Choose to Unleash the Power of the Free Market

OUR PUBLIC SCHOOL SYSTEM IS FAILING AT ITS PRIMARY MISSION BECAUSE TECHNOLOGY IS MAKING IT OBSOLETE.

By Brent Regan

At the end of the last century, something remarkable happened. The internet simultaneously exponentially increased the availability of knowledge and reduced the cost of acquisition to near zero.

Today, most people are cybernetic hybrids or cybrids. They carry with them, at all times, technology that allows them to access virtually all human knowledge, to directly and instantaneously communicate with over 5 billion other cybrids, to navigate to any destination,  to purchase any product, to be entertained, and to create.  Not having the technology in hand causes anxiety and a feeling of being “disconnected.” Loss of the technology causes actual feelings of grief.

Our 17^th century “slips of paper carried on ships” school system was never designed to deal with this technology and the rapid change that comes with it. In many cases the first reaction was to ban technologies’ use in schools; to banish the information of choice and replace it with the information required by the standards.

When you honestly consider the magnitude of the change the information age has wrought the question is not why the public school system is failing; the question is why it hasn’t collapsed completely.

The answer is that people are social animals. We seek interaction with others and desire status among our peers. We are most comfortable doing what others around us are doing. If our peers are attending to the rituals of schooling then we want to addend to them as well.

Online education fails at this aspect, for now. The only technological hurtle is the fidelity of telepresence; the ability to interact with a remote environment. Once the fidelity of telepresence reaches a certain threshold, the technology becomes transparent and the person is “in” the experience. The threshold is different for different people and experiences but even today some gamers become “locked in” the game.

Imagine you are interested in a particular thing and for a small fee can take a class from the world’s expert on that particular thing. Imagine your child taking a class in algebra, not from the local high school but from the best algebra teacher in the country. Imagine a special needs student receiving one on one tutoring in real time and tailored to their specific abilities.

Impossible you say? Okay, now imagine its 1975 and you are telling your friend that in their lifetime every person would have a telephone that could call anyone anywhere, a television with every station, a jukebox with every song, a movie theater with every movie, a navigation system with every map and a “You are Here” arrow, a library with every book, a teletype that is connected directly to everyone, a color camera that takes movies and stills without film, a videophone, the ability to order anything from any store and have it the next day, and a flashlight, and that all these things would fit in your pocket. Oh, and there are no wires. Of course they would say “impossible” and yet, here we are.

“A system of free public schools” does not mean ONLY brick and mortar schools with regimented curricula.  We must realize that our 17^th century school system is just one of many system choices now available.

Our public school system is failing at its primary mission because like Kodak, Sears and other institutions, technology is making it obsolete. Our public schools are designed to create uniformity and sameness but our society now values innovation and creativity.  It’s time to unleash that creativity and allow it to transform education. We need to be smart, willing to explore new systems and new choices. There are small examples all around us and new ones yet undiscovered if we are open to new possibilities. There is not just one answer, but many.

The easiest first step is to simply allow a portion of the money the state spends on a student to follow that student. Let the students, parents, and educators use the free market to explore other systems. Let the goal be excellence and not just compliance to artificial standards.

That magic box in your pocket is proof that free market choice works unbelievably well. Let’s use it.

See:  Idaho Taxation Won’t Fix Education

Red Flag: The Dangerous Urge To Do Something

By: Judge Andrew Napolitano

When the Constitution was written, the idea of owning arms and keeping them in the home was widespread.

The colonists had just defeated the armies of King George III. The colonial weapon of choice was the Kentucky long rifle, while British soldiers used their army-issued version of Brown Bessies. Each rifle had its advantages, but the Kentucky (it was actually a German design, perfected and manufactured in Pennsylvania) was able to strike a British soldier at 200 yards, a startlingly long distance at the time. The Bessies were good for only about 80 yards.

Put aside the advantages we had of the passionate defense of freedom and homeland, to say nothing of superior leadership, it doesn’t take any advanced understanding of mathematics or ballistics to appreciate why we won the Revolution.

It is a matter of historical fact that the colonists won the war largely by superior firepower.

Six years after the war was over, delegates met in Philadelphia in secret and drafted what was to become the Constitution. The document, largely written in James Madison’s hand, was then submitted to Congress and to the states, which began the process of ratification.

By then, Americans had already formed two basic political parties. The Federalists wanted a muscular central government and the Anti-Federalists wanted a loose confederation of states. Yet the memory of a Parliament that behaved as if it could write any law, tax any event and impair any liberty, coupled with the fear that the new government here might drift toward tyranny, gave birth to the first 10 amendments to the Constitution — the Bill of Rights.

The debate over the Bill of Rights was not about rights; that debate had been resolved in 1776 when the Declaration of Independence declared our basic human rights to be inalienable. The Bill of Rights debates were about whether the federal government needed restraints imposed upon it in the Constitution itself.

The Federalists thought the Bill of Rights was superfluous because they argued that no American government would knowingly restrict freedom. The Anti-Federalists thought constitutional restraints were vital to the preservation of personal liberty because no government can be trusted to preserve personal liberty.

Second among the personal liberties preserved in the Bill of Rights from impairment by the government was the right to self-defense. Thomas Jefferson called that the right to self-preservation.

Fast-forward to today, and we see the widespread and decidedly un-American reaction to the tragedies of El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio. Even though both mass murders were animated by hatred and planned by madness, because both were carried out using weapons that look like those issued by the military, Democrats have called for the outright confiscation of these weapons.

Where is the constitutional authority for that? In a word: nowhere.

The government’s job is to preserve personal liberty. Does it do its job when it weakens personal liberty instead? Stated differently, how does confiscating weapons from the law-abiding conceivably reduce their access to madmen? When did madmen begin obeying gun laws?

These arguments against confiscation have largely resonated with Republicans. Yet — because they feel they must do something — they have fallen for the concept of limited confiscation, known by the euphemism of “red flag” laws.

The concept of a “red flag” law — which permits the confiscation of lawfully owned weapons from a person because of what the person might do — violates both the presumption of innocence and the due process requirement of proof of criminal behavior before liberty can be infringed.

The presumption of innocence puts the burden for proving a case on the government. Because the case to be proven — might the gun owner be dangerous? — if proven, will result in the loss of a fundamental liberty, the presumption of innocence also mandates that the case be proven beyond a reasonable doubt.

The Republican proposal lowers the standard of proof to a preponderance of the evidence — “a more likely than not” standard. That was done because it is impossible to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that an event might happen. This is exactly why the might happen standard is unconstitutional and alien to our jurisprudence.

In 2008, Justice Antonin Scalia wrote for the Supreme Court that the right to keep and bear arms in the home is an individual pre-political right. Due process demands that this level of right — we are not talking about the privilege of a driving a car on a government street — can only be taken away after a jury conviction or a guilty plea to a felony.

The “might happen” standard of “red flag” laws violates this basic principle. The same Supreme Court case also reflects the Kentucky long gun lesson. The people are entitled to own and possess the same arms as the government; for the same reason as the colonists did — to fight off tyrants should they seize liberty or property.

If the government can impair Second Amendment-protected liberties on the basis of what a person might do, as opposed to what a person actually did do, to show that it is doing something in response to a public clamor, then no liberty in America is safe.

Which liberty will the government infringe upon next?

Judge Andrew Napolitano

Andrew P. Napolitano [send him mail], a former judge of the Superior Court of New Jersey, is the senior judicial analyst at Fox News Channel. Judge Napolitano has written seven books on the U.S. Constitution. The most recent is Theodore and Woodrow: How Two American Presidents Destroyed Constitutional Freedom. To find out more about Judge Napolitano and to read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit creators.com.

From: tenthamendmentcenter.com

Scientist: Al Gore and Climate Cabal Are Lying About…

 By TNA Video

In this interview with The New American’s Alex Newman, geologist Gregory Wrightstone explains that Al Gore and the climate-change establishment are lying about global warming, sea levels, wildfires, extinctions, carbon dioxide, and so much more. He says CO2 is a “miracle molecule” that is incredibly beneficial to humanity and the planet.

Wrightstone wrote the book INCONVENIENT FACTS: THE SCIENCE THAT AL GORE DOESN’T WANT YOU TO KNOW exposing the fraud. “They are lying to you,” he said. Watch and share!

Published with Permission of TheNewAmerican.com

Millennials Get It Wrong about Socialism

Most Millennials have a positive view of socialism and communism, but they don’t have all the facts.

From: fee.org                                                                                 By Benjamin Powell

Last month’s 100th anniversary of the Russian Revolution is an appropriate occasion to remind us of the human atrocities committed by communist regimes. But we also should take time to reflect on the progress that has occurred since the fall of the Soviet Union and its socialist economic system in 1991.

A recent poll of Millennials found that 51 percent of them identified socialism as their favored socioeconomic system, with an additional 7 percent identifying communism as their favored system. Only 42 percent favored capitalism.

Socialism Kills, Always

A socialist system naturally selects leaders willing to exercise coercion to see that the plans are carried out.

Most Millennials I’ve met—and I meet quite a few as a college professor—are nice enough people. Most have no desire to see their fellow humans suffer. So I’m left to conclude that they have no appreciation for how socialism actually works in the real world.

Socialist regimes—through executions, intentional starvation, and brutal prison-work camps—killed more than 100 million of their own citizens in the 20th century. In places such as Cuba, North Korea, and Venezuela the atrocities continue.

Such atrocities are no accident. The nature of a centrally planned economy reduces humans to labor inputs who must be coerced to perform a part of someone else’s economic plan. If people are permitted to make their own choices, no economic plan is possible. A socialist system naturally selects leaders willing to exercise coercion to see that the plans are carried out.

The economic track record of socialism is as dismal as its human rights record. But we need not direct Millennials to history books to see it. They need only look at what has happened to former socialist countries during their own lifetimes, as these countries have moved away from socialism and towards capitalism.

Economic Freedom Leads to Better Outcomes

The Economic Freedom of the World Annual Report provides the best measure of the degree to which a country is relatively capitalist or socialist. The index relies, of course, on the availability of reliable data. Consequently, socialist regimes, like Cuba and North Korea, are unranked because of the lack of such data. But the index does allow us to assess changes in former socialist countries since they abandoned socialism.

Russia, for example, scored only 4.3 on the index’s 10-point scale in 1995, when it was first ranked. It has since improved its score by 52 percent and now ranks in the top 50 percent of all countries included in the index.

The result of the move toward capitalism has been increased prosperity.

Other former Soviet-bloc countries moved toward capitalism more quickly. In the rankings in 1995, Estonia scored a 6.2 and Latvia a 5.7, ranking 57th and 75th, respectively. Since then, Estonia has moved up in the rankings to 17th place, and Latvia has jumped from 75th-freest economy in the world to 26th.

Outside the former Soviet bloc, China began its move away from socialism in 1978, just before the first Millennials were born. China’s first score was 3.6 in 1980. China has since improved by 76 percent and even this improvement understates China’s reforms as many special enterprise zones within China are much freer than the country as a whole.

But the rankings don’t tell the entire story. The result of the move toward capitalism has been increased prosperity: The people are better off. Average incomes have increased 250 percent in Russia since 1995. In more economically free Latvia and Estonia, incomes are up 487 percent and 461 percent, respectively. And it’s not just the rich getting richer. The percent of the population living on less than $5.50 per day has dropped 23 percent in Russia, 19 percent in Latvia, and 22 percent in Estonia.

The changes in China are even more striking. Average incomes are 12 times greater now than in 1995. More than 90 percent of the population lived on less than $5.50 a day back then; today, only about one-third of the population does.

Millennials could delve into history books to learn about Socialist atrocities. But they could also just look at the facts of the world and see how prosperity has increased as the former socialist countries have begun embracing capitalism. If they’d do either, I doubt you’d find many socialists among them.

Reprinted from the Independent Institute

Benjamin Powell

Benjamin Powell is the Director of the Free Market Institute at Texas Tech University and a Senior Fellow with the Independent Institute. He is a member of the FEE Faculty Network.

Social Justice Education: Creating Little SJW Marxists in the…

By William F. Jasper

Social Justice Education professor admits SJE is “social reproduction theory, developed by Karl Marx.” And communist terrorist Bill Ayers is a leader of “Social Justice Education.”

“What Is Social Justice Education Anyway?” That question forms the title of Professor Crystal Belle’s January 23 article in Education Week, which bills itself as the “American Education News Site of Record.” In her subtitle, Professor Belle declares, “We cannot talk about schools without addressing race, class, gender, ability, sexuality, and politics.”

Welcome to K-12 Social Justice Education, where kids may not learn how to read, write, or think, but after marinating for years in social justice dogma they can be dependably relied upon to act as virtue-signaling, Bernie-supporting, Marxist slogan-spouting Social Justice Warriors. Picture millions of truculent David Hoggs. You know, the belligerent, sanctimonious teen who parlayed his survivor status from the Parkland school shooting to stardom as the Fake News media’s favorite anti-gun activist. But, as the experience of the past three years has shown, the “activism” of these indoctrinated children and youth goes beyond being mouthy, bratty, self-righteous “snowflakes,” who melt into emotive puddles of angst and fear over the “oppression” of our patriarchal, homophobic, transphobic, capitalistic, Christian, intolerant, cisnormative culture. With the help of SJE teachers, these snowflakes can be taught to channel their fears over injustice and oppression into rage. Thus the explosion of crybullies, the activists who switch in an instant from lachrymose victims to club-wielding thugs and issuers of cyber death threats; thus more recruits for Antifa, Indivisible, and the other “Resistance” efforts that are spreading “tolerance” and “civility” by mob violence. Thus are we approaching the frightful precipice over the abyssal bloodshed of a “Cultural Revolution” (see here and here ) that not only is more and more resembling in rhetoric that of Chairman Mao’s genocidal epoch, but is, in fact, more openly adopting his totalitarian methods for enforcing Communist orthodoxy in thought.

“Many people think that social justice education is optional, something cool to do during a special professional-development session,” says Belle. (Emphasis in original.) But according to Belle, it must not be considered optional; it must be considered essential and must permeate everything our children study. The professor’s bio for the article informs us: “Crystal Belle is the director of teacher education at Rutgers University-Newark. She has worked as a teacher, activist, and professor for the past 13 years.”

Marx, Race, Equity, Identity, Intersectionality
“What I am describing here is social reproduction theory, developed by Karl Marx, to illustrate the ways that social inequality is passed on from one generation to the next,” says Belle. “What does this have to do with education?,” she asks. “Well,” she answers, “we must begin to look at education intersectionally. We cannot talk about schools, without addressing race, class, gender, ability, sexuality, and politics, because education is a political act. To ignore intersectionality within schools erases the very identities present in our classrooms and in our respective communities, every day.”

“As the director of a teacher-education program, one of my primary goals upon stepping into this role was building a vision that honors social justice teaching and learning practices,” Belle writes. “In one of my courses on curriculum and instruction, I implore students to look at curriculum as a primary mechanism for making the world a more equitable place.”

Yes, “making the world a more equitable place” through K-12 indoctrination in SJE dogma is all the rage. Even in math and the sciences, not just the humanities. So, it’s not unusual for education journals to publish articles such as the Education Week piece entitled, “To Enliven Lessons, Teachers Bring Social Justice Into Math Classes.”

“From incorporating rap into lessons to using the ‘Hejný method,’ educators are increasingly looking for creative ways to make math more interesting to students and more applicable to ‘real-world’ situations,” the article reports. “One of the latest trends,” we are informed, “is ‘social justice math,’ a teaching style that combines math with political, economic, and social issues as an alternative way to try and involve students by relating materials to their communities and personal lives.”

“The idea of social justice math isn’t new,” the Education Week article states. “The organization Creating Balance in an Unjust World holds an annual conference on math education and social justice that began in 2007. The conference, sponsored by Radical Math, provides training, lesson plans, and resources for social justice math educators covering a wide range of topics and issues.”

Lisa Harrison, an assistant professor at Ohio University, relates her classroom experience of integrating SJE into mathematics for seventh graders in a Middle Grades Review article entitled “Teaching Social Justice Through Mathematics.”

Here are a few other samples in the recent literature:

“Addressing the Intersectional-Identity Phenomenon Through School Counseling”

“Five Steps to Launching a Schoolwide Social Justice Movement”

“Implications of Gender and Racial Intersectionality in the K-8 Classroom”

“A Pedagogy of Social Justice Education: Social Identity Theory, Intersectionality, and Empowerment”

Terrorist Bill Ayers, SJE Guru

Many of the SJE vigilantes who are now overrunning American college and university campuses were incubated in SJE classrooms utilizing programs developed by full-blown Communist terrorists. We’re not kidding — or exaggerating. One of the most influential proponents of Social Justice Education is unrepentant Weather Underground terrorist Bill Ayers, who — along with his wife Bernardine Dohrn, Michael Klonsky, Angela Davis, Tom Hayden, and hundreds of his other 1960s communist comrades — decided to carry on “the revolution” as a cosseted, privileged professor.

You can see terrorist-cum-professor Bill Ayers in the video below gushingly introduced at the University of Oregon as “our honored and influential guest,” for the presentation “Bill Ayers: Teaching And Organizing for Social Justice.”

“How did this happen?” incredulous parents ask. “Where did all of this subversive nonsense come from?”

Well, it didn’t happen overnight. The SJE subversives have been at it for many decades — while America slept in blissful ignorance. Over a decade ago, we warned specifically about the Ayers-Dohrn-Klonsky cabal and the social justice education scheme in a lengthy article that showed Ayers’ close ties and working relationships with the leading lights of the SJE professoriate.

The government schools, from K-12 on through college, are becoming totally saturated with SJE indoctrination. However, even many private schools, Catholic parochial schools, and other Christian schools have become infected by it as well. Michael Rectenwald, a professor of liberal studies at New York University, presents a scorching and highly informative exposé of the phenomenon in his memoir Springtime for Snowflakes: Social Justice and Its Postmodern Parentage.

It is much easier, more sensible, and immensely safer to get your children out of these SJE-infected schools than to try to get the entrenched SJE curriculum and “social justice” teachers out of the classrooms.

Image: benjaminec via iStock / Getty Images Plus

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-Published with Permission of TheNewAmerican.com-

When environmentalism becomes corruption – Part 1

BY CRAIG LIUKKO

All across the United States, private property rights are under assault – assault by state and federal legislators and regulators, environmentalist groups, wealthy liberal foundations, corporations and other special interests, often acting in coordination or collusion with one another. They are seizing or taking control of lands and other valuable property without due process or just compensation, under a host of environmental and other justifications, many of which are fictional at best.

I have personally witnessed attempts to shut down the small mining industry in my state of Colorado. Exploration and development by this industry often results in discoveries of major deposits of minerals that are essential for everything we make, use and do – including medical equipment, cell phones, computers, aircraft, aerospace, automobiles, wind turbines, solar panels, batteries, and modern high-tech weapon and communication systems.

Actions that block mineral development in the United States make us 50-100% dependent on sometimes less than friendly foreign sources, and on mines that are operated using, abusing and under-paying parents and children, often under horrendous health, safety and environmental conditions.

Stories like what my company went through can be found everywhere in the United States now. Worse, they are no longer confined only to businesses that rely on development of our nation’s vast and highly available natural resources – done today with the highest regard for laws, worker safety and the ecology.

My parents co-founded our family’s mining business. In their later years, they suffered incredible, needless physical and financial pain – at the hands of clever crooks who defrauded our company and ideologically corrupt bureaucrats who took advantage of corrupt legal and regulatory systems to devise yet another opportunity to close yet another mining operation.

The Colorado Division of Reclamation, Mining and Safety (DRMS) eagerly supported the crooks in an attempt to steal and destroy our hard work and the investments of 135 mostly senior citizen shareholders in our privately held Colorado corporation. In the process, our corporate and personal names were slandered in local newspapers by false reports from DRMS officials.

Far too many government agencies are corrupted now because they have been largely taken over by radical environmentalists, who know little about mining or society’s crucial need for minerals, who are ideologically opposed to mining and other productive land uses, and whose ideologies too often make them think they are above the law.

Environmentalism has become a new religion, whose extremists will do whatever it takes to fulfill their misguided life missions, to engage in what far too often amounts to injustice and legalized theft.

Worst of all, they have no respect for those who literally stake their time, their fortunes and even their lives mining for metals that make our modern technologies, lives, health and living standards possible. There is little difference between them and other radical religious zealots who cross the line from respectful observance into insanity and acts of depravity. They miss few opportunities to undermine America’s once incredible opportunities under the guise of “saving the planet” – mostly from problems and dangers that have been wildly exaggerated or willfully misrepresented or even concocted.

When we began underground hard rock mining near Silverton in the San Juan Mountains of Colorado in 1980, regulations were comparatively few – but compared to earlier times of few or no rules, mostly sensible and more than ample to ensure human safety and environmental protection.

Dynamite was available at the local hardware store. It was very important for us to protect the environment and operate with the utmost safety. We did exactly that, as we were initially regulated by the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) for the environment and the U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) for safety. In all those years, our company never had a single lost time accident; always took great care to protect the air, water and wildlife habitats; and made sure we never disturbed any more land than was absolutely necessary.

The DRMS began regulating our silver mine several years later. The transition went smoothly for several years, but then silver prices dropped to unsustainable levels. We reclaimed much of the historically mined silver property at our own expense for later use – then raised more capital from family and friends to expand into gold mining in 1988 with the purchase of 370 acres of private mineral property and associated permits. Our new property was surrounded by USFS public land.

A private litigation ensued, which we won handily – even though the DRMS entered the fray in an attempt to use the opportunity to gain more control over our property and mining in general. A concerned Colorado state representative came to our rescue at the time and blocked the DRMS action.

The agency had just become involved in the Summitville open pit mine disaster in the 1990s. The environmental disaster involved extensive pollution of local streams due to leakage of acidic water that contained large quantities of toxic heavy metals originating from decades-old mine tunnels from decades-old mining operations and poorly constructed storage pits associated with more recent open-pit mining.

The DRMS and other agencies should have regulated the operations and pollution much more responsibly from the outset. But they were largely inattentive and negligent. The disaster ultimately cost Colorado and U.S. taxpayers over $150,000,000 – a liability that the agency then capitalized on as an excuse to increase the price for reclamation bonds to unreasonable levels.

It was the first major example in Colorado of environmental activist bureaucrats attempting to regulate an industry in which it actually had no or too few qualifications, and doing so more from a position of opposing activities that they disliked and whose value they did not appreciate.

Fast forward to 2015. The historic San Juan Mining District experienced an even greater disaster: the infamous 2015 Gold King Mine Spill, whose direct cause can be laid squarely on the DRMS, in conjunction with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. DRMS policies for handling earthen plugs in old mine portals had already been evaluated by the United States Geological Survey, which strongly advised against this method of remediating leakage from abandoned mines. The USGS was ignored.

Negative environmental impacts from reopening caved-in portals have been a problem for decades. It should be obvious that plugging a leak or opening while water is still flowing into a mine means it will fill up and spill over. If the water mixes with acid-generating elements underground, it will become acidic. Yet the DRMS signed off on its policies and practices anyway – causing a disaster that even today is costing taxpayers more millions of dollars, with ongoing cleanup costs that will eventually make the Summitville clean-up costs look cheap.

And still, when my company was in court with the DRMS in 2017, its lawyer told the judge and courtroom that the DRMS would undoubtedly need to plug our portals. Some bureaucrats never learn, or will say anything to an uneducated populace to shut down legitimate operators.

In fact, another vast area in the San Juans, once one of the richest underground mining districts in the world, is now off limits to mining – not because of shoddy mining practices, but because incompetent and ideologically driven bureaucrats have been handed the reins to regulate access into oblivion.

Craig Liukko has owned and operated underground mining, mineral processing and manufacturing businesses for over 40 years. He has traveled to many countries in Central America, the Middle East and Africa, helping them create jobs – safely and ecologically.

From: cfact.org                          

When environmentalism becomes corruption – Part 2

By Craig Liukko:

What does this country do for essential everyday minerals, when ideological bureaucrats have closed most mines and declared them “Permanently Closed”? In Colorado, it appears the “solution” is to have thousands of people sitting around idle, smoking pot, because many Colorado legislators and regulators now think the State can be financed for the foreseeable future through sales of cannabis.

Thankfully, Proposition 111 on Colorado’s recent election ballot was struck down. It would have crippled the robust oil and gas industry that makes our comfortable lives in this country the envy of all, by creating thousands of jobs, literally fueling our economy, providing raw materials for plastics and countless other consumer products, and generating billions of dollars in annual government revenues.

The general public is mostly unaware that the DRMS was the Colorado agency responsible for regulating Royal Dutch Shell out of the state after 30 years of highly responsible stewardship and incredible job creation. Shell spent hundreds of millions of dollars successfully developing and testing an extraction method from oil shale – but finally raised its hands in surrender when unrealistic demands by state officials became impossible to meet.

Shell’s in-situ (in-place) process would have caused minimal surface disturbance while making oil economically available from an estimated two trillion barrels of untapped resources in a three-state area. Just that one deposit contains more oil than Saudi Arabia. Much of their equipment is now set up and operating in Jordan in the Middle East, where Shell’s investment may exceed $20 billion dollars. The potential for tens of thousands of high paying jobs in Colorado is gone, thanks to activist bureaucrats.

My personal nearly 40-year involvement in Colorado mining witnessed this invasion of radical environmentalist bureaucrats who would say or do anything to stop mining and oil and gas production that reduces our dependence on foreign natural resources. They refuse to recognize that modern rules, technologies and practices, as well as industry attitudes and ethics, are hugely different from those that prevailed in the past, when they sometimes lead to accidents, mishaps and environmental degradation.

They don’t want mining or drilling done properly and by the book. They don’t want it done at all. And yet they are not about to give up any of the conveniences, transportation, communication, technologies, gadgets or living standards that depend on the metals, minerals and energy that come out of the ground.

These same radicals want to replace free enterprise capitalism (actually, their distorted views of what capitalism is and does) with centrally controlled socialism (and their imaginary world of utopian life happily ever after from that failed system). I’ve been to a number of socialist countries and have nothing but sympathy for their people’s lives in abject poverty, disease, deprivation and misery. How our schools, politicians and news media can teach and laud these destructive ideologies is a mystery to me.

In 2012, my company accepted some outside financing to help develop what appeared to be an incredibly valuable deposit of gold and other metals – one that would have brought tens of millions of dollars in revenues to Colorado state coffers. Over the following months, however, it became apparent that we were involved in a hostile takeover attempt by a sophisticated but crooked New York hedge fund.

As the hedge fund descended into bankruptcy, it hand-picked an equally unscrupulous receiver who took over operations, made false allegations about me and my company after realizing she did not know how to operate a mine – and then called on the Colorado DRMS to investigate us and, in effect, become part of the fund’s and receiver’s takeover operation.

The DRMS issued “cease and desist” orders before gathering relevant facts. It seized private property and buildings. Our high-value assets began disappearing, including valuable and once well-secured core samples that demonstrated the mine’s incredible potential – all under the supposed watch and care of DRMS inspectors and lawyers.

What can only be called a DRMS kangaroo court followed, in which our expert witness was told to sit down and not say another word. Instead of a jury of our peers, the DRMS’ impaneled seven “conservationist jurors,” who passed judgment based on its inspectors’ false reports and testimony – all while feigning transparency and evenhandedness – bureaucratic watchwords that are used to cover their highly deceptive practices.

While we fought this battle in the Colorado Federal Bankruptcy Court, DRMS lawyers refused to hand over subpoenaed documents, offering excuses like “that inspector doesn’t work here anymore.” Requested government emails were lost, unavailable or destroyed, in violation of laws and regulations.

Three years into the sordid affair, the DRMS field office that had handled much of our operation was closed, ending 25 years of operation and leaving its records and personnel unavailable. Inspectors received early retirement packages, while my shareholders, family and I were left gasping for answers and totally uncompensated for our losses.

Remaining DRMS bureaucrats are still assisting a federal agency in disposing of our valuable property, in the hope that it will not be considered for mining ever again. Ironically, the property was previously owned by Union Oil/Molycorp, a company that for decades specialized in rare earth elements. These strategic minerals are found in unique and uncommon settings, like those associated with our deposit. They are essential for defense, aerospace, renewable energy and countless other modern technologies.

As to my company, we did not have the funds or political connections to investigate or prosecute the criminals and bureaucrats who robbed us – with DRMS assistance. The hedge fund fraudsters face multiple counts of criminal fraud in an upcoming trial that will not restore our money, property or rights.

Meanwhile, the DRMS is again walking away unscathed by its glaring incompetence and corruption – with its bureaucrats likely bragging to one another about “mission accomplished” in blocking our mine … while getting nice paychecks, bonuses and pensions in the process.

It appears I have lost that battle. But I am on a new mission now: To highlight the attitudes, ideologies, corruption and outright criminality of too many elitist and self-serving “public servants,” and to restore as many rights to hard-working American individuals as possible.

We need rules to protect environmental values and worker health and safety. But they must be rational and fairly administered – and so that we can meet essential societal and technological needs

Horror stories like ours need to be investigated and brought into the open – and bureaucrats who think they are above the law need to be brought to justice. The arrogance and dominance of our ruling elites explains why President Trump was elected, and why millions of angry “yellow vest” protesters have been railing in the streets of France to block rising energy taxes.

America and American freedom and prosperity were founded on principles of private property rights. Those rights are now under constant assault by increasingly powerful and unaccountable politicians, bureaucrats and activists. If this continues, our nation will cease to exist.

Changing this intolerable, ultimately anti-America situation is the vow I made to my father shortly before he passed away. It’s a vow all Americans should make, if they want to keep this nation a prosperous land of opportunity for citizens and newcomers alike, for this generation and generations to come.

Craig Liukko has owned and operated underground mining, mineral processing and manufacturing businesses for over 40 years. He has traveled to many countries in Central America, the Middle East and Africa, helping them create jobs – safely and ecologically.

From: cfact.org

California Dept. Of Education Wants To Teach Your Kindergartners…

 By Tim Brown 

Apparently, in the land of fruits and nuts, the California Department of Education believes it knows what is best for your children and wants to teach kindergartners that there are at least 15 different genders.  Not only that, but the curriculum being looked at claims that it is an impossibility to know whether a baby is a boy or a girl or something else… forget that 6,000 years of history has taught us “boys have a penis, girls have a vagina.”

Alex Newman from The Freedom Project and The New American was interviewed about California’s plan to indoctrinate young children, and no, parents you can’t opt out of the propaganda that will be fed to your little ones.

Newman reported in April 2018:

In a March 29 memo obtained by FreedomProject Media, Orange County Board of Education General Counsel Ronald Wenkart detailed his legal reasoning. As part of the “California Healthy Youth Act,” government schools are required to provide so-called “Comprehensive Sexuality Education.” One section of the “Education Code,” though, allows parents or guardians to excuse their child from “comprehensive sexual health education and HIV education,” Wenkart wrote.

Unfortunately, there is a giant loophole in the law that still mandates LGBT indoctrination. Another section of the “Code” explains that the exemption does not apply to “instruction, materials, or programming that discusses gender, gender identity, gender expressions, sexual orientation, discrimination, harassment, bullying, intimidation, relationships, or family and does not discuss human reproductive organs and their functions.”

“Therefore,” Wenkart wrote, “parents who disagree with the instructional materials related to gender, gender identity, gender expression and sexual orientation may not excuse their children from this instruction. However, parents are free to advise their children that they disagree with some or all of the information presented in the instructional program and express their views on these subjects to their children.”

So, in short, as long as actual reproduction is not discussed, government schools are free to brainwash children to support homosexuality, transgenderism, and more. Indeed, among other schemes, the California code requires affirmation of homosexuality and gender confusion while prohibiting “outdated gender norms.” In short, biblical morality is now banned at government school.

Carly Hoilman reports on the new developments:

California elementary school students could soon be the targets of progressive sexual indoctrination if new health guidelines are approved.

The guidelines, listed under the California Department of Education’s proposed Health Education Framework, include educational resources that teach children to reject gender stereotypes and embrace a rainbow of possible gender options. One recommended book called “Who Are You?” teaches that there are at least 15 genders, and that it’s impossible to determine whether a baby is a boy, a girl or something else.

Fed Up Parents Organize ‘Sex Ed Sit Out’ to Protest ‘Gender-Bending Propaganda’ Taught in Schools

“Babies can’t talk, so grown-ups make a guess by looking at their bodies,” an excerpt reads.

One chapter in the proposed guidelines offers suggestions on how to explain sexuality with kindergartners.

“Discuss gender with kindergarteners by exploring gender stereotypes and asking open-ended questions, such as what are preferred colors, toys, and activities for boys/girls, and then challenging stereotypes if presented,” chapter three reads. “Throughout this discussion, show images of children around the same age who do not conform to typical gender stereotypes. Examples do not have to be exaggerated or overt. Simple differences, such as colors or toy preferences, can demonstrate acceptance of gender non-conformity.”

Newman goes on to elaborate more:

Then, the teacher should continue to confuse the children. “Throughout this discussion, show images of children around the same age who do not conform to typical gender stereotypes,” the instructions read. “Examples do not have to be exaggerated or overt. Simple differences, such as colors or toy preferences, can demonstrate acceptance of gender non-conformity.”

Of course, preaching this sort of madness to vulnerable and impressionable children captive in a government classroom has devastating effects. As The Newman Report documented last year, a study from the University of California, Los Angeles, found that more than one fourth of children in the state between the ages of 12 and 17 are “gender non-conforming.”

The new proposed guidelines, which are even more extreme than the previous ones, also call for encouraging middle-school students to fornicate with multiple people at the same time. “Some students may be non-monogamous and the term ‘partner(s)’ may be used to be more inclusive,” reads the material, which aims to normalize perversions that would have been unthinkable just a generation ago.

Among the examples offered is “polyamory,” which is defined as “the practice of, desire to, or orientation toward having consensual non-monogamous relationships (i.e. relationships that may include multiple partners).” Another option is “polyfidelity (which involves more than two people being in romantic and/or sexual relationships which is not open to additional partners), amongst many other set-ups.”

What exactly any of this perversion has to do with “health” was not made clear — especially since encouraging this sort of promiscuity and fornication leads to all sorts of venereal diseases, some of which can be deadly. Ironically, some of the sex propaganda is taught under the guise of preventing venereal disease.

On the gender-bending madness, the American College of Pediatricians has said that encouraging children to believe they can change genders by taking hormones and mutilating their genitals is “child abuse.” In other words, these schools are institutionalizing the abuse of children.

That’s exactly right!  And parents that stand for this and willingly submit their little ones to this perversion should be held accountable for child abuse, but they won’t be in a state that sanctions it.

This is just another reason why if you have your children in the public indoctrination centers known as public schools, you should protect them by getting them out and teaching them yourself at home, and you can do so for free by clicking here.  Stop making excuses for turning your children over to the state to become little statists, and start becoming a part of the revolution!

Article posted with permission from Freedom Outpost

In Defense of Western Civilization

By Jeff Lukens

All people may be equal, but all cultures are not. The rise of Western civilization has led to the greatest progress in human history. It has given the world democracy, freedom, affluence, equality before the law, the separation of church and state, and the notion of a sovereign state to protect it all. No other civilization on the globe can make that claim. Western civilization is the most prominent civilization because it is better than the others. Yet this point is lost on many of those among us.

Western civilization is much more than a geographical area. It is more about the idea of inalienable rights and the intrinsic value of the individual. Beginning in about 1600 until about 1970, Western civilization was exported from Europe to the Americas and other parts of the world. The advances in science, manufacturing, and free enterprise were markedly different from those in Asia or Africa. Closing the gap on these differences in recent years is a result of non-developed countries adopting Western practices.

Central to our civilization is the nation-state, which consists of people who inhabit a specified boundary, who rule their own government, and who hold a national identity. Joined with the incentives and liberties of free enterprise, this paradigm has remarkably reduced poverty around the globe to levels never before thought possible. Only the nation-state and its laws can protect citizens’ liberty. In America, this includes all races, religions, education levels, income levels, and political views.

America was founded on an idea, and the idea is liberty. The American Founding created divided representative government that avoids the dangers of autocratic or mob rule. It is based on Judeo-Christian morality derived from respect for the individual. The Constitution provides for limited government based on natural law and respect for property rights.

Today, we are confronted with people who seek the downfall of the nation-state. They seek removal of the borders that protect it. Without borders, the nation falls into anarchy driven by people who would ruin the structure that has brought Western civilization to its current level of prosperity.

Once defenders of free speech, liberals now work to suppress opposing views in education, in entertainment, on the nightly news, in social media, and in academia. They frequently do so by threats and intimidation. The right to bear arms is also under ceaseless pressure from the left who know that an unarmed, submissive public is necessary for top-down state rule. They believe that global government is the solution for what they view as a socially unjust America.

The leftist self-loathing Faustian bargain with radical Islam to defeat conservatism will not end well. Together, these two groups would extinguish the essence of Western life. This would be the suicide of the West. Leftists will do to Western civilization what it has done to the universities, race relations, the arts, religion, and the moral fabric of America. They will destroy it.

No country outside Europe would ever surrender its national sovereignty to the globalists. Yet this is what we are called to do. Europe is floundering with low birth rates and a rising tide of socialism and sharia. It may already be lost to these trends, and we should not follow the Europeans down this hole. There is no substitute for the nation-state today, or for a long time into the future.

Progressives are pursuing a politics of disruption and division with the intent of overturning society. Their politics are modeled on the tactics of Lenin, not on the constitutional foundation of our country. Their goal is to overturn the founding concept of America and Western Civilization with a global socialist state.

Some vague new world order would never be respectful of our sovereignty or responsive to our local needs. It would bring with it socialism and an economic breakdown, with its empty shelves, its lack of services, and the unintended devastation that happens when these leftists gain control of our lives. It would have the same consequences for the West as it did in Soviet-dominated Eastern Europe.

A global bureaucrat in Brussels or Davos cannot be entrusted with permanent power and expected to use it for the common good. It is not in the interest of women, blacks, Hispanics, or anyone else to embrace the privileged who are isolated from those they govern.

It’s no exaggeration to say the left is engaged in an ideological war against traditional America. As a result, a new cold civil war has settled in, where compromise seems impossible. Though many middle-class people may not realize it yet, we are in a titanic struggle to maintain our way of life. Health care, education, retirement, and other areas of American life are being more and more socialized, and the opportunity and freedom we have known may soon be lost.

We live today in an age where people like the idea of having rights as long as they do not have to pay a price for them. When it is time to defend those rights, they frequently run away. As sad as it may be, preserving freedom necessitates continuous confrontation against those who seek to destroy it.

Many conservatives wish to return to the days of civility but more and more find themselves surrounded by those who lack any notion of restraint. When that’s the case, we must toughen up and stand up to this nonsense. Our way of life as Americans depends on it. We must ignore their venom and reassert who we are as a civilization. And be proud of it.

© Jeff Lukens

Published with Permission of renewamerica.com

Tropico 5: The Game That Proves Central Planning Can’t…

Tropico 5: The Game That Proves Central Planning Can’t Work

Tropico demonstrates to us that despite our best intentions, it is hubris to believe we can mold our economy to our wishes through central planning.

By Ong Jia Yi Justin

In Tropico 5, you are El Presidente—the leader of a Caribbean island that is a semi-democratic banana republic. Your primary objective is to preserve your rule by micromanaging your country’s economy to appease your citizens, the Tropicans. If they are dissatisfied with your rule, they can vote you out in the next elections or stage a coup d’état, costing you the game.

First released in 2001, the city-building and management game has sold millions of copies worldwide, and the sixth installment is scheduled for release later in 2019. The game was even banned in Thailand due to concerns it would stir social unrest. In a hilarious response, the game developers included a mission in its DLC (downloadable content) to steal away tourists from Thailand.

Tropico 5 presents an engaging platform for players to craft their socialist paradise and examine the mechanics of socialist economies. Apart from sandy beaches and skyscrapers, Tropico 5’s appeal arises from loading players with a swarm of decisions to make, each with certain trade-offs that must be accounted for. Since most of us formulate our ideals from an armchair perspective, Tropico 5 delivers a much-needed dose of reality and numerous lessons on economics for its players to reflect upon.

Pineapples, Cotton, or Death

The first focus when you start up the Tropico 5 game is managing your agricultural sector. Players must choose between constructing two types of farms. Farms producing food crops for local consumption, such as bananas and pineapples, boost your approval rating but don’t add income to your budget. Conversely, farms growing economic crops such as tobacco and cotton bring a healthy income stream but don’t feed your people.

Some players prefer to amass large sums of wealth in the early game through cotton exports and then focus on food production later, hopefully before too many people starve to death. Other players risk bankruptcy in their attempt to bring their popularity to a safe level by spamming pineapple plantations before transitioning to economic crops later. Either way, you’re stuck between a rock and a hard place.

A Wager on Wages

Wages must also be manually assigned in Tropico. Intuitively, some players inflate wages for jobs such as teachers and scientists, which require a higher level of education.

Buckling down on an education-based wage system causes a mass exodus of workers deserting lower-paying agricultural jobs, threatening your domestic food supply.

However, buckling down on an education-based wage system causes a mass exodus of workers deserting lower-paying agricultural jobs, threatening your domestic food supply. Conversely, if wages for white collar jobs are not high enough, Tropicans will not bother to upgrade their education to take on those jobs, crippling your economic growth and funding for programs such as food and healthcare subsidies to appease your people.

Spontaneous Order

An article written by The Daily Beast sums up my views on the lessons we can take from Tropico:

“The level of micromanagement needed to skillfully run the island is not impossible to acquire, but it becomes clear why no sane country is run this way. There is no mechanism to allow for wages to be set organically and there is too much onus on single individual (El Presidente) to guide the nation. Great for a game, terrible as a template for real life.”

The alternative to all the insane micromanagement of central planning already exists—it’s called the free market.

In a free market, transactions are voluntary, and they produce market prices that guide the decisions of consumers and firms. As economist Alex Tabarrok aptly describes it, prices are “a signal wrapped up in an incentive.” When there is scarcity of food, prices will naturally rise to signal shortages even without the supervision of government bureaucrats. The expectation of larger profits invites firms to build more pineapple farms and raise wages sufficiently for pineapple farmers to attract enough labor. While not foolproof, market prices must remain free so that prices can adjust organically as our economy evolves.

Applying Tropico’s Lessons to the Real World

Unfortunately, many governments worldwide operate as if they are playing Tropico, without a second thought about manipulating the economy through central planning.

In Venezuela, the socialist government’s game of Tropico has failed its people. Despite having the world’s largest oil reserves, Venezuelans struggle desperately for basic amenities and even have to purchase rotten meat in markets to survive.

To support its massive social welfare programs, the government nationalized oil production, and petroleum exports account for 95 percent of the nation’s total exports, making the economy hyper-sensitive to shocks in oil prices. Just like Tropico players who focus too much on banana or cotton plantations, Venezuela was doomed when it funneled all its resources into oil production.

Centrally planned economies typically lack economic diversification since governments actively prioritize certain industries by injecting investment funds and nationalizing companies. Thus, these economies are afflicted with Dutch Disease—an economic term describing a decline in overall market competitiveness due to over-reliance on certain industries.

However, the Venezuelan government still hasn’t finished its game of Tropico. To appease Venezuelans, it raised the minimum wage 34 times from previous levels and imposed strict price controls on essential goods like cooking oil and flour. As a result, the currency became hyper-inflated and worthless, destroying incentives for firms to keep producing essential goods.

Failure to Plan

Some may remark that what happened in Venezuela is merely the product of government corruption, and the solution is more central planning but done better.

Unfortunately, Tropico has demonstrated to us that despite our best intentions, it is hubris to believe we can mold our economy to our wishes through central planning. One must realize that the government is neither omniscient nor omnipotent; it simply cannot define or defy economic realities. As the great economist Milton Friedman once said, “If you put the federal government in charge of the Sahara Desert, in 5 years there’d be a shortage of sand.”

While not foolproof, it is ultimately market prices that have successfully advised millions of businessmen worldwide in creating and delivering products that make our lives meaningful at prices we can afford. Marketplaces are crucial experimental spaces for firms to discover how best to serve their consumers only if prices are liberated from the chokehold of government manipulation.

Perhaps failing to plan is not planning to fail.

Image credit: Tropico

From: fee.org                                           

Saying You’re Against Fascists Doesn’t Excuse Acting Like One

— Published with Permission of FEE.org —

by Jon Miltimore and Tyler Brandt

Despite claims that Antifa fights fascism, the group’s tactics actually mirror those of Benito Mussolini’s regime.

On March 23, 1919, Benito Mussolini, an Italian veteran of the Great War and a publisher of socialist newspapers, created the Fasci di Combattimento (commonly known as the Fascist Party) with the help of a few syndicalist friends.

Nearly one hundred years later, the word fascism remains at the forefront of our political discourse even though fascism is all but dead as a political force, and the word has lost much of its meaning (if not its power).

So why are we still talking about fascists?

The Rise of Antifa

On November 8, the late-night TV host Stephen Colbert took to Twitter to condemn a mob that had attacked the home of Fox News host Tucker Carlson.

“Fighting Tucker Carlson’s ideas is an American right,” Colbert wrote. “Targeting his home and terrorizing his family is an act of monstrous cowardice. Obviously, don’t do this, but also, take no pleasure in it happening. Feeding monsters just makes more monsters.”

The attackers consisted of a group who called themselves Antifa. Few Americans had heard the word “Antifa” prior to 2016. But that’s no longer the case.

In addition to the attack on Carlson’s home, numerous high-profile incidents involving Antifa—the “Battle of Berkeley,” the tragedy in Charlottesville, and a series of street battles in Portland—have thrust the loosely organized political group into the national spotlight. (It’s difficult to miss gangs of black-clad individuals who wear masks, tote weapons, and pick fights with political opponents.)

Antifa, if you have not already guessed, is short for anti-fascism. Conduct a Google search, and you’ll see Antifa oppose fascist ideologies, people, and groups.

This is part of the brilliance of Antifa. Unlike most fringe political groups, Antifa is not named for something. Their name expresses opposition to an ideology, one that is at once vile and nebulous.

We’re All “Fascists” Now

More than seven decades ago, the British writer George Orwell observed that the term fascism had lost any coherent meaning.

“The word Fascism has now no meaning except in so far as it signifies ‘something not desirable,’” Orwell wrote in his essay “Politics and the English Language.”

Because of the ambiguous nature of the word, Antifa and other alt-left groups have been able to brand thinkers as diverse as Charles Murray, Christina Hoff Sommers, Jordan B. Peterson, and Ben Shapiro as “fascist.”

Moreover, by branding themselves as “antifascist,” Antifa inoculate themselves from the criticism that usually is directed toward extremist groups.

Colbert’s condemnation of Antifa’s attack on Tucker Carlson’s home notwithstanding, there has been a cultural reluctance to condemn Antifa’s political violence and tactics.

In 2017, following the tragic events in Charlottesville, which involved a showdown between white supremacists and Antifa members, former Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney said it was wrong to equate fascists and anti-fascists.

“No, not the same,” Romney tweeted. “One side is racist, bigoted, Nazi. The other opposes racism and bigotry. Morally different universes.”

Fascists and Antifa: Not as Different as You Think
Romney expressed a common belief, but Antifa is hardly the polar opposite of fascism. An examination of Antifa and the fascists of the 1920s and 1930s reveals striking similarities.

Many historians and political writers describe fascism as a right-wing movement, and the claim has an element of truth to it. When Mussolini and his syndicalist friends created the Fasci di Combattimento, it’s true they embraced Italian nationalism. Yet the party also called for the seizure of church lands, the confiscation of finance capital, and the abolition of the Italian monarchy and Senate.

In fact, Mussolini was an ardent Marxist for years. The son of a socialist-anarchist craftsman, he was well-versed in the works of Karl Marx, whom he praised as “a magnificent philosopher of working-class violence.” The extent to which Mussolini’s fascists simply copied their socialist predecessors has often been overlooked.

In his magnum opus Modern Times, the historian Paul Johnson explains that Mussolini was highly influenced by Kurt Eisner, who was cited several times in Mussolini’s fascist programme. Eisner’s “Bavarian fighting squads,” which inspired Mussolini’s Fasci di Combattimento, were themselves inspired by Lenin’s “men in black leather jerkins,” Johnson points out. Mussolini’s use of the term “vanguard minorities” to describe the shock troops of his revolution was almost certainly inspired by Lenin’s “vanguard fighters” (a term Lenin first used in 1903).

Communists and fascists of the 1920s and 1930s were unified by one thing above all else: their willingness to use political violence to achieve political goals. Mussolini, like Lenin, had no qualms about using violence in his effort to “make history, not endure it” (a Marx quote Mussolini was fond of employing).

The Perils of a Philosophy of Violence

The use of violence to attain political goals is a stance Antifa similarly embraces.

Antifa openly advocates and employs violence and intimidation. Like Mussolini’s “vanguard minorities,” they dress in black garb (though Antifa members often also cover their faces) and use intimidation and violence to prevent political opponents from assembling. These tactics include launching feces at law enforcement and using bricks, bats, chains, and knives in their street wars.

The methods are ostensibly reserved for fascists, yet so many have shown a willingness to overlook the fact that Antifa is employing fascist tactics. Antifa is given a pass because labeling the other side as “fascist” automatically makes them “good,” for they are the ones fighting against fascism. It’s a brilliant rhetorical trick. As Chris Cuomo said in defense of Antifa on a carefully-worded CNN segment in August, “fighting against hate matters.”

In a moral universe where the ends justify the means, using fascist tactics to fight fascists (or people deemed fascists) is entirely proper. The dangers of embracing the philosophy of violence, however, are severe. For as Solzhenitsyn observed, the first casualty of violence is the truth.

“Violence does not live alone and is not capable of living alone: it is necessarily interwoven with falsehood,” the Russian writer observed prior to his exile from the Soviet Union. “Any man who has once acclaimed violence as his method must inexorably choose falsehood as his principle.”

Solzhenitsyn’s point is one Antifa should seriously consider. If they do not, and they persist in their defense and employment of violence as a means to their political ends, Antifa will continue to be “interwoven with falsehood.” Their grandiose aims will prove as empty and sterile as those of the Jacobins and Bolsheviks who preceded them.

In our next piece on the rise of Antifa, we will explore the root of their philosophy and examine precisely why they think it’s justifiable to use fascist techniques in the name of fighting fascism.

UN Boss: Use “Climate Action” to “Transform World”

In fact, the man-made global-warming theorists in attendance at the UN summit here are working to exploit alarmism over the “climate” to restructure every aspect of human life. This includes the economy, industry, governance, and even your thinking, Guterres declared. The sought-after global transformation will also involve more government promotion of feminism, planetary taxes on emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2), a total transformation of governance, and so much more, explained Guterres, a longtime socialist leader who led the Socialist International before becoming UN boss.