Wednesday Morning Breakfast For The Brain

The jackboot of the police state is on our necks, the wolves are at the door and freedom is fleeting…

COVID-19’s Challenge to the Christian Church: What Would Jesus Do?

By John W. Whitehead

In every age, we find ourselves wrestling with the question of how Jesus Christ—the itinerant preacher and revolutionary activist who died challenging the police state of his time, namely, the Roman Empire—would respond to the moral questions of our day.

For instance, what would Jesus do in the midst of a coronavirus pandemic?

Would he disregard social distancing guidelines to visit and tend to the sick and dying? Would he take the assets belonging to those massive megachurches—the expensive real estate, the lucrative bank accounts—and put them to work where they can do the most good right now, tending to the sick, housing the homeless, and providing for the needy?

Would he advocate, as so many evangelical Christian leaders have done in recent years, for congregants to “submit to your leaders and those in authority,” which in the American police state translates to complying, conforming, submitting, obeying orders, deferring to authority and generally doing whatever a government official tells you to do? Or would he defy government shutdowns to hold church worship services as some have done?

It’s a quandary, all right: what would Jesus do?

Suddenly, that evangelical message of abject compliance to the government, no matter how immoral or unjust that government may seem, is running up against government mandates that test not only how far the religious community will go to exercise its religious freedoms but what that even means in a COVID-19 world.

As the world prepares to spend Holy Week and Easter Sunday in a state of near-isolation, varying degrees of lockdowns imposed by world governments to blunt the deadly impact of this novel coronavirus pandemic have all but ensured that there will be no massive Easter Egg hunts, no Easter parades, and no flower-bedecked church services this year.

We can debate and litigate and legislate whether churches have a lawful right to remain open during this pandemic and allow their congregants to worship in person, but surely Jesus would have us fight an altogether different battle.

Study the life and teachings of Jesus, and you may be surprised at how relevant he is to our modern age.

A radical nonconformist who challenged authority at every turn, Jesus spent his adult life speaking truth to power, challenging the status quo of his day, pushing back against the abuses of the Roman Empire, and providing a blueprint for standing up to tyranny that would be followed by those, religious and otherwise, who came after him.

Those living through this present age of militarized police, SWAT team raids, police shootings of unarmed citizens, roadside strip searches, invasive surveillance, and government lockdowns might feel as if these events are unprecedented, but the characteristics of a police state and its reasons for being are no different today than they were in Jesus’ lifetime: control, power and money.

Much like the American Empire today, the Roman Empire of Jesus’ day was characterized by secrecy, surveillance, a widespread police presence, a citizenry treated like suspects with little recourse against the police state, perpetual wars, a military empire, martial law, and political retribution against those who dared to challenge the power of the state.

A police state extends far beyond the actions of law enforcement. In fact, 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.”

Indeed, the police state in which Jesus lived and its striking similarities to modern-day America are beyond troubling.

Read the entire article HERE.

Corona Meltdowns

By Victor Davis Hanson

Is the bad and self-negating behavior of so many of Trump’s enemies setting him up for an even more impressive victory in the fall?

s the coronavirus outbreak begins to reach its zenith, it remains unclear whether the measures taken to stem its tide will prove sufficient, insufficient, or an overreaction. What is certain, however, is that a number of individuals and entities have behaved shamefully and demonstrated no capacity for leadership or usefulness in this moment.

Nancy Pelosi: Gone are the mythologies that Nancy Pelosi was a pragmatic liberal voice of reason among the otherwise polarizing American Left, honed after years of paying her dues to the Democratic Party, as the mother of five dutifully ascended the party’s cursus honorum.

It does not matter whether her political and ethical decline was a result of her deep pathological hatred of Donald Trump. Who cares that her paranoia arose over the so-called “Squad” that might align with socialist Bernie Sanders to mesmerize Democrats to march over the cliff into McGovern-like oblivion? All concede that very few octogenarians have the stamina and clarity to put in the 16-hour work-days and transcontinental travel required by a Speaker of the House.

Instead, all that matters is that for a nation in extremis she is now puerile, even unhinged—and increasingly dangerous.

In retrospect, the public will remember how in fear and confusion she reversed course to spearhead impeachment, outsourced the task in the House of Representatives to its most incompetent and perfidious members—Representatives Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) and Adam Schiff (D-Calif.)—and wasted weeks of the country’s precious energy and time as it was on the cusp of an epidemic.

Pelosi then quickly weaponized the viral crisis in hopes that COVID-19 could do what Robert Mueller’s dream team and impeachment had not done—destroy the administration of Donald Trump before the November 2020 election. Only such an obsession explains why any sober politico would damn Trump as culpable in January for ignoring the viral dangers, while nearly a month after his necessary and controversial travel ban of January 31—that stopped perhaps 7,000 Chinese citizens entering California per day, some on direct flights from Wuhan—she was doing a photo-op tour to urge the public to get out and shop in San Francisco’s crowded Chinatown: “That’s what we’re trying to do today is to say everything is fine here“.

Such a crazy juxtaposition is not just politics or hypocrisy—it’s insanity. The night before an impeached Trump was acquitted in the Senate, and five days after Trump had controversially stopped incoming Chinese visitors, Pelosi tore up his State of the Union address before a national television audience, a level of spiteful vitriol not seen in the U.S. Congress since the years leading up to the Civil War.

When the Congress finally agreed to call a truce and pass a bipartisan “rescue bill” to stave off a depression and deliver some relief to millions of unemployed, Pelosi single-handedly delayed passage to insert irrelevant progressive treats into the authorization—until she was reprimanded by her own party to cease and desist.

She is now, in the middle of an epidemic, insanely talking about a “truth” impeachment-light commission to investigate Trump. She is absolutely clueless of the nihilistic circus that would ensue when her own previous on-the-record statements, the parasitic investment practices of U.S. senators of both parties, the bizarre behavior of New York Mayor Bill de Blasio, the empty January braggadocio of New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, and Joe Biden’s smearing of the Trump travel ban would be fully aired.

Read the entire article HERE.

It’s time to end the great American COVID-19 police state

By Daniel Horowitz

Step back and take stock of how much power has been seized in just three weeks

We now have the most severe, widespread, and protracted form of martial law in our nation’s history … except as it applies to dangerous criminals who are undeterred and released. How much worse will we allow this to get until we call a foul on these gross constitutional violations?

As I observed last week, states have wide latitude to forcibly quarantine individuals or groups of people from the general population. But they don’t have the power to shut down the entire general population. Also, as the Supreme Court has said many times, there are times when life, liberty, and property can be infringed upon, but it must be narrowly tailored to the least invasive means needed to achieve the compelling state interest. What is happening now is anything but narrow.

Consider the following:

• A 19-year-old woman was given a citation and forced to go back home after a state trooper in York County, Pennsylvania, caught her simply “going for a drive.” She was alone in a car, the ultimate social distancing. There is no way under any emergency power that such a broad, arbitrary and gratuitous edict can be justified under the Constitution, given the severity of its restriction on personal liberty. Meanwhile, subways are still open!
• Numerous states have arbitrarily banned nonessential medical services, defined as pretty much anything that is not an urgent emergency. It would be one thing if the areas were overrun with COVID-19 patients, but as I reported Monday, these hospitals are in fact empty and are now laying off vital medical staff because of the unlawful edicts.
• In Los Angeles County, a paddleboarder was arrested for being in the ocean … alone! The San Diego sheriff bragged about giving people a $1,000 citation for sitting alone in their cars at the beach. Again, no violations of federal health and distancing guidance occurred. This is straight unconstitutional fascism.
• David Schuster of Winnebago, Minnesota, was hit with a criminal complaint after he was caught playing cards with three of his buddies in his bar. The bar was closed to the public, but the policeman saw the lights on. He faces up to 90 days in prison and a $1,000 fine. I’m sure that bar was spreading the virus as much as subways and buses. Perhaps more than the 86-year-old anti-abortion protester who was given a citation by San Francisco police for dropping leaflets against abortion. Meanwhile, abortion clinics are open while hip replacements are banned.
• Evidently, the virus is worse at night and attacks people when it’s dark. Cities like Laredo, Texas, are now adopting a mandatory curfew after 10 p.m. unless you are wearing an ID or have a letter that shows you are an essential worker. A city government that has no problem harboring illegal aliens and bristles at immigration enforcement as “show me your papers: totalitarianism has no problem applying it to Americans walking or driving alone, which has zero bearing on spreading a virus.
• For years we were told that to use the military more aggressively at our international border to repel an invasion – the quintessential use of the military – was somehow a violation of the Posse Comitatus law, which bars the feds from using the military to enforce domestic laws. Now, Secretary of Defense Mark Esper, the same man who championed the program of training Saudis on our military bases, is signaling that governors can use the National Guard to enforce house arrest edicts.
• Google is now developing a tool to track people to see if they are following the edicts. The New York Times already publicized a heat map of movement based on cellphone data. For years, law enforcement has been stripped of every tracking tool to catch criminals and terrorists. Everything was a concern for alleged criminals’ privacy. Now, they are searching for any innovative means to use against everyday Americans.

At what point will we the people stand up to this capricious nonsense, especially as these same politicians release criminals and illegal aliens, while lying to us about the math and science behind their unilateral edicts? Why is Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis the only leader who recognizes that “we can’t start ripping up the Constitution?”

Read the entire article HERE.

Bureaucrat Dr. Birx: Stay Home & Starve

Via The Sons Of Liberty

How many Americans will be frightened by the necessity to buy food and feed their families?

Dr. Deborah Birx, the White House “coronavirus response coordinator,” said on Saturday all plebs must stay out of grocery stores. She didn’t offer an alternative. Instead, she repeated the hand washing and 6-foot “social distancing” mantra.

“This is the moment to not be going to the grocery store, not going to the pharmacy, but doing everything you can to keep your family and your friends safe and that means everybody doing the 6-feet distancing, washing their hands,” said the life-long bureaucrat.

I am reminded of President George H.W. Bush confronting a grocery store scanner on display at the National Grocers Association convention in D.C. in 1992. Bush probably hadn’t seen the inside a grocery store in decades and this new technology struck him as remarkable. He was bedazzled by that red scanner light, part of a mundane reality for millions of Americans.

I seriously doubt Ms. Birx does her own shopping. As a top-level flunky of the state and its preferred transnational corporate crony clients, Brix likely dispatches servants to do the shopping and cooking. She has more important tasks at hand, such as frightening the public into subservience with scary worst-case speculation minus hard data, pushing house arrest, and repeating ad nauseam the hand-wash-social-distance mantra.

Like Bush, this woman is seriously out of touch. How many Americans will now be frightened out of their wits by the necessity to buy food and feed their families? Does she believe all Americans have the ability and money to employ others (maybe adorned in hazmat suits) to buy food and deliver it—that is if the delivery services have not gone on strike for fear of the virus, an unknown quantity we are told blows in the wind, lays in wait on all surfaces and effuses invisibly from toilet bowls.

Birx’s insane suggestion—with the full weight of the state behind it—is naturally ignored by millions of Americans that have no choice but to queue up inside grocery stores and pharmacies, daring a virus they are propagandized into believing is everywhere, lethal as the Black Death.

Read the entire article HERE.

Snopes Recommends Shutting Down Internet To Prevent Spread Of Satire

Via The Babylon Bee (Satire)

U.S.—In a statement issued by Snopes’ editorial board, the fact-checking website recommended that the entire internet be shut down so as to prevent the spread of potentially dangerous jokes.

The fact-checker has tried to control the spread of jokes and satire with simple notices that articles are false but is now saying that isn’t enough.

Snopes published a recent study that showed that shutting the internet down would stop the spread of jokes, humor, and satire. It is not known how long the internet would need to be shut down, but the study suggested a minimum of several months would be required.

“Everyone must quarantine away from the internet so that ‘humor’ and ‘jokes’ and ‘satire’ don’t continue to spread around the country,” said a spokesperson. “Should the internet stay up, we’ll continue to run the risk that someone might laugh at a joke or read a satirical article and not know that it isn’t true. We can’t sleep at night until we know that all humor is dead.”

“It’s the only way to be sure.”

Some people warned that this might have negative side effects. Snopes has sent out the thought police to take these people into one of its state-of-the-art reeducation camps.

Check out all of the Bee’s takes on politics and culture HERE.

Be sure to subscribe to Def-Con News to get Breakfast For The Brain in your morning mailbox.