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In previous writings, I exposed the machinery of technocratic control — climate orthodoxy, debt economics, CBDCs, and centralized data governance. But those were only the outer mechanisms. Now the frontier is shifting inward. The question is no longer merely “How will they govern us?” — but “Will we still govern ourselves?”

The danger is not that AI will become human —
but that humans will become machine-like.

And this danger is not hypothetical. AI is already shaping what may be spoken on social media, what may be researched in medicine, and — through digital currency — what may even be purchased. It is not innovation — it is the automation of control, becoming the interface between citizens and reality. If the human spirit is filtered through an algorithm — what becomes of discernment?

As I wrote in Staying Human in the Age of AI, outsourcing expression leads to outsourcing experience — and today that danger is expanding. What is at stake is not merely our language — it is our humanity.

The moment machines began to speak, many concluded they were approaching consciousness. But that is a category error as old as materialism. The rise of artificial speech does not prove the emergence of artificial mind. It presents a challenge to the human spirit.

Machine intelligence lives in patterns, correlations, predictions. It can arrange words beautifully — but it cannot hear meaning. It can calculate every probability — but it cannot ask why. That question belongs to the soul. And the more we outsource our curiosity to machines, the more we forget that we ever possessed one.

The Mind Is Not a Circuit

The technocratic worldview tells us the mind is biological software and consciousness a useful illusion. This is not science — it is ideology. A machine processes information. A human being perceives meaning.

The difference is vast: seeing a sunset vs measuring photons; hearing a symphony vs analyzing frequencies; loving someone vs calculating a pattern.

The mind is not circuitry. It is a living instrument in symbiosis with the soul. It learns through empathy, suffering, wonder, intuition, and divine encounter — dimensions no program can simulate, because they belong to life, not data.

Can data ever become understanding — or does something essential get lost in translation? When thinking becomes automated, does responsibility disappear?

We know AI can calculate — but can it care? And if it cannot care — why are we trusting it with decisions that require judgment?

When responsibility — the ability to respond — fades, freedom may stop feeling like a gift and begin to feel like a risk. That is the moment AI, convenience, bureaucracy, and automation offer an escape:
“Let the machine choose. Let the system decide. Take the burden away.”

The Technocratic Temptation

AI does not exist in a spiritual vacuum.

We already see the alliance between Big Tech, the State, and the medical and financial technocracies. AI now moderates political speech, guides medical narratives, filters search results, and defines which opinions appear “respectable.” In some schools, AI-driven tutoring systems are testing emotional analysis on children — monitoring facial expression and “problematic” language in real time. Payroll and HR platforms are experimenting with sentiment analysis to detect “attitude” or “compliance issues” before a manager ever intervenes. These are not future threats — they are active pilot programs.

And as central banks plan digital currencies, AI systems are being built to monitor not only how money is spent, but where it may not be spent. It is being quietly woven into surveillance systems, “trusted” information portals, and behavioral scoring mechanisms. When technology begins to shape thought, behavior, and access to economic life, the lines between governance and programming start to disappear.

I witnessed this firsthand. When I asked AI probing questions about the UN climate narrative it refused to mention the work of scientists that challenged that narrative — not because the science was disproven, but because it fell outside ‘scientific consensus.’ “I can’t provide content… disputing the scientific consensus.”  AI did not debate — it filtered. That is not intelligence — it is administration. And it raises the oldest political question: Who defines consensus — and who benefits from its enforcement?

The AI narrative is not emerging from the free market alone. It is being actively promoted by the World Economic Forum, the United Nations, the OECD, central banks such as the BIS and the Federal Reserve, major defense agencies, and the medical and educational arms of government. Their language is consistent: AI is necessary for “trust,” “safety,” “governance,” and “public order.” In other words, it is being positioned not merely as a technology, but as an instrument of administration.

The World Economic Forum describes AI as “necessary for global governance” and “essential for moderating public discourse.” The UN calls it “the shaping force of sustainable development.” Banks refer to it as “programmable money.” These are not predictions — they are policy terms.

This is not conspiracy. It is policy.
And it reveals the technocratic ambition at its core:
To replace human discernment with automated obedience.

The danger is not captivity — it is comfort.
If chains no longer appear as iron — could they arrive disguised as convenience? And would we recognize them in time?

The State and its technocratic partners believe data is enough to govern reality — but human beings require something older than calculation.

The Faculty the Machine Cannot Touch

What is threatened is more than privacy, employment, or political stability. The deeper loss concerns the ancient faculty by which human beings have always navigated reality: discernment.

It is the quiet inner knowing that distinguishes truth from illusion — the essential from the trivial — the real from the artificial.

Mises warned that central planning cripples economic life because it replaces the signals of market reality with artificial ones. AI threatens to do the same to the inner life — replacing personal discernment with automated suggestion, intuition with prediction, judgment with compliance.

This faculty is spiritual in nature — a gift, not a program. It arises from the same silent witness behind all thought: the God-given awareness that makes experience possible. A technocratic society that loses discernment may be digitally connected — but restless, hollow, and ungrounded. For urgency without meaning becomes constant stimulation and reaction: movement without arrival. And in time, society becomes a machine — without a purpose.

AI does not threaten our humanity by becoming conscious.
It challenges us to remember that we are.

The Question Machines Cannot Ask

In an age of automation, one question becomes inescapable:
Are we using the technology — or is it using us?

Do we still author our own minds— or are we letting digital systems do it for us? At what point does convenience become consent?

For the essence of humanity is not found in processing, but in presence;
not in prediction, but in love;
not in calculation, but in conscience.

AI can estimate every probability —
but purpose is not a probability.
It is a question that belongs to the soul —
and perhaps it always will.

The Call

Is the answer to this crisis merely better algorithms — or stronger souls? What happens to a civilization when its inner life is automated? Can a people remain free if their minds are programmed? And if man is more than circuitry — what is he ultimately for?

Perhaps the answer begins here:
by teaching children attention instead of addiction — especially as AI tutors are promoted to replace real teachers;
by recovering reverence for what is real, instead of surrendering to the ease of control.

Maybe authorship of the mind is not only a political question — but a spiritual one.
For if we surrender the inner life to automation, we may forget the truth that sustains every free civilization:
Man is not a circuit, but a soul — and the soul was made to seek God.

I welcome perspectives from readers who have seen how AI now governs daily life more quietly than any law or election.

I’ve also shared this article on my Substack, where I welcome readers’ thoughts and discussion.

The post The Soul Against the Circuit — The Technocrats vs. the Human Spirit appeared first on LewRockwell.

I passed by a bunch of little kids recently, chasing after bubbles emitted by a bubblicious toy. What a delightful time they were having.

That’s all very well, but right now experts are worrying about an AI Bubble, as the stock market retreats some 8-10 percent from a peak at the end of October. Here’s one take from Niall Ferguson worrying about the crazy plans of the AI promoters:

Sam Altman “recently told employees that OpenAI wanted to build 250 gigawatts of new computing capacity by 2033… a plan that would cost over $10 trillion by today’s standards.” That would be equivalent to a third of current U.S. peak energy usage.

Then there is David Dayen at American Prospect. He’s worried that “Silicon Valley and Wall Street are in sync: conjuring up sketchy credit deals that are pointing us toward another financial crash.”

Last month, the big focus was “round-tripping,” the way that sundry AI and tech companies were investing in their own customers — with Nvidia giving AI companies the investment necessary to buy their graphics processing units (GPUs), and so on.

But really, why stop there? Whatabout the Green Energy Bubble that is almost certainly popping right now, President Xi? Won’t that lay waste to devoted Extinction Rebellion activists all over the world? And then there’s the real estate bubble as homeowners have charged into homebuying in the aftermath of the Fed increasing the money supply by 40 percent in 2020-21. Whatabout the stock market bubble? SPY is up from $77 in May 2009 to $659 last Friday. That’s up 755 percent since the bottom of the Great Recession. Mind you, M2 is up from $7.2 trillion to $22.2 trillion, a healthy 208 percent, in the same period.

There’s only one thing to do: check with Elon’s Grok on Financial Bubbles. The first bubble was the Dutch Tulip Mania in the 1630s. Like I say: the Dutch invented the modern world with their Dutch Finance. And you can’t have modern finance without bubbles. So the Brits got in on the action with the South Sea Bubble that popped in 1720. Recently, according to Grok, we’ve been experiencing bubbles every ten years, from the Dot-com Bubble of 2000 to the Real Estate Bubble of 2008 to the Crypto Bubble of 2021. And now the AI Bubble. Where will it end? When will it end?

I don’t know if you have noticed, but these bubbles didn’t start until after the advent of central banks, invented by the Dutch and passed on to the Brits when the Dutch William of Orange became king of Great Britain, and brought to the U.S. by Alexander Hamilton, known to all as the “bastard brat of a Scotch pedlar.” Do central banks and bubbles go together like ham and eggs? I wonder what the culinary experts and the Federal Reserve System think about that. It could be that bubbles only occur when the central bank in incompetent, as in 1929 and 2008. Probably there is nothing to fear about the AI Bubble, now that the Fed has 400 economics PhDs at work. And in the latest bubble, the crypto bubble starring Sam Bankman-Fried, the Fed went in and fearlessly bailed out all the greedy regional bankers before Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) had finished breakfast.

I wonder how all this bubble-ology has influenced the angry Groypers on the Right and the Mamdani activists on the Left. They are probably right to be angry. Think of a Boomer nicely decked out with an IRA devoted to SPY. If it amounted to $100,000 at the end of 2008, it is now $757,500, not counting dividends and RMDs. And if our Boomer recklessly invested his IRA in QQQ, his $100,000 would now be $1,900,000. But Gen Z? They got zip, zero, nada. Still, when our student Boomer was calling home from Italy in 1970 his three-minute phone call to Mom cost about $6.00. In 1970 dollars.

But I tell you what, dear Gen Zers. The worst bubble in human history is the government spending bubble, up from about 8 percent of GDP in 1900 to about 40 percent of GDP today. And let me tell you, after Social Security and Medicare for Boomers, and the money for the Military Industrial Complex and the Education Industrial Complex and the Climate Industrial Complex and the Migrant Industrial Complex and the Debt Industrial Complex, there will never be much left for you. And when the biggest bubble of all eventually pops, as all bubbles – and empires — eventually do, then you are going to see a scramble for the crumbs like you’ve never seen.

On the other hand, maybe Elon Musk is right and AI will make work optional and, per Marx,

[we will] hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, criticise after dinner[.]

So, maybe we better Occupy Mars.

This article was originally published on American Thinker.

The post The Perils of Our Bubblicious World appeared first on LewRockwell.

It should be against the law to use generative AI to deceive the public.

I’ve got absolutely no problem with outright government censorship in this case, and I say this as an aggressive and outspoken proponent of free speech. AI products which deceive people should be illegal in the same way fraud is illegal.

I want it to be illegal to knowingly circulate AI video footage and pass it off as real.

I want AI companies to be severely penalized if they don’t prevent people from using their products to generate fake videos that get passed off as real.

The internet is just racists posting AI-generated videos in support of their racism now. https://t.co/aaXpQ3vK8Y

— Caitlin Johnstone (@caitoz) November 17, 2025

I want generative AI companies to be forced to place highly visible warnings across all AI-generated videos with wording that explicitly says they are AI-generated — not just a little watermark in the corner that can be cropped out.

I want AI companies to be harshly penalized if their chatbots encourage users to engage in harmful behavior, or if they tell users they are conscious, or if they psychologically manipulate users into forming emotional attachments to them.

I want it to be illegal for companies to use bots which tell people they are talking to a real human being.

I want it to be illegal for politicians to use AI deepfakes of their opponents saying outrageous things in their political campaigns, as we’ve been seeing more and more often lately.

Your right to extend your fist ends at my nose. These products threaten to erode the fabric of our society. They are attacking people’s ability to understand reality and sort out fact from fiction. They are driving people insane.

If fraud is illegal, than these abuses should be illegal. Fraud isn’t considered protected speech, because it hurts people and is detrimental to a functioning society. Generative AI deception shouldn’t be protected for precisely those same reasons.

Tech plutocrats should not be allowed to profit from sowing deception, confusion, and mental illness. The collective has the right to protect itself from harm from destructive individuals. The state is a gentler tool for this than guillotines. Governments should intervene to end these assaults on our ability to perceive and understand our world.

my whole feed is just ai generated cctv videos being used to spread islamophobia and right wing propaganda. but not that long ago i was getting called crazy for saying this very thing would happen. https://t.co/eS7gTp1YN9

— Evie ♡ (@EFCevie) November 8, 2025

I really don’t care how much force needs to be used to rein this shit in. If people can’t perceive and understand reality clearly, then everything goes to hell. Nobody knows what to think, how to act, how to vote or how to live if they can’t determine what’s true or false. Bring these new technologies to heel by any means necessary. It’s about basic self-defense at this point.

And I don’t expect any of this to happen any time soon; the rich and powerful are way too excited about generative AI and what it can do for them, and they tend to get what they want. Trump is already drawing significant backlash over reported plans for an executive order which would ban states from regulating AI companies on their own.

So it looks like we’re getting these abusive technologies shoved down our throat in whatever way benefits the zillionaires and Zionists of the imperial power structure, whether we like it or not.

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The post It Should Be Illegal To Use AI To Deceive People appeared first on LewRockwell.

Tomorrow, November 22, marks the 62nd anniversary of the U.S. national-security establishment’s assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Yes, I know, there are still Americans who buy into the official “conspiracy-theory” line and the official lone-nut theory of the assassination, but I most definitely am not one of them. For me, there is no doubt whatsoever that this was a regime-change operation based on protecting “national security” from a president whose policies, they were convinced, posed a grave threat to “national security.”

How do I reach this certainty? Not by the evidence relating to the assassination itself. That evidence is persuasive but for me it’s not dispositive. If I was serving on a jury in a criminal prosecution of the national-security establishment and if the burden of proof was one that is used in civil cases — one that the law calls a “preponderance of the evidence — which means “more likely than not” — then, yes, I would convict the U.S. national-security establishment—e.g., the Pentagon and the CIA — of the assassination. But if the burden of proof is the standard one in criminal cases — “beyond a reasonable doubt” —  then based on all the evidence surrounding the assassination, I would vote to acquit. In my opinion, the evidence is simply not sufficiently persuasive to convict on that basis.

Thus, I can totally understand why many Americans still do not cross the line and conclude that the assassination was, in fact, a national-security-state regime-change operation. I’m with them there.

Given such, how then have I concluded that JFK was assassinated by the Pentagon and the CIA as part of a regime-change operation intended to protect “national security”? The answer lies in the Pentagon’s and CIA’s actions after the assassination. It is their post-assassination actions that unequivocally establish guilt on the part of the national-security establishment.

When I finished reading Douglas Horne’s 5-volume book Inside the Assassination Records Review Board, that was it for me. As a former lawyer, I realized that Horne, more than anyone else, had broken the case wide open. By establishing that the military had conducted a fraudulent autopsy on President Kennedy’s body just a few hours after the assassination, Horne had established that the military had participated in the assassination itself.

That’s because there is no innocent explanation whatsoever for a fraudulent autopsy. None! No one has ever come up with one, and no one ever will. A fraudulent autopsy necessarily means cover-up. Just a few hours after the assassination, the military establishment was carrying out a fraudulent-autopsy cover-up. That obviously could not be a sudden spur-of-the moment fraudulent autopsy. After all, why would any innocent entity come up with the idea of conducting a fraudulent autopsy on the body of a president of the United States who has just been assassinated? That makes no sense whatsoever. A fraudulent autopsy cover-up had to be built into the assassination itself. And the only entity the military would be covering up for was itself.

I won’t go into all the aspects of the fraudulent autopsy in this article. That’s what I do in my relatively short, easy-to-read book The Kennedy Autopsy, which is actually just a synopsis of Horne’s five-volume book. But anyone who takes the time to read and study Horne’s five-volume book will, I believe, inevitably arrive at the same conclusion that I did.

Or consider Horne’s recent masterful documentary establishing the three casket entries into the Bethesda military morgue on the evening of the autopsy. Those three casket entries cannot be innocent, especially given that the military knowingly, deliberately, and intentionally kept them secret. That’s why they ordered the Navy and Marine personnel who participated in the autopsy to keep their mouths shut on what they had witnessed and also threatened them with criminal prosecution if they ever revealed anything about this top-secret operation. Those three casket entries had to be part and parcel of the fraudulent autopsy itself. Once one comes to the realization that there were, in fact, three casket entries that evening, that realization inevitably leads one to conclude that a fraudulent autopsy was, in fact, conducted. There is no innocent explanation whatsoever for those three casket entries and the massive secrecy and deception surrounding two of them.

Or consider the two brain examinations that took place, notwithstanding the fact that the military pathologists steadfastly and falsely maintained that there was only one brain examination. Why would they lie about that? There was a big reason: the second brain examination didn’t involve the brain of President Kennedy. When there are two different brain exams, one of which involves a brain of someone other than the deceased, there is only one conclusion that one can reach: fraud. And fraud necessarily equates to guilt in the assassination itself.

Or consider the statements of the Dallas physicians, which established that the president had a massive exit-sized wound in the back of his head, which contradicted the official military photographs that show no such wound. Or consider the sworn testimony of Navy petty officer Saundra Spencer in the 1990s, who, when shown those official military photographs, stated unequivocally that they were not the autopsy photographs she developed on the weekend of the assassination; the ones she developed showed a big wound in the back of JFK’s head, which was what the Dallas treating physicians had stated 30 years before.

If one doesn’t wish to take the time to read Horne’s five-volume book, another option is to view his video presentations in the multimedia section of FFF’s website, not only as part of the various JFK conferences we have held but also Horne’s multipart series entitled “Altered History,” which continues to be the most downloaded FFF video since our founding in 1989.

So, for me, the JFK case is over. Because of the fraudulent autopsy, I have no doubts whatever that the JFK assassination was, in fact, a national-security-state regime-change operation.

What do I mean by that? The answer turns on the type of governmental system under which we have all be born and raised — a national-security state. In this type of governmental system, the military-intelligence establishment wields the omnipotent power to assassinate or otherwise remove threats to “national security.” That’s its job. It has the grave responsibility of keeping us “safe” from all threats to our “national security,” both foreign and domestic.

Consider the dozens of people who the military has recently killed in the Caribbean. Those are state-sponsored assassinations. The military is killing those people because it is convinced that they pose a grave threat to U.S. “national security.” In the minds of the military people who are carrying out those killings, they aren’t doing anything evil or immoral. On the contrary, in their minds they are doing what they are supposed to be doing — keeping America “safe” by extinguishing grave threats to “national security.”

There is no difference in principle between those state-sponsored assassinations in the Caribbean and the national-security establishment’s assassination of President Kennedy. Human life is human life. Nobody’s life is any more valuable than any other person’s life. Kennedy might have been a president of a big country and those boat people who are now dead might be just plain ordinary fisherman trying to eke out a living by transporting some illicit drugs, but all their lives are equally sacred.

What makes their deaths similar is that they were all deemed to be threats to U.S. “national security” and, therefore, had to be extinguished. In fact, given that Kennedy was president, in the minds of the U.S. national-security establishment he posed a much graver threat to national security than those boat people or anyone else they have assassinated or tried to assassinate, including Cuban leader Fidel Castro or that Iranian general, Qasem Soleimani.

Kennedy’s war with the national-security establishment involved a conflict of visions. After the Cuban Missile Crisis, Kennedy achieved a “breakthrough” that enabled him to see that the national-security establishment’s Cold War was nothing more than a deadly and destructive racket, one that was quite possibly going to lead to all-out, earth-destroying nuclear war. He was determined to move America in an entirely different direction than the Cold War direction that the national-security establishment had moved America and was determined to continue moving America (such as with an expanded war in Vietnam to stop the Reds).

Kennedy set forth his vision at his famous Peace Speech at American University in June 1963. That speech, more than anything, launched his open war against the U.S. national-security establishment, a war that ended in Kennedy’s defeat and death on November 22, 1963. For people wishing to study the nature of this war, I recommend FFF’s book JFK’s War with the National Security Establishment: Why Kennedy Was Assassinated by Douglas Horne, who, by the way, served on the staff of the Assassination Records Review Board.

And then there is the CIA. Once I came to the realization that the CIA had produced an altered copy of the famous Zapruder film on the very weekend of the assassination, I knew that no one could ever come up with an innocent explanation for doing that. By altering pertinent parts of the film at its top-secret state-of-the-art film facility in Rochester, New York, the CIA could have the film dovetail perfectly with the fraudulent autopsy that its counterparts in the military were conducting on that same weekend. The entire sordid tale is detained in my book An Encounter with Evil: The Abraham Zapruder Story.

Over the years, it has been gratifying for me to see ever-growing numbers of people studying Horne’s work and reaching the same conclusion I have reached.

One of the fascinating things for me is why there are still Americans who buy into the national-security state’s lone-nut theory of the assassination or who steadfastly do not want to delve into or study the fraudulent autopsy. Why is that?

Over the years, I’ve come up with a few explanations:

1. For many Americans, the national-security establishment is their god. It’s their everything. For them, it keeps them “safe” from all the dangerous creatures in the world — the Reds, Muslims, Cuba, North Korea, Russia, China, Venezuela, drug dealers, narco-terrorists, regular terrorists, illegal immigrants, and all the rest of the scary creatures who are clearly coming to get us. These Americans simply cannot bring themselves to question or challenge their god, much less advocate the dismantling of their god and restoring our founding system of a limited-government republic to our land. To do so is just too frightening and disconcerting.

2. For many Americans, it is simply inconceivable that the national-security establishment would take out a U.S. president. Boat people? Yes. Foreign presidents? Yes. Iranian generals? Yes. Accused terrorists? Yes. Accused drug dealers? Yes. Accused communists? Yes. But not a U.S. president. The Pentagon and the CIA would simply never do anything so evil. It’s our friend, not our enemy. What these Americans won’t let themselves see, however, is that the national-security establishment, from its perspective, was acting as their friend when it assassinated Kennedy. They “knew” that Kennedy had become a grave threat to “national security.” If he was permitted to get his way, America, they were convinced, would have fallen to the Reds during the Cold War, just like Cuba did. If it was okay for the national-security establishment to try to remove by force Cuban president Fidel Castro, Guatemalan president Jacobo Arbenz, or, later, Chilean president Salvador Allende as threats to “national security,” it was even more appropriate to remove Kennedy on the same basis. ‘

3. Even though they would be loathe to admit it, even to themselves, my hunch is that there are a number of Americans who, deep down, believe that the U.S. national-security state did the right thing by removing Kennedy from office. They are convinced that the assassination did, in fact, keep us “safe” and that we should not be questioning the judgment of the branch of government that has been charged with protecting “national security.”

In any event, as I have long maintained, there is no way that people who live under a national-security-state form of governmental structure can possibly be considered to be living in a genuinely free society. A government that wields the power to assassinate anyone it wants for whatever reason it wants cannot possibly be reconciled with the principles of freedom. A necessary prerequisite for restoring freedom to America is the dismantling of the national-security-state form of governmental structure and the restoration of our nation’s founding system of a limited-government republic.

Reprinted with permission from Future of Freedom Foundation.

The post The U.S. National-Security State’s Assassination of JFK appeared first on LewRockwell.

On Wednesday’s episode of the Peter Schiff Show, Peter returns to his show to walk listeners through what he sees as multiple asset bubbles and why those bubbles matter beyond headline market moves. He calls out the AI stock mania, a fragile housing market propped up by policy, and the crypto circus — all potential bubbles inflated by easy money.

He opens by framing the broader problem: we don’t just have one overheating market, we have many, and policy choices make their unwinding more dangerous:

The bigger question is not just whether or not this is a precursor for other bubbles to pop because there are a lot of bubbles. We have a bubble in AI stocks and I’ll talk about that too. On this podcast, we got Nvidia earnings out after the close today, but we have the AI bubble. There’s a bubble in housing, which, you know, the government is really trying to prevent from deflating, which of course they need to allow it to deflate, but they’re afraid of what might happen.

Peter is careful to separate hype from technological promise — he believes AI could genuinely reshape productivity and living standards — but warns that enthusiasm is fueling speculative excess rather than sober investment:

When I talk about an AI bubble, I am not saying that there isn’t potential in artificial intelligence. In fact, I think there’s tremendous potential. I think there’s probably more potential there than in anything I’ve seen, which would include the internet, which had a lot of potential. I think that AI could be the most transformative invention as far as lifting the standard of living of all of humanity.

Shifting from tech to crypto, Peter points to recent price action as evidence that much of the Bitcoin story is built on air — a sharp drawdown is “a pretty big bear market in nothing,” and he prefers measuring crypto’s value relative to gold rather than dollars:

Earlier this afternoon, Bitcoin traded below 88,500. Now, of course, that’s still a ridiculously high price to pay for nothing, but it’s about 30% below what you had to pay for nothing a couple of months ago. All right. So that is a pretty big bear market in nothing; Bitcoin down 30%. In terms of gold, which again is a better way to measure the price of Bitcoin, because after all Bitcoin is marketed as being digital gold, as being an alternative to gold that is going to replace gold because it’s better than gold.

Ironically, Peter says, the one real constructive outcome from the crypto craze could be greater utility for actual money: tokenized gold. If blockchain tech makes gold more liquid and transferable, that can strengthen gold’s role rather than replace it — because tokens are only as meaningful as the asset backing them:

Ironically, the one thing that might come out of the whole crypto bubble is tokenized gold. Gold may be the only real winner. Rather than killing gold, blockchain may have just given it a new lease on life by making gold even more efficient than it’s ever been as a means of exchange, making it more liquid, making it more divisible, making it more portable. All the characteristics that people think Bitcoin has that are better than gold are worthless without the underlying value of gold.

Finally, Peter reads the Fed’s recent comments as dangerously complacent. He notes that members of the FOMC (Federal Open Market Committee) appeared to downplay inflation risks tied to tariffs, suggesting any price increases from trade barriers may be temporary — even as tariff policy changes are being used politically to try to cool prices:

I thought what was significant, and it should have produced a bigger reaction, but it did not, was that the FOMC members seem to believe that the inflation threat that they thought may have come from tariffs isn’t there. And to the extent that prices are higher, that it’s not, you know, a permanent thing, that it’s like a one and done situation. And of course, Trump has been rolling back more tariffs recently, a lot of items. 

This article was originally published on SchiffGold.com.

The post Bubbles Pop Everywhere appeared first on LewRockwell.

In April 1939, American unemployment reached 20.7 percent. For Henry Morgenthau Jr., Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Secretary of the Treasury, this was bad news. In a private meeting he confessed to two senior congressmen: “We are spending more than we have ever spent before and it does not work… After eight years of this administration, we have just as much unemployment as when we started. And an enormous debt to boot.”

Today, Americans know how the Great Depression ended. It ended with the onset of war in Europe. FDR truly believed that, if Britain and France went to war with Germany, the quagmire would make the British and French Governments heavily dependent on access to U.S. credit markets and resources, thereby ending America’s economic Depression. FDR welcomed the stimulus that war provided.

In 1939, Joseph Stalin hoped war in the West would be a quagmire fatally weakening Germany and its opponents. Stalin believed this development would open the door to a massive Soviet invasion from the East that would supplant Nazism with Communism. Thus, Stalin eagerly supplied the German war machine with the oil, iron, aluminum, grain, rubber, and other mineral resources Berlin needed to launch its war against Britain, France, and the Low Countries.

Ultimately, both FDR and Stalin miscalculated just how costly and risky the new conflict in Europe would be. War broke out in 1939, and in 1940 German military power rapidly defeated Western allies, though Britain fought on. The next year Germany invaded the Soviet Union.

Today, the Trump administration faces some conditions that FDR would recognize. Scott Bessent, President Donald Trump’s Treasury Secretary, confronts a national sovereign debt of approximately $38 trillion. Liquidity strains also persist in parts of the financial system, and the dollar’s long-term reserve status is under significant pressure and scrutiny.

Among the ideas under discussion by Bessent is a more enthusiastic official embrace of stablecoins—cryptocurrencies deliberately engineered to remain boringly pegged one-for-one to the dollar by holding equivalent reserves of cash or high-quality cash-equivalents in regulated accounts. In plain language: digital dollars that promise never to fluctuate like Bitcoin but can circle the globe in seconds without ever touching a traditional bank.

Bessent publicly argues that well-regulated stablecoins will also extend the dollar’s dominance into the blockchain era. Trump appears sympathetic; there is, after all, not enough gold on the planet to return to a metallic standard, and simply printing more fiat currency will further debase the dollar. Wall Street, ever helpful, is delighted to assist in kicking the can a little further—ideally down a blockchain-paved road.

Meanwhile, the Trump White House is charting a new course to war, this time in the direction of Venezuela. Has the administration concluded that the rapid conquest of Venezuela could induce the kind of economic stimulus that rescued FDR’s failed policies and restore economic prosperity inside the United States?

Compared with the Russian or Iranian armed forces, Venezuela’s military is almost Lilliputian. Nicolás Maduro presides over a hard-left, bitterly anti-American regime that is bankrupt, internationally isolated (save for Havana, Moscow, and Tehran), and yet sits atop the world’s largest proven oil reserves—303 billion barrels, according to OPEC’s latest assessment.

In addition, Cuba still depends on Venezuela for the overwhelming majority of its subsidized oil imports. A post-Maduro government amenable to Washington could, in theory, sever that lifeline and simultaneously open the spigots to international operators able to produce without the chronic interruptions that have reduced output from over 3 million barrels a day to less than 1 million.

Read the Whole Article

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Banks with credit card businesses are currently charging an annual interest rate of 19.24 percent on purchases. If you use their card for cash advances, the interest rate you pay is 29.99 percent.  If I remember my medieval history, 30% is higher than the usury Jews charged that led to pogroms and is higher than the percentage of serf labor to which feudal lords had claim..

I got to wondering what percentage of banks’s profits came from credit card interest and bank fees.  In other words, does it pay banks to finance new investment in plant and equipment when they can get 20% or 30% from lending to hard pressed Americans living on their credit card?

I did a search, and there is not the information you would suspect.  I did learn that credit card companies make more money from interest on unpaid accounts than from transaction fees on purchases.  Interest charges on outstanding balances are paid by the card user.  Transaction fees on purchasers were formerly paid by merchants.  However, today many merchants have shifted these charges to their customers. When you use your credit card today, you, not the merchant, face the transaction charges.

I learned that although credit cards only account for 4.5% of banks’ total balance sheets, they generated 16.6% of banks’ interest income during 2010-2023.

In 2022 the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau reported that credit card companies charged consumers more than $25 billion in fees, especially for late payment, and that these fees represent 16% of aggregate profit of the credit card businesses.

So, the former paradigm of a bank receiving deposits from depositors, for which it paid interest, then lending the deposits to corporations at a higher interest is no longer the paradigm.  Today the paradigm is that banks rip off consumers and no not lend for the expansion of productive capacity. 

The collapse caused by the massive loans involved with subprime derivatives that brought the collapse of 2008 now threatens a repeat with what seems to be an AI bubble that is unsustainable, if Michael Burry of The Great Short is again correct while no one listens. See this.

The post What Ever Became of Usury? appeared first on LewRockwell.

“This article was created for educational purposes”

Predicting outright state collapse is inherently uncertain, but by 2040 several countries face materially elevated risk of severe state failure or collapse of central authority—meaning loss of effective governance over significant territory, large-scale internal conflict, or fragmentation. The following list identifies countries widely judged vulnerable by analysts, with the dominant factors driving risk for each. This is a probabilistic assessment (not a deterministic forecast); risks arise from combinations of governance failure, economic stress, demography, external interference, and climate and resource shocks.

High-risk (elevated probability of major failure or fragmentation by 2040)

• Sudan
  • Key drivers: persistent civil war since 2023 between military and multiple paramilitary factions; fractured elites; collapsed economy; humanitarian catastrophe; regional proxy interventions; armed militias controlling territory. Absent a credible peace process and restoration of basic services, continued fragmentation and local warlord rule remain likely.

• Libya
  • Key drivers: enduring rival governments and militias since 2011; localized war economies centered on oil; weak institutions; foreign military involvement from regional powers; fragmented security forces. Elections and stabilization have repeatedly failed; continuation of de facto partition or recurring armed confrontations is plausible.
• Somalia
  • Key drivers: decades of weak central institutions; resilient Islamist insurgency (al-Shabaab); clan fragmentation; recurring drought and food crises; limited revenue base and heavy external dependence. Federal government holds territory intermittently; risk centers on further territorial losses to non-state actors and de facto regional autonomy.
• Yemen
  • Key drivers: prolonged civil war (Houthi vs. internationally recognized government and southern movements), foreign intervention (Saudi/UAE, Iran-backed dynamics), collapsed public services, famine risk, and multiple competing authorities in north and south. A negotiated nationwide settlement before 2040 is possible but not assured; continued partition or frozen conflict is likely without major shifts.

Significant-concern (substantial vulnerability, where collapse is a realistic tail outcome under adverse shocks)

• Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC)
  • Key drivers: vast territory with weak state reach, numerous armed groups in the east, fragile institutions, resource-driven local conflicts, poor infrastructure, and refugee flows. A regional conflagration or intensified localized state retreat could yield large-scale governance collapse in parts of the country.

• Haiti
  • Key drivers: chronic political instability, powerful gangs controlling large urban areas (Port-au-Prince), weak security forces, economic collapse, natural disasters, and limited institutional capacity. Without decisive security reform and economic stabilization, de facto governance vacuums and quasi-failed-state dynamics will likely persist or worsen.
• Afghanistan
  • Key drivers: the Taliban’s hold since 2021 has not produced unified, durable governance across ethnic lines; economic collapse, international isolation, insurgent pockets, factionalism, and climate-driven shocks. The risk is not classic internationalized collapse but fragmentation, governance breakdown in provinces, and potential return of competing armed groups.
• South Sudan
  • Key drivers: weak institutions since independence, ethnicized politics, recurrent violence, dependence on oil revenues, poor service delivery, and climate stress on pastoralist livelihoods. Recurrent localized breakdowns remain likely; a full reversion to widespread civil war is a significant tail risk.

Medium-concern (fragility that could tip under severe economic, political, or climate shocks)

• Lebanon
  • Key drivers: economic meltdown, currency collapse, sectarian/political paralysis, refugee burden, and state delegitimization. Collapse into prolonged governance paralysis and localized militias is possible if economic conditions and patronage networks deteriorate further.
• Pakistan
  • Key drivers: economic crisis, political-military friction, extremist insurgency pockets, water scarcity, and institutional fragility. Full state collapse is low-probability, but severe governance crises, localized breakdowns, or loss of state capacity in border regions could occur under large shocks.
• Nigeria
  • Key drivers: insurgency in the northeast (Boko Haram/IS affiliate), banditry and farmer–herder conflict in the middle belt, separatist pressures in the southeast, weak logistics and constrained fiscal space. Collapse of the whole state is unlikely, but protracted fragmentation or long-term erosion of state authority in large regions is a material risk.

Read the Whole Article

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The French authorities commemorated the November 13, 2015 attacks. President François Hollande and his associates did everything in their power to conceal the truth from their people. In doing so, while they may have succeeded in evading their own mistakes, by depriving their fellow citizens of the truth, they deprived them of the opportunity to rebuild their lives.

France is a very strange country. To lull its population to sleep, it likes to celebrate its misfortunes. On November 13, 2025, France therefore celebrated the tenth anniversary of its defeat of November 13, 2015, when terrorists massacred 133 people and injured 413 in six attacks at the Stade de France (Saint-Denis), on the terraces of cafes, and at the Bataclan.

In his address, President Emmanuel Macron proclaimed, “This haunting question: why? We would like to find meaning in what happened… No, there is no meaning, no justification for your pain. There never will be.”

It is a terrible lie that prevents all those who experienced these attacks in their flesh from finding peace: Yes, these attacks had a meaning, but our leaders chose to hide it from us so as not to have to acknowledge their mistakes.

To understand what happened that day, we must first examine the context of the events. In February 2011, France, under President Nicolas Sarkozy, sought to involve Turkey in the Western war against Libya, despite Libya being its second-largest trading partner. France secured Ankara’s commitment to mobilize the Misrata tribe, heirs to the Ottoman army, against Muammar Gaddafi. In exchange, Turkey pledged to shift the Turkish problem away from its Kurdish minority. A secret treaty was signed between the two foreign ministers, Alain Juppé and Ahmet Davutoğlu. It stipulated the creation of a Kurdish state outside of Turkey, in Syria, where many Turkish Kurds had sought refuge in the 1980s. This plan is unknown in France, but was published at the time by the Algerian press under the code name “Plan Bleu” (Blue Plan).

While President Sarkozy had committed France to the Western operation against Libya, and then against Syria, he changed his mind in February 2012 when he realized the river of blood he was fueling. His “American friends” therefore ensured his failure to be re-elected and replaced him with François Hollande. Hollande immediately reignited the war, convening the third meeting of the “Friends of the Syrian People Group” in Paris with Hillary Clinton on July 6, 2012.

On October 31, 2014, during the official visit of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, then Turkish Prime Minister, to Paris, President François Hollande held a secret meeting at the Élysée Palace with Salih Muslim, co-president of the Syrian Kurds. The two men agreed to implement the Juppé-Davutoğlu plan at the expense of the Syrians.

However, the United States supported the PKK (renamed YPG in Syria) during the Battle of Kobani. Loyal to his “American friends,” President Hollande then received Asya Abdullah, co-president of the Syrian Kurds (loyal to Abdullah Öcalan), and Commander Nesrin Abdullah, in her leopard-print uniform, at the Élysée Palace on February 8, 2015. Salih Muslim, the other co-president of the Syrian Kurds and the only Kurdish leader in favor of the transfer of a Kurdish state to Syria, was not invited.

On July 20, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan reacted by ordering his ISIS operatives to carry out an attack against Kurds during a demonstration in Suruç, Anatolia.
On November 13, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan gave the order to attack France.

It is important to understand that France was wrong the first time to commit to transferring Kurdistan to Syria and then again to abandon its promise. Turkey, true to form, reacted by first carrying out an attack against Turkish Kurds (34 dead and 104 wounded), and then against the French (113 dead and 413 wounded).

The story doesn’t end there.

French police managed to identify and locate some of the “terrorists” they arrested in Saint-Denis. They prevented an attack in La Défense. But the team reformed, and Recep Tayyip Erdoğan ordered a second wave in Brussels.

This time, he made no secret of it. During the commemorations of the Battle of Gallipoli on March 18, he threatened the European Union Commission, which had welcomed the branch of the Kurds loyal to Abdullah Öcalan, declaring: “I appeal to the states that welcome them [the PKK] with open arms, which, directly or indirectly, support terrorist organizations. You are feeding a snake in your bed. And that snake you are feeding can bite you at any moment.”  [ 1 ] Four days later, on March 22, the same team that carried out the attacks in Saint-Denis and Paris perpetrated the attacks in Zaventem and Brussels (35 dead and 340 wounded).

You should know that one of the terrorists who participated in the attacks in France and Belgium, Mohammed Abrini, known as “the man in the hat,” was an informant for MI6  [ 2 ] . He warned London (which, on principle, supported Turkey), but neither Paris nor Brussels.

There was no third wave because, once France had created “Rojava” (the Syrian region seized by Kurdish mercenaries) in Syria, the United States intervened and stipulated that it should not be an independent state, but an “autonomous region.” The Turks were satisfied to no longer have the PKK Kurds within their borders, and the French could claim to have more or less fulfilled their promise.

A massive trial was held in Paris, lasting ten months in 2021-2022. François Hollande testified but never once mentioned his political responsibility in these tragedies. None of the judges asked him any questions on the matter.

Our leaders are not accountable to the Nation.

A museum in Paris will be dedicated to terrorism. It is doomed to failure. Indeed, according to its manifesto, its purpose is to “give meaning to the suffering endured by the victims by offering keys to understanding an ongoing history.” That is to say, everything that our irresponsible politicians are obstructing.

Moreover, terrorism, whether perpetrated by isolated individuals, groups or states, is not a fact in itself, but a method of combat that can be practiced by all military organizations without exception, including regular armies.

In 2001, after the attacks in New York and at the Pentagon, George W. Bush, President of the United States, declared a “war on terror.” To achieve this, the world’s largest army transformed itself into a band of criminals practicing torture on a vast scale.

Every time we use the word “terrorism,” we risk reacting emotionally and failing to understand what is at stake.

—

[ 1 ]  “  Erdoğan threatens the European Union  ”, by Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Voltaire Network , March 18, 2016.

[ 2 ]  “ First Isis supergrass helps UK terror police ”, Tom Harper, The Times , June 26th, 2016. “  Terror suspect dubbed ‘the man in the hat’ after Paris and Brussels attacks becomes British police’s first ISIS Supergrass  ”, Anthony Joseph, Daily Mail , June 26th, 2016.

The post Lies as a Weapon of Government appeared first on LewRockwell.

Libertarians talk a lot about the need to weaken—and even to abolish—the state. And rightly so. But a necessary part of opposing the state is building up other institutions that can challenge state power and offer alternatives to the state. That is, if we are to meaningfully undermine the state, it is necessary to encourage, grow, and sustain robust non-state institutions such as churches, families, and private markets. These are the institutions of what the old classical liberals called “civil society.”

Perhaps the most important of these institutions is the family. Among all human institutions, the family is, by far, the most “natural” in the sense that it has existed always and everywhere that humans exist. It is fundamental to the human experience in a way that the state never has been, and never can be.

The state, after all, is neither natural nor necessary, and has only existed in certain times and places. Nonetheless, when and where the state does exist it seeks to weaken and replace all other institutions. During the rise of the modern state in Europe, this has certainly been true as state agents have worked to take control of churches, supplant the nobility, and abolish the independence of municipal and regional polities.

Similarly, the state has sought to supersede the family. This it has done with a myriad of strategies including government schooling, the military draft, the welfare state, and inheritance taxes. Families have always been a threat to state power because families often attract the loyalty of individuals away from state institutions, and families can be critical in offering individuals economic and social stability.

In this endeavor to destroy the family, the state has been increasingly successful in recent centuries. Although the family still exists today, it does so in a greatly weakened state.

This has implications for all other institutions of civil society, as well. Research in recent decades has shown that married couples with children—i.e., intact families—are foundational to the sustainability of religious institutions, charitable organizations, volunteerism, neighborhood stability, and for local social institutions that build the fabric of stable communities. The decline of the family—which has been precipitous since the 1960s—has been a key factor in the decline of these other institutions as well.

In other words, family demographics have been a critical factor. As marriage rates and birth rates have declined, civil society has declined and state power has grown.

Indeed, from the perspective of the state, the ideal demographic makeup of society is likely one composed of single parents raising a small number of children in irreligious households. These types of weakened families are shown to be less engaged civically, more fragile, more mobile, less economically prosperous, and less engaged with religious institutions. All of this this helps ensure weak social bonds coupled with perennial dependence on the state.

Families Are More Active in Building Civil Society 

Civil society has always been much more than the market institutions that exist within it. A functioning society is comprised of countless informal social networks among institutions, within neighborhoods, and within families themselves. Without this, there can be no “high-trust” societies and the result is higher levels of social isolation, crime, and poverty. Moreover, the social skills and loyalties central to the preservation of civil society must also be passed down to future participants.

For many years, some social scientists pushed the theory that members of stable families are less social and less inclined toward civic engagement. Evidence to the contrary continues to pile up, however, and popular books like Robert Putnam’s Bowling Alone shows what has long been obvious to many: that the abandonment of earlier marriage and childrearing patterns has led to more social isolation.

Married parents are often the key group that is essential to maintaining these networks and institutions. For example, in a 2010 study, Richard Caputo found that

Families play an important part in the transmission of civic-mindedness: horizontally through interactions with other adults in community and church-related activities which reinforce and help spread civic culture and vertically as parents socialize their children. …

Married persons were found to volunteer more than unmarried, due primarily to increased opportunities to do so arising from their children’s school among other venues … the modal volunteer was found to be the married parent with children, especially of school-age, living in the household.

“Civic engagement” can mean a lot of things, but married persons were found to be especially active in “non-activist” civic engagement such as community fundraisers, supporting local businesses, and donating time to non-political organizations. Caputo notes “more than one-fourth of married persons (28.5%) were non-activist volunteers, nearly twice that of persons who were separated, widowed, or divorced (17.4%) and of nevermarried persons (14.4%).”

(In contrast, unmarried people tend to be more engaged in political activities such as volunteering for a political party.)

Moreover, a 2018 Australian study concludes:

Parents seem to play a key role in providing a route into civic participation and encouraging our young participants to get involved – even more so than a positive experience at school or through friendships with peers. The data we present undermine the idea that strong families do not contribute to civil society – and suggest instead that strong bonds forged within the family can lead to linkages outside it.

Much of the contribution from married couples with children in this regard can be described as “accidental.” That is, as Caputo notes, the process of raising and educating children tends to simply thrust families into more social and interconnected roles within the community. Moreover, married couples with children tend to move around less, therefore contributing to more stable neighborhoods and communities. For one, married parents stay together longer than unmarried co-habiting couples. The relative longevity of married parents leads to more stability for the home lives of children. Moreover, even when adjusted for income, high levels of residential mobility are associated with “negative outcomes including suicide attempts, criminality, psychiatric disorders, drug abuse, and unnatural mortality.”

As a study for the US Department of Housing and Human Services found, “twice as many single-parent families moved compared with two-parent families (26 percent and 13 percent, respectively).” . The presence of children often encourages married parents to avoid even short-distance moves. Parents may be instinctively concluding what other reasearch has shown—namely that frequent moves lead to disruptions in a child’s life and correlate with negative social outcomes.

The Link Between Families and Religion 

Like families, religious institutions—at least in the West—have offered competition for state institutions and have been central to the independence of civil society.  The key building block of religious institutions have been families with married parents.

For example, a substantially larger portion of married people attend religious services compared to never married and separated/divorced adults. This is reinforced when children enter the equation.

A number of studies show a sizable overlap, in terms of behavior and lifestyle, between married people and religious people. This is because married people tend to be religious and vice versa. As summarized by Hanna Seariac:

Additionally, married people are generally more likely to be religious and stay religious.

Both religion and marriage have demonstrable benefits. Research shows actively religious people tend to be happier, more civically engaged, participate in more communities, report some health benefits and engage in more philanthropy. Marriage has benefits for individual couples and their children, but also is instrumental in creating economic stability. …

Researchers have discovered that children who grow up in a single-parent household are more likely to disaffect from their religion and less likely to attend religious services. … As children observe the rupture of their parents’ marriage, they become less likely to be religious growing up and more likely to either not marry or have an unstable marriage.

There is a feedback loop here. Research on civic engagement has shown that much of that engagement involves volunteering for religious institutions and related charitable organizations. This, in turn, encourages more and continued engagement between these married people and their religious institutions.

Data has also shown that those people who regularly attend religious services tend to be married more often and experience much lower rates of divorce. This leads to longer marriages, which in turn leads to more volunteering and community engagement, and so on.

Political Views of Married People and Religious People 

Increased non-political civic engagement among married people likely reflects an ideological bent that is more skeptical of state power.

In his research on attendance at religious services, Ryan Burge concludes “There is almost no ‘liberalizing religion’ in the United States … The more people attend [church], the less liberal they are.” (”Liberal” in this context means “leftist” or “progressive” or “social democrat.”)

Among those who attend weekly or more than weekly, no more than 16 percent identify as “liberal” or “very liberal.” Nearly 60 percent of those who attend religious services more than once a week identify as conservative or “very conservative.” This correlation is so solid it even cuts across racial categories.1

What do these conservatives believe? Well, for our purposes here—i.e., looking at family as a non-state institution—a 2021 Pew survey shows that people who self-identify as conservatives tend to overwhelmingly agree with the statements “government is almost always wasteful and inefficient,” and “government is doing too many things.” In contrast, the opposite is true for those who self-identify as “liberal” and lopsidedly disagree that governments are too wasteful and powerful.

At the same time, married people more often tend toward self-identifying as “conservative.” This leads to the so-called “marriage gap” in which there is a sizable difference between political views of the unmarried and the married—especially among women. Unmarried women tend to lean well to the left of married women, and adhere to a far more positive view of an activist state.

It’s easy to see why states and their agents have for so long sought to weaken families and related institutions. Without strong families at the center of civil society, many other non-state institutions are weakened as well, and state institutions like public schools and welfare programs become far more central to the lives of many.

—

1 An additional dimension to this can be found in how conservatives tend to report higher “relationship quality.” See Troy L Fangmeier, Scott M Stanley, Kayla Knopp, Galena K Rhoades,  ”Political Party Identification and Romantic Relationship Quality,” Couple Family Psychol 25, No.9 (Jun 2020)  (https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8266382/)

The post Families Are the Key To Building Alternatives to the State appeared first on LewRockwell.

Attendance at Mass has plummeted since that New Springtime for the Church, heralded by the Second Vatican Council. There has been no springtime. Indeed, in no area of human culture has there been any such—not in the fine arts, film, literature, education, social institutions, civic life, folkways; not in the ordinary interchanges of human beings outside of their homes; not even in life within the home.

People have not turned from the Church to the mosque, or to the Order of Raccoons, or to some weekly meeting of armchair philosophers. They have turned to nothing at all; or to worse than nothing, the antisocial life of social media, where all is rancor, pride, and spite, and no one need look anyone in the eye and say, “I think you’re wrong,” and begin a fruitful or at least a human discussion. The glory of God is man fully alive; the boast of Satan is to reduce man to less than man, to deaden him within, to get him to prance with pride while he becomes pettier, more predictable; to replace him with automatism, as if he were aspiring with all his tiny heart to become a machine.

I’ve visited my hometown after seven years, and I am struck by how busy the streets are with traffic and how empty the sidewalks are of persons. It is a death-in-life. A few hundred feet from my mother’s house is a small playground with a sign dedicating it to one of our old neighbors. It is empty, always. It is as if someone has mummified and decorated a corpse.

The town had promised the children in my neighborhood a playground. That was almost 60 years ago, when I was a boy. For we had had one, shabby enough, but full of life. On it stood the ruins of a tiny schoolhouse. It had no roof. The walls were scrawled with graffiti. Nails and jagged wood stuck out here and there. Of course we loved it.

One summer, the town sent a couple of teenagers there to oversee it and to do some projects with the inevitable swarm of children climbing the monkey bars, or playing wiffle ball, or hanging around. One project was to make plaster-of-Paris “statues” from rubber molds and then to paint them when they had hardened. One I recall was a bust of John F. Kennedy; another was of the Ten Commandments.

But an old lady next door couldn’t stand the noise, so she badgered the town council till they let her buy the patch of land the playground was on. They promised us a new one nearby, but by the time they got to it, times had changed, and we who had known the old playground were too big for the new one. There were fewer children, too. There it sits, unused, a monument to a feature of human life fallen away.

It is the same with the baseball fields. When I was a boy, we had only one, a sandlot that the men also used for softball and baseball, so there was no fence in the outfield. It was inadequate, but that didn’t matter.

Our small town fielded six Little League teams, with 15 boys on a team. My brother and I and seven of our cousins and three next-door neighbors played on a team that my uncle and then my father managed. But now my brother tells me that the town has only one team. When we had six teams, we played a 20-game schedule, 10 games in each half, which meant there were 60 games all told, so for 12 weeks in the late spring and summer, there were five games a week. People would wander over to the sandlot to check out what was going on. Now, nothing.

I drove past the church, and I saw that parish offices now occupy the house where the Immaculate Heart of Mary sisters used to live, when they taught in the three-story building that one of the parish’s old pastors had built. When I attended there, we had between 45 and 51 pupils in my class, all in the same room. Nobody thought that was odd. The school is no more. The parish sold the building to the town, which now uses it for its offices.

The town’s own high school stood across the street, but that was rendered obsolete after the town consolidated its school district with those of two adjacent towns. The new institution was built outside of where anybody lived. A memorial marks the place where the high school used to be. It used also to swarm with young people, most of whom would walk to and from the place, as we did at our Catholic school, so that, twice a day during the school year, there would be some 500 children on the streets, and many of these might not go straight home but rather stop for a snack at the drug store or one of the small groceries, or get a haircut, or lean over the rail of the bridge to spit in the river, or anything—anything human.

People used to do such things. Teenagers went to dances where a local band was playing—and there were innumerable such bands, everywhere in the country. In my town, they used to tack up their advertisements on telephone poles. The fire department, a five-minute walk from my house, often rented space to a band for a small fee; admission might cost a couple of dollars. Such bands acquired a local or regional reputation. One of them in our area, The Poets, played their last gig in 2019. The point is not that they have been superseded by other bands. They have been superseded by nothing.

When I went to the fire department to hear them play, I walked down a very steep road that in snowy weather you would never dare to drive on—so the man who lived at the bottom of the hill, the father of one of my classmates, set up sawhorses in the middle of the street below to keep people away. I like to think that he did so also to allow us children to sled down that hill, which ended in a 90-degree blind turn, so that we did rely on there being no cars to run us over.

On the other side of town there was a hill almost as steep but much longer. It was interrupted by a bed for railroad tracks, which under snow became a ramp for sleds to strike at great speed and sail into the air. This hill could not be cordoned off against cars, but boys would sled down it anyway, as their field of vision there was clear. I wonder how long it has been since anyone has sledded down either hill.

Read the Whole Article

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With eight months left on its charter, the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has ceased to exist according to the Trump Administration. Radio talk show host David Gornoski was at the center of the storm when Elon Musk endorsed a role for Ron Paul in DOGE and he joins today’s Liberty Report to discuss those heady early days and how the principles of DOGE will remain alive and continue to grow. Also today: the sad departure of Marjorie Taylor Greene.

The post Who Let The DOGE Out? With Guest David Gornoski appeared first on LewRockwell.

La traduzione in italiano dell'opera scritta da Wendy McElroy esplora Bitcoin a 360°, un compendio della sua storia fino ad adesso e la direzione che molto probabilmente prenderà la sua evoluzione nel futuro prossimo. Si parte dalla teoria, soprattutto quella libertaria e Austriaca, e si sonda come essa interagisce con la realtà. Niente utopie, solo la logica esposizione di una tecnologia che si sviluppa insieme alle azioni degli esseri umani. Per questo motivo vengono inserite nell'analisi diversi punti di vista: sociologico, economico, giudiziario, filosofico, politico, psicologico e altri. Una visione e trattazione di Bitcoin come non l'avete mai vista finora, per un asset che non solo promette di rinnovare l'ambito monetario ma che, soprattutto, apre alla possibilità concreta di avere, per la prima volta nella storia umana, una società profondamente e completamente modificabile dal basso verso l'alto.

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(Versione audio della traduzione disponibile qui: https://open.substack.com/pub/fsimoncelli/p/la-spagna-brucia)

Alcune leggi spengono gli incendi; altre li accendono. In Spagna, un Paese che ha padroneggiato l'arte di legiferare contro la realtà, abbiamo un numero sempre maggiore di leggi del secondo tipo. Ogni volta che la proprietà privata viene violata e la responsabilità individuale viene sostituita dall'imposizione statale, i problemi si moltiplicano. Lo stato tende a coprire una legge cattiva con una legge ben peggiore, come cercare di spegnere un incendio con la benzina.

Per decenni la Legge boschiva del 1957 ha imposto rigidi limiti alla gestione privata dei boschi.

Possedere un bosco non significava decidere come utilizzarlo: le attività erano rigidamente regolamentate e gli usi erano soggetti a supervisione amministrativa. La legge intendeva mantenere il territorio come “bosco” in modo permanente, escludendo qualsiasi utilizzo alternativo.

Il risultato fu una proprietà svuotata di contenuto, i cui proprietari sopportavano gli oneri ma godevano di pochi benefici legittimi.

Gran parte degli incendi boschivi in Spagna sono di origine dolosa. La legge del 1957 non impediva automaticamente che i terreni bruciati venissero riclassificati o destinati ad altri usi. Molto dipendeva dalla discrezionalità della pianificazione urbanistica e dalle successive decisioni amministrative. Nella pratica questo apriva la porta al sospetto di incendi intenzionali, poiché una volta bruciati, i terreni potevano perdere il loro valore boschivo e acquisire interesse urbano o agricolo. Ogni estate, mentre le fiamme si diffondevano sulle colline, si sentivano voci che dietro di esse si nascondessero interessi urbani. Il caso più tristemente noto fu Terra Mítica, dove un incendio precedette la riclassificazione del terreno per la costruzione del parco a tema.

Non c'era bisogno di prove concrete affinché l'idea attecchisse nell'opinione pubblica: il fuoco poteva essere il primo passo verso un'attività imprenditoriale. Il guaio è che, sia per l'opinione pubblica che per i legislatori, la soluzione non è mai stata affrontare la radice del problema o dare ai proprietari terrieri la libertà di gestire i propri boschi senza doverli bruciare. Invece di eliminare gli incentivi perversi e lasciare che ogni proprietario si prendesse cura e traesse profitto dalla propria terra, i legislatori hanno scelto la strada che conoscono meglio: l'ennesimo ostacolo legale.

La Legge boschiva del 2003 fu introdotta come la grande modernizzazione del sistema giuridico riguardo i boschi. In realtà non risolse il problema alla radice, poiché le restrizioni al libero uso della proprietà furono mantenute e persino ampliate. I proprietari terrieri non potevano ancora gestire i loro appezzamenti senza l'autorizzazione amministrativa. Il grande cambiamento fu la “regola dei trent'anni”: se un bosco brucia, non può essere riclassificato o destinato a un uso diverso per tre decenni. La logica era che se non ci fosse stato alcun profitto dopo un incendio, l'incentivo a provocarne uno sarebbe venuto meno. Tuttavia questa misura non fece altro che spostarli, gli incentivi. Nessuno avrebbe più appiccato un incendio per far riclassificare un terreno (cosa che, in realtà, non è mai stata chiaramente dimostrata), ma aprì una nuova possibilità: il sabotaggio. Immaginate un appezzamento di terreno in fase di riclassificazione. Se un concorrente avesse voluto bloccarlo, sarebbe bastato dargli fuoco. Se le fiamme si fossero sviluppate prima che le pratiche burocratiche fossero state completate, il progetto sarebbe rimasto bloccato per trent'anni.

Gli incentivi distorti a provocare incendi sono solo una parte del problema. L'altra importante conseguenza delle leggi boschive spagnole non risiede nel motivo per cui gli incendi divampano, ma nel motivo per cui si diffondono con tale violenza: decenni di restrizioni legali hanno trasformato le foreste in enormi depositi di combustibile. Ciò che rende questi incendi delle catastrofi nazionali non è solo il fatto che a volte siano dolosi, ma anche il fatto che una volta iniziati – naturali o intenzionali – divampano incontrollati in boschi abbandonati deliberatamente.

Un incendio non nasce solo da una scintilla; ha bisogno di combustibile. Biomassa secca, rami caduti e sterpaglia infiammabile sono i veri motori del disastro. Questo accumulo non è casuale, ma il risultato di un quadro giuridico che per decenni ha incoraggiato l'abbandono. La legge del 2003, lungi dal risolvere il problema, ha mantenuto restrizioni alla gestione del territorio e addirittura le ha ampliate. Ha limitato gli usi consentiti (articolo 36) e ha imposto che ogni azione fosse sottoposta a piani tecnici e autorizzazioni (articolo 37). Allo stesso tempo, ha imposto ai proprietari l'obbligo di prevenire gli incendi e mantenere i propri terreni in buone condizioni (articolo 48), rendendo reato tagliare, sradicare o persino raccogliere legna da ardere senza autorizzazione (articolo 67, sezioni c e j).

Si tratta di un cumulo di contraddizioni: ai proprietari viene detto di prevenire gli incendi, ma vengono privati ​​degli incentivi per farlo, mentre si trovano ad affrontare costi, burocrazia e potenziali multe. Un bene che genera spese ma non entrate è un bene destinato all'abbandono. Per secoli tale pulizia non è mai dipesa da burocrati o sussidi, ma da pratiche spontanee che sono andate a beneficio sia della gente del posto che dei proprietari. I pastori portavano le loro mandrie, i boscaioli raccoglievano rami e i vicini raccoglievano combustibile per le loro case. Tutto ciò riduceva la biomassa pur garantendone un uso legittimo. Oggi queste pratiche vengono punite o sepolte sotto infinite autorizzazioni.

Anche tralasciando gli incentivi perversi che la legge crea per provocare incendi e l'abbandono che incoraggia, rimane un problema più grande: cosa succede dopo che il bosco è già bruciato? Una volta che l'incendio si è propagato, la legge del 2003 aggiunge un ulteriore ostacolo: imponendo la regola dei trent'anni, qualsiasi terreno bruciato veniva bloccato e ogni incentivo a ripristinare ciò che era stato distrutto veniva meno. La legge non faceva distinzione tra incendio naturale, incidente, o doloso: tutti erano ugualmente condannati. Quale proprietario avrebbe investito nel recupero di un bosco che, per legge, doveva rimanere sterile per trent'anni? Invece di incoraggiare la rigenerazione, la legge produceva l'effetto opposto: spingeva ad abbandonarlo il bosco e ne perpetuava così la devastazione.

Paradossalmente, in nome della tutela dell'ambiente, coloro che avevano il maggiore interesse a conservare il territorio sono stati espulsi.

Il risultato è un bosco che di fatto non appartiene a nessuno: né ai proprietari, che non possono gestirlo; né agli utilizzatori tradizionali, che non ne traggono più beneficio; né allo stato, che non ha i mezzi per prendersene cura. Questo è il vero problema.

Così ogni estate il rituale si ripete: elicotteri che volano sopra le nostre teste, drammatiche riprese televisive, fiamme inarrestabili, vigili del fuoco esausti e politici in posa tra le ceneri. La scena si ripete anno dopo anno, sempre con le stesse promesse di riforme e nuove commissioni di studio.

Nel frattempo il sottobosco continua a crescere, secco e pronto, in attesa della prossima scintilla. Gli incendi non aspettano e la legge non li fermerà.

[*] traduzione di Francesco Simoncelli: https://www.francescosimoncelli.com/

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Many people today think that it should be illegal to discriminate against other people because of their race, sex, or religion. Applied to blacks, the view I’ll be discussing claims that people should not be allowed to “discriminate” against blacks by refusing to hire them, by refusing to rent to them or to sell property to them, or to reject them in business transactions. If a customer comes into your store, you are not allowed to refuse him service. You are required to be “colorblind”, and, if you aren’t, you can be fined or jailed.

An alternative view is that you are allowed to or even required to give them preferential treatment. If, for example, two of your employees, one black and the other white or Asian, are eligible for promotion, you should promote the black employee, even if the white employee has more seniority. You can’t test people who want a job or a promotion if blacks don’t do as well on the test as whites or Asians, because this outcome shows that the test is biased against them. You are subject to be fined or even jailed if you do give such a test.

Murray Rothbard rejected all of what I have described in the preceding two paragraphs. He had a simple solution. All transactions in a free society are voluntary. You are free to associate, or not to associate with anyone who wants to associate with you.

As he puts it in For a New Liberty: “Fundamental to the libertarian creed is every man’s right to choose who shall enter or use his own property, provided of course that the other person is willing. ‘Discrimination,’ in the sense of choosing favorably or unfavorably in accordance with whatever criteria a person may employ, is an integral part of freedom of choice, and hence of a free society.”

He thought that most people wouldn’t discriminate, because there is an economic cost to doing so. You must bear all the costs of your choices: “Suppose, for example, that someone in a free society is a landlord of a house or a block of houses. He could simply charge the free market rent and let it go at that. But then there are risks; he may choose to discriminate against renting to couples with young children, figuring that there is substantial risk of defacing his property. On the other hand, he may well choose to charge extra rent to compensate for the higher risk, so that the free-market rent for such families will tend to be higher than otherwise. This, in fact, will happen in most cases on the free market. But what of personal, rather than strictly economic, ‘discrimination’ by the landlord? Suppose, for example, that the landlord is a great admirer of six-foot Swedish-Americans, and decides to rent his apartments only to families of such a group. In the free society it would be fully in his right to do so, but he would clearly suffer a large monetary loss as a result. For this means that he would have to turn away tenant after tenant in an endless quest for very tall Swedish-Americans. While this may be considered an extreme example, the effect is exactly the same, though differing in degree, for any sort of personal discrimination in the marketplace. If, for example, the landlord dislikes redheads and determines not to rent his apartments to them, he will suffer losses, although not as severely as in the first example. In any case, anytime anyone practices such ‘discrimination’ in the free market, he must bear the costs.”

Some people object to the example of redheads. They point out that most people don’t have negative views about redheads; and, even if they do, redheads can easily find someone else to deal with. But many people have negative views about blacks.  Because of this, blacks may find it difficult to find people who want to deal with them and as a result, they may have to accept inferior alternatives. Even if this is true, though, they have no right to violate the property rights of others. People’s property rights aren’t dependent on not putting others at a significant disadvantage.

But in fact, as Rothbard says, the profit motive is very strong, and most businessmen won’t be willing to give up a deal because of their personal opinions about a group. We can see this in the history of the American South after the end of the War Between the States.

There is an excellent discussion of this vital fact in an article by Tom Mullen, written in a very Rothbardian spirit. Here is what Mullen says: “If you believe the approved narrative, the post-bellum South was a monolithic hive-mind of sheet-wearing racists who couldn’t wait to codify their hatred into law. While this fiction validates statists of every stripe and allows northerners to feel morally superior, the truth is uncomfortable for both: large parts of the South were already desegregating on their own until the government stepped in to stop them.

“That’s right. Before the Jim Crow laws of 1890–1910, tens of thousands of Southern businesses – black and white owned – served both races without a second thought. Streetcars in New Orleans, theaters in Charleston, barbershops in Richmond, saloons in Mobile, and first-class railroad cars from Virginia to Texas routinely mixed Black and White customers. In many cities the integrated establishments were not a courageous minority; they were the majority.

“The free market was producing exactly what free markets always produce: a spectrum of choices, some segregated by private choice, most not. And the non-segregated ones were winning.

This situation changed only when the state governments required segregation: “If you believe the approved narrative, the post-bellum South was a monolithic hive-mind of sheet-wearing racists who couldn’t wait to codify their hatred into law. While this fiction validates statists of every stripe and allows northerners to feel morally superior, the truth is uncomfortable for both: large parts of the South were already desegregating on their own until the government stepped in to stop them.

“That’s right. Before the Jim Crow laws of 1890–1910, tens of thousands of Southern businesses – black and white owned – served both races without a second thought. Streetcars in New Orleans, theaters in Charleston, barbershops in Richmond, saloons in Mobile, and first-class railroad cars from Virginia to Texas routinely mixed Black and White customers. In many cities the integrated establishments were not a courageous minority; they were the majority.

“The free market was producing exactly what free markets always produce: a spectrum of choices, some segregated by private choice, most not. And the non-segregated ones were winning.”

This situation changed only after the state governments required segregation: “Every single segregation statute was a blatant violation of freedom of association and freedom of contract. The Louisiana Separate Car Act didn’t politely ‘ask’ the railroad to add a colored car; it threatened prison for any conductor who let a Black passenger sit in the White section—or a White passenger sit in the Black section if he preferred the company. The Arkansas streetcar law of 1903 didn’t appeal to conscience; it fined drivers $25 (over $800 today) every time they failed to enforce the color line.

“These weren’t ‘public safety’ regulations. They were cartel enforcement mechanisms written by the losers in the marketplace who couldn’t compete with entrepreneurs – Black or White – who treated customers as individuals instead of racial categories.

“White restaurant owners in Mobile didn’t lobby for segregation because they woke up one day disliking black people any more than they previously did. They did it because John Callahan’s café served Black longshoremen at the same counter for the same price and was stealing their lunch trade. White theater owners in Chattanooga didn’t care about ‘racial purity’ until the Bijou started selling orchestra seats to Black patrons and cut their ticket revenue in half. White barbers in Little Rock passed a law banning barbers from cutting the hair of the opposite race because Black barbers had cornered the high-end White clientele.

“And don’t think they only targeted Black competitors. White ‘race traitors’ got it worse. The Richmond streetcar monopoly didn’t just want Black hack drivers gone; they wanted every White hack driver who still picked up Black passengers run out of business, too. Economic historian Jennifer Roback documented that Jim Crow laws systematically raised the cost of doing integrated business until only the state-protected cartel survived.”

Let’s do everything we can to defend genuine freedom of association and oppose all laws requiring either preferential treatment or “segregation.” This is what our great teacher Murray Rothbard wanted us to do.

The post Murray Rothbard on Freedom of Association appeared first on LewRockwell.

You’ve been there.  You wake up, grab some coffee, check LewRockwell, and then begin sorting through domestic and global news.  All of a sudden, a story smacks you in the jaw, and you almost spit up some much-needed caffeinated brew.  

That’s what happened to me when I saw Breitbart’s lead story early Thursday. It didn’t concern the prospect of nuclear war with China or Russia, and it had nothing to do with federal judges cosplaying as royal monarchs. The headlineblared, “Bush Family Plotting Comeback to Retake GOP from Trump.” As I read the words, I could hear the little girl fromPoltergeist IIsquealing, “They’re baaaaack!” As is true of every other horror movie, I knew deep down that the Deep State Bushes would never really go away.

Breitbart was putting a spotlight on areportfrom the United Kingdom’s Daily Mail, in which that publication claims, “Behind the scenes, and still with deep connections around the country, a shadow Republican Party is lying in wait to take over when Trump is gone.” The Mail then references a “former Bush official with a visceral hatred of Trump” who is working with others to support a 2028 “push” that would “end the so-called ‘Bush Exile’ and take back the GOP from the so-called scourge of Trumpism.” Napoleon had a similar plan when he departed the Island of Elba, and look at how well that worked out for him!

The Daily Mail says that “neocons” have been very unhappy with the way that President Trump lambasts their “forever wars” and expensive “interventionism” but now feel “vindicated” by Trump’s “failure” to contain Vladimir Putin. One anonymous Bush official argues explicitly that Trump should have “surrounded himself” with members of the “deep state.” Uff da. I mean, a principal reason why Americans voted for Trump in 2016 is because they had become thoroughly fed up with both Republicans and Democrats running the same presidential and vice presidential candidates every four years: Deep State/Deep State (R) vs. Deep State/Deep State (D). Americans finally realized that voting for the same dip**its — I mean, deep-staters — is a losing strategy. Yet the Bush Republicans want to put the Deep State back in charge and celebrate “competence” or something.

The Daily Mail points out that Bush II was “particularly irked” by President Trump’s decision to break up USAID — you know, the longtime CIA front group that posed as a humanitarian organization while it stirred up chaos in foreign countries, fomented “color revolutions,” and installed NATO/EU/CIA-friendly leaders in the name of “democracy.” Although “Dubya” is biting his tongue right now, the Mail notes that “scores of former Bush officials” have already “left the Republican Party, joining anti-Trump groups like The Lincoln Project and Republican Voters Against Trump.” Perhaps the Brits are too far away to know that Americans see those clowns as nothing more than a menagerie of child predators, RINOs, somewhat-closeted Democrats, leftist-globalists, oligarchs, and permanent-government grifters who would trade the welfare of their countrymen for a hundred dollar steak and a Cayman Islands bank account filled with foreign “donations.”

The Mail acknowledges that the Bush dynasty has suffered some defeats as of late — most notably the embarrassing blowout losses for Nikki Haley in the 2024 Republican primaries and for Jeb’s son, George Prescott Bush, in the Texas attorney general race against Ken Paxton. But the British publication seems to have swallowed some of the Democrats’/RINOs’ hype that Jeffrey Epstein’s pimping services for Democrats, royals, tech billionaires, and other assorted deviants will somehow take down President Trump. Should that happen, the Mail concludes, “it could open the door within the Republican Party for the rise of an ‘anti-MAGA’ heir to Bush.”

Thirteen hours after Breitbart first uploaded its story, the most popular reactions in the comments included these darts:

“No chance…zero. They might as well dig up Herbert Hoover.”

“I’ll never vote for another Bush as long as I live. I learned my lesson.”

“No more globalists! The only reason people voted for W, is because he was better than Al Gore and John Kerry — or so we thought.”

“I hate these A-Holes and I’m from Texas. Look, MAGA is the way. It is the only way.”

“The Bushes are Kennebunkport arrogant Yankees. They’re as Texas as a New England clam bake or clam chowder.”

No matter how much the British/American Deep State would love to resurrect the Bush dynasty until it can institute a proper global government to rule over Americans, MAGA voters aren’t likely to bend the knee for Karl Rove and his petulant coalition of castrated RINOs.

The legacy of George W. Bush isn’t pretty: After failing to prevent 9/11, “Dubya” instituted unconstitutional mass surveillance programs under the Patriot Act and led us into two separate multi-decade-long wars that accomplished remarkably little given their cost in blood and treasure. Then he presided over a 2008 financial crisis that nearly broke the global economy and helped put Divider-in-Chief Obama in office for eight years.

His father should never have been Reagan’s running-mate. After riding Reagan’s populist coattails into the White House, Bush I betrayed Reaganomics and laid the groundwork for the blue-collar-job-killing NAFTA that destroyed small towns across the country.

Read my lips: No more Bushes.

The post Read My Lips: No More Bushes appeared first on LewRockwell.

The movie recommended in Chapter XII of ‘The Bible Under the Microscope’ will help us introduce this new series of chapters dedicated to history.. Apparently, this film with mythological undertones is, at its core, a mirror reflecting hidden structures and silent hierarchies. What appears as fiction on the screen could very well be an allegory of what has been happening —in the shadows— for centuries. And it is precisely this thin line between what is told and what is hidden that we will explore in this new series: what versions of history have we been allowed to know, and which have been deliberately buried?

History, just as we have confirmed with religion, is not neutral. It is a constructed narrative, traded for interests, manipulated, and sometimes deliberately distorted. Acknowledging this allows us to better understand how certain readings of the past serve to legitimize restrictions, dogmas, or privileges in the present.

The security of what we believe to know dissolves when we are asked to go beyond the obvious. What is accepted could be a structure to maintain the status quo, sustained by repetition and agreement. Under this suspicion, every statement is examined rigorously: what appears tangible may be hidden behind facades, and what is unquestioned could be the visible part of a broader project.

What I am about to share in this new series of chapters is difficult to admit, but this journey is not simply an exchange of data: it is an assault on what you believe you know. It is a clash with what you have learned since childhood, against the truths that have been repeated to you countless times in the classroom, in textbooks, and through authoritative voices. Lies upon lies—there they are, like puzzle pieces laid out on a desk, accompanied by dates, names, and doctrines that form a story which, in many moments, reveals itself as false or incomplete.

I know this is provocative and may disrupt the beliefs you hold. I have already mentioned that the subject is uncomfortable and challenges certainties that have been given to you. But trust me, within all this information there is truth and honesty. It is not about demolishing beliefs merely for the sake of doubt, but about seeking an understanding that can withstand scrutiny: the truth does not fear verification, and wisdom is not solidified without examination.

If you have doubts, I invite you to investigate and study. Not to obey a new dogma, but so that your judgment is fueled by evidence—so that you can construct, with your own hands and your own thinking, a more complex and more faithful view of reality. In this process, there is no betrayal—only an act of openness: a conversation between what you believed and what is yet to be discovered.

Before we begin, it is worth clarifying that the goal is not to pursue a radical or offensive stance; on the contrary, we aim to avoid any belligerent tone and to maintain a respectful attitude. The main objective is to learn, to know, and to rigorously investigate those little-known aspects that can clarify, even if only partially, the overall picture of our history. For those who may feel addressed, it is guaranteed that the individuals involved in this research demonstrate a clear commitment to respect for all races, cultures, and beliefs. What is delicate and thorny in this topic should not distract us from the essential purpose: to seek and present the facts with clarity and responsibility.

Introduction and Context

The information provided here is based on an extraordinary English book, “The History of the House of Rothschild” by Andrew Carrington Hitchcock, published in 2007. This history, which begins around 1743, spans just over 250 years, but its knowledge offers a comprehensive understanding of what is truly happening in the world. As a result of this information, many things can be understood, even if it may come as a shock to existing knowledge and consciousness. It is a story of power based on money, of global domination, and of world governance.

I want to reiterate, as clearly as possible, that the words expressed here are not intended to attack or offend any race or belief. We affirm that all races belong to our same species. Based on the knowledge gained from the series published about the Bible, I suspect that, just as in ancient times, the tendency to divide and confront human beings remains active. History seems to repeat itself: divide, finance both sides, and pit them against each other, as was done during times of human sacrifices. I do not blame anyone; I believe we must be clever enough to understand the game that these beings are playing with our species. I suspect that, behind these events, they still remain present, as the similarities with certain aspects of the Bible are truly astonishing.

To maintain objectivity, the chosen approach will be a chronological description of absolutely verifiable facts and events, which can be confirmed as long as the internet remains accessible. However, I must mention that today it is already difficult to find non-official information. Therefore, the period we will analyze in this chapter covers the years from 1743 to 1798.

The Origins: Mayer Amschel Bauer and the Red Sign

The story begins in 1743 with the birth in Frankfurt (Germany) of Mayer Amschel Bauer, of Ashkenazi Jewish origin.

His father, Moses, was a moneylender and owner of a “Counting House” (an accounting and financial business). He placed a red sign with the symbol of the hexagram, the six-pointed star, on the entrance door of his office—a sign he knew well: It was common at the time to distinguish homes and businesses by means of a sign or symbol, as street numbers were not common. Jews often used these distinctive symbols in Eastern Europe, and the hexagram was a Jewish identification symbol in some communities before it became the universal symbol of Zionism.

This “red sign” gave rise to the family name. Rothschild in German means Rot (red) and Schild (sign). For Mayer, symbols held decisive importance; it is very likely he already participated in secret rituals, influenced by his father’s knowledge. He was very clear about what he was pursuing; he knew the current pacts perfectly and understood the plan devised over millennia, which they, for reasons still unexplained to us, had been chosen to execute. A plan that, as we will see, was a project of control and world domination. While it is not difficult to suspect who might be behind all this, once we examine the topic of religion in the series *The Bible Under the Microscope*, located in the Forbidden Files section.

The hexagram is today visible on monuments, on the dollar bill, on the Pope’s hat, and on the flag of Israel.

In the 1760s, Mayer worked for the Oppenheimer family bank in Hanover, Germany, becoming very successful in business and a minor partner. There, he became familiar with General Von Storf. After his father’s death, Mayer returned to Frankfurt to take charge of the family business.

The Accumulation of Power and Wealth

General Von Storf was assigned to the court of Prince William IX of Hesse-Hanau. This was one of Europe’s wealthiest royal houses, which had accumulated its riches by leasing soldiers (mercenaries) to foreign countries at war, earning extraordinary profits.

Mayer Rothschild, the great merchant, saw a significant business opportunity. Under the pretext of selling valuable coins and trinkets to the prince at reduced prices, he attempted to approach the prince himself. The prince was satisfied, and Rothschild offered him participation in any other venture he might propose—an approach that would eventually lead to complete dependence of the monarchy and governments on his economic power.

Rothschild discovered that lending money to governments and royalty was more profitable than to individuals, since the loans were larger and secured by the nation’s taxes. This discovery opened an incredible source of opportunities to craft his plan and explains why all governments in the world are in debt, despite the ability to issue their own currency. Yet, countries remain tied to the largest bank in the world owned by the Rothschild family.

In 1769, the prince authorized Mayer to hang a sign identifying him as “M. Rothschild assigned to the court by His Highness Prince William of Hanau.”

Before continuing, let’s look at some strange and curious family details, because one of the traits of this dynasty is marrying within their own family and not mixing with outsiders. This detail strongly reminded me of the biblical patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, etc., where marriages often occurred within the same kinship.

In 1743, Mayer married Gutle Schnapper. Naturally, they are all Jewish—meaning, of course, people of that origin.

In 1773, Amsel was born—an important figure in the story—the first son of Mayer. Like all his siblings who followed him, he would enter the family business at age 12. In the next chapter, I will share some of the practices they use to manage this family clan and the certain requirements, laws, criteria, or principles that everyone must strictly follow.

In 1774, Salomon Mayer Rothschild was born. I won’t focus much on the births, but I want you to understand that as the plan develops, a dynasty is being created that later involves links with other families. This is because new people began to appear—motivated by financial, political, and military interests—and, of course, always connected to royalty or high-power families with great prestige. They start distributing power, but always within a very small group.

The Creation of the Illuminati

In the year 1770, a pivotal year, Mayer Rothschild drafted a project for the creation of the Illuminati and entrusted its development and formulation to Adam Weishaupt, a Crypto-Jewish Ashkenazi of Roman Catholic faith. A Crypto-Jewish Ashkenazi is a person of Ashkenazi descent (Jewish ancestry from Central/Eastern Europe) who, outwardly, appeared Christian or of another religion but secretly concealed or practiced Jewish customs. Thus, this lodge was born, whose name translates as “the Enlightened,” referring to individuals who have achieved enlightenment/reason.

On May 1, 1776, Adam Weishaupt officially completed the organization of the Illuminati. Its documented and written purpose was:

• To divide the goyim (all non-Jews) through political, economic, social, and religious means. This also included Jews whom they did not consider as such. They began by dividing all non-Jews via these means, artificially creating conflicts, wars, labor disputes, social upheavals, ethnic riots, and all kinds of revolts.
• To generate conflict among the goyim by financing weapons for both sides involved in the conflicts.
• The ultimate goal was to destroy national governments and religious institutions.

In the same year, Weishaupt infiltrated the secret Masonic order and established the Lodge of the Grand Orient as its secret headquarters, whose emblem was “Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity,” precisely the official motto of the French Republic and its national holiday celebrated on July 14. By order of Mayer Rothschild, Weishaupt recruited 2,000 followers, including the most intelligent men in arts, literature, education, science, finance, and industry, and instructed them in methods to control the population:

1. Use money and sexual bribery to gain control over influential men in government, and once compromised, subjugate them through blackmail and threats (financial ruin, public exposure, death).
2. Establish connections with students of exceptional ability in colleges and universities, training them in international relations with the central idea that only a world government can end wars. (We now know they are the ones who produce the wars; this was just an excuse). This specialized training was provided to selected individuals through scholarships funded by the Illuminati. This explains the origins of university scholarships and the fact that all universities, especially the most renowned, are financed by them — a project that began with the Illuminati.
3. Use these controlled or trained individuals as agents within all governments, positioning them as “experts and specialists behind the scenes” to advise policies aligned with the secret plan of the Illuminati conspiracy.You may have already realized that those who appear to govern are not truly in control; they merely hold political positions and owe favors in the form of money, business interests, or other benefits. They serve only an apparent role, while behind the scenes, puppets are used as agents in all governments. Major institutions you know—such as the UN, WHO, UNESCO, etc.—were all created by them with the same purpose.
4. Achieve absolute control over the press (the only social communication medium at the time) so that all news and information can be skewed, twisted, altered, manipulated, and controlled to induce the masses to believe whatever they want, including the idea of a world government.

Everything you see on television, hear on the radio, read in newspapers, or magazines is manipulated. Independent and truthful information can only be found through independent channels—something increasingly difficult since 2020, when censorship began to dominate the internet. This explains how many events are inexplicable, how realities are fabricated from nothing, and how, overnight, shocking news spreads while the masses, mesmerized by mainstream media, believe it to be true.

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The post The Dynasty That Changed the World appeared first on LewRockwell.

On a Saturday morning, August 1, 2021, my boss uncharacteristically showed up at my workplace, two acres of community gardens. Getting right to the point, she asked if I knew someone named John Schroeder. I dealt with hundreds of people at the gardens and knew countless more from other settings. I couldn’t recall anyone with that name.

I asked why she wanted to know. She said someone who had so identified himself had emailed her that I was spreading Covid and “vaccine” misinformation on the Internet.

I told her, “with all due respect,” that I knew far more about The Virus, the shots and the law than she did and would discuss these with her for as long as she was willing. I added that, though Rutgers University, our employer, was about to require all staff to inject, I would never comply, they’d have to fire me and I’d sue them if they did.

To her credit, my boss, a late-thirties Public Health PhD candidate who bought the “Pandemic” hype, understood what Schroeder and many others didn’t: the First Amendment protects free speech. Besides, everything I had written about the shots was true. My semi-government-funded employer couldn’t restrict what I wrote and said, especially on my own time.

Not gonna lie, though: I often mocked the lockdowns and masks in the presence of those I encountered at the gardens. Aren’t college campuses supposed to be bastions of discourse? Isn’t this the ostensible reason for academic tenure?

I requested my boss to send me my accuser’s email. She did but deleted the sender’s address so as to prevent direct contact.

FW: Mark Oshinskie — Director of New Brunswick Community Farm

From: John Schroeder
Sent: Monday, July 26, 2021 3:28 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Mark Oshinskie — Director of New Brunswick Community Farm

The director of the J&J funded community farm in New Brunswick is a rabid anti-vaxxer who is posting vaccine and covid disinformation on his Medium page.

Please see here:

https://forecheck32.medium.com/vaxx-time-for-bonzo-251501c8b742

And generally here:

https://forecheck32.medium.com/

You are each now on notice of this and I should think something should be done about his continued interest in posting dangerous misinformation.

Thank you for your attention to this matter,

John

—

I’m still not sure John Schroeder wasn’t a pseudonym used by someone I knew. Because I often criticized the Covid Scam and have publicly taken other non-PC stances, numerous individuals in my NPR-loving town hate me. A difference between them and me is that when I disagree with someone, I let that person know directly. I don’t contact their boss and “tell on” them.

If the Schroeders of the world strongly believed in lockdowns, closures, masks, tests and shots, why were they so afraid to defend their views in the marketplace of ideas?

—

Regardless, I didn’t see how pointing out that the lockdowns and shots would cause more harm than good made me “rabid.” Although the lockdowns caused extensive, permanent damage and the shots failed to stop infection or spread and millions of vaxxers have died or been injured, Schroeder and his ilk still falsely tell themselves that the lockdowns and shots saved millions of lives. It’s easy to think you’re right if you rely on bogus statistics, only hear one side of a story and never consider opposing arguments.

Since March 2020, Schroeder and many other lockdown, mask and jab supporters have believed that calling opponents names like “grandma killer,” “Trumper” and “anti-vaxxer” marginalized their targets and simultaneously placed the name-callers on some self-imagined higher moral and intellectual ground. Instead, name-calling should discredit name-callers. I didn’t need to call those who supported the vaxxes, names. I methodically enumerated and explained the lockdowns, school closures, masks and shots’ shortcomings and their financial, social and human costs.

And though “anti-vaxxer” was intended as a disqualifying insult, being called one didn’t bother me. I believe all of the ostensible vaccines are overrated, have seriously injured many children and that parents should be allowed to refuse to have their kids injected. I’m willing to discuss this topic with those who disagree, as long as they remain calm. I’ll first ask which pro-vaxx studies they’ve read and what they know about these studies’ designs. Then I’ll point out the sharp drop in incidence of diseases decades before vaccinations began.

I wondered what Schroeder thought “should be done” to me. I suspect he copied the garden’s vaxx-making funder, Johnson & Johnson, hoping they’d fire me. This outcome was unlikely. I knew a bunch of J & J employees who volunteered at the gardens. We had gotten along well as we worked alongside each other. I think they would have said I was the opposite of rabid.

And those J & J shots didn’t work so well. Unsurprisingly, none of the shots did.

—

Brainwashed by panic-mongering media, those who supported lockdowns, school closures, masks, asymptomatic testing and vaccines have been wrong throughout. Living among so many fearful, illogical, low-information and ultimately, destructive individuals bothered me. It’s hard to forget the extent of the groupthink, how imperious people and governments became, and how, collectively, millions of people were either threatened with firings or actually lost jobs because they didn’t inject.

Although I didn’t hide from others or wear a mask and I got a religious exemption from the shots, I couldn’t avoid being censored. Medium removed not only my lockdown and shot criticisms, it also removed dozens of my other, unrelated posts. They digitally “disappeared” me, presumably, given the timing, because Schroeder reported me to them. That’s when I found Substack.

—

The Scamdemic was built on a relentless barrage of propaganda. In order to deceive the public with its biologically, logically and logistically untenable virus-crushing strategies, the propagandists tried to comprehensively block or erase messages criticizing lockdowns, school closures, masks, asymptomatic tests and vaxxes. The propagandists hated dissent. Allowing the public to consider such messaging would have caused a critical mass of the public to question the “mitigation” measures and jabs and ended the Scamdemic.

From the beginning, it was obvious that various entities, later labeled the Censorship Industrial Complex, had conspired to present a one-sided viral narrative. These entities included federal, state and local governments, the media and a group of government-sponsored, university-employed, euphemistically named entities, purportedly tasked to thwart “Misinformation” but really designed to prevent the public from learning the truth about the Covid Scam. Mum was the word.

Clandestine censorship subsequently became a matter of record. Emails showed that Biden’s henchmen and bureaucrats pressured the media and websites to deplatform, suspend or shadowban those who criticized the lockdowns, school closures, masks, tests and shots. This censorship went far beyond “influencers” with sizable followings. It also encompassed legions of social media users who were suspended by Facebook, LinkedIn, et al. for questioning the Covid “mitigation” or later, the shots.

—

It’s been painfully clear that many with whom I’ve discussed the Covid mitigation and shots had never heard basic facts that revealed the Scam. As four of many examples, most lockdown and shot backers have never heard that: 1) many said to have died ‘“from Covid” really died of other causes, especially old age, 2) many ostensible Covid victims were medicated or ventilated to death, 3) the PCR tests used to detect “Covid” were never supposed to be used for diagnosis because these tests were wildly overinclusive and 4) vaxx efficacy and risk stats were badly distorted via statistical, definitional chicanery I’ve detailed in prior posts.

In a sixth-grade unit regarding newspapers, our teacher, Mrs. Kasper, told the class that newspapers were valuable because they presented both sides of a story, using more facts than TV or radio reports used. In pre-Scamdemic decades, many newspapers, including the major ones, published my commentaries on various topics, even though I had expressed minority views. I remember, in the mid-1970s, seeing a local nun deliver a forceful anti-abortion, Voice of the People, message after CBS’s New York City affiliate’s Six O’clock News. That equal time ethic is long gone.

In March, 2020, newspapers wouldn’t publish my, or anyone else’s, lockdown, school closure, mask and Covid potlatch criticisms. At that time, we Covid dissidents comprised a tiny slice of the population, probably less than 10%. Some of these conscientious objectors were MDs, Public Health PhDs or, as I was, attorneys.

While we objectors wanted to engage in dialogue, public debate didn’t occur. Unheard by most, I shouted along with other dissidents into gale force winds of government and media demagoguery. Richard Nixon spoke of The Silent Majority. Lockdown and vaxx opponents were The Silenced Minority.

Without seeing lockdown skepticism in print or on electronic media, many succumbed to peer pressure and accepted or acquiesced to the prevailing Viral Terror narrative. If instead of such mob mentality, some dissenting voices were allowed to be heard, as in the movie, Twelve Angry Men, many people would have, for the first time, considered the Covid response’s flaws. Such adversarial exchanges used to be common on TV news shows as 60 Minutes or the McNeil/Lehrer News Hour.

While many people are willing to dance, most are too shy to get on the floor until others do. Similarly, as news purveyors blocked Covid skepticism, news sources prevented others who might have added their anti-lockdown and anti-jab voices from seeing that Covid skeptics like me were out on the floor, assailing these interventions.

Beyond reluctance to stand alone, supporting the Covid overreaction was cast as a moral imperative. The ads told us to “Stay Home, Save Lives” and “Your mask protects me.” In order to be seen, or see oneself, as “good” or “kind,” one was told that they had to buy into all of the mitigation measures and shots.

But if the masses had seen and heard that others sensibly opposed this unprecedented overreaction, some of the reluctant Covid rule followers who considered themselves “the good people” would have concluded that not only was it OK, but far better for humanity, to reject the Covid theater and later, to oppose injecting billions of people with an unnecessary, experimental substance than it was to support any of the overreaction. The lockdown supporters, mask wearers and vaxx takers signaled virtue. In contrast, those who opposed these measures advanced public welfare.

If, in particular, more celebrities or clergy had publicly observed all of the Covid theater’s damage, the dysfunctional wall of obedience and censorship would have been breached and then, collapsed and been overrun. The few in either occupation who spoke against lockdowns, closures, masks or shots didn’t receive column space or airtime.

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The post Covid Censors Mending Fences, Poorly appeared first on LewRockwell.

Yes, Israel, Ukraine, NATO and all other countries that receive military or financial aid are parasites, not allies, in two ways. 1. No other country has the resources to come to our defense, and 2. it is impossible for us to be invaded because of our oceans. The money we spend on other countries is nothing less than a “go to hell” message to the American people from the Military Industrial Complex aka Zionist Jewish Lobby aka Deep State and our government.

The American people were sold out by the President and most members of Congress. If they were honest, you would have the greatest economy and lifestyle in the world, guaranteed.

Christian Churches that promote Zionism are a powerful political force. It is difficult for me to understand how Christian Ministers if they were honest and devout could promote Zionism when its evil actions are so contrary to the teaching of Jesus Christ.

Just remember that we have been in almost constant Wars for Profit during the last eighty years, without a single Declaration of War.  None were for National Security. We lost 105,000 Military Dead, and millions were killed in other countries, causing the world to hate us. The American People lost lives and their standard of Living while our “officials” profited. The only legal solution is to vote most incumbents in both parties out of office. They are all criminals.

If President Trump was to guarantee Israel our support for 20 years, he should be impeached forthwith. Israel has had the gall to ask for a 20-year guarantee of support.  If Trump was to sell our souls, lives and treasure to Israel for any time period, I would expect a revolt.

I have supported President Trump, but this would be the last straw. The American people have been given the Purple Shaft With Barbed Wire Clusters. In other words we have been screwed, big time, by those we trusted and elected, who turned out to be criminals and traitors without morals or ethics.

This is the time in my life as a writer when additional words are not required in a paper. I have told the  simple truth, and if I was considered influential it would lead to my demise by the Jewish Lobby aka Deep State and our government. But my readers already know this truth. Recent polls show that over half of our population now objects to our support of Israel.

Through my writings, I am merely reinforcing the rise in awareness by all the people of the high levels of corruption within the criminal enterprise known as our government. Everybody is feeling the effects of the satanic control exercised by Israel in their daily lives. My writings have offered a peaceful solution, but it requires a strong resolve of moral character by our leaders. Our leaders have sworn an oath to protect our rights, and if this is not their primary objective, they must be removed, one way or the other.

The post Traitors in Government Fund Israel, Ukraine, and NATO Parasites appeared first on LewRockwell.

During the 27 years Karol Wojtyla reigned as Christ’s Vicar on earth, an unprecedented tenure beginning in 1978 and ending with his death in 2005, he managed to accomplish a great many things, not the least being countless pastoral visits (129 to be exact) around the globe, including places which had only the most tenuous connection to Catholic-Christianity. But of all those lands and countries touched by the papal presence, there were three in particular that he needed to see more than once.

These were Poland, his native land, to which he would go nine times, in large part to help bring about the end of Soviet hegemony in Europe. This was followed by France, eldest daughter of the Church, to which he would go eight times, raising repeatedly the matter of her baptismal promises. Finally, there was the United States, of course, a nation no pope could ill-afford not to visit, which he did seven times, reminding us each time not to forget where our freedoms came from and why.

But setting aside Poland and the United States, as important as those visits were, it seems to me that the eight visits to France represent perhaps the most consequential exercise of all—in terms, that is, of trying to reorient the soul of France back to God, to that absolute attraction for whom we all lost a very long time ago thanks to the sin of Adam.

And pursuant to that end, he would unfailingly point to the sacrament of baptism as the necessary means, the perfect point of entry, as it were, in the Church’s effort to reignite in the soul precisely that primal attraction which Original Sin had nearly wiped out altogether. And not only within the individual soul, as though one’s relation to God were a purely private affair, but in the outward forms of life as well, which equally evince hunger and thirst for God, for that wholeness of life which only baptism can bring. Here we see the enduring relevance of that larger and more public dimension to human life which we rightly call culture.

Faith, in other words, whose very enfleshment creates culture, becomes the key ingredient in human history. “A society which has lost its religion,” Christopher Dawson warns, “becomes sooner or later a society which has lost its culture.” And because it is of the very essence of faith to wish to raise up all that has to do with man, including the social order, and thus elevate it all onto the plane of glory, the Church cannot remain indifferent to culture, cannot leave it in its wounded and unredeemed state.

But why did the pope think it necessary to go to France quite so often? Eight visits to a country clearly and undeniably in decline, indeed, in a kind of moral and, yes, even demographic freefall? Why all the attention? Why not simply write it off as yet another failed state, not unlike so many third-world implosions we regularly hear about on the news? Might it have something to do with her being “the eldest daughter of the Church”? And what does that tell us about her place in the economy of grace? I mean, does the honorific still apply if a nation appears to have fallen into apostasy?

But that is just the point, isn’t it? France really is the purest distillate of what postmodern man actually looks like. It is not a pretty sight. A nation without God will inevitably turn on itself, divesting its people of those protections guaranteed by God. And so if the Church were to succeed in calling France back to the source of her greatness, her identity in Christ, arresting thereby her fall into infidelity, how wonderfully contagious might her return then prove to be in bringing other erstwhile Catholic nations back to God.

It is well to remind ourselves that it was on his very first visit, in May of 1980, that the Holy Father spoke of France in a way unlike any other nation, reminding her of history’s high regard for her role as the eldest of all the Church’s daughters. And why is that? Because, owing to her having been the very first among the peoples of Europe to embrace the Faith and the hope of Jesus Christ, she is not only entitled to wear that particular crown but she has also been most earnestly enjoined by Christ to give witness to that fact by evangelizing others.

And what use had she made of it but to spread the message of Christ far and wide, urging her pagan neighbors to go and do likewise. Did it especially please the people of France, I wonder, to have received such a warm congratulatory message from the pope and Bishop of Rome?

He would again stoke that particular flame of French pride when, in 1996, he returned to celebrate 1,500 years of her Catholic-Christian identity. On that day spent celebrating the great jubilee of the baptism of the Frankish King Clovis in the year 496, he particularly commended France for her missionary outreach to the world, for producing so rich a repository of saints and martyrs along the way.

But then, just as the pope was about to conclude his panegyric, the mood suddenly changed. “Dear France,” he began,

permit me to ask this question. We are here to celebrate the fifteenth centenary of a baptism, which you like to think of as your baptism, as the baptism of France. What have you done with your baptism? What has become of it? What have you made of your baptism?

Now there’s an icebreaker for you. And not a few of the French who were there felt the sting of it—including most especially the President of France himself, Jacques Chirac, who had been at great pains in welcoming the Holy Father in the name of a “republican and secular France,” thus erasing an entire millennium and a half of French history.

If the event of a king’s baptism, his putting on Christ both for himself and for all those disparate tribes whom divine providence entrusted him to unite and look after, is not to be dismissed as unreal and therefore unimportant, then it is a huge historical mistake not to acknowledge the connection. It shows how vastly ignorant so much of France is of her own past. Between governance and God, human culture and Christian faith, a nexus had long ago been struck, the fruit of which became Western Christian Civilization. By not knowing that fact, or by heaping scorn and derision upon it, France has made the most egregious confession of ignorance. She has uprooted the very tree in whose branches she had been sitting for centuries.

It was in August of the following year, 1997, that the pope would return to his eldest daughter, traveling this time to Paris for World Youth Day, during which he would strike a very different note. There he spoke to many thousands of eager young pilgrims.

“Do you know,” he asked them, “what the sacrament of baptism does to you?” He told them:

It means that God acknowledges you as his children and transforms your existence into a story of love with him. He conforms you to Christ so that you will be able to fulfill your personal vocation. He has come to make a pact with you and he offers you his peace. Live from now on as children of the light who know that they are reconciled by the Cross of the Savior!

What might the young people of France yet do with their baptismal promises? And what are we going to do with ours?

This article was originally published on Crisis Magazine.

The post Without Faith There Is No Future appeared first on LewRockwell.