Freedom First Society

Media Portrayal of Gun Ownership

Lest our readers accuse us of beating a dead horse, we remind you that the attack on gun ownership in America is not a horse but a demon, and it is far from dead.

We must not forget nor lay aside our claim that gun ownership be protected in our country and not infringed. As a reminder that the right to protect our lives is still very much threatened, we continue to see the media reporting on school shootings such as the recent event in Michigan, using them as a pretext for tighter gun laws.

Remember that the media will portray these terrible acts of violence in a way that condemns the ownership of guns, rather than the individuals who make such horrific decisions. Yet sometimes, even the fiercest attackers of the right to bear arms will blunder and utter the truth.

Take, for example, the article published by The Guardian on Dec 2 of this year. It reports that Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) demanded that the House-passed H.R. 1446, the Enhanced Background Checks Act of 2021, be passed in the Senate by unanimous consent. H.R. 1446 would require tighter background checks and longer waiting periods for purchasing guns. However, Murphy admits a very true principle in his tirade: that tightening laws won’t actually prevent violence in schools. Says Murphy:

I don’t claim that this proposal nor any other proposal to change the nation’s gun laws will have an effect on every single shooting…

Of course, we understand this fact and are glad to see it in such a public article, albeit surrounded by slights against gun-owning parents and any who would protect the right to own firearms.

The true intent of encroaching gun laws and red-flag laws is not to stop shootings, for they cannot logically do so. The “Enhanced Background Checks” legislation’s purpose is to limit gun ownership and eventually lead to gun registration and confiscation.

We cannot turn a blind eye to legislation pushed on us, even in emotional circumstances such as following a school shooting. Such senseless death is devastating but must not be allowed to earn all gun owners the label of “criminal.”

Please decide today to write to your local representatives to stop such legislation. Urge your friends to do so as well. Use Freedom First Society’s social media presence to share the message. Buy copies of Disarming Americans! and distribute them as widely as you can.

We can all raise our voice in protest to the biased propaganda of the Establishment media and, in so doing, protect our country and our loved ones from the ruinous tyranny that would surely follow civilian disarmament.

The UN’s IPCC Climate Fraud

“As the world battles historic droughts, landscape-altering wildfires and deadly floods, a landmark report from global scientists says the window is rapidly closing to cut our reliance on fossil fuels and avoid catastrophic changes that would transform life as we know it….

“Only by making deep cuts to greenhouse gas emissions, while also removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, can we halt the precipitous trend.” — “Earth is warming faster than previously thought, scientists say, and the window is closing to avoid catastrophic outcomes,” CNN.com (8-9-21)

“The UN Secretary-General António Guterres said the Working Group’s report was nothing less than ‘a code red for humanity. The alarm bells are deafening, and the evidence is irrefutable: greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuel burning and deforestation are choking our planet and putting billions of people at immediate risk. Global heating is affecting every region on Earth, with many of the changes becoming irreversible.’” —  “Secretary-General’s statement on the IPCC Working Group 1 Report on the Physical Science Basis of the Sixth Assessment,” www.UN.org, August 9, 2021

Note:  Guterres is a member of the Portuguese Socialist Party and former president of  the Socialist International.

“We can’t solve the climate crisis without getting out of our cars and onto buses and trains.” — Opinion, MarketWatch.com (updated August 10, 2021).

It’s About Power
Seven years after its last report, the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released a new report in early August.  As usual, it was alarmist and postured as reflecting scientific consensus.  Naturally, the Establishment media quickly echoed the alarm.

However, the UN’s game plan is clear, once one understands the forces that created and control the UN and also control the environmental revolutionary movement.   The objective of those forces is to control us by creating pretexts for unaccountable government power, and those forces use revolutionaries to create pressure from below to justify their power grabs.

The UN’s game plan is not new.  It was clearly revealed at the 1992 UN Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro.  After attending the event and witnessing the political realities,  Dr. Dixy Lee Ray wrote an authoritative expose, Environmental Overkill — Whatever Happened to Common Sense?  Dr. Ray was the former governor of the state of Washington and chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission.

On page 10, Dr. Ray summarized:  “The objective, clearly enunciated by the leaders of UNCED [UN Conference on Environment and Development — the Earth Summit], is to bring about a change in the present system of nations. The future is to be world government, with central planning by the UN. Fear of environmental crises, whether real or not, is expected to lead to compliance.”

Revolutionaries need crises to propel those power grabs.  The climate change crisis hype serves the same purpose as the government’s use of a COVID pandemic — to expand the power of government.   The climate change “crisis,” in particular, is designed to limit our access to energy by forcing reliance on expensive and inadequate alternative energy sources, leading to government managed rationing.

Cloaked as “Science”
To support its wild claims, the IPCC makes use of computer climate models, which are designed to be alarmist.  The IPCC’s climate models are notoriously deficient in predicting reality.

Anticipating the Report’s release, Science Magazine (July 30, 2021) questioned the IPCC projections — see “U.N. climate panel confronts implausibly hot forecasts of future warming.”

To achieve credibility for its forecast, the UN touts the fact that representatives of 195 member countries have signed off on the report.  But this just shows the IPCC’s desperation, since the unanimous consensus of corrupted member governments does not reflect either overwhelming scientific agreement or truth.

Indeed, many competent, uncorrupted scientists dispute the thesis that manmade CO2 is responsible for global warming. One such is Dr. Richard S. Lindzen, Professor Emeritus, Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, now retired.  In June of last year, he wrote:

Climate science didn’t used to be alarmist prior to the late 1980s.  That changed during the years 1988-1994, when climate research centered on CO2 and global warming received a 15-fold increase in funding in the US alone. Suddenly there was a great financial incentive to propel alarming global warming scenarios.1  (See also his comments in our 2018 post “UN Climate-Change Hysteria.”)

Another noteworthy dissenter was the late great Princeton physicist Freeman Dyson.  Dyson performed pioneering work in areas such as quantum field theory and astrophysics.   In 2018, Dyson argued: “If they did not scare the public they wouldn’t get support from the government.” 2

In response to the widespread hype that the science was settled, and efforts to demonize dissenters, the Global Warming Petition Project was created in 1998 (following the Kyoto treaty).   The Project shows that many scientists rejected the UN enforced orthodoxy.  The petition states in part:

There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gases is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth’s atmosphere and disruption of the Earth’s climate. Moreover, there is substantial scientific evidence that increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide produce many beneficial effects upon the natural plant and animal environments of the Earth.

The petition was introduced with a letter form Physicist Frederick Seitz, former President of the U.S. Academy of Sciences.  In response, the petition was signed by over 30,000 Americans with university degrees in science including 9,000 with PhDs. Just one of many notable signers:  the late Dr. Edward Teller, known colloquially as “the father of the hydrogen bomb.”

Of course, if the media mentions such dissent at all, it demonizes the dissent out of hand.

The climate change scare serves several totalitarian objectives.  The scarcity and rationing objective was cited above.  But another one that has emerged is the result of the government’s highly successful regimentation of society using the COVID scare.  Climate activists are jealous of that success.  For example, former Secretary of State John Kerry suggested:  “You could just as easily replace the words climate change with COVID-19; it is truly the tale of two pandemics deferred, denied, and distorted, one with catastrophic consequences, the other with even greater risk if we don’t reverse course.” 3 Kerry is now the 1st United States Special Presidential Envoy for Climate in the Biden administration.

Please share this post with the people you know who will likely be interested.

Notes:

  1. Richard S. Lindzen, “An Oversimplified Picture of Climate Behavior Based on a Single Process Can Lead to Distorted Conclusions,” European Physical Journal Plus 135, no. 6 (June 2020): 462, https://doi.org/10.11.40/epip/s13360-020-471-z..]
  2. Freeman Dyson in “The Uncertainty Has Settled (Full film),” Marijn Poels, November 7, 2018, YouTube video, 1:09:35–1:14:15, https://youtu.be/GuoxLggqI_g.
  3. Rachel Koning Beals, “Covid-19 and Climate Change: ‘The Parallels Are Screaming at Us,’ Says John Kerry,” Market-Watch, April 22, 2020, https://www.marketwatch.com/story/covid-19-and-climate-change-the-parallels-are-screaming-at-us-says-john-kerry-2020-04-22.

Guns, a “Public Health Crisis”? — Give Us a Break!

“A breakthrough federal study pegs the cost of firearm injuries at more than $1 billion annually, with public funding, particularly Medicaid, paying more than 60 percent of that.

“When big-city local television news broadcasts overflow with gun death stories, it’s easy to overlook the 30,000 hospital stays and 50,000 emergency room visits annually caused by gunshot injuries.” — “As Biden seeks gun-related victories, watchdog report shows high cost of gun-related injuries,” The Washington Post, August 12, 2021, via MSN.com

The False Premise of Guns as a Public Health Threat
Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the federal government, with heavy influence from the CFR, has attacked our right to bear arms from a new angle. “Gun violence” is now being termed a “Public Health Crisis.” And why shouldn’t it be? Most Americans have already become accustomed to and accepted the unconstitutional federal involvement in healthcare since the passage of Medicare and Medicaid in the 1960’s and their continual expansion.

Now in the midst of a pandemic, many of our freedoms are being sidelined for the “benefit of everyone.” So, calling “gun violence” a public health crisis is the perfect excuse to execute the Insider disarmament objective. But we must realize that under the healthcare argument, the private automobile could be equally villainized along with private gun ownership as well as many other things that support a free society.

This “epidemic,” as Biden calls it, is actually fueled by a government-induced deteriorating economy, lenient punishments for violent criminals, and primarily, the demoralizing and disintegration of the family unit over the years by the Insiders and their liberal lackeys.

The Same Old “Solution”
For support, the Post quotes Rep. Carolyn B. Maloney (D-N.Y.), chairwoman of the House Oversight and Reform Committee: “[Maloney] said the report [from the Government Accountability Office (GAO)] ‘provides shocking new evidence of how gun violence strains our health care system.… Congress must do whatever it takes — including abolishing the filibuster if necessary — to address this public health crisis … and keep our constituents safe from gun violence.”

Some of these actions being pursued by the Biden Administration include budget measures and changing of the guard at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF).

Biden has proposed two budget measures since April totaling $7.1 billion to curb violence, particularly “gun violence,” which includes incentives for states to tighten up background check laws and set up voluntary gun buyback programs.

And the President’s pick to head the ATF is David Chipman, who comes with all the right credentials to disarm Americans. Take, for example, his 25 years working as an agent for the ATF and his current position as a senior policy advisor at Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence. According to Wikipedia, Giffords “is a national public interest law center which provides legal assistance to elected officials, government attorneys, and activists in the United States to promote gun control and to oppose firearm ownership.”

So, not surprisingly, Chipman’s record includes advocating for tougher gun laws, including limits on high-capacity magazines and an assault-style weapons ban. We must insist that our representatives block all new anti-gun legislation and the appointment of people like Chipman.

The Ultimate Insult: “Gun Violence Affects Races Differently”
To further coax gun owners into shunning their right protected by the 2nd Amendment, The Washington Post throws in the divisive Critical Race Theory (CRT): “That plague [the gun violence public health crisis] leaves many gunshot survivors, particularly Black people, without the care they need because of inadequate health insurance. “

In a nutshell, CRT teaches that race determines one’s social standing. By singling out a particular race as shouldering the bulk of medical bills (and we know this burden really falls on the middle class, be they white or black), The Washington Post is loosely arguing that to not support stricter gun laws would be racist. It is repulsive that news commentators would esteem violence of any kind against one race as more significant than another.

All races do indeed deserve equal opportunity to succeed and to fail. And therefore, no class of persons should ever become dependent on the government for sustenance, housing, healthcare, or income. Unfortunately, CRT ignores the real causes of resistant inequality in America and will continue to stir up hatred and violence demanding “urgent action” toward a police state.

It’s Our Freedom to Save!
Because we have failed so far to restrain government from regulating our healthcare system and inflating prices, it may seem daunting to try to fight against complete civilian disarmament.

We have a lot to undo in Washington, but it can be done!

For a more in-depth analysis of the Insiders’ agenda to abolish our right to bear arms and what you can do about it, please obtain and read a copy of Disarming Americans! Aiming to Confiscate Our Guns.

 

The Federal Money Tree

“Congress simply isn’t doing enough yet. Conditional assistance tied to work or a single stimulus check are not — and frankly never have been — enough to protect Americans from economic insecurity.

“What we need in this moment to meet the need and help families who are struggling is a Covid-19 guaranteed income, with direct, recurring cash payments for all Americans — including immigrants — that last at least until the economic hardship of this public health crisis ends. A form of Universal Basic Income, this guaranteed income is unconditional, won’t interfere with other social safety net benefits and would help give Americans an income floor during a time of great economic instability.”  —  Michael Tubbs and Melvin Carter, “One more stimulus check from Congress won’t be enough. This is what will really help,” CNN Business Perspectives, 8-21-20

Most Americans undoubtedly recognize that states don’t have money trees.  But many take it for granted that the Federal government has a wealth tree and can dispense wealth at will.  And if it doesn’t, it’s just being stingy.

The truth is that the federal money tree is a very real threat to our freedom and prosperity.  And government created economic devastation, ostensibly in response to pandemic crisis, is being used as the pretext for a drastic inflation of our currency.

The above cited article was written by two city mayors – Michael Tubbs, mayor of Stockton, California and Melvin Carter, mayor of Saint-Paul, Minnesota.  As an opinion piece, it was disclaimed by CNN Business as not representing the views of CNN.

However, in a related CNN Politics article, “‘A growing sense of panic’ with no fresh federal relief in sight,” 8-19-20, CNN seems also to support more federal spending as the right thing to do:

There’s support from both sides of the aisle to send a second round of checks, extend at least some unemployment benefits and allow small businesses to apply for another loan so that they can pay their workers. But Republicans … and Democrats … remain far apart on the details even after weeks of talks in July.

Millions of people are still unemployed
The package of financial aid that Congress passed in March got money to people fairly quickly at a time when lawmakers didn’t expect the pandemic to last as long as it has….  But the economy is far from recovered.

By the end of June 2020, our national debt stood at $26.5 trillion — an increase of almost $3 trillion in the previous six months — the fastest rise in history!

Intended Destruction
The remedy for one destructive act — government shutdown of the economy — is not another destructive act — wild inflation of our nation’s currency.   Some history is needed to understand how and why the federal government got a money tree.   But first we recall what should have been an early warning re inflation’s destructive consequences.

In his 1920 The Economic Consequences of Peace, Internationalist conspirator and British Fabian Socialist John Maynard Keynes wrote:

Lenin is said to have declared that the best way to destroy the Capitalist System was to debauch the currency. By a continuing process of inflation, governments can confiscate, secretly and unobserved, an important part of the wealth of their citizens….

Lenin was certainly right. There is no subtler, no surer means of overturning the existing basis of society than to debauch the currency. The process engages all the hidden forces of economic law on the side of destruction, and does it in a manner which not one man in a million is able to diagnose.

The Federal Reserve Act
In 1910, international bankers from Wall Street convened a highly secret meeting at Jekyll Island, Georgia and came up with a scheme to gain control of our nation’s money.  It was originally introduced in Congress as the Aldrich Plan, but Senator Nelson Aldrich of Rhode Island was too clearly connected to the international bankers, and for that and other reasons his bill went down to defeat.

However, after the 1912 elections, the essence of that plan was reintroduced as the Federal Reserve Act.  Congress passed the Act on December 22, 1913 during its rush to adjourn for Christmas.  Insider-controlled President Woodrow Wilson signed it into law the next day.

During the Act’s consideration in the House of Representatives, the great American statesman Charles A. Lindbergh Sr. (father of the famous aviator) addressed his colleagues as follows:

This act establishes the most gigantic trust on earth …. When the President signs this act the invisible government by the Money Power, proven to exist by the Money Trust investigation, will be legalized ….
This is the Aldrich Bill in disguise ….
The new law will create inflation whenever the trusts want inflation….

After more than a century, Lindbergh’s prediction has come home to roost — big time.  In recent years, the only thing preventing monetary inflation (to finance federal deficits) from becoming price inflation has been the willingness of other nations’ central banks, most notably Communist China’s, to hold our debt.  But this makes the U.S. susceptible to the actions of a hostile nation.  And according to an April 1 Bloomberg report, foreign holders have begun dumping the dollar as a result of the new explosion in U.S. debt.

A moment’s reflection should convince anyone that consumption requires production.   And no amount of currency inflation can substitute.   Money won’t put food on our tables, if food is not produced.

Solution
The destruction of America will continue as long as a misinformed public is vulnerable to the deceptions of those seeking tyrannical power.

The solution starts by creating understanding among grassroots patriots regarding the deceptions of the Insider-controlled media in support of a cabal of power seekers.  Much of what needs to be understood is recorded in Freedom First Society’s Masters of Deception — The Rise of the Council on Foreign Relations.

But to bypass the media and create sufficient public pressure on Congress to roll back decades of entrenched subversion, it will take the tough leadership of an informed grassroots organization.  Of course, we recommend Freedom First Society.

It’s NOT a Democrat Problem!

A July 24, 2020 release from Rep. Doug Lamborn (R-Colo. 05) explains why he voted against a Democrat-inspired appropriations minibus.  In fact, no Republicans voted for it.

With his release, Rep. Lamborn perpetuates a common but insidious Republican deception that our nation’s problems are due to those awful Democrats.   That line ignores GOP culpability and says the significant problem Americans should be concerned about is simply the partisan struggle between Republicans and Democrats.

But this focus on the sins of Democrats is a horrible illusion that is deceiving many conservative Americans into relying on equally culpable Republicans to put our nation on track.  In reality, Republicans, as we shall argue, are very much a part of our problem, too.

Rep. Lamborn’s release is short.  We repeat it all here, interspersed by much needed rebuttal:

Congressman Lamborn Opposes Minibus.

Washington, D.C.- Today, the United States House of Representatives passed their first Appropriations Act funding the Department of State, Foreign Operations and other related programs. This minibus rolls back pro-life policies, limits domestic energy production, and provides billions in emergency spending.

Congressman Lamborn issued the following statement:

“This is simply no way to govern.  The bills in today’s minibus spend billions of dollars beyond what the current budget agreement allows.” 

Freedom First Society:   However, recent budget agreements are not the standard to which legislation should adhere.  The standard should be what the Constitution allows.  Realistically, the vast majority of budgeted spending is for unconstitutional programs and departments, which desperately need to be rolled back and eliminated.   Americans should not allow the two parties to simply agree on how much more unconstitutional spending to add to the mix.

“Today’s legislation prohibits funds from being used for a border wall, overturns the Mexico City Policy which will allow foreign organizations to receive federal funds even if they perform abortions, restricts oil and gas production, and provides $500 million for international climate funds. This legislation has no serious chance of becoming law and is being used only to message to their socialist base.” 

Freedom First Society:  Much that Congress votes on has no chance of becoming law but is designed merely to impress constituents (messaging).  Republicans are not exempt.

“Even more concerning is the fiscal insanity prevalent in the Democratic party in Washington. We have spent more than $6 trillion dollars in coronavirus aid, yet Democrats think we can continue to recklessly spend money.

“We cannot continue to saddle future generations with debt.” 

Freedom First Society:   Congress has been spending recklessly for decades, so why expect it to stop now?  That’s how our national debt has grown to top an incomprehensible $26 trillion.  Here’s Rep. Lamborn’s solution:

“We must find bipartisan consensus and work to cut wasteful spending.”

Freedom First Society:   Absolutely NOT!  If the Democrats are generally as fiscally irresponsible as Rep. Lamborn indicates, and they are, then the last thing America needs is a compromise with big spenders.  America needs a new breed of congressmen, irrespective of party, who steadfastly refuse to compromise on their oath to defend the Constitution.

Lamborn also pushes here a particularly damaging illusion.   Our massive debt, as well as bloated government, is NOT due to “wasteful spending.”  No, massive unconstitutional spending, not waste, is destroying America’s opportunity and, if continued, will rob us of our freedom.   And that foundation of unconstitutional spending is supported by an overwhelming majority of Republicans, who conveniently focus on a few examples of waste and posture as opposing excessive increases.

Indeed, wasteful spending is inevitable when government has grown beyond the point where Congress can manage it.  What is needed is backbone in Congress, supplied by informed and activated constituents, to start phasing out unconstitutional departments and programs, returning the federal government to just its constitutionally assigned mission.  It can and must be done!

Restore Regular Order.
There is another serious deficiency in Lamborn’s release.   He fails to attack the minibus for its violation of regular order (i.e., separate votes on the 12 independent appropriations bills).

The continuing damaging procedure of voting on several independent bills amassed into one bill, on a take it or leave it basis, supports big spending.   Grouping several bills together into a minibus or omnibus allows congressmen to argue that they had to support the bad in order not to reject the good.  In fact, many bad features and poison pills slipped in by congressional leadership get approved in this way.

Neither principled congressmen nor the public need accept this violation of regular order.  In leading up to the above minibus, the House staged votes on more than 100 amendments.  There was certainly time to have voted separately on each of the four appropriations bills in the minibus.   A tough, constitutionalist Senate or President would refuse to accept a minibus or omnibus.

Judge Them by Their Record
Americans cannot judge the performance of their Congressmen by just relying on their tough talk.  As the saying goes, “talk is cheap.”

What Americans need in order to evaluate the actual performance of their congressmen is a reliable scorecard on how they vote.  Fortunately, there is one at hand:  The Freedom First Society “Congressional Scorecard” is designed to help Americans force Congress to return the federal government to its constitutional limits.

In selecting votes to score, we avoid the many posturing measures and slam-dunk party-line votes that come before Congress and instead look for the tough votes that separate the congressmen who vote according to the Constitution from those who don’t.  Measured against the clear language of the Constitution, the great majority of what the federal government does today is unconstitutional.

Lamborn Not Alone
Rep. Lamborn is not alone in blaming Democrats for our problems and fueling the partisan deception.  Of course, during campaign season it’s expected that a candidate will run against opponents — but not against an entire party.

Indeed, conservatives need to understand the lie in the implied claim that merely electing Republicans will in any way solve our nation’s problems.  Both parties are giving us socialism.  Often, the Democrats lead the assault in one area and the Republicans in another (e.g., Republicans gave us the breakthrough in federal aid to education and delivered the crucial votes for U.S. membership in the Internationalists’ World Trade Organization and NAFTA.)

Here are excerpts from several recent GOP campaign messages, with links to the congressman’s FFS scorecard:

Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif. 22) (7-25-20):  “Since day one, I have proudly fought on the front lines to expose the Democrats’ corruption.”

Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif. 22) (7-21-20): “The Democrats are destroying our cities and promoting lawlessness and anarchy nationwide. On top of that, they want to defund our police.”

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif. 23) (7-25-20): “Over the past few weeks, we’ve seen countless mobs destroy our cities, harm our police officers, and disrupt law and order. The kicker is that they’re supported by the Democrats in Congress.”

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif. 23) (7-25-20):  “Leading the House GOP, I’ve seen firsthand exactly how radical Nancy Pelosi and the Squad’s agenda really is.”

Senator Martha McSally (R-Ariz.) (7-24-20): “The far left wants to eliminate the Senate filibuster. That means if they gain just 4 seats in the Senate, there will be no way for Republicans to stop their radical agenda. They’re going to steamroll Americans to appease their leftist base.”

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio 04) (7-23-20): “Adam Schiff and Nancy Pelosi and the rest of the radical, unhinged Democrats got what they have wanted since November 2016.  They undermined our democracy in January by voting to impeach President Trump – our duly elected president who 63 MILLION Americans voted for!

Senator Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) (7-21-20): “The Democrats aren’t fighting to put America first. They’re more focused on electing their hand-picked candidates — so much so that they’re willing to tear down Republican women for their appearance, block Conservative efforts to create sensible police reform, and even play games with economic relief for small businesses and middle-class families during a pandemic.  The America that the radical Left is fighting for is NOT the America I believe in and it’s up to us to fight back.”

In fact, in response to the recent city riots, President Trump echoed the same theme on July 20 that America’s principal problem is Democrats: “Look at what’s going on. Run by Democrats. All run by very liberal Democrats. All run really by radical left.”

Bipartisan Subversion
The massive unconstitutional federal monster has been created and nourished over decades by Republicans and Democrats alike.  Democrats are often portrayed as wolves, while most Republicans have become wolves in sheep’s clothing.  But remember that both are wolves.

Moreover, the wolf in sheep’s clothing is actually the more dangerous, as that wolf can sneak up on you and devour you.

No, America is NOT suffering from a Democrat problem.  It is being victimized by a Conspiracy, a Conspiracy that has corrupted both parties and targets our freedom.  That’s the understanding that must be communicated to more Americans, and it is the mission of Freedom First Society to do so.  But we need more help.  So, we respectfully invite you to join our organization.

Toward a Police State

The escalating nationwide demonstrations and riots during the past several days have a very sinister purpose, which few Americans understand and about which the voices they look to for leadership are silent.

We are talking about the decades-long campaign to discredit, demoralize, and cripple local independent police in order to pave the way for a national police force or even foreign UN troops to restore order.  That is not to say that local police forces don’t sometimes have bad apples.  Indeed, the presence of bad apples serves the campaign. But a national, unaccountable police force is no cure.  It is a gross betrayal of a free nation.

The first thing to realize is that riots and demonstrations in more than 75 cities nationwide are not spontaneous reactions. They are organized by revolutionaries to advance a subversive agenda, using the pretext of opposing police brutality.  The ghastly torture-killing of George Floyd has been used for that purpose.

As did much of the controlled-media, The New York Times (5-31-20) attributed the escalating demonstrations to “an outpouring of national anger sparked by the death of a black man in police custody.”  But angry individuals don’t just congregate at the same place and time with prepared banners, painted signs, slogans to chant, constant clenched-fist salutes for the cameras, and marching orders.

The foreword to our January 2015 Action Report, below, documented the deceptions and subversive purpose of the demonstrations that followed a 2014 police-killing in Ferguson, Missouri.  The demonstrations supply “pressure from below” for government power grabs, but the pressure wouldn’t have much effect if the Conspiracy that supports the revolutionaries and controls the major media didn’t seize the opportunity to apply “pressure from above.”

Understandably, the controlled-media support the revolutionary ruse as to what’s driving the demonstrations by refusing to go beyond the police-killing pretext.   In doing so, the media are actually cooperating with the organizers in keeping national attention where the organizers want it.  The driving revolutionary organization depends on that cooperation to create the illusion of widespread support.

A useful tactic of revolutionary communist organization has been to create appropriately targeted front groups to attract additional support for the demonstrations and give credibility to their advertised complaints about “police brutality.”

Intermediate successes in the past have included forcing big-city police departments to submit to oversight by revolutionary-controlled “civilian review boards.”  And further militarizing our police in violation of the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878, which bars military involvement in domestic law enforcement, unless “expressly authorized by the Constitution or Act of Congress” would be a major revolutionary success.  The Act constitutes an important safeguard against the creation of a police state.

Yet, as reported by The Hill (5-29-20), President Trump was willing to violate that act in response to the violence in Minneapolis:  “These THUGS are dishonoring the memory of George Floyd, and I won’t let that happen. Just spoke to Governor Tim Walz and told him that the Military is with him all the way. Any difficulty and we will assume control….”

Of course, attributing the violence to “THUGS” is itself a refusal to alert Americans to the revolutionary game plan. Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, also refused to acknowledge the root of the violence.  According to The Washington Times (5-30-20):  “An overwhelmed Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz said Saturday that he had reached out to the Pentagon for help in controlling the growing mobs of out-of-state agitators seeking to “break the back of civil society” in the wake of George Floyd’s death.

The “pressure-from-below, pressure-from-above” game plan is not new.  We conclude here with the promised foreword to our January 2015 Action Report, written following protests in the wake of the 2014 police-shooting in Ferguson, Missouri.

January (2015) Action Report 

“The Rest of the Story”

When protesters burned down a convenience store near where a police officer fatally shot Michael Brown [on August 9], many condemned it. But experts say the ensuing images on national television could become as much of a catalyst for social change as peaceful protests. [Emphasis added.]  — “Ferguson violence could be a catalyst for change,” USA Today, August 30

What has transpired in the wake of the police shooting in Ferguson, Missouri provides important lessons in media misdirection and concealed subversive organization and agendas. 

Media Misdirection
Typically, the major media cooperate with revolutionaries by helping them develop pressure from below for “change” in the form of federal power grabs.  The media portray their protests as representative of widespread concerns and driven solely by the advertised complaints.  Nowhere do you find a suggestion that the protests might be designed to serve a far different purpose, and often there is no hint they are even organized.  Consider this example:

People protesting the Ferguson, Missouri, grand jury decision took to the streets in cities across the U.S. for a second day Tuesday, showing that the racially charged case has inflamed tensions thousands of miles from the predominantly black St. Louis suburb. [Emphasis added.]  — “Protests against Ferguson decision grow across US,” AP, 11-25-14

Did the decision ignite the protests and the riot?  Or were revolutionaries already looking for a pretext to protest?

Our answer:  Organized revolutionaries saw an opportunity and were eager to distort the facts to support their agenda.  Reviewing the grand jury decision not to prosecute Darren Wilson, even a reporter for the Establishment’s Time concluded:

Indeed, the preponderance of forensic and eyewitness testimony suggests that Wilson was acting in self-defense against a violent perpetrator…. But there can no longer be a question that the initial accounts of the case were fraudulent. — “Michael Brown was not a gentle giant,” Time.com, “Facts and Ferguson,” 11-26-14

Evidence of Planning
Buried within media reports we can nevertheless find evidence of planning and orchestration.  For example, coordinated “signs,” “chants” and “mock trials” require organizational leadership: 

Those who made it inside City Hall [in St. Louis] were part of a group of about 300 protesters who marched and held a mock trial of Darren Wilson, the Ferguson police officer who shot and killed 18-year-old Michael Brown during an Aug. 9 confrontation in the St. Louis suburb. [Emphasis added.] — “Protesters force lockdown of St. Louis City Hall,” AP, 11-26-14

And consider this USA Today report pointing to outside involvement:

On Friday night in Ferguson, 16 people were arrested outside the police station who had come from Boycott Black Friday protests at stores in the area, and 15 of them were not from Missouri. [Emphasis added.] — “Ferguson could spark a new civil rights movement”

Investigate the Rioters
Encouraged by the national attention, revolutionaries quickly staged protests in other cities over several “police killings.”  And, still the national media focused on charges of “police brutality” and “racism” while ignoring any nationwide organization to the protests.   A few AP examples:

 Protesters around the country rallied for a third day Friday over a New York grand jury’s decision to not indict a white police officer in the chokehold death of an unarmed black man….

In Colorado, students walked out of class Friday to protest the decisions not to prosecute police in New York and Ferguson. — “Protesters of chokehold death rally for 3rd day,” AP, 12-5-14

About 150 took part in the march through the streets of downtown Phoenix to police headquarters, while also calling for an end to what they say is a nationwide epidemic of police brutality.” [Emphasis added.]  — “Phoenix police shooting is latest to ignite outcry,” AP, 12-5-14

The War on Local Police

January 2015 cover photo
Revolutionary influence ignored by major media

Ignored by the major media, Establishment Insiders and their revolutionary kin have labored for decades to undermine a bastion of freedom — independent, local police, who live in the communities they serve — and to gradually replace them with a national police accountable to a central government and eventually to international regulation.

In 1961, the Internal Security Subcommittee of the United States Senate published “A Communist Plot Against the Free World Police,” describing a highly organized campaign “directed primarily toward discrediting the police in the eyes of the people.”

The 32-page Senate report noted: “A campaign against the police of one free country is not planned and directed by the Communist Party of that country; it is planned and directed by the strategists of international communism.”

The report included pages from a Communist document used to train revolutionaries worldwide on how to organize a riot.  Illustrations showed how to outflank and attack the police.

At a press conference following the 1965 Watts riot, Michael Laski, a member of the Central Committee of the U.S. Communist Party, boasted that he and his organization had worked for two years to agitate the riot, which he called a “class uprising.”

One of the early initiatives in this campaign was the push for “civilian” review boards as a cure for alleged rampant “police brutality.” The leftist controlled boards were actually established in some cities, before grassroots action forced their demise.  FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover described their effect: “Where there is an outside civilian review board the restraint of the police was so great that effective action against the rioters appeared to be impossible.”

And, of course, if the local police were no longer able to maintain law and order, Big Brother would be eager to step in.  Indeed, widespread riots in this country provided the Insiders with the pretext to create the federal “Law Enforcement Assistance Administration” [LEAA] in 1968.  The LEAA sought to gain control of state and local law enforcement agencies through federal grants.   But LEAA Administrator Charles H. Rogovin hinted at another route.  On October 1, 1969 he told a meeting of the International Association of Chiefs of Police that a federal police force may need to take over “because local law enforcement has failed to do its job.”

The LEAA was abolished in 1982 following concerted grassroots pressure. But the Conspiracy never gives up. Later came the federal civil-rights lawsuits against major city police departments, resulting in consent decrees, amounting to a virtual federal takeover.  And still later, the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 provided the emotional cover for the consolidation of police powers in the Department of Homeland Security.

New Federal Intervention
The Obama administration is already taking support from the revolutionary pressure from below as an excuse to “investigate law enforcement” rather than the rioters:

President Obama opened a speech in Chicago by talking about Ferguson, saying that he had ordered Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. to undertake a major review of policing practices in the United States, including a community-by-community process of identifying and highlighting specific steps to “make sure that law enforcement is fair and is being applied equally to every person in this country.” — “Security in Ferguson Is Tightened After Night of Unrest,” NY Times, 11-25-14 

But apparently Holder was on board well before the Ferguson eruptions:

On Thursday [12-4-14], Attorney General Eric Holder said a Justice Department probe had concluded the Cleveland Division of Police has a pattern of using excessive force, both in firing weapons and in using non-deadly techniques. Cleveland officials agreed to an outside monitor to improve training and practices, officials said. [Emphasis added.] — “Police Move to Revamp Tactics,” Wall Street Journal, 12-5-14

The Journal article suggests what is coming: “Police departments around the country are racing to develop new training rules on the use of force, a response that has gained urgency amid scrutiny from the U.S. Justice Department and an emerging consensus that law-enforcement practices need to be reviewed and revamped….” [Emphasis added.]

The orchestrators of pressure from below do not go to so much effort unless they have some serious plans to make a major step in their long-term agenda.  We will keep our members advised as to where the new focus lies.

The W.H.O. Cover-up

President Donald Trump announced Tuesday [4-15] he is halting funding to the World Health Organization while a review is conducted.

Trump said the review would cover the WHO’s “role in severely mismanaging and covering up the spread of coronavirus.” [Emphasis added.]  — CNN.com (4-15-20)

President Trump’s announcement unleashed a firestorm of media and partisan controversy.  As so often, the controversy mimicked the entertaining hype for a professional wrestling match, an exaggerated conflict between two sides, while covering up the reality that freedom is the loser regardless of the outcome. (A month later, on May 29 (left), he announced a decision to terminate funding unconditionally.)

On the one side, the President’s supporters piled on with the complaints about W.H.O. and how it needed to be reformed.   Fox News analyst Gordon C. Chiang argued:

The president’s action is the first step needed to spark meaningful reform of the United Nations organization and the global health architecture.  — “Trump right to stop funding World Health Organization over its botched coronavirus response,” foxnews.com, 4-14-20

On the other side, the President’s opponents claimed that the timing in the middle of a pandemic was irresponsible, as the world depended so much on the great work of W.H.O.  This criticism by Nicholas Kristof, a member of the world-government promoting Council on Foreign Relations, is hardly surprising:

Trump’s announcement that he is halting American funding for the W.H.O. just as the world is facing a raging pandemic is a dangerous attempt to find a scapegoat for his own failings. It is like taking away a fire department’s trucks in the middle of a blaze. — “Trump’s Deadly Search for a Scapegoat,” New York Times, 4-15-20

But both the pro- and anti-W.H.O. positions serve to keep Americans unaware of the real looming Internationalist threat of which W.H.O. is just one part.  Indeed, W.H.O.’s overriding mission, as one of the UN’s system of agencies, is to convince the world that the solution to global problems lies in giving more power to Insider-controlled institutions.

The President’s criticism, however, is the most damaging because he enjoys an undeserved conservative image.  His criticism reinforces the deadly deception regarding the positive purpose of these institutions, while ignoring their subversive designs by those with a grip on Washington. It is, therefore, horribly misleading.

Moreover, calls for reform of the World Health Organization serve to cover up its subversive origins and purpose.  Indeed, the demand for reforms has long been a useful Internationalist Establishment tactic for deflecting serious opposition.   In particular, conservative demands for the U.S. to withdraw from the UN have repeatedly been deflected by Establishment calls for reform — which go nowhere, of course.

W.H.O.’s Subversive Origins and Purpose
So what is being covered up about the origins and purpose of the UN and its agencies?

Let’s start by recalling that the leading figure at the UN’s founding conference was secret Soviet agent Alger Hiss, later convicted of perjury and sentenced to prison.  We recorded the media-suppressed background to these organizations in Masters of Deception – The Rise of the Council on Foreign Relations [CFR]:

Alger Hiss (1950)

In April of 1945, the founding conference for the UN began in San Francisco, lasting into June (Japan did not surrender until August).  Alger Hiss served as the acting secretary-general of the conference, helping to finalize the UN Charter. Time magazine commented in advance of the conference: “As secretary-general, managing the agenda, [Hiss] will have a lot to say behind the scenes about who gets the breaks.”…

Alger Hiss became a member of the CFR in 1945….

We do not mean to suggest that the CFR leaders were in any way snookered, or even surprised, by the Soviet agents in their midst. The San Francisco conference was almost entirely a CFR show.  More than 40 of the American delegates to the San Francisco conference were or would later become CFR members, only a portion of whom would subsequently be identified as Communists.  Among the Establishment CFR members present were Isaiah Bowman (founding CFR member); Nelson Rockefeller; future Secretary of State John Foster Dulles (founding CFR member); and John J. McCloy (future chairman of the CFR).

The UN purchased land for its headquarters in New York with a $8.5 million gift from John D. Rockefeller, Jr. — pp. 56, 57.

A few years later, in 1952, Senator James O. Eastland, the Chairman of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, would charge:  “[T]here is today in the UN among the American employees there, the greatest concentration of Communists that this Committee has ever encountered.” And, of course the employees from the Communist bloc nations were Communist.  So, it shouldn’t have been surprising to find the UN and its agencies working an anti-freedom agenda.

Nikki Haley

And now, Republican voices, such as Nikki Haley, President Trump’s former ambassador to the UN, are conveniently directing attention away from the continuing role of US Insiders, claiming that we need to curtail Communist China’s influence.  And many GOP congressmen have adopted the focus on China as a useful reelection strategy.

However, US Insiders played a key role in betraying our former ally the Republic of China (Taiwan) and bringing Mao Tse Tung to power in China.  In consolidating his tyranny, Mao would liquidate millions of Chinese. Trilateralist and David Rockefeller protégé President Jimmy Carter would abrogate our treaty with Taiwan and recognize and support instead Communist China. And US Insiders, such as President Trump’s friend Henry Kissinger, would work to build Red China into a World Power.

So it’s really no surprise that Communist China has had great influence in the W.H.O.  Indeed, China’s influence is by design and addressing the resulting problems is a distraction.  The real focus should be on the designers — the global tyranny-promoting Internationalists who created the UN and have solidified their grip on our government.

And that is also the focus of this post.  But for those readers who would like more of the story of the perfidy surrounding this incredible deception, please read on.

W.H.O.’s Communist-Socialist Beginnings

J.B. Matthews testifying (1938)

W.H.O. got underway in 1948.  On its 10th anniversary, J.B. Matthews, a former research director for congressional committees investigating communism in America, surveyed W.H.O.’s beginnings in an article for the May 1958 issue of American Opinion magazine:

WHO’s Constitution opens with a statement that nine “principles are basic to the happiness, harmonious relations and security of all peoples.” They are listed as follows:

“Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social wellbeing and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.

“The enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of health is one of the fundamental rights of every human being without distinction of race, religion, political belief, economic or social condition.

“The health of all peoples is fundamental to the attainment of peace and security and is dependent upon the fullest co-operation of individuals and States.

“The achievement of any State in the promotion and protection of health is of value to all.

“Unequal development in different countries in the promotion of health and control of disease, especially communicable disease, is a common danger.

“Healthy development of the child is of basic importance; the ability to live harmoniously in a changing total environment is essential to such development.

“The extension to all peoples of the benefits of medical, psychological and related knowledge is essential to the fullest attainment of health.

“Informed opinion and active cooperation on the part of the public are of the utmost importance in the improvement of the health of the people.

“Governments have a responsibility for the health of their peoples which can be fulfilled only by the provision of adequate health and social measures.”

Before commenting on the extraordinary nature of this set of basic principles, it will be pertinent to call attention to a booklet of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace which praised the World Health Organization. Published on the eve of the formal launching of WHO, this booklet’s preface, written by none other than Mr. Alger Hiss, contained the following statement: “The new specialized agency carries on one of the most successful parts of the work of the League of Nations. The Constitution of the World Health Organization, however, has a far wider basis than that established for the League organization, and embodies in its provisions the broadest principles in public health service to day. Defining health as ‘a state of complete physical, mental, and social wellbeing, and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity’, it includes not only the more conventional fields of activity but also mental health, housing, nutrition, economic or working conditions, and administrative and social techniques affecting public health.”

It would be difficult to imagine any area of human thought or activity— private or public, individual or collective—not covered by the definition of health set forth in WHO’s Constitution….

Brock Chisholm (R) — 1st Director-General of W.H.O

Brock Chisholm [the first Director-General of the World Health Organization (1948–1953) and later awarded “Humanist of the Year,” (1959) by the American Humanist Association] …  wrote as follows: “History is studded with critical dates —wars, invasions, revolutions, discoveries, peace treaties—that are firmly implanted in our minds…. This document [WHO’s Constitution] may well go down in history as one of the most far-reaching of all international agreements…. The World Health Organization is a positive creative force with broad objectives, reaching forward to embrace nearly all levels of human activity.”

The powers of the World Health Assembly, as set forth in Chapter IV of WHO’s Constitution, were shrewdly defined. In Article 19, we read: “The Health Assembly shall have authority to adopt conventions or agreements with respect to any matter within the competence of the Organization.” As we have seen, there is no matter which is not within the competence of WHO.

In Article 20, we read: “Each Member [State] undertakes that it will, within eighteen months after the adoption by the Health Assembly of a convention or agreement, take action relative to the acceptance of such convention or agreement. Each Member shall notify the Director-General of the action taken, and if it does not accept such convention or agreement within the time limit it will furnish a statement of the reasons for non-acceptance.” The power of enforcement of the Health Assembly’s decisions lies in the stigma of non-compliance on the part of a Member State.

Dr. Brock Chisholm, who had more than anyone else to do with the writing of WHO’s Constitution, has explained that the aforementioned provisions of Chapter IV incorporated a “new principle of international law” by circumventing the usual procedures for the ratification of international conventions or agreements. The Member States, in ratifying WHO’s Constitution at the beginning of their membership in the organization, signed a blank check to be bound by such regulations as should be adopted by the World Health Assembly in the future unless they formally notified the Director-General of non-compliance. “The long, slow, and usually never completed process of ratification by each government of an international convention is thus avoided,” says Dr. Chisholm.

Gro Harlem Brundtland

Gro Harlem Brundtland

To conclude review of the development of W.H.O., we take a look at one of W.H.O.’s later director-generals, Gro Harlem Brundtland. Brundtlandt, the former socialist prime minister of Norway, was elected 1st Vice President of the Socialist International in 1992.  In 1998, W.H.O.’s governing body elected her as the director-general of W.H.O. for a five-year term.  But let’s back up.

In 1983, UN Secretary-General Javier Pérez de Cuéllar appointed Brundtland to chair the UN’s World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED), the UN’s agency pushing the economically advanced nations to adopt “sustainable development.” WCED subsequently became known as the Brundtland Commission.

Gro Harlem Brundtland has championed expanded UN authority in virtually all areas. At the 1992 UN Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, she argued that “the nation state is too small an arena for addressing regional and global challenges related to the environment and development.”

UN socialists, such as Brundtland, work comfortably with CFR leaders (e.g., Brundtland with Jeffrey Sachs (CFR)).  CFR leaders, the real architects of the UN, comfortably control their creation, while on the surface the UN pretends to be a democracy of nations.  But that is another story.

Liberty vs. Tyranny: A Tale of Two “Surveillance” Approaches

“The key to getting to [something we might call] normal will be to establish systems for discriminating — legally and fairly — between those who can be allowed to move around freely and those who must stay at home.

“Assorted proposals now coming out of bodies such as the American Enterprise Institute, the Center for American Progress, and Harvard University’s Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics, describe how this might be done. The basic outlines are all similar….

“Regardless of the methods chosen, the goal is the same: after a couple of months of shutdown, to begin selectively easing restrictions on movement for people who can show they’re not a disease risk.” — Gideon Lichfield, “This is what it will take to get us back outside,” MIT Technology Review, April 12, 2020  [Bold emphasis ours.]

The Insiders pushing our current “pandemic” scare are using many stratagems — involving deceptive use of language — to try to hide that it’s meant to abrogate our fundamental rights. Only thus can they hope to sell us their snake-oil, “new normal,” in which those rights are at best a dim memory.

One obvious example of such stratagems is how the mainstream media will speak of the terrific economic damage “the coronavirus is causing” — glossing over the fact that our state governors are, by arbitrary edict, themselves inflicting all the damage. In this way, the media hope to evade otherwise easy-to-reach conclusions that none of the damage was inevitable — or even to any good purpose.

Not all examples are so obvious, however. Yet, the deceptive use of language (along with correspondingly twisted “logic”) is possibly our enemies’ most destructive weapon. Let us therefore examine one of the less obvious current subterfuges.

Intentional Obscuring of the Fundamental, Radical Social Difference between “Surveillance” Approaches

In just about any discussions of the allegedly technocratic, “big-data” approaches of surveillance that Taiwan, Singapore and other countries have deployed in the fight against the coronavirus, China’s approach is mixed right into the discussion — as if they are all birds of a feather. In this way, the media try to make us think there is no fundamental difference between the latter’s approach and that of freedom-upholding countries such as Taiwan and Singapore.

If they can get us to accept that China’s response to the coronavirus is not essentially different from Taiwan’s, this defuses the danger which Taiwan’s example presents, otherwise, to their whitewashing of China’s government’s response — indeed it enhances the whitewashing, through associating China with Taiwan’s success. And Westerners had better have a big wake-up about this difference — and do it right away: because America, the U.K., and most of Europe are all hurtling towards, not Taiwan’s approach to “surveillance,” but that of Big-Brother, authoritarian China.

This quote from Clair Yang, an Assistant Professor at the University of Washington, conveys a glib obscuring of that difference:

[T]he successful experience of some of the countries that had already flattened their curves suggests that digital contact tracing and big data analysis could also prove a useful tool in combating the spread of the virus. Research shows that many countries in the East Asian region, including South Korea, Singapore, Taiwan, and China, have implemented strict rules on digital contact tracing and used digital travel history of patients to predict risks for the general population. This approach would be highly controversial in the Western world. Contact tracing can be a serious infringement of individual privacy, but one’s travel data if used in the right way could also have positive external value for the general public. At the end of the day, it is a trade-off between public goods and individual rights. — Clair Yang, expert-opinion response, “States with the Fewest Coronavirus Restrictions,” WalletHub, May 5, 2020

The message comes through powerfully — even if subliminally: “You Westerners want to have the success that Taiwan and Singapore have had against the virus? Well, the fundamental difference between your approach and our Asian approach (of which — don’t you see — mainland-China is just another example) is simply that the Asians are not hung up on your Western fetish of ‘individual rights’! After all, which is more important: ‘rights,’ or the public good? Isn’t it time, then, that you came to see, and to do, things in mainland-China’s way?”

Admittedly, there is a single truthful representation in that message: Mainland China is quite disregardful of (“Western”) individual rights. Beyond that, however, it is only a shameful misrepresentation of Taiwan’s approach — which has been infinitely more regardful of individual rights than have statements (and decrees) coming from executive bureaucratic offices in the U.S. or China.

The Real Basic Difference

So, which characteristic makes China’s and Taiwan’s responses to the coronavirus as different as “chalk and cheese”? Basically — to use an ancient Western legal principle, if somewhat outside its usual context — it’s the maintaining, vs. the suspension, of habeas corpus. And the only reason we say this application of the principle is outside of its normal context here is that never in the history of American jurisprudence have the citizenries of whole states been put under virtual house arrest — much less, for an objective reason.

Because this is so unheard of, we don’t naturally and immediately apply to it a principle that’s been normally applied to non-house detention:

Nowadays in Western countries, the thought of government agents whisking off a citizen to a secret prison seems unlikely. So why do we still have habeas corpus? Is it simply an antiquated law we no longer need?

The short answer is unequivocally no. It’s the right of habeas corpus that makes the thought of being illegally imprisoned in a democratic society such a far-off idea. Habeas corpus is a prisoner’s one way to question the legality of his or her imprisonment. — Josh Clark, “Why is habeas corpus important?”

Under this principle, an official who has someone under detention for no publicly-disclosed, legitimate reason is required — when presented a habeas corpus writ — to bring the prisoner to court and “present proof of authority, allowing the court to determine whether the custodian has lawful authority to detain the prisoner. If the custodian is acting beyond their authority, then the prisoner must be released.” (Wikipedia)

In contrast with this legal practice — so obviously entailed by “the rule of law” — we have the general practice which, in our initial quotation above, Gideon Lichfield (editor-in-chief of MIT Technology Review) recommends “for discriminating — legally and fairly — between those who can be allowed to move around freely and those who must stay at home.” Just to make sure you don’t forget what he said, we’ll quote that part again:

Regardless of the methods chosen, the goal is the same: after a couple of months of shutdown, to begin selectively easing restrictions on movement for people who can show they’re not a disease risk. — Gideon Lichfield, “This is what it will take to get us back outside,” MIT Technology Review, April 12, 2020 [Bold emphasis ours.]

Please note that there is no difference at all between what Mr. Lichfield’s preferred experts (whom he’s citing) recommend for governmental handling of you and me, and what China is doing to all its slaves — er, citizens: They are all free to go wherever they like, engage in what discourse they wish, and so on — just as soon as they have proven to the government that they have complied with all its dictates and whims.

Here, habeas corpus is turned on its head: It’s not the government that must prove, before a court, that its detention of the citizen is a legitimate one; on the contrary, it’s the “citizen” who must prove — to the government that imprisoned him — that he has complied with all its dictates.

In Western countries, traditionally this is known by such terms as “tyranny” and “slavery.” Let’s make sure that we still see it that way — and that we warn our fellow citizens, loudly, of this tyranny — intended as our “new normal”!

Three COVID-19 Counterexamples: Taiwan, Singapore, and Sweden

“Can any governor or county executive simply flick his pen and shut every business even if it doesn’t create crowds? Can they unilaterally restrict every aspect of the Bill of Rights indefinitely without any oversight, due process, benchmarks, or transparency?

“In Jacobson v. Massachusetts (1905), the Supreme Court … made it clear that there is a point where states can enact [public-safety] policies in ‘such an arbitrary, unreasonable manner, or might go so far beyond what was reasonably required for the safety of the public’ that they would be outside constitutional bounds.[1] …​

“We’ve simply never done this before in our history. These are not mere quarantine laws that supporters cite to justify what is going on today. Quarantine laws traditionally separate an individual or an entire group of people from the general population. What we are doing now, however, is locking down the entire general population.”  — Daniel E. Horowitz, “Is this quarantine or tyranny?,” March 31, 2020

Judging from the transparency — or rather, the lack thereof — they’ve shown on both COVID-19 and “climate change,” the governmental “powers that be” expect us simply to take for granted that they know best about scientific questions — and (of course) that they have our best interests at heart. By contrast, we “little people” should consider ourselves too simple to comprehend scientific matters — much less, to take part in serious discussions of them. We should just trust that the government — and tax-exempt foundations set up by the wealthy — know best!

Specifically, and in the current case, we’re supposed to take it on faith that the near destruction of the whole world-economy, through “social distancing,” is scientifically necessary in order to avoid COVID-19 catastrophe. (Nor have they asked us whether  the COVID-19 catastrophe isn’t the preferable option!)

However, if the “powers that be” do know best and have our best interests at heart, then why haven’t we heard much about the sensible, non-draconian approaches of countries that have avoided both the economic and the (warned-of) COVID-19 catastrophe — for example, Taiwan, Singapore, and Sweden? And, why haven’t other Western governments been adopting such approaches — rather than the China-pioneered, general “lockdowns” and “shutdowns”?

Only one plausible answer to that question seems available: Whether “the powers that be” “know best” or not, we may rest assured that our best interests are about the furthest thing from their hearts. Let us, then, look more closely at Taiwan’s, Singapore’s, and Sweden’s successful — yet non-draconian — approaches.

Taiwan’s and Singapore’s Responses to the Coronavirus

The Establishment media have not been able to maintain a total “blackout” on Taiwan’s success in combatting COVID-19. That success is too remarkable and too clear.

However, though the media are now reporting on what Taiwan has overtly done to control the COVID-19 outbreak, for the most part the media have (strenuously, it seems) avoided mentioning what Taiwan has not been doing.[2] That is likely because Taiwan eschewed the almost universal, dire “social distancing,” “lockdown,” and economic shutdown the rest of us are supposed to endure.

“Quick action” and “aggressive measures” are what helped Taiwan — so they keep telling us. They highlight Taiwan’s advanced databases of its citizens’ travel histories, along with its ability to attach those data to the same citizens’ entries in the country’s National Health Insurance (NHI) database.  By limiting the discussion to Taiwan’s actions, mainstream media manage to color Taiwan’s successful virus-containment as a shining example of technocracy — rather than, one of government transparency as well — and much less, one of maintaining constitutional, limited government while quarantining individual dangerous cases.

It is true that Taiwan did take “quick action” — notably with regard to checking people arriving from Wuhan (ultimately banning flights from most of China), and in implementing short-term quarantine for people who had recently traveled from “level 3 alert areas.” In fact, Taiwan’s preparation for a new virus outbreak started in 2004, the year after the SARS epidemic killed 73 people there. Since that experience, “Taiwan has been on constant alert and ready to act on epidemics arising from China,” reports a Mar. 3 JAMA article.

Taiwan has been very careful about making sure (and strictly enforcing with penalties) that the risk cases, who are quarantined, stay there as long as assigned — generally, two weeks. It is also true that Taiwan appended to the end of the Lunar New Year holiday, a further two-week closure of elementary schools and high schools (classes resumed Feb. 25). Moreover, it implemented rules calling for additional two-week closures of any schools where cases of the coronavirus were detected.[3]

Currently schools’ policy is to take students, teachers, and workers’ temperatures. If fevers are detected, classes in that school are suspended, but massive class suspensions do not occur. At the same time, online teaching is being encouraged, but is not being forced by the government. In many Taiwanese universities, online teaching is being promoted in order to let those who are not able to attend class in person to take courses. Although it is true that online education as a way to avoid infections has already been adopted in other countries, the peculiarity of Taiwan lies in the fact that it has not been imposed by government order….​ The government’s transparency of information has also given the Taiwanese enterprises the time they need to voluntarily prepare and adopt teleworking progressively. — Javier Caramés Sanchez and William Hongsong Wang, “Why Taiwan Hasn’t Shut Down Its Economy,” Mises Wire, March 26, 2020

But the pro-active stance and quick action explain more about Taiwan’s extraordinarily low case-numbers, than it does about how they achieved them with only very limited impact on their economic activity (the only industry hit by government restrictions was the airline industry). After all, it’s not as if there was no introduction of the virus into the country: In an article unusually balanced for the Establishment-controlled media, the New York Times stated that “As of Friday [Mar. 13], about 58 percent of all confirmed cases in Taiwan were believed to have resulted from local transmission.”

Broadly speaking, Singapore’s approach has been parallel to Taiwan’s. In regard to schools, in fact, Singapore has shown even more accommodation of private citizens’ needs:

Large gatherings have been suspended. But to minimize social and economic costs, schools and workplaces have remained open. The Singaporean Ministry of Education — on an extensive FAQs web page — calls the closing of schools “a major, major decision” that would “disrupt many lives.” Instead, students and staff are subjected to daily health checks, including temperature screenings. — Benjamin J. Cowling and Wey Wen Lim, “They’ve Contained the Coronavirus. Here’s How,” New York Times, March 13, 2020

National Post article summarizes correctly that these two countries “seem to have found the sweet spot between a laissez-faire ‘it’s just like the flu’ reaction, and imposition of economically devastating lockdowns. Both nations have concentrated [not on imposing lockdowns and shutdowns, but] on strictly isolating people who have or might have COVID-19, tightly controlling international travel and zealously pursuing those who had contact with the infected.”

Sweden’s Thoughtful, Commonsensical Approach

In its particulars, Sweden’s approach has differed somewhat from Taiwan’s and Singapore’s. But like Singapore and Taiwan, Sweden took the traditional approach to what “quarantine” is — namely, isolating sick people, to keep their disease from being caught by well people. And although, like Britain, they do not claim “herd immunity” is their goal, they do recognize that the latter is the likeliest way for the outbreak to come to a graceful end.

Fredrik Erixon, a Swede who directs the European Centre for International Political Economy in Brussels, was eloquent on the real difference in Sweden’s approach:

Managing the virus is a long game, and while herd immunity is not the Swedish strategy, it may well be where we all end up. The theory of lockdown, after all, is pretty niche, deeply illiberal — and, until now, untested. It’s not Sweden that’s conducting a mass experiment. It’s everyone else.

The main advice from [Anders] Tegnell [who is Sweden’s “state epidemiologist”] et al is repeated like a mantra ten times a day: be sensible. Stay at home if you feel sick. Oh, and wash your hands. But individuals, companies, schools and others are trusted to figure out on their own what precautions to take.

This Swedish exceptionalism is about principle, not epidemiology. It’s true that we’re perhaps less at risk due to our high rate of single-person households and low number of smokers. Closing the schools would, as well, have a bigger impact in a country where almost all mums are working mums. But frankly, all these explanations miss the point: yes, they make us different to Italy and Spain, but not to Denmark, Finland and Norway. Sweden simply made the call to take measures that don’t destroy the free society. — Fredrik Exton, “No lockdown, please, we’re Swedish,” The Spectator (U.K.), April 4, 2020

Tellingly, even the website of the World Economic Forum — one of the foremost pandemic-fear stokers of recent decades — had a helpful post, basically admitting there is nothing faulty with the science behind Sweden’s approach.

The Take-away from These COVID-19 Experiences — Oh, and Hong Kong’s!

By no means have these three countries been left unscathed by COVID-19 (and/or similar viruses). But the important thing to glean from their experiences is what they tell us about what’s not necessary to fight this “novel coronavirus.” Specifically, it says that quarantining healthy individuals who have no known reason for being susceptible, is unnecessary — and thus, a gross infringement of basic liberty.

Though it seems surprising to be able to cite the New York Times in summing up, the final paragraph of its March 13 article said it well (though having discussed Hong Kong instead of Sweden):

[T]he central point is this: Each in its own way, Singapore, Taiwan and Hong Kong — three places with markedly different socioeconomic and political features — have been able to interrupt the chain of the disease’s transmission. And they have done so without embracing the highly disruptive, drastic measures adopted by China. Their success suggests that other governments can make headway, too. — Benjamin J. Cowling and Wey Wen Lim, “They’ve Contained the Coronavirus. Here’s How,” New York Times, March 13, 2020


1. Corroborating the general legal principle that Horowitz cites is, for example, a 1962 Colorado state court case opinion, which points out that “If a statute purporting to have been enacted to protect the public health, morals, safety, or common welfare has no real or substantial relation to these objects, and for that reason is a clear invasion of the constitutional freedom of the people to use, enjoy or dispose of their property without unreasonable governmental interference, the courts will declare it void.” Colo. Anti-Discrimination Comm’n v. Case, 151 Colo. 235, 380 P.2d 34 (1962).
2. Typical is an April 7, 2020 Atlantic Council post “Lessons from Taiwan’s experience with COVID-19”: They discuss 4 lessons, but overlook the vital lesson — that general lockdowns and shutdowns are quite unnecessary. The title of an April 3 Democracy Now! post summarized this theme well: “How Taiwan Contained COVID-19: Early Action, Technology & Millions of Face Masks.”
A couple of rare exceptions to this mainstream tendency were a March 13 New York Times article, “They’ve Contained the Coronavirus. Here’s How.”, and a March 31 National Post article, “How Taiwan and Singapore managed to contain COVID-19, while letting normal life go on”. Outside the mainstream, and more in character, was a balanced, March 26 Mises Institute post.
3. According to a data-supplement to the Mar. 3, JAMA article:
– If 1+ in a class (student or teacher) at the K-9 level diagnosed with COVID-19, class is suspended for 14 days
– If 2+ cases in a school, school is closed for 14 days
– If one-third of schools in a township, city, or district are shut down, all others are closed
– If a student or teacher is diagnosed in a high school, college, or university, all classes they attend or teach is suspended for 14 days
– If 2+ cases of COVID-19 in an institution at any level, it will close for 14 days

Where’s the Data, Dr. Fauci?

“President Donald Trump may want to reopen the U.S. economy by Easter — but the novel coronavirus wreaking havoc across the globe may have other plans.

“Dr. Anthony Fauci, the country’s top infectious disease expert, pointed out Wednesday that the virus is determining ‘the timeline’ for the pandemic.

“‘You’ve gotta be realistic,’ Fauci told CNN’s Chris Cuomo…. ‘You’ve got to understand that you don’t make the timeline, the virus makes the timeline….

“‘You can’t make an arbitrary decision until you see what you’re dealing with. You need the data.’” [Emphasis added.] — HuffPost, 3-26-20

Note:  On March 29, President Trump announced that he was extending the federal social distancing guidelines until April 30th.

Okay, Dr. Fauci, where’s the data?  I mean the data you used in the beginning to justify the unprecedented government decision to shutdown the economy?  Surely, you wouldn’t have accepted the notoriously unreliable Communist Chinese data?  Even the often quoted data from the UN’s World Health Organization can’t be trusted, because WHO has an agenda to reinforce the UN’s global power grab.

Indeed, where’s the data that the coronavirus is more deadly or more communicable than other infectious diseases that the world copes with every year without shutting down?  The American people deserve to know, particularly since the Internationalist Insiders dominating our government regularly use crises as pretexts for government to seize more unconstitutional power (see “Internationalist Treachery,” below).

Dr. Ron Paul

According to Dr. Ron Paul, a former U.S. Representative, Fauci “testified to Congress that the death rate for the coronavirus is ten times that of the seasonal flu, a claim without any scientific basis.”

We hear statistics about number of cases and deaths, but how to those compare with say, the flu, or tuberculosis?  Most Americans can’t readily make the comparison, and many cases of such diseases go unreported.   (The CDC estimated that during the 2018-2019 flu season, the flu killed 34,200 of about 35.5 million people infected.)

Scaring Us
In a March 16th open letter, Dr. Paul further charged: “The chief fearmonger of the Trump Administration is without a doubt Anthony Fauci, head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the National Institutes of Health. Fauci is all over the media, serving up outright falsehoods to stir up even more panic.”

And the impact of that panic is everywhere.  Congress just passed a $2.2 trillion rescue package, which The Hill (3-25-20) claimed was “the single largest stimulus package in the nation’s history.”  And that may be only a beginning.

The ostensible justification for the enormous addition to the national debt was to stimulate an economy that is in recession, not because of the coronavirus directly, but because of governments’ (federal, state, & local) response, using the hyped scare as justification for the unprecedented assumption of power.  Only a lesser portion of the rescue package was devoted to defense against the virus itself.

On March 29th, Dr. Fauci ramped up his warning dramatically. According to The Hill:

Speaking on CNN’s “State of the Union,” Fauci said that, based on what he’s seeing, the U.S. could experience between 100,000 and 200,000 deaths from Covid-19.

“We’re going to have millions of cases,” Fauci, the head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said, noting that projections are subject to change, given that the disease’s outbreak is “such a moving target.”

Unfortunately, his projections seemed to have been based on computer models, which even Dr. Fauci admitted were no better than the assumptions fed into them.

Internationalist Treachery
In evaluating the crisis claims, we have a right to demand proof, because for decades Internationalists have been employing evolving threats and scares to gain power — leading to global power, accountable only to them.

With the start of the Cold War, the threat was nuclear annihilation.  But that shifted with the break-up of the former Soviet Union.   As replacements, the Internationalists embraced new threats — drugs, terrorism, and environmental catastrophe — as pretexts for increasing the authority of International bodies.

In its November 24, 1997 issue, The New American magazine warned that Internationalists had adopted another alarmist threat — pestilence — to accomplish their aims. The report was entitled “Scaring Us Toward Global Government.”  Remember that the following assessments were written two decades before the world heard of a “coronavirus pandemic:”

In recent years, yet another alarmist refrain has been heard: “World government or pestilence!” This latest crisis requiring global management is the threat presented by supposedly new infectious diseases. Where once we were menaced by megatons, the danger now supposedly comes from microbes — and familiar voices are insisting anew that only world government can save humanity from destruction.

As a tool for manipulating public opinion, the threat of pestilence actually has an advantage over the earlier scare scenarios: Nuclear annihilation of humanity, while a horrifying prospect, is simply too abstract to have a visceral impact. The same is true of environmental collapse. But everybody has been sick and can individualize the horror of succumbing to an incurable disease. Thus, the pestilence scenario may have far more potential as a tool for selling the public on globalist “solutions.”

In November 1993, President Clinton set up, by Executive Order, the National Science and Technology Council, which included a Committee on International Science, Engineering, and Technology Policy (CISETP).

The New American article cited a CISETP report as an example of “the willingness of public policy elites to play off media-generated fears of infectious disease.” According to the report:  “[Th]e past few years have been marked by a recognition of renewed vulnerability to infectious diseases. Bestselling books and Hollywood thrillers have triggered public fascination with ‘new,’ deadly, and unpredictable microorganisms.”  The New American continued:

The report noted that protecting the health of the “global village” demands “a worldwide response,” and “recently, public discussion has been further focused on the global issue of emerging diseases by … popular movies such as ‘Outbreak,’ starring Dustin Hoffman.”…

In the miniseries Pandora’s Clock, an airliner bound for JFK Airport in New York has the misfortune to be carrying a passenger infected with a doomsday virus. The plane is not allowed to land, lest the virus be loosed, and the government plans to shoot the plane down instead — another effective pitch for the idea that crises must be dealt with through extreme measures.

CISETP’s eagerness to cite Outbreak and similar entertainment products typifies a distressing willingness on the part of some public health officials to focus on lurid scenarios at some expense to sound science. The average American is largely at the mercy of domestic and international public health bureaucracies for information about infectious disease. This trust has been abused by public health authorities in recent decades.

For a more recent example of this strategy at work, check out our  11-24-19 post “Crisis-Hyping — What’s At Stake!”

But perhaps, this time, the Internationalists do have a real crisis to drive their power grabs.  Perhaps. However, we also know that with sufficient focus, the Establishment media can make any problem, such as “gun violence,” appear to be a new pandemic.  And there are several reports circulating claiming that the coronavirus statistics are exaggerated.

Data Alone Fallacy
Dr. Fauci’s claim that the virus data alone should drive government policy is a dangerous position.   In particular, his claim supports the Internationalist Establishment’s agenda for totalitarian power.  As several have pointed out, when the threat passes, government doesn’t give us our freedoms back.   It insists that an ongoing threat warrants that government retain the new authority. As an example, consider the “temporary” surveillance authorities granted to government following 9/11 by the Patriot Act, now the U.S.A. Freedom Act.

The coronavirus, even if it deserves major attention, is by no means the only problem the public faces.  Human mortality has not been conquered.  In the meantime, the public deserves the opportunity to try and accomplish life’s goals, protected by government, not burdened by government-imposed “emergency” restrictions.

But most significantly, the arguments in favor of the government measures ignore the much more dangerous threat of a high-level Internationalist Conspiracy that lusts to expand government authority in perpetuity and is greedy for useful pretexts.

So if these Conspiracy Insiders have their way, this scare is not a onetime event.  Indeed, Dr. Fauci has warned:  “We really need to be prepared for another cycle” to hit later this year.  And what about next year?

Multiple Gains
Establishment Internationalists are reaping multiple gains from their “crisis.”   Alexander Hamilton pointed to a principal one:

Safety from external danger is the most powerful director of national conduct. Even the ardent love of liberty will, after a time, give way to its dictates…. [T]he continual effort and alarm attendant on a state of continual danger, will compel nations the most attached to liberty to resort for repose and security to institutions which have a tendency to destroy their civil and political rights. To be more safe, they at length become willing to run the risk of being less free. — The Federalist No. 8

Hamilton’s warning is even more valid today, when there is a major organized Conspiracy for total power at work determined to undo the American revolution.  But in addition to preparing the public to give up its rights and accept government domination, the Conspiracy gains in other ways.

A primary Conspiracy gain is the enormous addition to our national debt from massive government spending — more than 2 trillion dollars the government does not have.  The consequences (inflation) and potential consequences (destruction of the dollar and its replacement with an International currency) are huge topics in themselves.  Bloomberg just reported (4-1-20):

The Federal Reserve is trying to call time on a fire sale of Treasuries by foreign governments and central banks.

Foreign official holders of Treasuries dumped more than $100 billion in the three weeks to March 25, on course for the biggest monthly drop on record, according to weekly Fed custody data that captures much of the pandemic-fueled turmoil.

Another gain by power seekers is the destruction of small businesses, a pillar of a free market economy and of the middle class — a bulwark of freedom.   Many other small businesses are to be put in hoc to the federal government.  In an interview with Yahoo! Finance (published 3-31-20) Ivanka Trump, President Trump’s daughter and senior advisor, made the following observation:

“Small businesses employ close to 50% of the American workforce, and obviously are the most vulnerable from a cash flow situation,” she said.

The $2 trillion fiscal stimulus sets aside over $350 billion in loans for small businesses. “We want to just bridge people until the world reopens,” she said.

And last, and very alarming, the Leftwing Politico reports that the Trump administration has asked Congress to draft legislation that would allow it to suspend parts of the Constitution:

The Justice Department has quietly asked Congress for the ability to ask chief judges to detain people indefinitely without trial during emergencies — part of a push for new powers that comes as the novel coronavirus spreads throughout the United States.

Documents reviewed by POLITICO detail the department’s requests to lawmakers on a host of topics, including the statute of limitations, asylum and the way court hearings are conducted  — “DOJ seeks new emergency powers amid coronavirus pandemic,” 3-21-20

Receive Alerts

Get the latest news and updates from Freedom First Society.

This will close in 0 seconds