RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://spectatorworld.com/topic/americas-current-malaise-biden/

The word malaise, a general feeling of uneasiness whose exact cause is difficult to identify, is creeping into discussions. It’s a politically loaded word, following its use by President Jimmy Carter in 1979 to describe the country he could not figure out to how lead.

Carter’s specific use of the term focused on the energy crisis, when OPEC monkeyed with America’s oil supply. But Carter saw that something much deeper was wrong. There wasn’t just an oil shortage to manage, but a recession of hope, a crisis of confidence that someone would have to lead America out of. He perceived that we were tired, worn down, unable to come together in common purpose and fix something.

It would be interesting to hear what Carter thinks about 2021, when things once again don’t work well. Flights don’t fly. Inflation has returned. Gas is expensive. Supply chain problems mean Americans for the first time since World War Two are rationing and getting used to hearing ‘we don’t have any and aren’t sure when we will’. Unemployment plagues us as COVID tore the wool off of many Americans’ eyes about how little meaningless jobs for sub-living wages contributed to their piggy banks or their sense of self-worth. Nurses who were last year’s heroes for working unvaccinated are fired today for being unvaccinated.

There appears no end to COVID. The promised conclusion, the vaccine, proved as rich a lie as two weeks to flatten the curve. Even fully vaccinated people are prisoners to restrictions and mandates that often make no sense, or at the very least vary so much from state to state as to challenge their usefulness. There is little faith that the economic devastation caused by mismanaged restrictions will ever be addressed; the poor will just get poorer. There is a declining sense that COVID is a problem that can be managed as it has been in much of the world (see Europe, especially Scandinavia). The conclusion is that no one is really in charge.

https://amgreatness.com/2021/10/13/the-new-gender-religion-tricks-liberals-into-betraying-children/

Since sexual reproduction first appeared on planet Earth some 1.2 billion years ago, sex has been determined—not assigned—based on compatibility for reproduction. That 1.2-billion year streak will soon end at a school-board meeting near you. If you attend, bow in silence: you’ll be entering the temple of a new religion—albeit a temple with fluorescent lights and folding chairs, where establishment shamans hand down the new laws of nature with absolutely no consultation with nature. The calendar on the wall will display the year zero.

The new gospel requires school staff to say “she” even when they mean “he.” It lets boys play on girls’ sports teams and compete against other girls. It lets boys into girls’ locker rooms to change for swim class. Gender may be “reassigned.” Biological sex dissolves. Everything that once reflected sex is now said to reflect gender. “Transitioning” is this religion’s central sacrament.

How do gender priests transform the bread and wine of contradiction into undeniable truths? How do they claim to know that your children should be bound by their shocking new laws? Is it biology? Liberal ideals? Divine revelation?

No. Gender priests claim to find their new religion in the mysteries of language itself. In other words, word games. We should no sooner listen to a gender priest inspired by word games than to a medicine man inspired by astrology.

A sick establishment uses word games to force society to accept contradictions. That isn’t the theory of some Christian zealot or Reaganite culture warrior. It’s the theory of Herbert Marcuse, the late founder of the New Left. His 1964 classic One Dimensional Man inaugurated a critical theory still used by Marxists today—and gender religion would be far too much, even for a liberal like him. 

The new gender religion is, in fact, a triumph of what Marcuse most despised—a bad kind of thinking he ironically called “positive thought.” Positive thought leads to a kind of word gaming called “positive language.”

https://amgreatness.com/2021/10/13/is-america-becoming-rome-versus-byzantium/

In A.D. 286 the Roman emperor Diocletian split in half the huge Roman Empire administratively—and peacefully—under the control of two emperors. 

A Western empire included much of modern-day Western Europe and northwest Africa. The Eastern half controlled Eastern Europe, and parts of Asia, and northeastern Africa. 

By 330 the Emperor Constantine institutionalized that split by moving the empire’s capital from Rome to his new imperial city of Constantinople, founded on the site of the old Greek polis of Byzantium. 

The two administrative halves of the once huge empire continued to drift apart. Soon there arose two increasingly different, though still kindred versions of a once unified Romanity. 

The Western empire eventually collapsed into chaos by the latter 5th century A.D..

Yet the Roman eastern half survived for nearly a thousand years. It was soon known as the Byzantine Empire, until overwhelmed by the Ottoman Turks in 1453 A.D..  

Historians still disagree over why the East endured while the West crumbled. And they cite the various roles of differing geography, border challenges, tribal enemies, and internal challenges. 

We moderns certainly have developed unfair stereotypes of a supposedly decadent late imperial Rome of Hollywood sensationalism that deserved its end. And we likewise mistakenly typecast a rigid, ultra-orthodox bureaucratic “Byzantine” alternative that supposedly grew more reactionary to survive in a rough neighborhood. 

Yet in both cases, separate geography multiplied the growing differences between a Greek-speaking, Orthodox Christian, and older civilization in the east, versus a more or less polyglot and often fractious Christianity in the Latin West. 

Byzantium held firm against ancient neighboring Persian, Middle Eastern, and Egyptian rivals. But the West disintegrated into a tribal amalgam of its own former peoples.  

Unlike the West, the glue that held the East together against centuries of foreign enemies, was the revered idea of an ancient and uncompromising Hellenism—the preservation of a common, holistic Greek language, religion, culture, and history.   

By A.D. 600, at a time when the West had long ago fragmented into tribes and proto-European kingdoms, the jewel at Constantinople was the nerve center of the most impressive civilization in the world, stretching from the Eastern Asia Minor to southern Italy. 

There is now much talk of a new American red state/blue state split—and even wild threats of another Civil War. Certainly, millions of Americans yearly self-select, disengage from their political opposites, and make moves based on diverging ideology, culture, politics, religiosity or lack of it, and differing views of the American past. 

More conservative traditionalists head for the interior between the coasts, where there is usually smaller government, fewer taxes, more religiosity, and unapologetic traditionalists. 

https://asiatimes.com/2021/10/gobbling-chinas-exports-us-sinks-into-dependency/

China’s exports rose 28% in September from the year-earlier level, more than the analyst consensus had forecast. More important is that China’s exports to the United States have risen by 31% since January 2018, when President Trump imposed tariffs on a wide range of US imports from China. At a seasonally adjusted annual rate, the US is buying $635 billion of Chinese goods, equal to a staggering 27% of US manufacturing Gross Domestic Product.

During the same period, China’s exports to South Korea rose by 50%, to Taiwan by 60%, and to Germany by 61%, but China imports almost as much from these three countries.

Demand for Chinese goods after the pandemic disruption has strained China’s production capacity, contributing to a power shortage that is now forcing cutbacks in key industries, including computer chips.

https://justthenews.com/politics-policy/energy/tugas-prices-seven-year-high-and-rising-biden-offensive-against-domestic-oil

“Average gas price: June 2020: $2.21 June 2021: $3.07 President Biden’s economy!” Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) tweeted during the summer. 

“You forgot to mention that gas prices are the same now as they were in June 2018,” White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki fired back. “Or that this time last year unemployment was 11.1% — today it’s 5.8%. @POTUS agrees families shouldn’t pay more at the pump — that’s why he’s opposed to GOP proposals to raise the gas tax.”

Yet, the Democrats’ $3.5 trillion budget reconciliation bill reportedly includes an estimated $6 billion worth of charges on U.S. oil and gas operators on federal lands, which could effectively put mom and pop small business, and minority and Native-owned operations out of business, in addition to killing tens of thousands of jobs.   

There isn’t enough oil and gas supply to meet U.S. demand, due to a combination of factors, including the Biden administration halting new leases on federal land, halting the Keystone Pipeline, increasing regulatory burdens, and other measures that will take years to correct, those in the industry argue.

In one of his first acts in office, President Joe Biden, through executive order, halted the issuance of new oil and gas leases on federal lands, effectively stopping much production for existing operations. He also eliminated low-cost Canadian crude from being processed by mid-continent and Gulf Coast and U.S. refiners by prohibiting the Keystone pipeline from opening. 

If Biden had not severely hampered domestic production, the U.S. would have an ample supply of oil and gas and commensurately lower costs at the pump, industry experts argue. 

The $6 billion in additional costs imposed on the industry included in the budget reconciliation bill include new methane fees, inspection fees, severance fees, and bonding requirements, as well as additional requirements for operating on federal lands.

https://dailypatriotreport.com/tulsi-gabbard-americans-are-being-lied-to-by-the-biden-administration/

On Saturday, former presidential candidate and Rep. Tulsi Gabbard appeared on Fox News and told viewers that the Biden Administration is straight up lying to the American people about the border crisis and Afghanistan withdrawal.

Gabbard explained, “The faith and trust that the American people need to have in our leaders is dropping every day. The Department of Homeland Security Secretary recently told Congress our borders are secure. This is what he said, this kind of bald-faced lie, whether it has to do with domestic issues or foreign policy issues. We’ve seen this with Afghanistan and the tragically botched withdrawal of our troops and Americans out of Afghanistan. When people are being lied to, the American people are being lied to, it is revealing of the arrogance and the self-serving nature of leaders who are in power in this country.”

She added, “The disrespect that they have for the American people, and it’s why people are losing faith and trust in those leaders. If we have leaders who respect the people, then the people will respect our leaders. If we have leaders who trust the American people, we will trust our leaders. And that’s the problem here is we don’t have leaders who have that trust and respect and who therefore put themselves ahead of the interests of the people.”

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/10/de-nihil-lloyd-billingsley/

“The hatred and resentment of Trump is so deep,” Freedom Center Shillman Fellow Bruce Thornton recently noted, “that we now have a ruling party whose main principle is to do the opposite of whatever Trump did no matter how much it benefited the country.” That statement is freighted with meaning and based on considerable evidence.

President Trump withdrew from the Paris Accords, which gives a pass to major polluters China and India. The Biden Junta, what the late Angelo Codevilla called an oligarchy, rejoined the agreement, promising billions of dollars that will wind up enriching “energy grifters.” For all the spending, the United States gets essentially nothing.

President Trump achieved energy independence for America, reducing the cost of energy in particular and the cost of living in general. By freeing the nation from dependence on oil-rich hostile regimes, Trump also boosted America’s national security in a dangerous world.

Joe Biden, who likes to rule by diktat, canceled the Keystone X pipeline, banned fracking and called off oil and gas leases on public lands. This sent the price of gasoline skyrocketing, a severe blow to working Americans but a windfall for OPEC, where Biden showed up with his begging bowl. Thornton was correct that “our economy and our geopolitical clout have been damaged.”

While under fire from the Russia and Ukraine hoaxes, Trump began construction of a border wall. He also halted ridiculous “catch and release” policies, and tasked ICE to remove dangerous criminal illegals from the United States.

The Biden Junta not only stopped construction of the wall but gave the border an existential problem. Thousands of “migrants” from all over the world are now streaming into to the USA, with no check for COVID or other diseases, and exempt from the rules that now restrict legitimate citizens and legal immigrants. The Biden Junta vilifies the Border Patrol and welcomes the invaders. Many get shipped to other parts of the nation with no accountability to Congress or the people.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/10/fbi-raids-home-nypd-sergeants-union-head-who-robert-spencer/

As Matt Margolis noted in July, the FBI is “corrupt and needs reform.” This reform became all the more urgent last week, when it was revealed that the feds were far more deeply involved in the January 6 insurrection-that-wasn’t-an-insurrection at the Capitol than had been previously known. But instead of moving to restore its shattered reputation and proving it hasn’t become little more than the far-Left’s muscle, the FBI on Tuesday raided the home of Sergeants Benevolent Association (SBA) President Ed Mullins, a Trump supporter and outspoken critic of New York Mayor Bill de Blasio.

According to the New York Daily News, the raid “also targeted the police union’s Lower Manhattan headquarters.” The FBI confirmed that it was “carrying out a law enforcement action in connection with an ongoing investigation” into the 13,000-member SBA. Said de Blasio: “All I have been told is the FBI has raided the SBA HQ and it’s in connection with an ongoing investigation, but we don’t have further details on that at this moment.”

The mayor couldn’t resist, however, kicking Mullins while he was down: “A lot of what he’s done has been really, really destructive — especially in the middle of a crisis where we’re trying to unify and we’re trying to get through together. I think he’s been a divisive voice. … All I hear is the FBI raid. I want to hear the details before I comment further.”

Mullins aroused de Blasio’s ire when he posted the arrest report of Chiara de Blasio, the mayor’s daughter, on Twitter; Chiara de Blasio was arrested in May 2020 during the George Floyd riots in Manhattan. According to the Daily News, Mullins was accused of “violating department rules” in disclosing Chiara’s private information, while his lawyer, Andrew Quinn, noted that the report had already been publicized and stated: “We see this case an attempt to chill Ed Mullins’s First Amendment rights.”

Amid the controversy, Mullins “vowed to continue speaking out whenever he believes cops are vilified or mistreated” and declared: “De Blasio’s City Hall has been at war with cops since his first days in office. Charges against union activism that City Hall doesn’t like — speaking truth to those who claim power — is sadly what we’ve come to expect from this administration.”

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2021/10/refutation_of_the_1619_project_is_right_there_in_the_creation_of_the_continental_congress.html

By accident, looking for something else, I stumbled on a provision in the 1774 Association Test, or, as it is known, The Articles of Association adopted by the first Continental Congress.

Most importantly for the contemporary accusations that the United States was founded in an original sin of slavery, the second article of the 1774 Association Test reads:

2. We will neither import nor purchase, any slave imported after the first day of December next; after which time, we will wholly discontinue the slave trade, and will neither be concerned in it ourselves, nor will we hire our vessels, nor sell our commodities or manufactures to those who are concerned in it.

I had never heard of this provision before.

So, in one of the first collective acts of the political communities which would become the United States of America, there was a commitment to end slavery.