The View from Afar

Writings by retired newspaper publisher Stephen Waters

Yes, America! -- Stand up to those who would transform it.

By Stephen B. Waters February 15, 2022

Across history in the soup of cultures and society, actors are either builders or destroyers -- including some who, as they destroy, claim to be builders. Destroyers impoverish all they touch, even themselves. In America, their distributed depravity works to oppress, suppress, and impoverish citizens to benefit their self-identified ruling class. They would relegate citizens to subject or tribal life, with nothing in it for the individual.

It doesn't have to be a conspiracy for the wrong kind of people to try to take advantage of circumstances, rather it takes the right kind of people to ignore what is afoot.

America is suffering a slow-motion takedown masked in platitudes and misdirection played by a loose, informal, selfish association of scoundrels against a population reeling from 60 years of narcolepsy induced by institutions mistakenly trusted to protect them. Their concerted attacks on America on all fronts indicate much more than a difference in philosophy of governance.

Disparate groups that would benefit from taking down America include globalists, leftists, entrenched bureaucrats, large foundations, institutionalized unions, big business, industrialized academics, corporate media, social media, entrenched major political party leadership, pseudo-arts elites, and a new generation of postmodern poseurs who destroy the common meaning of language to claim special prerogatives for themselves.

Don't play their game. Neither submit nor revolt. Simply stand up for America's goal of limited government supporting individuals who value community with others. Reclaim the country. Wave a sign that says, "Yes, America!"

Those undermining America don't want to govern America; they want to remove it from competing with them for power. The evidence is everywhere, although substantially unreported, and an overview for you to check for yourself follows below. They have chosen to misuse excessive government to shape it into the largest possible obstacle to good government.

They depend on American principles remaining substantially hidden, unreinforced, neither validated nor revalidated, obstructed by centralized, narrow teacher training supported by special-interest curriculum guidance.

They obscure the central understanding that, since its founding, has distinguished America from other nations. Initially, rather than entrenching an elite government to rule them, individuals created a structure, strictly limited to protect them, resolve disputes, and maintain functions that required central management.

Malicious or not, the reasons people often give to justify their actions lead to consequences that leave us all the worse off for what they propose. Malicious or not, their efforts dismantle the country piece by piece leave Americans two untenable choices: Either let a coopted elite destroy America from within, or defend with violence that would weaken American institutions in a different way. Threaten violence and they would use it as a reason to oppress harder.

Instead, expose their gambits. Throw the Leftists' own Cloward-Piven resistance back at them to deliver more than they can deal with.

  • Label what they do and nail it to the page; the sunlight makes them squirm.
  • See how they abuse our institutions through negation and passive resistance. Identify those they have co-opted to counter with their own tactics.
  • Be confident of truth no one can suppress, ignore, mislabel, or change: At the core of any resilient civilization, individuals matter.

Theirs are the actions of unprincipled people. They may talk principles, but they haven't validated them logically, tested them using past experience, or projected their application into the future. Instead, absent skills to govern, the merely powerful depend on methods that undermine what is necessary, useful, and constructive.

They would, in one instance, misuse the idea of "majority rules" to suggest that a single election would validate any program implemented by those elected, instead of recognizing that democracy codifies the humility that you just might be wrong, or that the smallest voice may suggest a better way of doing things. Their attempts at transformation have no legs and no future. Power brokers ignore that governments are not formed to rule, but rather individuals form governments with limited authority to curb their excesses.

Differentiate between all of what America is and the transitory leadership of one political party or another that, on assuming the levers of power, abuse it to extend their term in office. These temporarily powerful no longer want American principles to limit their accumulation of power.

  • There is no cultural revolution, but a pretense of revolution that fosters spillover aggression in social media, restaurants, sidewalks, and restrooms.
  • There is no national political spilt, but control wielded by those in authority in an attempt to create one.
  • There is no violence, but instead government agencies weaponized to punish and oppress while labeling objections as violent insurrection.
  • There is no resistance, but the belief complacency will reign until too late to recover.

Their "new order" is pathological, backed by unchallenged theory to rationalize it. Behind posturing, the ruling elite operate as if "America delenda est" (Paraphrasing Cato, the Elder's, "Carthage must die." As a transformation, it is not worth the cost. Despite that, they are increasingly desperate to push their ultimate failure just a little bit further into the future.

Again, don't play their game. Neither submit or revolt, but stand up for America's goal of limited government supporting individuals who value community with others. Reclaim the country.

"Walk toward the fire," Andrew Breitbart said. " Don't worry about what they call you. All those things are said against you because they want to stop you in your tracks. If you keep going, you're sending a message to people who are rooting for you, who are agreeing with you. The message is that they can do it, too."

There aren't enough of the "elite" in power to carry off their theft of America. Their sole hope is to instigate a violent response to their goading excesses. Be patient. Laugh at them. So long as America exists, pick them off by ballot, one office at a time, on Election Day.

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Appendix

Check for yourself. What they do not do -- and what they do not value -- shows concerted undermining of America:

No checks and balances

No sovereignty

  • No states' rights. Instead, federal control is injected at state and local levels.
  • No nation states. Instead, authority is ceded to international organizations with no constitutional accountability.
  • No national unity. Instead, politicians aggravate arbitrary differences.
  • No citizen rights. Instead, citizen responsibilities are reduced when people are treated as subjects or identity classes labeled by characteristics.
  • No borders. Instead, border protections are removed and unchecked entrants are treated better than citizens.

No controls

  • No checks on overspending. Instead, debt limits are abused without consequence.
  • No standards. Instead, Pay-for-pay collusion sets policy and pet projects loot the Treasury.
  • No focus. Instead, unrelated secondary goals subvert primary objectives as is the case with the Federal Reserve.
  • No check on corporate overreach. Instead. public/private collusion coerces under threat of increased regulation.
  • No economy
  • No work. Instead, wage and benefit programs pay people not to work without workfare or measure of need.
  • No contracts. Instead, federal agencies subvert and overrule voluntary associations between individuals and businesses.
  • No private property. Instead, excessive taxation threatens property and livelihood.

No accountability or consequences

  • No republic of states. Instead, while states initially formed the national federation, now federal controls insert themselves into state and local issues.
  • No procedures. Instead, selective arbitrary enforcement and lawfare replaces blind justice.
  • No distributed authority. Instead, centralized control bypasses previously codified checks and balances.
  • No consistent organization. Instead, congressional parties subvert law, procedures, policy, politics, and traditions.
  • No community. Instead, reliance on government has become a replacement for individual charity.
  • No family. Instead, agencies take over childhood health and education.
  • No Senate advise and consent. Instead the Senate rejected being an equal partner selecting agency heads, substantially rubberstamping candidates.
  • No Cabinet integrity or agency restraint.
  • Secretary of State Forwarding Iran, Climate panic, Afghanistan.
    Secretary of the Treasury Manipulating Fed financial regulation.
    Secretary of Defense Manipulating COVID vax requirements, indoctrinating Critical Race Theory
    Attorney General Covering for FBI excesses, labeling of parents as domestic terrorists.
    Secretary of the Interior Closing pipelines, attempting to bankrupt oil, gas, and coal; Southern border.
    Secretary of Commerce Manipulating interstate transport regulations.
    Secretary of Labor Supporting OSHA excesses, pension investment misdirection.
    Secretary of Health and Human Services Manipulating COVID19 misguidance.
    Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Handling of homeless, housing grants, mortgages
    Secretary of Transportation Manipulating shipping bottlenecks.
    Secretary of Energy Manipulating renewable resources and attempts to bankrupt oil, gas, and coal.
    Secretary of Education Forced top-down education, certification, curricular guidance, financing, and Critical Race Theory indoctrination. Lowered standards to mask ineptitude.
    Secretary of Veterans Affairs Manipulating reassignment of resources.
    Secretary of Homeland Security Ignoring sovereignty at the southern border.
    Trade Representative Centrally managed trade
    Director of National Intelligence Slow-walking declassifications, covering up agency misuse.
    Director of the OMB Ethics waivers, unbridled budget

No institutions

No democracy

  • No constitution. Instead, "Of the people, by the people, for the people" has ceased to be the guardrail of government.
  • No election integrity. Instead, unauthorized unconstitutional rule changes leave no chain of control for ballots, no validation of counting, and no assurance of procedural integrity.
  • No political parties, Instead, organizations are subverted by political parasites who say and do what they want without accountability.
  • No symbols. Instead, media like the NYTimes claim the American flag needs to be redesigned to be less racist.
  • No free-market capitalism
  • No independent business. Instead, self-proclaimed stakeholders claim authority, businesses are federalized, taxes are confiscatory, and regulatory agencies are captured putting a thumb on the scale of justice that is arbitrary and inconsistent.
  • No stable currency. Instead, monetary policy lost its insulation from politics.

No freedom

  • No liberty. Instead, government intrudes into independence.

No justice

  • No police. Instead, they are defunded, repurposed, and politicized.
  • No law. Instead, legitimate crimes are decriminalized, laws not enforced as written, bail "reform" that leaves criminals unpunished, prosecutorial thumbs tilt the scale of justice, and roving mobs practice thuggery.)
  • No standards. Instead, authorities turn a blind eye toward political criminal enterprise.

No journalism

  • No local newspapers. Instead, centralized corporate management makes even editorial decisions and local financial underpinnings are removed.
  • No reality. Instead, corporate media like CNN, MSNBC, NY Times, Washington Post, and others. consider news to be the information and opinion they claim it to be.
  • No news. Instead, the Associated Press considers reporter opinion to be news.
  • No honor. Instead, there is no review or accountability for previous writing.
  • No reward for excellence. Instead, prizes are awarded for getting it wrong.
  • No discourse
  • No language. Instead, the common meanings of words are cheapened by postmodern redefinitions of them.
  • No logic. Instead, there is reduced teaching of skills to detect logical fallacies that leaves people unable to check their conclusions.
  • No respect. Instead, speech is judged by impact rather than intent, and judged by the messenger rather than content.
  • No objective measures. Instead, free speech is arbitrarily labeled "domestic terrorism."

No knowledge

No history

  • No lessons from experience. Instead, any excuse is used to suppress, subvert, and ignore previous wisdom.
  • No acquired traditions. Instead, they are dismissed as cultural appropriation.
  • No culture. Instead, differences are weaponized to disrupt.

No education

  • No foundational skills. Instead, basic skill development is dismantled ostensibly for equity's sake.
  • No achievement. Instead, development is diluted by grade inflation and other factors.
  • No expertise. Instead, teacher education emphasizes teaching skills without subject mastery.
  • No focus. Instead, curricula is packed with soft content.
  • No local authority. Instead, teachers originally credentialed to teach no longer control what to teach, now that states and authorized associations control curricula approval and what to teach.
  • No skepticism. Instead, selective evaluation is scientism that replaces science.
  • No revalidation of principles. Instead, what is accepted is what is dictated.
  • No independence. Instead, content is decided by distant governments and cooperating self-interested credentialed organizations.

No science

  • No evidence. Instead, opinion replaces evidence.
  • No pruning what is demonstrably false. Instead, lack of consequences allows anything to pass muster.
  • No skepticism over selectively aggregated facts. Instead, fictions are used to mold people, as if they forwarded true and useful schooling.
  • No expertise
  • No peer review. Instead, there is depreciation of professional journals.
  • No trustworthy factchecking. Instead, interested organizations claim authority absent ongoing vetting.

No civil society

  • No cultural revolution. Instead, it masks as one.
  • No distribution of control. Instead, reversion to the Law of the Jungle.
  • No mechanisms of governance. Instead, pure Machiavellian power.

No quality of life

  • No limit to government Intrusion. Instead, freedom and liberty no longer measure success.
  • No personal investment. Instead, the system "cares" for you even when people themselves don't, while removing that risk/reward comes at the expense of liberty.

No character

No principles

  • No clear tenets. Instead, ambiguous platitudes appeal to sensibilities.
  • No revalidation of lessons from experience. Instead, generations no longer apply intellectual rigor to make principles their own.
  • No national purpose. Instead, self-interested goals are applied to shape the controlled.
  • No ethics. Instead, integrity is not valued and what passes is what you can get away with.
  • No standards. Instead, different sets of rules foster a two-tiered society.
  • No equality of opportunity. Instead, equity uses racism to subvert merit leading to governmentally imposed equality of result.
  • No merit advancement. Instead, programs for the gifted are cut.
  • No objective credentials. Instead, self-proclaimed "stakeholders" dilute academic and corporate boards for their own gain.
  • No diversity. Instead, superficial characteristics substitute depth of experience, knowledge, and intellect.
  • No trusted offices or credentials. Instead, promotion comes from social pressure.

No individuality

  • No education. Instead, schooling has become molding that substitutes for thinking skills.
  • No identity. Instead, individuality is suppressed as if it undermines collective identity groups.
  • No family. Instead, government rules both medicine and schooling.
  • No privacy. Instead, even though ostensibly regulated, government and tech don't care about rules on privacy.
  • No independence. Instead, there is no escape.
  • No rights. Instead, claims to support individuals deprived of their rights are used to deprive all individuals of their liberty.
  • No constitutional protections. Instead, "Of the people, by the people, for the people" has become meaningless.

The leaders broke it. On purpose.

Stephen B. Waters

In early 2021, with 46 years in the business, I retired as publisher of the Rome (NY) Daily Sentinel

After five generations of family ownership, despite an unsettled economy, we keep on. We understand that although we may own the newspaper, we hold it in stewardship for the community.

Across my career, so many other small newspapers were purchased by media chains, large newspapers sold their integrity, and broadcast news outfits fell back on superficial entertainment.

They put journalism in this country at risk. The best antidote is for individual readers to arm themselves to recognize the danger to their community, culture, and society itself.

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