Opus 2026-403: Hierarchy of Freedom

Who is freer, people with the wealth of Trump and Soros or people like you and me.  That may seem like a silly question.

It is true that they have all the things that money can buy.  Whether they have the things that money can’t buy depends on the person.  They live in mansions with 20 bedrooms.  The last I heard you can only sleep in one bed at a time.  They drive cars that cost more than my house.  Good for them.  They might wear a Rolex and still be late for appointments.

I have the things I need, and want, that money can buy.  In addition to that I have most of the things tha money can’t buy.  When I park my car I don’t need to hire an armed guard to make sure it is not stollen.  People would drive by my neighborhood to break into theirs.  People don’t kiss up to me because they want something.

I can go for a walk in my neighborhood. I can stop for fast food without an army of bodyguards.  Keep in mind that we have more real freedom than they do.  Count your blessings.

homo unius libri

Opus 2026-379: Part B

About a year ago I came across some click bait from a source called the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship.  I listened to a few of their speakers and felt like they were a group that had their heads on straight.

Time marches on and this year I began finding more speakers that were less than inspiring and often off base by my measurement.  I am wondering if this is another example of bait and switch that we see in so many venues.  I recently tuned in to a speaker that was new to me.  He was Yemi Osinbajo, former vice president of Liberia.  He began by listing the high points of the progress made in the 20th century.  He started with items I would agree with.  Among those was the pursuit of free speech.  Then at the end he snuck in a kidney punch.  He mentioned a rule based international order.  What also struck me was that he left out the other points of our first amendment and completely ignored the second.

He kept throwing around the term “democracy” as if it was a good thing and seemed to be totally unaware of the history of democracy.  He attributed all progress to this “rule based international order.”  He then listed how confidence was eroding and, to be fair, most of what he said was correct, but he slipped in a little phrase that would grow as he spoke:  Economic systems that were fair.

Then he went on and came back to the idea of free speech.  That sounded good, at first.  He pointed out that it was once a bedrock of our freedoms in liberty.  He wasn’t satisfied with that.  He said now it has become divisive and he threw out the idea of misinformation.  Where he’s going with this is that we need to find ways to limit free speech because free speech is divisive.  He’s not going to say that clearly because he knows how that will be received by the audience, but that’s what’s in his heart.

He works through a few more positive things until he comes to free enterprise.  He starts off talking about the wonders that is produced, but then he says that it is degenerated into widening inequality and economic insecurity and declining social mobility.  He completely ignores the destructive role of central planning and government regulation.  He does not acknowledge the role of free enterprise in raising the standard of living around the world.

Trust in government is declining because of political polarization.  He moves on to immigration and quickly stakes out a position against barriers to people being able to move freely.

At 4:40 he makes his first reference to climate change.  This theme will keep reemerging.  This is where he really lost me.  If you believe that open borders are good and climate change is a major issue you have traded in your scholars robe for a dunce cap.  Call it a litmus test if you will.  To paraphrase Shakespeare, “A rose by any other name, be it oh so sweet, is still a socialist.”

Like most One World Government people he has no understanding of economics.  He laments the fact that Africa has incredibly high interest rates when they try to borrow money . He seems unaware that interest is a reflection of risk and Africa is very risky.  He does not mention that part of the problem is that Africa never, or seldom, pays back what it borrows.

He fears AI.  He calls for more government regulation.  He sees a need for global organization.  Reforming international finance of course requires lower interest and debt relief.  There is nothing about people learning to stand on their own two feet.  In short he is a One World Government Wolf in the skin of a liberty loving sheep.

We need to wrap our arms around the entire first amendment.  Note that the first concern of the founders was making a state church impossible and allowing Americans to approach God in the way they wanted, or to not approach Him at all.  We need to understand that the glorious concept of free speech is meaningless without the freedom of religion and the other rights guaranteed in that paragraph.  They become impossible without the second amendment.

I shall keep looking for rational voices.

homo unius libri

Opus 2026-340: If It walks Like a Duck…

I am sure that you have heard that one before.  The problem is that it does not always work out that way. You see, it might be a marine in boot camp.  Some bits of wisdom are wise as long as you don’t push them too far.

It is often hard to put people in categories.  That is good in some ways and not in others.  If I know that someone is a compulsive thief I don’t want to make them the church treasurer.  You laugh.  We had a young woman who was known to abuse children and they wanted to put her in charge of the nursery.  At the same time you need to be slow with the slot filling.

What brings this to mind is Joe Rogan.  Until the last six months I knew nothing about him but then one day the algorithm brought him up doing an interview with someone that I thought was significant.  I ended up watching the entire episode.  Granted it took me several days but I got through it.  Over time I have seen him interview Donald Trump, Wes Huff, Steven Meyer and have started several more.

I think I have learned how to know if I will benefit from watching the whole experience.  The first clue is whether Joe is smoking a cigar or not and whether the air is hard to see through.  That is not final, just an indication.  If the conversation rarely has a sentence without a four letter word or “f” bomb it is likely that the time will be wasted.

I am looking for a nitch for Joe Rogan.  In some areas he seems to have common sense.  In other areas he comes across as a typical pot head.  It is significant that he seems to be able to have a conversation with almost anyone.  I decided he is neither fish nor fowl.  I will label him marsupial.  He has characteristics of many different species.

Discernment and freedom of choice means that I can listen to him when he has something to say and pat him on the head the rest of the time.

homo unius libri

Opus 2026-322: Mini Declarations

Our minds are on the 250th anniversary of the country.  I’ve urged you to read the Declaration of Independence.  Millions of Americans will go out and shoot off fireworks.  Thousands of policeman will be out writing citations on those Americans who are celebrating their liberty without permission of the central government.  We live in interesting times.  One of the reasons why people might celebrate important events less is because those who are in charge of regulating our behavior, make it harder and harder to express enthusiasm or commitment.

Do you live in a city that has outlawed fireworks?  I’m sure it was done for your safety.  I’m sure it’s because they didn’t want you to burn your house down.  I’m sure they knew that you were one of those people who would not realize you were supposed to let go of firecracker after you lit the fuse.  Such people to exist.  I’m not sure if sifting out the jean pool isn’t worth a little freedom in danger.  All people are not known for their common sense.  I think of one relative of a student I had who evidently shot himself three times while cleaning his gun.  My guess is he’s a bad shot.  Most people would learn the first time, if they missed.  They would learn another lesson if they struck home.  I’m still asking myself:  How do you shoot yourself cleaning a gun when the first thing you work on is the barrel?

That having been said, we need to say more.  We need to be constantly on the alert to speak up.  A Declaration of Independence doesn’t mean much when all the talking is done in the hall in Philadelphia.  The document had to be delivered.  The document had to be lived out on a daily basis.  We need to take that seriously.

As we watch the forces of Marxism penetrate into all areas by culture, we see them doing everything they can to take away the liberties that were given to us by God and recognized in the first 10 amendments to the constitution.  We have a three standards given in the declaration of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.  A good number of the laws that come out of your local city councils, county seats, state capitals, and of course Congress are designed to take away those liberties.  We need to get in the habit of constantly speaking up while we can still hope that that speaking up might do some good.

It’s kind of like witnessing and doing evangelism though.  You’re not going to get a lot of visible response.  Many people will turn you off.  You might lose friends.  You will get invited to fewer parties.It still needs to be done.  I wrote recently about going into a store which had a sign saying no concealed carry and informing the manager that I would not be shopping at his store.  I don’t think I made any big splash. I  asked him to pass it on up the chain.  I doubt if he did.  But we need to make people aware that the default of the masses of Americans is not that of sock puppets.  We need to speak up while we still can.  We need to ask people when they’re shooting off fireworks, what are you celebrating.  We need to ask people if they’re gathered on the hill watching the official government agency, shootout fireworks, why aren’t we doing this ourselves?

Short comments.  Penetrating questions.  A smiling countenance.  And add to that the concept that the apostle Paul gave us a praying without ceasing.  Our hope is that we can get the country back on the right track without having to resort to violence.  Make the little declarations so that the big declaration has some significance.

Opus 2026-157: The Blues

We all know about the epidemic of blue cities, but we tend to think of big cities when it comes to the blue color.  Unfortunately, even the midsize cities are becoming metropolitan areas.  You pretty much have to move far out of town to get away from the crazies.

Part of the epidemic is in the new developments, all of which seemed to have HOA organizations.  I have yet to find anybody that really likes them and yet they are prevalent everywhere.  Most people that don’t like them tend to live in areas where they appreciate the benefit, but they get irritated when it comes down on themselves.  They want to live in a place where there are no people running businesses out of their garage with all kinds of people parking in front and coming in to buy things.  They want to live in neighborhoods where people are not allowed to park their broken down cars on the front lawn.  They want people to be required to keep their yards mowed.  The problem comes when you’re the one who doesn’t want to mow your lawn, has old cars, or wants to run a business.  Then the HOA is interfering with your freedom.

You can’t have it both ways.  In reality, it seems to me that HOA’s are the most basic form of democracy that exists.  That statement is made recognizing that democracy tend to lead to tyranny.  We deliberately bought in a location that didn’t have one and yet my wife has already been agitating because a guy down the hill is running a business out of his yard.  We don’t want county or city regulations and inspections on what we build or how we live.  At the same time she has been upset that somebody down the hill is not finishing their house as quickly as they should, and there are piles of materials all over the place.

Again, I repeat, you can’t have it both ways.  If you live in an area that has an HOA and you don’t like what’s happening then I would suggest getting involved.  Get elected to the board.  Make the changes that need to be done.  Get put in charge of offering citations for violations of the Doctrines and Covenants.  Become the tyrant that everyone complains about.  At that level, you probably don’t have much reason to gripe if you don’t like how things are being done.

Where we are, quit griping and let people live their lives unless they decide to park their car in your yard or their trash is blowing into your flowerbeds.  You don’t really have much to say. 

Make Daniel Boone proud.

homo unius libri

Opus 2026-154: Be the Hard Target

When I hear the daily updates on what’s happening with the news I am struck by all of the nut jobs that are out looking for unarmed victims that they can attack.  At times like that I am really glad that I live in Texas.  That is no guarantee that the nut job won’t come for us, but it certainly makes him think twice.

I don’t know why people don’t understand that terrorist people who are mentally disturbed because of the drugs that have been pumped into them, antifa, and extreme Democrats (but I repeat myself) are looking for the weak targets because in their hearts, they know they’re cowards.

I hope I never have to be faced by the real potential of violence.  I try to be prepared.  At the same time, these killers are always looking for soft targets.

I tried to avoid visiting soft targets.  I don’t think our church is a soft target.  There might be some fool that thinks it is, but he will be in for a rude awakening, I think.  I avoid stores that have the signs on the front saying that you can’t bring firearms inside.  I’m sure that the terrorists will honor that wish of the owner of the business.  Most medical facilities ban firearms.  I go in with trepidation.  It’s bad enough that I have to put up with the medical profession playing games with my life.  To add to the danger by allowing only terrorist to come in armed is not something I enjoy.

Pray before anything happens.  Stay alert.  Go on with life.  Don’t surrender to the attempt to destroy our freedom of movment and assembly.  Even if something happens, with 350,000,000 people in the country the odds of it happening near you are slim.

homo unius libri

Opus 2026-109: Shared Goals

What do the TSA and terrorism have in common?

I have made several pilgrimages to visit in Reno.  It is a good time of fellowship and discussion.  I’m thinking about how I don’t want to fly.  The hassles of the TSA and government regulation in general have made that unpleasant.  I don’t want to drive.  It is a long journey and as much as I like to drive I shudder at the cost.  What about a train?

Consider how the elites are trying to take away our mobility.  They do not want us free to move around at will.  Regulations, check points, the extra cost generated by government demands, all go to discourage us from leaving our designated space.  That is why they are working on getting us out of our automobiles.  People are much easier to control and monitor if they are forced to walk or dependent on public transport.  Traffic jams also remove the joy and make a commute to work detrimental to our options.  Add that to making flying so unpleasant that many of us don’t want to do it.

The terrorist have the same goal.  They want us to change our lifestyle and cut out things which make it worth living such as mobility, which gives us a great deal of variety in life.  They want us to change our habits by avoiding places where people congregate.  They want to make us afraid to go to church.  They make shopping malls targets.  They riot in the streets.

One of the questions I keep hearing is, “What can I do about it?”  The frustration is that no one in Washington is listening.  True, but it is not congress that makes you stay at home instead of going to the swap meet.  It is your own fear.  What can we do?  Keep on living our lives.  Terrorists and government elites want to get you to change the way you live your lives.  One of the things you can do is keep living like Americans.

Get out there and celebrate the liberty we have left.

Use it or lose it.

homo unius libri

Opus 2026-063: Forgotten Blessings

We live in a privileged age and a privileged country. We tend to forget that, and many Americans who have never left the country unsupervised have no idea of how good we have it.

I say unsupervised because there are many people who might travel to other parts of the world in carefully sheltered bubbles designed to give them a false impression.  I think back to the journalists who were taken to the Soviet Union in the early days of communism.  They were taken to the Potemkin villages and thought they were seeing the real Russia when all they were seeing was a carefully constructed movie set.  Many of them returned, writing glowing approval of the Soviet system, totally unaware that reality was more displayed in the Gulag Archipelago than it was in the construct they visited.  You get the same effect when you go on a scheduled tour.

And thinking about our blessings, my mind went back to some of the things that stood out to me when I was on a tour of Vietnam.  It’s always strange what you remember.

I think the memory that comes back to be most often is the absence of the smell of diesel fuel.  It was pervasive in Vietnam.  There was a limit to personal cars, but lots of trucks and all of those trucks ran on diesel fuel.  Not having the dubious benefit of the EPA those trucks spewed out lots of fumes and clouds of black smoke.  But that was only part of the problem.  Today when I smell diesel fuel being burnt in a truck, I think of Vietnam, but what that brings back is the memory of using diesel fuel to burn the grass off of the berms around the camp.  The idea was to make it harder for terrorist to sneak up through the grass and take a pot shot at you.  You smelled it in your barracks.  You smelled it on guard duty.  You smelled it walking across the camp.  It was everywhere, but it is not here.

How about displaying your flag because you want to.  Several times I’ve read about how people from other countries are amazed at how many American flags they see flying from front porches, from businesses, even from car windows.  Americans tend to be patriotic, or at least we used to be.  Flag waving was a part of our life.  You could drive down the street on the Fourth of July and know that something was up because every porch would have a flag waving.  That means that overall we are glad to be living in a country where liberty is still in existence in parts of our lives.

I can load my rifle and not get an Article 15.  One of the totally retarded truths of being on guard duty on the outside edge of an American facility in Vietnam was that you were not allowed to load your weapon.  If you were caught with a loaded weapon, you’ll be written up.  Keep in mind this was a war zone.  It was a place full of hostile enemy out to get you.  That didn’t matter.  Some politician, back in Washington DC, surrounded by security who were armed decided that the soldiers in Vietnam should not be able to shoot back.  In Texas we don’t have that problem.

I remember the taste of the soda that we used to buy at the PX.  It had been sitting in the hold of a ship, on the back of a truck, in the hot sun for possibly months.  That brought a certain taste that was not necessarily fresh.  You couldn’t get away from it.  Well, you might’ve gotten away from it if you wanted to go into town and buy something from the black market that have been stolen from the American army.  It might still be somewhat fresh.  It always amazes me that if we couldn’t get a part to get our jeep going from the motor pool, it was available on the streets of the cities.

One of the great blessings we have that we don’t think about is the fact that we do not have a national ID card.  In many countries of the world, you can be stopped at any point and asked to produce your papers. I f you don’t have them with you you are in trouble.  I remember just checking into a hotel in Europe, I had to turn over my passport.  I remember traveling on trains and being asked to show my passport.  This is the normal procedure in much of the world.  Be careful what you wish for.  Now I can put on my pants and shoes, slip some second amendment into my pocket, and walk out the door without my wallet or any kind of identification and take a walk.  It’s called freedom.

This is one of the liberties we take for granted.  It is under attack by the underground fascists who are trying to make America a Gulag.  The problem of illegal aliens is multifaceted.  This is often overlooked.  People are calling for a national ID.  With that will come the habit of government officials stopping us and asking for ID.  So far we have mostly avoided that.

I intend to enjoy it and be grateful for it as long as possible.

homo unius libri

Opus 2025-520: On the Street: Freedom Comes with Four Wheels

I am driving across the metropolitan area of Texas around San Antonio and I am in bumper-to-bumper traffic which is caused by road construction.  Instead of getting frustrated, which would be normal for me, I’ve been thinking about blessings and how God blesses all of us and I’m looking now especially at the blessing we have of the automobile.

When I sit out on the porch in the morning and hear people going to work, I am impressed with all that flexibility that the automobile gives people looking to better their lives.  As I look at the different roads and how they get really congested at certain times, I am glad I live in a world where I don’t have to walk or ride a horse everywhere I go.

We tend to forget the tremendous influence automobiles have on our liberty and our freedom.  We are capable of getting places on bicycles, I guess.  I heard one commenter on a YouTube channel commenting how when he got to where he could not afford a car he was fortunate to be in a place where there was public transit.  He used it while saving up for something better.  Well and good.  I have no problem with that.  That’s probably a good step forward in accumulating wealth.  If you’re in a position where you can have mobility without owning a car, go for it.  But for most of us a car is how we get to shop where we want to shop.  It’s how we get to the church we want to attend.  It’s how we get to vote.  It is an awesome key to flexibility.

Maybe you should build a little icon to Henry Ford.  After you get through thanking God for your automobile, you might think warm thoughts about Henry Ford for the idea that he had that made the automobile affordable for the lower and middle classes.  The elites, the upper class, the one world government people already had cars, and chauffeurs.  Instead of finding ways to pass on such benefits they are working overtime, trying to take away your freedom of movement.  The issues that bring the cost of driving up and drive cars out of the range of people put a sparkle in their eyes.  They love the regulations.  They limit your freedom.  Remember the Cash for Clunkers program?  What it really did was removed the access to inexpensive cars from poor people who could not afford something better.  How many million cars were removed from the market?  How much did the cost of an automobile go up?  How many people are now stranded because they can’t afford it anymore?  That’s all part of the plan from the elite.

Anything that makes it harder for you to afford a car, to pay for the gas you need and to maintain it should be fought with great vigor and enthusiasm.  One of the factors in liberty is mobility.  You hear about voting with your feet?  Well maybe we need to learn to vote with our wheels.

homo unius libri

Opus 2025-326: To be, or not…

America has been, is, and hopefully long will be that great “city on a hill” that Governor John Winthrop  hoped it would be.  I’m not even going go recite that trite mantra about how we aren’t perfect.  Since no one is perfect, that’s just a silly excuse.  It’s an attempt to seem noble to the America haters.

Anyway, you want to slice it America is a shining city on a Hill.  As far as I know, it’s the only country in the world that people are seeking to get to because it’s such a great place to be.  There may be refugees fleeing to other countries because of persecution.  There are armies of Muslim infiltrators flooding into Europe with a desire to destroy it and bring it down.  Those people are after us too.  At the same time, there are those that look at us as the world’s last great hope.  When the communist and socialist try to tell us how wonderful it is in Sweden, they don’t call on Sweden to come and bail them out when things go south.  They look to America.

The stories of immigrants coming wanting to become Americans and live the American dream are numerous and available if you look for them.  Of course, our educational system and government coerced media ignore those stories and emphasize the criminal darkside established and reinforced by the left, but the stories are still there.  The reality is still there.  America is a place where you can come, start with almost nothing, and with hard work find success for you and your children.

You won’t find me out in the street, shouting and waving my flag as I walk back-and-forth.  That’s not how I respond to life.  I could be at a World Series game with the bases loaded and two outs in the bottom of the third with Willie Mays coming to bed, and still sit there calmly, nodding my head and smiling.  That’s who I am.  Outwardly, I am smiling, maybe, but relatively calm.  Inwardly, I am shouting, “Glory.”

I like those buttons that young Christians used to wear that had a group an acronym and what the words meant were “Please be patient. God is not finished with me yet.”  I think we may be need to put one of those buttons on the Statue of Liberty.  I’m sure we need to put those in the hearts of all Americans.

Let’s pray that our best days are still ahead.  Much of that will depend upon us and whether we follow God’s lead toward righteousness, or fall into the trap of materialism.

Let the people shout, “Glory!”

homo unius libri

Opus 2025-325: It’s Party Time

I constantly hear people ranking on the tendency of Americans to take every special day and turn it into a party.  It expresses itself in many ways.

Take for instance, the way in which we have taken sacred moments like memorial day and move them to a Monday.  Why?  Is there some kind of sacredness about Mondays?  No.  Moving the observation to Monday means that we now have a three day weekend in which to party and recover from the party.  Think of all the holidays we celebrate on Monday.  Others I’m sure will eventually be moved if they endure as holidays.  It is part of the evolution of red letter days.

The major exceptions would be the most significant holidays. two of those are celebrations of Christians:  Christmas and Easter.  The other that comes to mind is the Fourth of July.  These all are celebrated with parties, which is a part of the tradition.

I think about the Christmas holidays.  They are days celebrating  what could be interpreted as depressing moments or at least great struggles.  If you’ve ever been around a baby being born, you know that it is not a time to have a party.  I wasn’t partying when my first was born.  All I was doing was having a cup of coffee.  I’m still hearing about my cavalier attitude.  I’ve heard of women who, as they’re approaching the moment of delivery, declare that they are not going to have his baby and they are going to back out of this whole project.  That attitude changes dramatically when the baby is placed in their arms, and from that point on there is great celebration.  Noticed that we don’t celebrate the labor.  We celebrate the delivery.  Great pain becomes a time of celebration.

Or take a look at Easter.  This is the day the Christians celebrate the resurrection of Jesus from the grave.  He went to the grave from the cross.  He went to the cross from a time of great torture.  Then came the breakout.  At first disciples hid in their upper room and cried it out, “Woe is me.”  Eventually the celebration emerged and has endured through this day.  Yes, we commemorate good Friday,  but we celebrate the resurrection.

July 4 is the same way.  The great bloodshed had not been started at that point, but we don’t celebrate those days.  We celebrate the Declaration and recognition of freedom.  It is an American tradition that is rooted in Christian tradition.  We didn’t have pessimistic view, rooted in the fact that we have read the book and we know who wins.

So put on the hotdogs, shoot off the fireworks, enjoy your family and celebrate.  The optimistic expectation of the future is part of the American tradition.

Opus 2025-130: Real Freedom

I came across this first as I was writing on my devotional blog, and had to stop and think twice about the word that I thought said “straighten”.

Proverbs 4:12 (KJV) When thou goest, thy steps shall not be straitened; and when thou runnest, thou shalt not stumble.

But that is not the word being used.  It’s not archaic in itself, but the use here is not how we normally use it.  Think of it as being a part of the word straitjacket instead of “without curves”.  It has the idea of confining us in order to control us.  It has the idea of drawing lines that we had to stay between.  It’s the curbs on the side of the road that keep you from bumping off of your course.

This is not the kind of freedom that wisdom promises.  Go back with me into my memory and what, for you, might be ancient history at the time when Disneyland was first opened.  This was before I and my family started boycotting,Disney, back when Disneyland was still somewhat wholesome.  It had a ride, which they called The Autopia.  They put children in these little go-cart type vehicle’s with a throttle and a steering wheel and set you off down the highway.  In the original version you actually had to steer.  There were curbs on both sides that would keep you from killing yourself, but you could bounce back-and-forth and have a grand time.  As a child this was awesome.  They had people stationed throughout the whole route to come over and lift you off the curb and back onto the road when you got too carried away in your steering.  It was confining, but you still had to steer.

Go forward a few years to when they put in the new version.  I assume the lawyers had gotten involved.  The new version had a track down the middle of the road and the car you were driving had a device that came down and locked over that track.  I remember the last time I went on The Autopia.  I never even bothered to touch the steering wheel because the car steered itself.  It was very safe.  It was very boring.  I never went again.

What God is promising us if we absorb His wisdom and apply His values and principles is the kind of freedom to do our steering and know that our choices are being recognized.  That would be represented by the high curbs on the side, which would keep us from plunging off into an abyss.  It is not the kind of control where we can just take our hands off the wheel, and in total boredom, proceed down the road.  It is a kind of life and freedom that makes each dawning day full of awesome possibilities.

Study God’s wisdom.  Absorb God’s wisdom.  Apply God’s wisdom.  It’s the path to freedom.

homo unius libri

Opus 2025-090: Election 2026: Amendments

It is a real tragedy that we have no process for amending the Declaration of Independence.  We have a method for the Constitution but nothing for this other founding document.  I wish we could go back to Jefferson’s original.

What am I talking about?  I’m talking about how he substituted the “pursuit of happiness” for “property.”  Jefferson was on the right track.  Originally his phrase, as I understand it, was, “life, liberty and property.”  That takes into consideration that one of the great reasons people came to this country was because where they came from everything belong to the king.

This is the norm in history.  If you go back to ancient Egypt, Pharaoh owned all the land, except with the priests claimed.  I was reading on Sarah Hoyts blog recently about how her parents had a deed to the property.  It wasn’t a deed.  It was simply permission from the king to live on it and treat it as their own while he did not actually give up sovereignty over it.  This was normal.  Even if you were a great and powerful Lord, you exercised power over your lands by permission of the king.  If you fell out of favor, he could revoke his grant.  Common people had no hope of actually owning land.  This is just one of the many jewels in America’s crown and the Progressive* elites are trying to destroy it.

I understand in Europe things are getting so expensive that owning a home is a multi-generational project.  We are approaching that here.  The real problem though is not that property is expensive but such things as eminent domain or tax liens.  The government can tax us out of our property or can declare it has a higher use for your property and take it away.  We need to reestablish the importance of private property.

I checked my Communist Manifesto, and I remind you one of the big goals of Marxism, and our Progressive* elites, is to remove the security that property gives individuals and make us dependent upon the state even for place to live.

If we can’t amend the Declaration of Independence, then, perhaps we need an amendment added to the Constitution which guarantees us the right of property.  That might be a good plan for the next election.  Republican Platform Committee, are you listening?

*(Liberals, educators, cultural Marxists, the media, socialists, communists, crony capitalists, fascists (I repeat myself), elites, Rinos, Democrats, leftists, Never Trumpers, Antifa, BLM, MSM, Deep State, etc.  Synonym for swamp dwellers)

homo unius libri

Opus 2025-071: Feudalism II

One of the things that we are seeing in our culture today is an increasing number of organizations that are finding ways around the tax codes.  Churches are obvious as not paying property tax.  I’m guessing that there are many nonprofits that are also included in that kind of loophole.  I know that there are foundations that pay no tax on the money collected.  We have an ever growing number of people lined up at the public trough who live off of government checks and pay no taxes but have the right to vote on raising those taxes.

This follows a parallel pattern from the Middle Ages when the wealthy, the powerful, the religious leaders, and who knows whom else exempted themselves from having to pay taxes.  This put a greater burden on the common people who had no voice and reinforced the power structure.

We are seeing that again today.  There is a multiplying parasite class that sucks the energy out of our economic system while enjoying the benefits.  A large part of this process is making it impossible for working class people to buy property and own homes.  It continues into the push to put us on public transit by making private ownership of automobiles too expensive.  Meanwhile they have chauffeured limousines and private jets.  You need to be disarmed while they pay private security.

Think of the areas of Los Angeles county that were burned off by the fire.  The regulations of California are going to make it almost impossible to rebuild.  Who will step in?  Picture the hills of Altadena, covered with large religious facilities, government buildings, nonprofit headquarters and anybody else who can build without having to pay taxes and find ways around regulations.  They will pay no taxes on the property.  They will probably find ways to avoid taxes on their income.  At the same time, they will be expecting to be taken care of with government services, such as police, fire, and water.

If you are one of the elites that lived in a multi-million dollar home you might be able to go out and pay cash for another one or know the right people to get your mansion rebuilt and include trhe property of a neighbor who lost his because he voted wrong.  The rest of us are expected to live in European style, 15 minute cities where everything you need is less than a 15 minute walk and your cell phone will report you if you go outside your limit.

Peasants, welcome back your feudal lords. They may be a new and improved edition, but they are still feudal lords.  Actually they want you to be serfs, not peasants.  Peasants had some rights.  A few peasants were able to accumulate wealth.  Serfs were bound to the soil and needed a note from their lord if they wanted to go too far from that soil.  Can you say, “15 minute city?”

People came to America to escape oppression and find liberty.  That looks good on a poster and sounds good in a sound bite.  It is even true up to a point.  What that meant was that they could own real estate in this new land.  They could attend the church they wanted in this new land.  They could defend themselves in this new land.  They could travel without a permit in this new land.  They could even wear whatever style and color of garment they could afford.  We have no idea of what it will be like if your overlords resume their positions of power.

Be aware.  Resist the decent into Feudalism.

homo unius libri

Opus 2025-015: Then There Were Nine

It is shocking how many days have become memorials in the past few years.  September 11 was the terrorist attack on America.  October 7 is the terrorist attack on Israel.  January 6 is the Cabal’s attack on all America.  If anything we might want to remember it as Ashli Babbitt Day or the day that the Media removed the sixth commandment from the Decalogue.  

If you are not up on your Biblical scholarship let me remind you that the Sixth Commandment says,

(Exo 20:13 KJV)  Thou shalt not kill.

You should also know that the correct translation has “murder”, not kill.

On January 6 it suddenly became legal and moral to shoot through a door at an unarmed person.  I know that Joe Biden recommended doing it with a shot gun.  If you want a source, check out U.S. News and World Report.  If I had fired through a door at anyone, let alone an unarmed woman who was not threatening me, I would be in jail today, even in Texas.  You don’t do that.  Don’t bother telling Ashli Babbitt’s family that.

So today you might want to commemorate the date by going through all of your Bibles, crossing out Exodus 20:13  and making the Ten Commandments into the Nine Commandments.

homo unius libri

Opus 2025-008: Click Bait: Be Careful What You Wish For

We’re hearing a lot of criticism of the FBI.  I personally feel like most of it is deserved, and the rest probably doesn’t go far enough.  One of the bits of click bait that I just saw, but I’ve chosen to ignore, is something to the effect that the FBI knew about the Louisiana shooter 20 hours before the terrorist attack occurred.  I think the inference was that they should’ve done something about it.

Be careful what you wish for, you might get it.  Do you really want an agency like the FBI to have even more power to look into your personal life and mess with you.  Think of all the abuse we see.  Think of the raid on Mar-a-Lago.  Think of the swat teams that have attacked folks in their homes early in the morning because they offended the Biden ministration.  Think of the blank stares when it comes to Hunter’s laptop or the Epstein guest list.

Giving the FBI more power to snoop and to ignore the due process clause of the constitution is in the same category of having qualifications for the right to vote.  In principle, in the right hands, administered with restraint and good will it might be fine.  Unfortunately, none of those qualifications exist.  Just as the Jim Crow South took the idea of qualifications and begin giving literacy test in Chinese sharecroppers, so the FBI would use their nose under the tent to persecute people protected by the First Amendment.

In fact, if you are into conspiracy theories, a good one to come up with would be that the Cabal controlling the country is planning these attacks on hopes that you will be willing to give up more of your liberty so that they will have more control. After all, don’t we all want to be safe?

homo unius libri

Opus 2024-448: Liberty via Tyranny

My question of the moment is, “Can we reestablish a nation of liberty without imposing tyranny?”

This is a serious question.  We have watched the forces of the cultural Marxist take over all the instruments of public debate, use them to shut down any opposing opinion and brainwash the debaters.  If you’re paying attention, you know what’s going on in our educational system, the media, weaponized government agencies, and so forth.  Of course, if you were one of the brainwashed masses you think that’s the way it supposed to be.  You live in 1984 and enjoy every moment of it.

For those of us who are still a part of the unwashed masses we want to go back to the days when the Bill of Rights was actually believed in and followed.  We want our liberty back.  The washed masses are not going to give it up easily.  Part of that is because they are so mentally modified that they don’t understand what the issues are.  Another part of that is that they are the party of violence, oppression, and narcissism.  They’ve used illegitimate methods to gain control, and they will fight to the death to keep it.  The days of agreed-upon principles are gone.  All you have to do is look at what the president has been doing with the pardons, the spending allocations, and the use of the justice system to dominate, control and stomp down on those who want to live as a free people.

Can we get the reins back without imposing despotic tyranny?  The easiest way of course is to take over and force our agenda.  Use their techniques.  Brainwash right back.  Riot in the streets.  Use fear and force.  The only problem with that is in the long run, it won’t work.  The French revolution tried it, and it led to Napoleon.

Can it be done?  Yes. but it will require something that I’m not sure we still have.  It will demand that each and every person who still has goodwill and understands the Constitution to stand up and be counted on a daily, minute by minute basis.  It means that we never let anything go by without challenging it.  It means being embarrassed, possibly.  It definitely means being inconvenienced.  In time if enough of us stand up, we will gradually shame other people into adopting an attitude of liberty.

It can’t happen without revival.  Pray that God will instill backbone and righteousness in those who are believers and convict those who are not.

homo unius libri

Opus 2024-428: Values

A quote comes to mind from a movie I used to show to the kids at school about the Battle of the Alamo.  It has William Travis, making a statement, “There are many things in life that are worth living for, but they’re only a few that are worth dying for.  Liberty is one of those.”

Our liberty has two foundations.  First come the ideas.  When you read the Declaration of Independence and Constitution you are instructed in some basic concepts.  It is necessary for us to believe in those principles.  The other side of the coin depends on people willing to die for those principles.  While we still have people willing to risk their lives I am not sure that we have leaders that believe in the principles.

Stories like this are valuable because they reinforce in dramatic form ideas we should embrace.  It might be a problem though to be sure that the actual events happened as repeated.  Since no one survived on the Texas side in the Battle of the Alamo, we would have to say that the story and this quote are probably either myth or legend.  That, of course, does not take away from the power or the truth behind the statement.

Take something most people are familiar with, the parable of the prodigal son.  One of the questions I ask when teaching on this parable is, “Is this an event that Jesus knew about or is it a story made up to teach a principle?”  For some people this is an important question.  My position is that a position is irrelevant.  The truth being taught does not depend on whether the events are fact or fiction.  The point is, did you understand the principle being taught?  If Jesus was teaching history then the precision of the details might matter.  Since He was teaching about the love of God the Father there are many things that are irrelevant.  It doesn’t matter the date.  The location is immaterial.  The gender of the child could be changed.  It could be about a prodigal daughter in New York City during the 21st century.  The basic truth would not change.

What are you willing to die for?  Your cat?  Your collection of match books?  Your children?  Those are relatively easy.  What about more abstract things like your freedom of speech?  How would you respond if the marshals showed up and nailed your church doors shut?  How about the government ignoring the third Amendment?  Don’t know what the third Amendment is about?  You are in good company.  It was a problem in 1776.  It may be an issue tomorrow.

After you decide what you would die for it might be a good time to consider if you are living for them now.

homo unius libri

Opus 2024-426: Lessons in History and Current Events

As we watch the regime change in Syria under the onslaught of unhappy citizens I asked myself could it happened here?  We have watched a central government quickly crumble under the attack of several different militia groups.  Is this the kind of thing that the deep state elitists of America are worried about?  Do they really think that this is possible?

Actually, they are trying to make it happen by destroying the liberties that we have guaranteed in the first and second amendment.  They are trying to make us a sectarian, Balkanized conglomeration.  

Take, for instance the first amendment.  Notice the first thing mention there is not freedom of speech or freedom of the press, but the limitation on the government starting a state religion or hindering anybody from practicing freely the religion of their choice.  That’s really what the whole first amendment is about and also the second amendment.  This document was written by people who remember their history and remembered how the government of England tried to control its people by controlling their religion.

Our Founders saw through this and saw that we needed as a group to be able to worship as we chose, not as we were told.  If you look at what’s happening in Syria, you find that one of the major differences in the groups is their religious affiliation.  The deposed dictator, Assad, belong to a minor sect of Islam.  Then you have the Russians, who up until recently were officially atheists.  And you have representatives of Iran, who are Shiite Muslim, and the supporters of Turkey which I assume is Sunni.  The battle may be over political power, but the roots are in their insistence that their form of religion is superior.

Somehow, I don’t see the Baptist and the Methodist going to war over the perseverance of the saints.  I don’t see Pentecostals going after Lutherans because they have a different view of spiritual gifts.  Sure the Anabaptists were once hunted and killed, but not in this country.  One of the side effects of saying the government can’t enforce a specific religion is that it teaches us to allow other people to exercise their beliefs without hindrance.  It makes us a tolerance society in the real meaning of tolerance.  We can be adamant about what we believe.  We cannot force others to believe.  And going along with that is the understanding that we don’t shoot somebody just because they disagree with us.

As I said, the elites are trying to destroy this root value of Americans.  The cabal that runs the Democratic Party and seems to be running the media and all the government agencies is doing everything they can to make Americans hate each other based on such things as race and gender.  It’s called identity politics.  It goes under many names from multiculturalism to DEI.  It says that we’re not all Americans because we don’t all agree with a specific group.  That in itself is un-American.  It is divisive.  It will eventually be murderous.  We see the hostility, growing all around us.

Could we become Syria?  Only if we abandon that phrase that is on our coins and money, “e pluribus unum.”  Only if we start ignoring the other phrase about “In God we trust” and start trusting in our government instead.

It could happen.  I am believing that it won’t.  Each of us makes a contribution.  If you are not ready to love your neighbor you might at least bake them some Christmas cookies.

homo unius libri

Opus 2024-382: Headlines: Cute

Some headlines don’t even raise my eyebrows let alone ruffle my feathers.  The announcement that woke women are going to shave their heads, wear blue bracelets and refrain from sex and having children does not even register on my SHTF meter.  It might even include woke men.  I can’t tell from the photographs that are displayed unsolicited on my screen.  Does this mean that Joe Rogan will have to let his hair grow?

This dynamic statement will make no change in my life.  Even in my bachelor days I would not have been interested in the kind of women who would shave their head because someone in favor of aborting babies did not win an election.  I can say without qualification that I would never have hung around their watering holes be they sleazy bars or swanky parties.  I did my mate locating roving at prayer meetings and Sunday school.

I pledge to attempt to prevent my grandchildren from pointing and laughing if they ever see one of these creatures.  I will attempt it at least once but then I might start pointing and laughing also.

What a world we live in.  I salute their freedom to cut their hair any way they want and wear their choice in jewelry.  I don’t expect them to return the favor because being woke does not work that way.

homo unius libri