Royalty Validates Slavery

If you are one of the over 17 million people that watched Oprah interview Meghan Markel and (former) prince Harry, you might well ponder the following.

The concepts of royalty existed at the dawn of civilization and have been a part of humanity ever since.  Still today, over half a billion people live under monarchical rule.  Considering how far as we have evolved as people, (supposedly), the ancient and arcane realities of birthright superiority and monarchical oversight nevertheless remain today in no fewer than 44 sovereign states globally.   One of these, (Great Britain) holds an additional 16 commonwealth realms around the world while another, (the Vatican), is ruled singly by the pope who claims infallibility.

Remarkably, in the complete absence of anything remotely logical or morally principled, the world celebrates royalty.  Great Britain’s royal family reportedly cost the British taxpayers over $93 million last year alone.  According to insider.com, the royal family owns some $18 billion worth of real estate and has a collective net worth of about $88 billion.  The ten wealthiest royal families throughout the world control nearly $2.5 trillion in wealth.

The power of royalty is real beyond ceremonial.  For example, legislation passed by both houses of the British government does not become law until the Queen provides her Royal Assent.  The Queen can form governments, appoint Lords, create Knights and can fire the entire Australian government should she so choose.  The queen is also the head of the Church of England plus the head of state in the UK, Australia, Antigua, Barbuda, the Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Canada, Grenada, Jamaica, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, the Solomon Islands, and Tuvalu.

And royal families world-wide lay claim to all of this and more, simply by virtue of their genealogy or plain old-fashioned force of power.  And if royalty is equal to superiority, let’s examine some history.  In 1937, Britain’s King Edward VIII was good friends with Adolph Hitler.  He eventually abdicated the throne to marry a twice-divorced American woman.  In keeping with what appears to be a family tradition, young Price Harry more recently donned Nazi garb at a costume party, was photographed playing billiards naked, and spend one entire day in rehab to learn the evils of marijuana consumption.  And finally, Prince Andrew is closely linked with disgraced pedophile Jeffrey Epstein and has traveled to his private island in the Virgin Islands, (ironic), for sex with minors.  Harry and Meghan, Charles and Diana, Sarah Ferguson and Prince Andrew, all players in the latest scandals bred from the bowels of royalty and we’re only addressing a single family.

There is a logic and moral disconnect between the concepts of freedom, fairness and merit as opposed to royalty.  In order to accept the concept of royal-ness, one needs to also accept the notion of inferiority. 

If being a royal is a higher calling, then obviously there need exist an underclass to lord over.  This ideal is antithetical to freedom and self-actualization in a free society.  Royalty can’t exist without the acceptance of the concept of slavery.  If one can accept the concepts of royalty, then one must also accept the principles of slavery as the inverse of the same method of thinking.  No one grows into royalty without the pedigree and accordingly no one can grow into freedom from slavery, if we are to apply the same thinking.

Intellectual honesty requires acknowledging that royalty and slavery are complimentary ideals.  Royalty assigns and assumes superiority by virtue of genealogy.  Slavery does the same by affixing inferiority and sub-human labels based on the genetic lottery of birth.  One is the inverse of the other.

Because both concepts are intellectually linked, neither can exist independently.  Rulers need subjects, superiors, inferiors, landlords, tenants.  Until royalty is recognized as a scourge on the human condition equivalent to slavery, neither can be eradicated until both are acknowledged for the immoral constructs they represent.

While members of the royal families and the people who follow and celebrate them don’t likely self-identify as racists, can they be anything less?  The systematic deconstruction of the concept of royalty is a requirement if we are to eradicate those ancient and archaic notions of stasis in terms of human development, achievement, freedom and self-actualization.  This seems highly unlikely as millions were glued to their televisions learning how hard it was to be swept out of trailer park in Compton and into a castle in London.

Royalty is antithetical to the healthy development of the human race and until it is vanquished and tossed upon the burn-pile of bad ideas, its evil cousin slavery will continue to exist. 

Standard

Tipping Point

Firearms owners have been shamed and ostracized forever for claiming that society is fragile and that a single event could create a situation that warranted immediate self-defense in the absence of police protection and normal civil authority.  Those of us old enough to remember the Rodney King trial in Los Angeles in 1992 and the resulting riots, looting and city blocks of arson fires know better by way of history and observation.  A famous photo from that time shows several Korean men on the rooftop of their building armed with rifles and shotguns, which kept arsons from destroying their property.

I’ve attached a link to a YouTube video of a news reporter broadcasting about that event during that time:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uRc_FlmW2Jc  The armed men at that store were the only thing that prevented it from being burnt to the ground.  The police had already fled the area and had essentially handed south-central LA over to the criminals.

At the same time the Koreans were defending their property, then California Governor Pete Wilson was issuing orders that prohibited everyone from purchasing a firearm of any kind.  That’s right, in the middle of a regional wide riot, complete with looting, arson, mayhem and murder; otherwise lawful citizens were denied their right to firearms on the one hand, while the police on the other, were leaving them defenseless.  During those riots, nearly 2400 people were hurt and 63 we killed.

As King Cuomo of New York gets drunker and drunker with his new-found Corona-Virus power, it is likely he will do something so far over-the-top as to finally infuriate patriots to action.  Cuomo will undoubtedly impose draconian travel restrictions or even use the State Police and or the National Guard to martial civilian compliance.  It would not surprise me that martial law may be in his dictatorial playbook.

Does gun confiscation seem so far-fetched now?  Will we ever again have to use our imaginations to conjure up scenarios that we think might lead to governmental sequestration of our rights?  You see, it’s all for our own good, don’t you know.  It is out of a sense of benevolence and supreme wisdom and understanding, that those in government wield their power and authority over us, those poor minions who fail to see or understand the bigger picture that is so crystal clear to the brave and enlightened, but so oblivious to the peasants they are trying so valiantly to serve and protect.

It begins with a request, keep your distance, stay home, don’t travel.  Then they close businesses, limit staffing, impose curfews, even compel private industry into national service.  All for our own good, right?

A cautionary warning to Cuomo and his sycophants.  You’re fiddling close to a quagmire the likes of which may prove too powerful for your own escape.

Standard

Individualism

Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are the rights of individuals not groups.  The only actual group the founders envisioned was “we the people”, a collection of unique individuals.  Natural rights, human rights and constitutional rights are possessed by each of us as people.  The concept of groups created from a mass of individuals in order to coalesce a monolith upon which to bestow rights is anathema to our founding.

Exchanging the uniqueness of people for the sameness of the group is the key to controlling people completely.  Group-think overwhelms personalities and the homogenation of each soul becomes the elixir of the elite seeking to control them.

Governor Cuomo divides the state into “zones”, color-codes them according to the infection rate of Covid, and then commands residents to perform in a certain way, i.e. wear a mask, stay at home, observe a curfew, limit activity in your own home.  This is nothing more than fabricating groups to nullify the rights of the individual.  That is called tyranny. 

Standard

Post Election Thoughts, (as opposed to feelings…)

As I predicted, Biden has won, but has he?

It appears that PA is in doubt after Supreme Court Justice Alito has stepped in, demanding the sequestering of certain ballots received after Election Day deadlines.  A few other states face similar legal challenges and remember; Biden currently claims 290 electoral votes.  PA equals 20 of those votes and if by some small miracle the legal challenges made hold up, Biden losing 20 electoral votes in PA alone would put him at 270, which is the magic number.  Any other hiccups in any of the other states could cost Biden even more and the outcome could switch.

This is unlikely, considering the corruption, graft and malfeasance rampant throughout the US political systems, but it is however a glimmer of hope in what right now appears to be a bleak outcome for conservatives.

On the bright side, it appears that when you give rioters, looters, anarchists and arsons what they want, they stop rioting, looting, law-breaking and fire-bombing long enough to sing Kumbaya.  Had Trump won, you could see the smoke plumes from outer space.

Standard

God Help Us

OK, we’ve all heard the ads, speeches, arguments, rebuttals, opinions, excuses, attacks and we’ve just about had enough.  Tuesday is that pivotal moment, that one day where our vote takes center stage as the rhetoric fades into an eerie quiet.  Left alone for a moment in our own thoughts, the one thing you seldom hear in the build-up to the election is the role God plays.  Both candidates invoke God in their agendas, one directly, the other by implication, Trump referencing God by name and the Biden campaign speaking about the soul of America.

In this election season, one which most American’s consider to be the most important presidential selection in our lifetimes, it might be valuable if we could take this single opportunity to pray together, left and right, Republican and Democrat, liberal and conservative, and find, just for that fleeting moment, something we can agree upon, solemnly and sincerely, as we face down our future together.  Let’s try this as we honor our singular God together, even when we might quarrel and disagree about the worldly, let’s set that aside just for a few moments and join together in this prayer.

Dearest Father in Heaven, please hear our prayer.

Father, today we pray for your guidance, your protection, and your wisdom, as we navigate through the troubled times facing us.  Father, we confess our sins and proclaim to you that we are your humble children, seeking your forgiveness and your blessing, as we decide what kind of nation we are to be.  Dearest Savior, I trust that You will not allow our nation to lose our focus, our Godliness, our divine attachment to you and the Father.  Dear Lord, we believe in American Exceptionalism only because of the grace you have shown on this great nation since its founding.  We as people Lord are not exceptional, but collectively and with Your blessings and guidance, You have made us an exceptional nation when we band together.  You alone God are indeed the true example of exceptional, and it is with humility and grace we accept the responsibility you trust in us, as a nation, to uphold the ideals and principles You forge within us, in order to protect and honor the responsibilities of maintaining our nation under God.  We exist on your Earth in order to advance Your will.  Please Father, bestow upon us You glory, your righteousness and Your will, on Earth indeed as it is in Heaven.

Dearest Father, we acknowledge, that You will see us through our storms, and that You will protect us and insure our future, as you may judge us to be deserved of that protection through the goodness of our dreams, our desires and our aspirations, in keeping with Your Word.

God in heaven, we look to You and repeat the words you told us when you told us to; Trust in the Lord with all of your heart and lean not on your understanding.  In all ways acknowledge Him and He will make your path straight.

Amen.

Standard

The Mask Debates Mean More

As if this country needed another topic to divide us, nevertheless we find ourselves at odds over the subject of masks.  You know the arguments; masks stop the spread of the China Virus, they protect others from the wearer, why not show care for others, better safe than sorry and so on.  Others think; are we being played by an over-reaching government attempting to control us?  If the masks protect the stranger from the wearer, how is it that apparently that doesn’t work the other way around?  We have been given conflicting information about the effectiveness of masks.  Some medical experts have disagreed with the pro- mask crowd and they have been vilified and silenced, making those already suspicious of government even more skeptical.

So who do you believe?

The particle size of the China Virus is approximately 80nm.  A human hair is approximately 100,000 nm wide.  The NCBI, (National Center for Biotechnology Information) measured the effectiveness of surgical masks for particles of this size and found, depending on breathing rates, between 20% and 85% penetration levels.  So isn’t this building on a sense of false security?

The Center for Disease Control (CDC) tells us that the virus can remain airborne for perhaps 30 minutes before settling on surfaces where it can live for many hours or even days, depending on the surface type.  That means that everything we touch can be a potential infection point and remain so for days.  People reuse their masks; shove them into and out of their pockets or purses where their hands contaminate and then re-contaminate them.  We all touch hundreds of surfaces in a typical day.  We all rub our eyes, scratch an itch, and touch our faces to adjust our masks and the only way to avoid contamination would be to wash our hands after every contact we made with any surface.

No one knew what this virus was until it began infecting people.  Predictably officials and decision-makers reacted first with little real knowledge, relying on what they thought they knew based on the past; social distancing, shutting down, masks, gloves, hand-washing, etc.  As infection rates went first up then down then up again, many in government immediately assumed direct correlation between mandates-behavior-and infection rates.  Yet situations we see in Sweden for example suggest that our assumptions about cause-and-effect are not correlated.

So instead of admitting they don’t know enough, (let alone everything,) those in authority and those in authority craving more of it blame behavior thereby providing to them the moral authority to impose greater and even farer-reaching sanctions on people.  Those in charge mustn’t be wrong, so it has to be the uncooperative citizen that needs to be more controlled, a classic shift-the-blame tactic of tyrants.

And so we find our way back to the skeptic, unconvinced of the wisdom and even the motives of government however, let’s examine likely outcomes.  Social distancing makes the most sense, but it can’t actually be accomplished unless you live in the Alaskan bush and even then, certain food stables need to be brought in and with them come the potential for the virus.  Even if you get your groceries delivered, on those surfaces may lie the virus.  The fact is that we can’t live for long in our own bubble and all of the other means of protection are even less of a real solution outside of a vaccine or an outright cure.

Even a casual observation of the entirety of the situation concludes that the most liberal of governors in the most liberal of places, imposed the most restrictive and even draconian social measures on citizens.  The sanctions, impositions and decrees were directly proportional in severity to the liberal philosophies of those governors, ditto for all levels of more local governance right down to mayors.  Those who embrace individual choice, freedom and the least amount of government intrusion possible took the opposite approach, starting with the President of the United States.

While the conservatives considered the bigger picture of social isolation, depression, substance abuse, well-care and health screening delays, educational disruption, business decay, entrepreneurial decline and the possible demise of a world-class economy that was pre-virus roaring at a pace never before seen, it strains all credulity to place the blame for this virus at the feet of our President.  Obviously no world leader, or governor, or mayor, or anyone else in their right mind wanted to see a single death from this pandemic.  Yet as the dust settles and we put back together a society and economy the likes of which had never been accomplished before, we need to look to the broad-based optimism that conservative philosophy brings to real solutions and to real problems if we are to survive as the exceptional nation on God’s earth.

Had this virus never happened, Trump would win re-election in a landslide equal to or greater than that of Ronald Regan in 1980.  This virus becoming the deciding factor in this presidential election would be the greatest hope of the Chinese Communist Party and might well explain why they released it into the world in the first place.

Standard