calamity. They knew that the struggle before them was likely to be the life-and-death struggle of the Southern Netherlands; they knew that there was risk of their being surrounded so that relief from without would be impossible; they knew that their assailant was one of the most astute and unconquerable of men, by far the greatest general of the sixteenth century.

Therefore they proceeded to do just what our Republican Congress, under such circumstances, would probably have done, and just what the New York Tribune, if it had existed in those days, would have advised them to do. Finding that sundry speculators were accumulating and hoarding up provisions in anticipation of a season of high prices, they hastily decided, first of all to put a stop to such “selfish iniquity.” In their eyes the great thing to be done was to make things cheap. They therefore affxed a very low maximum price to everything which could be eaten, and prescribed severe penalties for all who should attempt to take more than the sum by law decreed. If a baker refused to sell his bread for a price which would have been adequate only in a time of great plenty, his shop was to be broken open, and his loaves distributed among the populace. The consequences of this idiotic policy were twofold.

In the first place, the enforced lowness of prices prevented any breadstuffs or other provisions from being brought into the city. It was a long time before Farnese succeeded in so blockading the Scheldt as to prevent ships laden with eatables from coming in below. Corn and preserved meats might have been hurried by thousands of tons into the beleagured city. Friendly Dutch vessels, freighted with abundance, were waiting at the mouth of the river. But all to no purpose. No merchant would expose his valuable ship, with its cargo, to the risk of being sunk by Farnese’s batteries, merely for the sake of finding a market no better than a hundred others which could be entered without incurring danger. No doubt if the merchants of Holland had followed out the maxim Vivre pour autrui, they would have braved ruin and destruction rather than behold their neighbours of Antwerp enslaved.

No doubt if they could have risen to a broad philosophic view of the future interests of the Netherlands, they would have seen that Antwerp must be saved, no matter if some of them were to lose money by it. But men do not yet sacrifice themselves for their fellows, nor do they as a rule look far beyond the present moment and its emergencies. And the business of government is to legislate for men as they are, not as it is supposed they ought to be. If provisions had brought a high price in Antwerp, they would have been carried thither. As it was, the city, by its own stupidity, blockaded itself far more effectually than Farnese could have done it.

In the second place, the enforced lowness of prices prevented any general retrenchment on the part of the citizens. Nobody felt it necessary to economize. Every one bought as much bread, and ate it as freely, as if the government by insuring its cheapness had insured its abundance. So the city lived in high spirits and in gleeful defiance of its besiegers, until all at once provisions gave out, and the government had to step in again to palliate the distress which it had wrought. It constituted itself quartermaster-general to the community, and doled out stinted rations alike to rich and poor, with that stern democratic impartiality peculiar to times of mortal peril.

But this served only, like most artificial palliatives, to lengthen out the misery. At the time of the surrender, not a loaf of bread could be obtained for love or money.

Wake up to the wokesters

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The Constitution was written and ratified in the context of Christian state governance and culture. To this day, it provides successful mechanisms for the governance and growth of America.

Constitutional language succeeded in curing the country from the Civil War because both Northerners and Southerners shared Christian religious foundations and a common understanding of the origins of God-given liberties memorialized in the Declaration of Independence. Their fight over slavery was subordinate to a common Christian foundation.

Now come the Left who have rejected our Christian religious foundation, and consequentially, rejected the principle of God-given liberties. The Left think the state is the grantor of liberty.

A grantor of liberty and a guarantor of liberty have fundamentally different powers. A grantor can withdraw their grant and thereby eliminate liberty altogether, whereas a guarantor can merely fail to guarantee liberty, but the right continues to exist.

This fundamental division between the Left and Constitutional adherents cannot be compromised. There is no middle ground between the two positions.

A similar irreconcilable division exists between Islamic and Judeo-Christian fundamental beliefs. There is no middle ground for compromise between the Common Law and Sharia Law.

Now that American Democrats have turned hard Left, their fundamentally irreconcilable positions have ripened to a relevant concern.

Previously, the Christian approaches to constitutional confrontations with deviant political and religious beliefs have emphasized tolerance – based on a Christian value of forgiveness and a belief in the strength of our constitutional system to provide resolution mechanisms – just as it did during and after the Civil War. But a common foundation no longer exists with the hard Left.

It’s become clear that the Left give no credence to Christian sensibilities, and, moreover, actually intend to dismantle the Constitution and all of its related fundamental liberties in favor of omnipotent governance.

Do you remember the scene in the movie Independence Day where the President shares a telepathic connection with the Alien, and the Alien says, “No Peace.” The President asks what the Alien expects us to do, and the Alien says, “Die.”

That about sums up the Left’s intentions for constitutional conservatives. Today, tolerance is a fool’s errand.

One does not require metaphysical certainty about religion – Christianity in this case – to appreciate the fundamental principles that make America possible and successful. The Left have nothing to offer that remotely compares to our constitutional framework grounded in the DOI and the Common Law in their systemic capacity to provide an orderly framework for American success.

It’s time every American awoke to the wokesters and considered what should be tolerated, and what should be intolerable. Dismantling our successful constitutional system is intolerable.

The Rule of Men

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The Left’s devices for supporting their various agenda items share a common theme. They all have the effect of removing personal responsibility from their chosen [i.e. politically correct] behaviors.

You want to be gay? No problem. Consider yourself pre-destined to be that way through mysterious mechanisms. Anyone who disagrees with your position is a de-facto bigoted homophobic racist.

You want to abort babies? No problem. Define them as not babies, but inhuman fetuses, and sell their body parts to baby body part brokers.

You want to get stoned? No problem. Recreational drugs can be legalized and taxed. Don’t worry about health consequences, job consequences, impacts to families and children, etc. It’s all legal.

You don’t like a law? No problem. Just ignore it and wait for someone to sue you. You’ll probably get away with it. But if you’re caught, legions of lawyers looking to make names for themselves, write books, and get on the commentariat circuit will step up to defend you. And then you’ll probably get away with it.

Your guy loses an election? No problem. The 1st Am. protects the right to demonstrate to your heart’s content. Assemble a few like-minded friends and attempt to de-legitimize every possible aspect, feature, behavior, decision, family member, and characteristic of the guy who beat your guy, until the next election. Occupy all public spaces and keep doing it ad infinitum until your chosen [i.e. politically correct] result is achieved.

You don’t like the content of somebody else’s speech? No problem. Threaten violence at every venue that person attempts to speak at and make it too expensive for the host to risk allowing the speaker to be heard.

You don’t like what your neighbor does with his property? No problem. Go to your local government and instigate proceedings under any number of thousands of laws that will tie him up in court for the next century.

Talk about cultural misappropriation . . . The Left are masters at it. They issue non-revocable guilt-free licenses to themselves to do whatever they want. And in so doing they fracture and balkanize America into a set of contentious sects who will never get along with each other.

Diversity, as a flag of convenience for excusing the Left’s agenda, is nonsense. It makes a chaotic mess of the orderly society our Founders attempted to legalize with the Constitution.

Communism fails

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From: W. Cleon Skousen, “The Naked Communist, Exposing Communism and Restoring Freedom”, pp. 386-8.

 [sic] “The four major Communist basic beliefs – the heart and soul of dialectical materialism that pretend to provide a complete explanation for the whole universe – the reasoning which gives an excuse to the Communist for her revolutionary violence and amoral conduct:

  1. Everything is a product of accumulated accident. There is no design. There is no law. There is no God. There is only the force of nature which is right, good and natural.
  2. Human beings are only graduated beasts and therefore human life is no more sacred than that of an insect or an animal.
  3. There is no such thing as innate right or wrong. The ends justify the means. Ethics and morals are superficial and fraudulent. Communist morality is whatever serves the struggle.
  4. All religious superstition must be overthrown so people become fully conscious of revolutionary spirit and able to steal or kill when leaders command.”

Obviously, Communist beliefs cannot coexist with the American Constitution, cannot coexist with the fundamental values written into the Declaration of Independence, deeply offend the religious beliefs of the great majority of Americans, and deeply offend the civil, criminal, and common law principles of justice in American law and Western Civilization. An American Communist Party is a contradiction in terms. There is no reconciliation possible between the two systems.

Our Government is instituted among Men who derive their just power from the consent of the governed, and who rely upon the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God that entitle us to the self-evident truths that all men are created equal, and that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights – among them [not limited to] life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

The Communist disputes the metaphysical existence of God, and upon that belief – for all metaphysical statements are beliefs – constructs a justified amoral system of human domination.

We don’t need to rely on supernatural vision into the metaphysical realm to answer the question of the existence of God to assess the fundamental value of Western Civilization vs.  Communism. We have centuries of recorded history under American law [Western Civilization] and Communist dictatorships to dispositively assess the two systems.

Each have produced drastically different outcomes in elevating human conditions out of poverty, out of slavery, out of disease, out of ignorance, and out of misery.

By any measure, Communism fails its people – and not because it’s not done right. It fails because it replaces the consent-based modality of human relations with a suppression-based law of the jungle.

People do more, create more, accomplish more, and are much happier, in the exercise of their free will, than when they take orders from the muzzle of a gun.

That generations of young Americans have been publicly educated to ignore these fundamental truths may be the greatest tragedy of our time.

Life without 1st Am. protection

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Consider the consequences of internet censorship

Consider the similarities between police tactics in China and Leftist free-speech attacks in the U.S.

Feminist activist and freelance journalist Sophia Huang Xueqin – who was detained last month in southern China – has been put under residential surveillance, apparently for supporting anti-government protesters in Hong Kong.

The outspoken activist was first taken into police custody in mid-October but has since been moved to an unknown location and denied access to lawyers or visits by family members, according to sources in the activist community.

Huang, 32, a key figure in China’s #MeToo movement who has also written extensively about the Hong Kong protests after spending six months in the city earlier this year, was accused by police of “picking quarrels and provoking trouble” – a vague charge that has been frequently used to detain activists and dissidents.

Chinese law generally restricts criminal detention to 30 days, so Huang’s transfer to residential surveillance appears to be a means of extending her detention.

Three fellow activists, two of them based in Beijing, confirmed that Huang had been transferred to residential surveillance in an unknown designated location. She was previously held at the Baiyun District Detention Centre in Guangzhou, where she was unable to receive visitors.

A source familiar with her situation, who declined to be named due to the sensitivity of the issue, said Huang was detained because of essays she had written about the Hong Kong protests as well as some posts in support of the movement on social media platform Weibo.

Huang is one of a number of mainland activists who have got into trouble for sympathising with or supporting the Hong Kong protests which broke out six months ago, triggered by a now-withdrawn extradition bill to handle fugitive cases. Since then, mainland authorities have imposed strict controls on any discussion and reporting of the unrest in the city.

Police had been keeping a close watch on Huang since August, when her passport and Hong Kong travel permit were confiscated after she returned to mainland China from a six-month academic tour of the US, Taiwan and Hong Kong. As a result, she was unable to study law in Hong Kong as she had originally planned.

According to sources, she was arrested when she went to collect her travel documents – as instructed by the police – at the Guangzhou Public Security Bureau.

A source said the escalation in severity of Huang’s case may be due to a variety of factors, including sensitive information collected from her overseas visits as a freelance journalist which may have led to an accusation of collaborating with foreign forces.

Suspects held on such a charge can be detained for up to six months according to the law, but in practice this period can extend for much longer.

In addition to Huang, businessman Lai Rifu was detained for 31 days in Guangzhou from 15 September, two days after he posted videos from his ancestral village on his WeChat profile which expressed support for the Hong Kong protesters.

One video of firework celebrations was captioned with a message of support, while the other featured mountain scenery and the popular protest anthem Glory to Hong Kong.

Upon his return to Guangzhou, Lai said several police surrounded his vehicle and forced him to the ground in front of his child during his arrest.

“I was being classified as a supporter of Hong Kong independence when I was at the detention centre,” Lai said. “The centre was terrible. I only posted a video of fireworks and a song, how could this lead to so much trouble?”

Lai also claimed that police harassed his relatives and threatened his wife into agreeing that he was a Hong Kong independence supporter. He added that police also tried to hurt his business by harassing his clients.

“The night I was arrested, police found clients I had financial dealings with and harassed them. Since then, no clients want to do business with me,” he said.

“I asked the police at the detention centre why they had to go after my clients, who are just ordinary people. They said they would carry on finding them. I said they wanted to destroy my livelihood.”

Lai was charged with “picking quarrels and provoking trouble” – the same offence as Huang – and later released on bail.

Even those who have voiced support for mainland sympathisers of the Hong Kong protesters say they have been affected by a spreading climate of fear.

A middle-aged businessman from the southeastern province of Fujian – who preferred to use the pseudonym Yang Yong for safety reasons – said he experienced several days of constant phone harassment after publicly supporting Niu Jie, a law professor at Nanchang Hangkong University who was the target of a nationalist backlash when his group chat messages expressing sympathy for the young protesters were leaked online earlier this month.

“It’s so ridiculous. I couldn’t bear [seeing them doxx Niu Jie] any more, so I decided to do something to support him,” said Yang, adding that he had previously not dared to make online comments about Hong Kong since he knew the risks.

By speaking out in Niu’s defence, Yang got caught up in the online storm and had his personal information leaked too. Like Niu, he also became the victim of vicious trolling and harassment, receiving hundreds of spam messages and calls to his mobile phone.

Nanchang Hangkong University has given no updates on Niu’s employment situation since announcing that he would receive “severe punishment”. Niu could not be reached for comment.

Not everyone is brave enough to speak out and risk the potentially harsh consequences. There are believed to be many more sympathisers on the mainland who dare not voice their opinions in the face of a hostile national climate.

A middle schoolteacher in Henan, who also preferred to remain anonymous, said she was too scared to express her sympathies in case she lost her job. For the same reason, she said she no longer taught her students facts about China’s turbulent history that could not be found in the heavily-vetted official textbooks.

“I have been feeling increasingly suffocated. You can’t say anything. And you can’t even trust the people around you,” she said.

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/3040048/support-hong-kong-protests-china-has-consequences-some

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President Trump 9/24/2019 Address to UN General Assembly Transcript

Thank you very much. 

Mr. President, Mr. Secretary General, distinguished delegates, ambassadors and world leaders, seven decades of history have passed through this hall in all of their richness and drama.

Where I stand, the world has heard from presidents and premiers. At the height of the cold war we have seen the foundation of nations, we have seen the ringleaders of revolution, we have beheld saints who inspired us with hope, rebels who stirred us with passion, and heroes who emboldened us with courage, all here to share plans, proposals, visions and ideas on the worlds biggest stage.

Like those who met us before, our time is one of great contests, high stakes, and clear choices. 

The essential divide that runs all around the world and throughout history is once again thrown into stark relief. It is the divide between those who’s thirst for control deludes them into thinking they are destined to rule over others, and those people and nations who want only to rule themselves.

I have the immense privilege of addressing you today as the elected leader of a nation that prizes liberty, independence, and self government above all. The United States, after having spent over 2.5 trillion dollars since my election to completely rebuild our great military, is also the world’s most powerful nation.

Hopefully it will never have to use this power. Americans know that in a world where others seek conquest and domination, our nation must be strong in wealth, in might, and in spirit. That is why the United States vigorously defends the traditions and customs that have made us who we are.

Like my beloved country, each nation represented in this hall has a cherished history, culture and heritage that is worth defending and celebrating and which gives us our singular potential and strength. The free world must embrace its national foundations. It must not attempt to erase them or replace them. 

Looking around and all over this large magnificent planet, the truth is plain to see. If you want freedom, take pride in your country. If you want democracy, hold on to your sovereignty. And if you want peace, love your nation.

Wise leaders always put the good of their own people and their country first. The future does not belong to globalists. The future belongs to patriots. The future belongs to sovereign and independent nations who protect their citizens, respect their neighbors and honor the differences that make each country special and unique.

It is why we in the Unites States have embarked on an exciting program of national renewal. In everything we do, we are focussed on empowering the dreams and aspirations of our citizens.

Thanks to our pro-growth economic policies, our domestic unemployment rate reached its lowest level in over half a century. Fueled by massive tax cuts and regulations cuts, jobs are being produced at a historic rate. Six million Americans have been added to the employment roles in under 3 years.

Last month, African American, Hispanic American, and Asian American unemployment reached their lowest rates ever recorded. We are marshalling our nations vast energy abundance and the United States is now the number one producer of oil and natural gas anywhere in the world. Wages are rising, incomes are soaring, and 2.5 millions Americans have been lifted out of poverty in less than 3 years. 

As we rebuild the unrivaled might of the American military, we are also revitalizing our alliances by making it very clear that all of our partners are expected to pay their fair share of the tremendous defense burden which the United States has borne in the past.

At the center of our vision for national renewal is an ambitious campaign to reform international trade. For decades the international trading system has been easily exploited by nations acting in very bad faith. As jobs were outsourced, a small handful grew wealthy at the expense of the middle class. In America, the result was 4.2 million lost manufacturing jobs and 15 trillion dollars in trade deficits over the last quarter century.

The United States is now taking that decisive action to end this grave economic injustice. Our goal is simple. We want balanced trade that is both fair and reciprocal. We have worked closely with our partners in Mexica and Canada to replace NAFTA with a brand new and hopefully bipartisan U.S., Mexico, Canada agreement.

Tomorrow I will join Prime Minister Abe of Japan to continue our progress in finalizing a terrific new trade deal.

As the United Kingdom makes preparations to exit the European Union, I have made clear that we stand ready to complete an exceptional new trade agreement with the UK that will bring tremendous benefits to both of our countries. We are working closely with Prime Minister Boris Johnson on a magnificent new trade deal.

The most important difference in America’s new approach on trade concerns our relationship with China. In 2001, China was admitted to the World Trade Organization. Our leaders then argued that this decision would compel China to liberalize its economy and strengthen protections to prevent things that were unacceptable to us, and for private property and for the rule of law. Two decades later this theory has been tested and proven completely wrong. 

Not only has China declined to adopt promised reforms, it has embraced an economic model dependent on massive market barriers, heavy state subsidies, currency manipulations, product dumping, forced technology transfers, and the theft of intellectual property and also trade secrets on a grand scale.

As just one example, I recently met the CEO of a terrific American company – Micron Technologies – at the Whitehouse. Micron produces memory chips used in countless electronics. To advance the Chinese governments 5 year economic plan, a company owned by the Chinese state allegedly stole Micron’s designs valued at up to 8.7 billion dollars. Soon the Chinese company obtains patents for a nearly identical product, and Micron was banned from selling its own goods in China.

But we’re seeking justice. The Unites States lost 60 thousand factories after China entered the WTO. This is happening to other countries all over the globe. The World Trade Organization needs drastic change. The second largest economy of the world should not be permitted to declare itself a developing country in order to game the system at others expense.

For years these abuses were tolerated, ignored, or even encouraged. Globalism exerted a religious pull over past leaders, causing them to ignore their own national interests. But as far as America’s concerned those days are over. To confront these unfair practices I’ve placed massive tariffs on more than 500 billion dollars worth of Chinese made goods. Already, as a result of these tariffs, supply chains are relocating back to America and to other nations, and billions of dollars are being paid to our treasury.

The American people are absolutely committed to restoring balance to our relationship with China. Hopefully we can reach an agreement that would be beneficial to both countries. But as I have made very clear, I will not accept a bad deal for the American people. 

As we endeavor to stabilize our relationship, we’re also carefully monitoring the situation in Hong Kong. The world fully expects that the Chinese government will honor its binding treaty made with the British and registered with the United Nations in which China commits to protect

Hong Kong’s freedom, legal system, and democratic ways of life. How China chooses to handle the situation will say a great deal about its role in the world in the future. We are all counting on President Xi as a great leader. 

The United States does not seek conflict with any other nation. We desire peace, cooperation and mutual gain with all. But I will never fail to defend America’s interests. 

One of the greatest security threats facing peace loving nations today is the repressive regime in Iran. The regime’s record of death and destruction is well known to us all. Not only is Iran the world’s number one state sponsor of terrorism, but Iran’s leaders are fueling the tragic wars in both Syria and Yemen. At the same time the regime is squandering the nations wealth and future in a fanatical quest for nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them. We must never allow this to happen.

To stop Iran’s path to nuclear weapons and missiles, I withdrew the United States from the terrible Iran nuclear deal which has very little time remaining. It did not allow inspection of the important sites and did not cover ballistic missiles. 

Following our withdrawal we have implemented severe economic sanctions on the country. Hoping to free itself from sanctions the regime has escalated its violent and unprovoked aggression. In response to Iran’s recent attack on Saudi Arabian oil facilities, we just imposed the highest level of sanctions on Iran’s central bank and sovereign wealth fund.

All nations have a duty to act. No responsible government should subsidize Iran’s blood lust. As long as Iran’s menacing behavior continues, sanctions will not be lifted. They will be tightened. Iran’s leaders will have turned a proud nation into just another cautionary tale of what happens when a ruling class abandons its people and embarks on a crusade for personal power and riches.

For 40 years the world has listened to Iran’s rulers as they lash out at everyone else for the problems they alone have created. They conduct ritual chants of death to America and traffic in monstrous anti-semitism. Last year the country’s supreme leader stated Israel is a malignant cancerous tumor that has to be removed and eradicated. It is possible, and it will happen. America will never tolerate such anti-semitic hate. Fanatics have long used hatred of Israel to distract from their own failures. 

Thankfully, there is a growing recognition in the wider MiddleEast that the countries of the region share common interests in battling extremism and unleashing economic opportunity. That is why it is so important to have full normalized relations between Israel and its neighbors. Only a relationship built on common interests, mutual respect and religious tolerance can forge a better future. Iran’s citizens deserve a government that cares about reducing poverty, ending corruption, and increasing jobs, not stealing their money to fund and massacre abroad and at home.

After 4 decades of failure, it is time for Iran’s leaders to step forward and to stop threatening other countries, and focus on building up their own country. It is time for Iran’s leaders to finally put the Iranian people first. 

America is ready to embrace friendship with all who genuinely seek peace and respect. Many of America’s closest friends today were once our greatest foes. The United States has never believed in permanent enemies. We want partners, not adversaries. America knows that while anyone can make war, only the most courageous can choose peace. 

For this same reason we have pursued bold diplomacy on the Korean peninsula. I have told Kim Jung Un what I truly believe – that, like Iran, his country is full of tremendous untapped potential. But that to realize that promise, North Korea must denuclearize. 

Around the world our message is clear. America’s goal is lasting, America’s goal is harmony, and America’s goal is not to go with these endless wars – wars that never end. 

With that goal in mind, my administration is also pursuing the hope of a brighter future in Afghanistan. Unfortunately the Taliban has chosen to continue their savage attacks. We will continue to work with our coalition of Afghan partners to stamp out terrorism. And we will never stop working to make peace a reality. 

Here in the western hemisphere we are joining with our partners to ensure stability and opportunity all across the region. In that mission, one of our most critical challenges is illegal immigration which undermines prosperity, rips apart societies and empowers ruthless criminal cartels. Mass illegal migration is unfair, unsafe and unsustainable for everyone involved. The sending countries and the depleted countries become depleted very fast, but their youth is not taken care of, and human capital goes to waste. The receiving countries are overburdened with more migrants than they can responsibly accept. And the migrants themselves are exploited, assaulted and abused by vicious coyotes. Nearly 1/3 of women who make the journey north to our border are sexually assaulted along the way. 

Yet here in the United States and around the world there is a growing cottage industry of radical activists and non governmental organizations that promote human smuggling. These groups encourage illegal migration and demand the erasure of national borders. 

Today I have a message for those open border activists who cloak themselves in the rhetoric of social justice. Your policies are not just. Your policies are cruel and evil. You are empowering criminal organizations that prey on innocent men, women and children. You put your own false sense of virtue before the lives and well being of countless innocent people. When you undermine border security you are undermining human rights and human dignity. 

Many of the countries here today are coping with the challenges of uncontrolled migration. Each of you have the absolute right to protect your borders. And so of course does our country. Today we must resolve to work together to end human smuggling and human trafficking, and put these criminal networks out of business for good. 

To our country, I can tell you sincerely, we are working closely with our friends in the region, including Mexico, Canada, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, and Panama, to uphold the integrity of borders and ensure safety and prosperity for our people. 

I would like to thank President Lopez Obrador of Mexico for the great cooperation we are receiving, and for right now putting 27,000 troupes on our southern border. Mexico is showing us great respect and I respect them in return. 

In the U.S., we have taken very unprecedented action to stop the flow of illegal immigration. To anyone conducting crossings of our border illegally, please hear these words. Do not pay the smugglers. Do not pay the coyotes. Do not put yourself in danger. Do not put your children in danger, cause if you make it here you will not be allowed in. You will be promptly returned home. You will not be released into our country. As long as I’m president of the United States, we will enforce our laws and protect our borders. 

For all of the countries of the western hemisphere, our goal is to help people invest in the bright futures of their own nation. Our region is full of such incredible promise, dreams waiting to be built, and national destinies for all, and they are waiting also to be pursued. Throughout the hemisphere there are millions of hard working patriotic young people, eager to build, innovate, and achieve. 

But these nations cannot reach their potential if a generation of youth abandon their homes in search of a life elsewhere. We want every nation in our region to flourish and its people to thrive in freedom and peace. 

In that vision, we are also committed to supporting those people in the western hemisphere who live under brutal oppression, such as those in Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela. According to a recent report from the UN Human Rights Council, women in Venezuela stand in line for 10 hours a day waiting for food. Over 15,000 people have been detained as political prisoners. 

Modern day death squads are carrying out thousands of extra judicial killings. The dictator Maduro is a Cuban puppet, protected by Cuban body guards, hiding from his own people while Cuba plunders Venezuela’s oil wealth to sustain its own corrupt communist rule.

Since I last spoke in this hall the United States and our partners have built a historic coalition of 55 countries that recognize the legitimate government of Venezuela. To the Venezuelans trapped in this nightmare, please know that all of America is united behind you. The United States has vast quantities of humanitarian aid ready and waiting to be delivered. We’re watching the Venezuelan situation very closely. We await the day when democracy will be restored, when Venezuela will be free, and when liberty will prevail throughout this hemisphere.

One of the most serious challenges our countries face is the specter of socialism. It’s the wrecker of nations and destroyer of societies. Events in Venezuela remind us all that socialism and communism are not about justice. They’re not about equality, they’re not about lifting up the poor, and they are certainly not about the good of the nation.

Socialism and communism are about one thing only – power for the ruling class. Today I repeat a message for the world that I have delivered at home. America will never be a socialist country. In the last century, socialism and communism killed 100 million people. Sadly as we see in Venezuela, the death toll continues in this country. 

These totalitarian ideologies combined with modern technology have the power to exercise new and disturbing forms of suppression and domination. For this reason the United States has taken steps to better screen foreign technology and investments and to protect our data and our security. We urge every nation present to do the same. 

Freedom and democracy must be constantly guarded and protected both abroad and from within. We must always be skeptical of those who want conformity and control. Even in free nations we see alarming signs and new challenges to liberty. A small number of social media platforms are acquiring immense power over what we can see and over what we are allowed to say. 

A permanent political class is openly disdainful, dismissive and defiant of the will of the people. A faceless bureaucracy operates in secret and weakens democratic rule. Media and academic institutions push flat out assaults on our histories, traditions and values. In the United States, my administration has made clear to social media companies that we will uphold the right of free speech. A free society cannot allow social media giants to silence the voices of the people. And a free people must never ever be enlisted in the cause of silencing, coercing, cancelling, or blacklisting their own neighbors.

As we defend American values we affirm the right of all people to live in dignity. For this reason my administration is working with other nations to stop criminalizing of homosexuality, and we stand in solidarity with LGBTQ people who live in countries that punish, jail or execute individuals based upon sexual orientation. 

We are also championing the role of women in our societies. Nations that empower women are much wealthier, safer, and much more politically stable. It’s therefore vital, not only to a nations prosperity, but also is vital to its national security to pursue women’s economic development.

Guided by these principles, my administration launched the women’s global development and prosperity initiatives. The WGDP is the first ever government wide approach to women’s economic empowerment, working to ensure that women all over the planet have the legal right to own and inherit property, work in the same industries as men, travel freely and access credit, and institutions. 

Yesterday I was also pleased to host leaders for a discussion about an ironclad American commitment protecting religious leaders and also protecting religious freedom. This fundamental right is under growing threat around the world. Hard to believe but 80% of the world’s population lives in countries where religious liberty is in significant danger or even completely outlawed. 

American will never tire in our effort to defend and promote freedom of worship and religion. We want and support religious liberty for all. 

Americans will also never tire of defending innocent life. We are aware that many United Nations projects have attempted to assert a global right to taxpayer funded abortion on demand right up until the moment of delivery. Global bureaucrats have absolutely no business attacking the sovereignty of nations that wish to protect innocent life. 

Like many nations here today we in America believe that every child, born and unborn, is a sacred gift from God. 

There is no circumstance under which the United States will allow international interests to trample on the rights of our citizens, including the right to self defense. That is why this year I announced that we will never ratify the UN Arms Trade Treaty which would threaten the liberties of law abiding American citizens. The United States will always uphold our constitutional right to keep and bear arms. We will always uphold our 2nd Amendment. 

The core rights and values America defends today were inscribed in America’s founding documents. Our nation’s Founders understood that there will always be those who believe they’re entitled to real power and control over others. Tyranny advances under many names and many theories but it always comes down to the desire for domination. It protects not the interest of many, but the privilege of few. 

Our Founders gave us a system designed to restrain this dangerous impulse. They chose to entrust American power to those most invested in the fate of our nation – a proud and fiercely independent people. The true good of the nation can only be pursued by those who love it, by citizens who are rooted in its history, who are nourished by its culture, committed to its values, attached to its people, and who know that its future is theirs to build or theirs to lose.

Patriots see a nation and its destiny in ways no one else can. Liberty is only preserved,  sovereignty is only secured, democracy is only sustained, greatness is only realized by the will and devotion of patriots.

In their spirit is found the strength to resist oppression, the inspiration to forge legacy, the goodwill to seek friendship, and the bravery to reach for peace. Love of our nations makes the world better for all nations. 

So to all the leaders here today, join us in the most fulfilling mission a person could have, the most profound contribution anyone can make. 

Lift up your nations, cherish your culture, honor your histories, treasure your citizens, make your countries strong and prosperous and righteous, honor the dignity of your people, and nothing will be outside of your reach. 

When our nations are greater, the future will be brighter, our people will be happier, and our partnerships will be stronger. With God’s help together we will caste off the enemies of liberty and overcome the oppressors of dignity. We will set new standards of living and reach new heights of human achievement. We will rediscover old truths, unravel old mysteries, and make thrilling new breakthroughs. And we will find more beautiful friendship and more harmony among nations than ever before.

My fellow leaders, the path to peace and progress and freedom and justice and a better world for all humanity begins at home. Thank you, God bless you, God bless the nations of the world, and God bless America.  

Thank you very much.

https://elbertcounty.net/blog/2019/09/8916/

Rights vs. socialism

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The American Constitution guarantees every citizen the right to access healthcare, education, jobs, homes, transportation, travel, public speech, their government, and many other rights.

No other country guarantees to its citizens all of the rights that Americans have.

American government is limited, but its citizens’ rights are not. For Americans, rights are unalienable, and within the bounds of law, practicable.

In other countries where rights are limited, government power is correspondingly greater. There’s an inverse relationship between government power and individual rights. They don’t coexist.

Socialists would have us trade away our unlimited rights for a smaller set of rights limited by government regulation, and a much larger basket of government powers. They would have us exchange freedom for government overseers.

Socialists use all sorts of emotional arguments to justify these trades, but in the end, they all lead to degrees of slavery.

Socialists who give up on the market, who give up the right to practice their rights as they personally see fit, make a very poor bargain for themselves, and for all who come after them.

Do you want the option to buy the healthcare you actually need? Or do you want a government bureaucrat to tell you what healthcare you are allowed?

Do you want the option to educate your kids in a curriculum you choose? Or do you want a government bureaucrat to determine what your child may learn at school?

Do you want to practice your own choices about what is best? Or do you want the government making those choices for you based on unproven dubious theories?

Do you want an economy run by consenting makers, sellers and buyers? Or do you want closed markets resistant to invention and creativity regulated by bureaucrats who have no personal skin in the game?

For reasonable people, these types of questions have obvious answers. Why do Leftists appear to lack the common sense necessary to see them?

Thomas Jefferson

"It is error alone which needs the support of government. Truth can stand by itself."

Aristotle

"Only an armed people can be truly free. Only an unarmed people can ever be enslaved."

Karl Popper

“A theory which is not refutable by any conceivable event is nonscientific. Irrefutability is not a virtue of a theory (as people often think) but a vice.”