NC Renegades

FREEMANSPERSPECTIVE

Last week, I posted an article entitled “Man Is Not Always Blind.” And quite understandably, I received comments from readers who disagreed. After all, when you are surrounded by people who wish to not see – who hate you for trying to make them see – it is natural to take that opinion.

(And since the word is so often fitting, I will go with “brainwashed” to describe those who wish not to see.)

But rather than debating “Is it getting any better?” I’d like to move on to actually making things better. And that means talking to people.

So, since there is something of an art to speaking to the brainwashed, I will direct the rest of this article to that art.

To Begin

Let’s start by removing the divide: You and I have made the same mistakes these people are making. We may be a few steps ahead of them in leaving the swamp, but we started in the same swamp with them.

In all of human history, there may be no greater conditioning system than our modern government schools (including all the private schools that follow the same pattern). From infancy to adulthood, it affects most human minds in the West. And I dare guess that 98% of my readers bear its scars.

So, you must start by understanding that these “brainwashed” people have spent a huge portion of their lives inside a massive mind-warp. Don’t be too quick to toss them aside. Learn patience. Breaking out of their mold is scary, and it takes time.

The Roots

The roots are deep and old; they are backed up with violence and fear. It comes down to this:

The very existence of the state requires you to be brainwashed.

Every state (communist, fascist, theocratic, whatever) rests on the concept of legitimacy:

It is right that one group of men take everyone else’s money by force and tell them what to do.

It is right that they punish or kill anyone who doesn’t obey them.

It is right that they send your children to die fighting their competitors.

If I wanted to apply this to Marvin and Bob who live down the street, you’d tell me I was crazy, and you would be right.

Why, then, is this same idea holy and glorious when applied to brigands and deceivers, as it has been for some 6,000 years?

The usual response to such a question, by the way, is this:

<sound of crickets>

And please notice that this is precisely the way to phrase things to the brainwashed. You have to create moments of clarity.

Sometimes it will work, and a seed will be planted. Other times, they’ll hate your guts for forcing them into punishable thoughts.

The One-Size-Fits-All Answer

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Western countries are increasingly displaying symptoms of instability as described by Nassim Taleb, the author of the The Black Swan, ever since the publication of an essay written with Gregory Treverton entitled “The Calm Before the Storm.”

The piece was published in the January/February edition of Foreign Affairs – the official magazine of the Council on Foreign Relations.

In their essay, Taleb and Treverton highlight five characteristics that could help identify states that – while appearing stable on the surface – may actually be quite fragile.

“Fragility”, they write, “is aversion to disorder”. Under this criterion they view Italy as a stable state.

The five characteristics they view as major factors in instability are:

– centralised decision making,

– lack of economic diversity

– high levels of debt and leverage

– absence of political variability

– lack of track record in surviving shocks

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By John W. Whitehead

“Who needs direct repression when one can convince the chicken to walk freely into the slaughterhouse?”—Philosopher Slavoj Žižek

Despite the best efforts of some to sound the alarm, the nation is being locked down into a militarized, mechanized, hypersensitive, legalistic, self-righteous, goose-stepping antithesis of every principle upon which this nation was founded.

All the while, the nation’s citizens seem content to buy into a carefully constructed, benevolent vision of life in America that bears little resemblance to the gritty, pain-etched reality that plagues those unfortunate enough to not belong to the rarefied elite.

For those whose minds have been short-circuited into believing the candy-coated propaganda peddled by the politicians, here is an A-to-Z, back-to-the-basics primer of what life in the United States of America is really all about.

A is for the AMERICAN POLICE STATE. As I point out in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, a police state “is characterized by bureaucracy, secrecy, perpetual wars, a nation of suspects, militarization, surveillance, widespread police presence, and a citizenry with little recourse against police actions.”

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h/t WRSA

International negotiators announced a landmark agreement Tuesday to limit Iran’s nuclear program.

Excerpts of the agreement shed light on some details of the pact, which was crafted by seven countries during 20 months of negotiations. The text of the full agreement appears to have been released by the Russian government.

While unanswered questions about the deal remain, here’s what’s known right now.

Iran’s commitments:

Uranium stockpile: Iran has agreed to slash its stockpile of enriched uranium by about 98 percent, from about 10,000 kilograms to less than 300 kg over 15 years. That uranium must be kept at a low-enrichment level — at 3.67 percent or less — that would prevent it from being used in a weapon over that period.

Centrifuges: The deal cuts Iran’s nuclear centrifuges by about 66 percent over 10 years, from about 20,000 to 6,000. Those centrifuges are used to isolate the isotopes needed to develop nuclear-grade materials.

Heavy water reactor: Iran will rebuild its Arak heavy water reactor so that it can no longer produce weapons-grade plutonium. The country also won’t be allowed to build a new heavy water reactor for 15 years.

Breakout time: The deal would extend Iran’s breakout time for a nuclear weapon — the time it would need to amass enough nuclear material to build a bomb — to one year, according to the White House. Iran has also agreed to restrictions on other activities required to turn nuclear material into weapons.

Nuclear weapons: Iran underscored a promise to never seek a nuclear weapon, giving the international community more leverage if it violates that pledge. Iran has also agreed to issue a statement that accounts for military aspects of the nuclear program.

But despite those promises, the agreement doesn’t completely dismantle Iran’s nuclear program. Critics argue that giving Iran any ability to manufacture nuclear ingredients is unacceptable.

U.S. and international commitments:

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by Bill Gertz

The Iranian nuclear deal reached in Vienna contains no reference to the Parchin military facility where most of Iran’s past nuclear arms-related work was carried out.

Additionally, the draft agreement made public on Tuesday contains no stated limits on Iran’s Russian-made Bushehr nuclear power facility that analysts say could produce plutonium for dozens of bombs.

Also, the accord will lift international sanctions on several Iranian entities currently engaged in supporting terrorism and building ballistic missiles, including the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC)-Air Force Al Ghadir Missile Command.

The Tehran-based command is a key element in developing nuclear-tipped missiles and is considered to be in operational control of Iranian missiles.

The lifting of sanctions in eight or fewer years will also include removing sanctions on Parchin Chemical Industries—a firm involved in the past in Iranian ballistic missile and chemical explosive work that was possibly related to nuclear arms applications.

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