This is an exceptionally well-written article. When one can feel the frustration, the beauty, the mind of the writer, then one knows that one's thoughts are in the hands of a great penman.
agreed, exceptional, I am posting it up and some others on stack, you deserve praise, you walk with stones most do not have, I love that about you...you are a friend but more than that you are a warrior in this battle...most are pusillanimous sycophants seeking tax payer money...you stand apart John. never change. you can enter the special place that I reside...ha ha...fearless...special to the matter.
point is government, even in Trump's, will always seek to accrue power, always, and then they will maximally abuse it, abuse us, and they will never give it back...new government etc. continues from what was accrued...you cannot comply your way out of it, the disaster and abuse, you got to take them to courts and use the ballot box in any good governance society.
In the long ago past --before we were attacked by a nonexistent virus for an invented pandemic I believed--in my niavety-- that my friends and neighbors were people who thought things through and based their actions on sound facts and principles similar to those presented by our "founding fathers" . If covid taught me one single thing it was this: our country is full of people whose brains no longer work....if they ever did. For example, I sent a friend I had known for 4O years a short few sentences about Denis Rancourt and his irrefutable "All Cause Mortality" facts and figures. Though my friend had practiced law in the not too distant past...she didn't get the gist of Rancourt's main simple point: that ALL CAUSE MORTALITY cannot be manipulated--especially if it is compared with that of many other sovereign nations. She failed to understand even this....or at least said she didn't.
This incident discouraged me mightily in my attempts awaken the sleepers. But I am doggedly persistent in my ways...perhaps due to my extreme age. I regret I have only one life to give for my country....my country, that is, before everyone I know became too dumb to even count.
I too have straddled the abyss of attempting to "educate" folks who allege they have reasoning minds. Once injected the mind no longer belongs to them.
Kathleen, it appears that it's the most "educated" who are unable to imagine evil, or that their govt could be wrong. I live in a blue-collar neighborhood and it seems that almost everyone here is awake. I have been awake as to the plans of various secret societies since 1963 before they killed John Kennedy. I have never successfully answered the question, "How many awake people do we need, and to do what?"
But, Kathleen it doesn't take a majority. Many, many people cannot admit a problem until the solution is presented. When a real movement with actions begins they will sign on.
I've lived and worked in Mexico and have spent much time in other countries and while I don't have as much knowledge as you in historical terms, I have still studied broadly. As you say, culture is more important than laws and our Founders knew this and sought to build the infrastructure of a republic based on Christian values and morals that would sustain the republic, if we could keep them.
My experience in Mexico and studying other cultures is that in almost all, every transaction is based on a zero sum effort, where each party is trying to take advantage of the other. This is true of all Muslim societies, India, China, and Mexico. I have had citizens from all those I list, plus others, make the same observation when comparing ours to theirs. Your friend and his employees could not have prospered as they have had stayed in Mexico.
We have moved away from the culture that underlies the Constitution and Bill of Rights for a number of reasons and now we are much more like those other countries where graft, incompetence, and criminality is commonplace at all levels of government. As you say, we have done this at great peril to ourselves.
Unfortunately, the sometimes despotic, sometimes ignorant decrees of the state have already made a large percentage of people unable to take care of themselves. Think of the poisonous chemicals pervading our soil, water and air as well as the unbelievable amounts of industrial pollutants from factories. Think of the ineffective, unsafe medicines, including many vaccines which have damaged both children and adults, making us disabled. Think of the astronomical numbers of children who suffer with autism or autoimmune diseases making them unable to live independent lives through no fault of their own. Think of the garbage food that has become the "SAD" diet of North America. As Catherine Austin-Fitts describes it, we are in the midst of "the great poisoning".
"Whenever people fail to assume responsibility for taking care of themselves, tyrants will inevitably rush in to take care of things for them." And that is exactly why the tyrants strive to strip the people of their ability to take care of themselves and their families.
Interesting how even the concept of "Civilization" has been cast aside in favor of the more pliable term "culture," which no longer carries the connotation of "being cultured," but rather is whatever one wants it to be (a la Orwell). Cutting people's beating hearts out and rolling their remains down the pyramid steps is just part of a "culture," and "culture" allows Hutus to machete Tutsis without considering themselves bad people. The one "culture" which apparently doesn't even exist now (or deserve any support, let alone praise) is what was once called "Western Civilization," the ultimate fruit of which was our Constitution and its supporting documents of which John writes. For sure, a great deal of evil has been perpetrated under the banner of "spreading Western Civilization" as well over the centuries, but where else has there ever been concepts of individuals having any significant rights at all, let alone to the wide range of values we long to hold: life, liberty, freedom of conscience, obligation to love and respect others, for the strong to protect the weak, etc. as a professed belief and duty?
I LIKED THIS ARTICLE, A LOT, JOHN LEAKE. I admit that I had to look up the word 'hirsute', and am pleased to realize I do not qualify for that sordid, 'shaggy dog' appearance, me being a well groomed Northman and all. (Well, it's true, mostly, I'll shave tomorrow). I do notice, now that you mention it, that many living near in the desert fit the description, however, they too enjoy a good restaurant occasionally, and totally ignore the genteel clientele's concerned glances. Javier sounds like the kind of man I would also respect, and enjoy as a friend. Most of my friends are much like him, and they do understand why the Constitution is so important. I spoke at an HOA meeting this morning, and pressed home the idea that killing all green things in the HOA with glyphosate is a bad idea. The folks currently who have seized power in the HOA hate all living things, apparently, and after hearing my presentation about how ROUNDUP is a cancer causing carcinogenic poison, and that Monsanto faked the safety studies, (I learned from Nicolas Hulcher recently), they then further persuaded some more little old ladies to come to the office to get free herbicide in a sprayer that is so easy to use. The defense for poisoning every green thing in the desert? ... well, it's their property, and they can do what they want... This is America, after all. So, a perfect example of intellectually deficient 'leaders', craving power, abusing authority, and misdirecting the gullible, still rely on SOME aspects of the Constitution to achieve their evil aspirations, while failing to grasp the gravity of the whole. A sick country is vulnerable. Adhering to God's laws, and the Constitution would go along way toward making Americans healthy again. Thanks for all you do John Leake. God bless you... your restaurant story was superb, and left me in tears, especially the confabulations with your .44, Dirty 'Hairy', and the "impossibly large" grenade... you are simply hilarious when you intend to amuse us.
It was far more fun to recount the story than it was to experience it at the time. I suppose one of life's consolations is that if you survive a misfortune, you may be able to laugh about it later in life.
Thank you, John, for a well-stated summary of why self-regulation and responsibility start with the individual, not the collective; the latter, which always becomes tyrannical.
During the tyranny of COVID, I saw people who could only be described as minions become self-appointed overlords of their small and petty domains. The screeners at healthcare facilities demanding a temperature check or masks. Grocery store clerks calling the local police because no mask was worn. I personally had the police called on me several times, with a few engaging me. The outcomes were just a waste of time and resources.
If readers here have yet to read Stanley Milgram's work on authority. I highly recommend his books.
One of his famous quotes that applies to John's comments today is this: "The disappearance of a sense of responsibility is the most far-reaching consequence of submission to authority. Ordinary people, simply doing their jobs, and without any particular hostility on their part, can become agents in a terrible, destructive process."
"This is why, in recent decades, state and federal governments have expressed great sympathy for weak and dysfunctional people. Dependency on the state is synonymous with ceding power to the state."
At the 1928 annual meeting of international Communists ("Comintern"), they talked about stoking discontent among the disaffected, the disenfranchised, and the disenchanted youths. However, going one step further than merely "expressing great sympathy" would be to actively cultivate gender confusion in order to "create" a new minority group which can be exploited going forward.
If you cannot find disenchanted youths, then create them out of thin air. The same goes for Critical Race Theory, where "reverse" racial prejudice is actively embedded into existing institutions. The same goes for Global Warming Alarmism, and many other wedge issues.
America has been under ideological attack for decades.
A book I find helpful in understanding the structure of a society that we co-create instead of abdicating our responsibiites toward each other and assuming the state should take over our mutual care is "Morality, Restoring the Common Good in Divided Times" by Jonathon Sachs.
Thank you for your embodiment in Javier simply and elegantly put.
You never failed to astound me. You have the most fascinating life. The spectrum of your life experiences amaze me. Thanks for sharing them, and your unique perspectives as a result of them.💕
The article mounts an energetic critique of “the state” and an unnamed “ruling class,” yet it never once identifies who, concretely, composes this class, how it sustains itself, or by what mechanisms it reproduces power. This omission is not incidental—it is the central weakness of the argument.
Complaining about an adversary that is left deliberately undefined grants that adversary perpetual immunity. Power thrives in anonymity. When the actors responsible for governance failures are reduced to abstractions—“the state,” “bureaucrats,” “technocrats,” “the ruling class”—they are effectively shielded from scrutiny, accountability, and organized resistance. One cannot meaningfully oppose what one refuses to name.
Activism, reform, and public pressure require specificity. Without identifying institutions, networks, decision-makers, incentive structures, or concentrations of influence, outrage dissipates into philosophical venting rather than directed action. The critique becomes cathartic rather than corrective. In this way, the article paradoxically reinforces the very condition it condemns: a system in which power remains diffuse, untraceable, and therefore unchallengeable.
Moreover, by treating the ruling class as a kind of metaphysical force rather than a set of identifiable human actors operating within identifiable frameworks, the author substitutes moral narrative for political analysis. This allows readers to feel rightly aggrieved while remaining strategically inert. The result is resignation dressed up as insight.
If the state is overreaching, who is authorizing it?
If corruption is endemic, where does it concentrate?
If power expands through crises, who benefits, who coordinates, and who profits?
Without answers to these questions, the critique lacks teeth. History shows that meaningful change has never emerged from railing against faceless forces. It arises only when power is dragged out of abstraction and into daylight—named, mapped, challenged, and confronted.
To denounce tyranny while refusing to identify its custodians is not resistance; it is acquiescence with rhetorical flourish.
“To know who rules over you, simply look at who it is illegal to criticize”
It is only illegal to criticize Israel and people who claim to be from there or attached to it.
There is so much wisdom in this article! Thank you for all you do, John Leake.
This is an exceptionally well-written article. When one can feel the frustration, the beauty, the mind of the writer, then one knows that one's thoughts are in the hands of a great penman.
thank you! Very kind of you to write!
agreed, exceptional, I am posting it up and some others on stack, you deserve praise, you walk with stones most do not have, I love that about you...you are a friend but more than that you are a warrior in this battle...most are pusillanimous sycophants seeking tax payer money...you stand apart John. never change. you can enter the special place that I reside...ha ha...fearless...special to the matter.
Thanks old friend! You are very kind. Happy New Year, hope you and yours are well!
point is government, even in Trump's, will always seek to accrue power, always, and then they will maximally abuse it, abuse us, and they will never give it back...new government etc. continues from what was accrued...you cannot comply your way out of it, the disaster and abuse, you got to take them to courts and use the ballot box in any good governance society.
Right. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.
In the long ago past --before we were attacked by a nonexistent virus for an invented pandemic I believed--in my niavety-- that my friends and neighbors were people who thought things through and based their actions on sound facts and principles similar to those presented by our "founding fathers" . If covid taught me one single thing it was this: our country is full of people whose brains no longer work....if they ever did. For example, I sent a friend I had known for 4O years a short few sentences about Denis Rancourt and his irrefutable "All Cause Mortality" facts and figures. Though my friend had practiced law in the not too distant past...she didn't get the gist of Rancourt's main simple point: that ALL CAUSE MORTALITY cannot be manipulated--especially if it is compared with that of many other sovereign nations. She failed to understand even this....or at least said she didn't.
This incident discouraged me mightily in my attempts awaken the sleepers. But I am doggedly persistent in my ways...perhaps due to my extreme age. I regret I have only one life to give for my country....my country, that is, before everyone I know became too dumb to even count.
I too have straddled the abyss of attempting to "educate" folks who allege they have reasoning minds. Once injected the mind no longer belongs to them.
Kathleen, it appears that it's the most "educated" who are unable to imagine evil, or that their govt could be wrong. I live in a blue-collar neighborhood and it seems that almost everyone here is awake. I have been awake as to the plans of various secret societies since 1963 before they killed John Kennedy. I have never successfully answered the question, "How many awake people do we need, and to do what?"
But, Kathleen it doesn't take a majority. Many, many people cannot admit a problem until the solution is presented. When a real movement with actions begins they will sign on.
One can hope but time for this is short.
I've lived and worked in Mexico and have spent much time in other countries and while I don't have as much knowledge as you in historical terms, I have still studied broadly. As you say, culture is more important than laws and our Founders knew this and sought to build the infrastructure of a republic based on Christian values and morals that would sustain the republic, if we could keep them.
My experience in Mexico and studying other cultures is that in almost all, every transaction is based on a zero sum effort, where each party is trying to take advantage of the other. This is true of all Muslim societies, India, China, and Mexico. I have had citizens from all those I list, plus others, make the same observation when comparing ours to theirs. Your friend and his employees could not have prospered as they have had stayed in Mexico.
We have moved away from the culture that underlies the Constitution and Bill of Rights for a number of reasons and now we are much more like those other countries where graft, incompetence, and criminality is commonplace at all levels of government. As you say, we have done this at great peril to ourselves.
Well said.
That is a really good observation!
Beautiful and so True John!
John, I (strongly) suggest an addition to your library, to your personal wisdom:
The Moral Imagination: The Art and Soul of Building Peace by John Paul Lederach. (Oxford University Press, 2005)
You will especially appreciate his ideas regarding the role of the arts, the role of beauty, in peacemaking.
Bastiat for a rigorous, empiral construction of what government should and should not be.
I will take a look.. I have a long reading list but that sounds good.
Bastian is a small book, but chock full of wisdom!
There is a complete volume of his works, as well. Not small at all. Perhaps you refer to The Law?
Unfortunately, the sometimes despotic, sometimes ignorant decrees of the state have already made a large percentage of people unable to take care of themselves. Think of the poisonous chemicals pervading our soil, water and air as well as the unbelievable amounts of industrial pollutants from factories. Think of the ineffective, unsafe medicines, including many vaccines which have damaged both children and adults, making us disabled. Think of the astronomical numbers of children who suffer with autism or autoimmune diseases making them unable to live independent lives through no fault of their own. Think of the garbage food that has become the "SAD" diet of North America. As Catherine Austin-Fitts describes it, we are in the midst of "the great poisoning".
"Whenever people fail to assume responsibility for taking care of themselves, tyrants will inevitably rush in to take care of things for them." And that is exactly why the tyrants strive to strip the people of their ability to take care of themselves and their families.
Interesting how even the concept of "Civilization" has been cast aside in favor of the more pliable term "culture," which no longer carries the connotation of "being cultured," but rather is whatever one wants it to be (a la Orwell). Cutting people's beating hearts out and rolling their remains down the pyramid steps is just part of a "culture," and "culture" allows Hutus to machete Tutsis without considering themselves bad people. The one "culture" which apparently doesn't even exist now (or deserve any support, let alone praise) is what was once called "Western Civilization," the ultimate fruit of which was our Constitution and its supporting documents of which John writes. For sure, a great deal of evil has been perpetrated under the banner of "spreading Western Civilization" as well over the centuries, but where else has there ever been concepts of individuals having any significant rights at all, let alone to the wide range of values we long to hold: life, liberty, freedom of conscience, obligation to love and respect others, for the strong to protect the weak, etc. as a professed belief and duty?
I LIKED THIS ARTICLE, A LOT, JOHN LEAKE. I admit that I had to look up the word 'hirsute', and am pleased to realize I do not qualify for that sordid, 'shaggy dog' appearance, me being a well groomed Northman and all. (Well, it's true, mostly, I'll shave tomorrow). I do notice, now that you mention it, that many living near in the desert fit the description, however, they too enjoy a good restaurant occasionally, and totally ignore the genteel clientele's concerned glances. Javier sounds like the kind of man I would also respect, and enjoy as a friend. Most of my friends are much like him, and they do understand why the Constitution is so important. I spoke at an HOA meeting this morning, and pressed home the idea that killing all green things in the HOA with glyphosate is a bad idea. The folks currently who have seized power in the HOA hate all living things, apparently, and after hearing my presentation about how ROUNDUP is a cancer causing carcinogenic poison, and that Monsanto faked the safety studies, (I learned from Nicolas Hulcher recently), they then further persuaded some more little old ladies to come to the office to get free herbicide in a sprayer that is so easy to use. The defense for poisoning every green thing in the desert? ... well, it's their property, and they can do what they want... This is America, after all. So, a perfect example of intellectually deficient 'leaders', craving power, abusing authority, and misdirecting the gullible, still rely on SOME aspects of the Constitution to achieve their evil aspirations, while failing to grasp the gravity of the whole. A sick country is vulnerable. Adhering to God's laws, and the Constitution would go along way toward making Americans healthy again. Thanks for all you do John Leake. God bless you... your restaurant story was superb, and left me in tears, especially the confabulations with your .44, Dirty 'Hairy', and the "impossibly large" grenade... you are simply hilarious when you intend to amuse us.
It was far more fun to recount the story than it was to experience it at the time. I suppose one of life's consolations is that if you survive a misfortune, you may be able to laugh about it later in life.
This by far has to be one of my favorite posts that you've written...thank you for sharing your perspective and life experience!
Thank you!
Thank you, John, for a well-stated summary of why self-regulation and responsibility start with the individual, not the collective; the latter, which always becomes tyrannical.
During the tyranny of COVID, I saw people who could only be described as minions become self-appointed overlords of their small and petty domains. The screeners at healthcare facilities demanding a temperature check or masks. Grocery store clerks calling the local police because no mask was worn. I personally had the police called on me several times, with a few engaging me. The outcomes were just a waste of time and resources.
If readers here have yet to read Stanley Milgram's work on authority. I highly recommend his books.
One of his famous quotes that applies to John's comments today is this: "The disappearance of a sense of responsibility is the most far-reaching consequence of submission to authority. Ordinary people, simply doing their jobs, and without any particular hostility on their part, can become agents in a terrible, destructive process."
Covid "pandemic" was truly an I.Q. test of sorts....it seems most Americans failed it.
What should be done now?
John, this conclusion is spot-on:
"This is why, in recent decades, state and federal governments have expressed great sympathy for weak and dysfunctional people. Dependency on the state is synonymous with ceding power to the state."
At the 1928 annual meeting of international Communists ("Comintern"), they talked about stoking discontent among the disaffected, the disenfranchised, and the disenchanted youths. However, going one step further than merely "expressing great sympathy" would be to actively cultivate gender confusion in order to "create" a new minority group which can be exploited going forward.
If you cannot find disenchanted youths, then create them out of thin air. The same goes for Critical Race Theory, where "reverse" racial prejudice is actively embedded into existing institutions. The same goes for Global Warming Alarmism, and many other wedge issues.
America has been under ideological attack for decades.
A book I find helpful in understanding the structure of a society that we co-create instead of abdicating our responsibiites toward each other and assuming the state should take over our mutual care is "Morality, Restoring the Common Good in Divided Times" by Jonathon Sachs.
Thank you for your embodiment in Javier simply and elegantly put.
You never failed to astound me. You have the most fascinating life. The spectrum of your life experiences amaze me. Thanks for sharing them, and your unique perspectives as a result of them.💕
Thanks for your kind words!
John I am both surprised and impressed by your weapon of choice: the Harry Callahan Cannon.
I would love to visit Javier's someday and meet the man.
It's a story of the American dream and a man of integrity making it work. There are still lots of people like Javier in our country.
The article mounts an energetic critique of “the state” and an unnamed “ruling class,” yet it never once identifies who, concretely, composes this class, how it sustains itself, or by what mechanisms it reproduces power. This omission is not incidental—it is the central weakness of the argument.
Complaining about an adversary that is left deliberately undefined grants that adversary perpetual immunity. Power thrives in anonymity. When the actors responsible for governance failures are reduced to abstractions—“the state,” “bureaucrats,” “technocrats,” “the ruling class”—they are effectively shielded from scrutiny, accountability, and organized resistance. One cannot meaningfully oppose what one refuses to name.
Activism, reform, and public pressure require specificity. Without identifying institutions, networks, decision-makers, incentive structures, or concentrations of influence, outrage dissipates into philosophical venting rather than directed action. The critique becomes cathartic rather than corrective. In this way, the article paradoxically reinforces the very condition it condemns: a system in which power remains diffuse, untraceable, and therefore unchallengeable.
Moreover, by treating the ruling class as a kind of metaphysical force rather than a set of identifiable human actors operating within identifiable frameworks, the author substitutes moral narrative for political analysis. This allows readers to feel rightly aggrieved while remaining strategically inert. The result is resignation dressed up as insight.
If the state is overreaching, who is authorizing it?
If corruption is endemic, where does it concentrate?
If power expands through crises, who benefits, who coordinates, and who profits?
Without answers to these questions, the critique lacks teeth. History shows that meaningful change has never emerged from railing against faceless forces. It arises only when power is dragged out of abstraction and into daylight—named, mapped, challenged, and confronted.
To denounce tyranny while refusing to identify its custodians is not resistance; it is acquiescence with rhetorical flourish.
“To know who rules over you, simply look at who it is illegal to criticize”
It is only illegal to criticize Israel and people who claim to be from there or attached to it.