Category Archives: Politics

A Christian Declaration of Independence

Posted on by

Reformation Day II

A Christian Declaration of Independence

  • Andrew Torba

A line has been crossed in the conscience of the American Christian. The theological and political chains that bound us to a foreign agenda, crafted not in the interests of our nation but for the benefit of those who reject our Lord, have been broken. For generations, we labored under a dual loyalty: pledging our hearts to Christ and the American nation while our government bowed to Israel and Jewish donors. We funded wars we didn’t believe in, silenced truths we were called to speak, and sacrificed our sons and daughters on altars of a foreign nation that scorns the very name of Jesus.

That captivity ends now.

Read the whole thing here.

Priced Out of Paradise

Posted on by

How does a regular person afford a carnivore diet?

Crochet (now Carnivore) Gramma has had wonderful success with the carnivore way of eating. She’s lost a bunch of weight, become more physically active, and is (I believe) generally happier. Carnivore can work a lot of miracles in a person’s life! Unfortunately, it doesn’t usually make a person any richer, and she was wondering in one of her latest “walk with me” videos how she is going to afford to keep eating well. She feels like she’s been “priced out of paradise” and may have to start eating the boxed mac and cheese again. I know that feeling. If I were starving, I’d eat whatever was available! The consequences of that kind of food, though, I will avoid for as long as possible.

I have felt that same sinking feeling she does, as I’ve watched prices go higher and higher.

I have heard a lot of carnivore gurus say that eating good meat doesn’t cost more than the standard American diet, so you don’t really need to worry about the budget. That really seemed to be true for a long while. Perhaps it’s still true. I don’t know what the processed food prices look like, to be honest, so standard American dieters may be in just as dire straits as carnivores! But it sure seems like meat is going up in price a lot faster than the other stuff.

I’ve been grocery shopping on a strict budget my whole life, unlike probably most of the people who’ve popularized the carnivore diet. These are usually people who are not feeding large families, and also likely have more income (or more comfort using credit cards) than most of us do. Not to mention, nobody is sending me free steaks to promote on my YouTube channel. I’m not knocking them for that, and I’m grateful that people like Dr. Berry and Dr. Baker are doing well in life. They work their butts off, they’re brave and honest, and they’re frankly just better at everything than I am–than most of us are, in fact.

Us regular folks still have to find ways around the growing money problem.

People who are more financially comfortable likely don’t notice when the “cheap” box of hamburgers goes up by $5 overnight, or when the 12-count bag of meat sticks that you rely on for kids’ packed lunches is suddenly $2 more. Even worse, you’ll be opening a brand of canned chicken that had always just contained chicken, water, and salt, and a glance at the ingredients says that they’ve now adulterated it with food starch. Your yogurt that had been clean now has fruit pectin and some kind of bean gum in it. So now you have to find something new or quit that food entirely.

And it’s all of the foods, not just one item. Just a couple of dollars more per item. NBD, right?

When everything is increasing in price, and your income isn’t even inflation adjusted, this starts to really hurt. I left Wal-mart without my usual cheap box of hamburgers after seeing the hike in price. I won’t pay that much right now for those sub-par burgers. I will probably get over the sticker shock and do it anyway someday, and find some non-food place to cut corners. I’ve already canceled all of my little subscriptions and extra comforts. We’re running out of places to find another five or ten dollars!

We have an above-average income, but we also have seven kids still in the home. The oldest one doesn’t really eat at home much, so let’s say we’re feeding eight people right now, plus two meat-eating dogs. I am blessed that I could walk away from that box of hamburgers because I have a freezer full of beef that I can make into patties for myself. I only bought the boxed burgers for convenience, as we get a whole beef at a time, about 3 times a year. It looks like that’s going to have to be cut back, as well, as those prices just get higher, too. Still, it’s a sight better in both quality and price than the store beef!

What is happening here?

Dr. Shawn Baker posted this on YT a few days ago, and I think this increased demand has a lot to do with it. People are starting to wake up to the fact that the food pyramid we’ve been indoctrinated to was upside down.

Of course, it is nowhere near that simple. On the supply side, farmers are getting squeezed in ways that I’m not conversant enough to articulate. When I’ve picked up my beef from my farmer the last few times, she has been increasingly concerned about what is being intentionally done to the market to stop people from affording to eat meat. The push to turn everyone vegetarian is real. People who eat like this…

…have decided that you should eat beans and bugs. It’s expensive on purpose.

Every elite class in history has known that slaves need to be only strong enough to do what you want them to, and never strong enough to rise up. They want us to be fewer in number, dumber, and weaker, and then to die before we cost the medical and pension system very much.

Meat is elite food. The powerful are deliberately trying to make us too weak to do anything that would raise us closer to their status and make us harder to control.

This is not going to last forever. Revolutions are just as real as elite oppression. I just can’t say how long it will take, or by what means. Perhaps our elites will decide to loosen their grip to save their own skins as people get angrier.  Maybe the market will sort itself out through clever ideas for getting around the imposed scarcity.  Maybe Jesus will come back and we’ll see final justice in a New Heaven and New Earth.

In the meantime, we have to figure out how to afford to eat like human beings, not cattle. That means eating meat.

I have a few tips for my adopted Gramma, who I hope can find some use in this post. I’ve really gotten attached to this lady as she documents her journey on Youtube. Today I learned that she had social anxiety, too, so that’s another thing that we have in common that meat healed. Subscribe to her channel, or give a few dollars to her buy me a coffee fund. Hopefully, we can buy her some meat!

These are some of my habits that help me spend less on food, and some other ideas I don’t currently implement. I’ve ranked them in order from most to least plausible for regular folks:

Eat more of the less expensive meats. This is the most obvious one, of course. Chicken and pork cost less. This won’t be an option for people who have to avoid all but ruminant animals, but thankfully most people do just fine with other meats. Dr. Berry has said many times that you can be perfectly healthy on just eggs and bacon, and I think that’s largely true. But bacon is going up, too! We can rely on the chicken thighs and picnic shoulders for enough fat. Some of our family do not tolerate pork at all, so I will have other meats available for them when I make pork.

Eat a lot more eggs. Eggs prices have finally gone back down to mere Biden-era prices, after having more than doubled during a “bird flu” scare. It was a scam, of course. And the $13-something box that I buy is still $5 more than it used to be. I can buy the cheap eggs, thankfully. Most people do fine with the cheapest eggs, and the nutrition is still adequate in factory-farmed eggs, though not as good as appropriately raised chickens will give. Even with the volatile prices inherent in the egg market with these ridiculous policies for dealing with infectious diseases (again, the real goal is to drive us to plant-based eating), eggs remain the least expensive source of animal protein.

If you are eating eggs and trying to stay higher on fat content, you’ll want to dispose of most of the whites and eat more yolks. I often do one white to three yolks. Even throwing out the whites, eggs are a very good choice for inexpensive eating.

Shop the markdowns and sales. This is another very obvious one that we’re probably all already doing. I really hesitate to say this one out loud, though, lest someone who shops at my favorite grocery store sees it and decides to compete with me for the meat there.

Find out what days and times your local grocery store puts the marked down meats out. The stores are on a regular schedule, so if you can get to the bargain section at the same time as the manager, you’ll have a lot more to chose from. We have a particular brand of hotdog that we like, and that is acceptably clean, that was marked down to $2.50 a pack. I got a dozen packages that way! It is kind to leave some for other people, so I will often leave some good deals and come back the next day and only buy them out if nobody else wanted them. I’m pretty sure the cashiers at my favorite store know me as “Red Sticker Meat Lady”.

You may even want to find out what stores the wealthier people shop at–the ones you know you can’t afford–and scope out their deals. Every store has things that have to move fast. People with plenty of money don’t care as much about those red stickers, so you might get better deals there. I haven’t tried this, probably because I’m already shopping at a slightly higher-priced store due to our dietary needs.

Look for alternative sources of meat. If you have a freezer or two or an extra fridge, buying a whole, half, or quarter beef directly from the farmer is a much less expensive way to go. I only buy hamburgers at the store because I’m too lazy to make my own patties. Now that they’re so ridiculously expensive, I will probably make my own patties from my freezer beef. Hanging weight for my last one was $4.50/lb, I believe. That is more than dollar higher per pound than it was when I first started doing this several years ago, but it’s still a lot better than grocery store prices, and the meat is incomparably better. Store-bought steaks make me cry. I can’t even eat at steakhouses, I’m so spoiled by this meat.

I did the math with my take-home weight the last time we bought a cow, and because I take the marrow bones, heart, fat, and organs, I think I recall ending at about $6/lb for the whole thing. That is a lot to shell out all at once, of course. I understand how impossible that sounds for a lot of us. But if you can get ahead enough to buy just a quarter of an animal at a time, you’ll be doing much better in the long run.

We’ve got a friend who sells us duck eggs for $5 a dozen, just to get rid of them. You’ll have a hard time finding anything like that, I’m sure, but any local producer will be giving you better quality, and the prices can vary widely, so just look around.

Buy leaner cuts, which tend to be less expensive, and add fats. I’m not a fan of chicken breasts, pork loins, or any other lean cut of meat. But when they are on sale, I will buy them anyway. I can add bacon to pork loin or country ribs. I can add bacon to anything, actually. Chicken breasts can be made into something delicious with a cream sauce or cheese and bacon. I have an air fryer chicken tendies recipe that is delicious, and we use butter and mayonnaise for dipping to increase the fat content.

Canned meats are kinda OK. Dr. Ken Berry says you can get by just fine on canned meats like Vienna (pronounced: vy-ee-nee) sausages, and we do have a fair amount of canned meat in our lives. But I do find that these need to be less often than once a day, especially for the ones with a lot of salt and nitrates. Several times a week, though, can be a good amount to supplement with canned goods. Canned beef with the fat is fine every day, but it’s expensive. I keep that in the basement for emergency situations, and don’t bring it out much for regular meals. Canned fish of most kinds is also good on a daily basis. But the things that are lower in fat and higher in salts, like sausages, just don’t satisfy the same way. You also need to read the ingredients every single time you buy it. Manufacturers are quick to start adulterating the food with starches and sugars rather than raising the prices.

I will post some recipes for salmon or tuna patties that are carnivore or carnivore-ish, along with my chicken tenders.

Fast more. Take this advice only very carefully. I am not a fan of fasting for anyone over the age of about 45, nor for people who are already lean, nor for children, nor for women of childbearing age. I personally only fast for religious purposes. I’m happy to give my lean mass for prayer and supplication, but I’m not giving it up to make the number on the scale look better. You can achieve a lot of ketones and weight loss by fasting, but it’s not worth the detriment to your muscle mass, unless you are in a very strong state to begin with.

All the same, if you have plenty of fat to lose, your body will prioritize burning that up first, sparing your lean mass, and it will be a lot less harm than eating potatoes, I am sure. When money is tight, you could tighten your eating window down and only eat for 6 hours of the day instead of 8, do one meal a day, or you could skip every third or fourth day of eating entirely.

Scale it back to “keto”. For me and many other carnivores, this really is not an option. I have not found very many plant foods at all that don’t trigger either my auto-immune or anxiety/OCD problems. But most people who are on carnivore probably have a few things they can get away with. Low-carb berries, some green things like asparagus or cauliflower, or avocados and olives can fill in some gaps. It is a trope among carnivores that “plants are trying to kill you”, but in fact, some plants are pretty benign. Plants with fruits seem to even want us to eat them, to spread their seeds! But the sweet fruits we find in the stores are so over-bred for sugar content as to be dangerous for regular consumption.

It is mostly the good fruit oils–avocado and olive–that I would add back, to satisfy the need for fat, but  it is my opinion that there are other plant foods that many people will not experience any real detriment from. If you need to make cauliflower “taters” to fill up your stomach a little more, or add some berries to your yogurt, you may find that to be a good, though not perfect, option.

You have to experiment yourself to find out what you tolerate, and (like me) that may end up being nothing. Honestly, I hesitate to add this as an option, because most of these “foods” just waste your body’s energy trying to digest them. But you will feel fuller for a little less money, perhaps, and it may be a short-term solution.

Get creative. Ask for beef for Christmas, or a freezer to keep your bulk and bargain buys cold. Use your tax returns to buy the side of beef you can’t save up for any other way. Finding new ways to bring in money is an option for some of us, I suppose. But most of us are pretty much already doing what we can. Cut corners other places. I’ve canceled all of my little $5 subscriptions, for instance. It’s hard to do that, though, because I know that other creators need my money, too! You could start a YouTube channel or a blog (doesn’t pay if you’re me, but some people might do well). Whatever you’re already good at, see if you can squeeze just a little income out of it.

Raise a few animals of your own. This is another one of limited use. You have to be in a place where you’re allowed and able to raise animals. You have to have time and energy to take care of them. And, really, backyard chickens can be a lot of trouble, let alone any other kind of animal you might try to raise. But many people do find they have a knack for raising their own eggs and meat, and if you are good at it, you will save money. I sadly never saved a dime with my backyard chickens, but I enjoyed them, and the eggs were much better. If you can free-range them, they cost very little indeed! But the predators around here made that impossible, so I was always out more for the feed than I would have been just buying all of my eggs at the store.

Hunting is another way to get fresh meat on the table for a lot less money. Again, this requires a certain skill-set and location, so not as many people can take advantage of it. I will probably be doing this eventually, but haven’t quite decided to yet. There’s a gal down the road here who says she would be happy to teach me to hunt!

I’m sure I have more to say on this subject, but I think this post is too long already. What do you do to keep food prices down? Or to make enough money to cover the increasing costs? Currently, I’m just using a buymeacoffee link. If you want to contribute to my gofundme for my last run, it is also still active. I will give a report on that race very soon, I’m sure!

Leave me a comment or something! I want to hear from you!

 

 

Should Pastors Preach About the Kirk Assassination?

Posted on by

I know I said I was bored with the subject, and wasn’t going to say anything else, but I just turned another rock over, and there are bunch of interesting little grubs under it.

I was just listening to a podcast where the discussion was about whether pastors who neglected to preach on Charlie Kirk’s assassination were derelict in their duties to their congregations. Mark Driscoll went so far as to say people should leave all such churches. Oddly, he didn’t say anything about staying with your church and finding a new pastor. It’s almost as if he, a pastor, were loathe to let anybody think that could be an option.

Now, I am not a pastor, and I will not tell anyone what I think their pastor should be doing. I believe local flocks have local needs, and the Holy Spirit can mind His people best through locally-minded shepherds. But I am a Sunday School teacher, a member of a church, a regular old run-of-the-mill Christian, and a congenital contrarian, so I’ll speak from that position.

The Sunday after Kirk’s death, many of the pastors and teachers I know spoke about the situation. Many others did not, or if they did, they only mentioned it in passing, and prayed for his family. I listened to my father’s sermon online, and he went on with the message he already had on his heart, with a passing mention for Kirk. I was sick last week, so I did not get a chance to teach my class that Sunday. If I had, I had no intention of talking about Charlie Kirk. We’re going through the book of Proverbs right now. We would have certainly prayed for his family and for God’s will to be done going forward.

I believe it is my role as a facilitator to give my younger brothers and sisters the tools required to rightly divide the Word of Truth. They can apply that understanding to political or current events on their own. I was, perhaps to my shame, massively relieved to find that I had a nasty head-cold so that I didn’t have to hear about Charlie Kirk during church that day. I simply cannot handle the push–the lockstep messaging that gets handed down through media, that everybody repeats as if it were their own. I feel the same on patriotic holidays, after massive news stories, and on Cinco de Mayo. Believe me, I am as uncomfortable with myself and my own tribe of cranks as I am with the mainstream.

I’m an equal-opportunity doubter.

Another Sunday School teacher had asked if it would be OK to speak to my children about the assassination, and I would have been fine with it if we’d been there. I trust her intentions and sense. I also believe I’ve given my children the aforementioned tools for discernment that I try to impart to my own class. And they are genetically mine, so not likely to be terribly manipulable. Whatever is spoken about politics or current events in the Sunday School room will be something they can parse quite well. I hope all of the students are so adept at weeding out the politics from the reality. I also think that the other Sunday School teacher could be more right than I am, or could have a good word for the children, who know about it already and need to process it somehow, so it really isn’t a problem for me if other teachers feel differently than I do. The Holy Spirit is ultimately in charge of all of us, and I trust that He’ll bring us all home in His own way and time.

I’m looking at this on two levels at once, but one of them has to supersede the other.

As I said before, I believe, and evidence is plentiful, that Kirk was killed because he had been a useful political tool, but was slowly waking up to the fact that he was controlled by people who do not serve Christ. As a Christian, he was beginning to catch on that he was trying to serve two masters. He was becoming uncontrollable, and he had to be taken out. In that way, in my mind, he has become a legitimate martyr for the Savior. I honor him as such.

But the public and shocking way that he was killed–and I am not immune to feeling very strong emotions about it, even when they are not the precise emotions that I’m expected to have–tells me that though he is a martyr, his death was fully intended by the Enemy to be used to move Christians in a particular direction. They have no problem taking difficult people out by pillow or car accident when they don’t want it talked about, but they chose to do this in a spectacular way, even possibly enhancing the images with AI to really stun a public that watches too many horror movies to be impressed with a normal amount of blood.

My sadness is for the life lost. But my anger is due to that feeling I’m getting, once again, that someone is attempting to manipulate me.

Here comes the Push.

Not twenty-four hours after his death, I started to get messages from other teachers and mothers and friends about how they’re doing this or that thing to further Charlie’s message. I saw everybody on the political “right” jumping in, gleeful at the potential for grift, to pick up his “bloody” microphone–people who cannot possibly understand his faith, but would love to ride on his political coattails for as long as they can be ridden.

I just don’t like it. It’s a gut thing. As my mom said the other day, with some frustration, “Oh, you never like anything.” It’s true. I’ve lamented in these pages before how wearying it is to never find myself on the comfortably correct page. But here we are again. Because, while on one level Charlie Kirk did indeed take that blow for Christ, on another, we all stand to be manipulated and used by the narrative that is even now being written about it. And that narrative is being written–in fact has already been written, and is now being read to us–by enemies of Christ.

They are whipping us into a hysteria.

As with covid and any other happenings that the media gets into a frenzy about, Christians need to be wary. We left a church because they refused to see the evil behind the masking and separation and the jabs. (That post is worth a read if you have a little extra time, especially if you are a pastor or deacon.) I was proud of those Christians I knew who were able to see through the lies, whether instantly or eventually, and I expect those same brothers and sisters will manage to both calm themselves and those under their influence so that they won’t be manipulated further.

Charlie Kirk believed in Christ. But his platform was a political one, and was so mixed up with the politics of other people who do not believe in Christ, and in fact actively despise Christ, that we should not join any movement, take any stance, give any money, or do any deed which is pressed upon us as “for Charlie”. We cannot allow our love for a brother to override our skepticism of the political ends to which we are surely being brought. I do not profess to know what these ends are–not in the shorter term, at least–but it is glaringly obvious that there are some. As with covid, any pastor or teacher that makes a big deal of this inside church walls, devoting unnecessary attention or emotion to it, could be (unwittingly, I hope) adding the authority of his position to designs of Christ’s enemies. Again, there may be a pressing need within some congregations to have it addressed in some way, and I’m not saying every pastor or teacher is doing this. But teachers should tremble to think how they might get this wrong.

It has always been my nature to stay on the edge of the herd, even the finest herd, so that when the stampedes start, I can step off and figure out what to do. This has the characteristics of another stampede, much like the Great Toilet Paper Run of 2020, and I want nothing to do with it.

Since Charlie’s death is so fresh, and so much is coming to light about the reasons for it, I think Christians should allow time to gain better perspective on it, rather than rushing out to declare ourselves part of some “movement”.

Please leave a comment with your thoughts! Buy me a coffee if you find the blog helpful. Or if you don’t like it, encourage me to run more and blog less by giving to my gofundme for my next race!

In Which I Rebuke Myself

Posted on by

A little.

I was reading and explaining the parable of the early and late workers from Matthew 20 to my children the other day.

“For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard.2 Now when he had agreed with the laborers for a denarius a day, he sent them into his vineyard.3 And he went out about the third hour and saw others standing idle in the marketplace,4 and said to them, ‘You also go into the vineyard, and whatever is right I will give you.’ So they went.5 Again he went out about the sixth and the ninth hour, and did likewise.6 And about the eleventh hour he went out and found others standing[a]idle, and said to them, ‘Why have you been standing here idle all day?’7 They said to him, ‘Because no one hired us.’ He said to them, ‘You also go into the vineyard,[b]and whatever is right you will receive.’

8 “So when evening had come, the owner of the vineyard said to his steward, ‘Call the laborers and give them their wages, beginning with the last to the first.’9 And when those came who were hired about the eleventh hour, they each received a denarius.10 But when the first came, they supposed that they would receive more; and they likewise received each a denarius.11 And when they had received it, they[c]complained against the landowner,12 saying, ‘These last men have worked only one hour, and you made them equal to us who have borne the burden and the heat of the day.’13 But he answered one of them and said, ‘Friend, I am doing you no wrong. Did you not agree with me for a denarius?14 Take what is yours and go your way. I wish to give to this last man the same as to you.15 Is it not lawful for me to do what I wish with my own things? Or is your eye evil because I am good?’16 So the last will be first, and the first last. For[d]many are called, but few chosen.”

At the time, I didn’t really make any application to my own thoughts of late, but I felt a little niggling something in my chest, like something…something…oh, well, I’m in a hurry. Let’s move on to math.

So then this morning I was doing what all red-blooded Americans and Canadians are doing right now, whispering my prayers for some peaceful protestors, and cheering for some people standing up to tyranny. I’ve also put my money where my mouth is in supporting Pastor Artur Pawlowski<<<–CLICK THAT LINK and I hope you will, also.

Sweet, ain’t it?

Now, I’ve always had an annoying tendency to see things on multiple levels, and sometimes those levels would seem to contradict each other. Sometimes I lose sleep trying to reconcile my different impressions with each other. They rarely truly contradict, but the more compelling thoughts can pull me too far in one direction or the other at times. On one level, I’ve already said exactly what I think of the Truckers and their protest. It is both marvelous to behold, and yet a sign of inadequate understanding.

But it looks to me like it is becoming more adequate all the time.  

Where I first only saw some people getting mad because they were finally about to be out of a job, unlike that other poor schmuck who has been out of a job for a year now, I’m now perceiving people who are actually sorry they didn’t stand up earlier. People who took an ill-advised vaccine out of naïve obedience to illegitimate demands by “authority” are now unwilling to force others to violate their bodies in the same way. That speaks of repentance, whether they know how to use the word yet or not.

I’m loving the patriotism, and the peacefulness, and the truly Christlike resistance that they are offering. God bless Canada!

So where do I need to rebuke myself? There’s not much wrong with what I said before, right?

No, not really. But that niggling something I felt when I was explaining the parable to my children was the Holy Spirit reminding me that there’s a wrong way to be right.

That’s what happens when you let your precious Self start to take credit for simply showing up a few hours earlier than the next guy down the hiring-line. It’s good that I showed up for work in the morning, refusing early on to mask or to bow to the power that sought to enslave not just me, but my neighbor, whom I actively loved by standing up for his rights, even when he was too scared to do so for himself. It’s good, but it’s not my good. It is Christ’s. Always.

I said before:

There are families who have had to find alternative ways to feed their children after grocery stores wouldn’t let them in. People have lost their jobs. Doctors, pharmacists, and nurses have been silenced for having a different opinion than the approved one. Many have been threatened and intimidated for refusing to back down. Some of the most compelling voices have likely been assassinated, given the mysterious circumstances under which they’ve died. While it is much worse in Canada, we have plenty of stories in the US, too.

 

Pardon me if I’m not terribly impressed that the mob has finally gotten mad, now that enough lives are affected.

 

I only got hired this morning, myself.

Being a natural introvert and observer, it is true that I have sussed things out a little earlier than most. But the Spirit graciously humbled me through the words of Our Lord. “What is it to you if I grant repentance to them today, rather than yesterday? What is an hour or day to the Eternal, anyway? Didn’t you already receive what I promised you?”

We’re all at a different place in our understanding and experience. So the trouble, as usual, isn’t with my discernment, but with my heart, my pride. As if every gift I have weren’t from God, and not of myself, lest I should boast? So, while I retract nothing of the realities of what I said, I repent of my skepticism that God has brought in His perfect time any individual or nation to repentance. Repentance is increasingly what this convoy looks like to me: a great national–no, international–repentance, after realizing we’ve allowed mere Power to subvert righteous Authority.

So, allow me to say publicly what my pride would prefer I admit only privately. Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa. I was right, the wrong way, which is no better than being completely wrong. 

Want to discuss my blunder? I’m always checking in on Gab, MeWe, and SG. In fact, I’m dying for some company on some of these platforms. Hit me up, please!

One Simple Trick to Reclaim Your Freedom

Posted on by

All anybody ever had to do was this.

How about them truckers, eh? On the one hand, I am quite enjoying all the honking and triggering and milquetoast patriotism.

It’s a pleasure to see people finally getting good and mad after allowing the mistreatment of their entire population by self-appointed “authorities” for the last two years. I’m heart-glad to see that they’re not yet fully dead inside, even after all the soul-destroying groveling they’ve proven willing to do for the legal-medical tyrants during the Coronation. It gives me a small amount of hope that there is yet a way out of this. Besides, it’s just plain old fun, sometimes.

My enjoyment of the spectacle is genuine, but my moral sense recoils. What is really going on here?

It was “time” two years ago. Better late than never?

 

Do you recall this viral video from April, 2021?

Pastor Pawlowski has been arrested multiple times since then, barred from entry to necessary buildings, and yet again has been arrested for simply using his God-given rights. He didn’t ask the government’s permission to feed the poor, or to preach, or to gather with like-minded individuals. He just did it. And he is being made to pay for it.

He’s not alone. There are families who have had to find alternative ways to feed their children after grocery stores wouldn’t let them in. People have lost their jobs. Doctors, pharmacists, and nurses have been silenced for having a different opinion than the approved one. Many have been threatened and intimidated for refusing to back down. Some of the most compelling voices have likely been assassinated, given the mysterious circumstances under which they’ve died. While it is much worse in Canada, we have plenty of stories in the US, too.

Pardon me if I’m not terribly impressed that the mob has finally gotten mad, now that enough lives are affected.

People who have been robbed of their rights, ridiculed, fired, harassed, and arrested because they decided from the very beginning, on an individual level, that they would not submit to tyranny are the real heroes. If they gain relief through this action, then that is only right, and I’ll be very glad to see it. But I will know that any freedom returned by means of outraged protest is only a reprieve from some of the strictures that have been placed upon us, not a true return of freedom.

This is what’s really making people mad. They couldn’t care less about freedom.

As long as enough people were still confident that they would be able to eat and obtain the necessities of life, they didn’t have the first thought of rising up to protect just one. One pastor, one family, one fired employee: none of these infringements were a big enough deal to stir up the mob. Everybody cowered in fear, not of a virus, but of losing their meal ticket, while the few who dared to question the narrative were repeatedly denied their rights. Nobody cared while they were still themselves fed and housed.

Once enough of them realized that their comfortable lives were under threat, they finally woke up and started to do something about it. This is not the behavior of free people concerned with rights, but of prisoners engaging in a riot because the cafeteria is serving a less tasty pizza option since the budget cuts.

They’re rioting, and it’s a great show, but they’re still in prison.

These truckers and their supporters (of whom I am one, provided they figure out the “trick” I’m about to tell you) are thankfully throwing a fit on the powers that be, but they still only partially understand what they’re up against. They’re not yet outside the prison walls. They’re just making a mess at this point. A glorious mess, but one that can be cleaned up after they’re quelled by temporary concessions.

So, what’s the trick to regaining your freedom? It is simply this:

Go about your business normally, without asking for permission.

If someone–whether someone in authority or not–tries to stop you, keep going. Keep driving. Keep delivering your goods. Keep shopping. Keep preaching and singing and praying. Keep smiling with your face uncovered. Many of us have been doing this all along. It has cost us. At this point, it has cost me so much faith in my fellow man that I have a hard time relating to him anymore. I don’t currently even have a church where I trust the leadership to discern the signs of the times.

But there is a path to freedom. We can get out of this. I am hopeful that I can even get some of my faith in humanity back.

But (and I’m afraid this is a very big “but”) it’s going to take returning to normal without permission. We must insist on normalcy. This protest is the very opposite of that.

In order to get out of the Great Reset prison, we do not need all this wasteful fuss, and in fact this fuss is counter-productive. It is giving the “authorities” the legitimacy of still having the final choice in how you live your life. They’re choking up the supply lines, not because they are righteously angry, but because they’re afraid to keep moving without the backing of a huge crowd. They’re shutting down the supply line to save it. In the short term, it could work. But in the long term, it is merely loosening up the boa constrictor long enough for it to get another grip.

I’m sorry to break this to you, trucker, but it is the individual who must face the consequences of doing the right thing. You’ll never get there as a collective, because as a collective, you are ruled, not self-ruled.

If these truckers go home and back to normal because they “won” a concession from the government, they lose. They have fed the Beast by letting it decide what they will do next. And not one of those who have been suffering all along because they were bold enough to stand alone will be beholden to you, though you think are doing something so brave. They will still be arrested. Still be banned from employment. Still be ostracized. But at least you’ll have your supply chain.

If the truckers go home with a “loss”, their morale will be hurt. Like children who have been told “no” by mommy, they will pout. But that is still my desired outcome, for this reason: My heart is with them in their desire for the mandates to end. But if they “lose” they will have an opportunity to actually become free. They will only become free by ignoring the lying media, the illegitimate governments, and their weak and cowardly enforcers, and living as free men. It will require confrontations as individuals. It will require potentially getting in trouble. It will require angering the Nanny state on a personal level. Nothing else will gain them true freedom.

Unless the mandates die with the whimper of an unfed beast, rather than by the grudging leniency of the Powers That Be, you lose, truckers.

Child-free and Loving It

Posted on by
In a recent post, I obliquely referred back to the following post, which I’ve rescued from the scrap-heap of GAH 1.0. This was written on March 1, 2013. I was allowed on the Twitter back then, and made a lot of Christians (especially the men) clutch their skirts. The most shocking thing about it is that I ate ramen noodles. At bedtime. Good grief, I was sick. Anyhow, it will be interesting to see the reactions now (if I even get any), when there are a great many more people who understand what I mean, and are raising their own families in full awareness of it.

Child-Free and Loving It

Not me. Them.

In my latest insomnia-fueled excursion around the internet I ran across the above-linked article at The Daily Beast. Go read it. I’ll wait here…

It’s quite a piece of work, isn’t it? It is, in case you were too smart to take the bait, an article cobbled together from reader comments that The Daily Beast had solicited in response to an earlier Newsweek piece about the birth dearth. The intentionally childless—er, childfree, they like to be called—don’t take too kindly to the idea that what they’re doing is foolish, but it is, and for a multitude of reasons.

When I read this article last night, I didn’t feel very strongly about it. In fact, I almost skipped right over it, because there’s nothing new here. Just a bunch of people doing what people have always done when given the opportunity: living for themselves, and seeing no problem with it whatsoever. In fact, Ayn Rand-like, they have managed to make a virtue out of selfishness. A few quotes from the article:

I don’t like it when people and the media imply that I’m not doing my job. I am far more than a baby factory.

 

I never wanted to put another human/soul/awareness through anything as miserable as what I was dealing with…

 

I just see it (having children) as a losing battle on the way to an eventual future straight out of the movie Idiocracy.
I read The Population Bomb at puberty, around the first Earth Day. I decided at 15 that I’d like to adopt one kid of every race, to have a rainbow house. When I grew up and realized humans were causing mass extinction, I got cats instead…

 

…I don’t want to be defined first and foremost as a mother…

 

I saw how much my mother hated the drudgery of caring for children on her own…

Yawn. Just the chatter of a self-absorbed, affluent culture that thinks children suck, mostly because their parents thought they sucked. Not my audience, though, and no need to address it, I thought. So I ate some ramen noodles and went to bed. (I’ll do penance for that indiscretion by doing low-carb next week. Pinky-swear.)

However, by the time I woke up this morning, I was feeling a little restless about it. There’s a lot of worldly reason here that just makes sense to the natural mind, but I get comments to this effect all the time from people who identify themselves as Christian! These people quoted above are correct, according to the logic of their own worldview.

Raising children is a very poor way to try to give life meaning. If you’re adding children to your life for the sake of finding purpose, you will most likely find yourself with nothing but a handful of trouble. Parenthood is just drudgery on the World’s terms. These (I’m guessing and hoping 100% non-Christian) non-parents believe that the purpose of their lives is to, as I once heard Voddie Baucham put it, “get all you can, can all you get, and then sit on the can”. Why in the world would anybody add more people to this miserable existence when they don’t particularly like kids?

Why carry on something as meaningless as human existence?

It makes sense to the World. Of course it does!

But Christians, who have changed hearts and transformed minds, ought to know better. The next generation does matter. We do need them to take up where we leave off. And our hearts ought to be softer than this toward those younger Christian brothers and sisters whom God has given us as offspring. In fact, our hearts, when they are in the right place, will turn to our children.

“See, I will send you the prophet Elijah before that great and dreadful day of the LORD comes. He will turn the hearts of the fathers to their children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers; or else I will come and strike the land with a curse.”

While this was a specific prophecy, and I don’t want to take it out of its Messianic context, it does show one of the benefits of repentance to a nation. Their hearts turn toward their children, and the children in turn incline their affections toward their fathers so that the generations benefit from mutual love and protection during the vulnerable years at both ends of life.  The hearts of men and women in this nation are so hardened toward their children that they don’t even care enough to bring them into existence. This is a form of self-hatred, as evidenced by those commenters who reveal that they believe the human race (to which they must surely realize that they, themselves, belong) is a scourge and shouldn’t be encouraged to continue.

There is a consequence—a curse–to this hard-heartedness.

The generational pyramid scheme always topples.

The European nations, Russia, and Japan (to name some recent examples history has to offer) have amply demonstrated the fact that when the burden of the economy suddenly shifts to a generation that is much smaller than the one before it, a nation’s resources begin to be used up at a rate that exceeds creation of new wealth. A nation can only be as healthy as its inventors, builders, thinkers, and fighters, after all.

I admit freely that the hole in my individual argument for allowing fertility to proceed naturally is that some people are indeed just fine, thank you, with no kids to take care of things for them. They cruise through to the very end of their lives with both enough money and enough health to set things up to their own liking, and no offspring need ever cramp their style. For many, that happy ending is a pipe dream, but it works out often enough that it still seems plausible to try.

However, even if it turns out well for some individuals, in the aggregate, it never turns out well. No amount of saving and planning will save any but the very lucky once the economy that their savings and investments rely on teeters over the edge of the generational cliff. As nations depopulate—whether voluntarily or not–poverty and discord follow.

Children really are an asset!
In addition to financial devastation, the responsibility for elder care becomes physically and emotionally too much for the few offspring left behind to do all the work. The bulk of their effort—mostly in the form of tax money, because the children are as hardened toward the parents as the parents were toward them–goes toward keeping up the last generation rather than raising the next, and so the next generation is further depleted. Further, the increasing frailty of the aging population makes it ripe for conquest via immigration. There’s simply no getting around the severe social and economic costs of a population implosion.

I can enjoy the results of other peoples’ child-rearing while I live MY best life unhindered by duty. Let the people who like kids (aka suckers) do that job for me:

Among the comments that really got my attention were the ones who are relying on their family and friends to provide un-wrinkled hands to hold in their old age.

I am fortunate to be very close to my nieces and nephews and to experience a form of grandparenting with their children. I have mentored dozens of my friends children through college frustrations and job searches.

I’ll be the cool, hip aunt to my sibling’s kids, or godmother to friends’ kids…

I don’t begrudge my childfree relatives that, because I want my children to care for the elderly. We have a duty to help the lonely and destitute wherever we find them, and no matter how they ended up in that condition.

However, there’s an attitude of entitlement here that shouldn’t go unrebuked: You do the unpleasant work. I’ll just sit back and enjoy the fruits of your labor.

While these commenters confess that they are emotionally freeloading (I don’t know what else to call it when it’s on purpose), I doubt they’ve fully understood that they are financially freeloading as well. Economies aren’t built on dollars and gold. They are built on people.

But freeloading doesn’t bother this crowd much, because they’re happy little grasshoppers, and who cares whether there’s a next generation? After all, they’re not going to be around to see the world in a hundred years anyway!

This seems like a great place to show off my favorite Cryptofashion tee, doesn’t it?

I got a lot of outraged comments (and emails…oh, the emails.) on my post about the need to breed because of the strong wording I used. I make no apology for it. I meant it when I said “I truly hope you find the accommodations to your liking.”

I really do hope that, for those shortsighted individuals who intentionally have no children, things turn out better than they have historically proven to turn out for the childless. When people start to feel justified in their selfishness to such an extent that they’re proud to spend their entire lives without sacrifice to the f-word (family), what happens to the sick and infirm in the resulting culture is a fate not fit for any human being, whether they unwittingly asked for it or not. Naturally, I wasn’t speaking to those people who are for one reason or another unable to have children, though their end may, tragically, be the same. I will personally (whenever possible) be thrilled to hold their hands and listen to their stories about the good old days when they are in their dotage and need a neighborly ear.

When I see someone heading for trouble, and with a smile, that seems like a very bad time to use soothing and choice-affirming words, so comments about my “merciless” attitude fall on deaf ears. “Merciless” is the word I’d use to describe allowing people to continue in wrong beliefs just because we don’t like to ruffle their feathers. Choosing vivid words to wake people up (and yes, tick them off enough to keep them awake) might just be the most merciful thing I can do.

I am, at the very least, showing mercy to my own children. It is they who will suffer the most for the loss of their generation’s strength to the selfishness of the intentionally childless, and so I do have a vested interest in pointing this out. My passion in the matter is justified, because I love my children and want them to have a secure future.

These Daily Beast readers are right, though. They shouldn’t have children. They should repent of their sins, and God will add the blessings afterwards, as a gift, and a reward.

As always, we can discuss this on Gab, MeWe, or Social Galactic.

You’re Not Welcome

Posted on by

They’ve socialized my pants. 

Get-Along-Husband took me shopping the other night, and I bought a couple of pretty sweaters. I didn’t try them on, because the size, petite small, has always been a good fit in those brands. I brought them home, put them on, and both of them looked like I was wearing a tent. A granny-tent.

Now, I know a smart person tries everything on before bringing it home.  But I’m not a smart person. What I am, is a person who has learned to rely on labeling as a useful time-saver. This is not totally unreasonable, right? But aside from the inconvenience of having to return these and then try and find things that actually fit, this isn’t really a big deal in the long run. This is a first world problem of the type that people rightly denigrate.

But there’s another real problem of the first world that’s closely related to this. I’ve concluded after so many experiences like this over the last few years, that the first world contains very few people who are properly proportioned anymore. My former petite-smalls are now apparently designed to hide quite a bit of unsightly belly fat. They look awful. Jeans that fit me in the waist have no butt, because people are either emaciated or dumpy. It’s terrifying how unhealthy we all are.

The thing that just broke me recently is this outrage, which I photographed at Old Navy:

By “revolution”, they mean the socialist one.

I can assure you that Old Navy is not eating those extra costs. If I only require two yards of cloth to cover my body, I am the one who is expected to cough up the funds required to help cover the body of someone else who requires five yards of cloth.

We’ve gone from fat-shaming to health-shaming. It’s not even just social disapproval, but outright punition. It’s to the point where you can’t even tell people who’ve asked what they can do to maintain a healthy body without becoming a pariah for acting like you’re better than somebody else.

I stick to a diet that keeps me healthy. I’m vigilant about my physical activity. I put myself to bed at a reasonable hour. I get as much sunlight as I can, and take my Vitamin D supplements. I do a whole lot of things that contribute to my good health. It’s not an accident of genetics or socioeconomic status that I’m not a tub of lard. My good health, and my consequently well-proportioned body have not come without a cost to me. I’ve worked for that, and I’ve paid for that.

I take responsibility for my own health, and you should have to do that, too. Many of the things I do to take care of myself cost more up front than just letting things go would. But the amount I’m saving myself and the collective (thanks, socialism!) in health care and lost productivity makes my health a true net gain, financially. But, up front, I pay for this.

Now I’m being asked to subsidize people who refuse to take those steps. Some of them even desire to remain fat. And you’re a very bad person if you think there’s anything wrong with that. Not only do I have to pay extra for my health care, and in taxes for medicaid or medicare and disability; not only do I have to keep my mouth shut about your obvious problem; NOW I HAVE TO LITERALLY PAY TO  COVER YOUR FAT ^$$.

No, I’m not sorry I put it that way, dear Church Lady. I felt like channeling Karl Denninger this morning, caps and italics and ugly words and all.

You should feel bad about your poor health. How else are you going to be motivated to do anything about it? Contrary to the narrative about “healthy at any size” and “beautiful at any size”, the fact is that if you are overweight, you are sick. Probably not beautiful, either, but this is not about your looks. This is not about who you are as a person. This is not about whether I like to look at you or not. This is not about making you feel bad for other people’s entertainment.

Fat “shaming” is a lie from Satan. Your size has everything to do with your health, both physical and mental, and I do think spiritual as well. And you’re dragging the rest of us down with you.

Many people wouldn’t even care how sick other people were if they didn’t have to pay for it. I admit, the fact that I pay out the nose for my own health and then even more for other people’s is incredibly galling. It’s not just health and clothing. I also have a large family to raise, and I’m personally footing both the cost of their education and other families’ education, too. My numerous kids are going to be on the hook, not only for their own parents’ old age, but for the socialized elderly care of people who couldn’t be bothered to raise their own children.

In this now-fully socialized society, even the “capitalists”, are doing things on the socialist model. As Old Navy amply demonstrates, the more good I do, the more I end up paying because other people don’t want to.

So, you ask, did Atlas shrug? Did you boycott the stupid store, as they richly deserve?

Sigh. To tell the truth, it’s hard to find those fleece-lined leggings anywhere else, and it’s cold on that morning run, so this time, Atlas shouldered the burden. This time, as in most other areas of my life, I ate the cost of somebody else’s poor choices. Whether for lack of information, or motivation, or self-respect, or whatever the excuse, I paid more than I should have had to for the amount of goods I received so that others could slack off. As a responsible person in a society of irresponsible people, I do this daily, in a hundred chaffing little ways.

Fat acceptance–nay, fat supremacy–is killing people. And it’s making me just shy of crazy.

OK, I’m done. You can go back to your cheesecake now. Discuss on Gab, MeWe, or Social Galactic.