Chapter One

Feeling “A Grief Felt”

My copies of my second book arrived late yesterday. I hauled the boxes upstairs and went for a kayak paddle close to sundown.  Late in the evening I got around to looking at the finished product.  Needed to read it to feel it.

So, I sat down and read my book, A Grief Felt, until 0130.  Got up at dawn and read to the end.  Emotionally and mentally intense time.

Not like, I haven’t read it a bezillion times in the past 4 months of final, excruciating editing.  Yet, I read it again because I have the tactile and optical experience of going page by page through the book.  Good news to report.  The book works.  The words fit.  The ideas flow.

I didn’t find any horrific errors, discontinuities of thought, or embarrassingly bad prose.  No “faux pas.”

Now, many readers would hate my book for many different reasons, if they actually read it.  I have no issue with that.  Don’t care.

I’m satisfied and pleased that my intent came through as I intended.  At least it did to me.

That’s not always the case.  Many times I read stuff I’ve written over the years and I barely recall writing it.  The prose seems new to me.  Sometimes, I think “Good stuff!”  “Oh, I wrote that!”  And, sometimes I wonder what moron wrote this drivel and wrote it so badly.  “Oh, I wrote that.  Ugh!”

Reading my own writing is such a voyage of discovery for me.  I read it critically, like it came from someone who needs severe editing.   Because, again, it really does seem new to me.  That isn’t dementia speaking.  That’s the distinction that when I write, I don’t agonize.  Agony comes with editing.  I just write.  I do words.

Seriously, the words just pop in my head.  It’s almost like taking dictation many times.  The words just flow forth.  Sometimes it’s a crystal stream of sweet clarity.  Sometimes its murky, smelly effluence.  Never know, until later.  Until, the words are out there.

Now, they are out there for “A Grief Felt.”  Finis.

I’ll learn from the feedback I get.  Look forward to constructive criticism.  I expect rejection from those dismissive of the ideas driving my writing.

Gotta get some copies in the mail to those who helped me.

Here is the book:             https://guidinglightbooks.com/product/a-grief-felt/

Gotta get on with “On the Far Frontier: First Post.”

            “The Speed of Light is an absolute limit throughout the Universe!” Cale daydreamed about his favorite rant from the Academy. The oddest professor there made the most profound effect. “No one can go faster than light. Ever,”

Cale’s seat belt tugged tightly. The braking from Mach 2 on the land rail started a very long way from the Fort Hope terminus. Fort Hope was the furthest point out on the far frontier of the Other* continent. Alien Country! And I’m posted here to fight’em. His heart pounded. Cale saw the uneven line of the Great Escarpment stretch across the whole horizon for the first time. The Escarpment is so huge! Nothing beats seeing it for real. Praise the Parent Pilots! Awesome.

            Cale looked across the open, flat, nothingness for wrecks of the great space ships, the Arks of the ancestor Pilots who brought all life and people to this planet. Cale smiled recalling Professor Bunt. J.’s theatrics, “The limits imposed by the speed of light shape everything on this frontier planet except one thing and one thing alone!” My first duty post. A bachelor living on this piece of frontier with the POTWAYs*. What a weirdo cult.

            “And what would that one thing be?” Professor Bunt. J. craned his neck like a vulture looking for a victim. “Mister Smit. C., yes, you Mister Smit. C., what would be the one thing that the speed of light does not dictate on this furthest forward planet of the Great Galactic Order?” …

More to follow.  Thank You, Lord.

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Not even half way through 2020. More to come.

What to Make of It All

Folly of humans has frightful consequences

2020 reminds me of 1968. That year was described as “A crack in time” when the tectonic plates of history shifted, the human earthquakes shook, and nothing was ever quite the same. Well, it seems not quite the same in the lifespan of people living through that time.  But, later it’s seen as very much the same in the long, long, generation upon generation view of people just being people.  That long view is called history. The exposition and explanation of immutable human nature is found in the Holy Bible.   Meanwhile, in this moment of time we consider what to make of it all.

1968. Seems like everything is coming apart. But, it doesn’t.

Tet Offensive in Vietnam. 300 KIA @ week. Walter Cronkite surrenders. President Johnson quits. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy are assassinated. Race riots and looting. Anti-war protests and violence. Black power salutes at the Olympics. Worldwide student protests. Prague Spring followed by Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia. Police riots at Chicago Democrat Convention. George Wallace wins 5 states. Nixon elected. Apollo 8 circles the Moon. And, much more.

Personally, I stepped off the side of the earth by going to West Point on July 1^st, 1968.

2020. Seems like everything is coming apart. This time it may come apart enough to be truly dangerous to the Republic. Yet, it’s so avoidable.

The problem is the Left. The Left was a problem in 1968. Today, the Left is stronger in the US, even after the Cold War defeat of the USSR, than ever. The Left exploits the naturally-occurring problems of humanity. The hysteria hyped by the Left heads to every excess they’ve committed since the French Revolution. Same ideas. Same words.

Leads to the same bloody, terrible outcomes. The Terror, 1848 Revolts, 1870 Paris Commune, followed by the mega-million murders of Lenin, Stalin, Spanish Civil War, Hitler, Mao, Castro, Ho Chi Minh, Kim Il Sung, and Pol Pot. Concentration camps and the Gulag. Re-education and self-abasement. Fear. Persecution. It’s what the Left does. It’s who they are – Human Secularist Totalitarians.  Even when they call themselves Democrats or Progressives, they are, or serve as “useful fools”, the same Totalitarianism.

Frankly, I am amazed at the Left in America.  Even more than I was after 9-11 about the degree of nation-wide ignorance, stupidity, and foolishness about Islamist Totalitarianism.

Their utter ignorance – meaning a lack of knowledge, no matter how many degrees they have, makes them:

Profoundly stupid – meaning a lack of ordinary quickness of mind about everything from economics to ecology, history to happiness, a to z, makes them:

Complete fools – meaning a lack of judgment on all things, a to z, inevitably makes them:

Domestic enemies of the 1787 U.S. Constitution – meaning they destroy the Rule of Law from cheating in elections to twisting every institution and thing they control to Orwellian-heights of totalitarianism and suppression of individual rights.

Make a list of wrongs from 2020 alone. We have to stop the Left. Then, crush them.

It’s a time to rise to the occasion.   It’s a time to live with courage. It’s a time to trust in faith. It’s a time to love, love, love.

Isn’t it that ‘time’ always? Yes. But, more so in this fleeting moment.

Your involvement – personal engagement – is called today, because of the consequences coming tomorrow. If you don’t do think, say, and do what is right, much wrong will visit everyone and everything you hold dear. And, yes, what every individual American does – matters.

Get in the fight. Start with speaking boldly.  Words are weapons.  Talk to your family, friends, neighbors, co-workers, church family, and communities.  Understand that emotions make people deaf and blind. Yet, good words must be spoken in lovingkindness to the fury of emotional irrationality.

The Left is wrong about everything. Actually, their hearts may incline to fix hurts, but their heads are empty. Their ideas and words allow evil to assert itself. Then, more evil things happen. That’s what could make 2020 far worse than 1968.

I’m at the end of life and in charge of nothing. I look at my grandchildren and see their innocence. They may have to fight as two of the eight generations of Bowden to me have. Fight in our country for our freedom here in America. We are 1:1 on wars here. I hate to think about them suffering such warfare. I hate thinking them slaves to the Left more.

Oh Lord, I wish I was 30 years younger to be in this fight for 30 more years – and win.

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First the flag. Now, the monuments. Next, the graves. Then, free speech in their memory. Cultural Cleansing all things Confederate.  Cultural Marxism at work.

Their Lives Don’t Matter

The Left Hates Confederates Like NAZIs Hated Jews

      She was named “Robert” for her uncle killed at Seven Pines. He died a young man with no wife or heirs. His wounded brother was in the same hospital he died in. Another brother fought in the last year when he was 15 or 16. Her father’s regiment had over 35 combats – one of the highest in the war. They lost a third of their men at Gettysburg.

Her earliest memory was age 3 when she was lowered in a bucket into a well. She was terrified of the spider webs. If she fell out of the bucket, she would die. But, her mother made her do it to put silverware wrapped in an oilcloth on a ledge down in the well. They had to hide the silver because the Yankee soldiers were coming. Yankees stole everything they could. The handful of silver was the only wealth they had, other than their land, because all their money was in Confederate War Bonds.

Her Confederate soldier father walked the 190 miles home after the surrender at Greensboro. She didn’t recognize him and thought he was a “negro” man because he was so dark from living outdoors for 3 years.

He and his brothers were devout Methodists. They thought slavery was a sin against God. As loyal citizens to the 1787 U.S. Constitution their first loyalty was to their state. They defended their sovereign state from the invading Army.

She named two of her sons – Robert Lee and Thomas Jackson.

(Great-Grandmother Holland)

She was eight years old when the Yankees came looking for her brother. He was a Partisan Ranger who shot the invaders by himself in the countryside he knew so well. The Yankees shot a percussion cap pistol by her ear to scare her into talking. She didn’t tell. She was deaf in that ear for the rest of her life. The Yankees killed all the animals, including her pets, they didn’t steal and burned their barn.

A brother walked 285 miles from Vicksburg in the winter through occupied territory to come home on furlough. He caught pneumonia and died at home.

She reconciled herself to Yankee War Crimes and celebrated American victories in WW II before her death. Her many grandsons served bravely.

(Great-Grandmother Maley)

She was a young women when her husband was killed at Atlanta. An old, free Black man drove her in a wagon to go fetch his body. He went, at great personal risk of being “confiscated” by the Yankees, for over 150 miles through the lines.

For years, she plowed the fields by herself to feed her family.

(Great-Great Grandmother League)

He was a boy in the War. All of his kin of age served. One close relative lost an arm.  He would spend his life in poverty.  So would his children.   His grandchildren would be born in material poverty. Almost everything of value the Yankees didn’t destroy or steal during the War was taken during the Occupation by the Yankee Army, Carpetbaggers or Scalawags. Widows and wounded men were quick to lose their farms.

For three generations there were more White sharecroppers than Black across the South. It took three generations to begin to recover from devastation wrought by the invading Army and Occupation.

(Great-Grandfather Bowden)

Four men served in two Confederate regiments. None deserted. One was killed. Two sons married two daughters.

(My mother’s Great-Grandfathers)

The monuments to the Confederate soldiers of this heritage are just that: Monuments to brave men and women who suffered terrible loses.

            The Cultural Marxist cleansing of all things Confederate across the South will have bad consequences. Wanton destruction, oppression, and hostility always breeds grievances. Sixty years of profound progress in race relations will be tested. Unnecessarily and unfortunately for everyone.

            Shame on all who pursue destruction.   Cowardly attacks on monuments is what Nazis, Communists, and Islamists do.  It’s what Totalitarians do.

Yet, the greatest shame and most serious crime is the elected officials who make police stand down, don’t protect public or private property, and fail their duty to uphold the Rule of Law.  The ill that follows is their fault.

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Former systemic racism.

 

Current systemic racism.

 

Systemic Racism in America

It’s not your old Jim Crow

“De Jure” segregation ended in the South with Federal laws in 1964 and 1965.

“De facto” segregation continued in the North past the last school integration riots in Boston, MA in 1974.

In 31 years in the South, since I came back from Europe, I haven’t been to a single wedding or funeral that wasn’t interracial. The only all-white affair I’ve seen was a wedding up North. I’ve not heard an unkind word about inter-racial marriage. That shouts “change” to everyone who lived in segregated times.

So, where is the systemic racism in America?

Starting in the 1970’s, the government, followed by corporations, began “diversity” quotas, goals, set-asides, preferences, etc. for protected classes of persons. Mainly, it meant racial minorities even as it expanded to include women, veterans, and disabled persons. The latest addition to permanent victimhood is sexual behavior as identity – with LGBTQ. But, race has always been the main point of effort.

Everything which is solely defined by race, is – by definition – racial and racist.

Consequently, everything with a name modified, defined, by race is racist.

One can argue whether the racism of the Black Miss America, Black Entertainment Network, or the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People is benign, beneficial, or not, but its inextricable connection to race is self-evident.

Meanwhile, all the government, corporate, academic, etc. offices, programs, and policies known by their minority, diversity, hyphen-American, protected classes of persons, etc. name is, in fact, systemic racism.

A majority of Americans may support this systemic racism. I understand why it was started in the 1970s to jump start progress for minority success. Now, 55 years later, they are the anti-thesis of racial integration.

Because, every quota, goal, set aside, exclusive contract or material advantage given on the basis of race is, again by definition, racist. The racial basis of the decision making doesn’t change when wrapped in the rhetoric of being diverse, inclusive, welcoming, or looking like America. Continuing this exercise in racism solves nothing.

The great divide between Blacks and Whites in America that jumps out in so many statistics isn’t based on race. Race isn’t the reason for disparities, like the death rate from the Wuhan Virus. The Wuhan Virus doesn’t kill more Black Americans because it is racist. The cause of more death is likely related to more hypertension and obesity. Not skin color.

The pathology of every wrong, sad suffering, loss, and hardship in every community across America is found in something other than race.

In the Black underclass communities, the causes include the destruction of the family without fathers, drugs and the drug war, alcohol, failed schools, dependency on government welfare, impotent churches, debasing entertainment, de-humanizing abortion, and the race-pimping politicians of perpetual victimhood.

Furthermore, the Big Lie of White Systemic Racism, White Supremacy, White Nationalism, and White Privilege is to ignore 55 years of racial progress. The transformative change in the human heart of so many White Americans, especially among Christians – and profoundly in the South – came from Dr. Martin Luther’s morally ascendant message of racial integration founded in Christian lovingkindness. The Civil Rights Movement won rightfully and powerfully.

Finally, the myth of systemic racism, as opposed to definitional racism of “diversity”, has a huge following. The narrative is promoted by the Left everywhere. So, when a bad cop commits a horrible crime that fits the Left’s narrative, the furor is understandable.

Emotions simmer eventually. Soon enough, emotions shouldn’t blind Americans from seeing how systemic racism has changed. It’s not your old Jim Crow in 2020. Today’s systemic racism is legal discrimination . It’s the tool of the Human Secularist Totalitarians – the Left.

Meanwhile, racism is intrinsic to those who don’t know the Lord Jesus Christ to follow the Second Greatest Commandment: Love others as you love yourself.

 

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Publicist may help promote this as well as good old ‘Rosetta 6.2’ novel. And, novels to come.

Wanted: Publicist

Ads: Help Wanted.

Wanted: Publicist.

Job Description:  Receive emailed written pieces and publicize them.  Format them, as needed, and send to on-line and paper publishers, post them on social media, share with supporting individuals and organizations.  Additionally, if able, search and contact other publishers and platforms for publication.  Help build and maintain database of contacts.

Pay:  Author’s good wishes and grateful thanks.

Location:  Work from home.

Benefits:  Self-satisfaction and potential to promote shared ideas together.

Contact: jamesatticusbowden@yahoo.com

From 2001 to 2006 I wrote op eds.  I put them on my website: American Civilization and sent them off to Rightwing pubs on the web.  If you google my full name, some of the oldies as goodies pop up.

It took over an hour to format the pieces for each different website that ran my words.  This was too painful time-wise when I had a dayjob, family, church, politics, other writing, and the best dog ever demanding my time.

I switched to blog. I have the archives of pieces from 2006 to 2009 lost to the web after a server crashing.

Since 2009, I’ve written on my blog, Deo Vindice.  My blog goes to my Facebook page and Twitter.  I built up to almost 5k ‘friends’ on Facebook to expand my readership.  My highest single day readership is this April – 570.  Not many.  Could be my writing isn’t good enough.  Or, could be I suck at publicizing and marketing.

I know I didn’t market my novel, Rosetta 6.2 well.  I won’t be marketing my book, A Grief Felt, when it is published in a few weeks, because I don’t chose to spend the time outside of my skill set.  Time is too short.

So, I need a publicist.  Or, more than one.  Pay is the same: Best wishes and grateful thanks.  If writing ever actually resulted in income, then I’d share.  Not counting on that happening.

Is it discriminatory or discerning, if I add, “Commies need not apply?”

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Blaming Whitey is another Big Lie.

Blaming Whitey Again

From Watts 1965 to Minneapolis 2020

“The National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders concluded that the deepest cause of the recent riots in our cities was white racism.” From Black Rage published in 1968.

Let’s say white racism actually caused riots in the 1960s. Fast forward 55 years.  White racism doesn’t cause riots in 2020.

A white cop is captured on camera committing police brutality – that kills a black man. All Americans are outraged by the injustice they see with their own eyes. The widely-held perception of systemic injustice against Blacks mobilizes protests. This protesting is as understandable as it is laudable.

But, when protests become riots, the legitimacy of assembly is lost to the criminality of looting.

Meanwhile, fundamentally, while the emotions of the protests are genuine, the narrative of “what is what” is based on a big Lie of the Human Secularist Totalitarians – “the Left.”

The Left says White Supremacy, White Privilege, White Nationalism, and – again – White Racism causes riots in 2020. And, if you dispute those causes, then automatically you are part of the problem and guilty of, wait for it…, White Racism. Dialogue can only start when you, Whitey, admit that you are the guilty party and are ready to atone for your sins. I’ve read that argument before. Marxism 101.  Bovine scatology.

Every claim of perpetual victimhood needs a permanent oppressor.  It’s one of the biggest lies of the Left.

From the Bourgeoisie guillotined after the French Revolution, to Capitalists bombed by radical Labor Socialists and Anarchists, to the kulaks murdered by Soviet Communists, to the Jewish genocide of National Socialists, to the “Four Olds” attacked by Communist Chinese Red Guards, to the Counter-Revolutionaries shot by Cuban Communists, to the liquidation of urban people by the Communist Khmer Rouge, to America’s brick-throwing Antifa, the Left has to have really bad bogeymen to fight. The more sinister the scary threat, the better.

An evil enemy justifies self-righteous wrath.

Except, the Left is wrong about Whitey causing Black looting and Antifa riots. Just as the Left is wrong on every single issue they promote.

They may be correct that there are problems of systemic privilege, police abuse, unfair laws, limited opportunities, crime, lousy housing, failed schools, and more. But, the cause isn’t skin color.

The pathologies in a Black community cancer aren’t based on race.   Just like the pathologies of a White or integrated community.  But, the Left sees all things through the prism of race, class, or gender(s).  So, blaming race becomes Leftist dogma.

Racial dogma, like all Marxist dogmas, is fixed on falsehoods. Race as a reason for all that is wrong is diametrically opposed to reality.  Race is a lie to the whole world of hard facts, simple truths, as well as abundant historical and current evidence. It’s racial dogma that’s wrong.

Every American born since 1965 – so everyone age 55 and younger – is one generation from coming up from poverty. And every person born since then – to the ghetto, the barrio, the holler, or arriving from abroad – has a way to get out poverty. It takes one generation of work and sacrifice.

It means getting married when the baby comes, staying married, graduating from high school, not using drugs or abusing alcohol, working hard, saving money, mastering English, pushing academic achievement, choosing an American identity instead of a hyphen, and living as much of a Biblically purpose-driven life as possible.

A minority of Blacks have done what it takes to vault ahead of average Whites in measurable status. Meanwhile too many, if not a majority, continue to go down as an underclass.

The real suffering for millions of Black Americans is caused by the Socialist welfare state, fatherless families, impotent pandering churches, Judas leaders betraying their own people with identity politics, drugs and alcohol, worthless schools, unfair drug laws and the cynically skewed drug war, police and prison excesses, and the interminable excuse-making of perpetual victimhood. Not systemic White racism.

For example: slavery, segregation, and racism aren’t the reason the average SAT for Black students is 200 points lower than Whites.

The race-based set asides, quotas, goals, jobs, and contracts for the sake of “Diversity” only discriminate against Whitey and Asians.

Increased inter-racial marriages indicate acceptance, not rejection, based on race.

Above all, the transformation of the human heart for millions of American Christians of all colors, refutes the Social Justice Warrior narrative of the Left. Intersectionality’s hierarchy of oppression is bunk. 55 years after Watts there are a scores of millions of Americans who aren’t guilty of any racial animus. They truly love others as Jesus teaches.

Every Black American is an individual. With Free Will. Living in the greatest country in the world – for every single citizen. When a Black person succeeds or fails, it has nothing to do with White racism. It has everything to do about the individual.

Reject the Lie from the Left. Reject the racial narrative categorically. Read Thomas Sowell.

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Whining While Black

I wrote this in May 2005.   Still applies.

Thank goodness Confederate History Month is over! Maybe journalists, black politicians and Civil Rights organizations will stop whining for awhile.

Fat, middle-aged suburbanites waving Confederate flags create too many excuses for hysterical rhetoric. Ironically, the volume and shrillness of attacks on Confederate heritage is inversely proportional to the actual racism and threat to personal safety. But alarmism is profitable if you’re a race pimp. When your skin color is your day job, you need something to cry “wolf” about.

The professionally black blacks, whose jobs are based on “African-American” in their titles, are working a decades-old scam that is a shame to the nation. The racial politics of these Judas goats keep millions of blacks in poverty, jail, pain and suffering. Despite them, the majority of blacks are a generation away from earning their piece of the American pie.

A significant minority of blacks are succeeding equally and above other Americans. These are hard-working people who achieve color-blind success. Which is precisely the point: The way up has nothing to do with race. The way to succeed in America works for immigrants who don’t speak English, aren’t white, and don’t have a penny to their name when they arrive. But, it takes a generation. The parents sacrifice and provide for the children to have abundant opportunities. There are “7 Steps” from whining to winning.

1. Get married before the baby arrives.
2. Stay married and raise your children.
3. Don’t use drugs or abuse alcohol.
4. Push educational achievement without excuses.
5. Master the English language.
6. Choose American, not a separate identity, like African-America.
7. Live a purpose-driven life from the Bible.

Whites who fail these seven steps will grow mullets, trash their lives and stay losers. Hispanics who fail have activists to demand government programs–as in, government programs that employ the activists. Blacks who fail have a well-established excuse-making industry that also lives at their expense. Eliminating poverty in the ghetto and barrio would do to race hustlers profession what tax reform would do to tax lawyers. Jesse Jackson would have to get a real job.

The seven steps to a better life in America don’t have the land mines in the path that blacks leaped over in the past. When Booker T. Washington and his students built Tuskegee with their bare hands, they made the brick kiln five times before it worked properly. They didn’t whine. Blacks came up from slavery further and faster, with a dignity and class under real duress, that is unfathomable to the “hip hop gangsta’s” culture. Blacks, still living today, overcame barriers that no black child faces now. Yet, although the rhetoric of race is elevated and pervasive today, the underlying messages are perverse and destructive.

Racial integration is a morally superior and ascendant idea for America. Yet, racial quotas– by any disingenuous name, race-based programs, awards and organizations–are anathema to integration. They promote black, Hispanic, Asian, Indian, whatever racism. That is why good-hearted people would go nuts if any quota, program, award or organization had the qualifying adjective “white” in its name. Look at the outrage on college campuses when Conservative students have a race-based cookie sale. The hypocrisy would be funny if the potential outcomes weren’t so sinister.

White racism is vanishing, especially in the South. (Send a memo to Liberals). Southern identity and distinctiveness increasingly arises out of evangelical Christianity rather than the regional, Confederate flag waving nationalism of old. Human hearts are being transformed to a higher standard than racial reconciliation–to loving-kindness. Meanwhile, the same Democrat Party that exploited race mongering with whites plays race-based politics using blacks–and reaches for other minorities. The hateful refrain of permanent victim-hood and grievance creates problems. Black racism and black-on-white hate crimes are increasing.

There is no excuse for defeat and decline among people whose ancestors and peers have accomplished so much since 1619–every step of the American experience.

New immigrants joining the Great Experiment give their children “American” first names. The exceptions are Muslims who don’t intend to integrate and some Hispanics whose numbers are so great they don’t have to leave their insular sub-culture. Blacks who invent alien names keep it “real” with the neighbors, but make it obvious they are separate. Separateness doesn’t produce victory in life.

Search any field of endeavor for greatness and see black Americans. Like politics: Who is more articulate than Thomas Sowell, Alan Keyes, Walter Williams, Ward Connerly, J.C. Watts, Colin Powell and Condileeza Rice? They aren’t whining while black.

–– May 9, 2005

 

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Poles united in their Catholic identity to defeat Communism.

Virginia Needs Solidarity During Pandemic Panic

Virginians have fought tyrants before. Sic Semper Tyrannis is our state motto for a reason. Virginia declared its independence as a sovereign state with a written Declaration of Rights in June 1776. These United States of America were created in the ideas written by Virginians. However, the tyrannies that threatened Virginia over the past 400 years are different from today’s petty tyrants.

Today, the people who call themselves “Democrats” or “Progressives” believe the same ideas, promote like policies, and pursue power without regard to the Rule of Law as the totalitarians ever proud to proclaim their allegiance to Socialism, Communism, and National Socialism. Their ideas differ by degree, but all are branches grown from the French Revolution roots. And, all the ideas, no matter how pleasant a person softly says them or drapes them with the American flag, result in the ultimate evil of Human Secularist Totalitarianism.

This is a new tyranny making a trial run during the panic over the Wuhan Virus Pandemic.  Virginians haven’t fought this kind of tyranny before. Eastern Europeans have.

Polish Catholics started the defeat of Communism in Eastern Europe. Romanian Baptists finished it. Catholics and Baptists showed great courage, suffered persecution and martyrdom to prevail. Today, Romanian Baptists in Illinois lead the fight for religious freedom against government abuse of power. Catholics and Baptists in Virginia should take note. All of Virginia’s believing Christians and Jews should wake up to a different “woke.”

One flashpoint for Catholics confronting Communists was Christian crosses in schools. During the repression of Solidarity in the early 80s, the Communists ordered all crosses be taken down. In a country that is 95% Roman Catholic. The schools didn’t act. The police came in and took them down. The crosses went back up. Over and over. Finally, the police would come and not “see” the crosses on the walls.  The crosses stayed up because the people refused to obey.

The Polish People revoked their consent to be governed – in peaceful protest and disobedience.

Virginia’s government exists only with the consent of the governed. The individual Virginian is sovereign. Read our Virginia Constitution.

When government – federal, state, or local – exceeds its authority, abuses its power, or violates inalienable, individual rights, it is the duty of Virginians to withdraw their consent to be governed.

Virginia’s Governor’s response to the Wuhan Virus Pandemic is petty tyranny. Gov. Ralph Northam’s Executive Orders exceed the authority of the emergency act in Title 44, Code of Virginia and abuse the power of quarantine in Title 32, Code of Virginia. His latest Executive Order mandating Virginians wear face masks in public places – indefinitely – is especially wrong and un-Constitutional.

The Governor is making businesses do what police did for the Communists. Now, every business has to choose to between serving as Virginia’s Virtue Patrol or in solidarity with Virginia’s free people.

Such a cynical exercise to threaten businesses to make them do a petty tyrant’s bidding.

“A power over a man’s subsistence amounts to a power over his will.” Alexander Hamilton, Federalist Paper Number 79.

It’s what a political bully does with power.  And, all bullies are cowards.

How now should Virginians Sic Semper to our Tyrannis?

There were real martyrs in Poland and Romania.

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Front, back, and spine of “A Grief Felt”

Sent my last edits for “A Grief Felt” to the publisher.  Hope these last edits are lasting.  I don’t want to edit it anymore.  I just want to see it in final form, be pleased, and get the writing “battle rhythm” rocking for “On the Far Frontier: Book One.”  I’m at page 50 and so ready to drive on to page 300.  But, that’s not the biggest reason for hoping these last edits are lasting.

My every review of “A Grief Felt” is gut wrenching.  Not complaining.  Just sharing.

I hope that raw emotion communicates the message of transformation to the reader.  I know my emotions are heightened, because it is so personal to me.  Yet, I really don’t want this book to be read as merely one man’s tale.  I didn’t write it to emote.

I wrote it to share a story of grief becoming gratitude.  Real gratitude.  Sincere joy.  Deep peace.  True contentment.  And, I sincerely hope, the new capacity to share gratitude, joy, peace, contentment, and speak “Life” to others – with some success.  That’s all for others to judge, as well as being my aspiration.

I’ll post when the book is available to my vast reading public of you, three or four, fine folks.

Feels good to get this out and on its way.

Finis.

 

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Socialism sucks. And it doesn’t keep you safe.

Pandemic Spotlight on Socialism

The Wuhan Virus Pandemic shows Americans, and especially Virginians, what Socialism looks like. The empty store shelves are just a glimpse of what Socialism makes much, much worse. Socialism isn’t what a Kindergarten teacher imagines it could be – like when the children are told to share and share alike. In a Socialist society, she doesn’t get to make the benevolent rules, because she is one of the children. Also, when the State is the teacher, it wields a whip to give the lash. Like a child, she must ask permission for everything. Because Socialism means living a life of being told what to do. That fits, because telling people what to do is what Totalitarianism is all about and Socialism of any leaf is always a branch from Human Secular Totalitarianism.

Whatever you call a society where the state takes from some to give to others, and tells everyone what to do or not – whether Socialism, Progressivism, Liberalism, National Socialism, Communism, Central or State Planning, or the Green New Deal – the core ideas are fundamentally flawed. They always fail. Historically, since the French Revolution they result in state-sponsored imprisonments and killing. They’ve committed the most murder in all of human history.

Every attempt of government to run an economy fails. Every fundamental, re-ordering of society by the state, however well-intended, damages or destroys the society. Power given to the state is abused, always, by people in authority.

It’s not a surprise the legitimate Emergency Powers exercised by Governors to mitigate the spread of the Wuhan Virus are abused by some. The bad Governors play petty tyrants dictating behaviors, keeping the economy locked down, choosing business winners and losers, close churches, as well as denying the rights for assembly and to work. This government overreach spotlights key aspects of Socialism.

• Government can’t manage medicine. The mismanagement of emergency healthcare shows why ‘Medicare For All’ will fail. Medical services rationed by bureaucrats means more people die. Better, affordable healthcare comes from expanding, competitive services and getting government out of medicine. Health Savings Accounts beat government health managers. Government can’t stop a virus. Longer lockdowns doesn’t make anyone safe.
• Government can’t manage the economy. Government control can kill an economy fast. Start with mismanaging healthcare as one-sixth of the economy.  Then, lockdown the small business owners who hire half the jobs and create more than half of the GDP. State governments regulate restaurants, hair salons, theaters, and gyms, etc. out of business faster the Federal government can print money to prop them up. Government can’t regulate the supply chain to keep toilet paper or beef in stores. Socialism means shortages. Socialism keeps huge unemployment or government under-employment rolls.
• Green New Deal kills the economy. True, fewer cars and planes running during the Pandemic means less pollution. But, crowded subways and buses in “Smartgrowth” urban areas brought deadlier spread of disease. Destroying the US gas, oil, and coal production kills the economy, ruins whole regions, makes us dependent on foreigners who hate us, and – frankly – doesn’t save the ecology. Technology promises improvements in pollution prevention and clean up, not government direction.
• Sharing the wealth creates poverty. Printing money for almost everyone during the mitigation lock up may look like a trial run for a ‘Universal Basic Income’ (UBI). It should show how little difference there is between UBI and welfare. Both establish government dependency in an underclass. Both rob people of individual dignity and the self-sufficiency of work. The Left loves this idea to fundamentally re-order society with modern bread and circuses. It didn’t work for the Romans. It’s failed on Indian Reservations and in generational ghettoes of government dependence. Ignoring the laws of economics is like tempting the law of gravity.

If the Federal government prints more money for a stimulus-based “recovery” it’ll fail worse than FDR in the Great Depression and BHO in the Great Recession. If the country drowns in debt or is broken by inflation, we will all be poor – and poorer still if it actually kills the Republic.

• Shutting down churches won’t stop Christians. The Left can see how obedient Christian citizens are to comply with anything government says to do. But, they can’t see how Bible-believing Christians will come out of this experience better, stronger, and in greater numbers. A Pandemic is a trial of faith, never a failure to faith. Christians win.
• Others can decide everything in your life. And they will, if We, The People let them. If you don’t want the rest of your life, and every aspect of your life, run by clerks at the DMV, commit yourself to stop Socialism – now.

 

The pandemic is a stage to spotlight this debut of socialism, serious socialism, in America. A voting majority of Americans, and especially Virginians, should hate this dress rehearsal. Our votes are needed to close Socialism as a one night show, opening night flop. Our willingness to commit civil disobedience to tyranny may be required.