Dakota Beacon

The haunting refrains of Harry Chapin’s song “Cat’s in the Cradle,” like "planes to catch and bills to pay … when you coming home, dad?” started to play in my mind recently. A Fortune 500 company recruiter asked to join me in my office after a day of on-campus interviewing. He immediately locked in on, and asked about, the picture of my wife and four kids. With a quavering voice, as if speaking from his soul, he issued an unexpected directive to me: “You go home at five o’clock, Jim, and be a devoted and available husband and father!” He then explained what he called his well-intentioned, but heartbreaking, life story.

Paying attention to and playing with words becomes second nature to a person who writes. We live at a time of prolific word creation and new words are invented every year. In 2019 alone Merriam-Webster Dictionary added over 1,100 new words. Unfortunately, many young people, especially social media regulars, have little appreciation for the rich repository of archaic English words.

And then there are words that never quite made it into popular diction. As a light break from the heavier screed produced in The Passing Scene, the following comprise a rather curious read. Consider some of these underdogs.

Word is that the Senate has the necessary votes for federal gun control legislation designed to, among other things, pressure states into instituting “red flag” laws. These measures are controversial because they involve suspending a person’s rights (i.e., seizing his weapons) without due process. Wherever you stand on them and federal firearms laws in principle, however, a simple fact is under-emphasized in this debate: Laws mean little if not enforced.

What’s more, they’re actually instruments of evil if only enforced to the degree where good people will comply.

Here’s another fact: Corresponding to the general unwillingness among left-wing district attorneys to punish criminals (who aren’t also political opponents), these officials, though claiming firearms are a plague, aren’t punishing most gun crimes. Odd, huh?

America is being proven to be ill-equipped to lead the world in the 21st Century.  Our population is nearly illiterate, has little idea of our history or culture, has virtually no concept of geography and less of math.  We have a lot of people who seem proficient at the current state of technology - computer-literates - but that technology is rapidly outdated, with last year's knowledge not sufficient for next year's challenges.  One young man I know opined recently that no one who is age 70 or more has any business in politics because they don't understand computer technology.  If these are the kinds of values we are relying on to lead our country out of the morass we are in, God help us.  On the other hand, there is a dramatically growing interest in alternatives to our schools - one of the few healthy outcomes of the "covid" episode.  And perhaps the one that will save us.

As we drift into the middle of June, 2022, we must remember the people who are still being held without trial and without bail in disgusting and shameful gulags right here in the heart of America, in our capital and other places, for merely exercising their First Amendment right to assembly and self-expression.  Jake Lang, one of their number, has managed to produce a documentary (it's one way to while away time in over a year of solitary confinement) which sets forth the true account of the events which have falsely been temed an "insurrection" by our country's enemies.

Americans face a mountain of social and economic difficulties imposed intentionally. One fiasco after another impacts Americans: open borders, inflation, doubling gas prices, defunding the police, high increase in violent crime, CRT indoctrination, sexualizing children, food shortages, baby formula shortages, Afghan abandonment, disrespect from other nations. This summer Americans can look forward to rolling blackouts, diesel rationing, further increase in gas prices, and unreliable air travel.

Our suffering is inconsequential compared to the transformation sought by our “betters.” These difficulties result not from incompetence or inefficiency. They have been imposed -- intentionally. Additionally, seventy percent of President Biden’s cabinet are President Obama carryovers. This, too, was quite intentional. Transformation of America is the Progressives’ goal and it is a full court press. Using economic coercion to bring America to its knees and reforming us is part of the Great Reset. The Great Reset depends not only on the obliteration of free markets, but of individual liberty and free will as well.

Recently, the House passed a bill that will allow the Federal Trade Commission to fine oil companies if they increase prices in an excessive way. Are oil companies the cause of today’s high fuel prices? In this article, Dr. Mark Hendrickson examines the House bill and details the real reason prices are so high: the economic law of supply and demand.

With threats of nuclear war, a destroyed economy, unbelievable cost of essentials like gas and food shortages, not to mention the ever-present threat to our Constitution, it is sometimes possible to lose sight of the other threat, the one posed by our medical establishment and Big Pharma, consorting with government and corporate employers to kill us - the so-called "covid vaccine".  Certainly no less a threat than nuclear war, this "vaccine" has already been pumped into millions of gullible or job-pressured victims, and now it is being forced on our children, even infants.  Besides the strong evidence suggesting that it permanently impairs the reproductive system (many of these kids are likely to be sterilized), now studies are emerging showing the rapid development of a previously rare brain disease - Creutzfelt-Jakob Disease (CJD), which should alarm us all.  CJD, always a death sentence, usually takes years to reach its end; in those whose symptoms are brought on by the "vaccine", however, this is not the case.  And, by the way, there is no known treatment or cure for CJD.

I have a confession to make - I might have been party to this problem... but I can actually say, "I was wrong when 'I Am'".  Ask my wife. (My comments/thoughts in red)

Adding to the misery of 2022, with its rotten economy, $5/gallon gas, food shortages and empty shelves, ugly, horrific "vaccine" injuries and deaths, the imminent threat of nuclear war over the narcissistic machinations of Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Ukraine, the wretchedness of even having to see or hear Joe Biden or any of his despicable entourage, we now have one of the periodic trigger events intended to strip us of our rights to self-defense (after which all of the other rights will dissolve like pouring hydrochloric acid on a cake).  I am referring to the recent Uvalde and Buffalo shootings.  There is more here than meets the eye.

Surely no one today can be ignorant of the burden that inflation imposes on Americans. To use the old saw, “There are too many dollars chasing too few goods.” Indeed. The price of goods and services will increase when the demand exceeds supply. Consumer competition for scarce resources drives prices upward. Or, the cost to produce the goods and services increases. The increased cost then passes on to the consumer. This is part of the business cycle. But, in our situation, the US Government has printed an overabundance of dollars. Our “leaders” have obligated to spend trillions of dollars we don’t have. Can you spell D-E-B-T? Consequently, our inflation stands at a near 40-year high.

But wait! What’s all this talk in the news about a coming recession?

If Roe v. Wade is reversed or curtailed by the U.S. Supreme Court, abortion will be turned over to the states. If the states are allowed to legislate abortion, what happens next? In this article that first appeared in Crisis Magazine, Dr. Paul Kengor details statements from leaders of two states to paint the dreary picture. He writes, “Some states will embrace it far and above others. Which states? The answer is pretty simple and predictable: Go to political maps of presidential elections and look at the so-called blue states vs. red states; that is, Democrat states vs. Republican states.”

Today, our casual and routine familiarity with sex has bred a kind of childlike innocence about it. In pagan antiquity, Eros was feared and respected as a capricious and omnipotent daimon (as Socrates describes him in the Symposium). It was not until the Renaissance that he metamorphosed into the cuddly putto with whom we are still familiar from Valentine’s cards. But even in the Renaissance, everyone knew that Cupid’s innocence was a sentimental snare. With all our supposed modern skepticism, we tend to take Eros and the erotic at face value.

Historically, the Sexual Revolution has ushered in an era of unprecedented ignorance about the deeper moral and philosophical meaning of human sexuality. Social revolutions are almost always intellectually beggaring in this way, insofar as they require that revolutionary societies unlearn the accumulated moral and social wisdom of the immemorial civilization that preceded them. The essential fact about revolutions is that they revolve; they roll back the wheel of human progress to the point that they are sometimes forced to reinvent the wheel.

Soon, the Supreme Court will rule on Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization—a case concerning a Mississippi law preventing elective abortions beyond 15 weeks gestation. It is a case that could cripple the ruling of Roe v. Wade. How did we get Roe in the first place? In this article, constitutional scholar Dr. John Sparks details the case that set the stage for the Roe ruling 50 years ago. Sparks writes, “The seemingly innocuous case of Griswold, with its new privacy right and novel interpretation of the Ninth Amendment, became the foundation for Roe v. Wade.”

Again Americans are dealing with heartbreaking tragedy in the murder of 19 children and 2 adults by a lunatic gunman, this time in Uvalde, Texas.  The NY Times was right out of the gate with what they thought was relevant reporting - 1) the shooting was not a staged "false flag" event 2) the shooter was not transgender; 3) the shooter was not an illegal immigrant.  So there you have it - it was all the fault of some kind of egged-on white supremacist cis-normal legal citizen doing this on his own.   Although some have suggested it was too convenient in turning attention away from the WHO treaty or the economic collapse we are seeing or the Durham reports, or the disaster building in Ukraine or the imminent threat by China, there is never a need to force anything like this.  There are, among 350,000,000 people, enough insane shooters to do the job without any such plans.  All they need to carry out their personal agendas is the right climate - unarmed classroom teachers and administrators, easily idenfiable "school guards", cowardly police "in authority" to run interference and it's bound to happen somewhere.  Just like if you said you won't prosecute looters, you will have looters.  You don't need to recruit them.  That is what the "climate" will do for crime.  In Uvalde, Texas, the climate was perfect for this, as it is in most schools across America - they are killing fields.  The policies of our public schools encourage this kind of tragedy.  We could change that.

This year Burgum’s PAC is expected to fund opposition to endorsed candidates in at least a dozen legislative districts.

Bruce Gjovig, chairman of the Region II (Northeast) for the GOP and member of the GOP State Executive Committee, says he finds this troubling. While he says he welcomes the competitions that arise in the primary, he thinks the governor “should be cautious about wading into legislative races.”

“It's important to maintain a separation of powers,” Gjovig said. “The executive branch should not be determining the composition of the legislative branch.”

Memorial Day traditionally honors the memory of the deceased men and women who served in the US military. Over the years the holiday expanded to include anyone we wish to memorialize. In my case, my father was a career military man who served in WWII in the South Pacific and in Korea during the war while my mother, as a good soldier’s wife, kept the home fires burning.

I made the following observations a few years ago, but they are worth noting again this Memorial Day.

Maybe now that Tucker Carlson has taken note of the imminent threat to American sovereignty, some of the people might just wake up and make some calls.  This is an existential threat to our nation.   Is this how the Republic will end?  In a "deal" with Dr. Tedros?  We won't go down finally in defeat by a stronger nation, but rather through the treachery of those we allowed to take control of our government from within?  It's up to us to stop this and we don't have much time.  SHARE THS.

In the minds of many, abortion will heal what ails us. In reality, abortion becomes a matter of convenience hidden beneath euphemisms. Health care. Birth control. Elimination of poverty. A solution to famines and wars. The list goes on. But -- those who have potential for contributing to society should be exempted from the weeding-out process. Elitism, possibly?

The premier advocate of abortion laid out her case quite clearly. In her 1922 book “The Pivot of Civilization,” Margaret Sanger’s work became the basis of the 1939 Negro Project which later morphed into Planned Parenthood. The idea was to reduce poverty in the South. However, the idea expanded into other areas of social engineering.

For certain is that cementing total power requires something Marxist revolutionaries would call “crisis,” the third stage of communist subversion. The first, “demoralization,” is the undermining of the nation’s moral foundation; Soviet defector Yuri Bezmenov said this was “more than complete” in the mid-’80s already. The second, “destabilization,” is what we’ve seen with the violence, the toppling of statues and the intensified attacks on our institutions the last many years. Now all we need is a crisis and what it facilitates: revolution — a final seizure of power.

Does the government of Canada really think anyone believes it cares about human dignity?  Maybe not quite so much after Trudeaus  RCMP storm troopers rode over a native woman who was peacefully holding a sign and pleading for "love" and "peace" in Ottawa last winter.  But they are making up for it.  Now Trudeau's fascist government is proposing to euthanize those who are "too poor to live with dignity".  Now, it does not offer "help" with suicide.  It proposes "euthanasia".  That sounds a little involuntary doesn't it?  This is where the trail of government partering with health care leads.  The Founding Fathers' idea had nothing whatsoever to do with government "taking care of us".  Their idea was a responsible on - get out of the way and let adult Americans make their own decisions.  Sadly, what has come to Canada will soon be here to threaten us.  Talk about domestic terrorists.

American campaign season launched with an opening salvo of primary elections this spring. This becomes “old hat” for many of us and is as predictable as the seasons.

Governments existed as long as mankind walked the earth, most of them authoritarian in one form or another. Human nature never changes and when two or three are gathered together, someone always seeks to be in charge, to control others, if you will. Our current American system was predicated on the belief that the foibles of human nature could be overcome. That system offers no guarantees if and when the common bond of shared values evaporates.

Human nature may not be so easily corralled after all. Consider the following observations.

It is now time to put away the Ukrainian lapel pins, time to stop watching the Amber Heard/Johnny Depp saga, time to lighten up on the rest of the white noise.  It is now time to stop whatever you are doing and take action to stop what could be the termination of the sovereignty of the United States of America as soon as this summer.  That's right.  Forget about the lawn, forget about your summer vacation plans.  This takes precedence over everything else in your world.  

Last week we had another demonstration of Donald Trump's feckless alliances.  Not only was he in Pennsylvania promoting an enthusastic supporter of Chinese domestic policies and covid panic, a friend of Oprah and other far-left-leaning celebrities, Mehmet Oz, but to emphasize his stupidity and in his effort to tout Oz, he brought up on the stage with him no less than the potentate of pharmaceutical crime, Woody Johnson of Johnson & Johnson.  What a guy.  We need to stop listening to Trump.

Dr. Francis Collins, the famous geneticist, was and is vocally Christian. Collins became known to many Americans during his direction of the Human Genome Project through the 1990s. In this article, Dr. Jan Dudt argues that Collins seems to allow his science to inordinately arbitrate over biblical truth. Dudt looks at Collins’ work over the years and writes, “Many of us have admired him, and we expect more from him in his Christian witness to science.”

Most of us would agree that sinking a ship is an act of war.  Many of us are very well aware of how the United States has been drawn into wars in the past because of such an act - or the perception of such an act.  "Remember the Maine!" was the famous slogan which sent American soldiers off to the Spanish-American War in 1898.  A generation later, the sinking of the Lusitania was what brought us into the hell of World War I, a conflict which in no way involved America.  There are always people - like Woodrow Wilson or William McKinley - who want an excuse to get America into a war for some perceived glory.  They aren't the ones dying or coming  home without their legs, or shellshocked, of course.  And it does tend to make great careers for generals and others who wish to gain reputations and prominence.  For most of us, however, war is ugly and expensive and terrible.  It has surely been that for Ukrainians since their feckless president brought it on them.  But throughout our history, we have needed that excuse, that provocation.  We have not gone out seeking wars without that fig leaf.  Now we have.  Now we have become "that guy", the bully who makes war.  Is the ilegitimate presidency* of Joe Biden going to be worth what could become a nuclear war with Russia?  Even an "ordinary" land war would be devastating and would bankrupt us (further).  We have to stop this madness.

There is a terrible sickness in the world.  It is encouraged, if not created, by our leadership throughout the world.  While it may not be evil intent on the part of people in general, if we tolerate this kind of leadership we must in the end bear resonsibility for "going along" or simply coasting with it.  We might not approve, but disapproval will not be enough.  We must find ways to act to stop the abuses of these leaders.  It has now come to the point where if "covid" or "covid vaccines" are not effectively killing enought people, we must be manipulated into a nuclear conflict and as insurance in case that effort fails, we must finally be starved.  It worked in Ireland.  Ireland has never recovered the once robust population it previously enjoyed since the artificial "famine" decimated them.  That hideous human experience will be but a whisper to the roar that is coming as the entire world is deliberately starved.  In his semi-weekly roundup of issues, Epoch TV's Joshua Philipp looks into the impending disaster and its causes and raises some vital questions for us.

This past week everyone was atwitter about Elon Musk – well, acquiring Twitter.

The Right says, “Finally. Free speech and a level playing field in social media!”

The Left retorts, “Robber baron! With all his money, Elon Musk is nothing but a robber baron! Nobody gets that wealthy without cheating and ripping off the little guy.”

Liberal heads exploded producing a strange phenomenon. Media heaped vitriol on Musk because he dared to advocate Twitter’s future as a free speech platform! Imagine media taking an anti-free speech position. The height of irony! Taken by surprise and not knowing what else to say, the left reflexively branded Musk a “robber baron.”

When what we need is not more sad accounts or disingenuous "apologies" from stars that their sudden disabilities have forced them to cancel.  It is not more sadness and sympathy on the part of their fans, whether in sports or the entertainment industry.  What is needed is for these injured celebrities to be honest.  To quit shilling for the products that put them in the wheelchairs and gurneys, that crippled them and stole their talents from them.  What is needed is for these well-known pop heroes to admit the truth.  They need to come forward as best they can in their compromised conditions and tell the damn truth.  While they are receiving their daily deliveries of flowers and messages of encouragement from their well-wishers and fans, these fans are dying and being injured.  While everyone focuses on the tragedy of a multi-million-dollar career cut short for a Celine Dion, there are millions of non-millionaire victims of these injections who are not enjoying the words of sympathy but instead receiving notices of permanent layoffs or foreclosures.  No one's doctor is able to help these people.  If there were such a thing as help for them it would first be employed for someone like Dion who can afford the best.  Everyone is sorry to see someone fall victim to something like this - it is tragic.  But for some the tragedy is unlimited.  Celebrities could do a world of good if they spoke out and told the truth.  

Do Russia’s current losses in Ukraine make it more likely that the world will witness another World War? In this article that first appeared at The American Spectator, author and scholar Dr. Paul Kengor reviews some of Russia’s history with death. Kengor writes, “The Russians always persist when they’re getting their tails kicked on the battlefield, whether by the Kaiser or Hitler or retreating from the Mujahedin. It’s a way of life for them; or a way of death.”