Dakota Beacon

I am a Goldwater Republican as opposed to a Rockefeller Republican. Most of you probably know the difference but for those who don’t let me clarify. A Rockefeller Republican tends toward a position of power and control where a Goldwater opts for principles which protect liberty and individual freedom. And the proof is in the pudding. 

A significant number of Republican leaders do not represent the latter viewpoint.

Why? I believe because many of those who we’ve elected to represent us aren’t listening.

For the five or so years leading up to the "covid 19" takover of the news outlets, the scandal in Britain, involving its mostly Muslim rape gangs and the plight of its defenseless schoolgirls, was capturing the attention of many throughout the West.  Tommy Robinson, crusader for the rights of these children to safety and protection, was repeatedly jailed for his efforts.  The constabulary was known for looking the other way - even when the rapers were caught in the act!  Raping a child in a car was okay with these "law enforcement officers", the courts ran interference for the upper-class tycoons and no one - certainly not the "royal family" said boo about it.  There is a problem for many Americans, however, when this mentality is imported to the U.S.  And there should be.  That is what 1776 was all about.  We are a different people.

The question in question won’t cut any ice (pun intended) with those emotionally invested in the doom-and-gloom global warming thesis. After all, “You cannot reason a man out of a position he has not reasoned himself into,” to paraphrase Anglo-Irish satirist Jonathan Swift. But with the more open-minded majority, the question can turn down the heat on the fear.

If you listen to the leadership of the Republican Party in ND you might think things are a lot worse than they are –or at least what’s going on calls for more radical and even ridiculous measures to “keep things under control.”  

What am I referring to?

For starters, name-calling and marginalization of some of the conservative voices of the party.  

It is downright disheartening to hear groups called “a clown show” or even “anarchists”!  

And if that’s not bad enough, having a "code of conduct" to adhere to which discourages disagreement and debate and calls for individuals to report “unruly” behavior to the chairman! 

This is not a scene out of some conspiracy—it’s actually happening and I want to publicly call these people out!  We’re not even going to get into a host of other questionable actions by the Republican leadership.

Some of us have been perplexed at the seemingly counter-productive and counter-intuitive behavior of our health care providers.  When a patient is being written off and his family is told that the plug is about to be pulled on his life support, why don't they try everything else?  What have they got to lose?  If a family member wants to try Ivermectin, why not?  Well, it turns out they have a hell of a lot to lose if they allow a good and useful drug into the picture in our hospitals.  That has been forbidden by your government.  That's right.  Last week Scott Quiner was barely clinging to life on a ventilator.  Aside from difficulty breathing there wasn't a thing wrong with him.  His wife wanted to try some traditional treatments, inasmuch as the hsopital protocols were killing the man.  Fortunately, public outrage shamed or intimidated the hospital into allowing Quiner to escape.  He had been held as a prisoner on death row there for weeks.  Now he is getting decent care in another institution out of state.  (Doctors there are quoted as saying they have never seen a patient so malnourished.  The intent was to kill him.)  Why??? we ask - why would a hospital and doctors want to kill their patient?  The answer lies in arithmetic, Watson.  Nothing happens without a reason.

Most of us hold an opinion regarding the state of American culture in the 21^st century. Many of us formed our opinion based on sources other than the dominant, albeit sinking, news media.

This week The Passing Scene was inspired by a piece appearing on a respected website, The American Thinker (https://www.americanthinker.com). Without debate, a decline in American culture may be measured. For the purpose of metrics, consider the following.

On January 17, we honor Martin Luther King, Jr. for his leadership in combating racial segregation and securing civil rights for African Americans. To celebrate Rev. King’s remarkable work, Dr. Paul Kengor examines a theory that is making headlines, critical race theory, and asks an important question: How did MLK do what he did without CRT?

It's time for dinner, Senator Cramer.  Would you like a little gravy with that?   

As 2022 begins chugging out of the station, we seem to be surrounded by an atmosphere of "broken-ness".  Things aren't working.  Our grocery store shelves are beginning to be bare.  Our kids are not learning anything worthwhile in school but are instead learning that they are "in the wrong body".  Our health care system is totally upside down and many are beginning to distrust even the motives of supposed "health care providers".  We have allowed "our" government to put Dr. Death, Anthony Fauci, in charge of our nation's health care.  Last week a Minnesota man, on life support in a Coon Rapids hospital, was about to be murdered.  Thankfully, he got a second chance - only because a regional independent reporter, Stew Peters, made it public and public outrage plus some timely legal intervention, forced the institution to allow this innocent prisoner to leave and seek better care somewhere else - that is to say, they backed away from murdering him once the spotlight was put on them.  We are engulfed, it seems, with various kinds of dysfunction.  Our police do not stop shoplifters but they do act to shut down businesses and fine owners.  People have been holding their breath as to whether they would have a job to support themselves, awaiting the pronouncement of the Supreme Court.  We all seem to be held prisoners but the prison is of our own making.

I have just finished reading Victor Davis Hanson’s new book The Dying Citizen. If you read only one book this year, this is the book to read. It was largely written between 2018 through early 2020 although the accumulated research extends much earlier. Hanson’s views cannot be dismissed as mere “conspiracy theories.” Nonsense! He is far too intelligent and well-read for that. As an eminent historian and classicist he authored several dozen well received books. They offer a range of material dealing with the comparison of historical and current demographics and cultural customs.

He begins his book with the history of the concept of citizenship and then explains the forces trying to destroy that idea today. Hanson summarizes hugely important historically significant events in an incredibly clear manner. His footnotes, short essays in themselves, document his assertions.

People seem to have become deeply invested in fear.  Fear and authoritarianism.  Because we have all seen screaming karens, their masks hanging under their chins while they abuse others for not wearing theirs.  We have heard about teachers taping masks to kids' faces, a mother - a schoolteacher, no less - stowing her young son in the trunk of her car for fear of covid because the boy "tested positive".  We have also seen people lining up and sitting for hours in their cars in order to get a stick up their noses to tell them if they are sick or not.  How weird is that?  Worse, we have seen our entire economy disrupted, first through shutting our businesses (at least our local, Main Street businesses) down and now through a ridiculous attempt at "mandating" unwanted "vaccines" on unwilling subjects against the Constitution and international law, resulting in mass exodus from services such as transportation of goods.  Yet we see the very people responsible for these draconian orders partying without masks - AOC at drag queen bars in Miami, Gavin Newsom at the French Laundry restaurant in LA, the exalted Obamas partying it up on Martha's Vineyard.  So we all know damn well that none of this has to do with "protecting" anyone.  It is entirely about controlling people.  The masks, the "vaccines", the shutdowns and isolation, the curfews, the censorship.  It is all a matter of a few elites attempting to control the rest of us.  It needs to stop today.  Right now.

Aside from labeling herself “an affirmative action baby,” Supreme Court Justice Sonya Sotomayor once called herself a “wise Latina.” Given this, apropos here is a line from ancient Chinese sage Confucius:

“Wisdom is, when you know something, knowing that you know it; and when you do not know something, knowing that you do not know it.”

Sotomayor certainly failed this test during oral arguments on Friday over the Biden Administration’s COVID-19 “vaccine” mandates, making outlandishly incorrect claims that have brought her mockery.

This weekend teams will play the last regular season games in the NFL. Earlier in the season, the NFL lost a veteran player—a man with a remarkable football career and life. In September, Tunch Ilkin, the Pittsburgh Steelers’ stellar offensive tackle and captain, died of ALS. In this article, Dr. Gary Scott Smith honors Ilkin by detailing his legacy of character and faith on and off the football field.

Humans are intelligent, creative beings. So why aren't we procreating? Dr. Mark Hendrickson examines why humans are deliberately choosing to have fewer children and the potentially catastrophic consequences. Hendrickson acknowledges this important but overlooked global occurrence, writing “We may not be at the point of an existential crisis yet. But it is ominous that an increasing number of young people no longer include child-bearing in their concept of what constitutes a fulfilled life.”

A weird, wizened little man proclaiming public policy and making rules, a population in mass panic over a mysterious virus, images of people falling over in death in the streets in Wuhan, rumors as to where the disease originated - was it in an unsavory "wet market"?  Or was it the creation of sinister scientists in a secret lab in central China?  An experimental "vaccine" that appears to be causing more death and hideous injury than the disease.  This disease has been used - weaponized - to strip Americans of their heritage of freedom.  It seems to be on track to accomplish drastic depopulation - if we listen to the experts and those who are beginning to see the results.  A people divided.  Did the virus or the response divide them, or did it merely reveal the fact of a native division?  It seems that we are now two peoples - one which clings to government and authorities - scientific, medical, governmental, to protect them from a faceless enemy and one which sees problems with the conclusions of government, the medical community and scientists when the evidence and the facts and outcomes do not support them and hence do not wish to submit their bodies to an experiment.  The latter group could be described as "objective, investigative, questioning skeptics" while the former could be considered part of an illogical, unscientific cult, following without question those they have been told are in charge.  They rely on what could be called "magical thinking" and when the "magic" doesn't work they cannot understand or accept the result.  

Earlier this month, critical race theory was at the forefront of a major gubernatorial election in Virginia. The theory made daily—if not hourly—headlines. And it remains one of the most divisive topics on major networks.

What is CRT? And why are liberals (James Carville, Andrew Sullivan, Bill Maher, and many others) speaking against it?

In this article, Dr. Paul Kengor traces the roots of CRT and fleshes out what the theory is doing to America: dividing her citizens. Kengor writes that CRT, “divides people into groups pitted against one another, into categories of oppressed vs. oppressor. What’s worse, your group defines you. This certainly flies in the face of the Judeo-Christian conception of all individuals as children of God made in the image of God.”

Another year of rapid change now gone and with it have passed the hours and days of 2021. Year 2022 dawns presenting another opportunity to see clearly and act wisely.

            How unaware we are of the passage of time when thoroughly immersed in social media, entertainment, and the distractions of inconsequential activities. Meanwhile the “drum beat of time” marks cadence. What follows is not history, but rather the notation of historical markers as a measure of the increased rate of change over a millennia.

So who has the bigger ego, Trump or Obama? Some may claim that at First Baptist, 45 was speaking to (and perhaps playing to) an audience very different from 44’s. Fair enough. But for certain is that with Falsani, Obama revealed his true self as he so often would off teleprompter, just as he did when telling an audience in 2008 that people in middle America clung to “guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them….” His comments were in the nature of a Freudian slip.

Practical solutions to one of the most contentious issues of our time have been ignored by those who believe they alone know what’s best for the rest of us. These partisans have posited the choice as either a free market driven fossil fuel economy or a central planned replacement of fossil fuels by other energy sources. Generations of school children have been taught that fossil fuels are destroying the planet and mankind is to blame.

A solution has been offered by a pioneer in meteorology, predictive modeling, extreme weather, and long-range forecasting, Mr. Joe Bastardi.

There is a link at the end of this post.  Please watch it.  We begin 2022 at a crossroads.  The path we take may be irrevocable for the rest of time.   Will we choose freedom or will we sit back and accept oppression by default?  We will get to oppression by complying with it.  The is a pivotal year for human rights and freedom.   

In years past, to conclude one more year, The Passing Scene cited with comment Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s “Ring Out, Wild Bells.” The same was true of Robert Burns, the Bard of Scotland, and his poem “Auld Lang Syne.”

This year, a lesser known piece by Burns seems appropriate. Titled, obviously enough, “New Year’s Day” this little ditty becomes a tip o’ the hat to Father Time.

What does it say about a civilization when it feels compelled to place a satanic display next to baby Jesus at Christmastime? As a general question, you can answer that for yourself. But among other things, in our case it means too many Americans — including judges — wouldn’t know the Constitution from the Communist Manifesto.

The story here is that the baby Baphomet, a goat-like creature worshiped by satanists, has been placed alongside a Christmas tree, a Nativity and a menorah in Springfield, Illinois State Capitol Rotunda. This isn’t just a one-off, either, but reflects now common insanity. It also isn’t just limited to “liberal” states

As we quickly approach Christmas, a recent study uncovered a troubling trend in America: we are in the midst of an “epidemic of loneliness.” In this article, sociologist Dr. David Ayers examines the Harvard study and argues that we are not made to go through life solo and if we set our hearts upon Jesus Christ, we will never be lonely. He writes, “He came to remove the alienation of humans from God and one another. He is the ultimate source of joy, the premier fountain of happiness.”

The days of Joseph Pulizer sending Nellie Bly around the world in 80 days, or into the clutches of the villains running the mental hospitals in New York or Stanley finally being able to greet the elusive Dr. Livingstone in a remote African village, the dogged reporting of the St. Valentine's Day Massacre or the Lindburgh kidnapping or the impassioned account of the crash of the Hindenburg, are gone.  Today our press is literally shilling for their sponsors, the drug giants.  They will cover up for the most blatant abuse of the public's trust by politicians and vaccine manufacturers and their proponents and beneficiaries.  Meanwhile we must get our real news elsewhere and those who don't pay the price.  It is all so sad and so very unnecessary.

Americans have been rightly concerned about the institutionalization of racism in our society through our schools by means of "Critical Race Theory", but it's not just in the classroom that this is practiced.  In Mankato the school board has decided to act on a racist inclination with respect to salaries - not indirectly but directly  dependent upon race.  Meanwhile, in Ontario, the provincial government is making sure that the future remains bleak for students in their schools.  What is going on here?  Has common sense left the building . . . or is it something more sinister?  Is it perhaps beating the drum of race war?  Is it perhaps a determination to keep citizens in ignorance?  We have some very serious problems in our schools and in the people who elect these community leaders.  We had better wake up and start paying attention.

American culture ignores serious reading (the Bible in particular) and prefers social media and entertainment as the source of information – and misinformation. A materialistic culture distracts. These distractions numb us to any communion with the Holy Spirit and what the Father might reveal. But, we think we are okay. “…everyone did that which was right in his own eyes.” (Judges 17:6)

Pascal’s Wager comes to mind. The gist of the wager is that one cannot come to the knowledge of God’s existence through reason alone. So far, so good. The wise thing to do is to live your life as if God does exist because such a life has everything to gain and nothing to lose. If we live as though God exists, and He does indeed exist, we have gained heaven. If He does not exist, we have lost nothing. If, on the other hand, we live as though God does not exist and He in fact really does exist, we have gained hell and lost heaven. Here’s where Pascal’s Wager breaks down. Can we live the life Christ wants us to live without His internal presence? To phrase it as a statement, none of us can live the Christian life without His indwelling presence. Trying to do so is to live by the flesh in an attempt to justify ourselves to God. Fat chance.

“Lia” Thomas, the “transgender” University of Pennsylvania swimmer who has become famous, and infamous, for making women in the pool seem like manatees racing a barracuda, recently said that he just tries to tune out the negativity directed his way. After all, not only do many people say it’s unfair he’s competing with females, but his recent boast that winning was “so easy, I was cruising” truly raised hackles. But even though he’s not really a damsel in distress, I’m here to help as his knight in shining armor.

In 2021, the federal government distributed money to many Americans through various programs. Has this assistance caused an incentive not to work? In this article, Dr. James Thrasher examines the situation and argues that working is a significant part of God’s providential plan. He writes, “The workplace is part of God’s divine strategy to use workers as transforming and restorative agents by pointing others to Christ. It was God’s intention that true soul satisfaction would come from an honest day’s work.”

In case you haven't noticed, America is rapidly hurtling into a bleak totalitarian state.  Before too long we might look more like North Korea than like the land of our Founders.  This is not an exaggeration.  Right now we are looking shockingly like the Third Reich.  Think about this.  We have places right now where people are required to "show their papers" before going into a restaurant or pub or even buying groceries.  As of this writing the federal government - through the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) - is building "quarantine" facilities in out-of-the-way nooks and crannies.  Like behind the trees off of a roadway in Nashville, in Ohio, in other places you might never suspect.  Maybe somewhere in your home town.  Homeless people, always an issue, are the first line.  They are beginning to be rounded up, for their own good, of course, and hauled off to guarded facilities.  Well, you might say, that's probably "for the best".  But tomorrow, when the homeless are all off the streets they will begin looking for other inconvenient people.  People who fly the Americna flag on their front porches, whose cars sport bumper stickers like "Let's Go Brandon" and the like.  People who write inconvenient letter to the editor or call in on radio shows.   Tomorrow it might be you.  As the shelves become more bare, as people are locked out of their jobs, as we begin to look more like a police state, we need to look deeper into the roots of this problem - and it isn't China.