The One Thing FDR Was Right About
Atlanta, GA
May 11, 2023
The US government almost always has its finger on the pulse. It’s hard not to when its hands are constantly around the country’s throat.
But for a moment at least, it’s relaxed its grip. This morning its Department of “Health” and “Human Services” lifted the “state of emergency” that even most paranoid hypochondriacs have rightly ignored for at least a year.
In fairness, most people probably had no idea it was still in effect. It never should’ve been.
A government shouldn’t be allowed to declare a “state of emergency.” No entity can legitimately proclaim an emergency that increases power of the entity that proclaims the emergency.
Franklin Roosevelt was wrong about most things. But he was right about one. The only thing we have to fear is fear itself. Especially fake fear, the type we’re incessantly force fed.
Every regime requires an adversary. The more insidious, invisible, and ubiquitous the better. And if it is unable to come up with one, it’s more than willing to become its own worst enemy.
Most “crises” are nothing more than the government taking advantage of problems it produces (or fabricates) to give itself added authority to attack the usual suspects: us.
Governments degrade almost everything they touch. But phantom foes are one thing they’re good at creating. It’s their response to these illusory antagonists that cause the real problems that beset the rest of us.
This happens all the time, and with increasing frequency. Our “leaders” concoct made-up threats or overblown risks that promote public panic to instill misplaced trust in the very people who caused the calamities.
And that’s when true trouble starts. It’s always the “fix” that foments the fiasco…which is rarely confined. More and more, every “crisis” is global, affects everyone (“we’re all in this together”), and requires a “coordinated response.”
Whatever cataclysm our “experts” conjure up, there’s no escaping the worry, or the remedy…which is always the same: emergency powers, centralized control, reduced freedom, top-down directives, one-size-fits-all decrees, public-private “partnerships” (Mussolini had a word for this), counterfeit currency, and souped-up surveillance.
For our “safety.”
But it’s almost always a farce, and inevitably a fraud. If any problem is presented as a “global crises”, then a helpful heuristic…as Nick Hudson recently reminded us…is to assume it’s a scam. Because it is.
The true cataclysm we confront is the incessant fomentation of phony crises (or the extrapolation of limited local ones) to funnel total power to a connected elite.
The only permissible “solutions” are then packaged as settled “science”. As Hudson elaborates, whenever science is presented as “consensus”, it’s further proof we’re confronting a con. The endemic censoring of dissent reveals the racket. As we’ve repeatedly seen the last several years, voices that dare question the swindle are quickly cancelled or summarily silenced.
Faux “emergencies” take many forms, and the assembly line is endless. We obviously endured an extreme version during the covid psychosis. Now that we’re allowed to relax our obsession over an ambient germ, we’re expected to panic about a distant border skirmish that’s none of our business (of course, as American meddling persists, real panic may be warranted).
But more than geopolitical nitwits provoking nuclear annihilation, our greatest worry is now the weather. The planet is apparently imperiled by a trace gas everyone exhales.
As always, the only answer is for most people to reduce their standard of living while a favored few have their pockets lined. We’re supposed to believe converting cars, ditching appliances, eating sludge, and refusing to use reliable energy will alter the temperature and “save the planet.” It’s another “global crisis” that’s a blatant grift.
There are many others.
Good con artists use distractions to dupe their marks. “Social issues” are great sleights-of-hand to divert attention while we’re being ripped off. They also keep the prey fighting with each other rather than resisting the predator. A great tactic is to stoke resentment at those who are “different.”
Much as they’re propagandized that it’s constantly Munich 1938 overseas, current generations that were blessed to miss real misfortune are indoctrinated to think it’s always Birmingham 1950 at home. This permits outrage-peddlers to stick their nose in every two-bit problem, or create new ones if none are there.
Leaving aside the ginned-up grievances of institutional grudge hustlers, day-to-day racial animosity has never been so low. “White supremacy” replaced “racism” after the latter epithet lost its sting. But it’s substantively stupid, because what it describes is incredibly rare. Most people are decent, want to tend their affairs, and leave others alone. They are repulsed by prejudice and want nothing to do with those who practice it.
But people exchanging goods, living in harmony, making friends, and focusing on their families doesn’t empower the parasites who want to run our lives. So they wield new sticks to stir things up.
Activities considered perverted or obscene a decade ago have been relentlessly pushed on a weary public. But despite persistent bickering, even the most bizarre preferences are now legally protected or broadly accepted.
Deviant behaviors, depraved predilections, and weird fads aren’t merely tolerated, they’re celebrated. Yet despite such cultural accommodation, we’re constantly assured there’s a “fascist” in every closet and a bigot under every bed.
“Terrorism” is another good grift. Suicide bombers and mass killings great way to provoke panic and extract wealth. They’re also remain exceedingly rare. There’s a greater chance of being struck by lightning on your way to the airport than that your plane will be hijacked.
But that doesn’t stop unconstitutional surveillance schemes or gargantuan police agencies being erected to grope girl scouts to thwart Muslim malcontents. And when the natives get restless over authoritarian overreach, those ingrates can be treated as “terrorists” too! Before long, anyone who protests too loud, votes the wrong way, or objects to school boards purveying pornography is liable to be locked away like Kanye’s career.
We live in an age of unprecedented abundance. Modern technology wouldn’t be unrecognizable only to our ancestors. It’s science fiction even to our younger selves! But there’s another side of that coin, a second edge to the sword.
Aside allowing us to goof off and waste time, technology eases others’ ability to mold our minds. Enhanced “security”, reduced crime, and increased convenience assist popular acceptance of electronic tracking, facial recognition, capital controls, and digital currencies.
These are the tools that will confine the sheep to the chute. And by the time they’re fleeced, it’ll be too late. They won’t recognize the pen till they’re locked in the abattoir.
And that’s something they’d be foolish not to fear.
JD