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It's happening in the UK with the obesity crisis. Made worse of course by ludicrous public health decisions to close leisure centres but leave McDonald's open.....we had a "sugar tax" a levy imposed on soft drinks to erm.....stop folk drinking them. Didn't work. Scrapped. I read numerous suggestions as to how the government can make people eat better, move more.....nobody gets it. Let folks make their own choices, sometimes those will be poor, but allow them to make them for themselves.

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In Japan, companies have all hands calisthenics in the morning before starting their day. In the GAE, I can only imagine what the response would be to such a policy even in a small workplace. At the very least, the people who needed it most would get out of it on pain of discrimination lawsuit.

But are there any peer reviewed studies on the effectiveness of the calisthenics program?!?

Well, Japan has the highest life expectancy on earth.

I don’t feel that is valid.

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I knew an alcoholic that made the choice (they say past a certain point that there is no choice for them) to continue drinking no matter how long he had been hospitalized and taken care of before. He had roughly 18 hospitalizations over 10 years lasting weeks sonetimes and at one point almost 2 months, much of that visit in the ICU. His health insurance and ability to work ran out around year 3. He became a ward of the state and the town he lived in had a fantastic hospital. He would be admitted projectile vomiting blood from his backed up liver, or in an actual coma from an alcoholic stupor..things like that...and they would bring him out of it over and over again using state of the art medical care. Tremendous manpower and resources went into keeping him alive and functioning. His hospital bills amounted to millions and millions of dollars that he couldn't pay and eventually he did pass away from splitting his head open in a fall while drunk out of his mind. I'm definitely not a big government fan, in fact .big government took him over at year 3 and provided him opportunity after opportunity to get and stay sober. But my question is, at what point does letting people make their own choices become absurd? Does it ever?

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That's an exceptional case though isn't it? The point is even government intervention didn't work for him did it?

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I live in a resort town that is known for it's alcoholic and drug population. It's one if the reasons the hospital here is so adapt at dealing with these types. (We also have a massive boomer population that gets exceptional care there.) I guess I'm just wondering how much the rest of us should be responsible for someone else's poor choices. Because the entire State is picking up the massive tab for just this one guy. But, I guess a lot of people got paid for doing and providing a lot of stuff as well. Almost like poor choices were some kind of racket...

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Yeah, I understand what you're saying and I get your point. We all pay into our NHS here, and obesity is the biggest drain on the NHS. I look after myself, rarely use the health service and I'm paying for others poor choices. But more government interference isn't the answer, because people will still make those poor choices. People make the easiest choices in life. They don't do what is the right thing because that is harder, overall.

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Uh, no. That’s anathema.

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The better German word for the top-down approach would be Zwangswirtschaft. Command economy.

Yes, I’m getting called a pedant all the time, why?

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I'd have to say that Gleichshaltung "getting synchronized" remains the correct word because it's exactly the word used by the Nazis in the 30s to enforce group think, back when their goals seemed mostly lofty and above reproach, and long before the death camps were built.

Sure, the anti-Semitism was already there and core to their mission, but anti-white racism (and even the ignorant and unscientifically reductive term "white" is itself racist) is also already core to Woke ideology. Yes, Gleichshaltung is what we're experiencing . . .

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If we want to get technical, Gleichschaltung was the process by which the media, education and administration were all forced (the first generation concentration camps were well publicised) to propagate the party line.

It is comparable to the way the media and public health authorities suddenly spoke with one voice regarding lockdowns in March 2020 (minus the threat of getting blown up via garden hose).

What Chris is describing is a different aspect as it pertains more to organization and structure.

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I think a careful consideration of what happened in the Thirties during the Gleichschultung at the Board levels of companies, the governance strata of universities, etc. would demonstrate that your use of the term "administration", which is accurate, already acknowledges that Gleichshaltung applies to organization and structure. On one hand, I'd suggest that "administration" and "organization and structure" is a distinction without a difference, on the other hand, more importantly, I'd like to emphasize that you and I appear to be fundamentally on the same side, along with Chris Bray himself--let's not let theological quibbles prevent us from working together to try and avert the coming disaster.

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Ideas are worth arguing about. Blake says our enemy is always trying to suppress mental warfare, and prolong corporeal warfare.

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Haha--a worthy insight! And very true in the sense that mental and spiritual warfare are upstream of corporeal warfare and physical violence. Still--with full respect to Blake as poet, artist, and religious savant and perhaps genius--he was a visionary. What political party did he found? I think it was prudent to offer an olive branch to my learned friend and suggest we remember we'll achieve more shoulder to shoulder, facing the enemy, than facing off against each other and bickering over subtleties. But I do agree with your focus on mental / spiritual ground as the true source of today's conflict with the Woke forces.

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Blake was a revolutionary who stood trial for sedition against George the Third and was acquitted. His publisher is a hero as well (Joseph Johnson) who also published Mary Wollstonecraft and Thomas Paine. There are political undertones to much of his prophetic work, including Europe A Prophecy, and America A Prophecy.

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I am amazed that anyone learns to speak or read German. I look at a paragraph and instantly give up.

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Well, I didn’t really have a choice in the matter. Also, with compound nouns you can instantly create new words. The phenomenon you describe, for instance, is known as Deutscherlernungsermüdungssyndrom.

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Learning German wasn’t so bad after a few beers and shots of Jager.

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German is glutenated English

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English is what you get when French and German make sweet, sweet, hateful love to each other.

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I’m just glad no one jumped on gluten frei Deutsch .,.

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In many ways hateful love is sweeter than sweet love

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LOL!!

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Or agglutinated lol

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I dunno, York, but you're alright by me.

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Awww…

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What’s German for vote wrong and pipelines explode?

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Falschwahlrohrkrepierer. Duh.

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I am chastened

Michmcfuckingsosorree

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Isnichschlimm

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Haha! Something like “Wir sind ganz gevögelt!”

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Gefickt. Wir sind sowas von gefickt.

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Yes--that's the truth, I was being decorous for our gentle readers . . .

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Yeah, decorum is down the hall. Way above my pay grade.

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I think I figured out Gefickt. Hmm 🤔

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Right, it also an Einhbahnstrabe that ends in a Ausfarht to socialism.

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The "top-down" people aren't all that bright. Their favorite socioeconomic philosophy, Marxism, was one of the leading causes of death, malnutrition, poverty, and overall misery in the 20th century. Did they ditch Marxism? Nope! They rebranded it as ESG and imposed it upon the formerly flourishing First-World economies. But don't worry. When that ends in catastrophe (as it inevitably will) they'll just rebrand it again and find a new generation of hipster morons willing to embrace it.

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As a born, bred, raised, trained right winger sworn in in the unexpectedly waning days of the Cold War , I must rise in Defense of the Communists. To begin they believed, when they stopped believing they ended it.

They had courage and fought, died, slaughtered and repressed, genocided for Marxism.

They were not sniveling hypocrites, afraid to do the dirty work.

They were generally up front about their goals.

What our empty suits and Karens, Kens learned from Marx wasn’t Marxism. They learned to hate and fear the peasants, the proles. They learned to hate work, danger. They learned to lie, to repress, to deceive. They learned to corrupt. They learned the abuses of the Security organs, the use of Intelligence methods; they use against us*.

As far as being Marxist in model if you mean terminal Brezhnev Nomenklatura- yes.

They’re not Marxist. They’re apparatchiks, bureaucrats, some with law degrees, most in private sector 🎩.

Capitalism just means loot.

Lawyering lying for loot.

Grift is all they know.

These aren’t Marxists.

*the use of the Intelligence Community against us are acts of war, Intelligence was long called war by other means.

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I love the idea we’re cooperating .

Politico is no doubt 💩💩 about our cooperation, where might this lead?

The people then who cooperate bottom up are in a race with the Top’s plan to ruin us comprehensively from the top.

The problem being there are only so many Feds, its such a big country.

In 2009 Bernanke remarked we saved the Markets but lost the country. This has been the situation since. The elites chose unsurprisingly LOCAL which means to them DC and the ACELA corridor. Just as Newsom chooses Sacramento.

In choosing the top they lose the rest, which is considerably more than the bottom. The ACELA corridor and the SuperZips are fine enough to rain down nonsense on the peasants if those peasants are Iraqis, Afghans or Germans. Its most unwise when the peasants are in the same land as their Castles.

Trump had the country but not DC. DC saved DC but lost the country to stay in power awhile longer

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Short: The Elites threw away the country, the USA, vast swaths of it to keep a few office buildings and the SuperZips.

That’s not long term thinking.

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Since when do they think (to start with), long term.

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They don’t.

They’re spoiled children.

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"Since when do they think?" There - fixed it for you.

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”Back in 2012, long before soil health, regenerative agriculture or carbon farming became cool.”

Is it pedantic to point out this was cool in the Middle Ages?

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Or to the Amish?

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"We’re healthy from the bottom up, and sick from the top down"

That resonates as much or more now than it did the first time you wrote it. The solutions are all lying around waiting to be implemented, and some people are just rolling up their sleeves and doing what they can to get it done. But we're saddled with this anti-elite that's horrified at the prospect that they won't get the credit for it, won't profit from it, or worse, will be found surplus to requirements if the solutions don't involve them. So they jump in front, interfere, prevent things from getting done, and what little they do is invariably a perversion that only makes things worse.

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Anti-Elite ❤️

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Today, Humboldt. Tomorrow...South Pasadena??? One can only hope...

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Yeah, that's not gonna happen. This town is a lost cause.

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Nobody lives in the center anymore... Maybe we should all move there, to like, Iowa. Ooops, never mind, I think Bilge Grates owns it all.

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Some of our discontent is the cities are being devolved out, driven by violence if not COOF.

This is deliberate per John Robb, green agenda less cars, less carbon.

The cities don’t make sense anymore in many ways, people don’t need to walk or tram to factories, never mind offices.

That this means less power for Blue/Dem is causing heartburn and open borders but that’s a band aid, indeed an infection from the band aide. Hispanics are Falangismas, racist, macho, patriarchal, Homophobic, and H8 communism.

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The violence is manufactured, as is most of this BS we're being told about, such as scarcity, climate crisis, food shortages, no power so freeze this winter, Russia and China are the problem, and so forth (not to mention tiny little evil particles that fly up your nose while you're walking outside and kill you).

I think we need to bring back factories; we've lost almost all our industry in the US. We are a nation of consumers and we make nothing much at all. This is deliberate, but it's stupid and we need to bring it back. The open borders are to bring in "others" for us to resent and hate and to send us into a fight against THEM so we don't fight against the Parasites CAUSING all this mess (the oligarchs).

But to say something like "Hispanics are Falangismas, racist, macho, patriarchal, Homophobic, and H8 communism" is the epitome of racism! Hispanics are like any other ethnic or other sort of group of people... a mixed bag. That's like saying "Whites are stupid, lazy, and arrogant." No huge group is ALL THE SAME. Don't you think so? Besides, a LOT of the troubles experienced by the people to the south of us were/are caused by us and our stupid, stupid drive for Empire, because we are still connected to the British Empire, which never did actually die (unfortunately). It never makes LESS sense than to create enemies of those who are willing to be friends.

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I've seen a couple things saying Iowa leans a little left. Or maybe it's Kansas. 🤔

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Left, as in REAL left? Or as in Fascist left?

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I think there's only one left at this point. The REAL left has always been the Fascist left, if you really knew them. I grew up amongst them. I knew them well.

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Sep 25, 2022
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In all seriousness my vet told me don’t vaccinate the young kitten yet, as all the vaccines are mRNA now..

waited a month, she made it

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Whatt!!!

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It's somewhat ironic that with regard to issues such as abortion and drug addiction, I often hear the rejoinder that 'you can't legislate morality'. Of course, that is true, but those who spout that line are first in line to mandate vaccines (for the common good!) and veganism (for the environment!) and electric vehicles (to combat global warming!). They never explain how it is that these 'solutions' will fix the problem at hand and reject any suggestion that there may be a downside to them. As Thomas Sowell likes to say, there are no pure solutions, only tradeoffs.

My general feeling is that those who crow the loudest about their 'solutions' should be the first to forfeit whatever winds up in short supply because of their short-sightedness. They should be the people who have to skip meals when food is not readily available and they should be the people who freeze their arses off when there is not enough 'green' electricity or natural gas to go around.

As for the fallout from the 'safe and effective' vaccines, I had to chuckle at the news that the smarmy CEO of Pfizer just announced that he has Covid for the second time in 6 weeks. Of course, this dimwit is saying that perhaps he needs a third booster (fifth shot). (Didn't he avail himself of their other wonder drug Paxlovid to treat his first bout of Covid? I thought that would make him all better.)

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"My general feeling is that those who crow the loudest about their 'solutions' should be the first to forfeit whatever winds up in short supply because of their short-sightedness."

Seconded!

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Check out Missouri Star quilt company. They did a similar thing in turning around their town based on a quilting shop. Amazing story.

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While you might be saying this a bit tongue in cheek, this seems to be the entire philosophy of the "left" at the moment: "Because the government says so. It has to work: It’s the law." I think Mao tried something similar in China once.

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100%

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Yes Mao did.

It worked.

Mao dies of natural causes.

The CCP is still in power.

Mao didn’t try.

HE DID.

Mao would have never made it in the GOP.

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A few years ago I started following a Twitter account called @veritasvital. He’s still there and is worth a look. He often speaks of living your life as the free person you are. This is his current pinned tweet:

“Live according to your principles-you needn’t speak or debate them.”

This sentiment is what I see the the people of the Fuller Field School and residents of Humboldt, KS being. They simply are what they know to be true. So simple! And yet so hard. It’s not the divorced from reality truth so perfectly exemplified by the ongoing multiple disasters of California. Far from it. It is the spark of God’s grace and eternal truths leaping to life in His creation…us.

This truth is rising up in people everywhere. And I do believe it will be unstoppable.

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Its good but they’d better be ready to defend “truth” especially now that its on Politico.

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BTW, Marx was a satanist. Not a surprise, really.

Mark Milley is one of the top-down people. He should have been fired long before he called his counterpart in China to tell him he'd let them know if/when we decide to attack them.

There should be a tax strictly on stupid. DC should charge themselves enough taxes to cover everyone's taxes. They should pay for us for a change!

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There already is a tax on stupid. Remember the Covid 19 shot?

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and the lottery. (Not Shirley Jackson's Lottery)

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They’re not as stupid as us letting them remain,

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It’s similar to my work environment. Management always knows better. Even tho my “expertise” (haha) has produced a very good product, management always needs to “help “

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I hear you there. I worked for a company that was family owned for two generations and they were great. They knew every employee by name, and it was not a small company. I started working there when the second generation was taking over management. Their father did not simply have them go to some elite business school and then start as President and Vice President. They did the college bit, but then also had to learn to do every menial task in the place so that they would have a respect for what their employees did. When they decided to sell, they were told that they needed to build a 'management team'. What a bunch of blowhards! Egos the size of the Grand Canyon, and it never occurred to them that they might have anything to learn from the people who actually produced the product - they were just going to tell them how it should be done. Never once did I see any of them, after coming up with some inane idea about how to 'make things better' or 'more efficient', get off the fat keesters and go out and watch how these people worked, and what they actually had to do. But they had their MBA's hanging on the wall by their desks, evidence of their 'expertise'.

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And then take credit, right?

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More than likely, but more so to show their superiors their justification for their continued employment.

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No-till farming has been a niche for quite a while. Also, farmers tend to focus on soil management.

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Just wait until Brawndo is introduced.

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American Elites are not Marxist.

American elites want the Powers of Communist governments.

They don’t believe in anything but being on top.

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I’m sure Party executive claimed the same thing as to distance themselves from atrocities their subordinates committed to ensure their own place. Trust me, they are firm believers in Marx’ ideologies. They just are cowards and lack the balls to proudly present their convictions.

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Compromise; They’re Nomenklatura Marxists.

They hate workers and peasants.

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The problem is the Left is going to crash into a reality they cannot change by diktat. They will never accept or admit they were wrong anymore than Communists ever have.

Bring popcorn along with your guns.

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There’s too many people who are too young to remember how f’ed up the Soviet Union was and have been fed a bunch of bullshit by their professors.

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This tends to happen when the actual victors of wars deceive those who bled to win the war with who actually did what during the conflict.

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Guns would be great--- for shooting out 5G and cameras...

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