Keeping the Historical Record

History is something I’m concerned about losing. There are various sources for history: contemporaneous news; government documents; and personal records, such as journals, letters, and photos.

image found here

But sources change more easily when they’re digital, not physical. We don’t have a physical newspaper coming to the house anymore. Online sources are subject to online availability. They say that anything you put up on the internet, on social media for example, is forever. But they also delete the Twitter account of the President of the United States for saying things they don’t like. All the President’s direct communications to the American people, all that history is gone—unless someone archived it along the way.

The Epoch Times did a very long (I think 16 hours) livestream on January 6^th, past midnight, and YouTube didn’t allow it to publish. [That is possibly only for length, not content, although yesterday YouTube demonetized all Epoch Times channels. YouTube so far provides the best livestream features, but The Epoch Times company can no longer make money through YouTube, and this does appear to be for not sharing YouTube’s opinions.] I watched several hours live, but when I went back to rewatch interviews and events, I couldn’t. Some of them were reproduced individually on The Epoch Times website, but some of what I wanted is gone. History as recorded was lost.

I was never on Twitter, but I often saw tweets reproduced on other social media. Among these were President Trump’s tweeted short videos on the afternoon of January 6^th, calling for peace. I saved two on Facebook to refer to later, and also a brief recap of that same announcement by press secretary Kayleigh McEnany; even though these were separate from Twitter, they were removed by Facebook. People have tried telling me the President congratulated the bad guys on breaching the capitol; I never saw any such thing.* He only addressed the good people—the million of his supporters who remained peaceful and outside, whom he told to go home in peace. The thing that was against Twitter’s “community standards” was his claim that the election was stolen, not a call for or a support of violence. If there was an additional communication, it wasn’t included in the impeachment documents, and I have not been able to find it captured elsewhere.

What I’m saying is, contemporaneous digital news is both impermanent and unreliable.

Government documents are only available when the government allows them to be. If you know already that something probably exists, you can do a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to get it. That can be time-consuming, possibly costly (for photocopies), and dependent on government’s willingness.

As for personal records, this generation is less likely than past generations to keep physical personal records, printed photos, and handwritten letters. Even journals tend to be kept online. What of the many people who use social media as their personal record? All those baby milestones. All the cute things their kids say and do. They are dependent on your keeping an account—which we learn now is totally at the discretion of Big Tech. There are ways to archive your account. Check for videos online showing you how. I’ve done it. But the result was an unreadable file, no photos or images. I don’t know how to use that in any meaningful way.

Most of us by now know to back up our computers. But what happens if you lose access to your cloud account? It’s like having your house burn down along with all your memorabilia.

This is to say, history is something that has to be intentionally preserved. And that isn’t as easy as it used to be. Today I’m intentionally preserving a few US history details for future reference.

A Facebook friend put up a collection of items yesterday, just to mark where we are at this point in history. I thought these were good to remember: 

·         Gasoline is currently $2.11 per gallon in Texas.

·         Interest rates are 2.25% for a 30-year mortgage.

·         The stock market closed at 31,094, though we have been fighting COVID for 11 months.

·         We have not had any new wars or conflicts in the last 4 years.

·         ISIS and N Korea have been quiet.

·         The housing market is the strongest it has been in years. Homes have appreciated at an unbelievable rate and sell well.

·         Peace deals in the Middle East were signed by 4 countries.

·         Unemployment sits at 6.7% in spite of COVID.

·         Gold $1849 / Silver $25.21 / Platinum $1,109.91.

That will give us a benchmark in the future.

President Donald J. Trump, giving his farewell speech on January 19, 2021
screenshot from C-SPAN

Along those lines, President Trump gave two speeches this week, recounting the accomplishments of his administration. This list is mostly from the transcript of Tuesday's speech, with some slight editing: 

·         We passed the largest package of tax cuts and reforms in American history.

·         We slashed more job-killing regulations than any administration had ever done before.

·         We fixed our broken trade deals:

o   withdrew from the horrible Trans-Pacific Partnership.

o   withdrew from the impossible Paris Climate Accord.

o   renegotiated the one-sided South Korea deal.

o   replaced NAFTA with the groundbreaking USMCA—that’s Mexico and Canada.

o   imposed historic and monumental tariffs on China; made a great new deal with China.

·         After COVID hit here and around the world, America outperformed other countries economically because of our incredible economy that we built.

·         We also unlocked our energy resources and became the world’s number-one producer of oil and natural gas by far.

·         We reignited America’s job creation and achieved record-low unemployment for African Americans, Hispanic Americans, Asian Americans, women—almost everyone.

·         Incomes soared, wages boomed, the American Dream was restored, and millions were lifted from poverty in just a few short years.

·         The stock market set one record after another, with 148 stock market highs during this short period of time.

o   boosted the retirements and pensions of hardworking citizens.

o   401(k)s are at a level they’ve never been at before, both before and after the pandemic.

·         We rebuilt the American manufacturing base, opened up thousands of new factories, and brought back the beautiful phrase: “Made in the USA.”

·         We doubled the child tax credit and signed the largest-ever expansion of funding for childcare and development.

·         We joined with the private sector to secure commitments to train more than 16 million American workers for the jobs of tomorrow.

·         We produced not one, but two COVID-19 vaccines with record-breaking speed, and more will quickly follow. They call it a “medical miracle.”

·         When the virus took its brutal toll on the world’s economy, we launched the fastest economic recovery our country has ever seen.

o   We passed nearly $4 trillion in economic relief,

o   saved or supported over 50 million jobs,

o   and slashed the unemployment rate in half.

·         We created choice and transparency in healthcare.

·         We stood up to Big Pharma, especially in our effort to get favored-nations clauses added, which will give us the lowest prescription drug prices anywhere in the world.

·         We passed:

o   VA Choice,

o   VA Accountability,

o   Right to Try,

o   and landmark criminal justice reform.

·         We confirmed three new justices of the United States Supreme Court.

·         We appointed nearly 300 federal judges to interpret our Constitution as written.

·         We achieved the most secure border in US history.

·         We have given our brave border agents and heroic ICE officers the tools they need to do their jobs better than they have ever done before, and to enforce our laws and keep America safe.

o   This includes historic agreements with Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador,

o   along with more than 450 miles of powerful new wall.

·         We restored American strength at home and American leadership abroad. The world respects us again.

·         We reclaimed our sovereignty by standing up for America at the United Nations and withdrawing from the one-sided global deals that never served our interests.

o   NATO countries are now paying hundreds of billions of dollars more. We were paying the cost for the world. Now the world is helping us.

·         With nearly $3 trillion, we fully rebuilt the American military.

o   We launched the first new branch of the United States Armed Forces in 75 years: the Space Force.

o   American astronauts returned to space on American rockets for the first time in many, many years.

·         We revitalized our alliances and rallied the nations of the world to stand up to China like never before.

·         We obliterated the ISIS caliphate and ended the wretched life of its founder and leader, al Baghdadi.

·         We stood up to the oppressive Iranian regime and killed the world’s top terrorist, Iranian butcher Qasem Soleimani.

·         We recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and recognized Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights.

President Trump, signing the Abraham Accords
Reuters photo found here

·         We achieved a series of historic peace deals in the Middle East. The Abraham Accords opened the doors to a future of peace and harmony, not violence and bloodshed.

·         We are bringing our soldiers home.

·         I am especially proud to be the first President in decades who has started no new wars.

·         We have reasserted the sacred idea that, in America, the government answers to the people.

o   Our allegiance is not to special interests, corporations, or global entities;

o   It’s to our children, our citizens, and to our nation itself.

He summarizes with this:

This, I hope, will be our greatest legacy: Together, we put the American people back in charge of our country. We restored self-government. We restored the idea that in America no one is forgotten, because everyone matters and everyone has a voice. We fought for the principle that every citizen is entitled to equal dignity, equal treatment, and equal rights because we are all made equal by God.

There was plenty of time before the election, and also since, to heighten awareness of the dangers we’re in. Biden is starting out by doing when he threatened to do. On day one:

·         He killed 50,000 jobs by rescinding federal permits for the Keystone Pipeline.

·         He forces women and girls to accept biological males in their bathrooms, dressing rooms, and private spaces.

·         He will, by executive order, place us under control of the Paris Climate Accord—as Obama did, without congressional approval as required for a treaty—even though we have outperformed the agreement while not subjecting ourselves to economic hardships it unfairly imposes on the US but not on nations like China.

·         He plans a 100-day mask mandate and economic shutdown in response to COVID—even though most people already wear masks, socially distance, and suffer from business closures and limitations—none of which have stopped the spread of the virus.

·         He plans to unilaterally implement DACA, without regard to eligibility.

·         He will impose “diversity training” in government agencies.

·         He cancelled contracts for constructing the border wall.

·         He got rid of the 1776 project to teach actual American history and our founding.

Look through the list. Find one that benefits the American people. Find one that ought to even be considered constitutional.

That’s just a partial day-one glimpse of what is to come, which includes rewriting history, stopping free speech, and “cleansing” America of opposing views (defined in this newspeak** as “unity”).

The records, if we can keep them, will show each and every one of his policies leading away from freedom and toward tyranny, away from prosperity and toward poverty, and away from civilization and toward savagery.

Being able to say “we told you so” in the wake of the tremendous loss of our constitutional republic is not what we freedom lovers would call satisfying. But, one thing we know from history is that God is in control. And we know how His story ends. I am looking forward to that Great day***—which it will be for us—rather than the Dreadful day that it is likely to be for the tyrants and their enablers.

__________________

* Twitter has admitted the words do not incite violence or speak of violence; the claim, "The President's statements can be mobilized by different audiences, including to incite violence." As Daniel Oliver, Jr., explains in a commentary, "In other words, they admit that there's no incitement in the tweets themselves, but Trump may be removed from the public square because of how other might reasonably or unreasonably react." That standard is so arbitrary as to be simply censorship at the whim of the Big Tech provider.

** Refers to George Orwell's book 1984, in which the prevailing government statement was put out daily, called newspeak, and previous words were disposed of, instantly rewriting history.

*** Malachi 4:5 "before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord."