Imprimis: Who Is in Control? The Need to Rein in Big Tech

The following is adapted from a speech delivered by Allum Bokhari, senior technology correspondent at Breitbart News, at Hillsdale College on November 8, 2020, during a Center for Constructive Alternatives conference on Big Tech. Who Is in Control? The Need to Rein in Big Tech

In January, when every major Silicon Valley tech company permanently banned the President of the United States from its platform, there was a backlash around the world. One after another, government and party leaders—many of them ideologically opposed to the policies of President Trump—raised their voices against the power and arrogance of the American tech giants. These included the President of Mexico, the Chancellor of Germany, the government of Poland, ministers in the French and Australian governments, the neoliberal center-right bloc in the European Parliament, the national populist bloc in the European Parliament, the leader of the Russian opposition (who recently survived an assassination attempt), and the Russian government (which may well have been behind that attempt).

Common threats create strange bedfellows. Socialists, conservatives, nationalists, neoliberals, autocrats, and anti-autocrats may not agree on much, but they all recognize that the tech giants have accumulated far too much power. None like the idea that a pack of American hipsters in Silicon Valley can, at any moment, cut off their digital lines of communication.

I published a book on this topic prior to the November election, and many who called me alarmist then are not so sure of that now. I built the book on interviews with Silicon Valley insiders and five years of reporting as a Breitbart News tech correspondent. Breitbart created a dedicated tech reporting team in 2015—a time when few recognized the danger that the rising tide of left-wing hostility to free speech would pose to the vision of the World Wide Web as a free and open platform for all viewpoints.

This inversion of that early libertarian ideal—the movement from the freedom of information to the control of information on the Web—has been the story of the past five years.

***

When the Web was created in the 1990s, the goal was that everyone who wanted a voice could have one. All a person had to do to access the global marketplace of ideas was to go online and set up a website. Once created, the website belonged to that person. Especially if the person owned his own server, no one could deplatform him. That was by design, because the Web, when it was invented, was competing with other types of online services that were not so free and open.

It is important to remember that the Web, as we know it today—a network of websites accessed through browsers—was not the first online service ever created. In the 1990s, Sir Timothy Berners-Lee invented the technology that underpins websites and web browsers, creating the Web as we know it today. But there were other online services, some of which predated Berners-Lee’s invention. Corporations like CompuServe and Prodigy ran their own online networks in the 1990s—networks that were separate from the Web and had access points that were different from web browsers. These privately-owned networks were open to the public, but CompuServe and Prodigy owned every bit of information on them and could kick people off their networks for any reason.

In these ways the Web was different. No one owned it, owned the information on it, or could kick anyone off. That was the idea, at least, before the Web was captured by a handful of corporations.

We all know their names: Google, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Amazon. Like Prodigy and CompuServe back in the ’90s, they own everything on their platforms, and they have the police power over what can be said and who can participate. But it matters a lot more today than it did in the ’90s. Back then, very few people used online services. Today everyone uses them—it is practically impossible not to use them. Businesses depend on them. News publishers depend on them. Politicians and political activists depend on them. And crucially, citizens depend on them for information.

Today, Big Tech doesn’t just mean control over online information. It means control over news. It means control over commerce. It means control over politics. And how are the corporate tech giants using their control? Judging by the three biggest moves they have made since I wrote my book—the censoring of the New York Post in October when it published its blockbuster stories on Biden family corruption, the censorship and eventual banning from the Web of President Trump, and the coordinated takedown of the upstart social media site Parler—it is obvious that Big Tech’s priority today is to support the political Left and the Washington establishment.

Big Tech has become the most powerful election-influencing machine in American history. It is not an exaggeration to say that if the technologies of Silicon Valley are allowed to develop to their fullest extent, without any oversight or checks and balances, then we will never have another free and fair election. But the power of Big Tech goes beyond the manipulation of political behavior. As one of my Facebook sources told me in an interview for my book: “We have thousands of people on the platform who have gone from far right to center in the past year, so we can build a model from those people and try to make everyone else on the right follow the same path.” Let that sink in. They don’t just want to control information or even voting behavior—they want to manipulate people’s worldview.

Is it too much to say that Big Tech has prioritized this kind of manipulation? Consider that Twitter is currently facing a lawsuit from a victim of child sexual abuse who says that the company repeatedly failed to take down a video depicting his assault, and that it eventually agreed to do so only after the intervention of an agent from the Department of Homeland Security. So Twitter will take it upon itself to ban the President of the United States, but is alleged to have taken down child pornography only after being prodded by federal law enforcement.

***

How does Big Tech go about manipulating our thoughts and behavior? It begins with the fact that these tech companies strive to know everything about us—our likes and dislikes, the issues we’re interested in, the websites we visit, the videos we watch, who we voted for, and our party affiliation. If you search for a Hannukah recipe, they’ll know you’re likely Jewish. If you’re running down the Yankees, they’ll figure out if you’re a Red Sox fan. Even if your smart phone is turned off, they’ll track your location. They know who you work for, who your friends are, when you’re walking your dog, whether you go to church, when you’re standing in line to vote, and on and on.

As I already mentioned, Big Tech also monitors how our beliefs and behaviors change over time. They identify the types of content that can change our beliefs and behavior, and they put that knowledge to use. They’ve done this openly for a long time to manipulate consumer behavior—to get us to click on certain ads or buy certain products. Anyone who has used these platforms for an extended period of time has no doubt encountered the creepy phenomenon where you’re searching for information about a product or a service—say, a microwave—and then minutes later advertisements for microwaves start appearing on your screen. These same techniques can be used to manipulate political opinions.

I mentioned that Big Tech has recently demonstrated ideological bias. But it is equally true that these companies have huge economic interests at stake in politics. The party that holds power will determine whether they are going to get government contracts, whether they’re going to get tax breaks, and whether and how their industry will be regulated. Clearly, they have a commercial interest in political control—and currently no one is preventing them from exerting it.

To understand how effective Big Tech’s manipulation could become, consider the feedback loop.

As Big Tech constantly collects data about us, they run tests to see what information has an impact on us. Let’s say they put a negative news story about someone or something in front of us, and we don’t click on it or read it. They keep at it until they find content that has the desired effect. The feedback loop constantly improves, and it does so in a way that’s undetectable.

What determines what appears at the top of a person’s Facebook feed, Twitter feed, or Google search results? Does it appear there because it’s popular or because it’s gone viral? Is it there because it’s what you’re interested in? Or is there another reason Big Tech wants it to be there? Is it there because Big Tech has gathered data that suggests it’s likely to nudge your thinking or your behavior in a certain direction? How can we know?

What we do know is that Big Tech openly manipulates the content people see. We know, for example, that Google reduced the visibility of Breitbart News links in search results by 99 percent in 2020 compared to the same period in 2016. We know that after Google introduced an update last summer, clicks on Breitbart News stories from Google searches for “Joe Biden” went to zero and stayed at zero through the election. This didn’t happen gradually, but in one fell swoop—as if Google flipped a switch. And this was discoverable through the use of Google’s own traffic analysis tools, so it isn’t as if Google cared that we knew about it.

Speaking of flipping switches, I have noted that President Trump was collectively banned by Twitter, Facebook, Twitch, YouTube, TikTok, Snapchat, and every other social media platform you can think of. But even before that, there was manipulation going on. Twitter, for instance, reduced engagement on the President’s tweets by over eighty percent. Facebook deleted posts by the President for spreading so-called disinformation.

But even more troubling, I think, are the invisible things these companies do. Consider “quality ratings.” Every Big Tech platform has some version of this, though some of them use different names. The quality rating is what determines what appears at the top of your search results, or your Twitter or Facebook feed, etc. It’s a numerical value based on what Big Tech’s algorithms determine in terms of “quality.” In the past, this score was determined by criteria that were somewhat objective: if a website or post contained viruses, malware, spam, or copyrighted material, that would negatively impact its quality score. If a video or post was gaining in popularity, the quality score would increase. Fair enough.

Over the past several years, however—and one can trace the beginning of the change to Donald Trump’s victory in 2016—Big Tech has introduced all sorts of new criteria into the mix that determines quality scores. Today, the algorithms on Google and Facebook have been trained to detect “hate speech,” “misinformation,” and “authoritative” (as opposed to “non-authoritative”) sources. Algorithms analyze a user’s network, so that whatever users follow on social media—e.g., “non-authoritative” news outlets—affects the user’s quality score. Algorithms also detect the use of language frowned on by Big Tech—e.g., “illegal immigrant” (bad) in place of “undocumented immigrant” (good)—and adjust quality scores accordingly. And so on.

This is not to say that you are informed of this or that you can look up your quality score. All of this happens invisibly. It is Silicon Valley’s version of the social credit system overseen by the Chinese Communist Party. As in China, if you defy the values of the ruling elite or challenge narratives that the elite labels “authoritative,” your score will be reduced and your voice suppressed. And it will happen silently, without your knowledge.

This technology is even scarier when combined with Big Tech’s ability to detect and monitor entire networks of people. A field of computer science called “network analysis” is dedicated to identifying groups of people with shared interests, who read similar websites, who talk about similar things, who have similar habits, who follow similar people on social media, and who share similar political viewpoints. Big Tech companies are able to detect when particular information is flowing through a particular network—if there’s a news story or a post or a video, for instance, that’s going viral among conservatives or among voters as a whole. This gives them the ability to shut down a story they don’t like before it gets out of hand. And these systems are growing more sophisticated all the time.

***

If Big Tech’s capabilities are allowed to develop unchecked and unregulated, these companies will eventually have the power not only to suppress existing political movements, but to anticipate and prevent the emergence of new ones. This would mean the end of democracy as we know it, because it would place us forever under the thumb of an unaccountable oligarchy.

The good news is, there is a way to rein in the tyrannical tech giants. And the way is simple: take away their power to filter information and filter data on our behalf.

All of Big Tech’s power comes from their content filters—the filters on “hate speech,” the filters on “misinformation,” the filters that distinguish “authoritative” from “non-authoritative” sources, etc. Right now these filters are switched on by default. We as individuals can’t turn them off. But it doesn’t have to be that way.

The most important demand we can make of lawmakers and regulators is that Big Tech be forbidden from activating these filters without our knowledge and consent. They should be prohibited from doing this—and even from nudging us to turn on a filter—under penalty of losing their Section 230 immunity as publishers of third party content. This policy should be strictly enforced, and it should extend even to seemingly non-political filters like relevance and popularity. Anything less opens the door to manipulation.

Our ultimate goal should be a marketplace in which third party companies would be free to design filters that could be plugged into services like Twitter, Facebook, Google, and YouTube. In other words, we would have two separate categories of companies: those that host content and those that create filters to sort through that content. In a marketplace like that, users would have the maximum level of choice in determining their online experiences. At the same time, Big Tech would lose its power to manipulate our thoughts and behavior and to ban legal content—which is just a more extreme form of filtering—from the Web.

This should be the standard we demand, and it should be industry-wide. The alternative is a kind of digital serfdom. We don’t allow old-fashioned serfdom anymore—individuals and businesses have due process and can’t be evicted because their landlord doesn’t like their politics. Why shouldn’t we also have these rights if our business or livelihood depends on a Facebook page or a Twitter or YouTube account?

This is an issue that goes beyond partisanship. What the tech giants are doing is so transparently unjust that all Americans should start caring about it—because under the current arrangement, we are all at their mercy. The World Wide Web was meant to liberate us. It is now doing the opposite. Big Tech is increasingly in control. The most pressing question today is: how are we going to take control back? 

American Partisan: Weapons Cleaning Crash Course w/ Items Index

Johnny Paratrooper at American Partisan has a cleaning item list and linked firearm cleaning video. Firearm cleaning is always a good topic for knowledge expansion. It seems like most of us aren’t very good at it. Even the military often isn’t very good at teaching how to do it. My experience comes pre-WoT, so maybe the army has gotten better, but at the time they pretty much handed you a cleaning kit, taught you how to break down and re-assemble your firearm, and just told you to make it shiny. There was little to no instruction on lubrication of parts or where lubrication was desired and undesired, or avoiding damage to the crown, weather effects on lubrication, or really anything else. Cleaning and lubricating your firearm is important; learn to do it well.

 

“For the want of a nail, the shoe was lost,
For the want of a shoe, the horse was lost,
For the want of a horse, the rider was lost,
For the want of a rider, the battle was lost,
For the want of a battle, the kingdom was lost,
And all for the want of a horseshoe-nail.”

― Benjamin Franklin

At AP, we believe in proper equipment maintenance. Without it, you lose. Period.

Cleaning guns isn’t very cool or sexy, but it’s my favorite part of shooting. Right next to after hours barbecue and whiskey. Cleaning weapons is about as cool as the “Department of Horseshoe-Nail Acquisitions”, but, I take this time to inspect and tighten up my gun. I even marvel at my weapon’s utility, our birth rights, what they represent to our nation, and the meaning for western civilization. I take pride in all my gear, especially if it’s made in America. I fix all problems immediately. Consequently, I saw two guns go down because of poor maintenance during the last “Fighting Kalashnikov Course” offered by Brushbeater Training. 100% operator error. Totally avoidable. Properly torque your optics, stocks, pistol grips, and muzzle devices. You need a torque driver, or torque wrench for this. There are many different brands. The engineers didn’t make these numbers up for no reason. I use the one linked below. Buy once, cry once.

https://www.brownells.com/gunsmith-tools-supplies/general-gunsmith-tools/wrenches/general-wrenches/fat-wrench-prod56976.aspx

During normal business hours, AKA peacetime, the average shooter doesn’t use much in the way of patches, solvents, or gun oil. I can assure you, when you are running around in the woods getting rained on and sleeping on the ground, you will go through patches, solvents, and oil with regularity. Multiply that by two, or three, and you have a bit of a logistics problem on your hand. When you sleep on the ground, the moisture from the ground is drawn to your weapon because of the difference in temperature. This will cause your weapon to rust even if you live in the middle of the high & dry deserts of Wyoming. Plus, you will spend time near the water. For obvious reasons…

You’ll go through all your field patches pretty darn quick. I went through 40 or so patches the other day cleaning 2 Carbines. That adds up… The patches I use come in 200 piece packs(Linked later in the article). That’s 5 days of cleaning during periods of overtime and night shift. BTW, bore snakes are almost useless. I keep one handy, only if I have water, or dust, in my barrel from a mounted patrol and/or a swim. Then you will want to give it a good sweep or three with a snake. Cleaning corrosive ammo with a bore snake isn’t a good idea, if so, mark that bore snake with some pink nail polish as a warning, and remember to wash it out with hot water and some light soap. A bore snake won’t remove a mud plug from your barrel. You need a cleaning rod for that. Cleaning rods are mandatory field kit. You’ll never get a stuck case out of your chamber or a mud plug out of your gun without a cleaning rod of the proper length.

Logistics win wars.

A rusty barrel in the field=First Round Point Of Impact (FRPOI) shift. Which means you just missed your bad guy, his buddy, his truck, and the machine gunner. Plus a large, bright, red rust cloud flies out the end of your gun. You can see the problem here adds up real quick. All for lack of a proper weapons cleaning kit and some discipline. Firearms aren’t cheap, and the ammo isn’t either. It’s poor practice to not care for our tools, toys, and training aids.

Yesterday, after cleaning a few guns in storage, I threw away a 12 gauge bore brush, a handful of old 5.56 bore brushes, a 5.56 chamber brush, and a few .30 cal brushes. I don’t normally clean my 12 or 20 gauge shotguns after every single trip to the range, but I do use the 12 gauge brushes for cleaning other parts of my guns. Just the same way that I don’t own a .17 HMR caliber firearm, but I keep those little bore brushes around because those things are great for cleaning those little hard to reach places.

You’ll also need targets and a couple extra rounds nearby to keep those weapons zeroed. A site sponsor, Brownells, has great deals on cleaning supplies and targets. I probably have $1,000 in cleaning supplies and targets laying around. Here are some of my favorites. Targets are my next topic, for another post later this week or early next week.

1) Let’s start with the first thing I was ever issued by Uncle Sam to clean an M4. The not-to-bad “Militec Oil”. This stuff works pretty well, but the cap doesn’t stay on. It literally just comes off for no reason.

https://www.brownells.com/gun-cleaning-chemicals/oils-lubricants/lubricant-protectant-oils/militec-1-oil-prod19643.aspx

2) Next, we have the ever faithful “Break-Free CLP”. CLP stands for Cleaner, Lubricant, and Protectant. It is probably the industry standard for cleaning weapons in the field. The carbon just falls out of the firearm. It’s pretty amazing stuff. But it’s pricey and like most “all-in-one” products, it fails in some areas, like cleaning, and excels in others, like pack weight and volume. I primarily don’t use it anymore because its not a good bore solvent. It takes a while to act on the copper and lead fouling and it’s frankly a little time consuming. Good for packing into the woods, not so good for the work bench and target shooting.

https://www.brownells.com/gun-cleaning-chemicals/oils-lubricants/lubricant-protectant-oils/break-free-clp-prod1683.aspx

3) I personally use this product linked below. Lucas Oil Gun Oil for the field/kit/vest. These things are great. I keep one in my field cleaning kit. It hasn’t leaked or bent or broken to date. It’s wrapped up in a few rags just in case it does. That seems to keep it safe and sound from the harsh world. The cap is similar to the Elmer’s glue “screw top” cap. It works great. “Field-Proof” is a word that comes to mind.

https://www.brownells.com/gun-cleaning-chemicals/oils-lubricants/lubricant-protectant-oils/gun-oil-prod71170.aspx?psize=96

4) I use these needle oiler bottles linked below. I ordered the 3 pack, but I should have ordered 6 of them. They work great, are pretty small, and the cap stays on surprising well considering the size and the contents. Any small needle oiler will work, but these are well made and appear to be quality. I keep High Performance synthetic motor oil in them. I have no shortage of HP Mobil One laying around.

https://www.brownells.com/gunsmith-tools-supplies/shop-accessories-supplies/liquid-squeeze-bottles/3-needle-oilers-sku084000361-44434-99905.aspx

Gun oils have rust protection additives, so motor oil isn’t a true substitute during long term field use, but it works just fine if you regularly clean your guns at home or in the field. I try to clean one of my guns every other day or so. Just to inspect them and practice my manual of arms. It keeps me dangerous.

5) My favorite solvent is this stuff below, good old Hoppe’s #9, I like the the smell and it works great. Let some marinade in the barrel for a few minutes, or maybe 5-10, if it’s really cold out, and keep running patches through till its clean. Dedicated bore solvents are the best, they work very well because they have a high molar concentration of additives and solvents. You can use the bore mops, or cattails as some people call them, those are the furry bore brushes that don’t work very well in my personal opinion. They come in most combination kits. I think it’s best to just scrub your barrel a few times and run a patch covered in solvent down the barrel. Repeat till the barrel is bright and shiny. This stuff comes in cases of 6 bottles. You should buy a whole case. It goes pretty quick, but you only need to use it after you fire live ammo or blanks. I remember cleaning .22s with my grandfather using this stuff. Reminds me of the Maryland Eastern Shore on the Wye River every time.

https://www.brownells.com/gun-cleaning-chemicals/solvents-degreasers/bore-solvents/5-oz-hoppe-s-no-9-sku699000005-9806-41125.aspx

On to the topic of patches. These things can be hit or miss. I’m gonna let you know how I feel about bore brushes soon enough, but the damn patches are my least favorite cleaning accessory. First, Let’s talk about thickness; There needs to be a standard, but there isn’t, so you can waste a bit of time dealing with this. I prefer to use the “Allen” 3 inch Shotgun and General Cleaning Patches from Amazon or Chinamart.

6) Type this into Amazon, using our link in the sidebar, I had trouble linking for whatever reason “Allen 200 Cotton Gun Cleaning Patch Absorbent General Cleaning” Get the 3 inch patches. Trust me, I love cleaning guns. I wrap them around used bore brushes sometimes and use them as half brush/ half jag combo. They work great. These patches are tough, they scrub nicely, they are big enough to get around the bull barrel on my free-floated bolt guns, can be trimmed to size, and they don’t leave cotton threads on everything. They come in a resealable bag of 200. They survive multiple passes down a barrel, so you can really make sure they are dirty before you toss them out. They rock. 10/10

Remember, one pack of 200 patches is only enough patches for you, two buddies, and two-three gunfights or range trips. It’s that simple. You can’t beat logistics.

7) On to bore brushes, chamber brushes, and jags. There are two things to know. First, there are two different thread pitches for brushes and rods. The military is a bunch of geniuses and had to have their own thread pitch. Second, don’t buy the cheap brushes at the gun show. They are almost worthless and you pay top dollar. Check your thread pitch first. One is military; The other is commercial. The military guys probably noticed that sometimes their brushes fit, and sometimes they don’t. Now you know.

https://www.brownells.com/gun-cleaning-chemicals/brushes-amp-bore-snakes/bore-brushes/standard-line-bronze-bore-brushes-prod1277.aspx?avs%7cQuantity_1=12

These 12 packs of Brownells house brand linked above are the way to go. $20 bucks for 12 brushes? Yes please. I ordered one pack of damn near every size they have. And I ordered 6 5.56 and 6 7.62 AR chamber brushes. You can clean basically any weapon chamber with these things, and detail quite a few other hard to reach places as well. Some people argue that the “Nylon Brushes” and the tornado style brushes are good. Maybe I’m just old school, but I frankly haven’t noticed a difference, and you pay more.

8) The brass/nylon brushes on the twisted wire stick/loop work well, I have a few of those that I bent at a 90 degree for cleaning my M1A chamber because it’s not an “open style” of action. I run it like a ratchet, It works better than you think. That’s linked below. This is a good tool for field use with a pistol.

https://www.brownells.com/gun-cleaning-chemicals/brushes-amp-bore-snakes/bore-brushes/handgun-cleaning-brushes-prod1205.aspx

9) On the topic of tactical toothbrushes and detailing wire brushes, I have never noticed one is significantly better than the other. (Link Below) When I clean my piston head on my piston guns, I use a small wire wheel on my cordless drill, and it works like a beast. That’s not a good solution for the field, obviously, but I can not carry enough ammo to notice anyway. So that’s not an issue for me personally. Very clean, bright, and shiny is perfect before the big game(or preseason kickoff) These brushes below are industry standards right here. You’ll get years of use out of them.

https://www.brownells.com/gun-cleaning-chemicals/brushes-amp-bore-snakes/gun-cleaning-brushes/all-purpose-cleaning-brushes-prod22941.aspx

10) For cleaning dust off my gun, and my optical lenses, I use a small, clean nylon paint brush that I cut the handle off of. Plus the countless lens polishing wipes I have. This saves weight and space. I had a few of the military barber brushes laying around, but they started to rot and fall apart so I threw them away and use a small nylon paint brush like the one I use on my work tools. The nylon paintbrush is much, much better for sweeping your gun and optic. Make sure you brush the gun BEFORE you put oil all over it. You don’t want oil on your gun mixing into your brush. Works good for brushing electronic screens and keypads too.

For optics, I make sure the battery cap is tight and the lens is clean. Wiggle the optic to check for loosening. During the winter, and summer, you will notice that if you run outside with your firearm, the optic fogs up immediately. Test this right now. See what happens. I already know the answer. I promise your optic fogs up in 30 seconds. It also happens during mounted operations in vehicles with A/C or heat pumps. I had it happen to a hunting revolver I had under my riding jacket once, and one time I checked the horses and had a very foggy rifle optic.

Good luck keeping the wolves away with a foggy optic… This problem is caused by the temperature change. Military optics are dense, and have a considerable heat sink. You’ll spend a considerable amount of time wiping fog from your optic, your eye pro not so much.  Have you factored this into your home defense plan? The waxes that are used by divers and snorkelers are the best. I like the little jars of green/blue/yellow wax. They work great. And I use a soft clean, optics wipe to clean off the excess goo. Eventually the wipe gets enough wax on it you won’t need to add much for it too work. So the process speeds itself up. If you acclimate your weapon, by an open window for instance, this can be avoided if you lack the proper anti-fog.

11) Type this into Amazon “Z Clear Lens Clear 3 pack”. You need this stuff. Good luck responding to your neighborhood defense plan with a foggy lens, foggy eye pro, and foggy NODs. Have fun unscrewing your killflash, wiping the lens, and screwing it back on before reacting to contact. I learned this lesson in Baghdad MANY times. You should too. It can occur during ANY time of the year especially after a rain with a temp shift.

12) Cleaning tools and cleaning rods come in a mix of quality. All things Amazon and Walmart are basically junk, but not useless. Unless you have spares, I wouldn’t risk my life on that stuff. Buy some quality rods, and a good set of jags. I don’t care for the loops. They take WAY too long to clean a weapon in my experience. The style linked below is best, in my opinion. I bought two sets just in case I misplace or lose one. But you can wrap an old bore brush in your solvent patches and skip the extra weight and have less items to keep track of on your kit. One or the other works in my experience.

https://www.brownells.com/gun-cleaning-chemicals/cleaning-rods-amp-accessories/cleaning-rod-jags/copper-eliminator-male-thread-jags-prod44035.aspx

Any style of rod, preferably extra long for rifles, and short for pistols is best. There are free spinning versions, with bearings, and fixed varieties for different tasks. The free spin variety prevents the brush from unscrewing in your barrel. This is a safety issue. I have seen an AR pop because a bore brush unscrewed from the cleaning rod. The weapon completely detonated, and the shooter lost a few pieces of his hand, and some dignity, in front of 200 shooters. The fixed variety is nice for scrubbing chambers and those other nooks, niches, and notches in your firearm. You don’t have to worry about damaging your barrel or chamber. The amount of energy you are exerting on the weapon is nothing compared to firing a cartridge. Just be careful not to excessively offset your rod from the centerline, and you’ll be just fine. The important thing is to clean your weapon, because this is the best way to extend the service life of your investment.

13) Remember, You need to clean your weapon three or four times to fully detail it after hard field use, or an expensive day at the range. Don’t forget to pick up some packs of 500 cotton swabs. They are cheap and have a million uses.

The most important thing to remember is to protect your barrel, lube your weapon, and fog proof your lens. That’s 90% of the struggle right there.  Your eye pro, and your NODs too, but I’m not gonna ask you to do that. Call the manufacturer first and listen to their directions for fog proofing NODs. Honestly though, the product is just wax. It provides a hydrophobic coating to the glass.

Don’t forget to wear eye pro when working on weapons with liquids and springs under pressure.

14) Also, wear latex or nitrile gloves. Anything that touches your skin is absorbed into the bloodstream within 30-60 seconds. Solvents full of lead powder and sulfurs included. Don’t die of liver failure or some horrible brain disease. We are trying to win; Not lose. This is a long-term struggle gentlemen. Expect to spend somewhere around $500-$1,000 bucks when this is all said and done. It’s worth it. My weapons and optics are better than brand new, they are clean, well worn, accurate, and shiny in the right spots.

The video below is great. I use the same presoaked patch trick he uses. Great Idea.

Delectable Planet: How to Make Seitan (Wheat Meat) from Flour

BBQ Wheat Meat

If you’re not familiar with the term seitan or wheat meat, it refers to a meat substitute that you can make from flour. Wheat meat has a “meatier” texture as a meat substitute than most others such as tofu. That was the consensus at least before the most modern substitutes like the inconceivable burger, or whatever it is called. Vegetarians who make their own wheat meat would typically just buy vital wheat gluten rather than starting with flour because it vastly simplifies the process. But if you’re a prepper, then you may have a few hundred pounds of wheat berries stored for making flour. You probably don’t have as much meat stored. At some point you may want or need to use a vegetable meat substitute. To make seitan, you go through a process of developing the gluten (proteins) in flour, washing away the starch and bran, and adding flavorings.

Below is a recipe for making seitan from Delectable Planet. Please note that the amount of starch that you wash away will affect your final texture. How well you cook it will also affect the texture. The higher your flour protein the better for this. If you can get locally sourced high protein wheat berries, you’re set. If you have to buy flour, then flours designated as bread flour will be your high protein sources- whole wheat flour will be best. You can find numerous recipes on the internet for making seitan/wheat meat as well as different tips for making it. All of the additions aside from flour and water are to improve flavor and consistency, so you can still make this if you’re missing some ingredients. Experiment and find the texture/flavor profile that you like best.

You can also save the rinse water that has the starch and bran and use it as a soup base so as not to be throwing away those calories. This starch water can also be used in making crackers and pizza crust. Additionally, if you set aside the rinse water in a large jar or container and let it sit, it should eventually settle out to three layers – water, starch, and bran. At that point you can pour off the water and then spoon out the starch and bran separately for use in things like gravy and bran muffins.

For even more detail on the process, consult The Amazing Wheat Book by LeArta Moulton which has several pages devoted to this process as well as using the rinse water.

Seitan is a high-protein food made from wheat gluten.

Yields: Serves 8-10

Ingredients

 

For the Seitan:

2 1/2 pounds wheat flour (7-8 cups)

2 tsp spices

2 T nutritional yeast

1/2 cup tamari or soy sauce

2 1/2 cups water


For the boiling stock:

2 T vegetable stock powder

3 tsp spices

1/2 cup tamari or soy sauce

4 cups water

 

Preparation

 

In a large ceramic or glass bowl, combine the flour, nutritional yeast and spices. Add the tamari or soy sauce and 3 1/2 cups of water. With a wooden spoon, begin mixing. When it gets too sticky, continue mixing with your hands. When it starts to come together, turn out onto a board or counter-top and begin kneading. Knead for 10-15 minutes until the dough no longer sticks to the counter-top and is like bread dough — adding small amounts of flour if necessary. Roll into a ball and let it rest in the bowl for a few minutes.

Meanwhile, prepare the cooking liquid. In a large stock pot with a lid, mix the vegetable stock powder, spices, tamari or soy sauce and four cups of water.

Take the bowl with the dough to the sink. Fill the bowl with warm water and begin gently kneading the dough inside the bowl of water. Keep the water running and knead for 15-20 minutes until the water becomes clear. As you knead, do your best to keep the dough together. Cool the water as you go so that by the time the water is clear, you are using cold water. At that point, let the seitan sit in cold water for a few minutes so it firms up.

After a few minutes, drain the seitan in a colander.

Boil the seitan whole, in pieces or form into logs or patties.

Add the seitan to the stock pot. Bring everything to a boil, lower the temperature, cover and simmer for 45-60 minutes. When it’s done, turn off the heat and let it cool to room temperature.

Drain the seitan. For a firmer texture, press out the water with the back of a spoon.

Store in a sealed container, with or without the juices, for up to a week or freeze in airtight containers for a month or two.

 

Additional Tips

The spices can be any mixture you choose. Try onion, garlic and ginger for an Asian taste; basil, oregano, rosemary and sage for Italian; or garlic, cumin, cilantro and red pepper for Mexican.

If you don’t have vegetable stock powder, use your favorite pre-made stock from a carton.

Use the simmering stock for soup.

When washing the seitan, place the dough in a colander or seive 2 or 3 times during the process. Squeeze the dough and rinse to help remove a little more of the starch.

You can also bake, steam, deep fry or saute the seitan instead of boiling it.

Use seitan in stir fry, pasta dishes, simmer in gravy, smother with tomato sauce, bake in casseroles, and warm and add to sandwiches.

See also Wheat Meat Success from Preparedness Pro.

Chestnut School of Herbal Medicine: Growing Healing Herbs for the Home Garden – Elderberry, Lemon Balm & Rose

Written by Meghan Gemma with Juliet Blankespoor, this article from the Chestnut School of Herbal Medicine discusses Medicinal Plants:
Growing Healing Herbs for the Home Garden- Elderberry, Lemon Balm & Rose. While you are thinking of ideas for your spring garden, don’t forget the medicinal plants.

Ready to start or expand your herb garden?

Here we’re introducing medicinal, edible, and cultivation profiles for three cherished healing plants: elderberry, lemon balm, and rose. You can also find a wheelbarrow-full of articles on designing, growing, and tending a home herb garden via our Medicinal Herb Gardening Hub (and you’ll find cultivation featurettes for dozens more herbs!).

Elderberry (Sambucus nigra var. canadensis)

Elderberry (Sambucus nigra var. canadensis)

Elderberry
(Sambucus nigra, S. nigra var. canadensis, Adoxaceae)

Elderberry is an herb gardener’s reverie. Blessed with lush foliage, creamy clusters of frothy blossoms, and heavy bunches of dark fruit that beckon birds to flit and flutter between its branches, elder captures the eye and the heart. Humans are drawn to its canopy just as readily as the birds. This herbal shrub is a rich source of immune-boosting medicine, and is deeply steeped in lore; around the world, stories abound about a healing spirit said to live within the tree. She is often called the Elder Mother, Elder Lady, or Elda Mor—and she can be appealed to on behalf of the ill.1

Elder’s Medicinal Uses

Parts used: Flowers and berries
Preparations: Syrup, tincture, infusion, decoction, mead, wine, honey, shrub, and vinegar
Herbal Actions:

  • Berries:
    • Antiviral
    • Immune tonic
    • Antibacterial
    • Antioxidant
    • Antirheumatic
    • Anticatarrhal
    • Anti-inflammatory
    • Diaphoretic
    • Cardiovascular tonic
    • Diuretic
  • Flowers:
    • Antiviral
    • Anticatarrhal
    • Diaphoretic
    • Antispasmodic
    • Astringent
    • Alterative
    • Anti-inflammatory
    • Diuretic
    • Nervine

Elder is a traditional immune system tonic with significant antiviral properties. The berries are more potent than the flowers in this light, and work by strengthening cell membranes against viral penetration. Elderberry also increases the production of cytokines—chemical messengers that enhance communication between white blood cells and the body during an infection.2 You may have read concerns regarding elderberry as a possible cause of cytokine storms. My opinion is that elder is likely safe for most people, but if you’d like to read more on the topic, I recommend this article by herbalist Paul Bergner.

Elderberry is effective against many viruses, including the common cold and a broad spectrum of influenza strains (especially when taken at the first signs of illness).

The most delicious and nourishing way to imbibe elderberry’s medicine is to prepare a rich purple syrup that combines elderberry tincture, elderberry tea, and elderberry-infused honey. For children and folks who avoid alcohol, I swap out the alcohol in the tincture for apple cider vinegar. I also add liberal quantities of cinnamon (Cinnamomum verum) and ginger (Zingiber officinale). It is beyond tasty! See our video tutorial on preparing herbal honeys and syrups for more guidance.

Taken tonically, elderberry has a range of other benefits; it is anti-inflammatory for arthritic conditions, iron-rich and building to the blood, a preventative for vascular disease and atherosclerosis, and an antioxidant preventative for cancer.

Elder flowers are gently antiviral and healing for the upper respiratory system. Rich in tannins and volatile oils, they effectively dry up excessive fluids and help mucus flow more freely from the sinuses, alleviating stuffy nose, headache, and earache. In addition, their flavonoid compounds are anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, and immune-stimulating.

When taken hot, a tea or tincture of elder flower can help sweat out a cold or fever, especially when combined with other diaphoretic herbs like peppermint (Mentha x piperita) and yarrow (Achillea millefolium).

Safety and Contraindications: All parts of elder (except the flowers) contain cyanogenic glycosides (CGs) that can cause varying degrees of upset stomach—nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea. The seeds and unripe berries are the most common culprits, but any toxicity is generally neutralized by cooking or tincturing. The leaves, bark, and roots contain progressively higher levels of CGs and are more likely to cause side effects. Once the plant has been purged from the system, there is no lasting illness.

Edibility

Elderberry is an exemplary nutritive tonic food that is rich in vitamin C, minerals, and bioflavonoids. The berries are not naturally very sweet and benefit from a bit of added honey, maple syrup, or other sugar. This makes them classic for pies, cobblers, jams, syrups, homemade sodas, and meads. Try combining them with other wild berries like serviceberries (Amelanchier spp.), black cap raspberries (Rubus occidentalis), and blackberries (Rubus spp.).

Elder blossoms contain fatty acids and have an almost buttery consistency. They can be added to pancakes, banana bread, muffins, and crepes. They’re also traditional in cordials, liquors, sodas, and tea. And if a special occasion is on the horizon, you might consider looking up a recipe for elderflower champagne.

How to Grow + Gather Elderberry

In Old World Europe, elders were traditionally planted near the home or at the edge of the herb garden as a guardian and protector. In North America, Native Americans have gathered medicine from wild elders (including S. canadensis) for millennia. Given their own choice, elders will prefer a moist habitat with rich, loamy soils. To raise a lush tree or hedge, I recommend a little pampering: enrich the soil with organic matter, mulch heavily after planting to retain moisture, and water young plants frequently. Once established, they need little care. Note: elders are generally tolerant and can establish themselves in dry conditions and poor, salty, or clayey soils.

Elderberries are propagated easily from seed, and even more easily from vegetative cuttings. Follow the guidelines for taking cuttings below. (You can also order cuttings and live plants from many edible plant and permaculture nurseries.)

If you have a local stand of elders, or know someone who has planted a shrub or two, you can harvest cuttings. Be sure to gather cuttings from bushes that have tasty berries, healthy growth, and prolific fruit.

  1. Take cuttings in late winter or very early spring, before the branches have begun to leaf out. From a living branch, take several 10- to 12-inch (25 to 30 cm) cuttings with at least two pairs of leaf nodes apiece. Make an angled cut at the “root” end, about ½ inch or so below a leaf node. At the other end, make a flat cut about ½ inch above a pair of leaf nodes. Use sharp pruners that have been sterilized with hydrogen peroxide or rubbing alcohol.
    –
  2. Apply a rooting hormone. Dust the angled ends of your cuttings with a rooting hormone. Alternately, you can try using willow (Salix spp.) tea. This will increase your success in propagating viable plants.
    –
  3. Fill 1-gallon pots with a planting medium. You can use coarse sand or perlite. If you don’t have either of these on hand, regular potting soil (preferably without fertilizer) will be adequate.
    –
  4. Make holes in the soil in the center of each pot using a pencil or twig and settle cuttings into the holes. Plant the cutting, burying the bottom leaf nodes about 2 inches (5 cm) below the surface of the soil. It’s fine to plant many cuttings into one large pot. Make sure to tamp the soil securely around each cutting.
    –
  5. Water, and try to keep the cuttings consistently moist but not soaking wet. Place them in diffused sunlight until they begin to grow both roots and leaves. Harden them off by gradually introducing them to direct sunlight.
    –

When ready, transplant the cuttings that have successfully rooted in fall or early spring. Space transplants about 6 feet (1.8 m) apart. Many transplants flower and fruit in their first year, though it may take several years before you can gather a sizable harvest.

The berries ripen in mid- to late summer and should be a deep dark purple before they are plucked. You’ll likely have competition from the birds, so be sure to check your bushes regularly. The stems of the berry clusters are considered somewhat toxic, so you’ll want to remove all of the larger stems and most of the smaller ones. If a little “stemlette” or two finds its way into your medicine, don’t fret—it won’t do any harm! Berries can be used fresh for medicine making or cooking, frozen for later use, or dried, which sweetens up their flavor.

Lemon balm (Melissa officinalis)

Lemon Balm
(Melissa officinalis, Lamiaceae)

The patron herb of bees, lemon balm encourages a bounty of sweetness in the world—not only does it gladden the heart, but it’s traditionally planted near honeybee hives to dissuade the bees from swarming (they adore lemon balm’s aroma). I know few herbalists who are without this plant in the garden. It is a traditional nervine, digestive, and antiviral ally.

Lemon Balm’s Medicinal Uses

Parts used: Leaves and flowering tops
Preparations: Infusion, tincture, vinegar, essential oil, salve, succus, pesto, and condiment

Herbal Actions:

  • Nervine
  • Carminative
  • Antiviral
  • Antidepressant
  • Diaphoretic

With bright green leaves that waft an uplifting lemony fragrance into the air, lemon balm is known to levitate the spirit. It is a brightening nervine remedy for melancholy, mild anxiety, seasonal affective disorder (SAD), and mild depression.* With relaxing, antispasmodic, and gently sedative qualities, it’s also indicated for tension headaches, stress-related insomnia, panic attacks accompanied by heart palpitations, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and overexcitement or restlessness in children.3

I find a fragrant infusion of lemon balm to be more encouraging for downcast spirits than a tincture, but both are effective. Try blending in other gladdening herbs like rose (Rosa spp.) and tulsi (Ocimum tenuiflorum). For tonic use, you might consider adding replenishing nervines like milky oats (Avena sativa) and skullcap (Scutellaria spp.). Taken regularly, these herbs can strengthen and rehabilitate a stressed, strained, and saddened nervous system.

Like many members of the mint family, lemon balm extends its aid as a carminative herb and digestive remedy. Its high concentration of essential oils has an antispasmodic and calming effect on dyspepsia, gas, nervous indigestion, nausea, heartburn, and the pains and cramping associated with irritable bowel syndrome (IBS).4

Lemon balm is also widely used as a topical and internal antiviral herb, especially for herpes (types 1 and 2), chickenpox, shingles, mononucleosis (mono), and sixth disease (roseola).5 Internally, the tincture or strong tea will be appropriate, taken regularly. Topically, a concentrated store-bought cream is highly effective. A dab of the essential oil diluted in a carrier oil is also wonderfully relieving (note that the essential oil is very expensive).

Safety and Contraindications: Lemon balm may be contraindicated for hypothyroidism (in large or consistent doses) because it inhibits the thyroid-stimulating hormone (TSH).6

*A note here on depression: Therapies to treat mental illness are highly individualized; each person and situation is unique. People typically need therapeutic treatment beyond herbalism: this might include acupuncture, talk therapy, nutrition, supplements, or pharmaceuticals. Please do not judge yourself or anyone else for needing and seeking help, natural or otherwise!

If you’re in a dark place or considering hurting yourself, please reach out right now—there are folks who want to talk to you. And we’re in this together. You are not alone! This helpline is one option: (1-800-273-TALK).

Edibility

Lemon balm is one of my favorite nutritive kitchen herbs; its fresh and tender shoots can be added to salsas, jams, liquors, ice cream, sorbet, smoothies, pestos, finishing salts, and infused vinegars. I often chop up a handful and combine it with mint (Mentha spp.) and flower petals as a topping for tacos. Likewise, the fresh leaves can be minced and tossed into fruit salads, tabouleh, and leafy green salads. Lemon balm leaves stirred into lentils or bean dishes add a nice flavor and improve their digestibility.

The simplest way to prepare lemon balm, however, is as a summertime iced tea. It is delicious on its own or combined with herbs like calendula (Calendula officinalis), hibiscus (Hibiscus sabdariffa), and mint. I also love Dina Falconi’s recipe for Everything Lemony Lime, which blends lemon balm, lemongrass, lemon verbena, lime zest, lime juice, sea salt, and raw honey. I make this at the height of summer when all the herbs can be gathered fresh from the garden. You can find the recipe in Dina’s exquisite book, Foraging & Feasting: A Field Guide and Wild Food Cookbook.

How to Grow + Gather Lemon Balm

Lemon balm has been cultivated in medicinal gardens for over 2,000 years. Native to the Mediterranean regions of south-central Europe and the Middle East, it is a sun-loving botanical that can thrive in USDA zones 3–10.

Among the easiest culinary and medicinal herbs to grow, lemon balm is most easily propagated by root division. If you know someone who already has a patch in their garden, you might promise to bring them a plate of lemon balm shortbread cookies in exchange for a division or two. For best success, see our guide to herbal root division here.

Lemon balm is also easily started from seed. Because this plant is a light-dependent germinator (LDG), the seeds should be planted right on the surface of the soil or just barely covered. Watering will gently press them into full contact with the soil. Expect germination after 7 to 14 days.

Lemon balm prefers rich soil with a bit of moisture but will also do well in dry or sandy soils. It is a bushing herbaceous perennial and can become extravagantly lush as summer unfolds. Space plants 1–2 feet (0.3–0.6 m) apart.

If you’ve heard rumors that lemon balm wantonly sows its seeds, I have to tell you the reputation is well-deserved. Many gardeners complain about its proclivity to produce offspring that will inhabit the near and far corners of your garden (though I don’t mind this myself). If you wish to thwart lemon balm’s advance, be sure to harvest the flowering tops before they set seed (but after the bees have had an opportunity to sip their nectar!).

I like to harvest lemon balm several times throughout the growing season. You can simply cut back all of the aboveground growth when the plant is looking at its verdant peak, usually right before it flowers. The leaves and stems can be dried, but I prefer to use lemon balm fresh as its aromatic oils quickly disperse. For fresh preparation suggestions, see the Edibility section above.

Rose
(Rosa spp., Rosaceae)

As an herbalist, it took me a while to come around to rose. Growing up, my only context for its blooms were the florist-perfect, sanguine-red bouquets that emanated a cloying scent on Valentine’s Day. I had never seen an heirloom rose in the garden or buried my nose in the petals of a wild bramble. So, I held little favor for this luxuriant medicine. Years later, as a budding gardener and herbal student, I discovered—with surprise and wonder—that I love rose with all my heart.

Rose’s Medicinal Uses

Parts used: Flower buds, blossoms, and hips
Preparations: Infusion (buds and flowers), decoction (hips), tincture, oil, salve, honey, syrup, elixir, rose otto essential oil, vinegar, flower essence, hydrosol, compress, poultice, and soak
Herbal Actions:

  • Flowers and Buds:
    • Nervine
    • Astringent
    • Anti-inflammatory
    • Cardiotonic
    • Antimicrobial
    • Diuretic
    • Anticatarrhal
    • Antianxiety
    • Aphrodisiac
  • Rosehips:
    • Blood tonic
    • Nutritive tonic
    • Astringent
    • Antimicrobial

Rose is a deliciously nuanced medicine—it is ancient, paradoxical, and mythic. The Greek poetess Sappho aptly named it “Queen of the Flowers.” After all, wild roses have been rambling on the planet for at least 70 million years (compare that to the first fossil evidence of Homo sapiens appearing around 300,000 years ago).

With velvety, kitten-soft petals, rose bears a doctrine of signatures that suggests succor and soothing. Both the blossoms and unopened buds are a remedy for those who are experiencing grief or loss, or feeling tenderhearted or unloved. The benefits are amplified when combined with hawthorn blossoms (Crataegus spp.), lavender blooms, (Lavandula angustifolia), and/or mimosa flowers (Albizia julibrissin). Rose is also an ally for those in conflict—a tea, elixir, cordial, or essence of the blooms can temper anger and encourage resolution.

In children, rose can impart a sense of comfort and security. It calms irritability, fits of anger, and nightmares. A spritz of rosewater on the pillow right before bedtime is a soothing ritual and helpful measure toward sweet sleep…(continues)

RealClear Politics: The Gaslighting of the American Mind

From J. Peder Zane at RealClear Politics, The Gaslighting of the American Mind

Democrats are the party of make believe.

Through their domination of the media, academia, Hollywood, and growing swaths of corporate America, they successfully peddle propaganda as reality. They insisted President Trump was a dictator and a treasonous ally of Vladimir Putin who refused to denounce white supremacy. They dismissed questions about the business dealings of President Biden’s family as “Russian disinformation” that had been “totally discredited.”

When investigations and fact checks revealed those claims to be false, they just kept on repeating them. Tell a lie long and loud enough and many accept it as truth.

Having secured the White House and control of the Senate in the last election, Democrats and their allies are adding a strong dose of intimidation to their campaign of deceit. They are using social media to silence dissent from their views while creating blacklists to make it difficult for their opponents to find gainful employment. In a sign of how far gone they are, many journalists at influential outfits are now questioning the wisdom of the First Amendment and calling for government regulation of speech.

As cancel culture spreads, they gaslight the public by denying that it is happening. At the same time they argue that Republicans must be silenced and even “deprogrammed” because they are delusional liars. To conservative ears, the national discourse often boils down to this: Are you going to believe us or your lying eyes?

The caricature of conservatives certainly describes some people on the right. Sen. Mitch McConnell has spoken out against his party’s lunatic fringe. But there is little evidence they enjoy meaningful support. The Jan. 6 criminal assault on the Capitol was a disgrace, but it was also widely condemned by Republicans – a stark contrast to Democrats who have largely ignored or even celebrated the repeated violence perpetrated by antifa. Casting that action as an attempted coup – pretending the mob could have gained control of the government – is deceitful propaganda aimed at smearing 74 million Trump voters.

U.S. history is full of examples of movements that many Americans considered dangerous. Usually these were progressives who fought for unions, and marched for civil rights, and demanded an end to foreign wars. Most people see those causes as worthy, even though communists were interspersed among the activists’ ranks. We also now see that the suppression they provoked was shameful. As future Supreme Court Justice Louis D. Brandeis noted in 1913, sunlight is “the best of disinfectants”; the way to defeat dangerous ideas and behaviors is to expose them to reason.

This is a foundation of our pluralistic democracy.

History reveals two main reasons why factions seek to limit speech: first, because it is an effective means to quash dissent and second because they won’t or can’t defend their own ideas. Today’s Democrats and their allies are driven by both rationales. Their control of most communication channels has empowered them to spread narratives that delegitimize their opponents by caricaturing them as racist conspiracy theorists.

It may be impossible to change the minds of those who embrace the accuracy of that portrayal, but it is worth asking: If your view is true, why advance so many mistruths to support it? For Democrats this propaganda coup is a twofer: As it marginalizes Republicans, it keeps the focus off the ramifications of their own ideas and politics. Their argument boils down to this: Let us do what we want because otherwise those Neanderthals will be in charge. This strategy is increasingly essential for Democrats as they advance leftist ideas that are hard to support through fact-based metrics – i.e. reality instead of ideology.

Democrats are the party of activist government. Their core progressive idea – the plinth course of their Great Society programs – is that the combination of vast federal resources and elite expertise can solve most of society’s problems. There have been some successes – credit progressives and libertarians for helping advance the rights of marginalized groups. But the last half-century has also seen the breakdown of the nuclear family, continuing hopelessness and blight in many cities, and the failure of public schools to raise educational achievement despite massive increases in per pupil spending.

While many African Americans have entered the middle class since the 1960s, blacks still lag behind other Americans in a wide variety of measures of health and wealth despite massive government interventions. The reasons for these failures are myriad and complex. The rise of a competitive global economy, for example, has gutted manufacturing jobs and depressed low-skill wages.

But the bottom line is that many progressive programs have not delivered on their promise of prosperity and opportunity for many of the groups they specifically aimed to help.

This is a particular problem for Democrats because African Americans remain their core voting base. The demonstrable shortcomings of their efforts help explain why they have embraced the concept of systemic racism and sound their incessant alarms about white supremacy despite America’s significant progress toward social justice. The message: Our programs would have worked but for rampant racism.

Unable to change the facts, they work to alter the definition of reality. President Biden codified this make-believe style of government on his first day in office when he signed the Modernizing Regulatory Review memorandum. As the government seeks justifications for new controls on society, it directed agencies to “fully account … for regulatory benefits that are difficult or impossible to quantify.”

Difficult or impossible to quantify? Translation: make ’em up. This is just the latest, frightening evidence that the party that claims to embrace science, facts and truth is driven by ideology. When you’re running a make-believe society, it’s no wonder you have to silence dissent.

Mises Institute: Government’s Money Monopoly and the “Great Reset”

From the Mises Institute, Government’s Money Monopoly and the “Great Reset”

The unbacked paper money system is an economically and socially destructive system—with far-reaching and harmful economic and social consequences beyond what most people would imagine. Fiat money is inflationary; it benefits some at the expense of many others; it causes boom-and-bust cycles; it corrupts the morality of society; it will ultimately end in a major bust; and it leads to overindebtedness.

The Institute of International Finance (IIF) estimates that global debt climbed to $277 trillion by the end of 2020, amounting to a staggering 365 percent of world gross domestic product (GDP). As the graph below shows, global debt versus GDP has risen in recent years, suggesting that the increase in debt has outpaced the rise in GDP. This buildup of excessive debt, the path to overindebtedness, results from an unbacked paper money system.

In close cooperation with commercial banks, the central banks artificially lower the market interest rate through credit expansion, which increases the money supply. Consumption increases and savings decline, while capital expenditures go up. Taken together, this means that the economy is living beyond its means. While the injection of new credit and money at artificially low interest rates causes an initial surge in economic activity, this boom will and must be followed by bust.

Learning from the Austrian Business Cycle Theory

The Austrian business cycle theory (ABCT) points to this with rigorous logic. The reason is that once the injection of new credit and money has run its course—after wages are raised, cost of capital lowered, etc.—market interest rates return to their original levels, that is the levels which prevailed before the issuance of credit and money out of thin air. Once market interest rates start to rise, the boom slackens and collapses.

Higher market interest rates prompt people to reduce consumption and increase savings from current income. In addition, new investment projects that are considered profitable in times of artificially suppressed market interest rates turn out to be unprofitable. Firms start to rein in spending, cut jobs, liquidate assets. Painful as it is for most people, this is the process through which the economy cleanses itself of overconsumption and malinvestment caused by the boom.

As a rule of thumb, the higher the debt burden on an economy, the higher its debt in relation to income, the more problematic it is when a recession hits. Generally speaking, a decrease in output worsens borrowers’ ability to service their debt. However, once debt has reached relatively high levels, a recession can cause debtors to default on their payment obligations. In fact, it can cause the debt pyramid to collapse, sending the economy into depression.

Critics of the ABCT may argue that the unbacked paper money system, despite its sky-high debt, did not collapse in the 2008–09 crisis, nor did it collapse in the politically dictated lockdown crisis of 2020–21. Doesn’t that suggest the ABCT got it wrong? The answer is no; the important point here is that when applying the ABCT to past or current real events, it is important to take “special conditions” into account appropriately.

Once that is done, it becomes evident that central banks have taken control of market interest rates in recent years. Market interest rates are no longer “freely” determined in the market, but effectively dictated by monetary authorities. Indeed, central banks can—and do—prevent market interest rates from rising, which means that they are actually disrupting the corrective force that could turn the boom into bust, keeping the boom going for longer.

This policy has consequences that should also be taken into account. When central banks successfully intervene in the credit market and fend off the bust, the misallocation of scarce resources continues and gets even worse—adding to the scale and scope of the inevitable crisis in the future. What more, the monetary policy of preventing a bust by any means allows anticapitalist forces to destroy what little is left of the free market system. And that is exactly what is happening around the world.

An Uncomfortable Truth: The State Feeds on Crises

The politically dictated lockdown crisis has slowed down economic activity in many countries around the world and in extreme cases brought it to a standstill. Recession, business failures, and mass unemployment are the results. In the meantime, the governments—which have caused the disaster in the first place—have “come to the rescue”: they are letting their central banks put ever-greater amounts of money in the bank accounts of consumers and producers.

In relying on this money flow, a growing number of people and business models become dependent on government handouts. It does not take much to realize that this whole process is clearly playing into the hands of those political quarters that want to grow the state even bigger, push back the remaining capitalist elements in the economic system, and establish a collectivist-socialist regime—that it operates the switches to a truly “socialist transformation.”

When consumers and businesspeople receive generous financial support from the government, resistance against a policy that destroys many firms and jobs is greatly reduced—compared to a situation where those who suffer from such government policies receive no compensation. In other words, by running the electronic printing presses, state power is greatly increased at the expense of civil liberties and freedom.

History shows that emergencies and crises strengthen the power of the state; and also that it is very difficult to ever take power away from the state once it has seized it. And the more powerful the state becomes, the more it will be used by resourceful special interest groups—such as the military-industrial complex, Big Banking, Big Tech—as the economic theory of so-called rent seeking would explain to us.

The Trouble with Oligarchic Democracy

This development is accelerated in democracies, because democracies develop into oligarchies, as the sociologist Robert Michels (1876–1936) argues. Why is that? In representative democracies, political parties are formed. These parties are organizations run by the most determined, power-hungry people. They become the “oligarchic party elite” and are in a position to set their own agendas, regardless of the will of the party base or party voters.

Various oligarchic party elite groups begin to work together, paving the way toward an “oligarchic democracy,” in which the powerful few rule over the many powerless. In other words: Michels argues that the idea of democracy is turned on its head. In fact, in an oligarchic democracy, it becomes possible for the political and corporate “elites” to effectively run the show, enforcing their favored political, economic, and social concept with joint forces.

Against this backdrop, the buzzwords “Great Transformation,” “Great Reset,” and “new world order” seem to be the brainchildren of today’s political and corporate elites, meant to replace what little is left of the free market system and install a so-called command economic system: While the institution of property is maintained in name, it is the central authority, the power elite, that determines what the owners of property may or may not do with their property.

In a command economic system, the oligarchic party elites would effectively dictate what is produced by whom, when, where, and at what cost, and who gets what and when from the production output; and it takes only a fairly small—and logically consistent—step to transform the command economic system into outright socialism—where the oligarchic party elites and their partners would effectively own the means of production. But socialism is a recipe for disaster.

We Must End the State’s Money Monopoly

The productivity of a command economy, let alone full-blown socialism, could not support, feed, clothe, and house a world population of currently around 7.8 billion people. In fact, a command economy or outright socialism would mean the death of millions, if not billions, of people. Ludwig von Mises (1881–1973) pointed this out as early as 1919: Socialism is impossible, it leads to chaos, impoverishment, and total loss of individual freedom.

And yet, collectivist-socialist ideologues and their supporters, politically weaponizing “climate change” and, most recently, the “coronavirus epidemic,” are pushing very hard to abolish the market system (or what little is left of it) altogether to impose a command economic system, or even a socialist regime, on mankind. Although they enjoy support by large numbers of people, that does not mean that socialism is inevitable, as Marxist-socialist thinkers wish to make their audience believe.

Mises understood that peaceful and productive cooperation among men at national and international levels requires private property and unimpeded division of labor, or what it boils down to: the free market system, or capitalism. He also pointed out that society lives and acts only in individuals, and that it is in the interest of every individual to stand up for the defense of the free market system. Mises noted in Socialism (1951):

society…was created by mankind. Whether society shall continue to evolve or whether it shall decay lies—in the sense in which causal determination of all events permits us to speak of freewill—in the hand of man. Whether Society is good or bad may be a matter of individual judgment; but whoever prefers life to death, happiness to suffering, well-being to misery, must accept society. And whoever desires that society should exist and develop must also accept, without limitation or reserve, private ownership in the means of production.

Against this backdrop, it should be clear that the unbacked paper money system is not only a cause of crises, it is also the central instrument for those political forces—namely the oligarchic party elites and their supporters—that want to overthrow the existing economic and social order and install a collectivist-socialist dictatorship. Because without the state being in a position to increase the money supply at will, people would sooner or later feel the true costs of the state’s machinations.

And once people understand the true costs of the politically orchestrated economic transformation to their own lives and the well-being of their families and communities, resistance would certainly ensue that has the potential to put an end to a political system that increasingly erodes individual freedoms and liberties. Ending the state money production monopoly and allowing a free market in money is perhaps the most effective line of defense against world tyranny.

CSG: Introduction to Systematic Politics Classes, Feb. 2021

The Center for Self Governance is holding three different Introduction to Systematic Politics courses in Washington and Idaho states in February. These courses are both live classroom and online.

Feb. 19, Coeur d’Alene, ID

Feb. 20, Benewah County, ID

Feb. 27, Cowlitz County, WA

In Block 1 you will distinguish Partisan from Systematic Politics, learn the origins of Systematic Politics, and identify the Systematic Politics of Layer and Marble Cake Federalism.

Independent Institute: Big Tech’s Gravest Sin? Working with the Security State

From the Independent Institute, Big Tech’s Gravest Sin? Working with the Security State . There is an argument that Big Tech censorship is not a violation of free speech because they are private entities. But when those Big Tech companies get financially entangled with the government, who can say when quid pro quo censorship is occurring?

The “de-platforming” of Donald Trump by Twitter, Facebook, and Google-owned YouTube—that is, Big Tech—recently garnered big headlines. Trump’s change in status has raised cries among some conservatives of “censorship.” Yet a more libertarian view holds that these are private companies that have a right to control their own content, just as private broadcast and print media do. The word “censorship” has been traditionally and more appropriately applied to government violations of the Constitution’s First Amendment guarantee of free speech.

More disturbing might be Big Tech’s aiding of law enforcement’s violations of the rights of individuals at home and contributions to the military’s violation of human rights abroad. Despite its reputation for independence, it has recently been revealed that Big Tech’s relationship with the American national security establishment may be stronger than was previously thought. At some tech firms, workforce opposition has arisen over company contracts with the military and law enforcement. Yet these employee objections have usually led the companies to hide such government business through the use of mundane and nondescript subcontractors.

Big Tech has had a long-standing relationship with the U.S. government and military. During World War II, the government used IBM’s punch card technology to keep track of prisoners at unconstitutional domestic internment camps housing Japanese Americans, who even government reports admitted posed no threat to the American war effort. (At the same time, Nazi Germany was using similar IBM technology.) The Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) of the Department of Defense (DoD) funded research on computing in the 1960s that led to the Internet and later to Siri. Such spinoffs are beneficial, but it is more efficient for the private sector to invest in them directly. Less positively, Honeywell Aerospace manufactured fragmentation bombs, which killed many civilians during the Vietnam War. Silicon Valley was no stranger to military contracts, with Lockheed (now Lockheed Martin), builder of military aircraft, missiles, satellites, and other defense systems, being the biggest player there during the 1980s.

Nowadays, Big Tech companies have loads of contracts with the military and law enforcement. Tech Inquiry, a non-profit organization promoting tech accountability, has reported that DoD, ICE, FBI, DEA, and the Federal Bureau of Prisons have thousands of contracts with Microsoft, Amazon, Google, Facebook, Dell, IBM, and Hewlett Packard. Microsoft is by far the contract champion, with 5,000. Amazon and Google trail with 350 and 250, respectively.

For example, Amazon’s facial Rekognition software could easily be misused by the government, yet the company is still marketing it to government agencies such as Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Furthermore, Amazon’s cloud services are employed by Palantir, a company that creates databases for ICE. Microsoft even admits that its software allows ICE to “utilize deep learning capabilities to accelerate facial recognition and identification” of immigrants. Dell also licenses software to ICE.

Google was involved in Project Maven to provide artificial intelligence for U.S. drone warfare in foreign nations. American presidents have used drones to illegally kill people, including Barack Obama’s assassination of Anwar al-Awlaki in Yemen. Awlaki was an American citizen, killed by his own government without charges, a trial, or sentencing. Almost 4,000 Google employees demanded the company end the contract and some resigned over it. Yet Google is now providing off-the-shelf technology for drones.

Big Tech is even helping foreign governments conduct what can be legitimately called “censorship.” For example, Google, in a project called Dragonfly, sold the oppressive Chinese government a censored version of its search engine. Microsoft beat out Amazon for a whopping $10 billion JEDI (Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure) contract to provide cloud computing for DoD.

Big Tech should be leery of working with both the U.S. and foreign governments—and not only because many of their employees object to contracts that can result in deaths or the violation of human rights. Government money never comes without strings attached. Contracting with the government will bring a slew of regulations that can change the commercial nature of any business, rendering it less creative and innovative.

Nonetheless this admonition may fall on deaf ears—because the government is so big and spends so much money in the private sector that it is hard for tech companies to avoid being tempted by its pot of gold. Although it pretends differently, Big Tech has a long and lucrative relationship with government contracting and, unfortunately, that business will probably continue to grow in the future.

Upcoming Homestead Classes with Julie Michener, Feb. – Mar. 2021

Upcoming Homestead Classes with Julie Michener
3674 N. County Line Road. Grandview.
Classes are free but RSVP via text (509-830-5431) is required as class space is limited.

Canning Class

THIS SATURDAY…Feb 6. 1-3pm
Pressure can a load of dry beans and meat with me and ask any questions you have!
Save the date…

Food Storage Class

Saturday, Feb 20th, 1pm to 3pm
What to store, how much to store, how to store it, and how to use it all to feed your household.
Coming in March…

Hands on Gardening Class

Saturday, March 13th from 1:00 pm to 3:00 pm
Composting, building seed beds, planting, transplanting, irrigation, raised beds, trellis, high tunnels and cold frames.

Black Man with a Gun: The Rights of Gun Owners

Kenn Blanchard of Black Man with a Gun has a short article and video on The Rights of Gun Owners. There is also a longer podcast recording through the link.

What do you do after you buy your firearm, learn, train, share your knowledge and have fun with it?  You have to defend your right to it.  Politically– gun control is a staple in America.  And after the past four years,  this country is more divided than it was since 1975.

If you are a new gun owner, I am asking you to consider becoming a gun rights activist.  If you belong to a new gun club or group, I am suggesting that someone be designated to be the  legislative rep; the one that learns about gun laws, state bills, issues for the rest. The one that will make time to go and sit, talk to, represent us.   

With the increase of black, brown and other gun owners from what is called Traditional, there is a need for us to also step up and represent our clubs, associations and rights. As America mends, as the Republic repairs itself,  it is going to be slow.  Our enemies will take this opportunity to hurt the future of ALL gun owners. 

This is my appeal.  Uncle Kenn Wants You! 

I am asking you to do more than wear black battle fatigues and parade around.  I’m asking you to do more that show off your range time “kings and queens” on social media.

Social media has created an environment of fearlessness, carelessness, thoughtlessness, hopelessness, false bravado, misinformation, and racism.  Those things have always been but it has upped its game.

When the dust settles, and the battle for gun rights begins again, the sage gun clubs, organizations and cool old white guys will be dismissed  like the middle of the road folks have been.  They will be compared to and accused of being insurrectionist, racist and nuts 10 x more than before.  WHY – because they helped.  They made it easy. They fell into the trap.

Friends I am talking to you. We have been pitted against each other;  SUCCESSFULLY.  Your hot buttons have been pushed.  You’ve exercised your rights to speak out and do what you wanted and it hurt us all.

From my optic, law enforcement has less support than since 1968.  (Successful campaigns)

Attention whores rule social media and magazines covers.

There will be less interaction between the new gun owner and the old because of the discourse, media and stances folks have taken. (propaganda)

We are caught up in the fantasy.  We still want to be crusaders, black panthers, confederates, punishers, tactical spectacular militia and minute-men.  

NINJA please!

 

Support the show.  https://patreon.com/blackmanwithagun

https://Buymeacoffee.com/kennblanchard

Thanks

Kenn

Ammoland: HR 127 The Sabika Sheikh Firearm Licensing and Registration Act

From Ammoland, HR 127 The Sabika Sheikh Firearm Licensing and Registration Act

One sad reality of some of the most extreme anti-Second Amendment legislation is that it will come back in Congress after Congress as long as its sponsor is still out there. The Sabika Sheikh Firearm Licensing and Registration Act is one of these bills.

This legislation was introduced last year in the 116th Congress and covered in Ammoland. It was part of a package of three bills introduced by Representative Sheila Jackson-Lee – the other two being the Santa Fe High School Victims Act and the Kimberly Vaughan Firearms Safe Storage Act. This year, it is labeled under HR 127, as opposed to being HR 4801 in the last Congress.

As you can imagine, this Congress’s iteration of the Sabika Sheikh Firearm Licensing and Registration Act is no less onerous and oppressive as its predecessor. If anything, though, some of the provisions now carry new menace given the constant calls for “deprogramming” we hear from pundits and cable “news” outlets of a certain persuasion.

Like its iteration in the last Congress, HR 127 calls for a psychological evaluation of those who wish to exercise their Second Amendment rights. Our past coverage noted that the evaluation could take a lot of time, given the number of interviews that would have to be scheduled. The concern then was the creation of more tragedies along the line of Carol Bowne, who was murdered by an abusive ex.

Now, however, given the desire for “deprogramming,” we could very well see the psychological evaluation used to target those who dissent from anti-Second Amendment extremism, who raise questions about certain issues, or who even supported former President Trump on other issues. After all, we haven’t ever seen government bureaucrats abuse power for political ends before, and even raising that notion might be enough to warrant “deprogramming” these days. After all, to believe some people, Second Amendment advocacy is domestic terrorism.

In addition, the climate of media-fueled hate adds another danger – the registration data is going to be made available to the general public. Someone can look up just how many firearms you own, what types of guns you have. It’s not just a massive planning aid to would-be thieves, but in an era of social stigmatization, it opens the door to discrimination and blacklisting across a number of areas, including employment and housing.

This bill is even more unacceptable now than it was when it was introduced in the last Congress. Second Amendment supporters need to contact their Representative and Senators and politely urge them to oppose this massive infringement that only punishes the law-abiding and to instead support legislation like the School Violence Prevention and Mitigation Act of 2019 and the Protecting Communities and Preserving the Second Amendment Act, which actually address school security and the misuse of firearms and do not infringe on our rights. Second Amendment supporters should also support the NRA’s Institute for Legislative Action and Political Victory Fund to ensure that the current anti-Second Amendment regimes in the House, Senate, and White House are defeated at the ballot box as soon as possible.

Colion Noir also talks about it:

Bjorn Andreas Bull-Hansen Says Censorship Will Get Worse

Norwegian bushcrafter Bjorn Andreas Bull-Hansen says censorship will get worse as Apple CEO calls for more censorship of social media. Of course, Apple CEO Tim Cook has a history of pro-censorship rhetoric; back in 2018 he called it a sin not to attack people with whom you don’t agree and celebrated the banning of users who held disagreeable opinions.

Organic Prepper: Would YOU Be Considered a Domestic Terrorist Under This New Bill?

Robert Wheeler at The Organic Prepper talk about the Domestic Terrorism Prevention Act of 2021 and asks Would YOU Be Considered a Domestic Terrorist Under This New Bill?  If you go looking for the bill, please note that there was a DTPA of 2020 and one for 2019, and 2018, and 2017… so be sure you’re looking at the right one. There are also news articles relating to some of the old acts saying things like “the legislation doesn’t mention MAGA rallies anywhere,” but we currently don’t have text for this years act.

After 9/11, the entire country collectively lost its mind in the throes of fear. During that time, all civil and Constitutional rights were shredded and replaced with the pages of The USA PATRIOT Act.

Almost 20 years later, the U.S. has again lost its collective mind, this time in fear of a “virus” and it’s “super mutations” and a “riot” at the capitol. A lot of people called this and to the surprise of very few, much like after 9/11, Americans are watching what remains of their civil liberties be replaced with a new bill.

The Domestic Terrorism Prevention Act of 2021

The DTPA is essentially the criminalization of speech, expression, and thought. It takes cancel culture a step further and all but outlaws unpopular opinions. This act will empower intelligence, law enforcement, and even military wings of the American ruling class to crack down on individuals adhering to certain belief systems and ideologies.

According to MI Congressman Fred Upton: 

“The attack on the U.S. Capitol earlier this month was the latest example of domestic terrorism, but the threat of domestic terrorism remains very real. We cannot turn a blind eye to it,” Upton said. “The Domestic Terrorism Prevention Act will equip our law enforcement leaders with the tools needed to help keep our homes, families, and communities across the country safe.

Congressman Upton’s website gives the following information on DTPA:

The Domestic Terrorism Prevention Act of 2021 would strengthen the federal government’s efforts to prevent, report on, respond to, and investigate acts of domestic terrorism by authorizing offices dedicated to combating this threat; requiring these offices to regularly assess this threat; and providing training and resources to assist state, local, and tribal law enforcement in addressing it.

DTPA would authorize three offices, one each within the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the Department of Justice (DOJ), and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), to monitor, investigate, and prosecute cases of domestic terrorism. The bill also requires these offices to provide Congress with joint, biannual reports assessing the state of domestic terrorism threats, with a specific focus on white supremacists. Based on the data collected, DTPA requires these offices to focus their resources on the most significant threats.

DTPA also codifies the Domestic Terrorism Executive Committee, which would coordinate with United States Attorneys and other public safety officials to promote information sharing and ensure an effective, responsive, and organized joint effort to combat domestic terrorism. The legislation requires DOJ, FBI, and DHS to provide training and resources to assist state, local, and tribal law enforcement agencies in understanding, detecting, deterring, and investigating acts of domestic terrorism and white supremacy. Finally, DTPA directs DHS, DOJ, FBI, and the Department of Defense to establish an interagency task force to combat white supremacist infiltration of the uniformed services and federal law enforcement.

Those who read the bill aren’t so gung ho to shred the Constitution

Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard has some serious reservations. In a recent interview on Fox News Primetime, Gabbard stated that the bill effectively criminalizes half of the country. (Emphasis ours)

“It’s so dangerous as you guys have been talking about, this is an issue that all Democrats, Republicans, independents, Libertarians should be extremely concerned about, especially because we don’t have to guess about where this goes or how this ends,” Gabbard said.

She continued: “When you have people like former CIA Director John Brennan openly talking about how he’s spoken with or heard from appointees and nominees in the Biden administration who are already starting to look across our country for these types of movements similar to the insurgencies they’ve seen overseas, that in his words, he says make up this unholy alliance of religious extremists, racists, bigots, he lists a few others and at the end, even libertarians.”

Gabbard, stating her concern about how the government will define what qualities they are searching for in potential threats to the country, went on to ask:

“What characteristics are we looking for as we are building this profile of a potential extremist, what are we talking about? Religious extremists, are we talking about Christians, evangelical Christians, what is a religious extremist? Is it somebody who is pro-life? Where do you take this”

Tulsi said the bill would create a dangerous undermining of our civil liberties and freedoms in our Constitution. She also stated the DPTA essentially targets nearly half of the United States. 

“You start looking at obviously, have to be a white person, obviously likely male, libertarians, anyone who loves freedom, liberty, maybe has an American flag outside their house, or people who, you know, attended a Trump rally,” Gabbard said.

Tulsi Gabbard is not the only one to criticize the legislation

Even the ACLU, one of the weakest organizations on civil liberties in the United States, has spoken out. While the ACLU was only concerned with how the bill would affect minorities or “brown people,” the organization stated that the legislation, while set forth under the guise of countering white supremacy, would eventually be used against non-white people.

The ACLU’s statement is true.

As with similar bills submitted under the guise of “protecting” Americans against outside threats, this bill will inevitably expand further. The stated goals of the DPTA are far-reaching and frightening enough. It would amount to an official declaration of the end to Free Speech.

Soon there will be no rights left for Americans

In the last twenty years, Americans have lost their 4th Amendment rights, and now they are losing their 1st. All that remains is the 2nd Amendment, and both the ruling class and increasing numbers of the American people know it.

Dark days are ahead.

Here is also an interview with Tulsi Gabbard on the issue.

Rutherford Institute: Enemies of the Deep State – The Government’s War on Domestic Terrorism Is a Trap

Constitutional law attorney John Whitehead at the Rutherford Institute writes Enemies of the Deep State: The Government’s War on Domestic Terrorism Is a Trap

“This is an issue that all Democrats, Republicans, independents, Libertarians should be extremely concerned about, especially because we don’t have to guess about where this goes or how this ends. What characteristics are we looking for as we are building this profile of a potential extremist, what are we talking about? Religious extremists, are we talking about Christians, evangelical Christians, what is a religious extremist? Is it somebody who is pro-life? [The proposed legislation could create] a very dangerous undermining of our civil liberties, our freedoms in our Constitution, and a targeting of almost half of the country.”—Tulsi Gabbard, former Congresswoman

This is how it begins.

We are moving fast down that slippery slope to an authoritarian society in which the only opinions, ideas and speech expressed are the ones permitted by the government and its corporate cohorts.

In the wake of the Jan. 6 riots at the Capitol, “domestic terrorism” has become the new poster child for expanding the government’s powers at the expense of civil liberties.

Of course, “domestic terrorist” is just the latest bull’s eye phrase, to be used interchangeably with “anti-government,” “extremist” and “terrorist,” to describe anyone who might fall somewhere on a very broad spectrum of viewpoints that could be considered “dangerous.”

Watch and see: we are all about to become enemies of the state.

In a déjà vu mirroring of the legislative fall-out from 9/11, and the ensuing build-up of the security state, there is a growing demand in certain sectors for the government to be given expanded powers to root out “domestic” terrorism, the Constitution be damned.

If this is a test of Joe Biden’s worthiness to head up the American police state, he seems ready.

As part of his inaugural address, President Biden pledged to confront and defeat “a rise of political extremism, white supremacy, domestic terrorism.” Biden has also asked the Director of National Intelligence to work with the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security in carrying out a “comprehensive threat assessment” of domestic terrorism. And then to keep the parallels going, there is the proposed Domestic Terrorism Prevention Act of 2021, introduced after the Jan. 6 riots, which aims to equip the government with “the tools to identify, monitor and thwart” those who could become radicalized to violence.

Don’t blink or you’ll miss the sleight of hand.

This is the tricky part of the Deep State’s con game that keeps you focused on the shell game in front of you while your wallet is being picked clean by ruffians in your midst.

It follows the same pattern as every other convenient “crisis” used by the government as an excuse to expand its powers at the citizenry’s expense and at the expense of our freedoms.

As investigative journalist Glenn Greenwald warns:

“The last two weeks have ushered in a wave of new domestic police powers and rhetoric in the name of fighting ‘terrorism’ that are carbon copies of many of the worst excesses of the first War on Terror that began nearly twenty years ago. This New War on Terror—one that is domestic in name from the start and carries the explicit purpose of fighting ‘extremists’ and ‘domestic terrorists’ among American citizens on U.S. soil—presents the whole slew of historically familiar dangers when governments, exploiting media-generated fear and dangers, arm themselves with the power to control information, debate, opinion, activism and protests.”

Greenwald is referring to the USA Patriot Act, passed almost 20 years ago, which paved the way for the eradication of every vital safeguard against government overreach, corruption and abuse.

Free speech, the right to protest, the right to challenge government wrongdoing, due process, a presumption of innocence, the right to self-defense, accountability and transparency in government, privacy, press, sovereignty, assembly, bodily integrity, representative government: all of these and more have become casualties in the government’s war on the American people, a war that has grown more pronounced since Sept. 11, 2001.

Some members of Congress get it.

In a letter opposing expansion of national security powers, a handful congressional representatives urged their colleagues not to repeat the mistakes of the past:

“While many may find comfort in increased national security powers in the wake of this attack, we must emphasize that we have been here before and we have seen where that road leads. Our history is littered with examples of initiatives sold as being necessary to fight extremism that quickly devolve into tools used for the mass violation of the human and civil rights of the American people… To expand the government’s national security powers once again at the expense of the human and civil rights of the American people would only serve to further undermine our democracy, not protect it.”

Cue the Emergency State, the government’s Machiavellian version of crisis management that justifies all manner of government tyranny in the so-called name of national security.

This is the power grab hiding in plain sight, obscured by the political machinations of the self-righteous elite. This is how the government continues to exploit crises and use them as opportunities for power grabs under the guise of national security. Indeed, this is exactly how the government added red flag gun laws, precrime surveillance, fusion centers, threat assessments, mental health assessments, involuntary confinement to its arsenal of weaponized powers.

The objective is not to make America safe again. That has never been the government’s aim.

Greenwald explains:

“Why would such new terrorism laws be needed in a country that already imprisons more of its citizens than any other country in the world as the result of a very aggressive set of criminal laws? What acts should be criminalized by new ‘domestic terrorism’ laws that are not already deemed criminal? They never say, almost certainly because—just as was true of the first set of new War on Terror laws—their real aim is to criminalize that which should not be criminalized: speech, association, protests, opposition to the new ruling coalition.”

So you see, the issue is not whether Donald Trump or Roger Stone or MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell deserve to be banned from Twitter, even if they’re believed to be spouting misinformation, hateful ideas, or fomenting discontent.

Rather, we should be asking whether any corporation or government agency or entity representing a fusion of the two should have the power to muzzle, silence, censor, regulate, control and altogether eradicate so-called “dangerous” or “extremist” ideas.

This unilateral power to muzzle free speech represents a far greater danger than any so-called right- or left-wing extremist might pose.

The ramifications are so far-reaching as to render almost every American an extremist in word, deed, thought or by association.

Yet where many go wrong is in assuming that you have to be doing something illegal or challenging the government’s authority in order to be flagged as a suspicious character, labeled an enemy of the state and locked up like a dangerous criminal.

Eventually, all you will really need to do is use certain trigger words, surf the internet, communicate using a cell phone, drive a car, stay at a hotel, purchase materials at a hardware store, take flying or boating lessons, appear suspicious, question government authority, or generally live in the United States.

The groundwork has already been laid.

The trap is set.

All that is needed is the right bait.

With the help of automated eyes and ears, a growing arsenal of high-tech software, hardware and techniques, government propaganda urging Americans to turn into spies and snitches, as well as social media and behavior sensing software, government agents have been busily spinning a sticky spider-web of threat assessments, behavioral sensing warnings, flagged “words,” and “suspicious” activity reports aimed at snaring potential enemies of the state.

It’s the American police state’s take on the dystopian terrors foreshadowed by George Orwell, Aldous Huxley and Phillip K. Dick all rolled up into one oppressive pre-crime and pre-thought crime package.

What’s more, the technocrats who run the surveillance state don’t even have to break a sweat while monitoring what you say, what you read, what you write, where you go, how much you spend, whom you support, and with whom you communicate. Computers by way of AI (artificial intelligence) now do the tedious work of trolling social media, the internet, text messages and phone calls for potentially anti-government remarks, all of which is carefully recorded, documented, and stored to be used against you someday at a time and place of the government’s choosing.

For instance, police in major American cities have been using predictive policing technology that allows them to identify individuals—or groups of individuals—most likely to commit a crime in a given community. Those individuals are then put on notice that their movements and activities will be closely monitored and any criminal activity (by them or their associates) will result in harsh penalties.

In other words, the burden of proof is reversed: you are guilty before you are given any chance to prove you are innocent.

Dig beneath the surface of this kind of surveillance/police state, however, and you will find that the real purpose of pre-crime is not safety but control.

Red flag gun laws merely push us that much closer towards a suspect society where everyone is potentially guilty of some crime or another and must be preemptively rendered harmless.

This is the same government that has a growing list—shared with fusion centers and law enforcement agencies—of ideologies, behaviors, affiliations and other characteristics that could flag someone as suspicious and result in their being labeled potential enemies of the state.

For instance, if you believe in and exercise your rights under the Constitution (namely, your right to speak freely, worship freely, associate with like-minded individuals who share your political views, criticize the government, own a weapon, demand a warrant before being questioned or searched, or any other activity viewed as potentially anti-government, racist, bigoted, anarchic or sovereign), you could be at the top of the government’s terrorism watch list.

Moreover, as a New York Times editorial warns, you may be an anti-government extremist (a.k.a. domestic terrorist) in the eyes of the police if you are afraid that the government is plotting to confiscate your firearms, if you believe the economy is about to collapse and the government will soon declare martial law, or if you display an unusual number of political and/or ideological bumper stickers on your car.

According to one FBI latest report, you might also be classified as a domestic terrorism threat if you espouse conspiracy theories, especially if you “attempt to explain events or circumstances as the result of a group of actors working in secret to benefit themselves at the expense of others” and are “usually at odds with official or prevailing explanations of events.”

Additionally, according to Michael C. McGarrity, the FBI’s assistant director of the counterterrorism division, the bureau now “classifies domestic terrorism threats into four main categories: racially motivated violent extremism, anti-government/anti-authority extremism, animal rights/environmental extremism, and abortion extremism.”

In other words, if you dare to subscribe to any views that are contrary to the government’s, you may well be suspected of being a domestic terrorist and treated accordingly.

Again, where many Americans go wrong is in naively assuming that you have to be doing something illegal or harmful in order to be flagged and targeted for some form of intervention or detention.

In fact, U.S. police agencies have been working to identify and manage potential extremist “threats,” violent or otherwise, before they can become actual threats for some time now.

In much the same way that the USA Patriot Act was used as a front to advance the surveillance state, allowing the government to establish a far-reaching domestic spying program that turned every American citizen into a criminal suspect, the government’s anti-extremism program renders otherwise lawful, nonviolent activities as potentially extremist.

In fact, all you need to do these days to end up on a government watch list or be subjected to heightened scrutiny is use certain trigger words (like cloud, pork and pirates), surf the internet, communicate using a cell phone, limp or stutter, drive a car, stay at a hotel, attend a political rally, express yourself on social media, appear mentally ill, serve in the military, disagree with a law enforcement official, call in sick to work, purchase materials at a hardware store, take flying or boating lessons, appear suspicious, appear confused or nervous, fidget or whistle or smell bad, be seen in public waving a toy gun or anything remotely resembling a gun (such as a water nozzle or a remote control or a walking cane), stare at a police officer, question government authority, or appear to be pro-gun or pro-freedom.

Be warned: once you get on such a government watch list—whether it’s a terrorist watch list, a mental health watch list, a dissident watch list, or a red flag gun watch list—there’s no clear-cut way to get off, whether or not you should actually be on there.

You will be tracked wherever you go.

You will be flagged as a potential threat and dealt with accordingly.

This is pre-crime on an ideological scale and it’s been a long time coming.

The government has been building its pre-crime, surveillance network in concert with fusion centers (of which there are 78 nationwide, with partners in the corporate sector and globally), data collection agencies, behavioral scientists, corporations, social media, and community organizers and by relying on cutting-edge technology for surveillance, facial recognition, predictive policing, biometrics, and behavioral epigenetics (in which life experiences alter one’s genetic makeup).

If you’re not scared yet, you should be.

Connect the dots.

Start with the powers amassed by the government under the USA Patriot Act, note the government’s ever-broadening definition of what it considers to be an “extremist,” then add in the government’s detention powers under NDAA, the National Security Agency’s far-reaching surveillance networks, and fusion centers that collect and share surveillance data between local, state and federal police agencies.

To that, add tens of thousands of armed, surveillance drones and balloons that are beginning to blanket American skies, facial recognition technology that will identify and track you wherever you go and whatever you do. And then to complete the picture, toss in the real-time crime centers being deployed in cities across the country, which will be attempting to “predict” crimes and identify so-called criminals before they happen based on widespread surveillance, complex mathematical algorithms and prognostication programs.

Hopefully you’re starting to understand how easy we’ve made it for the government to identify, label, target, defuse and detain anyone it views as a potential threat for a variety of reasons that run the gamut from mental illness to having a military background to challenging its authority to just being on the government’s list of persona non grata.

There’s always a price to pay for standing up to the powers-that-be.

Yet as I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, you don’t even have to be a dissident to get flagged by the government for surveillance, censorship and detention.

All you really need to be is a citizen of the American police state.

Free to Choose Network: Thomas Sowell – Common Sense in a Senseless World

From the Free to Choose Network: Thomas Sowell – Common Sense in a Senseless World.

Thomas Sowell: Common Sense in a Senseless World traces Sowell’s journey from humble beginnings to the Hoover Institution, becoming one of this era’s greatest economists, political philosophers, and prolific authors. Hosted by Jason Riley, a member of “The Wall Street Journal” editorial board, this one-hour program features insights from Sowell and interviews with his close friends and associates, revealing why the intensely private Thomas Sowell is considered by many to be “one of the greatest minds of the past half-century” and “the smartest person in the room.” © 2020 / 1 episode @ 1 hr.