April 2018 Volume 56

What is fake and what is real? fake stories, fake events, fake scandals, fake people, fake documents,

fake videos, fake facts

Understanding the world around us has been made extremely difficult in recent years. Reading headlines is not enough to know what is happening in the world around you. Circumstances, timelines and context are lost. Often what worse is those who attempt to correct the record are accused themselves. Due to the use of social media, news and stories are often only found there and trusted. Trust and distrust manifests and the era of social division expands.

It is time to go backwards and have real conversations with each other, face to face. Texting and clicking is to cheat ourselves of relationships, truth and a wholesome human experience. We cant be lazy in the quest of achieving truth as we soon don’t know the truth from the fake news.

Watchmen of America is an organization built for expanding the human experience across the country for the sake of what is real and needed to thrive in an environment of chaos and unrest.

•Take any precautions you can. If the fire is rapidly approaching, you may not have time to take any precautions to protect the structure. However, if time permits, there are a number of things you can do to keep the building as safe as possible. Shut off any and all fuel lines, including propane, natural gas, and oil.[24]

•Move curtains and fabric-covered furniture away from windows and sliding doors. If the glass breaks, you do not want anything flammable near the window/door.[25]

•Remove any combustible objects from the yard, especially gas grills and fuel cans, and discard them as far from your structure and any nearby structures as possible.[26] You should also move any stacks of firewood as far from the building as possible.[27]

•If time permits, trim grass and vegetation as low to the ground as possible around the building and any external propane tanks. This will help reduce the combustible material that would allow the fire to reach you or the fuel source. More here: https://www.wikihow.com/Survive-a-Wildfire

https://www.ready.gov/wildfires

800 pound gorilla in the room, who is representing you in Washington DC?

Have you given real thought to who is representing you in Congress? Heck, do you know that representative’s name? It all comes down to the census and districts. Each congressperson has a constituency of 700,000 people. Is that effective? Some districts are made up of sanctuary cities, meaning that population is foreign. Does that seem right? In rural areas like southern Texas, a representative can have a huge land area due to the sparse population. What is the solution? There are 435 members of the House of Representatives, is that enough given population increases? Does this whole representative operation today work effectively? Should there be a change? Can it change? Would it affect the Electoral College process? Is there consent of the governed? Do we even know what our representatives are doing, that is if we even know their names? Maybe we have lots of gorillas in the room. The 2020 Census is upon us and many new questions are now included that have organizations and citizens upset. Should we ask questions like: Are you a U.S citizen? Are you in a same sex marriage? Are you legally permitted to have a job in the United States? How many people are receiving entitlements?

What do we know, what don’t we know and what should the government know?

Even in gun-free America, most of us aren't shooting

things as part of our day-to-day routine. So most

Americans actually know very little about guns.

Hollywood writers realized this a long time ago and,

being writers, used it as an excuse to never do any

fact-checking ever again.Handguns aren't the only things you can silence. Giantfreaking shotguns can even be fitted with a special silencer that renders them inaudible in quiet suburbanneighborhoods.Also, while silencers look all slick and expensive and fancy, Hollywood depicts that pretty much any long, hollow tube will do the job. Grab a two-liter bottle, stuff it with socks or something, and you can be just as dangerous as Mark Wahlberg in the movie Shooter.

The Myth:

Cautious spies and assassins know that if you're going to

take out a bad guy in an office, library, or in a bedroom

without waking everyone in the house, be sure to use a

silencer. It turns the concussive "bang" into a neutered

"ptew."

#5. Silencers Turn Gunfire Into a Gentle Whisper

The Problem:

Exploding gunpowder is loud. Really loud. As loud as a jet engine, depending on the caliber. A

little metal tube won't do a whole lot

to stop that.

An un-silenced gunshot is around 140 to 160 decibels--that's in the range where hearing it once

can permanently damage your ears.

If you've never had a gun go off next to you, trust us when we say it's loud enough that your

whole body will flinch at the sound of it

and your ears will definitely be ringing profusely. A silencer can get that all the way down to 120

or 130 decibels, aka the sound of a

jackhammer. Still loud enough to cause physical pain if it's close enough to you.

So a silencer really just makes a large gun sound like a smaller gun. If you're James Bond and

are sneaking into the enemy's

compound with a silenced pistol, you're basically hoping the guards will decide your gun is too

small and wimpy to be a serious

threat, and leave you be.

So why do silencers even exist? Well, if you're in an outdoor, noisy environment, they can make

quite a bit of difference. Specifically,

they make it really hard to tell where exactly the shot is coming from, or how far away it is.

Let us sum it up: It still sounds like a freaking handgun. It does not make a soft thud that you

could mistake for a kitten landing on

a pillow.

#4. Machine Guns are Magical Death Machines

The Myth:

It's an old joke by now that nobody runs out of bullets in action

movies

(unless it's suddenly convenient to the plot, that is). Hollywood

shows

some restraint with revolvers--usually no more than 10 or 11

shots per

six-shot cylinder--but damn, do they go hog-wild with anything

that fires

full-auto. So much so that that most of us have wound up with

an

utterly ridiculous concept of how those guns work. They're

seriously

depicting these things firing a hundred times more bullets than

they can

actually hold.

Because you can't actually see the bullets in a machine gun,

Hollywood takes this as a blank check to treat the inside of

a gun as a magical bullet factory. So in Commando we see

Arnold fire without changing magazines for what seems like

half of the movie:

The Problem:

If you've watched a news broadcast about U.S. troops in

Iraq, or played Modern Warfare, you've seen these guns:

That's an M4 Carbine. It holds 30 bullets in a standard

magazine, and an AK-47 that also holds 30 bullets in it's

standard magazine.

AK-47

M4

These weapons empty their magazines after only four seconds. That's because fully-automatic

weapons fire really friggen fast-- around 700 rounds per minute. Only you don't have 700

rounds in the gun, you have 30. So, do the math.

In fact, a U.S. infantryman only carries approximately 210 rounds total, which means a battle

conducted with full-auto machine gun fire would be over in less than a minute even if you count

the time it takes to switch about 7 magazines.

Fortunately, they fire on full-auto so rarely, .....that many of the military's rifles don't even have

that capacity.

"But wait!" you say, "I've seen war footage from Vietnam and Iraq and everywhere else and you

can totally hear machine fire chattering in the distance at all times. Somebody's using it,

dammit!"

That's true, they're just not shooting people with it. Full-auto is only really used for suppression

fire, that is, to make the bad guys duck their heads and hunker down while your people

maneuver into position. In fact, virtually all bullets are used for this. For each insurgent killed in

Iraq and Afghanistan, 250,000 shots are fired that hit absolutely nothing.

About three tons of ammunition for every one dude killed. Picture Arnold lugging that shit

around.

#3. Bulletproof Vests Are Magical Force Fields

The Problem:

In the real word, the vest that protected Back to the Future's Emmett

Brown from the terrorists would only have been

useful for its ability to keep all of his bits in one convenient (for the mortician) package. In fact, despite an additional 25years of armor development, no body armor today would be able to protect Doc from that kind of assault.

The Myth:

Somehow your best laid plans have gone awry, and now a bunch of

Libyans in a Volkswagen van are out for your blood. They plan to

shoot you repeatedly with their AK-47s,

but you have an ace in the hole: a bulletproof vest.

In movies, body armor (made from a material called Kevlar) turns

most guns from magical death-wands to hilariously overbuilt Airsoft

rifles. A burst of fire from an AK-47 at

point-blank range would turn most men's torsos into gooey paste

suitable for spreading on crackers, but add a slab of Kevlar and you

might as well have a Gandalf's magic

protection bubble glowing around your torso.

The type of bulletproof vest you can actually conceal under

your clothes provides exceptional protection against most

handguns. But against an assault rifle like the terrorists

were using in the movie, no way. It's only slightly more

effective than body paint and prayers to Khorne.

Our troops do have their own body armor, meant to protect against

that sort of thing. It's much heavier and more rigid. But even it's only

rated for effectiveness at further than 14 meters distance. When police

wear body armor (45 percent do not) they don't tend to wear full

military body armor. Probably because it weighs 33 freaking pounds

and costs thousands of dollars. Since less than one percent of guncrimes involve military-style rifles, this is generally a pretty safe tradeoff.

#2. Gratuitous Cocking

The Problem:

That "click" is the sound of a hammer being cocked back, and movies seem to be saying,

"This means the gun is ready to fire now, baby!" It doesn't mean that, however. It actually

doesn't mean anything. The gun was already good to go. For instance, the guns our hunky

Irish assassins are using in Boondock Saints (the Beretta 92F--the same gun John McClane

uses in Die Hard), is made so that pulling the trigger also cocks the hammer for you, to save

you the extra step and the extra two seconds during which you could get shot. The "cocking

the gun to show you mean business" must date back to Westerns, back when those old

revolvers forced you to cock them between each shot (something that was made obsolete 150

years ago--so, yeah, Hollywood is even slower to catch up with gun technology than they are computers).

The Myth:

Movies treat the cocking of a gun like an exclamation point. When

Hardass McBadCop interrogates the lone surviving henchman,

you can safely assume that, at some point, he's going to make his

gun go "clickety-clack" to let the poor schmuck know he means

business. The sound of a clicking gun is so ominous that the

MacManus brothers use it to close out their little prayer in themovie Boondock Saints:

By the way, when you fire one of these guns like the Saints have, it's made so that it leaves the

hammer cocked back in between shots (the reason is it makes the trigger a little easier to pull).

We bring this up because that means the MacManus brothers purposefully de-cocked their

guns before shooting that mobster, just so they could make that sound.

It gets sillier. When movies show somebody with a gun that doesn't have a hammer back there

to be cocked (like a shotgun or assault rifle) they substitute either the pumping of the shotgun or

pulling back the slide on the automatic. It's the only way to get a cool clicking sound for

dramatic effect. The problem is that on these guns, that only serves the purpose of ejecting an

empty shell and sliding a new bullet into the chamber--something that already happened the

last time you fired it. So every cool "click" would be accompanied by the somewhat-less cool

sound of one of your perfectly good bullets falling to the floor.

#1. Bullets Explode Everything

Propane, hydrogen and oxygen work the same way. As long

as it is packed in a pressurized metal cylinder, you can be

sure shooting it will result in an explosion large enough to

blow through any jam the screenwriter gets the protagonist

into. Shoot an oxygen tank in a shark's mouth and he'll

blow like he's spent all week munching on dynamite.

The Myth:

In the movies, bullets and anything mildly flammable have a

matter/anti-matter relationship. The second hot lead

touches a car's gas tank, it and everyone inside are going up

in flames. This is incredibly convenient for those times when

Morpheus needs to flash-fry two creepy dreadlocked albinosor a Buick full of raw bacon.

The Problem:

The manufacturers of automobiles and pressurized containers really don't

like liability lawsuits. If their products could

be turned into a fireball the size of a city block with nothing more than a

sudden impact or puncture, every car accident

would look like the Fourth of July, every pile-up would look like a Michael

Bay movie.

The Mythbusters famously demonstrated the falsehood of both the "shoot

the gas tank" myth and a ton of other gun

myths in two of their episodes. As it turns out, you actually have to Coax a

car into exploding by doing things in a very

particular way. If you can punch a small hole in the tank, light a fire outside

of it, and vaporize the gas inside to the point

that the tank over-pressurizes, then you could probably get it to light.

Assuming you use special tracer bullets.

What's so illogical about Hollywood's "handguns can

explode a car" principle is that their bullets can't penetrate

anything else. There's one movie where John Cusack is

hiding behind a shelf of potato chips at a convenience

store, safe from the dozens of bullets slamming into them.

And if the good guy takes cover behind a car door? Hell, he

might as well be holed up in Fort Knox. Ironically, while

guns are useless for exploding a gas tank, they'll punch

through a car door with ease. Everything we know is

wrong. If those out there who were raised on action movies

have to fend off a Red Dawn-style invasion, it's going to bea total disaster.

DID YOU KNOW?The very first gun ever invented was called a

FIRE LANCEThe Fire Lance was a very early gunpowder weapon that

appeared

in 10th century China during the Jin-Song Wars. It began as

a small

pyrotechnic device attached to a spear-like weapon, used to gain acritical shock advantage right at the start of a melee.

DOWN HOME COOKING WITH MAMA TARGUS

People often ask me hey what do you do for treats if you have dogs?

Well I say, lets get cooking. Dogs are an important part of anyone's

life. And if you have dogs like Targus and I do, they will love the fact

that what you cook is healthy and awesome. We have 3 Malamutes

which are the highlight and joy of our life. They are our silly children

and stand guard when Targus and or I are not at home. So by doing

that, they deserve treats just because.

So lets get cooking!!

Steaks – depending upon how much you want to make will determine how much you buy. 1

steak will give you a good amount of treats

Pickling Salt (about ¼ cup)

Grill Mates Montreal Steak Seasoning (about ¼ cup)

Buy the cheapest steak you can find. The grainier and thick the better. Now remember Targus

and I have 3 dogs so we always by at least 4 and when they are on sale.

Freeze before you use it. It makes it easier to cut. Take steaks out and unwrap. Put steaks on a

plate and put in your microwave. Heat on high for 1 minute. Put steak on a cutting board and

cut to about 1/8” thick.

Place steak strips on cookie sheets lined with tin foil or parchment paper. I use a cookie grate (pictured below) set on top of the cookie pan

Make sure that you leave room between the pieces of steak. When done, mix your pickling salt and seasonings together – sprinkle over the steak. Heat oven to 150 degree's

and let cook for at least 3 to 5 hours. This method is called drying your meat. You will know when it's done because the texture is hard.

Take out and let cool. Remember to keep them on your counter top far away from your doggies or in my case Targus and the dogs. Transfer doggie treats to a Tupperware container. Put them in your fridge. They will last for up to 2 to 4 weeks depending upon how much you want to spoil your favorite friend. Remember cat's love them too.......

DOG BISCUITS

1 ½ cups whole wheat flour

2 cups rolled oats (not quick)

1 cup milk

½ cup water (hot)

2 cubes beef or chicken bouillon

Use your hot water to dissolve the bouillon – let cool

Beat your milk, water and bouillon cubes with water until well blended. Pour into dried ingredients and mix well. Press out onto an un-greased cookie sheet

and cut in squares or shapes. Bake at 300 degrees for 1 hour and then turn off the oven heat and leave the biscuits in the oven to harden. Poof!! A treat any

doggie would love!!

DOG POOCH MUNCHIES

3 cups whole wheat flour

1 teaspoon garlic salt

½ cup soft bacon fat

1 cup shredded cheese

1 egg – slightly beaten

1 cup milk

Preheat oven to 400 degree's

Place flour and garlic salt in a large bowl. Stir in bacon fat. Add cheese and egg. Gradually add enough milk to form a dough ball. Knead dough and roll out to

about 1 inch thick. Mash down to cookie size – place on greased cookie sheet. Bake about 12 minutes until they start to brown. Cool and dish out!!

Now folks, its the time to start thinking about the pesky pests that live outside and could effect or harm you doggies or kitties. Targus and I have lots of woods

around our house and needless to say, I'm always worried about ticks!! - Purchase water soluble sulfur powder at your local feed and seed store or another store in

your area. We buy ours at Feed and Seed – put sulfur in a grass spreader and go over your entire area – back and forth and back and forth or you can put 1 cup of

sulfur per 1 gallon of water, mix and use a garden sprayer. When you plan to do this, make sure that there is no rain in the forecast for at least 3 days – Ticks

can't survive the sulfur powder and thus they won't attack your loving animals. You may want to repeat this a few times during the spring just so that your grass

areas get plenty of mixture. So far by doing this, we have not had any issues with our doggies and they and us are the more happier for it.

Remember folks your animals are your best friends......even when one of them is your husband!!

Socialism/Communism Versus Capitalism today

Political rights and civil liberties around the world deteriorated to their lowest

point in more than a decade in 2017, extending a period characterized by

emboldened autocrats, beleaguered democracies, and the United States’

withdrawal from its leadership role in the global struggle for human freedom.

Democracy is in crisis. The values it embodies—particularly the right to choose

leaders in free and fair elections, freedom of the press, and the rule of law—are

under assault and in retreat globally.

A quarter-century ago, at the end of the Cold War, it appeared that

totalitarianism had at last been vanquished and liberal democracy had won the

great ideological battle of the 20th century.

Today, it is democracy that finds itself battered and weakened. For the 12th

consecutive year, according to Freedom in the World, countries that suffered

democratic setbacks outnumbered those that registered gains. States that a

decade ago seemed like promising success stories—Turkey and Hungary, for

example—are sliding into authoritarian rule. The military in Myanmar, which

began a limited democratic opening in 2010, executed a shocking campaign of

ethnic cleansing in 2017 and rebuffed international criticism of its actions.

Meanwhile, the world’s most powerful democracies are mired in seemingly

intractable problems at home, including social and economic disparities, partisan

fragmentation, terrorist attacks, and an influx of refugees that has strained

alliances and increased fears of the “other.”

The challenges within democratic states have fueled the rise of

populist leaders who appeal to anti-immigrant sentiment and

give short shrift to fundamental civil and political liberties.

Right-wing populists gained votes and parliamentary seats in

France, the Netherlands, Germany, and Austria during 2017.

While they were kept out of government in all but Austria,

their success at the polls helped to weaken established parties

on both the right and left. Centrist newcomer Emmanuel

Macron handily won the French presidency, but in Germany

and the Netherlands, mainstream parties struggled to create

stable governing coalitions.

Perhaps worst of all, and most worrisome for the future, young

people, who have little memory of the long struggles against

fascism and communism, may be losing faith and interest in

the democratic project. The very idea of democracy and its

promotion has been tarnished among many, contributing to a

dangerous apathy.

The retreat of democracies is troubling enough. Yet at the

same time, the world’s leading autocracies, China and Russia,

have seized the opportunity not only to step up internal

repression but also to export their malign influence to other

countries, which are increasingly copying their behavior and

adopting their disdain for democracy. A confident Chinese

president Xi Jinping recently proclaimed that China is “blazing

a new trail” for developing countries to follow. It is a path that

includes politicized courts, intolerance for dissent, and

predetermined elections.

The spread of antidemocratic practices around

the world is not merely a setback for fundamental

freedoms. It poses economic and security risks.

When more countries are free, all countries—

including the United States—are safer and more

prosperous. When more countries are autocratic

and repressive, treaties and alliances crumble,

nations and entire regions become unstable, and

violent extremists have greater room to operate.

Democratic governments allow people to help set

the rules to which all must adhere, and have a

say in the direction of their lives and work. This

fosters a broader respect for peace, fair play, and

compromise. Autocrats impose arbitrary rules on

their citizens while ignoring all constraints

themselves, spurring a vicious circle of abuse and

radicalization.

The United States accelerates its withdrawal

from the democracy struggle

A long list of troubling developments around

the world contributed to the global decline in

2017, but perhaps most striking was the

accelerating withdrawal of the United States

from its historical commitment to promoting

and supporting democracy. The potent

challenge from authoritarian regimes made

the United States’ abdication of its traditional

role all the more important.

Despite the U.S. government’s mistakes—and

there have been many—the American people

and their leaders have generally understood

that standing up for the rights of others is

both a moral imperative and beneficial to

themselves. But two long wars in Afghanistan

and Iraq and a global recession soured the

public on extensive international engagement,

and the perceived link between democracy

promotion on the one hand and military

interventions and financial costs on the other

has had a lasting impact.

China and Russia expand their antidemocratic influence

While the United States and other democratic powers grappled

with domestic problems and argued about foreign policy

priorities, the world’s leading autocracies—Russia and China—

continued to make headway. Moscow and Beijing are single-

minded in their identification of democracy as a threat to their

oppressive regimes, and they work relentlessly, with increasing

sophistication, to undermine its institutions and cripple its

principal advocates.

The eventual outcome of these trends, if unchecked, is

obvious. The replacement of global democratic norms with

authoritarian practices will mean more elections in which the

incumbent’s victory is a foregone conclusion. It will mean a

media landscape dominated by propaganda mouthpieces that

marginalize the opposition while presenting the leader as

omniscient, strong, and devoted to national aggrandizement. It

will mean state control over the internet and social media

through both censorship and active manipulation that

promotes the regime’s message while confusing users with lies

and fakery. And it will mean more corruption, injustice, and

impunity for state abuses.

Q: What countries have a dictatorship

government?

A: Cuba, Syria, and North Korea are three

countries that have a dictatorship. Besides

dictatorship there are many other forms of

authoritarian government. As of today, 50

countries in the world are rated as "Not Free"

by Freedom House. Freedom House, an

American non-governmental organization

(NGO), rates each country based on their

citizen's political rights and civil liberties,

and labels them as free, partly free, or not

free. Their most recent report names 50

countries as not free, including China, Russia,

Iran, and Saudi Arabia. According to their

research 36% of the world's population lives

in a country that is not free.

Q: What are some examples of command economies?

A: Examples of command economies include the former Soviet

Union, China, North Korea and Cuba. One of the defining

characteristics of this type of economy is the fact that all

decisions relating to the economy are decided by a central

body, such as the government or leader. Laws, directives and

regulations are used to implement the decisions made by this

body.

In a command economy, all aspects of business, including

how goods are produced, how much they are sold for, and how

many of the goods are produced, are variables that are defined

by the state. In essence, this means that all businesses in the

economy are run by or for the state.

One of the advantages of a command economy is that it makes

it easier to mobilize the resources of a country. However, the

disadvantage is that the needs of the society are often not fully

met, since the market is driven by what the government

dictates rather than what people actually want. It is common

to find thriving black markets in such settings, which people

use to get access to any products they need but cannot get

through official government channels. Innovation is frequently

stifled in such an economy because regulations may not

change quickly enough to take advantage of new ideas.

How did America Forget What 'Socialist' means?

In 1936, when Franklin Roosevelt sought reelection to the presidency, some of his critics

labeled him a “socialist.” The charge was so incendiary that the White House moved quickly

to rebut it, labeling it an accusation “which no patriotic, honorable, decent citizen would

purposefully inject into American affairs.”c

purposefully inject into American affairs.”

That was then. Today, in America, for the first time in nearly a century, socialism is not a dirty

word, or a shunned label, for many people. On the contrary. President Barack Obama, with a

minimum of controversy, has reopened relations with the unabashedly socialist regime in Cuba,

demanding almost no concessions in exchange for becoming the first U.S. president in 88 years

to visit the island. (Indeed, on the eve of the president’s arrival, Cuba’s Ministry of Foreign

Affairs declared that Cuba—together with China—was committed to the “irreversibility of

socialism.”)

Meanwhile, the overwhelming and seemingly improbable support among America’s youth for the

74-year-old Bernie Sanders—a self-described democratic socialist who once proudly defended

communist dictatorships across the world—is the latest example of a historical illiteracy that

treats socialism as a benign economic system that is more equitable and fair than capitalism. A

Pew poll from June 2015 shows a staggering 69 percent of voters under 30 expressing a

willingness to vote for a socialist for president of the United States. This was well before

Sanders’ electoral successes in the early Democratic primaries. A more recent YouGov survey

found that voters under 30 actually have a higher opinion of socialism (43 percent in favor)

than they do of capitalism (32 percent in favor).

Watching the false hope of socialism be resurrected amid ignorance of basic 20th century history is

particularly distressing for me. I am a millennial American myself, but I am also head of the Victims of

Communism Memorial Foundation. I have dedicated my professional life to honoring the millions who

paid with their lives so that totalitarian leaders could build their socialist “utopias.”

Many are still paying. Today, 20 percent of the world’s population continues to live under communist

regimes, in China, Vietnam, Cuba, Laos and North Korea. These countries are some of the worst

violators of human rights in history. China operates its own “gulag” system of labor camps for political

prisoners.

Ignorance of socialism and America’s decades long struggle against it has become the norm, and the

data suggest this norm will only harden as a generation of Americans pass away and national memory

fades.

For a generation with no memory of bomb shelter drills or sledgehammers smashing the Berlin Wall to

pieces, the sad reality of life under socialist rule has been forgotten, and the lessons of the Cold War

have been relegated to the “ash heap of history” alongside communism. Instead, the concept of

socialism has often been confused with liberalism. Socialism seems like a fine idea that means a more

social equitable society for everyone—free health care and free education for starters. Socialism

conjures the image of a place like Sweden and Denmark, which contrary to popular belief, are not

socialist systems at all. In fact, Danish Prime Minster Lars Lokke Rasmussen responded to claims by

Senator Bernie Sanders that the Scandinavian countries were socialist by saying: “Denmark is far from

a socialist planned economy. Denmark is a market economy.”

Socialism is not roads, welfare, and free education. Socialism has always had a more ominous goal and

shares close historical and ideological connections with more reviled terms: Marxism and communism.

Karl Marx took socialism to what he viewed as its natural conclusion: The “abolition of private

property.”

Class warfare is a long-running theme in socialism, even in this country. American socialist (and failed

presidential candidate) Eugene Debs promised a world where “no man will work to make a profit for

another.”

The process of transforming “capitalist property”—that is, something legitimately purchased,

inherited or otherwise earned—into “social property” for everyone is when socialism becomes sinister.

This promise of redistribution always involves winners and losers picked by the government. What if

one has acquired capitalist property and does not wish it to become “social property?” Well, then the

government might have to step in and take it.

The loss of private property—which ensures one’s independent

livelihood—perforce erodes one’s ability to exercise free speech. What

if the owner of some capitalist property taken by the government

dares to protest its seizure? That sort of dissent must be stifled to

maintain order, so free speech is replaced by government-sanctioned

propaganda. Unpopular opinions are shamed, and those expressing

them are barred from forums like colleges and universities.

How do we know? Because we’ve seen it happen time and again.

Ninety-nine years ago the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia showed the

danger of combining socialist ideas with totalitarian violence, which

created modern totalitarian communism. The result in more than 40

national experiments since then has been either totalitarian

dictatorship or economic collapse, costing some 100 million lives

before the communist experiment collapsed in Europe and the Soviet

Union.

To be sure, not everyone in these societies was a loser, which gets at

one of the great paradoxes of all socialist systems: the extreme

inequality that allows a cabal of party members to control the

political and economic power in a country to the exclusion of an

overwhelming majority of the citizens. Only socialist countries have

achieved the tragic distinction of launching rockets into outer space

while millions of their citizens starve to death in famine. Now that’s

inequality!

The Center for Global Policy at George Mason University has recorded

an interesting historical development. Its Political Instability Task

Force plotted a chart showing the percentage of countries in which

mass killings were occurring from the end of World War II until the

present day. For most of the second half of the 20th century, that

percentage increased steadily. Then, in the early 1990s, a precipitous

drop occurred, and in the 2010s we have seen the lowest percentage

of countries on Earth with ongoing mass killings ever recorded. What

happened in the early 1990s? The Cold War ended and millions were

freed from behind communist walls and secret police holding cells.

This was also when our millennial generation was born.

Millennials either missed the Cold War entirely or were

young children in its final years, with little or no

conception of the triumph of liberty achieved with the fall

of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Union of Soviet

Socialist Republics (USSR). They do not understand the

menace that socialism— combined with power—posed to

the people it enslaved and to the free nations that it

threatened. The violence and brutality of the communist

regimes of the past are irrelevant, just lines in the history

book somewhere between the Spanish-American War and

9/11.

It’s more personal for older Americans. Perhaps some of

their friends or neighbors—or they themselves—arrived in

this country just ahead of Soviet tanks that were rolling

into their homeland. Perhaps they remember the stories

of citizens of these supposed utopian socialist prison

states arrested, “disappeared,” tortured, or shot simply for

trying to cross a border. Perhaps they remembered

cowering under their school desks during drills in case of

a nuclear attack, planned in communist Russia and

launched from communist Cuba.

This is the context young American voters should know as

they prepare to cast their vote this year—many of them

for the first time. We should all be mindful of the power of

words and ideologies, and how discredited ideas can

flourish again as memories of their failure fade. We cannot

forget the lessons of history. All of us, but especially the

youngest among us who will have to live in that world for

the longest, should make this election about the future by

rejecting the ugly, violent legacy of socialism’s past.

Submitted by Targus

KEEPIN THE SUNNY SIDE UP!

After any school shooting, the natural course from the masses is to push for gun control...

On Thursday, May 27, 1999, Darrell Scott, the father of Rachel Scott, a

victim of the Columbine High School shootings in Littleton, Colorado,

was invited to address the House Judiciary Committee’s sub-

committee. What he said to our national leaders during this special

session of Congress was painfully truthful. They were not prepared for

what he was to say, nor was it received well. It needs to be heard by

every parent, every teacher, every politician, every sociologist, every

psychologist, and every so-called expert! These courageous words

spoken by Darrell Scott are powerful, penetrating, and deeply personal.

There is no doubt that God sent this man as a voice crying in the

wilderness. The following is a portion of the transcript:

Since the dawn of creation there has been both good and evil in the

hearts of men and women. We all contain the seeds of kindness or the

seeds of violence

.

The death of my wonderful daughter, Rachel Joy Scott, and the deaths

of that heroic teacher and the other eleven children who died must not

be in vain. Their blood cries out for answers.

The first recorded act of violence was when Cain slew his brother Abel

out in the field. The villain was not the club he used. Neither was it the

NCA, the National Club Association. The true killer was Cain, and the

reason for the murder could only be found in Cain’s heart.

In the days that followed the Columbine tragedy, I was amazed at how

quickly fingers began to be pointed at groups such as the NRA. I am

not a member of the NRA. I am not a hunter. I do not even own a gun. I

am not here to represent or defend the NRA — because I don’t believe

that they are responsible for my daughter’s death. Therefore I do not

believe they need to be defended. If I believed they had anything to do

with Rachel’s murder I would be their strongest opponent.

I am here today to declare that Columbine was not just a tragedy —

it was a spiritual event that should be forcing us to look at where the

real blame lies!

Much of the blame lies here in this room. Much of the blame lies

behind the pointing fingers of the accusers themselves.

I wrote a poem just four nights ago that expresses my feelings best.

This was written way before I knew I would be speaking here today:

Your laws ignore our deepest needs

Your words are empty air

You’ve stripped away our heritage

You’ve outlawed simple prayer

Now gunshots fill our classrooms

And precious children die

You seek for answers everywhere

And ask the question “Why”?

You regulate restrictive laws

Through legislative creed

And yet you fail to understand

That God is what we need

Men and women are three-part beings. We all consist of body, soul,

and spirit. When we refuse to acknowledge a third part of our make-

up, we create a void that allows evil, prejudice, and hatred to rush in

and wreak havoc.

Spiritual influences were present within our educational systems for

most of our nation’s history. Many of our major colleges began as

theological seminaries. This is a historical fact. What has happened

to us as a nation? We have refused to honor God, and in so doing,

we open the doors to hatred and violence.

Continued…

.

And when something as terrible as Columbine’s tragedy occurs —

politicians immediately look for a scapegoat such as the NRA. They

immediately seek to pass more restrictive laws that contribute to

erode away our personal and private liberties.

We do not need more restrictive laws. Eric and Dylan would not have

been stopped by metal detectors. No amount of gun law can stop

someone who spends months planning this type of massacre.

The real villain lies within our own hearts.

Political posturing and restrictive legislation are not the answers.

The young people of our nation hold the key. There is a spiritual

awakening taking place that will not be squelched!

We do not need more religion. We do not need more gaudy television

evangelists spewing out verbal religious garbage. We do not need

more million dollar church buildings built while people with basic

needs are being ignored.

We do need a change of heart and a humble acknowledgment that

this nation was founded on the principle of simple trust in God!

As my son Craig lay under that table in the school library and saw his

two friends murdered before his very eyes — He did not hesitate to

pray in school. I defy any law or politician to deny him that right!

I challenge every young person in America, and around the world, to

realize that on April 20, 1999, at Columbine High School prayer was

brought back to our schools. Do not let the many prayers offered by

those students be in vain.

Dare to move into the new millennium with a sacred disregard for

legislation that violates your God-given right to communicate with Him.

To those of you who would point your finger at the NRA I give to you a

sincere challenge. Dare to examine your own heart before casting the

first stone!

My daughter’s death will not be in vain! The young people of this

country will not allow that to happen!

Be courageous enough to do what the media did not — let the nation

hear this man’s speech. Please send this out to everyone you can!!!

Side note:

Among those who made or presented statements to the subcommittee that

day were Eric H. Holder, Jr., a Deputy Attorney General with the

Department of Justice; James E. Johnson, an Under Secretary for

Enforcement with the Department of the Treasury; Darrell Scott, the father

of two victims of the Columbine High School shootings (one of whom, his

daughter Rachel Joy Scott, was killed); David Grossmann, a retired Ohio

juvenile court judge; Dr. John R. Lott, Jr., a law and economics professor

at the University of Chicago’s School of Law; Wayne LaPierre, an

Executive Vice President of the National Rifle Association; James E.

Chambers, an Executive Director of the Sporting Arms and Ammunition

Manufacturers Institute; David M. Kennedy, a Senior Researcher with the

Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University; Gerald Flynn, a

National Vice President of the International Brotherhood of Police; and Bryl

Phillips-Taylor from Virginians Against Handgun Violence.