Compliance, Hmm?

 

I’ve known for most of my life that I was different from most members of the groups of people with whom I was associated. I have been able to identify a few factors that clearly demonstrate that. Being introverted is one. Testing high for intelligence is another.

I was born before WWII and reared in Georgia, schooled in a racially segregated public system, in a culture still exhibiting the features of racial prejudices being preserved by the Democrat Party, almost an exclusive political party environment there until the 1960s. I had left Georgia by then and had an opportunity to meet individuals of different political persuasions. As I matured I developed an interest in the foundation of the American Republic and events during the years of its formation.

I was indoctrinated, willingly, into supporting the concepts expressed in the Constitution including the Bill of Rights and the Declaration of Independence. I served two years in the late 1950s as an NROTC Midshipman, but did not complete the program; was drafted in 1961 and served two years of active duty and six more in the reserves. That period included the episodes termed the Berlin Wall Crises and the Cuban Missile Crises. These years also provided events that were finishing the work on racial equality that had been left undone. So my studies and experiences toned my American patriotism, and belief and support for the founding principles to a high level.

For the next thirty-plus years I was busy working in banking and government in money transfer-related operations, mostly concerned with converting paper-based transactions to computer-based electronics, while supporting my wife in rearing our three children. I retired from twenty-five years of government service in the mid-nineties, then worked in private industry until 2005.

The beginning of the new millennium changed things. The events of 9/11, the passing of the Patriot Act, and the other resultant actions by our government that followed puzzled me and got my attention. Obama’s Presidency confirmed my concerns about the direction we were taking. Donald Trump’s election and presidency revealed much, confirming my conclusions about Obama’s term — not from Trump’s actions, but from what the federal bureaucracy, led or aided by the intelligence agencies and big tech, proved capable of doing to reduce Trump’s effectiveness. Obama’s third term, ostensibly headed by the incompetent puppet President Joe Biden, has displayed this program for all to see.

I have learned much about the features of my own behavior that always made me think I was somehow different from most of my peers. I now think I was deceived, in large part during my most productive years, into believing that any match existed between what powers my government was exercising and what it was allowed to based on its founding principles.

This is where the post title enters the picture. I’m non-compliant. The actions of the Biden administration and most public and private institutions are making this apparent. I missed this for most of my life, just operating under the assumption that the American founding principle of individual liberty and my own free agency existed in accord. We are now being shown this is not true with the government we now have. I could write volumes on this to include specifics related to government actions, actions of private industry, joint actions of those two, and treatments of religious organizations and activities, but that’s all public information even though rarely seen in the mass media.

A last thought I have about this. We, Americans and our government, are in my view being transformed into the USSR, a population required to conform and comply to and with the dictates of government.

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  1. Bob Thompson Member
    Bob Thompson
    @BobThompson

    Below is a link to a 20-minute segment that I found very interesting in that Neil Oliver has some information about the Spanish Flu period that I had never heard before.

    20 Minutes with Neil Oliver Banned by Google

    The start of the video is a long discussion about the big sorting out that has been taking place in the last few years.

    • #1
  2. DonG (CAGW is a Scam) Coolidge
    DonG (CAGW is a Scam)
    @DonG

    Bob Thompson: We, Americans and our government, in my view, are being transformed into what we saw in the USSR, a population required to conform and comply to and with the dictates of government.

    As Commies are want to do.

    • #2
  3. Bob Thompson Member
    Bob Thompson
    @BobThompson

    DonG (CAGW is a Scam) (View Comment):

    Bob Thompson: We, Americans and our government, in my view, are being transformed into what we saw in the USSR, a population required to conform and comply to and with the dictates of government.

    As Commies are want to do.

    Trump’s election in 2016 began a process of revealing truth that had been hidden from the people. This must have come from the ascension into education, business, and government management levels of those indoctrinated to Leftism in the last decades of the twentieth century. Maybe they missed the part where it’s supposed to be hidden or maybe they just got overconfident. Anyway, what Trump started bloomed fully with the Covid Pandemic and the election of Biden as POTUS.

    So now, as this sorting our process proceeds we have four groups of people:

    -Truth seekers

    -Liars (in control at present), aka the Commies

    -Those who don’t care

    -Those who might care but don’t recognize it

    The truth seekers, who do not comply, have a big task in front of them.

    • #3
  4. Bryan G. Stephens 🚫 Banned
    Bryan G. Stephens
    @BryanGStephens

    Bob Thompson (View Comment):

    DonG (CAGW is a Scam) (View Comment):

    Bob Thompson: We, Americans and our government, in my view, are being transformed into what we saw in the USSR, a population required to conform and comply to and with the dictates of government.

    As Commies are want to do.

    Trump’s election in 2016 began a process of revealing truth that had been hidden from the people. This must have come from the ascension into education, business, and government management levels of those indoctrinated to Leftism in the last decades of the twentieth century. Maybe they missed the part where it’s supposed to be hidden or maybe they just got overconfident. Anyway, what Trump started bloomed fully with the Covid Pandemic and the election of Biden as POTUS.

    So now, as this sorting our process proceeds we have four groups of people:

    -Truth seekers

    Patriots 

    -Liars (in control at present), aka the Commies

    Yes

    -Those who don’t care

    Dupes

    -Those who might care but don’t recognize it

    Conservativism, Inc. AKA Tories

    The truth seekers, who do not comply, have a big task in front of them.

     

    • #4
  5. Rodin Moderator
    Rodin
    @Rodin

    My summer apparel:

    • #5
  6. OkieSailor Member
    OkieSailor
    @OkieSailor

    Bob Thompson: A last thought I have about this. We, Americans and our government, are in my view being transformed into the USSR, a population required to conform and comply to and with the dictates of government.

    Yes in the sense of an overbearing, over regulating and unaccountable governing class which is taking us down the road to destruction similar to what happened to the U.S.S.R.  In fact every empire in history has ended the same way: killed off by their own bloated and unsustainable bureaucracy.  It is the nature of all bureaucracies to continually expand in scope and power unless they are contained by outside forces such as informed voters. Sadly we are lacking such a restrictive force today and are on the path to our own destruction, not primarily at the hands of foreign enemies  but financial and moral collapse brought on when the size and destructive power of the bureaucrats exceeds the ability of the commoners to sustain both their voracious appetites and a decent living standard for ‘the people’. 
    We do have the power to reverse this slide into historical irrelevance and poverty but the task is herculean given the ignorance of most Americans of both history and the Constitution coupled with the understandable urge to use any means to hold onto their privileged position by the ‘elites’ in charge. They will ‘go down with the ship’ while proclaiming their devotion to democracy and ‘fairness’ having been the agents of their destruction as well as that of their unfortunate subjects, formerly known as citizens.
    This is not new it has been the fate of every empire the world has known but neither is it inevitable, we could reverse course and correct our slide into Tyranny and poverty if enough of us come to realize what is going on and take action. Voting is the peaceful way to go and is preferable to violence but requires that we recapture our schools and colleges in time to train a generation that is both knowledgeable and willing to act. 

    BTW, this didn’t start in 2000 but rather began early in the 20th century when TR chipped away at constitutional restraints and became a juggernaut under Wilson with the income tax, direct election of Senators and the Federal Reserve take over of the currency. Those three measures, sold as giving power to the ‘little’ man were the core measures transferring power from States and local governments to D.C. and along with measures creating the multitude of Departments and Agencies plus empowering them to make and enforce ‘law’ removed governance from the over site of voters.  This is what has to be corrected if we are to restore liberty as envisioned by the Founders. It is a long term project, first of education and then implementation.
    The alternative is to leave our posterity a legacy that is unthinkable.

    • #6
  7. Bob Thompson Member
    Bob Thompson
    @BobThompson

    OkieSailor (View Comment):
    BTW, this didn’t start in 2000 but rather began early in the 20th century when TR chipped away at constitutional restraints and became a juggernaut under Wilson with the income tax, direct election of Senators and the Federal Reserve take over of the currency.

    Yes, I have said many times here on Ricochet that the 16th Amendment and the Federal Reserve System, both created in 1913, are the enabling elements for unlimited spending, debt creation, and fiat money supply. I just failed to pay enough attention to realize what these historical moves had put in motion before 2000. My bad. Events this century have been clarifying and Trump’s election moved us into a period that has been revealing.

     

    • #7
  8. GlennAmurgis Coolidge
    GlennAmurgis
    @GlennAmurgis

    It started earlier than that – most horrible gov overreach stated with Woodrow Wilson. Read about the “American Protection League” and how it was used to squelch free speech and tramp on the bill of rights. 

    • #8
  9. Western Chauvinist Inactive
    Western Chauvinist
    @WesternChauvinist

    I consider myself non-compliant and counter-culture at this point. We’ll probably be the first lined up against the wall, but we won’t be the last.

    • #9
  10. Western Chauvinist Inactive
    Western Chauvinist
    @WesternChauvinist

    I just learned Jack Philips has appeared again before the Colorado Supreme Court because he refused to bake a transgender cake. He’s a modern day martyr. 

    We talk a lot about freedom of speech, but at the root is freedom of conscience. Speaking is the outward manifestation of thinking. We conservatives are conscientious objectors and dissidents because we take seriously Solzhenitsyn’s admonition to “live not by lies.” Transgenderism, like SSM before it, is a lie.

    If you’re so inclined, say a prayer for Jack. The Left is relentless and he’s going to need all the divine help he can get to finish the race.

    • #10
  11. Al Sparks Coolidge
    Al Sparks
    @AlSparks

    Bob Thompson:

    We, Americans and our government, are in my view being transformed into the USSR, a population required to conform and comply to and with the dictates of government.

    Why the USSR?  Why not Communist China?

    I’ll note that the USSR is no longer in existence.  Its demise did not result in benefits to the Russian people as was originally thought it would, but when Russia backslid, it did not result in another Stalinist era.  What they have under Putin isn’t even a return to the Brezhnev era.

    It may be closer to Czar Nicholas II (their last Czar) who was overthrown in part because of his inept running of Russia’s involvement in World War I.

    Note how far back I’m going, a little over 100 years.  The Russian people have always been more compliant then Western European peoples have.  And the people of the United States, have been even less compliant.

    Perhaps this is coming to an end, but however it plays out, I doubt that we’ll end up like the USSR.  Or Communist China, by the way.  As China returns to its Maoist roots under Xi Jinping, along with its demographic collapse, its “mother may I” culture (versus a “don’t ask for permission, ask for forgiveness” culture we still are admittedly, barely hanging on to) their decline will accelerate.

    Our country will more likely break up, hopefully peacefully, before submitting to a Soviet style regime.

    • #11
  12. Al Sparks Coolidge
    Al Sparks
    @AlSparks

    Al Sparks (View Comment):

    Our country will more likely break up, hopefully peacefully, before submitting to a Soviet style regime.

    One other thing, the OP says he was born before World War II.  The present population of the United States is roughly 2 1/2 times than it was in 1940.

    I’m not a Malthusian.  But given the ethnic mix of peoples we have that Russia and China do not, we are probably too large to govern effectively any more.  To maintain our democratic principles we probably should break up into threes, even if it’s informally.  We can do it and still maintain our constitutional principles, at least the ones we followed at the turn of the last century (1900).

    We don’t have to formally break up.

    • #12
  13. The Reticulator Member
    The Reticulator
    @TheReticulator

    Al Sparks (View Comment):
    But given the ethnic mix of peoples we have that Russia and China do not, we are probably too large to govern effectively any more. 

    How do you figure that we have a larger ethnic mix than Russia has?  What metric are you using?  

    • #13
  14. Al Sparks Coolidge
    Al Sparks
    @AlSparks

    The Reticulator (View Comment):

    Al Sparks (View Comment):
    But given the ethnic mix of peoples we have that Russia and China do not, we are probably too large to govern effectively any more.

    How do you figure that we have a larger ethnic mix than Russia has? What metric are you using?

    I don’t have a metric.  I am aware that the Russian Federation has separate states they refer to as republics, where ethnic minorities are concentrated and have some level of autonomy.  A big example is Chechnya.  There are about 22, depending how you want to count them (does Crimea count?).

    But those ethnics are concentrated in various parts of the Federation, unlike the United States where our ethnics are integrated more geographically.

    Also, Russia not being a democracy, has been ruthless in suppressing their ethnic minorities if they become hostile towards the Federation.

    You see something similar in China, the most egregious example being their treatment of the Uighurs.

    Do I have metrics for that as well?  No.

    • #14
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