Dakota Beacon

Once again Independence Day brought picnics, parades, and fun for all. After the soda and beer and hot-dogs have been consumed and after the last fireworks crackled in the night, what remained? The Dog Days of summer stretch before us and history closes the books on another Independence Day. A question nags, “Is that all there is?”

After 247 years following the signing of the Declaration of Independence many folks of an earlier generation still reflect on our nation’s quest for freedom and liberty. Eventually a contradiction arises in the minds of settled citizens. If the idea of freedom and liberty is so dear to us, then how do we account for an ever-expanding federal government and its control over our lives and property?

Pointless massacre of innocent people has become the norm.  In America we have daily slaughter in our cities, in our streets.  It has become a standard item now to tally the shootings in Chicago over the weekends.  Our subway stations and fast-food emporia are settings for slaughter.  Perhaps this explains how killing for its own sake seems to have become institutionalized.  Our Senate and House and our White House seem to condone this in many ways.  Our foreign policy reflects the violence we seem to accept here at home, as we continue to pursue a bloody path through Ukraine, led by mad dogs like Lindsey Graham and Mitch McConnell.  That's right - a couple of entrenched Republicans.  Well, right alongside the Bidens and General Milley's military.   Now we know just how wicked this is . . . and how we've bee deceived.

Harari articulates the real views of his WEF fellow travelers. He maintains that human beings lack free will. In the Guardian he wrote, “Unfortunately, ‘free will’ isn’t a scientific reality. It is a myth inherited from Christian theology. Theologians developed the idea of ‘free will’ to explain why God is right to punish sinners for their bad choices and reward saints for their good choices…,” Thus, they reject free will as mere “Christian theology.”

To deny free will is to deny standards of morality as well as faith in God the Creator of Heaven and Earth. Denying free will ultimately becomes a precursor to immoral and hateful schemes that Harari and his ilk justify as answers to the human condition.

Thus, the culture war rages. Old norms don't die easily. They must be killed to achieve the elite’s reframing of freedom as in "Pride." And revolutionary change requires the imposition of cultural, governmental, and corporate power across the population to facilitate that change.

The foolishness in the leadership of our two major political parties calls into question their very relevance to us today.

When we vote selfishly for our and our friends’ benefit, we should expect selfish politicians that mirror such selfishness.  Government was and is necessary to regulate evil; it is an efficient vehicle to punish wrongdoing. Our societal culture of individual responsibility, including the obligation to perform good deeds for others in need, must be re-invigorated and replace our mistaken assumption that considers government to be what it will never be… a benefactor. The goodness that is America is derived from its individual good citizens inspired through “faith in something bigger than ourselves”. This “something bigger” is not an earthly central authority we call government… it is the inherent beauty that comes from within each of us. Some of us call this inner beauty “God”; others deem it nature. Either way, we are surrounded by goodness.

The godless Utopian Marxist concept of “Heaven on Earth” supposedly derived from government threatens to replace beliefs that previously motivated humans to be good on earth in order to receive the “Blessings of Heaven” thereafter. We are doomed if we do not wake up to our individual responsibility to society while discarding self-worship that only leads to the “Hell on Earth” that we are beginning to experience in the Marxist swamp.

Left-wing movements share at least one thing in common. (And LGBTQ is a left-wing movement.) More often than not they are totalitarian in thought and action. It is not enough for some people to freely accept and tolerate LGBTQ. Everyone must be required to celebrate and rejoice in lesbianism, male homosexuality, transgenderism, and queers. That is because no left-wing movement is a tolerant movement. Compliance must be forced – or else! As a minimum, LGBTQ demands celebration displaying the “rainbow” flag and performing publicly at the White House, Veterans Administration, and other federal agencies as well as corporations.

Those of us who came of age before the 1980s were raised in the Western Judeo-Christian tradition. That tradition, although abused and tattered, was still freely accepted as the prevalent view of our sexuality. It was a private matter and we believed that our bodies were our own property, meaning that we should not be touched or controlled sexually without our consent. A person raised with this worldview inevitably believed that this ability to control his or her body was the essence of their individuality. This physical individuality denoted the very opposite of an enslaved person who ultimately lacked control over his own body. Statist regimes, of course, cannot tolerate self-ownership, which is the very antithesis of the government’s control over individuals.

In a democratic republic, it is ultimately the people who take responsibility for their government's actions.  Nominally, then, we use "we" when we talk about our government and its policies.  Maybe this is not accurate in the America of today, where large numbers of citizens believe that our elections are corrupt - in other words, that "we" are no longer in charge of our nation's course.  "We" are no longer at the helm here.  If "we" aren't maybe we should be ashamed that we have let this happen.  If "we" are, then we need to accept responsiblity and get our foreign policy back to sanity and decent moral behavior.

Did you hear there was an earthquake in Fargo Friday?

There have been tremors for the past ten years and they have been intensifying - a foreshadow of the quake.

It was over 9.0 on the Richter Scale!

Generally earthquakes are geological, this one was political!

What happened?

With all the money and emphasis placed on contemporary K-12 education in the United States, where do we stand compared to other nations of the world? Over the past decade multiple research organizations place the United States variously below the top fifteen nations in reading, science, and mathematics. These organizations include the Pew Foundation, The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, and The Economist Intelligence Unit associated with the International Business Times.

For a variety of reasons parents have suffered decades of disappointment and dissatisfaction with public education. A growing number of parents have withdrawn their children from traditional schools in favor of home schooling, private or parochial schooling, or charter schooling. This, in turn, has spawned the Classical education movement.

Right now much of Canada is an inferno.  Forest fires are raging in Alberta, Saskatchewan and in Quebec and the Maritimes.  While forest fires are most often normal in nature, part of the cycle, what is happening now is not.  True, we should all be doing more to keep our forests safe by clearing the kind of dead brush that ignites easily, but that won't save us from arsonists.  What is not normal is half of a large Canadian province bursting into flames overnight - and the government lying to citizens about its efforts to fight the fires.  When we see that, the first thing we should look at is the actual result the government seeks.  It is not implausible to suggest that what they want is another excuse to impose totalitarian protocols, using a fake "climate change" story on which to build.  When the smoke clears, what the government wants is a UN presence, a military presence.  Private property and human life be damned.  If this is happening in Canada (and it is) maybe we should be more vigilant at home, whether it is a fire or another artificially stimulated "natural" disaster.  

A recent survey found that nearly 80% of the workforce are not satisfied with their job. This often causes many unhealthy behaviors and thoughts. In this article, Dr. James Thrasher asks: What’s missing in finding meaning and purpose through work?

The societal lack of understanding of the difference between “tolerance” and “promotion” is unbelievable. Tolerance is the allowance of an amount of deviance accepted by society. Promotion arises from marketers similar to the way in which prostitution results from pimps. The only group that seems to be promoting its ideology with considerable success these days are Marxists that have been in the universities for over a century and have now infiltrated Public K-12 schools and large corporations; they wish to destroy what exists in order to fill the void with their power. Shop on main street and prevent the “indoctrination” of our children. A thousand excellent teachers can be perverted by a single Marxist. We all have a lot of work to do.

Fact. Our rich English language affords nuance and clarity in communication. Yet, we frequently speak obliquely, hinting at what we mean without actually saying it. Too often our speech falls victim to a gratingly vulgar and colloquial discourse. Result? Thoughts and ideas get lost in the message.

When playing with words, I once told my granddaughter, “Clean them off, put them on the shelf, and save them for later.” In other words, grow and preserve your vocabulary.

Building a vocabulary can be enjoyable as well beneficial. You need not advertise or show off. Just do it.

We are far beyond the point where any federal tax increase may improve our national fiscal condition. High-income earners are now filing for unemployment benefits at a record pace. As a minimum, we can ALL request that members of the US House, US Senate, and our President take action to freeze the current debt limit by cutting expenditures.

Well-to-do Americans have already taken action to protect themselves from irrational actions of our legislative and executive branches; you may not have the wealth to protect yourself economically but you do have a telephone with which to call your representatives in Washington DC.

Ah, Summer!  A time to head to the lakeshore or beach, to sit under a tree and read an adventure novel, walk the dog, listen to the songs of the birds, play catch in the back yard or sidewalk games, for little girls to pretend to be butterflies and little boys to drive their matchbox trucks through the sandbox, to hike in the woods or have lunch at a sidewalk cafe.  Nope.  It's not.  These days it's time for amoral, virtue-signaling  parents to exploit their kids in order to proclaim their acceptance of weird, deviant lifestyles, up to and including satanism, by using their kids as sandwich-board salesmen - or at least that is the marketing campaign Target stores have chosen.  We'll see.  There may be far more to this than meets the eye.

Beyond a doubt, and confirmed by experience, America’s Ruling Class (also known as the Davos Class) used control of the executive branch to hurt citizens in their private and public lives. People dared to reject rule by the Davos Class and instead elected Donald Trump. Retribution through the weaponization of Executive Branch departments and agencies was payback.

What follows does not suggest a call to action, but rather a call to vigilance. Be aware of the election reform agenda advocated by many Soros-funded left-of-center organizations. They work to accomplish the following.

I was reminded of something important this week by a quote in a journal, from “The Federalist” #22 it reads...

"The fabric of America ought to rest on the consent of governed.”

It’s one of those foundational truths – one that almost shouldn’t have to be  listed.

Movement into the United States of enormous populations unimpeded across both northern and southern borders constitutes an invasion. Deliberate policies have shaped a bizarre and surreal dream world. One has to laugh to keep from crying. Read on.

Title 42 has expired with the approval of the Biden administration. Explained: “Title 42 expulsions are removals by the US government of persons who have recently been in a country where a communicable disease was present…. Title 42 of the United States Code includes numerous sections dealing with public health, social welfare, and civil rights….”

With the expiration of Title 42, and with no plan to otherwise address and account for the flood of illegal migrants poised to invade, the Biden administration gave a green light on Thursday, May 11, to any foreigner who wishes to reside in the US. Why bother going through a port of entry when you can just walk across the border?

I have a confession to make... I can't understand why conservatives in the North Dakota Republican Party keep getting attacked by their own party members!

In an effort to push back I would encourage all conservatives and Patriots to get involved in NDGOP district reorganization.

Many districts have already reorganized however there are still some opportunities.

In early April, Anheuser-Busch hired transgender influencer and activist Dylan Mulvaney to promote a contest during the annual NCAA basketball tournament. A national boycott ensued, and sales of the adult beverage Bud Light plummeted. In this article, Dr. Richard Kocur examines the events from a business perspective and argues that the campaign missed its target audience. He writes, “Business exists to serve its consumers, not to lecture them. Bud Light committed one of the cardinal sins of marketing, failing to keep its consumer at the heart of business decisions.”

Known as big media, mainstream media, legacy media, corporate media, and leftwing media the elitist press goes by many monikers. These apply to CBS, NBC, ABC, CNBC, CNN, NPR, PBS, New York Times, LA Times, and Chicago Times to name a few. With Tucker Carlson leading a list of dismissals, Fox News drifts leftward onto this list.

Corporate media seldom practices journalism as once known and certainly no longer “speaks truth to power.” It may regard itself as the fourth estate but it serves as a fifth column. Big media today defends the Ruling Class along with the administrative state. It regards itself as part of the state, the unelected fourth branch of government. No longer are they suspicious, curious, doubtful, or distrustful of government. They choose to cover the flanks of the powerful because they are the powerful.

If you own or are thinking about investing in AI, buy at considerable risk. If you thought Bitcoin, Solyndra, Enron, Bernie Madoff, Climate Change, Global Warming, Global Cooling, the “Infrastructure” bill, the Unaffordable Care Act (Like your Plan… Keep your Plan), the flying car in the Jetsons, Al Gore’s carbon credits, Vice President Harris’ Border Solutions, Presidents Nixon’s and Biden’s “Peace with Honor in Vietnam and Afghanistan”, Vivek Ramaswamy’s  Inheritance Tax Plan, election rigging Zucker-Bucks, remote voting drop boxes, vote by mail, and thousands of other marketplace scams on American taxpayers foretold  a dicey future, wait until you see how quickly the combination of AI availability and Internet scams reduce Amazon and other online giants to a bankrupt relic of the past. Yes, AI will be the best thing ever for main street small businesses.

The on-going boycott of Bud Light has been having a disastrous effect on Bud's parent company, Anheuser-Busch.  Sales have plummeted as beer drinkers have turned to other brands such as Coors, Sam Adams, Pabst, Miller, etc.   But it really isn't about the beer.  It is really about nothing less than the future of women in the West, their safety and their very freedom to pursue the lifestyles and careers they have chosen.  If America does not hold the line and deny Anheuser Busch and all of its products a market, the lives of American women will change drastically.  

Once upon a time political correctness preceded our contemporary word salad. Over time, however, political correctness morphed into what we now call wokeness. Politically correct perversion of language is neither natural nor complicated. American popular culture resisted the unnatural jargon initially, but it stuck with higher education and administrative government where activists essentially control the institutions. Political correctness, and now wokism, not only masks the reality described by clear language, it also contradicts the underlying meaning of words.

Political correctness, and now wokism, demands commitment to a set of opinions. It contorts language in an attempt to reconstruct reality along leftist lines promising to fundamentally transform America and the world. Accordingly, American culture is accommodating FORCED change by the left.

Some things never get old.  Some never go out of style.  The iconic balladeer, Engelbert Humperdinck is one of those.  He celebrates his 87th birthday today with the release of his newest album.

Vivek Ramaswamy is an example of a slick Ivy League book peddler who is attempting to become president by mixing common sense Conservatism with Marxist ideas in order to garner votes from both sides of the political aisle. He is exactly what America does not need, a potential “Compromiser-In-Chief” who has benefitted from America’s opportunity but learned little of its desire to live free, not just receive “free stuff” from a thieving government. If we wanted thieves in charge of our government, we’d move to Europe.

Population decline has already started in North America, Europe, and east Asia. The decline is occurring at a time where human reproductive technology continues to make advancements. What is happening? In this article, Dr. Jan Dudt looks at the trends and argues that a deeper examination into the culture is required to repair the problem. He asks, “What is a culture to do, if it wants to survive, but is unwilling to address the cultural factors that have caused the population decline?”

The United States has a debt problem. It typically spends far more than the revenue it collects. Nevertheless, in the coming weeks the House of Representatives will vote on a bill to raise the debt ceiling even further. An obvious question would be, “How much debt is too much?” A layman’s understanding follows.

Put numbers to the claim and the picture looks like this. A reasonable measure of a nation’s economic health calculates its debt divided by its gross domestic product (GDP). The GDP reflects the total monetary value of the goods and services sold by the country in a year. This debt-to-GDP ratio (what a country owes divided by what that country produces) ideally should be below 100%. This percentage becomes a sensible measure of a nation’s economic health.

While Russia continues to suffer many defeats in Ukraine—some estimate nearly 250,000 Russian soldiers have lost their lives—the country is facing a catastrophic problem: a demographic implosion. In this article that first appeared at The American Spectator, Dr. Paul Kengor chronicles the last 100 years of the country and the culture of death that is controlling Russia. He writes, “Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has worsened his nation’s long demographic winter.”