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Friday, December 31, 2021
Thursday, December 30, 2021
Slavery Sleight of Hand
Author, Speaker, Instructor, Radio Host
I spent some time with a fantastic tool online that enabled me to come to some very interesting conclusions that are even more amazing than what I thought about in the beginning.
Let's open this whole can of worms this way: We hear a lot about America's participation in slavery and most of it is either a lie, or a partial truth designed to get you to think that America was the biggest and most evil participant in the institution. Despite the fact that slavery was a worldwide phenomenon, and we were technically minor players in the overall scheme of slavery, the Critical Race Theory folks, and the purveyors of the false 1619 Project want you to believe slavery was all about America, and mostly America.
The problem is, the facts, and more importantly, the numbers disagree.
According to Henry Louis Gates, Jr. at PBS (https://www.pbs.org/wnet/african-americans-many-rivers-to-cross/history/how-many-slaves-landed-in-the-us/) after utilizing a Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade database at slavevoyages.org, of which he calls the "gold standard" when it comes to the field of the study of the slave trade, America played a minor role in the slave trade. While the numbers at slavevoyages.org are considered "estimates", Gates states the database is the best out there in terms of closeness to accuracy. So, writes Gates, according to his own manipulation of the website, "Between 1525 and 1866, in the entire history of the slave trade to the New World, according to the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database, 12.5 million Africans were shipped to the New World. 10.7 million survived the dreaded Middle Passage, disembarking in North America, the Caribbean and South America. And how many of these 10.7 million Africans were shipped directly to North America? Only about 388,000. That’s right: a tiny percentage."
In other words, as we've been told, and as Mr. Gates was willing to admit, about 4% of the total. Small number to say the least. And, by the time we are done here, I will show you how that number is still twice the size it truly should be. The number of slaves who were legally imported into the United States while the United States was officially a country is a much different number.
Before I found Mr. Gates at PBS I had also stumbled upon a site called "statista".
Two charts caught my eye.
The first one at https://www.statista.com/chart/22057/countries-most-active-trans-atlantic-slave-trade/ shows a chart of The Countries Most Active in the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade. While the United States is near the bottom, I believe the 377,613 number provided is false. America, as I referred to earlier, was not a country until 1776, so if you wish to be purely honest about the U.S.'s participation in the slave trade, her colonial years should be considered as part of the United Kingdom's participation in the slave trade. After all, English settlers were the ones who began the slave trade here, with support from the British Government, and as the American concept of liberty began to percolate the Founding Fathers blamed Britain for the presence of slaves in America, and blamed the British Empire for the continuation of slavery as the years passed. In short, the mindset of the English who came here was much different from the mindset of the early Americans when it came to slavery. Thomas Jefferson referred to slavery in the original draft of the Declaration of Independence not only stating that the liberty-minded colonists of his time considered those enslaved to be MEN as they themselves were, but that the Commonwealth of Virginia at one point had requested to abolish slavery inside its colonial borders, and the British Parliament had rejected the request.
The second chart at statista which can be found at https://www.statista.com/chart/19068/trans-atlantic-slave-trade-by-country-region/ shows how many slaves were sent to each region in the New World and Europe during the time period of 1514-1866, this time showing a number 307,000 going to the U.S. (which contradicts the 377,613 number from the previous chart). Something I took notice of on this particular page is that the article opens with the 1619 Project claim that in August of 1619 the first ship with enslaved Africans arrived in what was then the colony of Virginia. Curious, I decided to go to the database Gates at PBS mentioned, which turns out to also be the source for Katharina Buchholz, the author of the statista pieces, to see if I could find out how many slaves was estimated to have arrived in the New World in 1619 as we are being told.
Using the https://www.slavevoyages.org/assessment/estimates part of the slave trade database I left only the U.S. box check-marked, then set the years from 1501 to 1625. According to the database there were zero slave arrivals in the U.S. portion of North America during that time period.
According to Henry Louis Gates, Jr. at PBS (https://www.pbs.org/wnet/african-americans-many-rivers-to-cross/history/how-many-slaves-landed-in-the-us/) after utilizing a Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade database at slavevoyages.org, of which he calls the "gold standard" when it comes to the field of the study of the slave trade, America played a minor role in the slave trade. While the numbers at slavevoyages.org are considered "estimates", Gates states the database is the best out there in terms of closeness to accuracy. So, writes Gates, according to his own manipulation of the website, "Between 1525 and 1866, in the entire history of the slave trade to the New World, according to the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database, 12.5 million Africans were shipped to the New World. 10.7 million survived the dreaded Middle Passage, disembarking in North America, the Caribbean and South America. And how many of these 10.7 million Africans were shipped directly to North America? Only about 388,000. That’s right: a tiny percentage."
In other words, as we've been told, and as Mr. Gates was willing to admit, about 4% of the total. Small number to say the least. And, by the time we are done here, I will show you how that number is still twice the size it truly should be. The number of slaves who were legally imported into the United States while the United States was officially a country is a much different number.
Before I found Mr. Gates at PBS I had also stumbled upon a site called "statista".
Two charts caught my eye.
The first one at https://www.statista.com/chart/22057/countries-most-active-trans-atlantic-slave-trade/ shows a chart of The Countries Most Active in the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade. While the United States is near the bottom, I believe the 377,613 number provided is false. America, as I referred to earlier, was not a country until 1776, so if you wish to be purely honest about the U.S.'s participation in the slave trade, her colonial years should be considered as part of the United Kingdom's participation in the slave trade. After all, English settlers were the ones who began the slave trade here, with support from the British Government, and as the American concept of liberty began to percolate the Founding Fathers blamed Britain for the presence of slaves in America, and blamed the British Empire for the continuation of slavery as the years passed. In short, the mindset of the English who came here was much different from the mindset of the early Americans when it came to slavery. Thomas Jefferson referred to slavery in the original draft of the Declaration of Independence not only stating that the liberty-minded colonists of his time considered those enslaved to be MEN as they themselves were, but that the Commonwealth of Virginia at one point had requested to abolish slavery inside its colonial borders, and the British Parliament had rejected the request.
The second chart at statista which can be found at https://www.statista.com/chart/19068/trans-atlantic-slave-trade-by-country-region/ shows how many slaves were sent to each region in the New World and Europe during the time period of 1514-1866, this time showing a number 307,000 going to the U.S. (which contradicts the 377,613 number from the previous chart). Something I took notice of on this particular page is that the article opens with the 1619 Project claim that in August of 1619 the first ship with enslaved Africans arrived in what was then the colony of Virginia. Curious, I decided to go to the database Gates at PBS mentioned, which turns out to also be the source for Katharina Buchholz, the author of the statista pieces, to see if I could find out how many slaves was estimated to have arrived in the New World in 1619 as we are being told.
Using the https://www.slavevoyages.org/assessment/estimates part of the slave trade database I left only the U.S. box check-marked, then set the years from 1501 to 1625. According to the database there were zero slave arrivals in the U.S. portion of North America during that time period.
Kind of contradicts the 1619 Project claim, doesn't it?
Then I checked the following spans of years and got the following numbers:
1501-1775: 126,012
1776-1807: 166,162
1808-1866: 13,151
As a note, the number is zero 1822-1823, 1825-1826, 1828, 1830-1857, 1859.
The first period (1501-1775) was during the time that the English Colonies were under British Rule. The slave trade at that point was administered by Great Britain, therefore it would not be reasonable to count those numbers toward U.S. involvement in slavery.
The second period was from the Declaration of Independence in 1776 to 1807 which is the last year the importation of slaves into the U.S. was legal. An act by Congress to outlaw the Atlantic Slave Trade into the States as authorized by Article I, Section 9 of the U.S. Constitution was passed and signed by President Jefferson in March of 1807, with an effective date of January 1, 1808. After 1776, and prior to the Act that went into effect in 1808 the importation of slaves into the United States was legal and allowed by the U.S. Government, so the number that corresponds with that time period above should count as a part of the overall number regarding U.S. involvement in the slave trade from Africa.
The third period (1808-1866) spanned a time in which the importation of slaves was at its lowest ever, with a number of years at zero. It was also during a time in which it was illegal to import slaves into the United States, so any slaves brought into the United States during that time-span should not be viewed as evidence the United States participated in the slave trade. The participation in the importation of slaves into the United States was not sanctioned by the U.S. Government, the activity was committed by outlaws. When it came to people who were acting outside the law this would include the Jekyll Island landing of a slave ship in 1858. That Georgia disembarkment of slaves was illegal, and also followed a long spell of years in which no slaves had been brought into the United States, even in the case of smuggling. Note that the Atlanta Journal article linked above states that 409 slaves were dumped off on Jekyll Island. The database at slavevoyages.com states only 350 slaves entered the United States in 1858. Interesting that the mainstream media has jacked the number up a bit. Is there a narrative they are trying to support with exaggerated numbers?
If we go by the numbers provided the actual number of slaves imported into the United States legally, based on U.S. law allowing it while the U.S. was a country, then, is 166,162; roughly 2% of the entire number of slaves that came to the New World from Africa.
So how is it that the United States is now being considered as such a major player in the overall scheme of the Atlantic Slave Trade?
Then, if we look at the numbers regarding slavery in America, less than 5% of southern white free persons owned slaves, and overall in the United States less than 1.5% across the entire United States owned slaves. Oh, and the first slave owner on legal record in the English Colonies was a black man.
As for the argument about the birth of slaves in the U.S., the reason more were born in the U.S. as compared to other countries in the sense of percentages was because the living conditions and services provided for the slaves in the United States were better than in any other country. In other countries the majority of slaves were beaten to death, or were in such poor health from the poor living conditions provided that they were unable to reproduce.
The message we are being told, this idea that the United States was somehow an evil leader in the sin of slavery is a smoke and mirrors show. An exaggeration. A case of sleight of hand to get you to not see the truth. Cultural Marxism, I'm afraid, at its worst.
-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary
Wednesday, December 29, 2021
Tuesday, December 28, 2021
Paranoid
Author, Speaker, Instructor, Radio Host
Deuteronomy 3:22, "Ye shall not fear them: for the LORD your God he shall fight for you."
Karl Marx called religion the "opiate of the masses." If someone believes in God, they believe that there is a higher power than government, and a higher power than their community. If there is a higher power, then that means tyrants and oligarchies are not the ultimate power, even they have to answer to God. And, since fear is the key component in the playbook for controlling the masses, those who have Faith in God fear not, for they know that God not only protects them, but that if they are snuffed out of their life here on Earth by whatever may serve as a threat, a better life with the Lord awaits them.
Faith causes problems for systems of power and tyranny. If someone has no fear because they place their fears in God's hands, how can they be controlled? How can fear be used against the fearless?
This is why the progressive commie left Democrats in the United States, and the globalist commie left internationalists, are doing everything they can to snuff out the Holy Bible. They cannot tolerate a people who are not paranoid about the fears that the modern tyrants are offering. We don't fear climate change because we know that it's a natural occurrence that God has under control. We don't fear COVID because God tells us not to fear the things of the world. He's our comfort, He's our protection, and He's the architect of everything that happens. It all works for His Glory.
Religious Freedom is the natural right that appears first in the First Amendment for a reason. Religious Faith appears first on Alexander Tytler's Cycle regarding Systems of Liberty for a reason. The Holy Bible is referenced 34% of the time* in the writings and quotations by the Founding Fathers for a reason. As Benjamin Franklin stated, "Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom." And as George Washington said during his Farewell Speech, "Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, Religion and morality are indispensable supports."
Without putting the Creator first in prayer and our actions, if our Faith is not the primary force behind everything we do, we are not capable of maintaining a system of liberty.
During the Trump presidency the administration did what it could to preserve religious freedom. Aside from being the first President ever to participate, attend, and speak at a March for Life event, in January of 2020 he wrote an executive order strengthening religious freedoms with the instructions to the executive branch to restrain itself regarding the issue, which included enabling students to pray in school, even if the educational facility receives federal funding (a move consistent with the First Amendment that states that Congress shall make no law prohibiting the free exercise of religion). Trump supported religious freedoms and carried out his duties as President of the United States as an ally of Christianity. Meanwhile, President Joe Biden's administration has been doing everything it can to undo Trump's attempt to preserve religious freedoms, and has maintained its opposition to Faith despite the fact that the Republican Party has been demanding the Health and Human Services (HHS) department restore Trump-era religious liberty enforcement measures it revoked last month.
Psalm 34:4, I sought the Lord, and he heard me, and delivered me from all my fears.
They need you to be afraid if their solidification of power in America is to work. They need you fearful, and your Faith gets in the way.
The latest and greatest campaign of fear and paranoia is connected to the Scamdemic (Pandemic), COVID-19, wearing masks, and the Big Pharma arm jabs they dare to call vaccinations.
The fear factor indoctrination has been delivered masterfully. My wife told me about a woman at work beside herself because she was trying to figure out why there were still people standing in opposition against "vaccination." She talked about safety, protecting the community, and "do these people realize they will die if they don't get vaccinated?" She then told my wife that the hospitals were overcrowded with the sick as a result of all of the unvaccinated fools out there.
Ignorance is alive and well among the paranoid.
The steps of the government regarding COVID and the vaccines were advertised in a manner that sent the message that the jab was created to prevent transmission.
If that is the case, then why do the vaccinated need to be protected from the unvaccinated? Or worse, how is it that Omicron is infecting the vaccinated more than those who refused the jab (a fact that completely contradicts the notion by the woman at my wife's place of employment)?
The U.S. Navy, despite their demand for 100% participation in the jab by sailors, has had some serious problems with COVID outbreaks on their ships, the latest case being the USS Milwaukee. A Norwegian Cruise Line reported 17 cases of COVID-19 among passengers and crew members despite their strict vaccination policy requiring that everyone on board be fully vaccinated against the virus. The CDC states that 86 cruise ships with strict vaccination policies have been affected by COVID outbreaks. The NFL was hit with 106 cases, despite their strict vaccine policies and COVID protocols. I was reading somewhere recently that 70% of the people hospitalized with COVID in the United States are vaccinated. In the United Kingdom that percentage is at 60%. Big time hard left Hollywood nutcase Alyssa Milano revealed in a Tweet that 90% of her friends have COVID, and then she says they are 100% TRIPLE vaxxed. The idiot meant to use the Tweet to encourage vaccination, not realizing she was actually saying the opposite. I, personally, am not vaxxxed, and almost everyone I hang around with are not vaxxxed, and I have had maybe two people I know (who were not even in my inner-circle) who got COVID**. But, dummy Alyssa Milano does not realize she is actually proving the importance of trusting our natural immune systems, not some experimental mRNA protein spike genetic messaging jab. And, remember, the COVID Pill was a complete bust, and the evidence is out there that the jab destroys natural immunity.
I have no fear of COVID. First of all, I knew before the latest round of science-folks began figuring out that COVID is minor, especially this latest round, and after this hysteria is all over, COVID will be nothing more than another pesky cold that shows up every once in a while. And, in fact, the OMICRON variant is the weakest of all of the alleged COVID variants.
Isaiah 41:13, For I the Lord thy God will hold thy right hand, saying unto thee, Fear not; I will help thee.
They know the truth is against them. They know they are factually inaccurate. But, the facts don't matter, only their narrative does. That's why they erase records of vaccine injuries, including ones of two-year old children (why is a two-year old even getting jabbed in the first place?)
Now, there is a rising war on the unvaccinated. Should I not have the right to make my own personal decisions about my own personal health? Does not Liberty include the Freedom to say "NO!"?
Vaccine Mandates violate the 5th Amendment (federal government) and the 14th Amendment (state government) where it says clearly in the U.S. Constitution that the government may not deprive anyone of their life, liberty or property without due process. Could it be there is more to the jab than they are saying? Could it be that the jab is actually designed to reduce the world population? Could it not be simply an excuse for the paranoid virtue signalers to go nuts with power demanding that everyone complies or else ... you know, like the nutty Karen on the airplane who attacked a man for dropping his mask to eat? Or how about the couple that was escorted off of a plane for daring not to wear their ineffective facial armbands properly? Is this all possibly a power play to allow government unlimited power against those who dare to disobey regarding their COVID policies, like vaccination, as New York is enacting? The hard left commies in charge at the federal government level are foaming at the mouth with the opportunity on the horizon to lock us down again, and this time with true authoritarian tyranny.
Understand, the forces of darkness in the government, media, and complying mercantilist corporations are colluding together to silence anyone who dares to oppose them, even dissenting scientists. While there are those claiming Biden has failed in shutting down the virus, there was never a plan to stop it. The goal was not to stop COVID, but to figure out a way to keep it going in perpetuity. Fauci has admitted that the purpose of the vaccinations was not to stop the disease, but to alter human behavior. To transform the world into a global human society that obeys its masters and falls in line with the Marxism being put in place. Well, that, and to enrich themselves, which is a part of what I believe is behind the sudden disappearance of $100 billion in COVID relief funds.
Realize, these people are anti-American, anti-Christian evil-doers who, in some cases, are way beyond what we realize in the terms of how evil they are. Pedophiles, Communists, and authoritarians seeking total control...
Here's a few more headlines:
- New York Governor Kathy Hochul's (D) plan to fire all unvaxxed workers and replace them with foreigners for refusing the so-called vaccines "from god" is running into a roadblock, it would cause a shortage of workers.
- New York Times Admits: Covid Boosters May Cause ‘Immune System Fatigue,’ Compromise Ability to Fight Virus
- RFK Jr. Exposes Why Vaccine Makers Are Coming For Your Kids
- CDC Admits They Overestimated Omi-Con Spread by More Than 200%
- CDC Quietly Changes the Definition of “Vaccinated”
- Bhakdi/Burkhardt Pathology Results Show 93% of People Who Died After Being “Vaccinated” Were Killed by the “Vaccine”
I have no fear for I have the Lord, and in the end the Truth Shall Set Us Free. The paranoid hard left, however, are blinded to the truth. They cannot see it. Their religion of secular leftism is too powerful, and have them so indoctrinated that they even deny the truth when it is presented to them. In fact, I am expecting negative comments to this article. They can't help themselves, they hate God, hate the truth, and are too bought into their leftist faith too much. The truth evades them.
-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary
Donald Lutz, “The Relative Influence of European Writers on Late 18th Century American Political Thought,” American Political Science Review, LXXVIII, 1984, pp. 189-197.Dr. Donald Lutz, a professor of political science from the University of Houston, conducted an exhaustive ten-year research of about 15,000 political documents of the Founders’ Era (1760-1805), and recorded every quote or reference to another written source. This list of the 3,154 citations of the Founders was analyzed and published in Volume #78 of the American Political Science Review in 1983. The results would give quite an accurate measure of the influence of various sources of thought on the Constitution. The results were surprisingly contradictory to “modern scholarship.” By far, the most often quoted source of their political ideas was the Bible. This accounts for over one-third (34%) of all their citations. The next most quoted source is not even cited one-fourth as frequently (Montesquieu–8.3%, Blackstone–7.9%; and both of these men have a Christian view of law). Another 50% of all references can be attributed to authors who themselves derived their ideas from the Bible. Therefore, about 84% of the ideas in our Constitution are based either directly or indirectly on the Bible.
** I don't believe COVID does not exist, or that people do not die from the disease. It exists. It was engineered to exist by the Chinese and their progressive left globalist commie counterparts, and people have died as a result of the disease. But, I believe the disease was overstated, claimed to be stronger than it actually is/was, the death numbers have been extremely exaggerated, and the purpose of the disease was not to kill a bunch of people, but to train them to obey the government and big corporate mercantilist interests by getting the jab. I also believe, looking at the real numbers, that the vaccine is more deadly than the disease.
Constitution Class, Online: Article I, Section 3 (Patriot Streetfighter)
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Monday, December 27, 2021
Sherman Copy
Author, Speaker, Instructor, Radio Host
This article, while intended to inform the readers about one of the several working drafts of the Declaration of Independence, while being researched also revealed for me an interesting tidbit that I have been teaching in my Constitution Classes, but had not until this point been fully confirmed by a scholarly organization or historian. In my Constitution Classes, based on my own personal research and observation of the grammatical tendencies of the authors of the U.S. Constitution and other documents and correspondences, I teach that there are various words in those documents which are capitalized for the purpose of providing emphasis. The upper case condition of the words in question do not fit any of today's grammatical rules or tendencies, and some folks who oppose my originalist point of view of the U.S. Constitution have argued that the capitalization was nothing special, they "capitalized all nouns as was customary among the Germans". The problem with that argument is that all nouns are not capitalized in our various founding documents, only certain ones, leading one to believe the practice was either deliberate, or they screwed up and missed a few nouns. I have argued that I do not believe the Founders committed grammatical "oopsies" in the writing of key documents, and there is evidence of the capitalization being purposeful for the reason of emphasis. For one, they were handwriting the document, and something like italicizing for emphasis would not reasonably recognized by the reader. While slanting words for emphasis pre-dated the settlement of the English Colonies it was preferred by many of the writers in Early America to either capitalize the first letter of a word, or to ALL CAPS the word such as Thomas Jefferson does with the word MEN in the "Original Draft of the Declaration of Independence," and as Jefferson did with the words REAL CHRISTIAN in a letter to Charles Thompson with appears in the 1902 copy of Jefferson's "The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth" (of which I own a copy of).
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Sherman Copy
The Sherman Copy is the first page of an early working draft of the Declaration of Independence, used to inform Roger Sherman of the draft status of the Declaration during the fourth week of June, 1776. It provides unique insight into the drafting process of the founding document, showing editing within the manuscript and revealing purposeful over-scripting of lowercase characters with uppercase letters. On the document are the initials “T.P.”, suggesting Thomas Paine's direct involvement in its drafting process, a notion debated over the last two centuries. A number of working drafts were used, but the newly discovered partial Sherman Copy appears to have been made for Benjamin Franklin (the initials B.F. are situated center of page), and then passed on to Roger Sherman (the Initials R.S. are located in the upper right corner), a fellow member of the Committee of Five. Also printed on the document is "A beginning perhaps-/Original with Jefferson/Copied from Original/with T. P.'s permission" situated near the B.F. initials. The Sherman Copy was discovered folded within the pages of an estate auction booklet of General Hugh Lowrey White, a Brigadier General in the War of 1812, which was located within a box of discarded papers by an amateur historian in Georgia. The Sherman Copy was created shortly before The Adams Copy. Based on penmanship, it is believed John Adams penned The Sherman Copy.The draft is printed on hand-made wove paper, believed to have been supplied by Franklin. Evidence reveals that despite notions that wove paper was not available in The Colonies until after the Revolutionary War, Franklin had access to wove paper in Pennsylvania as early as 1764.
The website for the Thomas Paine National Historical Association confirms my argument that the capitalization of some words in the founding documents was for the purpose of emphasis.
“Over time, readers of the Declaration have discussed probable reasons for why Committee of Five members decided to capitalize seemingly random words throughout the text. Early Germanic roots of the English language demonstrated how capitalization of letters mid-sentence was utilized to place emphasis on significant words. Throughout the Declaration, especially in this manuscript, nouns were selected to emphasize words of significance; a characteristic that is evident in the Preamble. Capitalization survived the written drafts, into John Dunlap's official print on the eve of July 4. As the approximately two hundred Dunlap broadsides traveled from Dulap's print shop to their respective locations and representatives, including the copy Washington read to his troops on July 9 in New York City, the intention of this capitalization was realized as the reader's voice brought life to the Declaration. This manuscript draft has provided the first opportunity to view the contemplation of words the Declaration's authors felt should hold emphasis within the body of text and when read aloud.”
There are two complete manuscript copies of the original draft of the Declaration of Independence; one of them is known as the John Adams copy, a fair copy because of its neat penmanship and organization, which is held by the Massachusetts Historical Society in Boston; and the Jefferson rough draft in the Library of Congress collection, which demonstrates the numerous edits made by the Committee of Five selected to draft the Declaration; a copy in which the 138 words of anti-slavery language remains intact but was removed on July 1, 1776 and not included in the final draft of the Declaration of Independence due to disapproval of the language by two of the Thirteen Original States, South Carolina and Georgia revealing that the American Revolution, despite arguments to the contrary by the purveyors of Critical Race Theory was not only not fought to preserve slavery, it was fought with the hope of righting the wrong of slavery in America of which Jefferson blamed British leadership of perpetuating the institution of slavery in the English Colonies.
-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary
Committee of Five
Author, Speaker, Instructor, Radio Host
The Committee of Five was a committee formed during the Second Continental Congress from June 11 to July 5 in 1776 whose task was to draft and present documentation declaring the independence of the united* States of America. The five member committee presented to the Congress what would become the Declaration of Independence, which was ultimately dated July 4, 1776 (though it was published July 5). The members of the Committee of Five were John Adams of Massachusetts, Thomas Jefferson of Virginia, Benjamin Franklin of Pennsylvania, Roger Sherman of Connecticut, and Robert Livingston of New York. There has been an ongoing debate over who may have influenced or directly contributed to the writing of the Declaration of Independence outside the Committee of Five, of which the name Thomas Paine is a frequent mention. The resolution to form the committee was moved by Richard Henry Lee of Virginia on June 7, 1776.
Jefferson's first draft provided a scathing criticism of Great Britain's use of slavery against the colonies, but the anti-slavery language was ultimately removed July 1, 1776 due to two States threatening not to approve the document should the language remain. The goal was for the States to be unanimous in their declaration, so the protests regarding the language by Georgia and South Carolina was considered, and ultimately led to the removal of the anti-slavery language. The other eleven States all approved of the anti-slavery language, a fact that stands in opposition to the Critical Race Theory argument that the Revolutionary War was fought for the purpose of preserving slavery.
The first presentation of the Declaration of Independence to the Congress was on June 28, 1776, an event commemorated by the John Trumbull painting bearing the same name as the document.
-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary
* The word "united" in this instance in this article is lower-case as it is on the original document.
Sunday, December 26, 2021
Face Covering Mask Unsafe Air
By Douglas V. Gibbs
In California we are under a new face mask mandate until January 15. My wife at her work is required to wear a mask all day at work. The Democrats have mandated mask wearing, and in the schools are demanding that our children wear a mask all day. Why? Because of a virus they have lied to us about, and a vaccine that is more dangerous than the disease, and the latest Omicron Variant we are finding out is very weak. But, wear your mask, they tell us, for safety's sake.
Is it safe to be wearing those masks all day like the politicians are saying? Is mask wearing "following the science?"
-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary
For the Republic: Alan Myers invites Douglas V. Gibbs as Guest
Sunday 5:00 - 7:00 PM
Hosted by Alan Myers
Guest: Douglas V. Gibbs
Saturday, December 25, 2021
Constitution Radio: Christmas Day in America
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Friday, December 24, 2021
Reverend William Rogers
Author, Speaker, Instructor, Radio Host
William Rogers (1751-1824) was an American clergyman who is perhaps most famous for leading the Constitutional Convention in prayer on July 4, 1787, at the Reformed Calvinistic Church of Philadelphia. Beside being the first student to attend and graduate from Brown University (then known as Rhode Island College), from 1771 to 1824, Rogers was a Baptist clergyman, serving as pastor of the First Baptist Church of Philadelphia from 1772-1775. When hostilities broke out he temporarily departed from the minister to don a uniform, serving as a chaplain in the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War.
The prayer Reverend Rogers led the delegation from the Constitutional Convention in:
“As this is a period, O Lord! big, with events, impenetrable by any human scrutiny, we fervently recommend to thy fatherly notice, that august Body assembled in this city, who compose our Federal Convention; will it please Thee, O Eternal I Am! to favor them from day to day with thy immediate presence; be thou their wisdom and their strength! Enable them to devise such measures as may prove happily instrumental for healing all divisions, and promoting the good of the
great whole; incline the hearts of all the people to receive with pleasure, combined with a determination to carry into execution, whatever these thy servants may wisely recommend; that the United States of America may furnish the world with one example of a free and permanent government, which shall be the result of human and mutual deliberation, and which shall not, like all other governments, whether ancient or modern, spring out of mere chance, or be established by force. – May we triumph in the cheering prospect of being completely delivered from anarchy; and continue, under the influence of republican virtue, to partake of all the blessings of cultivated and civilized society!”
-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary
British Prime Minister Sickeningly Uses Jesus' Name to Urge Vaxxx
By Douglas V. Gibbs
Author, Speaker, Instructor, Radio Host
https://twitter.com/JedediahBila/status/1474392456640745472
Author, Speaker, Instructor, Radio Host
I agree with Ms. Bila...this is what our world has become.
Unconstitutional COVID Mandates Stopped in Florida by Federal Judge
Author, Speaker, Instructor, Radio Host
In Florida a federal court has temporarily blocked the Biden administration’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate for federal contractors, marking a small win for the sunshine state as litigation over the matter continues. Florida is one of nineteen States suing the Biden administration over the federal vaccine mandate for government contractors and one of twenty-four States suing regarding vaccine mandates for school personnel and mask mandates for children. The former order comes from Biden's September 9 Executive Order 14042, which unconstitutionally makes an executive order "legally binding," and there is no authority in the Constitution that grants to the executive branch any "legislative powers" like what Biden is wielding with his executive mandate. All law creation, modification, and extermination are solely the authority of the United States Congress, first of all; as per Article I, Section 1; All Legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States. Secondly, the Fifth Amendment prohibits the federal government from depriving any person of their life, liberty or property without due process. Liberty includes freedom of choice in personal matters. Thirdly, there are no authorities in the U.S. Constitution to the federal government regarding any involvement domestically regarding the activities of the citizens, especially in terms of the relation of those activities to a medical situation, health care, or whether or not a person must wear medical gear on their face.
How has it that the Administration has assumed the President suddenly has such sweeping powers? Were these not the same people who accused President Donald J. Trump of similar authoritarianism (and even went so far as to call him a fascist) even though during his presidency there were no executive orders issued by President Trump creating, modifying or repealing federal law? Upon my own inspection, all of Trump's executive orders were associated with the execution of existing federal laws on the books.
The claim by some may be that the executive orders by the Biden Administration in question are regarding federal employees, federal contractors, and children who attend educational programs that receive federal funds, thus, granting the President the authority to make such demands.
Except, there are also no constitutional allowances for the President to make law for even federal employees without the congressional lawmaking process being followed in the first place, and secondly most of these employees, contractors, and students participate in federal functions that are not constitutionally allowed as being a federal function in the first place. For example, there is no mention of the federal government having any authority regarding education in the Constitution, whatsoever. Funding for schools is supposed to come from the States and private sources, and any curriculum, rules for schools, and hiring of educational personnel is supposed to be all done locally by the community (and more specifically, the parents).
What will likely be a temporary stoppage of the federal government's illegal domestic activity regarding vaccinations for federal employees and contractors was handed down by U.S. District Judge Steven Merryday on Wednesday, granting a motion by Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody for a preliminary injunction.
The case in question was filed by Florida and other States on October 28.
While the Biden mandate for federal employees allows for medical and religious exemptions, the military mandate that is in place does not, a lack of uniformity that also screams in the face of the Biden Administration's lawless trek through the pandemic issue.
President Biden has warned there will be "death and disease" for the unvaccinated if they continue to defy his edicts. The CDC issued a similar warning of death and disease during the Christmas Season should you refuse to get vaccinated. According to their own numbers (VAERS: Vaccine Adverse Event Reports), however, it's the vaccinated who are in danger, not those who trust their individual natural immune systems. If you dare to disagree, and you indicate so online, Biden's Department of Homeland Security Secretary has given online platform providers the okay to carry out their Brown Shirt shock troop desires of shutting down anyone who fails to comply with Biden's rules against Freedom of Speech, especially when its deemed to be in disagreement with their political stance regarding COVID-19, or any of the Cultural Marxism stances they have taken (opposition to their Marxist stances in the social arena is being labeled "Hate Speech").
In short, the message is "Obey without question or death may be your punishment, all dissent will be silenced."
Hardly a message of American Liberty, don't you think?
-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary
Thursday, December 23, 2021
Science and the Concept of a Young Earth
Author, Speaker, Instructor, Radio Host
I perform often as a public speaker. My calendar, between my Constitution Classes and speaking events, can get quite full. In a conversation this morning with a marketing person attached to a radio station I have a relationship with she was telling me about a group she would like to have me speak to. A Creation Fellowship in San Diego County. But, one stipulation. You need to be "Young Earth".
At first I thought that was the name of a group of some kind. She explained, "They don't agree with the Christians who try to mingle evolution with creation."
"Oh," I replied. "I never gave a name to it, but if you mean that the world is six thousand years old, using biblical data, which is two thousand years from Adam to Abraham, two thousand years from Abraham to Jesus, and then about two thousand years since Jesus, then yeah, I am on board with that. In fact, so were the Founding Fathers."
"You've done your homework," she replied.
Not necessarily. Growing up I bought into the idea that the universe and Earth have billions of years of mileage racked up in their lifetimes. As a Constitutionalist, however, while studying writings from the Founding Era, I came across the following snippet:
Six thousand years? At that point I had not heard the concept, before.
I began to do a little snooping back then, reading what I could, and I came across more information about the idea that our Earth is much younger than secular scientists say it is than I originally expected to find.
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This is about where the hardcore lefty evolution secularists
start laughing, mocking, and acting in their usual arrogant and narcissistic manner.
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Why are these people so convinced the universe is billions upon billions upon billions of years old?
"The Creator Beyond Time & Space" by Mark Eastman and Chuck Missler has a quote in it by Nobel Laureate, George Wald. "Time is in fact the hero of the plot. Given so much time the impossible becomes possible, the possible probable, and the probable virtually certain. One has only to wait: Time itself performs miracles."
They believe that there is no God, but godly miracles can happen if something is big enough or takes long enough for whatever they want to happen to happen. If the universe is older than anyone could possibly imagine, they speculate, then surely eventually the impossible chance of something forming out of nothing could happen. Same goes for those who are convinced there are sentient lifeforms somewhere out there. Without evidence they simply postulate that since the universe is vast, surely in that massive place out there another miracle of life forming from nothing must've happened.
So, a young Earth, or the idea that God created the heavens and the Earth and then only populated the whole thing with us, can't be true in their eyes. Too much time has passed. The size of the universe is too vast. They don't need God. They have time and the vast size of the universe on their side.
The idea of the Earth being fairly young, since I was into science as a kid, never crossed my mind. 4.54 billion years for the Earth and about 13.8 billion years for the Universe made sense to me, because the smart and educated scientists said so.
Then, sometime in the 90s I came across that quote I gave you earlier from James Wilson. I have been a fan of the writings of the Founding Fathers, or at least the ones who supported laissez-faire and limited authorities in the Constitution for the government, since I was first being exposed to Schoolhouse Rock back in the Seventies. So, when I read James Wilson's bit about the Earth being six thousand years old since creation, I took notice.
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I don't remember my hellfire and brimstone Baptist pastor saying such when I was growing up.
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Maybe I was too young to pick up on such a tidbit. Maybe I wasn't in church that day. Nonetheless, I don't remember the concept being taught to me, so in truth the concept for me is only a few decades old.
After already having planted in my skull by James Wilson the possibility of a young Earth a decade and a half prior, half a decade beyond the launch of the new millennium I stumbled upon Lee Strobel's book, "A Case for A Creator". In his book he also suggested, based on his studies, that the Earth is only six thousand years old.
I wrote about my brush with Strobel's book in an article on Political Pistachio in September of 2009. In the post I break down a lot of evidence regarding my burgeoning belief in a "Young Earth".
The belief that mankind has been on the planet for about 6,000 years is also something supported by evidence. In "The Collapse of Evolution" author Scott Huse, PhD sums up proof that the Earth cannot be billions of years old because it would exhibit:
-A much higher concentration of salt in the oceans than what exists today,
-much more atmospheric helium, the product of the radioactive decay of uranium and thorium; current levels would indicate ten thousand years of decay, assuming a starting point of zero,
-no mountains, because even the Himalaya and Rocky Mountains would erode to sea level in just ten million years,
-a lot more sediment deposited in the Gulf of Mexico by the Mississippi River, since what's in the delta now has been calculated to have taken about four thousand years to deposit,
-no more petroleum or natural gas beneath the earth's cap rock because the extremely high pressures containing both would have blown through the rock in ten thousand years max.
As for mankind being on the Earth for about six thousand years, you have to do the math for that. Calculating Biblical accounts and all of the begets, the Bible comes up with about 6,000 years. Mathematicians, basing a growth of about 2.12 to 2.25 children per family, taking into consideration downturns in population growth such as famine and plague, place the beginning of growth of a population of about six and a half billion people to about 4,500 years ago. Biblically, Noah is about 5,000 years ago.
Going back even further, in July of 2008 I wrote:
Evolutionists can't get their numbers straight. I've heard estimates in the tens of thousands of years to millions of years when it comes to Science's estimation of how long the human species has been walking the Earth. Most Bible-believing Christians have determined, based on figuring out all of the "begets" and so forth in the Bible, that mankind has been on this planet for about six thousand years...an article that was originally published in a Christian publication over twenty years ago, a theological scholar came to a conclusion using population trends to figure it out...Statistically, a couple must have 2.1 children to keep a population at the same level...Let us suppose for a moment that the Biblical account of the Genesis Flood in which just eight people survived is true. Let us further suppose that each family from this point in history had 2.4 children on average. This very modest number will take into account all the deaths through infant mortality, plagues and war...How long would it take to reach today’s world population?
Surprisingly, the answer is just less than five thousand years. This figure fits nicely into known historical records.
Now suppose we take the evolutionary view that mankind has been on this planet for two million years and we begin with two people – or eight, it will make little difference – and they also had the statistical 2.4 children per family.
We will finish up with a number so impossibly large that the universe itself would not hold them!
Aware of this problem, the textbooks explain it away by speaking of “population stability throughout this time.”
Since then, I have a special section in my library for books about science, on both sides of the aisle.
My latest one, a book by Ken Ham and Bodie Hodge titled, "A Flood of Evidence," also supports the idea of a Young Earth. The book in Chapter Six offers a list of all of the begets from the Bible (which adds up to our final 6,000 year goal) and some secular dates to take into consideration. The book also goes into some of the flaws of the dating methods used by secular scientists, as well as discussing how "rock layers" points to a global catastrophe (like a worldwide flood) rather than billions of years of doing what the secular scientists claim.
The Creation Answers Book by Creation Book Publishers explains that "Many dinosaur fossils are not completely mineralized -- in fact, dinosaur bones with blood cells, hemoglobin and soft tissue such as blood vessels have been found...how could such bones possibly be 65 million years old?
Both Young Earth Creationists and the folks who believe in the Big Bang have a problem when it comes to the speed of light. Also in the Creation Answers Book, the problem of light from distant galaxies and stars reaching us is addressed. If the Earth is young but it takes millions of years for the light from the stars to get to us, is that not a contradiction? Even Big Bang science followers have a similar problem, because based on their calculations there still has not been enough time passed for some of the lights in the sky to reach us.
According to the Creation Answers Book when God said "Let there be light," and then dotted the sky with the stars, He created the light from the stars "in transit." Only the advent of a Creator who could do that can answer the question regarding starlight. Science has no answer except to tack on even more time and more time and more time to the age of the universe.
The book "Refuting Evolution" by Jonathan Sarfati, PhD, tackles the age of Earth issue through an explanation regarding sedimentary rock in Chapter 8.
The vast thickness of sedimentary rocks around the world are commonly used as evidence for vast age...The 'deep time' (billions of years) indoctrination comes with the statement 'often reaching great thickness over long periods of time.' However, this goes beyond the evidence. Great thicknesses could conceivably be produced either by a little water over long periods, or a lot of water over short periods. [The same conclusion Ken Ham makes in his "A Flood of Evidence" book] ...Because sedimentation usually occurs slowly today, it is assumed that it must have always occurred slowly. If so, then the rock layers must have formed over vast ages...the evidence for catastrophic formation is so overwhelming that there is a growing body of neocatastrophists...a cataclysmic globe-covering (and fossil forming) flood would have eroded huge quantities of sediment, and deposited them elsewhere. Many organisms would have been buried very quickly and fossilized...Mount St. Helens eruption in Washington state produced 25 feet (7.6 meters) of finely layered sediment in less than a day! And a rapidly pumped sand slurry was observed to deposit 3 to 4 feet (about 1 meter) of fine layers on a beach over an area the size of a football field. Sedimentation experiments by the creationist Guy Berthault, sometimes working with non-creationists, have shown that fine layers can form by a self-sorting mechanism during the settling of differently sized particles...how does the 'slow and gradual' explanation fare?...scavengers and rotting normally remove all traces within weeks. Dead jellyfish normally melt away in days. Yet Teaching about Evolution has a photo of a fossil jellyfish...It clearly couldn't have been buried slowly, but must have been buried quickly by sediments carried by water. This water would also have contained dissolved minerals, which would have caused the sediments to cement together, and so harden quickly...there is a vertical tree trunk that penetrates several rock layers...if the upper sedimentary layers really took millions or even thousands of years to form, then the top of the tree trunk would have rotted away."
As Ken Ham explains in his book "The Lie Evolution", the belief in the Theory of Evolution is a religion, and they are willing to twist the evidence and make stuff up as they go along to try to fix their lie because they desperately want it to be true because it cannot be married with the Bible. And that's the point. To destroy Faith in God, and in turn kill God.
To call evolution, and the unproven made-up lies that surrounds it, science is disingenuous at best. Creation, it turns out, is more based on science than the religion of evolution.
As for our scientific evidence supporting the Young Earth concept I began this whole article with? The Evolution Handbook by Vance Ferrell puts it nicely.
- Ultraviolet light has only built up a thin layer of moon dust.
- Short half-life radioactive non-extinct isotopes have been found in moon rocks.
- The moon is receding from the Earth at a speed which requires a very young Earth.
- Human records also only go back 4,300 years, or so.
- If humanity is as intelligent as we are told, should not early man have had some kind of written record, too?
Other considerations from The Evolution Handbook:
- Scientists say that the material from the sun made the planets and moons. But, the ratio of elements in the sun is far different than that found in the planets and moon.
- Uranus and Venus rotate backwards compared to the other planets.
- One third of the moons have backward motions.
- Triton, one of Neptune's inner moons, is nearly twice the mass of our moon, revolves backward, has a nearly circular orbit, and is only 220,000 miles from Neptune. Today's artificial satellites revolving around Earth need constant adjustments to keep them in orbit, but our moon and Triton circling around Neptune doesn't? And they've been at it for billions of years?
- There are such striking differences between the various planets and moons that they could not have originated from the same source as suggested by secular scientists.
- The Earth's magnetic field is decaying. It can't be more than 6,000 years old or the magnetism prior to that would have disallowed the formation of life on the planet, and a million years ago the magnetism would have liquified the Earth.
- The average depth of topsoil throughout the Earth is about eight inches. Allowing for losses due to erosion it has been calculated that it takes between 300 and a thousand years to build up one inch. Based on those calculations and the thickness of our topsoil, the Earth is only a few thousand years old, not millions or billions.
- Population Growth is so rapid that the current population was likely reached in a few thousand years.
These are just a few highlights from The Evolution Handbook which is nearly a thousand pages long. I will no doubt get profanity-laden comments from lefties because I dare to question their religion of secular science.
I love science. Real science. Science has proven the people who tell us to "follow the science" wrong on all counts. These people are all in cahoots with each other, too. Science. Progressive Politics. Education System. Their God is the anti-God.
Karl Marx believed Faith in God as being an "opiate of the masses," and that to take power God and everything associated with God, must be eliminated. Therefore, they seek to destroy morality, the difference between the sexes, the very definition of right and wrong itself, and of course anything that resembles the concept of a Creator (or Creation); they do all of this through false science, revised education, political propaganda, a culture war based on dividing the people against each other, and if possible, the destruction of any belief in God's Creation.
-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary