Standing armies are indeed an invitation to escapade. Standing police force armies are why you pay your taxes. The property tax is heinous, supports your local enforcement army, and they in turn ensure that you contribute mightily to any galvanizing cause under the sun cooked up by both grifters who can't ranch/farm or produce tangible goods and services and by idle rich who have nothing but boredom to contend with and countless windmills at which to tilt.
If you haven't, go read Bastiat's essays. Guaranteed you will find masterpieces.
Maybe do an essay from first principles in concert with Bastiat's positions and walk it up to the present. A lot of people could benefit from the journey. Right time to reassess a lot of things.
If you know the Stanley MIlgram experiment at Yale, then you know that only 20% of the public is capable of independent thinking. He proved that 70-80% of the public will murder another person if an authority figure tells them to. Covid era makes sense from that standpoint. Reflects almost exactly the compliance vs. non-compliance percentage of the population.
Makes evolutionary sense. One leader, four followers. Loners of extreme bent either wither away against nature or are ravaged by groups. Loners/independents who master the art of charisma become powerful.
Wherever there is bulk population, there is a ready raw material for organized action. Bastiat sensed that and understood a "just" government is stood up by a consenting population to defend against organized plunder.
Problem arises when the governors, being full time non-producers, take it upon themselves to acquire the additonal trappings of power. They then turn the government into their sustaining mechanism, using police/military force to put the originally consenting populace into serfdom.
Part of the definition of human trafficking on the U.S. Department of Justice website : "crime that involves compelling or coercing a person to provide labor or services...can be subtle or overt, physical or psychological. "
Bots, AI, cashless society, everything attached to data centers.
I don't know said it, but I read a view saying - the people we elect to represent us should not be able to do anything collectively, that we cannot do as individuals. We would live in a sane world if that applied rather than thinking as stated in this piece that our representatives should be in a lunatic asylum.
I completely agree regarding the capitulation of the human spirit to government. For me it has remained the strangest and most tragic act of spiritual surrender of the human race. I have close friends who remain preternaturally loyal to big government, as though it were one of Plato’s perfect forms. It makes my head explode. I can neither understand it nor place it in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual. It is our undoing as a species.
As a Christian I should add that one of my biggest struggles with Scriptural truth is Romans 13. It presents this topic of how we as believers should think about government. I have never been able to grasp it. The Apostle Paul basically says that we should always respect and obey the government. Always. There are no qualifications to this admonition. Interestingly, Paul wrote these words when he was under the rule of Emperor Nero right around 64AD. Nero was one of the worst of the worst as far as heads of state go, throughout history. This was a man Paul knew well and who, not long after he wrote the words words contained in Romans 13, beheaded him. This is something I heavily ponder.
I too have thought about that, and I wonder if a Roman patrician told him the congregation in Rome would be left alone if evidence were presented to administration that Christians posed no political threat. He was also doubtless thinking about Pilate, who initially stated he did not believe that Jesus posed a threat to Roman authority. For a fun novel about this era, check out "Quo Vadis?"
After thinking much about this only recently, I have come to the conclusion that Paul’s words in Romans 13 were intended to send a message to believers that Christianity should never become an insurrectionist movement, a throng of “protesters”, rather believers were called to something else, in short, to reflect the Kingdom of God rather that the world of men, and that being in the world but not of the world meant that Christians could not properly form a worldly movement and should not do so. This, according Paul’s inspired word, meant that governing authorities must be respected for the authority that they have, adding(apparently as an assumption) that they are “servants of God”. He is silent about how we might behave when they are not servants of God. Here I will defer to the fact that Paul was under Nero, a man he knew, when he wrote the book of Romans. This is where we can only defer to his God given wisdom.
An interesting aside is that God Himself used bad leaders and nations to accomplish His will, using them to mete out the punishment of Israel for turning to other gods, to idol worship. In Jereniah 25:9 He refers to Nebuchadnezzar King of Babylon(a very bad man) as “my servant”, this in anticipation of the Babylonian captivity and destruction of Jerusalem.
Read Boehnhoffer by Metaxas. The book provies Pastor Boehnhoffer's views on this topic, which might give you some clarification. And it is an excellent read. Very
I imagine that most average, everyday, decent people do not sit around fantasizing about acquiring power to force their will on others. But some people do. And I assume that is how a decent percentage of political, large scale industrial, and organized criminal positions are filled.
Over time, a sort of self perpetuating and self selecting system seems to naturally form and filter out any good or decent people.
We can all read history books. We are not the exception.
I'm in the middle of Whitney Web's book, One Nation Under Blackmail, vol 1. It's not the history we are told in school.
Yes, seems clear that he and his apparatus captured the entire stratum of ruling degenerates. Trump's vicious attack of Thomas Massie and M.T. Greene for pushing for full release told us everything we need to know about him.
Haven't read Webb's books, but have read lengthy articles and watched a number of videos. IIRC, she says Trump was mentored by mob lawyer and fixer Roy Cohn. Just searched on "Trump mentor," and sure enough, the first hits were Cohn. Noticed in one photo that Cohn appeared "orange." I wonder if Trump adopted the look of the original Orange Man.
Yeah, I recently realized that his statement, "It was my great honor to Destroy All Nuclear facilities & capability, and then, STOP THE WAR!" in 2025, was his best personal attempt to divert the desired war. But, he is not in charge obviously.
Well, that would be interesting and good if they followed it up with arrests and prosecutions. However, I personally have 0% faith that whatever the government releases will be all the evidence.
"Not a poetic book." Absolutely not. I don't know if I'll ever get all the way thru it (two volumes). Whitney Webb has been praised as "diligent," which she is. Lots of footnotes and references.
Haha, so true. I'm working my way through volume 1 for the second time because I gave up the first go round. The release of the small portion of the Epstein files, that are highly redacted, gave me the will to try again. I will make it through vol 1 this time! And I will eventually get to vol 2. :)
I assume Whitney will add another volume someday if we ever get more Estein files.
Thanks for sharing the link to her blog and podcast.
I think about the plight of us average people too. I'm not sitting around thinking "I hate those Russians, Afghans, Palestinians, Chinese, etc." And I have to believe that they're not spending a lot of time thinking about me either. Yet somehow we are in conflict. Long ago, I met an uncle in Germany who was on the wrong side of WW2. The nicest and most fun guy you'd ever meet. He said to me "I didn't hate Americans, but a man gave me a rifle and told me to shoot." All I can think of is Milton Friedman's quote: "Concentrated power is not rendered harmless by good intentions."
If you aren't sitting around hating people from other countries, you obviously aren't being properly propagandized. For the love of war, please turn on the news!
But seriously, it so sad to see how humans are just constantly pressured into wars. It seems to me to be one of the greatest tragedies of humankind.
Right, we are not usually sitting around, dreaming of being the emperor of the world, hahaha. To most, I would argue like you and John Leake (by reference to insanity), this is a ludicrous idea. And yet...we are and have been enablers of most EVERYTHING happening today. We are, in fact, guilty, of having looked away, tolerated and even making excuses for the happening, going through tremendous mental exmercises to justify it all. We have conditioned our children to become good players in what we call our precious "way of life" which we defend to the death. Yes, death. Death is the end point. We are now declining, sick and dying, taking most of.nature with us. Before we do, we might reckon with our active or passive participation in it all.
Well, all I can say is that I’m trying to be very cognizant of what is really happening and I’m doing my best to live in accordance to my values despite the challenges. Many people are trying to move in this direction.
Having said that, it’s not clear to me what can be done to shift the world into a more authentic and wholistic state of being. I guess that’s what many people seem to be trying to figure out and we apparently have a long way to go before we are “winning”.
One of my colleagues hypothesized: Suppose when the slaves were freed in 1863/5, they had been obligated to share their earnings with their former masters. They could relocate if they want, and do any kind of job that they can be hired for, and receive wages, but they would need to send a known or unknown portion of their earnings to the masters. In order to keep track of this, each would be assigned a nine-digit number that they would have to use to report. The question is: Would they still be slaves?
Every era has wise people that push back against the immoral system. How can this be applied in today’s world? The common theme is a belief in the myth of authority. Hence the title of my 2024 book: Awakening To The Myth Of Authority. Written without artificial intelligence. Authority doesn’t work for us. It is there to control us. Bottom line.
I’m as much a critic as anyone of big government and all the swamp creatures who infest it. But I completely support our president because he is the only one who, in just over one year, has made a very significant contribution to cutting out the imbedded bureaucracies. Think of how many government employees are no longer on the payroll. And the total dismantling of USAID which was a gigantic slush fund that massively subsidized government bureaucracy and the Democrats. He closed our borders almost overnight. He has instituted a massive effort to deport illegals. America is once again energy independent. You seem to routinely dismiss the long list of terrorist offenses brought against our country and other allies by Iran. Iran was a global menace which needed to be destroyed. The region and the world will be massively Improved when this excursion is completed. You are losing credibility in your fine work in the medical/healthcare areas. This journey into appeasement and passiveness is completely illogical. Trump is winning and nation and our hemisphere will greatly benefit from his leadership and achievements.
You mean the "Empirical" Lies?. I use the word to refer to the Empire that controls this country and Britain. The one paying for the science, you know our Overlords. You mean THAT "Empirical evidence"? Here's quickie anyway:
Another Leake post just dripping with cowardice. It’s all implied, Orange Man bad, Orange Man bad. You’re steeped in TDS and too shabby to present a full-frontal critique.
lol, on another man’s blog. You’re cucked like the store clerk in “No Country for Old Men”. You married into this.
Too ignorant and afraid to see Trump is taking us through the necessary wringer to the free future beyond it. You don’t understand Trump because you are unworthy of Trump.
Interesting that you compare me to an old man suddenly confronted by the Antichrist, who intimidates him into staking his remaining life on a coin toss. Is that your idea of just and prudent power?
I was thinking about the US consul to Germany in 1933, George Messersmith, who cabled to Washington that the men who'd just come to power would, under normal circumstances, be in mental asylums. Because the German people were so traumatized by hyperinflation and onerous reparations imposed by Versailles Treaty, they couldn't see they were being seduced by psychopaths. Messersmith advised that reparations be rescinded to help ordinary Germans return to sanity, but our bankers wanted none of it.
I used to admire Thoreau for his words, but Thoreau's words in "A Plea for John Brown" were part of the emotional lead up to the war of Northern aggression that supposedly emancipated slaves and instead enslaved free men. Thoreau was just another frog in boiling water already acclimated to the idea of using force on others in his support for Brown. Christians should try reading 1 Samuel 8:10-22 instead of Romans 13 to understand the nature of government and know to Whom to capitulate.
superb again John, the few abrogating the authority of the many. Lovely poem.
I used to live in the Fairhaven Woods adjacent to and abutting Walden pond, Concord MA, and spent many a day walking, swimming cross country skiing. IF you go, please take a look at the place they say his hut was situated.
We have devolved to governments crushing us for our words, essentially burning books mentality,
Standing armies are indeed an invitation to escapade. Standing police force armies are why you pay your taxes. The property tax is heinous, supports your local enforcement army, and they in turn ensure that you contribute mightily to any galvanizing cause under the sun cooked up by both grifters who can't ranch/farm or produce tangible goods and services and by idle rich who have nothing but boredom to contend with and countless windmills at which to tilt.
If you haven't, go read Bastiat's essays. Guaranteed you will find masterpieces.
I am a fan.
Maybe do an essay from first principles in concert with Bastiat's positions and walk it up to the present. A lot of people could benefit from the journey. Right time to reassess a lot of things.
I haven't read Bastiat, an oversight I'm sure. But Étiênnne de La Boétie's "Discourse on Voluntary Servitude" is essential reading also on this topic:
https://cdn.mises.org/Politics%20of%20Obedience.pdf
If you are a student of Boetie, then you definitely must read Bastiat. In fact, Bastiat may undermine the foundation of Boetie.
I look forward to it. Thanks. Another great writer on voluntary serviture is Robert Altemeyer of Manitoba, who wrote "The Authoritarians":
https://theauthoritarians.org/
He explains authoritarian followers.
If you know the Stanley MIlgram experiment at Yale, then you know that only 20% of the public is capable of independent thinking. He proved that 70-80% of the public will murder another person if an authority figure tells them to. Covid era makes sense from that standpoint. Reflects almost exactly the compliance vs. non-compliance percentage of the population.
Makes evolutionary sense. One leader, four followers. Loners of extreme bent either wither away against nature or are ravaged by groups. Loners/independents who master the art of charisma become powerful.
Wherever there is bulk population, there is a ready raw material for organized action. Bastiat sensed that and understood a "just" government is stood up by a consenting population to defend against organized plunder.
Problem arises when the governors, being full time non-producers, take it upon themselves to acquire the additonal trappings of power. They then turn the government into their sustaining mechanism, using police/military force to put the originally consenting populace into serfdom.
Part of the definition of human trafficking on the U.S. Department of Justice website : "crime that involves compelling or coercing a person to provide labor or services...can be subtle or overt, physical or psychological. "
Bots, AI, cashless society, everything attached to data centers.
Trafficking forces the labor or service to generate revenue, which is then taken.
Government simply applies the squeeze directly.
I don't know said it, but I read a view saying - the people we elect to represent us should not be able to do anything collectively, that we cannot do as individuals. We would live in a sane world if that applied rather than thinking as stated in this piece that our representatives should be in a lunatic asylum.
That's why the reference to Bastiat above. He explains WHAT government should be allowed to do and why.
Bought!
I completely agree regarding the capitulation of the human spirit to government. For me it has remained the strangest and most tragic act of spiritual surrender of the human race. I have close friends who remain preternaturally loyal to big government, as though it were one of Plato’s perfect forms. It makes my head explode. I can neither understand it nor place it in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual. It is our undoing as a species.
As a Christian I should add that one of my biggest struggles with Scriptural truth is Romans 13. It presents this topic of how we as believers should think about government. I have never been able to grasp it. The Apostle Paul basically says that we should always respect and obey the government. Always. There are no qualifications to this admonition. Interestingly, Paul wrote these words when he was under the rule of Emperor Nero right around 64AD. Nero was one of the worst of the worst as far as heads of state go, throughout history. This was a man Paul knew well and who, not long after he wrote the words words contained in Romans 13, beheaded him. This is something I heavily ponder.
I too have thought about that, and I wonder if a Roman patrician told him the congregation in Rome would be left alone if evidence were presented to administration that Christians posed no political threat. He was also doubtless thinking about Pilate, who initially stated he did not believe that Jesus posed a threat to Roman authority. For a fun novel about this era, check out "Quo Vadis?"
Thanks for the reference. I will take a look
After thinking much about this only recently, I have come to the conclusion that Paul’s words in Romans 13 were intended to send a message to believers that Christianity should never become an insurrectionist movement, a throng of “protesters”, rather believers were called to something else, in short, to reflect the Kingdom of God rather that the world of men, and that being in the world but not of the world meant that Christians could not properly form a worldly movement and should not do so. This, according Paul’s inspired word, meant that governing authorities must be respected for the authority that they have, adding(apparently as an assumption) that they are “servants of God”. He is silent about how we might behave when they are not servants of God. Here I will defer to the fact that Paul was under Nero, a man he knew, when he wrote the book of Romans. This is where we can only defer to his God given wisdom.
An interesting aside is that God Himself used bad leaders and nations to accomplish His will, using them to mete out the punishment of Israel for turning to other gods, to idol worship. In Jereniah 25:9 He refers to Nebuchadnezzar King of Babylon(a very bad man) as “my servant”, this in anticipation of the Babylonian captivity and destruction of Jerusalem.
Read Boehnhoffer by Metaxas. The book provies Pastor Boehnhoffer's views on this topic, which might give you some clarification. And it is an excellent read. Very
Hear ya, nicely said !!!! and right on the money !!!
I imagine that most average, everyday, decent people do not sit around fantasizing about acquiring power to force their will on others. But some people do. And I assume that is how a decent percentage of political, large scale industrial, and organized criminal positions are filled.
Over time, a sort of self perpetuating and self selecting system seems to naturally form and filter out any good or decent people.
We can all read history books. We are not the exception.
I'm in the middle of Whitney Web's book, One Nation Under Blackmail, vol 1. It's not the history we are told in school.
I've been meaning to check out that book!
It's not a poetic book but if you want to know how we got to the point that neither party will release the full Epstein files... this is the book.
Yes, seems clear that he and his apparatus captured the entire stratum of ruling degenerates. Trump's vicious attack of Thomas Massie and M.T. Greene for pushing for full release told us everything we need to know about him.
Haven't read Webb's books, but have read lengthy articles and watched a number of videos. IIRC, she says Trump was mentored by mob lawyer and fixer Roy Cohn. Just searched on "Trump mentor," and sure enough, the first hits were Cohn. Noticed in one photo that Cohn appeared "orange." I wonder if Trump adopted the look of the original Orange Man.
Yeah, I recently realized that his statement, "It was my great honor to Destroy All Nuclear facilities & capability, and then, STOP THE WAR!" in 2025, was his best personal attempt to divert the desired war. But, he is not in charge obviously.
I understand that Trump will be releasing the full Epstein files in order to distract attention from Operation Epic Stupidity…
Well, that would be interesting and good if they followed it up with arrests and prosecutions. However, I personally have 0% faith that whatever the government releases will be all the evidence.
"Not a poetic book." Absolutely not. I don't know if I'll ever get all the way thru it (two volumes). Whitney Webb has been praised as "diligent," which she is. Lots of footnotes and references.
She blogs and podcasts at https://newsletter.unlimitedhangout.com/
Haha, so true. I'm working my way through volume 1 for the second time because I gave up the first go round. The release of the small portion of the Epstein files, that are highly redacted, gave me the will to try again. I will make it through vol 1 this time! And I will eventually get to vol 2. :)
I assume Whitney will add another volume someday if we ever get more Estein files.
Thanks for sharing the link to her blog and podcast.
I think about the plight of us average people too. I'm not sitting around thinking "I hate those Russians, Afghans, Palestinians, Chinese, etc." And I have to believe that they're not spending a lot of time thinking about me either. Yet somehow we are in conflict. Long ago, I met an uncle in Germany who was on the wrong side of WW2. The nicest and most fun guy you'd ever meet. He said to me "I didn't hate Americans, but a man gave me a rifle and told me to shoot." All I can think of is Milton Friedman's quote: "Concentrated power is not rendered harmless by good intentions."
If you aren't sitting around hating people from other countries, you obviously aren't being properly propagandized. For the love of war, please turn on the news!
But seriously, it so sad to see how humans are just constantly pressured into wars. It seems to me to be one of the greatest tragedies of humankind.
That's a very relevant quote by Friedman.
Thanks for the laugh!
Right, we are not usually sitting around, dreaming of being the emperor of the world, hahaha. To most, I would argue like you and John Leake (by reference to insanity), this is a ludicrous idea. And yet...we are and have been enablers of most EVERYTHING happening today. We are, in fact, guilty, of having looked away, tolerated and even making excuses for the happening, going through tremendous mental exmercises to justify it all. We have conditioned our children to become good players in what we call our precious "way of life" which we defend to the death. Yes, death. Death is the end point. We are now declining, sick and dying, taking most of.nature with us. Before we do, we might reckon with our active or passive participation in it all.
Well, all I can say is that I’m trying to be very cognizant of what is really happening and I’m doing my best to live in accordance to my values despite the challenges. Many people are trying to move in this direction.
Having said that, it’s not clear to me what can be done to shift the world into a more authentic and wholistic state of being. I guess that’s what many people seem to be trying to figure out and we apparently have a long way to go before we are “winning”.
Still, I pay my taxes and pray that at least some of it may be used for good.
"an apparatus of centralized power run by people who should probably be in an insane asylum."
Correction: 'insane asylum' should changed to 'prison' or to 'exile from planet earth entirely'.
Mark, exactly my thoughts about changing to “prison”. I didn’t think of exile from the planet, but works for me as well.
'Pox humana' comes to mind.
One of my colleagues hypothesized: Suppose when the slaves were freed in 1863/5, they had been obligated to share their earnings with their former masters. They could relocate if they want, and do any kind of job that they can be hired for, and receive wages, but they would need to send a known or unknown portion of their earnings to the masters. In order to keep track of this, each would be assigned a nine-digit number that they would have to use to report. The question is: Would they still be slaves?
You have given me something to think about. Thanks
The T.S. Eliot quote is one of my favorites. Loved how they used it in The Magus, a mediocre film based on a great idea. (Novel.)
Every era has wise people that push back against the immoral system. How can this be applied in today’s world? The common theme is a belief in the myth of authority. Hence the title of my 2024 book: Awakening To The Myth Of Authority. Written without artificial intelligence. Authority doesn’t work for us. It is there to control us. Bottom line.
I’m as much a critic as anyone of big government and all the swamp creatures who infest it. But I completely support our president because he is the only one who, in just over one year, has made a very significant contribution to cutting out the imbedded bureaucracies. Think of how many government employees are no longer on the payroll. And the total dismantling of USAID which was a gigantic slush fund that massively subsidized government bureaucracy and the Democrats. He closed our borders almost overnight. He has instituted a massive effort to deport illegals. America is once again energy independent. You seem to routinely dismiss the long list of terrorist offenses brought against our country and other allies by Iran. Iran was a global menace which needed to be destroyed. The region and the world will be massively Improved when this excursion is completed. You are losing credibility in your fine work in the medical/healthcare areas. This journey into appeasement and passiveness is completely illogical. Trump is winning and nation and our hemisphere will greatly benefit from his leadership and achievements.
Well said Ron!
Please, can someone advise again on how to remove myself from this Substack and remain on only Focal Points with Dr McCullough?
What the US govt doesn't want you to know is that Income Tax is voluntary. Pay it and you continue to encourage bad behavior on the part of the govt.
Where does it say it is voluntary and what is your empirical basis for believing that to be true?
You mean the "Empirical" Lies?. I use the word to refer to the Empire that controls this country and Britain. The one paying for the science, you know our Overlords. You mean THAT "Empirical evidence"? Here's quickie anyway:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-Ph_-sKp2g
Then ask yourself how America funded "the govt" before 1913...
Another Leake post just dripping with cowardice. It’s all implied, Orange Man bad, Orange Man bad. You’re steeped in TDS and too shabby to present a full-frontal critique.
lol, on another man’s blog. You’re cucked like the store clerk in “No Country for Old Men”. You married into this.
Too ignorant and afraid to see Trump is taking us through the necessary wringer to the free future beyond it. You don’t understand Trump because you are unworthy of Trump.
Interesting that you compare me to an old man suddenly confronted by the Antichrist, who intimidates him into staking his remaining life on a coin toss. Is that your idea of just and prudent power?
Perhaps you could favor us uninformed folk with an explanation of why the wringer is necessary and how it will get us to a better situation.
I think you are perhaps too generous, John. The apparatus of centralized power is run by people who should probably be in prison.
I was thinking about the US consul to Germany in 1933, George Messersmith, who cabled to Washington that the men who'd just come to power would, under normal circumstances, be in mental asylums. Because the German people were so traumatized by hyperinflation and onerous reparations imposed by Versailles Treaty, they couldn't see they were being seduced by psychopaths. Messersmith advised that reparations be rescinded to help ordinary Germans return to sanity, but our bankers wanted none of it.
So well dramatized in the series Babylon Berlin.
I used to admire Thoreau for his words, but Thoreau's words in "A Plea for John Brown" were part of the emotional lead up to the war of Northern aggression that supposedly emancipated slaves and instead enslaved free men. Thoreau was just another frog in boiling water already acclimated to the idea of using force on others in his support for Brown. Christians should try reading 1 Samuel 8:10-22 instead of Romans 13 to understand the nature of government and know to Whom to capitulate.
Good call John on the insane asylum. I can’t think of a better place for them.
superb again John, the few abrogating the authority of the many. Lovely poem.
I used to live in the Fairhaven Woods adjacent to and abutting Walden pond, Concord MA, and spent many a day walking, swimming cross country skiing. IF you go, please take a look at the place they say his hut was situated.
We have devolved to governments crushing us for our words, essentially burning books mentality,
Such good writing John. Thoreau is one of my favorite characters of history.
I prefer the title On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience, and I think Joe Kent just fulfilled that duty.