ClaytonB
Member

You are implicitly assuming that this is "business-as-usual" -- it's not. Suppose we are under an active foreign military occupation -- the "states versus Feds" calculus is irrelevant. Both states and Feds are captured by the foreign occupying power, in that case. I would suggest that it's not impossible that this is already the case. You just didn't get the memo...

Exactly right. The Constitution is a kind of contract or covenant between the 13 original colonies and (by extension) all other states which have joined the union. Conceptually, the Federal government is a little bit like a homeowners' association and the states are the homes. The association has obligations to the homeowners under its contract and ought to abide by those obligations, whether that gives the association more power or less power over the homeowners. Of course, that is not what happens. DC only upholds its obligations when that gives them more power, and it dreams up obligations it never had in order to increase its power even more. The fact that it keeps inventing obligations for itself doesn't make its actual obligations disappear. But the foreign infiltration and takeover of the HOA (Federal government) by entities that are not even party to the contract (Constitution) should not be discussed in terms of some kind of turf war between the homeowners themselves. At the very least, this is a complete failure to comprehend what is happening.

The Freemasons describe themselves as a secret society. In English, the word "secret" has two senses that are quite distinct. In modern English, we use the word almost exclusively in the sense of something that is being concealed. In olden times, however, the word was not only used in this way, and it was sometimes used in a sense more like we use the word "private" today. Today, I would not describe my driver's license as "secret" but, say, 200 years ago, that would have been a valid description of it. "Secret documents" didn't necessarily mean documents that contain incriminating or strategically sensitive information... it could just mean "private". If the Freemasons are merely a private society, then there is nothing inherently evil in that. What we know of the dogmatic teachings of Freemasonry is troubling, to say the least. Freemasonry places a huge emphasis on knowledge (gnosis) and the doing of good deeds as a path to salvation. The New Testament directly refutes both of these dogmatic positions (these are the roots of gnosticism and pharisaism) and flatly asserts that the only path to salvation is through faith. Faith is the path to salvation because (a) everyone has sinned, so no one can claim to "deserve" to get into heaven and (b) if knowledge were the path to salvation, then heaven would only be for smart, educated, savvy, privileged people. But Isaiah says: "This is what the high and exalted One says— he who lives forever, whose name is holy: “I live in a high and holy place, but also with the one who is contrite and lowly in spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly and to revive the heart of the contrite." (57:15) Can someone be a Freemason and not think the dogmatic aspects of it all the way through, and also have Christian faith? As an outsider, that seems very possible to me. But maybe insiders have a different perspective. Paul says of the builders in 1 Corinthians 3:10ff: Those Freemasons who have Jesus the Messiah as the cornerstone of their life will be able to build that which will endure the fire at the end of all things. Those who seek some other foundation will build nothing but wood, hay and chaff that will be consumed in the fire. Because Freemasonry is a secret society, outsiders cannot make any firm conclusion about its aims and ends. But at the end of the Age, every secret thing will be revealed and if Freemasonry reveals itself as hostile to the Gospel, it will be destroyed in the fire along with everything else that opposes God. "They will neither harm nor destroy on all my holy mountain, for the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea." (Isaiah 11:9) Nothing and no one who is hostile or opposes God in any way, even in the deepest, most secret chambers of their heart, will ever enter the New Jerusalem.

Yes. Everything is normal. Masks are normal. Economic shutdown is normal. Dudes with beards and breasts are normal. Joe is normal. National Guard in DC is normal. It's all normal, nothing to see here, keep moving along... But while we're at it... why can't Q be normal? Ohhhhhh, snap! Liberal "logic" cannibalizes itself on its internal contradictions every time... :rolleyes:

Chinavirus TP shock shortages. Many bank branches already closed by Chinavirus. Fire drill for account freezes + card shut-offs? "Rolling financial blackouts"?

So there is a silver lining to the Chinavirus... I suddenly find myself inclined to support Bill Gates's Plandemic 2.0... IRS will be forever stuck processing 2019 returns, LOL...

Good point... "They're coming after me for reverse-quarantining the elderly and causing huge numbers of deaths, SOMEBODY GET ME A SEX SCANDAL IMMEDIATELY!!!"

I told him to but I was only joking... sorry about that...

At minimum. If only we had Gitmo back then. We could have just shipped the entire compound straight to Gitmo instead of burning them alive.

Feds: "David Koresh is a creep." Also Feds: "So, clearly, we must murder his children and anyone else that is in the compound with him. It is the only way..." (For the record, there is no doubt that Koresh was a creep and a sexual deviant that hid behind bible-speak subterfuge to justify his antics to his naive followers. But mass-murder is far creepier and more horrifying than anything that Koresh did...)

While I understand the political significance of the Parler/Twitter showdown and the outcome of that, the fact is that there is no large market demand for a Twitter alternative. While Trumpers would join a Twitter alternative to get his messages, it's Trump not the Twitter alternative that is in demand. If there were two non-Twitter users for every one Twitter user, demanding an alternative to Twitter, you can be certain there would be trillion-dollar VC whales lining up to capitalize a competitor, at any scale. Twitter would go down. But we also have to realize that the US economy is not a free market and has not been a free market at least since 1971 when the dollar was cut from gold. The destruction of the free market in the US can be traced back much further than 1971 but that's a great historical anchor-point to start the discussion. So, when people point to "market failures" after 1971 and say things like, "See, the free market doesn't work!", they're just arguing a strawman. Communism dressed up in free-market drag doesn't work. But that's not the free market's fault.

Today, I'm identifying as a PB&J sandwich... respect my hooman rights, pplz!!

Corporations are just formalized systems of cooperation and organization. They are like "human machines", that is, machines made out of humans. They are more elaborate than simple forms of cooperation, such as a business partnership. But they have no independent existence from the humans that compose them, any more than you can exist without the cells that make up your body! The meddling of the State hampers and uselessly constrains the types and kinds of corporate arrangements that people would form in the absence of such meddling. But innovators keep moving forward anyway. The DAO (Distributed Autonomous Organization) concept from the Ethereum blockchain is an example of a recent innovation in methods of corporate organization. Even if it doesn't work long-run, it's still creative and shows that the suppression of innovation is a silent cost that is imposed on the human population by blockheaded regulators, at unimaginable expense to us. It is easy to prove harm when something that exists is stolen from you, but it is difficult to prove harm when the potential you could have created was stolen. But the loss to social wealth is the same, either way. The costs of all State meddling over all time are staggering beyond imagination.

Protectionist regulation creates harmful centralization within the market. Centralization that occurs by market action itself (without protectionism) is not harmful, it is desirable. So, antitrust laws are either breaking up centralized monopolies implicitly created by the government's own protectionist regulations (correct solution: abolish the protectionism), or it is breaking up businesses that are centralized by unhampered market action; the break-up of such businesses is harmful to the market. In an unhampered market, if people are mistreated, even by a centralized business / supplier, this creates new demand for a new competitor to enter the market. Even if the centralized business is some kind of Google-like behemoth, that is no matter -- there are plenty of VCs who are capitalized to the gills and just waiting for the opportunity to swoop in and destroy a business of any size that has become complacent and arrogant towards its customers. People do not need to be forced to do what is in their own interests. This is the logical flaw underlying all statutory law. Statutory law is always either redundant or harmful. It is never helpful because forcing people to do things they don't want to do, or forcing people not to do things they want to do cannot improve social well-being. It is just compulsion and/or prohibition and it reduces humans to cattle. The entire concept of statutory law is inherently hostile to the image of God within man.

The wealthy benefit from inflation with or without debt. As far as I understand Trump's balance-sheet, he's been in the black since before Apprentice, and he made boatloads of cash off of that show (in addition to his properties, construction biz, etc.) So all of the "Trump's loans" hot-air coming out of the DC-Swamp-Inc is just concern-trolling in my book.

I'm assuming that Trump is the wealthiest US individual to serve as US President to date, but he's not the first wealthy individual to serve as US President. So there are precedents for all of this stuff. Ethics reviews, legal reviews, etc. It's impossible for someone in Trump's position to not benefit in any way from being POTUS -- he has long been in the business of monetizing his fame. Becoming POTUS made his already famous name more or less a household word not only in the US but in many foreign countries. So, ethical accusations that begin with the premise that Trump should somehow magically not have benefited financially in any way, shape or form from being POTUS are absurd. All in all, I think that Trump "didn't need to do this", so I think the jibber-jabber among the DC talking-heads about how Trump was going to steal the White House curtains on the way out the door is pure 100% projection. A million dollars is a lot of money to a DC-Swamp-Inc millionaire, and so these psychopathic Swamp-creatures will go to great lengths and take great risks to obtain an extra million dollars. A million dollars is not a lot of money to a billionaire. He "didn't need to do this". Trump wasn't plotting on taking the White House curtains with him when he left office... :rolleyes: