Who Says So?
June 27, 2021 Leave a comment
As kids we preceded “Who Says So?” and “Who do you think you are?” with “Oh yeah!” “These questions weren’t posed to source a truth-bearing authority we would readily accept. Rather, they were a demand to know “Who thinks they can tell me what to do?”
The hands-on-the-hips stance has been around since the Garden of Eden. It became the posture of mankind after Adam and Eve accepted the serpent’s imperious challenge to God’s authority. The posture of the defiant adolescent is in vogue today.
By way of a prolonged adolescence – from playground to the political realm, say – the childhood attitude has remained the same: “Who thinks they can tell me what to do? The past holds no authority. Truth holds no authority. Only my power holds authority.”
And so it was that elected officials dismissed the U.S. Constitution as an afront to their dictatorial ways. The playground stance became Woodrow Wilson’s “living Constitution” posture under the ruse of “progress”:
All that progressives ask or desire is permission—in an era when “development,” “evolution,” is the scientific word—to interpret the Constitution according to the Darwinian principle; all they ask is recognition of the fact that a nation is a living thing and not a machine.
Owing to the same progressive posture, FDR bullied the Supreme Court into accepting his definition of the Constitution’s “commerce clause”. He was then able, with the tentacles of bureaucracy, to regulate and control the banks and the U.S. economy. This wasn’t crisis management. This was the elitist “Who thinks they can tell me what to do?” FDR taking over “we the people”.
FDR’s reign created a monstrous welfare state. With the government’s imposition of the “New Deal” and the National Recovery Act, millions became dependent – infantilized – under the government’s new parenting role. Later, FDR would take account of his “enlightened administration”. He would call government welfare “a narcotic, a subtle destroyer of the human spirit”.
LBJ, an FDR lackey, adopted FDR’s imperious attitude. He extended the New Deal’s use of a big and more powerful government to overhaul society.
“The truth is, far from crushing the individual, government at its best liberates him from the enslaving forces of his environment.”
With the enslaving forces of government and apparently ignoring FDR’s admission of welfare’s dehumanizing effects, the imperious LBJ created the ruinous Great Deal: the “Great Society” and “War on Poverty.”
Within the same “nobody can tell me what to do” echo chamber of elitists, the haughty Barack Obama’ announced the “fundamental transformation” of America. This was to bring about Obama’s version of “hope and change” for us little people.
Remember Obama’s spiritual and ideological mentors Jeremiah Wright, Frank Marshall Davis, Bill Ayers and Saul Alinsky? Remember these bullies with the playground attitude “Who thinks they can tell me what to do? I tell you what to do.” They taught Obama to impose his will onto others for the sake of radical transformation.
Remember Obama’s despotic weaponization of government against naysayers? Remember Lois Lerner and the IRS targeting scandal? Remember the high and mighty Obama trashing America to foreign nations?
The almost inorganic “Oh yeah! Listen man!” Joe Biden and his regime, an Obama franchise, are “Building Back Better.” The regime wants $35 billion dollars to add 75,000 agents to further weaponize the IRS.
The regime is in the process of tossing the Constitution and creating a Woke “living constitution” form of government. This takeover of America will benefit most those in positions of power including globalists. You and I will have the Constitution ripped from our hands. We will be handed a “Here’s who says so” card. The European Union has already issued “permission” cards.
(The Biden regime’s focus on the WOKE religion of racialism will buy them votes. Biden and Progressives (FDR, LBJ and Woodrow Wilson among them) infer that black Americans are inferior and can’t function in society – whether in business or as a voter or in feeding and housing themselves – without them. Their solution is more of their “enlightened (Woke) administration” and less of the Constitution.
“Juneteenth” is Biden’s token gift – a refrigerator magnet – to black Americans. It also serves to keep America annually focused on racialism, BLM and CRT.
It appears that behind Anthony Fauci’s defense of himself on MSNBC as the embodiment of science – people’s attacks on him “are attacks on science” – is “Who do you think you are?”
Owing to a prolonged adolescence – from playground to philosophical realm, say – the religion of deconstructionism was born. Its tenets hold that there is no legitimacy or “Who says so?” authority in the world. This was the stance of the 60’s French deconstructionist Jacques Derrida.
The deconstructionist theory of textual analysis holds that a text has no stable reference. The theory questions traditional assumptions about identity, truth, certainty, and the ability of language to represent reality. Critics have rightly called deconstructionism a dangerous form of nihilism.
Due to a prolonged adolescence – from playground to popular culture, say – we hear “No one has the right to tell me what I can and can’t do except my political tribe.” The shutdown mind – no debate, no questioning, censored social media, etc. – is sold as the right thing to do.
Maintaining narcissist affirmation from an elitist’s perspective is the objective. Hence, the culture of repudiating and canceling anything that doesn’t conform to a narrative of empowered-self.
Just this morning I went shopping for groceries in a local super store. I passed the women’s clothes section. On the wall was a large ad photo of a large woman modeling some of the clothes being sold. The statement above her read “The maximum of self-love”.
The childish attitude of “Who thinks they can tell me what to do?” benefits no one. In fact, when it’s the posture of political overlords, philosopher-ideologues and the power-hungry, people are canceled, put through struggle sessions, de-platformed, blacklisted, killed, forced into labor camps or deported.
There are the willing who submit to a system that will not countenance disagreement. But minds that shut down to only accept the pablum given it by its tribal overseers will find that they have become infantilized. They will remain little children under the watchful eyes of the parent state.
(Read Closing of the American Mind by Allan Bloom to gain insight into the progression of narrow-mindedness since the ‘60s.)
A grown-up post-modern stance of questioning the source and legitimacy of assertions, is a welcome posture in any discipline. Science (including medical science Dr. Fauci!), philosophy and theology depend on inquiry. Questioning is a healthy stance when its objective is sourcing truth. Questioning is squashed for political ends or for the negation of truth.
Note: a key indicator of whether something is true or a lie: truth never manipulates or coerces one to accept it; lies and half-truths serve to manipulate and coerce. As humans, we want to live in truth and be respected for that desire. We do not want to be manipulated by ideologues, technocrats, and bureaucrats.
One last thing before I move on. By now you know that Progressives, like the willful children they are, believe they know everything and that you should know everything about them. That is why they walk around with the offended attitude “Who do you think you are?”
Progressives are not mortals. They are superior omniscient beings with “enlightened” WOKE morals. Not only do the WOKE know their own hearts and minds inside and out from constant reprogramming, they also know what is in another person’s heart and mind. Yes, they are mind readers and the ministers of “science” and “hope and change”. Progressive Jesuits come across as being more Christian than Christ with what they readily accept.
Out of their prolonged adolescence, Progressives, like the proud and stubborn children they remain, project onto others all kinds of intent.
Progressives condemn people on the spot. That is how they can call me, a white woman, a “racist”. That is how they can call the Founding Fathers “racist”. That is how they can say that any disagreement is an attack on them, the embodiment of “science”. That is how they can criticize people about their purported effect on climate change or about gun ownership or about any multitude of internalized offenses.
We have ‘progressed’ out of the post-modern age back to the age of Pontius Pilate: “Truth is what I say it is and don’t you forget it.”
It is no surprise that the mental health of the users of the narcissism-based narcotic of Progressivism has declined dramatically. Social media documents the decline.
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The hands-on-the-hips stance has been around since the Garden of Eden. It has been used to stare down and de-platform anything that challenges a certain mindset. During the first century AD, Jesus encountered “Oh yeah! Who do you think you are?”
The gospel according to Mark reads as a response to that very question.
Mark opens the “good news of Jesus the Messiah, God’s son” with the authority of centuries-old Scripture. Words from prophets Isaiah and Malachi preface his account. (Note: Mark ascribes both texts to Isaiah, the more prominent author.)
Isaiah the prophet put it like this: “Look, I am sending my messenger ahead of me; he will clear a path for you.”
A shout goes up in the desert: “Make way for the Lord!” Clear a straight path for him!”
John the Baptizer is then presented as the one clearing the way for the Messiah – the Ultimate Authority. John tells his followers “Someone a lot stronger than me is coming close behind.”
Jesus is baptized by John in the river Jordan. The heavens open. The spirit in the form of a dove descends onto Jesus. A voice out of heaven says “You are my son! You are the one I love! You make me very glad.”
One would think that that event alone would suffice to qualify Jesus as the Ultimate Authority, but Mark continues to document the outworking of Jesus’ Ultimate Authority.
Jesus announces the kingdom of God (1: 15).
Jesus calls disciples (1:16-20).
Jesus teaches with authority in synagogue (1: 21-22).
Jesus casts out demons (1:23-27).
Jesus heals the sick (1:29-43).
Then (in chapter 2), a lame man is lowered through a roof to where Jesus is teaching. Religious legal experts were in the room. They were listening and waiting for Jesus to produce Messianic credentials.
Jesus tells the lame man to get up and that his sins are forgiven. (2:1-12) These shocking words blew the roof off of the expert’s thinking.
“How dare the fellow speak like this?! Only God forgives sins!” Who do you think you are?
The next thing the legal inquisitors find out is that this guy who forgives sins also eats with sinners. (2:16) What kind of Messiah is that? We don’t behave like that!
Mark records more hand-wringing by the religious authorities (3:1-5). Jesus heals a man with a withered hand on the Sabbath. This healing did not go over well – it was deemed as doing ‘work’ on the Sabbath. Jesus wasn’t “following the science”. So, Jesus had to be de-platformed:
“The Pharisees went out right away and began to plot with the Herodians against Jesus, trying to find a way to destroy him.”
Jesus continues to not “follow the science”. He “scolded the wind, and said to the sea, “Silence! Shut Up!” The wind died down and there was flat calm.” (4:35-41)
Jesus touches the unclean. (5:25-32)
Mark records that Jesus sends out his disciples with his authority. (6: 7-13)
Jesus feeds 5000 with 5 loaves and 2 fish. (6:34-44)
Jesus walks on water. (6:47-51)
Jesus’ disciples eat with unwashed hands. (7: 1-15)
Jesus removes an unclean spirit from a child. (7:24-30)
Jesus feeds 4000 with 7 loaves and “a few small fish”. (8: 1-9)
Jesus heals a blind man. (8: 22-26)
Jesus is transfigured (his glory revealed) before Peter, James, and John. (9: 2-8)
Jesus casts out an unclean spirit from a boy. (9: 16-27)
Jesus teaches his disciples about authority. (9:35-49)
The first half of Mark’s gospel account documents Jesus’ ultimate authority over nature, diseases, evil spirits and the “follow the science” orthodoxy of his day.
In the second half of Mark’s “good news”, we read that Jesus had set his face toward Jerusalem. What awaited him there was not a triumphal entry nor a clear path. He would encounter soldiers, betrayal, an angry mob, Pontius Pilate, scourging, and crucifixion. It was intended punishment for not “following the science”.
Jesus was handed over to be questioned by the “Who do you think you are?”- “What is truth?”- “follow the science” authorities. They proceeded to ‘de-platform’ Jesus.
The crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus revealed his authority over evil, sin and death. It also revealed his authority over man-made narratives. Jesus answered “Who says? with utter humility and self-denial. Jesus is the Ultimate Authority. Yet there are those, still with hands on hips, claiming to be the ultimate authority. Let’s see them do what Jesus did and prove it.
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COVID Court:
Ex-Pfizer VP Yeadon Warns: Children 50 Times More Likely to Die From Vaccine Than Virus (rumble.com)
93 Israeli doctors: Do not use COVID-19 Vaccine on children
Are Covid Vaccines Riskier Than Advertised?
(VIDEO) Exclusive Investigation: Separating rumor from fact on Covid-19’s origin | Sharyl Attkisson
CENSORED: Hydroxychloroquine | Sharyl Attkisson
Shocking lab results on masks… – CITIZEN FREE PRESS
Covid has emboldened our modern censors | The Spectator
The following video was removed from YouTube for “violating community guidelines”:
Top Immunologist and ‘Pro-Vaccine’ Doctor Issues Urgent Warning…
Dr. Byram Bridle Professor of Viral Immunology University of Guelph
‘We finally learned how and where the Vaccine antibodies are stored in the body’
‘The spike protein in Vaccines can kill you’
Top Immunologist and ‘Pro-Vaccine’ Doctor Issues Urgent Warning… | Populist Press 2021 ©
Former Trump Official Slices Fauci Apart Over Hydroxychloroquine Fiasco by Matt Vespa (townhall.com)
Why Has “Ivermectin” Become a Dirty Word? – TK News by Matt Taibbi (substack.com)
Fight Back:
TRO: Motion for Temporary Restraining Order Against Use of COVID Vaccine in Children
TRO – America’s Frontline Doctors (americasfrontlinedoctors.org)































Fourth of July Americana Without a Fifth of Jackboot Alchemy
July 3, 2021 Leave a comment
Empty the bottled witches’ brews – the potent eye-of-newt-baboon-blood admixture of COVID scientism and the wool-of-bat-tongue-of-dog-nihilism-cultured Marxism – down the toilet. Turn off the media cauldron . . .
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There. Now, pour yourself a tall cool glass of Simply Lemonade. Cut yourself a piece of apple pie. Kick back and enjoy some Americana. Reanimate your imagination.
You can’t depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus. – Mark Twain
Samuel Clemens, using the pen name Mark Twain, gave America two major classics of American literature: The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.
The lives and values of people living in the American South during the middle of the nineteenth century are conveyed through Twain’s choice of imagery, vernacular, relaxed diction and characters. Twain’s small-town realism: what is seen through the eyes and imaginations of Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn.
If you were ever a kid, and I suspect that most of you have been so inclined, you will connect with the antics of Tom Sawyer. You’ll relate to Tom’s larger-than-life imaginings and his dashed realizations. Like Tom, you may have acquired experienced-based knowledge and also consequences with each twist and turn of an adventure.
You’ll remember being bored during summer vacation and being both bored and lonely during a bout of the measles. And you’ll recollect more, as you listen to and read . . .
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain, Chapter 22
TOM joined the new order of Cadets of Temperance, being attracted by the showy character of their “regalia.” He promised to abstain from smoking, chewing, and profanity as long as he remained a member. Now he found out a new thing—namely, that to promise not to do a thing is the surest way in the world to make a body want to go and do that very thing. Tom soon found himself tormented with a desire to drink and swear; the desire grew to be so intense that nothing but the hope of a chance to display himself in his red sash kept him from withdrawing from the order. Fourth of July was coming; but he soon gave that up —gave it up before he had worn his shackles over forty–eight hours—and fixed his hopes upon old Judge Frazer, justice of the peace, who was apparently on his deathbed and would have a big public funeral, since he was so high an official. During three days Tom was deeply concerned about the Judge’s condition and hungry for news of it. Sometimes his hopes ran high—so high that he would venture to get out his regalia and practise before the looking–glass. But the Judge had a most discouraging way of fluctuating. At last he was pronounced upon the mend—and then convalescent. Tom was disgusted; and felt a sense of injury, too. He handed in his resignation at once—and that night the Judge suffered a relapse and died. Tom resolved that he would never trust a man like that again.
The funeral was a fine thing. The Cadets paraded in a style calculated to kill the late member with envy. Tom was a free boy again, however —there was something in that. He could drink and swear, now—but found to his surprise that he did not want to. The simple fact that he could, took the desire away, and the charm of it.
Tom presently wondered to find that his coveted vacation was beginning to hang a little heavily on his hands.
He attempted a diary—but nothing happened during three days, and so he abandoned it.
The first of all the negro minstrel shows came to town, and made a sensation. Tom and Joe Harper got up a band of performers and were happy for two days.
Even the Glorious Fourth was in some sense a failure, for it rained hard, there was no procession in consequence, and the greatest man in the world (as Tom supposed), Mr. Benton, an actual United States Senator, proved an overwhelming disappointment—for he was not twenty–five feet high, nor even anywhere in the neighborhood of it.
A circus came. The boys played circus for three days afterward in tents made of rag carpeting—admission, three pins for boys, two for girls—and then circusing was abandoned.
A phrenologist and a mesmerizer came—and went again and left the village duller and drearier than ever.
There were some boys–and–girls’ parties, but they were so few and so delightful that they only made the aching voids between ache the harder.
Becky Thatcher was gone to her Constantinople home to stay with her parents during vacation—so there was no bright side to life anywhere.
The dreadful secret of the murder was a chronic misery. It was a very cancer for permanency and pain.
Then came the measles.
During two long weeks Tom lay a prisoner, dead to the world and its happenings. He was very ill, he was interested in nothing. When he got upon his feet at last and moved feebly down–town, a melancholy change had come over everything and every creature. There had been a “revival,” and everybody had “got religion,” not only the adults, but even the boys and girls. Tom went about, hoping against hope for the sight of one blessed sinful face, but disappointment crossed him everywhere. He found Joe Harper studying a Testament, and turned sadly away from the depressing spectacle. He sought Ben Rogers, and found him visiting the poor with a basket of tracts. He hunted up Jim Hollis, who called his attention to the precious blessing of his late measles as a warning. Every boy he encountered added another ton to his depression; and when, in desperation, he flew for refuge at last to the bosom of Huckleberry Finn and was received with a Scriptural quotation, his heart broke and he crept home and to bed realizing that he alone of all the town was lost, forever and forever.
And that night there came on a terrific storm, with driving rain, awful claps of thunder and blinding sheets of lightning. He covered his head with the bedclothes and waited in a horror of suspense for his doom; for he had not the shadow of a doubt that all this hubbub was about him. He believed he had taxed the forbearance of the powers above to the extremity of endurance and that this was the result. It might have seemed to him a waste of pomp and ammunition to kill a bug with a battery of artillery, but there seemed nothing incongruous about the getting up such an expensive thunderstorm as this to knock the turf from under an insect like himself.
By and by the tempest spent itself and died without accomplishing its object. The boy’s first impulse was to be grateful, and reform. His second was to wait—for there might not be any more storms.
The next day the doctors were back; Tom had relapsed. The three weeks he spent on his back this time seemed an entire age. When he got abroad at last he was hardly grateful that he had been spared, remembering how lonely was his estate, how companionless and forlorn he was. He drifted listlessly down the street and found Jim Hollis acting as judge in a juvenile court that was trying a cat for murder, in the presence of her victim, a bird. He found Joe Harper and Huck Finn up an alley eating a stolen melon. Poor lads! they—like Tom—had suffered a relapse.
Chapter 22 | The Adventures of Tom Sawyer | Mark Twain | Lit2Go ETC (usf.edu)
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America has been undergoing a hostile takeover by the Wicked WOKE. Since the ‘60s this red army has infiltrated our education systems. From elementary through graduate school, it has promoted an infighting America. Using Marxism’s class warfare, identity politics and now Critical Race Theory, one is taught to hate America, hate Capitalism and even your own white skin color. What is the Wicked Woke’s motivation?
. . . if a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand. Mk. 3:25
The military is being subjected to Marxism and CRT. To get first-hand insight, read Lt. Colonel Matthew Lohmeier’s book Irresistible Revolution; Marxism’s goal of Conquest & the Unmaking of the American Military. Lt. Colonel Lohmeier was sacked from his command following this book. This man has courage that many in leadership lack!
Businesses are now submitting to cultural Marxism. The over a century old engineering company I work for is now celebrating the division of the company into identity groups via the tokenism of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion initiatives (DEI). Apparently, the adult owners and managers are being led by the nose by the new recruits once matriculated in indoctrination classes.
American history is tortured into saying America is a racist country (vide anti-American Communist sympathizer Hannah Jones’ 1619 Project).
People are waterboarded by the media into feelings of panic and terror with a constant deluge of “pandemic” counts, deaths and variants, mask wearing mandates, lockdown mandates, vaccination as salvation, a Jan. 6th narrative, racism behind every bush, and an impending climate change apocalypse.
Just the other day the Biden regime’s Energy Sect. Jennifer Granholm was on CNN. When asked a leading question, Granholm suggested that the building in Florida may have collapsed because of climate change. Why instill fear in people? Why provoke anyone to think that their building may collapse at any moment due to climate change? Why? Fear is used for political ends.
Through relabeling and redefinition of terms, the NSA and FBI pronounce white Americans who love their country “White supremacists”. This now ‘allows’ them to spy on American citizens with impunity.
We will soon be made to lease our homes. The global elites (Warren Buffett’s Berkshire-Hathaway Real Estate included?) are buying up housing and real estate. You will be forced to rent and accept their lease terms, including their progressive Marxist agenda. Private property will be taken away.
The Biden regime and Democrats in Congress aim to spend enormous amounts of taxpayer money. In doing so, our country will be headed for financial ruin – hyperinflation, market collapse and the dollar will lose its standing as the global reserve currency. Our children, grandchildren and their children will suffer great hardship because of their out-of-control spending.
Our constitutional republic is being destroyed by those who cry “Our Democracy is under attack!” while increasing their censorship of what Americans can and cannot say.
When the Biden regime took over the White House in Jan. of 2021, our constitutional republic was subjected to malicious attacks. One of the puppet dictator’s first acts was to abolish what he called the ‘offensive’ 1776 Commission. He also restarted the racial sensitivity reprogramming of American citizens.
Below is a copy of what the Biden regime abolished and what militant ideologues continue to pillory as being “lies” and “propaganda”.
Turn off the media cauldron. Download and read the 1776 Report to your family.
From the 1776 Report Conclusion:
Identity politics is fundamentally incompatible with the principle of equality enshrined in the Declaration of Independence.
Of note, Dr. Carol M. Swain was the Vice chair of the President’s 1776 Commission. You will want to go to her website to watch the video From GED to PH.D: the Carol Swain Story. (I doubt that she is “black enough” per the racist standard set by Joe Biden and the rest of the race hustlers.)
Here is a website to promote American History: 1776 Project Pac.
“What to the slave is the Fourth of July?’ This Frederick Douglass quote is from his oration on July 5th, 1852 – 76 years after the founding of the country.
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Unlike President Wilson (see “The Meaning of Liberty”) who progressively sought to bring the Declaration up to date, President Coolidge affirms the enduring veracity of human equality, inalienable rights, and the consent of the governed—“those old theories and principles which time and the unerring logic of events have demonstrated to be sound.”
Calvin Coolidge’s Speech on the Occasion of the 150th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence
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Filed under 2021 current events, Consitution - rights, cultural Marxism, Culture, Fourth of July, Political Commentary, Progressivism, social commentary Tagged with Americana, CRT, cultural Marxism, Fourth of July, Joe Biden, Mark Twain, politics, progressivism, Tom Sawyer