human community - crushing

January 26, 2021

The Cost of Crushing Human Community

Human beings do not flourish in isolation. Politics, racial tensions, and a host of other social maladies have been the ostensible reason for riots and chaos in this past year. However, dismissing the deleterious effects of social distancing, enforced isolation, and long quarantines on the human psyche seems blind at best—and dangerously foolish at worst—in explaining one of the reasons why our public emotions have reached a fevered intensity. Western populations are angry, and basic social and economic liberties have been whittled away in the face of an unseen, viral enemy. The inconsistent application of liberty, restricting of policies, and the questionable effectiveness of these actions, have fueled a powder keg of frustration. More outbursts can be anticipated unless we, as a population, take bold steps to recover the communities that we so desperately need in order to live fully human lives.

The physical need for tactile human proximity has never been more painfully evident than with the current COVID-19 restrictions—created to preserve physical health, but having done little to support the psychological and social health of the human being. By allowing governments to sow the seeds of fear, we have come to depend on people in distant capitals (rather than those in our own communities) to make policies for decision-making.

We, as individuals in a human community, have paid a high price for this palpable fear. Weddings, Baptisms, funerals, graduations, and holiday celebrations: all the things marking our human time on this earth, have wilted away in the face of panic. Away from our altars and into the ugly, uncensored nonsense of digital streaming, we have unquestioningly allowed ourselves to be led. Sitting on our sofas in front of our screens, do we have the audacity and courage left to make a connection between pandemic isolation policies, and chaos in the streets? Manners, respect, and consideration can only thrive in a community of persons.

Without a physical community, respect for others is no longer needed, and we quickly devolve into a maelstrom of outrageous and egregious behavior. 

This is not simply an American phenomenon; it is global in reach. To reduce the transmission of COVID-19 here in Germany where I live, Chancellor Angela Merkel and the heads of government of the German federal states have put in place severely restrictive social measures. Health experts concede these restrictions have been employed, despite any proof that such measures mitigate the increased spread of the virus. On the same day the new restrictions were published, an English German newspaper ran articles about how unemployment has not risen, and how the ability to reach climate control goals in Germany has finally been made possible during the pandemic. 

The German population is now, at least theoretically, in almost total isolation. Social contacts are not even permissible amongst extended family members or neighbors. Over the New Year's weekend, many Germans went to popular hiking spots to walk and sled on snow covered hills. The government responded by closing parking lots adjacent to these sites.

There is a gloomy quiet blanketing this nation who, under normal times, is renowned worldwide for gregarious, communal celebrations of hops and grapes. 

The immediate result of these more restrictive policies is the deepening enmity amongst people who tend to be taciturn by nature anyway. Furtive glances over mask covered faces reveal deep seated fears about catching a virus in which far more people recover than die. 

Isolation and quarantining are dangerous and antithetical to the very constitution of any human being, regardless of nationality. Results from a multitude of psychological studies show that social isolation increases real physical effects such as high cholesterol, blood pressure, and obesity. Pathologically, men seem to suffer more from social isolation than women. Indefinite and prolonged solitary confinement (in excess of fifteen days) has been called torture by the United Nations, and is strongly discouraged. Although solitary confinement is still used in the United States, in Germany it occurs rarely—and even then, lasts only three to five days. There is a certain macabre irony in the fact that strict COVID-19 restrictions have been in place in Germany since November 10. Sadly, none of these measures have yet been proven successful in abating the spread of the virus. 

The deep-seated concern—if not obsession—for physical health on both sides of the Atlantic is only possible in an environment where humans are seen first and foremost as a corporal beings, rather than amalgamations of body, soul, and spirit. As Europe and the United States move into a post-Christian, secular age, can there be any other way to assess the true nature of the human being, except as a material entity? Governments who view people and life only as material ends rather than living human souls, teeter on a very precipitous slope. Slavery and abortion in the United States, and the Jewish Holocaust in Germany, have poignantly and tragically proven the catastrophic results of a strictly material assessment of the human being. 

One of the strangest perversions of the worldwide pandemic restrictions has been the use of Christ's command to "love thy neighbor" in encouraging social distancing and isolation. Cloaked in a guise of caring, the world's human population has been effectively controlled by (one can only hope well-intended) governments, purportedly concerned for each individuals' physical health. Politicians have assiduously mandated policies allowing for their own immunity from personal responsibility for the spread of the virus, rather than pursuing the best policies for the social and mental well being of the human person.

At the heart of these draconian isolation policies is the nugget of power; the ultimate drug that few humans can resist. For American and European leaders to remain in political control, the use of power and authority has been required to delegate the health of communities to the health of individuals. Science, instead of leadership, has allowed elected politicians to allegedly keep humanity safe by breaking apart the social and physical networks needed for healthy community life.

Governments may deliver a vaccine, but they will not repair our communities. Our personal responsibility, as both leaders and members of communities, belongs to us alone. Ironically, Christian congregations may be the best places for people of faith who utterly understand the value of community. These small, particular communities could serve as an example for a larger, national community—one desperately needing to recover a communal spirit. Each parish community or congregation has the genius and creativity granted by the Holy Spirit to become a vibrant place of both worship, and faithful social community life. Prayer and commitment to rebuilding can lead us out of loneliness, and into a newness of life and health for a parish and a nation. 

The shackles of isolation and quarantining have been costly to the human spirit. For the love of all humanity, we must emerge from our masks and turn toward each other. In the arms of a community of prayer and of each other, we can uniquely regain our wonderful humanity, found in a complex and miraculous mosaic of body and blood, spirit and soul. Doctoral candidates yet to be born will write thesis after thesis about the role of governments in fighting the pandemic. Yet, our collective human character can write its own story now, as we stand up and fight for the rebuilding of our communities; communities that every human being inherently knows are necessary for human flourishing and salvation.

[Photo Credit: Shutterstock]

By Michele McAloon

Michele McAloon is a wife, mother, retired Army officer, and canon lawyer. She resides with her family in Germany.

Buy off of American people

The Buy Off Of The American People Is Complete

By Ron Ewart|January 20th, 2021

Click on name above to read more articles by this author

By Ron Ewart

"A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government.  A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury.  From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy, which is always followed by one-party rule, or a dictatorship ….. [or an Absolute Democrat Monarchy!"]  (multiple author version)

Today, January 20^th, 2021, President-elect Joe Biden will give his Inaugural Address to the nation under the backdrop of 25,000 troops protecting the city against ….. what?  His speech will be full of platitudes, clichés, bromides, promises, propaganda, lies and a hollow call for unity.  It will be punctuated by the need to spend trillions of American taxpayer dollars on pays offs to constituents, Climate Change, the Green New Deal and provide amnesty for illegal aliens.  Instead of unity, the speech will widen the division between the rich and poor, white, black, Latinos and Asians, man and woman, gay and straight, religious and non-religious, gun owner and non-gun owner.

The unity that Joe hopes for is a mirage.  In a recent article we wrote:  "Republicans and Democrats are engaging in cynical, destructive combat and have for at least a Century.  Until the Democrats retreat from their headlong advance into Progressive socialism, radical environmentalism and globalism, and their attempts to destroy the foundation of individual freedom along with the Constitution itself, the combat will continue unabated.  There will be no unity.  There will only be division, vitriol, contempt, hostility, acrimony, disdain and quite possibly, civil war.  Joe Biden's call for unity is not only hypocritical, it is a hollow attempt at reconciliation after waging a relentless, 4-year coup d'etat on a duly elected president of the United States!" 

Nevertheless, Joe will focus on social and environmental justice, equity and gender equality.  He'll say that elections have consequences and the voters have spoken and because elections have consequences he has a mandate to implement all of his socialist policies.  Laced within the speech is the implied "shut up and comply" directive and "don't let those conservative nut cases convince you that you are free and you don't have to comply."

Diversity and identity politics will play a big role in Biden's speech.  His administration and cabinet are being built on diversity and identity politics.  It's not what you can do well that counts, it's the color of your skin, or confusion about your gender that matters.  What the speech won't do is to strengthen the pledge to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States since the Constitution acts as an impediment to the goals and agendas of Joe Biden and the Democrats.  Under Democrat control for at least the next two years, (if not four years) the Constitution will take a terrible beating from which it may never recover.

It's not likely that Joe will mention the other plans that Democrats have for the American people, our system of government and the justice system that include adding Washington DC and Puerto Rico as new states, repealing the electoral college and the filibuster rule, free college tuition, Medicare for all and a whole host of massive changes to the relationship between government and the people where the people are subservient to the government.  He obviously won't mention the exploding deficit that one day could catapult us into hyperinflation where your dollar isn't worth the paper it's printed on. 

And of course, voter fraud will be purposely omitted.  To the Democrats, voter fraud is a Republican created myth.

In short, the government's (Democrats) transformation of America into a socialist nation is complete.  Democrat Presidents Wilson, Roosevelt, Johnson, Carter, Clinton, Obama and finally President Biden will have sealed America's fate.  The deed is done and it only took a century to do it.  Progressivism, the movement that started around the turn of the 19^th to 20^th Centuries, has prevailed.  All of our institutions, the news media, social media and academia, have been corrupted with Progressivism.  Millions of Americans, young and old alike, have been brainwashed into believing that the Progressive ideology is the only true ideology. All other ideologies are to be excluded by censorship, or by force if necessary.

Socialism, radical environmentalism and one-world government (globalism) are embedded in the folds of Progressivism.  Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton and the other signors of the Declaration of Independence had it all wrong.  The White Europeans that gave birth to freedom and settled America were flawed and of course, worse than that, they were racists, according to the Democrats and Black Lives Matter cult.

The Democrats, over the last 100 years, have managed to buy off a majority of the American people with government handouts, such that those Americans will always vote to preserve those handouts.  It doesn't bother those voters to be dependent on government.  They have no pride in being self-sufficient, self-reliant, independent, responsible and free, just so long as "they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury." As the Democrats have planned all a long, these dependent voters will continue to vote for those politicians (Democrats) that promise to keep the handouts coming until they have a majority that can't be beat at the ballot box. 

That unbeatable majority arrived on November 3^rd, 2020, accompanied by massive voter fraud that one day will be revealed.

The government-dependent urban coastal and Great Lakes cities now control the electoral process.  By shear population, the big cities have overridden the Electoral College and rendered it irrelevant.  The original 13 colonies, which gave birth to freedom, have gone wholly socialist because of the high-dense urban cities that have consumed those colonies.  Conservative thought is now passé and out of touch with our contemporary society.  The Constitution is an anachronism, out of date and incompatible with America's high tech, fast-moving civilization, or so we are told.

In almost every word and deed, Democrats have forsaken our Constitution, even though Democrat politicians swear on oath to preserve, protect and defend that very same constitution.  They counter with, "the Constitution is a 'fluid' document, subject to interpretation that changes over time."  They ignore the statements in the Constitution that mandate it to be the Supreme Law of the Land.  They scoff at the notion that the Constitution is to be literally interpreted in accordance with the original intent of the Framers.  Many U. S. Supreme Court justices have purposely overlooked these mandates in their decisions.

We have allowed the Democrats to turn our balance of power, designed by our Founding Fathers in the Executive, Legislative and Judicial branches of government, on its head and we have allowed un-elected bureaucrats to make our laws.  We have allowed activist judges to make law instead of adjudicating law.  Liberal, socialists and radical environmental graduates of our liberal colleges have infiltrated our bureaucracies.  And these bureaucracies make law, after law, after law until we are sick of laws and end up becoming lawless. 

Through these laws, with no constitutional authority or legislative approval, they have taken away our land, our money, our health care and our individual rights as Americans.  Sadly, we have stood by and let them do it.

America is and has been a beacon to the world and will continue to be that beacon unless we let Democrats and others who seek our destruction, try to dim that light with failed policies, negativism, despondency, dependency, the trashing of our constitution and embarrassment for our achievements, instead of being proud of them.  We are great as a country and great as a people because of those achievements.

America needs to be the leader and the shining light to the World, not try to compete with the different forms of government and merge our "ways" with their "ways".  We are the most powerful country on Earth because we are free.  (See: "We Are Free Because of Our Constitution")

What America does, will determine the fate of the world.   If we forsake freedom, if we sell our sovereignty in the name of globalism, or succumb to socialism for a few pieces of silver, if we break the bonds of our Constitution, if we abdicate our right and duty to defend freedom for ourselves and future generations, we shall descend into the mediocrity, apathy, disdain and self loathing under which the rest of the world operates and will be pulled down to their level, never to rise again.  At that point American exceptionalism will be dead.

We have grave concerns that what we are facing today is a premeditated orchestration of the dismantling of our sacred institutions of freedom by Democrats and international elitists, that find that a free America stands in their way of their distorted concept of the one-world-order, social justice and environmental protection. 

(See: "Now You Can Watch Democrats Systematically Dismantle America")

Their unconstitutional give-away policies have this country mired in debt, if not in bankruptcy.  Their environmental policies of restricting everything that we do, has brought this once-proud, can-do nation to its knees.  Their open-border and amnesty policies that allow anyone wanting to come here illegally, will radically alter our culture for decades to come and put us deeper in debt, from which we may never recover.

A clear and present danger hangs over this Country like a dark, ominous, angry cloud and threatens our freedom, if not our very existence.  That dark, black cloud is the manifestation of abject socialism and radical environmentalism, the twin domestic evils that have invaded every corner of our society and that have been sold to us by a "liberal" mentality, promoted by Democrats.

Their ideas didn't come from our founding principles and our laws, they came out of the bowels of socialist Europe and the United Nations and have been codified into law by Democrat presidential executive orders and a Democrat-controlled U. S. Congress that has lost all allegiance to the Supreme Law of the Land, our Constitution.  These policies come at us with soft-sounding words like social equity, gender equality, compassion, smart growth, sustainable development, biospheres, wildlife corridors, endangered species, invasive species, climate change, mass transit and the one-world order.  It's all dressed up in motherhood, apple pie and Chevrolet and it is one of the biggest con games ever perpetrated on what have now become naïve, uninformed Americans.

But today, the hidden agenda of these perpetrators is finally being exposed all across America, as people are waking up to what has happened to them while they were sleeping.  Resistance to ineffective coronavirus lockdowns and government tyranny are on the rise, even while China and other third-world countries are laughing at us.  Politicians and bureaucrats are being "Challenged."

It's way past time to fight back.  This is still a great country, full of great people and it is salvageable if we will just act in unison with one purpose, vigorously defend our constitution and hold government to its limits, against the onslaught of failed liberal policies.

America is at war with itself.  It is a nation in distress from within.  Representatives of the people have become enemies of the people.  The Constitution has been shredded and a nation of laws has morphed into a two-tier legal system; no law for the ruling class and the full force of the law for the rest of us.  There is only one symbol that represents this situation and every patriotic American should display this "SYMBOL," anywhere and everywhere they can.  To do otherwise is to capitulate to the enemy.

© 2021 Ron Ewart – All Rights Reserved

Biden on knees

News

Biden on His Knees Already! Biden Bows to China's Communist Party and Reverses on Taiwan

The previously announced travel plans from the State Department stated that Kelly Craft, the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, was supposed to be on her way to Taiwan by now. She was going to take a three day trip to the country to discuss various economic and trade possibilities. This trip did not take place. Why was it suddenly canceled?

Right now, there are all sorts of enhanced protocols at the airports. Security is also tighter in Washington, D.C. at the moment. Some may believe that these are the reasons for the canceled trip. However, this decision has nothing to do with COVID-19 or enhanced security measures. The reason is actually much simpler than some may have realized.

Craft is not the only one who has been told to stay home. The entire State Department was given similar instructions. Mike Pompeo claimed that the decision was made as a means of assisting the Biden administration with the transition process. Free Beacon is here to reveal the real truth, though. It's a doozy.

"A cancellation of all travel by the U.S. State Department this week includes a planned visit to Taiwan by U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Kelly Craft, a State Department spokeswoman said on Tuesday.

Craft had been due to visit Taiwan from Wednesday to Friday, prompting China to warn that Washington was playing with fire. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Tuesday that all travel this week had been canceled, including his own trip to Europe, as part of the transition to the incoming Biden administration…

Craft's Taiwan trip appeared to be another part of an effort by Pompeo and President Donald Trump's Republican administration to lock in a tough approach to China before Democratic President-elect Joe Biden takes office on Jan. 20," Free Beacon reports.

The Trump administration locked in the trip as a means of making sure that they are able to maintain a tough stance on the Chinese before Biden comes in to weaken it. The Chinese Communist Party was opposed to the trip, though. One of the Chinese delegates from the United Nation referred to the trip as "crazy, irrational behaviors of certain people."

According to the delegate, the Trump administration is also responsible for "creating obstacles for the relationship between China and the United States." Taiwan tried its best to remain diplomatic about the situation and they are hoping that the United States will be willing to come for a visit when things are more appropriate.

There is one aspect to this story that is a bit strange to us. President Trump doesn't really have to go along with any of this. He could have insisted that the trip still go on anyway. On the other hand, there's a good chance he has already checked out. Everyone knows what it is like when you're in the last week on a job. It can be hard to concentrate when you are not sure what comes next.

Trump would be forgiven for zoning out and letting the clock run out on this wild adventure. The events of the past week or so should give him plenty of motivation to do so. We are going to go out on a huge limb and assume that he is not too invested in the day to day of the State Department at the moment. So did Pompeo make this decision on his own or did the word come down from Biden's team?

We hope that it was the former and not the latter. Sadly, we can read the tea leaves in the meantime. Biden is going to pull the same type of apology tour that Obama went on. America has been naughty, you see, so now Biden and his cronies will need to travel the world and say sorry. Biden doesn't seem to be willing to fight too hard on Hong Kong's behalf. Taiwan is going to experience more of the same.