Our Constitutional Republic Has Suddenly Become a Fascist Tyranny

The other day Glenn Beck had a panel discussion, mainly about midterm elections, and polling, and related things. But in that discussion he asked the question, “Do you believe we are still living in a constitutional republic?” The answer all four gave was "No." Steve Deace added, “The social compact is broken.” 

If we’re no longer a constitutional republic, then our government has been overthrown. How did that coup happen? And when? And a whole lot of other questions. I think the answer is similar to a Hemingway quote about how you go bankrupt: “Gradually, then suddenly.”

We’ve been fighting against tyranny for a long time. We had the best thing going in the history of the world. And yet, almost since the beginning there have been hidden (and not-so-hidden) forces, cabals, groups, ideologies, factions that have wanted to wrest control back from the people and place it in the hands of chosen-behind-the-scenes elites.

Despite our long resistance, we are now a country in which regular citizens can be arrested for disagreeing with the ruling powers. Recently we had two examples of political arrests related to pro-life issues.

In Pennsylvania

On September 23, 2022, the FBI conducted a SWAT raid at the Philadelphia home of Mark Houck, a pro-life activist. (Epoch Times story here.) A year ago, while he was doing his usual sidewalk pro-life work, along with family, a pro-abortion escort (a person who escorts the abortion seeker inside to keep her “safe” from pro-life people) came the 100 or so feet from the facility and zeroed in on Houck’s 12-year-old son, getting in his face and yelling profanity at him. Houck, as a normal father, stepped in to protect his son. In the single shove, the 70-year-old pro-abortionist fell down. Police investigated and found no need for criminal charges. There was a civil suit, but the complainant didn’t show, and the case was dismissed. 

FBI agents arrive at a home,
photo by Robyn Beck/AFP via GettyImages, found here

A year goes by. Then suddenly the feds have 15-20 armed SWAT agents make the arrest at the home, in front of the wife and children. The charging documents—to which Houck has pled not guilty—claim Houck hit the man twice—intending to imply aggravated assault, which the facts of the case do not bear out. They also claim he violated the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act, but if that had been so, the pro-abortionist would not have had to travel 100 feet down the street to accost Houck’s son. By the way, there was no one to escort—or block—during the altercation.

Americans should not feel safer.

In Tennessee

In Tennessee last week, Paul Vaughn was arrested at his home by FBI agents yelling and banging on the door with guns drawn. There were children in the yard, getting ready to get in the car for a ride to school, and other children in the house. Vaughn surrendered, thinking that was the quickest way to de-escalate the situation. His wife, who had been at the back of the house, took video of the officers taking her husband in their vehicle, with arms drawn on him, refusing to give a reason, show a warrant, or provide ID.

They drove Vaughn about an hour’s distance away to process him for the arrest. It took a fair amount of time for his lawyers to even ascertain what the charges were. They were concerning a pro-life sit-in that took place on March 5, 2021, a year and a half ago. Again, the were using the FACE Act law, claiming he had conspired to block the entrance to a facility.

The thing is, he wasn’t even there that day. His role was as mediator between the group and the local police. He informed the police of the planned protest and asked what the group needed to do to make sure it remained as peaceful and legal as possible. He passed the information on to the activists, telling them that they could be arrested on misdemeanor charges, which the eleven protesters decided was worth it, and is what happened. The entire thing remained peaceful. Many of the protestors were elderly and harmless. But the DOJ is now claiming Vaughn was a “conspirator”—as if a peaceful sit-in ages ago is an imminent threat of domestic terror.

They released him after processing, leaving him without a phone or wallet, and no transportation home.

The arrest of this father for a misdemeanor crime in which he did not participate should not make you feel safer.

FBI agents refuse to explain why they were 
arresting Paul Vaughn, from his wife's video

Here is the Epoch Times story, which includes the wife’s video. 

Glenn Beck gives additional details in this video. 

Coincidentally, there have been multiple attacks on pro-life pregnancy centers, churches, and other places—with no charges filed. And of course no SWAT team raids.

New Executive Order to Spy on Americans

I don’t mean for this to be simply about the pro-life issue. It just happens that these two happened one week after the other. Let’s add into the mix the many political prisoners being held, charged, and prosecuted for the dangerous threat to the country of walking through the capitol building when invited in by police. Then add in a number of people who have questioned the 2020 election, such as Mike Lindell, being followed on vacation and arrested and having his phone seized. I’m forgetting the names of others they have done this too. There’s quite a list.

Now let’s add this little detail: Biden this past week quietly gave an executive order granting himself more spy powers.

Here is the executive order. 

title page of the executive order,
image from the White House website

Here’s a worrisome part:

(C) The President may authorize updates to the list of objectives in light of new national security imperatives, such as new or heightened threats to the national security of the United States, for which the President determines that bulk collection may be used.  The Director shall publicly release any updates to the list of objectives authorized by the President, unless the President determines that doing so would pose a risk to the national security of the United States.

What does this mean? The President gets to decide on new reasons for collecting this mass data on citizens. We should feel comforted that the Director of National Intelligence must immediately apprise us of any such updates—unless the President tells him not to. So, everything is at the whim of the dictator/president.

Most of the executive order deals with foreign threats, things we hope our government is staying aware of to keep us safe. It’s just that mixed in there are things like not going along with the government line on elections, for example. Or doing something to government property, which, as we can see from the Jan. 6 ridiculousness, could be construed any way they may choose.

And this executive order comes from the man who was VP during the administration that spied on candidate Donald Trump, and carried the spying over to when he was a sitting president, and used the trumped-up, paid-for fake accusations to try to remove him from office. So that’s who we’re supposed to trust to “minimize any impact on privacy and civil liberties”?

Americans should not feel safer.

Joshua Philipp discusses this on Crossroads. 

At this point we are holding out hope that the November Midterm Elections will be clean enough, so that we have one final chance to recover our constitutional republic from the fascist tyranny it has become—so gradually, and then so suddenly.

Electorally Collegiate

We’re not a democracy. That seems to come as a surprise to some Americans. Democracy is rule—or tyranny—by majority. The axiom is that it’s two wolves and a lamb voting on what’s for lunch.

What our founders designed was a constitutional republic. Democratic voting happens in parts of it—to choose our representatives, and directly choose many local leaders. But the federal government is limited, on purpose, so that coercive force, like fire, does the good it’s intended to do but does not go further and burn us free individuals to the ground.

Federal: relating to a type of organization that is made by joining together separate organizations or states

State: a politically unified people occupying a definite territory; a nation

When the thirteen original colonies declared independence from England, they were a loosely joined group of separate states (i.e., nations), a confederation. The document joining them, the Articles of Confederation, was weak and imperfect. That’s why, a few years later, representatives from these separate but confederated states worked out a new Constitution, “in order to form a more perfect union.”

They did not give up being their own sovereign statehoods, but they united with the other states in a stronger union. It’s important to remember that it was states joining together, and not merely a few million unaffiliated individuals suddenly becoming a new single nation. The nature of America is that it is the United States (nations) of America.

One of the major debates in the Constitutional Congress related to insistence, mainly from the large states, that representation should be by population number and, on the other hand, the insistence, mainly from the smaller states, that representation should be by state. What was the incentive for a small state, like Delaware, to join the union if it was simply to be ruled by whatever bigger states, like Virginia, enacted?

The brilliant compromise of the Constitution was to divide the representative branch, the legislature, into two houses: one representing population number—the House--and one representing each state equally—the Senate. Until the 16^th Amendment, the two senators from each state were chosen by the state legislatures, rather than by direct election as they are today. The idea was that the House represented the interests of the people from their home district, and the Senate represented the state’s (nations) interests. Even with the change in how senators are elected, they are still supposed to represent their state’s interests while working together on federal issues.

Over time, with inadequate history and civics being taught, too many people think of the states as just provinces.

Province: any one of the large parts that some countries are divided into

America didn’t divide itself into provinces that it called states; states united together to form America. We’re all Americans, but we’re also members of our respective states. You might forget that in some states, but you don’t forget it here in Texas.

Now that we’re clear on what United States are, we can talk with a better understanding about the election—and specifically the Electoral College.

The 2016 Electoral College Map,
image found here

Direct election is what some (many) voters think they’re doing in a presidential election. But they’re not. They’re actually voting for a slate of electors from their state who have promised to vote for a particular candidate. It seems complicated, but its purpose is to preserve both the voice of the people and the voice of each state.

If the popular vote directly elected the president, the campaign would look very different. It would concentrate on areas with the highest populations—big cities mainly, like New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston, and Dallas. Add in Florida and DC area. Ignore the rest of the nation, because you can’t garner enough votes in any particular place to sway the election. Flyover country gets flown over.

So, the system allots electors per state based on population (1 per representative in the US House of Representatives) and state (2 senators per state). Each state decides how its electors will be chosen, but most give all the state’s electors to the vote winner in the state.

Without Electoral College illustration
by Ramirez for The Daily Signal

If the vote is decisive in the state, it’s possible not all the votes will be counted. Don’t cry foul. All the cast ballots on election day are counted. All early voting ballots are counted. It used to be that absentee ballots were only counted if the number could sway the election, but since ballot by mail has become more prevalent, those are usually included in the voting day tally. (That’s what showed up in my county’s tally within 24 hours of the polls closing.)

However, there are provisional ballots—paper ballots cast by people who are not showing up as registered but whose registration was turned in on time; those votes will be handled individually, and if they are valid, they will be counted eventually.  Sometimes these have to do with providing proof of residency or some other detail that didn’t happen in time to show up in the books, but the voter has five days in which to provide documentation. But most provisional ballots end up being people who went to the wrong polling place, because they moved and didn’t go to the place where they are still registered, or because they just showed up at the wrong place and don’t have time to go elsewhere. These votes are not valid and will not be counted.

Anyway, the final tally on these votes may not show up in the original tallies, or even official tallies within 24 hours. If they will not change the outcome, there’s a good chance no one will change the count later. In other words, the popular vote count, because it doesn’t matter, isn’t always the count of all valid (and only valid) votes.

There’s also voter fraud to think of. In the last election, the difference was an average of about 10 votes per precinct. I was a poll watcher at a heavily democrat precinct that ended up with 20 extra votes on the machine that weren’t included on the voter list—the handwritten list of each voter that signs the book, used to verify the count. If one party decided to add votes from non-voters at a rate of 10-20 per voting place, they could turn a national election. If there was a corrupt party not being watched in some state, they could purposely add hundreds or thousands of fraudulent votes. As it is, at least they can only affect no higher than the state level.

So the Electoral College is a protection against tyranny of the majority, against tyranny of urban over rural or suburban areas, against large states over small, against populous regions over sparsely populated regions, and against tyranny by voter fraud.

Rarely has the Electoral College chosen a different president than the popular vote. When it has done so, that means the election was close. And in a close election, we ought to be glad the decision was made with the input of all states and all regions, instead of just the most populous cities.

There’s been a fair amount of conversation about the Electoral College the past couple of weeks. It’s a good time to get more educated on the subject.

I suggest this PragerU video:

Then there are these additional brief video explanations:

·         Mark Kaye, "Why the Electoral College Sux!"

·         Larry Arnn interview, and opinion piece he wrote in the Wall Street Journal November 14, “The Electoral College Is Anything but Outdated”

·         The Day I Found Out video, "Why Does the United States Use the Electoral College and Not a Popular Vote to Decide the President?"

And if you’d like to learn a little more in depth, I recommend a book I read about a decade ago that has been updated in 2012: Enlightened Democracy: the Case for the Electoral College, by Tara Ross, the presenter on the PragerU video.

It keeps happening that, when we look at what our founders thought through, they did a remarkable job of working out how to get just the right amount of government, with limits to safeguard our liberties. They deserve something much better than an ageist assumption that they’re outdated. Chances are they thought it through and came up with a brilliant idea.

Dream Nation

If I were to found a nation from scratch, what would it be like? It would look a great deal like the US Constitution. It would base government on the underlying principle that rights come from God. People will try to take away those rights, and they must be prevented. Government serves that limited purpose. Government should be used to protect our lives, liberty, and property—and the free choice of work to acquire property.

This new nation would have to be a break-off or restart of something existing, since the world is pretty much fully named and occupied now. The words declaring this new nation might include something very much like

WHEN in the Course of human Events, it becomes necessary for one People to dissolve the Political Bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the Powers of the Earth, the separate and equal Station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent Respect to the Opinions of Mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the Separation.

And then they would go on to describe why there should be this new government in place of the old:

WE hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness—That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed, that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these Ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it and to institute new Government, laying its Foundation on such Principles, and organizing its Powers in such Form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

There might follow a list of the grievances—the laws broken by the previous government. And after that list of government’s crimes against the people, the new nation would declare its independence. The signers would invoke their “Reliance on the Protection of divine Providence,” and they would “mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.”

This is how it was done 240 years ago, at the birth of the United States of America. Appeals to the law that was supposed to guarantee their natural rights had been underway for decades. It appeared every avenue of making things right was exhausted. At the time of the Declaration, war was underway, and continued for several more years. Only Divine Providence could have led to the miraculous victory. Eventually the fledgling nation grew and prospered, and the mother country stopped trying to re-wrest control.

Washington-on-the-Brazos, where the Texas Declaration of
Independence was signed in 1836
photo from Wikipedia

Similarly, in 1836, a section of Mexico listed grievances, and after exhaustive efforts to redress wrongs by appealing to the constitutional law of the nation were attempted and rebuked by the illegitimate dictator, independence was declared. So the Republic of Texas declared independence. A war was already underway, and continued. But with miraculous help from Divine Providence, the dictator-president was defeated in a brief battle at San Jacinto, to the east of present-day Houston.

The fledgling nation struggled, and before many years asked to become one of the United States of America. And has prospered considerably since—far beyond anything imagined by the mother country. As a single state within the US, it is the twelfth largest economy in the world.

So, there’s a pattern. A constitution is in place, promising the people protection of their God-given rights. Then tyrants get power and ignore the law. The free people then try to assert their rights through legal appeals, through reason, through common sense. And their appeals are ignored. Then the people—enough of them—come to see that a complete break is necessary, so that they can form a new nation that doesn’t allow government tyranny.

The tyrant nation doesn’t want to let them go peacefully and attempts to force submission. But, God willing, the free people win their independence.

If the tyrant nation didn’t try get the people to submit through brutal force, the war part of becoming independent would be eliminated.

So, if I were to have what I wanted, it would be to jettison the tyrants from the government—and any portions of the country where the voice of the people prefers the tyrants—and return to the Constitutional laws.

If that is not possible—as it was not with either mother country England for the original thirteen colonies, nor with mother country Mexico for Texas—then there would need to be a declaration of independence.

I am speaking hypothetically only. I am in favor of abiding by the US Constitution, and I don’t think we have yet done everything possible to exhaust the possibility of restoring the Constitution and jettisoning the tyrants.

But, while the United States is considered “indivisible,” that is only while the government guarantees “liberty and justice for all.” Our list of grievances is already as long and serious as was the founders’.

I am where the US founders were between 1760 and 1776, while John Adams was stationed in England making appeals. And I am where Stephen F. Austin was in 1830-1835, before he came out of a dungeon where he was imprisoned for asking that the constitution be followed.

So, hypothetically speaking, since I live in Texas, let’s suppose all avenues of Constitutional restoration have been exhausted. And Texas declares independence from the post-Constitutional Socialist States of America. Let’s further suppose that, because of close proximity to the other states, and the long years of people moving in and out among states, that the Socialist States of America would hesitate to declare war on Texas, but would allow a peaceful secession.

Other states could join—maybe Oklahoma, which is adjacent, but maybe also Utah, which wouldn’t be contiguous, but might prefer joining Texas rather than asserting its independence while surrounded by the Socialist States. There may be others.

So, we have this new nation, formed the way other freedom seekers have formed nations (except peacefully). And now we need to set up the laws.

I think the abandoned US Constitution is an excellent starting point. We would need to form a Constitutional Republic: representative government, by the voice of the people, but with guarantees against majority—or minority—tyranny.

Let’s keep most of it, and then add what we need to clarify and to maintain. We keep power divided into three branches of government. But we would spell out that all national laws must be duly legislated by the bicameral legislative branch and none else. Let’s add that every piece of legislation must deal with a single issue, and that it must identify the power in the Constitution granting authority for that duty.

The executive branch would have no power to issue any such thing as an edict, nor any executive order other than to indicate to workers the procedures for executing the legislated laws. Executive regulatory agencies, which currently have lawmaking, judicial, and punishment self-appointed duties would be entirely eliminated.

As now, the third branch would be the judiciary, which deals with judging according to the law—and has the bonus obligation of identifying whether a duly legislated law is legal according to the ultimate law, the Constitution. But let’s add that a two-thirds majority of the legislative branch could overrule the judiciary. (I’ve heard that suggestion for an Article V Convention to amend the Constitution.) This would prevent the judiciary from asserting illicit lawmaking authority.

We should make it both easier and probable for the legislative branch to impeach (remove from office) the president or vice-president either for attempts at unconstitutional acts or for crimes and corruption. And we could add that the people could also call for impeachment or recall (in a way similar to an Article V convention), if they see that the legislative branch isn’t responding to their appeals.

In addition, the legislative branch—as well as the people—could impeach a justice for failure to abide by the Constitution, or for crimes and corruption.

All would have term limits. The president would have no more than two terms (eight years). Senators would have no more than two terms (twelve years). Representatives would have no more than six terms (twelve years). Justices would have no more than sixteen years. (Length of terms might be negotiable; but this is my daydream, so I get to say.)

We would keep the Bill of Rights—maybe clarifying where courts have tried to interfere with our God-given rights.

Religion would be encouraged, in public and private life. No specific religion or sect would be given preferential treatment by government. But government could do nothing to hinder the free expression—public and private—of religion and religious people. Public prayer would be common at civic gatherings. Such prayers can be done according to the religion of the one praying, and those of differing religions would be expected to be respectful—as others would be to them at other opportunities.

We would also be free to speak opinions—even unpopular opinions—without fear of prosecution. Limits would include defamation, libel, slander, provoking violence, pornography and lewdness. But would not include civil discourse. And, of course, there would be no laws preventing others from saying things a person or group disagrees with, thereby “offending” them.

People clearly have not given up the right to defend themselves, just because they have hired a police force to help protect them. Only criminals would be prevented from owning and using firearms for protection, hunting, sport, or whatever use they see fit.

Families must be protected as the basic unit of society. Marriage would be defined as it has for millennia, as a man and a woman. Other definition powers would be retained locally. Preference would be given to married husband and wife. Other family forms, while permitted, do not expect government or public approval. Parents have the right and responsibility to see to the care, education, and upbringing of their children. Only when parents drastically fail would the law step in to protect the child.

Any power not enumerated in the Constitution would not be granted to the federal government, but would be held by local jurisdictions or the individual people. The local jurisdictions (states, provinces, or whatever they are called in this new nation) would decide when to assert their rights—regardless of what a Supreme Court says. The final arbiter should be the people, not a national government-appointed judiciary, which clearly has a conflict of interest in such cases.

Government’s only economic powers would include standardizing weights and measures, standardizing money, maintaining federal infrastructure, and preventing monopolies. A flat tax of no more than 10% could be imposed more maintaining government purposes of border protection, sovereignty duties, and enumerated government purposes. With government limited to its enumerated powers, there should be little difficulty in maintaining a balanced budget and avoiding debt—but rather than trust on this, the laws should make it mandatory (with possible temporary exceptions, such as natural disasters and attacks on the nation’s soil).

The new nation would secure its borders, and have an orderly, fair, and consistent immigration and naturalization policy.

The national government would refrain from interfering where it is not granted powers, such as in education, charity, environmental regulation, and subsidizing particular industries or market sectors.

We need informed voters committed to maintaining the Constitution. While there should be no financial or racial test for voters, I’m willing to believe we could come up with a test that is part of voter registration—something that proves the voter understands the basic form of government, the limits of government, and who one’s current national elected officials are. And we could have candidates sign an oath showing their understanding of and dedication to the Constitution—with punishments including possibly prison and fines for breaking this oath.

What I dream about is a country well up into the northern hemisphere of the Spherical Model—where we have freedom, prosperity, and civilization. Our original founders did everything right—except prevent us from ignoring the law and slipping southward. But that is not a problem with their system; that is a problem with the people.

So let's start with civilizing people, so that they naturally want--and work for--freedom and prosperity. 

The Demise of the Constitutional Republic

Since the world essentially crashed last Tuesday, I guess I should respond to that.

I’m referring to Ted Cruz suspending his campaign after the Indiana primary.

Ted Cruz suspends his campaign
image from here

Yes, I’m in mourning. As a lover of the US Constitution—and its purpose in getting us to freedom, prosperity, and civilization—Tuesday was the end of hope. There’s still the convention to come, technically, but….

I had hoped that the American people would have the opportunity to have a day-and-night clear choice between freedom, prosperity, and civilization versus tyranny, poverty, and savagery. That’s what the presidential election would have looked like with Ted Cruz on our side. He is the most consistently constitutional conservative candidate in my lifetime. The hope was for some recovery of the country we have been missing for at least a decade.

My realization, last week, was that my faith in the American people was misplaced. We hadn’t even moved toward the work of convincing Democrats that the Constitution was the way to get to prosperity and freedom. We got stuck at convincing some 40% of Republicans that the Constitution—and human decency—mattered enough to care about.

We didn’t win that debate. A plurality of Republicans joined with the totality of Democrats to choose some authoritarian, bullying, lying, pushy tyrant.

The choice has already been made. It doesn’t much matter who wins in November; the option of returning to the Constitution and getting out of the mire is now off the table.

But the pressure hasn’t ended. It’s coming at us Ted Cruz supporters from those who ought to be on our team, from our party. They’re saying if we don’t join them in voting for a progressive, lying, narcissistic tyrant, it will be our fault if we get a progressive, lying, narcissistic tyrant as our president. Ironic.

Here is what hasn’t happened: Donald Trump has not reached out to say he would welcome people like me. Instead, he has said there are some people he’d just as soon did not unite with his Republican Party:

I am confident that I can unite much of it. Some of it, I don't want. There were statements made about me that those people can go away and maybe come back in eight years after we serve two terms….

Honestly, there are some people I really don't want. I don't think it's necessary. People would be voting for me, they're not voting for the party.

So, if you didn’t fawn over him, you’re not welcome in the party of Reagan and Lincoln. Or whatever party it is now that he has made it anew.

Clearly it is not on me to forego my morals and join such a person. Unless I’m the kind of person who enjoys subjecting myself to abuse.

There are arguments from fellow Republicans, who suggest we must vote for Trump to avoid Hillary. Too late. But, let’s hear their arguments, out of respect. Because I really do respect many of these people, and keep looking to see if I’ve missed something.

Supreme Court: You have to vote for Trump, because the next president will get several chances to appoint Supreme Court justices, and we could lose the court for a generation or longer. This was a very good argument for voting for Cruz in our primary; he knows how to select a constitutional originalist. Trump does not; he seems unaware of the concept. Will his appointees be as anti-law as Hillary’s? I don’t know. But I expect there is zero possibility of getting any justices more law-abiding than Justice Kennedy. In other words, a vote for Trump guarantees we will lose the court for a generation or longer.

It’s done. We warned you. You didn’t think it was important enough to vote for Cruz instead of Trump. So, don’t blame us.

The Border: Hillary is going to continue the open-borders, invite-illegals-in status quo policy. Trump claims he will build a wall. And make Mexico pay for it. Which may be necessary, because he does nothing to work with Congress to provide him funding for whatever he wants to do. But his policy for illegals has been a temporarily-deport-and-invite-back policy that is more of a PR stunt than a solution. It's a lot of tough bully talk, but it isn’t an actual policy or plan.

Here in Texas we have been defending our own border for a while. Ted Cruz, a Texan, had a real plan. But we weren’t given that option. Because of Trump voters. It’s not on me. I’ll continue to work toward Texans protecting ourselves regardless of continued failure of the federal government to meet its obligations.

Foreign Policy: Hillary is a disaster in foreign policy: Benghazi. Russia. Arab Spring. No one in their right mind ought to trust her anywhere near foreign policy. Her cavalier failure to protect government secret documents is the final nail in that coffin. But Trump approves of Putin, likes his style. Thinks the deal with Iran might be OK, but he would have made a “better deal,” though without giving details. In other words, he doesn’t understand what principles to talk about related to the deal, but we should trust him because he knows about real estate. He threatens to annihilate ISIS members—and their families and children. Targeting noncombatants isn’t what we do, nor is torture, but he’s in favor of that, and he says the military will do whatever he orders them to do, “Believe me,” he says.

Hillary will be bad; but she will try to claim she’s doing good. Trump will be bad; and he’s telling you how bad. Is it all bravado? Maybe. But voting for someone because you don’t think they’ll do what they say is not wisdom. That’s not on me. Can he convince me otherwise? Not if he’s unwilling to try, because gaining the goodwill of people like me doesn’t matter to him.

The Economy: Hillary is a socialist. Hardcore in favor of controlling the economy. Get rid of capitalism. Let government decide who gets government’s favor or disapproval based on support of the administration’s preferences. Trump is a cronyist. Sometimes that’s called “crony capitalism,” but that confuses things. Crony capitalism isn’t free market capitalism; it’s government deciding who gets government’s favor or disapproval based on who supports the administration’s preferences. Sounds familiar.

Please don’t insult my intelligence by saying I should vote for Trump, because otherwise it’s a vote for Hillary, and that would be disastrous. Yes, I agree she would be disastrous; she’s clearly the worst candidate the Democrats have put forward in my life memory. Almost anyone the Republicans put forward should theoretically be able to beat her. 

But the Republicans didn’t choose a Republican; they chose Trump. I don’t believe Trump can beat her (she got about three times as many votes in his home state as he got in the primaries). And in a hypothetical world in which he actually won, I believe that would also be a disaster for America.

It’s already too late to bother about the presidency. There’s no silver lining. It is as bad and depressing as it sounds.

The principle should be to vote for the strongest anti-tyranny candidate you can. In this case, you get certain tyranny either way. So stop calling us “treasonous” for not jumping on the Trump train. 

I’m not giving up the quest for freedom, prosperity, and civilization. We vetted a lot of good people on our primary ballot in Texas, and we need to support those state and local candidates.

This past week I’ve begun looking at the level where it’s possible to make a difference. I’m fortunate to live in Texas. We’re big enough and strong enough to resist federal tyranny—if we can maintain the will.

As one fellow Cruz supporter said,

Real Cruz supporters can't possibly support Trump. What we can do, however, is continue to stand for Cruz's (and our) principles: the conservative principles that have made America and every other Western country great.

Those principles work at any level. The higher the level where those principles are at work, the more freedom there is for the lower levels to work, without interference. Our founding fathers set that in motion for the nation, and we had a good long run. I mourn the loss of our constitutional republic. But maybe strengthening the lower levels will lead others to follow suit, leading to some future rebuilding and returning to the Constitution. So we may have lost, but we haven’t succumbed.

I expect to write very little about the presidential election after this, since it has become a moot point. I don’t intend to try to persuade people to my view. People are free to differ with me on what to do in November. I think I’ll look into procedures for write-ins, and take a look at third party candidates, just in case there’s an option better than leaving the presidential race blank. But I won’t stay home; I’ll vote, because the rest of my ballot was vetted by people who voted mostly for Cruz. The rest of the Republicans on the ballot will be far better choices than the Democrats, and they’ll deserve my vote.

I don't know what life looks like going forward. I wake up thinking, "So this is what people in other countries feel like." But there's still good that can be effected by continuing to work toward the northern hemisphere goal of freedom, prosperity, and civilization. And so far we're not prevented from speaking out and persuading others to join us in our efforts.

So, it's a time to mourn. But it's not a time to stop living.

Paradigm Shift Underway

I’m in the process of gleaning through information and data, and simply trying to process the paradigm shift. I no longer believe we live in a free constitutional republic; we live in a socialist-leaning democracy, with the majority ever voting to take more from the producers and give wealth to the non-producers. That is a big piece of news to process. (My son Political Sphere said, “Oh, yeah, I already knew that’s where we were.”)

Here are a few observations from the midst of the shift:

·        The president’s re-election resulted from voter fraud. When more than 100% of numerous key voting districts vote for one candidate—in addition to those votes for the other candidate—it is a given that voter fraud has taken place. They did not even bother with subtlety so that there was only suspicion but not clear evidence. Some estimates I’ve read are that 5% of the Obama vote is fraudulent. But there is nothing to be done, because the Department of Justice is required to prosecute, and they have been refusing for four years—because they are in on the game.

·        The president’s position in power, therefore, is illegitimate—as is true in nearly all despotic regimes. There are probably (almost certainly, just from what we know of Fast and Furious and the Benghazi cover-up) multiple reasons for impeachment. But it won’t happen, because we are in a nation that either tacitly or overtly supports the regime.

·        While much is wrong in this country, the status quo this week is not very different from what it was a week ago. So far I am still able to publish my opinions online. Hyperinflation has not yet taken all our belongings. In many ways, life slogs on as it has the past four years. While dangers loom, today is still scary but tolerable. While we still have the ability to act with some freedom, we should do so.

·        Those of us paying attention have some advantages the enemy does not:

o   We have a good work ethic and a larger supply of common sense.

o   We are much more likely to rely on God for help and guidance.

o   We value family and safeguard it. With the difference in replacement rates alone, we could overcome the opposition in a generation, simply because they don’t raise offspring.

·       Since the enemy does not raise replacement offspring, they plan to control the next generation through control of education. [Here is the part you’re probably not ready to hear yet, because your paradigm is still shifting.] The way to avoid the loss of the next generation is to pull our children and grandchildren out of public schools—either into private/parochial schools, or, better yet, homeschooling.

I’ve been thinking a lot about this last point. I came across this article the day after the election, which refers to another article, “TheLast Radicals,” from National Review, of all places. One of the paragraphs in this piece reveals why homeschooling is so frightening to “progressives”:

The problem is not educational outcomes: Students in the Seton program tend to score on average in the 80th percentile on standardized tests. The problem is that progressives operate as though the state owned children as joint property. Dana Goldstein, writing in Slate, urged her fellow progressives to resist the temptation to homeschool, arguing that the practice is “fundamentally illiberal” and asking incredulously: “Could such a go-it-alone ideology ever be truly progressive?” She went on to argue that the children of high-achieving parents amount to public goods because of peer effects—poor students do better when mixed with better-off peers—meaning that “when college-educated parents pull their kids out of public schools, whether for private school or homeschooling, they make it harder for less-advantaged children to thrive.” She does not extend that analysis to its logical conclusion: that conscientious, educated liberals should enroll their children in the very worst public schools they can find in order to maximize the public good.

One of the outcomes of last week’s election was that our local school board, in a conservative area of the very red state of Texas, now has seven out of seven non-conservative teacher-organization-controlled trustees. The largest most local taxing entity, with the most effect on our everyday family lives, is controlled by people whose ideology is at odds with the people paying for schools (not paying their salaries; school trustees are unpaid—which adds to the puzzlement about how much money got put into their campaigns). If we cannot have a say, even at the local level, at our own school district, in a conservative area, it is time for that government institution to be abandoned.

This will not be a popular idea. It will take a while for this sad reality to sink in to people who still see schools as this great social opportunity, where their kids are building lifelong memories. But wishing to give our children what we had does not make it so; some of those memories are still available for some students at some schools—but becoming educated in the philosophies of our brilliant founding fathers (all of whom were homeschooled), along with the ethos they lived, is no longer an option in most public schools.

We began our homeschooling journey in 2000. It was something we saw as essential for our family at the time. It turned out there were benefits we had no idea we would get. It was a wild decade-long ride, and required so much energy and dedication that parents have to be truly committed to the holistic education of the children they love in order to meet the challenge. So I haven’t up till now done much proselytizing about homeschooling.

But with the paradigm shift, while we still can, it might be urgent to give this next generation the truths about freedom that we know but they are not being taught—before such teaching is prevented.

If you have even an inkling of interest in the possibility of such a drastic lifestyle change, there are a few places to explore:

·       A ThomasJefferson Education: Teaching a Generation of leaders for the 21^st Century, by Oliver Van DeMille.

 

·       TheWell-Trained Mind: A Guide to Classical Education at Home, by Jessie Wise and Susan Wise Bauer (I got my copy signed by the authors when I heard them speak).

 

·        THSC.org (Texas Home School Coalition); sign up for their free weekly online newsletter, and get the handbook, which is specific to Texas law, but since Texas is a groundbreaking state for homeschooling, it would probably be helpful to any homeschooling parent.

·        Miracle in Texas, a video telling the amazing story from the early 1990s when the courts declared homeschools to be private schools, which paved the way for homeschooling freedom across the country.

 

At some point I’ll post more of our experiences, which might either make you want to dive right in or scare you off, depending on who you are. But, consider, for the sake of life, liberty, and family, whether the next step for you is to escape from government institutional indoctrination schools.