Hello again, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to another episode of Freedom's Creed. Today is Wednesday, May the 11th, 2022, and it's been a month since my last recorded episode. The reason for the long pause is that my wife and I were out of town visiting family. We were gone a little over three weeks, which was a little bit too long. Longest time away from home that I think we've ever spent. But it's good to be back. And we did take a road trip, so we experienced the high gas prices that are in existence now. And of course, we budgeted that into the trip and knew that that's what we were getting into. But it sure would have been nice had we not had that. But can I just say that there's something that's really annoying to me? And that's this. When you take a trip on the interstate, sometimes somebody is pulled off on the side of the road for whatever reason. Maybe it's mechanical problems, maybe there's a fussy child, who knows what could be going on. And what do the other drivers do coming up on that? Yep, you guessed it. You knew it wasn't a guess. They pull over into the passing lane, to the far left lane, typically. Usually that's okay. It's fine. No big deal. But in one of these encounters on our trip, someone had pulled over into the passing lane. And you know, when you're going 75, 80 miles an hour on the interstate, you have the cruise controls set and you're ready to go. But of course, you're always being vigilant, at least I am. You have to drive defensively, but not a lot of people drive like that anymore. In any case, the person got over into the passing lane, and there were a few cars coming up on this car that was pulled to the side of the road, and it forced me to pass in the right lane between the left lane where that person had gotten over, and several other cars had gotten over, and I ended up passing the stalled vehicle or whatever was going on with them in the lane closest to them. And it ended up creating a situation that could have been disastrous. In other words, it was more dangerous to do what that person did because it caused people behind that person because they were going so slow in the passing lane. It could have caused a serious accident. And it just was super annoying to me. And beyond that, as I said, it could have caused a serious accident. Obviously, I'm glad it didn't, but just pay attention when you're out there driving people because there are a lot of people who want to do the safe thing and they think they're doing the safe thing, but in reality, they're being somewhat overcautious. And that can oftentimes be just as dangerous as being an aggressive driver. So just pay attention out there. And that's my little public service announcement for this episode. Let's get going. Let me start off by just saying that uh a little programming note. I started a tolerating Tuesday episode back in the day. I've discontinued that and will no longer be doing that. So let's get started with the heart of the matter. I'm perplexed with a lot of things that are going on in our country. Perhaps you are as well. And if you've listened to any of my episodes, especially talking about the Constitution and the Declaration, you know that I love this country. I love the freedoms that we enjoy in our country. I love the latitude that we have so long as we're obeying the law and doing the things that we are doing to support ourselves and our family. We're not hurting other people, we're not causing mayhem or breaking the law in any way. Life is good. But we seem to have a government and media, I might add, that are hellbent on destroying those freedoms. And I'm not about to let that happen. I'm going to do all that I can to ensure that those freedoms endure. In other words, that the Constitution is upheld and protected for future generations of people in this country and people who come to this country from another country. No doubt you've heard of this truth ministry or this minister or ministry of truth that's been created. It's not just being talked about. It's been created in the Department of Homeland Security. Yeah, thank you, George W. Bush. Supposedly, there is this group, or not group, but organization within the Department of Homeland Security that's referred to as the Disinformation Governance Board. Now, I don't know about you, but this organization has been created to supposedly combat misinformation, quote unquote. And there's now a, I guess, chair or well, I don't know what she's called. I understand that her name is Nina Jankowitz. And I want to know this. Since when did the government become the purveyors of truth and information? Okay? It's laughable that they're organizing this department within the Department of Homeland Security that's going to combat misinformation? And who's the arbiter of information in the first place? As sure as heck is not the government. Why? Why has this been allowed to happen? I would have to assume that they have to go through Congress to do all of this. And who knows, maybe because of public opinion, public outcry, they're going to put it on the back burner. But the mere fact that they're talking about this is troubling enough, in my opinion. I want to do a sort of comparative analysis with this information that I've just discussed and remind all of us about some of the tactics that were used by the Nazi Party, also known as the National Socialist Party in Germany. I want to briefly discuss some of the tactics that they used and see if you see any parallels with what's happening now. So the Nazi Party wanted to control the press or the media. Now, who is it today that controls the lion's share of all media outlets in the US? You don't need me to answer that question because I think you probably already know. And if you don't, now's the time to go check it out. In any case, it's safe to say that they are left-leaning organizations who own and control the lion's share of media in this country today. What about the demonization of the opposition political party by a political party as well as members of the media? That seems to be happening quite a bit today. And with the complicit media, this tactic is even easier. Platforms in our political system seem to consist of tearing down the opposition party, and that is their platform to slander and tell lies, etc., about the other party. What about control of the social sphere through film? Now, back in the day, Hitler and his boys, that's what they did. They showed films in their own homes. They showed films to the public that were designed to control the narrative that was happening in the country or that they wanted to have happen in the country. That kind of tactic today is on steroids big time. Generally speaking, the Nazis wanted control of the mass media because they knew that was going to get their message to the public. And Hitler was one of the best at tugging at the emotions of people. He was a great orator in that regard. Unfortunately, he was like the devil and he bamboozled a lot of people, a lot of good people too, because they just weren't paying attention. What about the use of propaganda to spread the party lies? i.e., saying things that may seem like things aren't as bad as they really are. Hmm. Have we heard that from this current government? I think we have. One of the most prominent ones is, oh don't worry. Inflation's transitory. Oh, don't worry. Gas prices are all Putin's fault. Don't worry. Your taxes aren't going to go up. Please stop insulting us. I want to go back to the Homeland Security Department and its creation back during the George W. Bush administration. I get it. It was a means of trying to protect American citizens. But unfortunately, the consequence of that is just the increase in the size of the government bureaucracy. In my research, I found that the average salary for someone working for the DHS is around $77,238,000 a year. And now that's the average. Some make less, some make more. And that there are roughly $240,000 members of the Department of Homeland Security. Guess what that equals for the taxpayers? It's over $18 billion a year in salaries paid to DHS employees. Now, I didn't look to see what the budget of the DHS is, but I'm sure it's quite a bit more than that. To me, that's disgusting. We already had organizations in the government, departments like the CIA, the FBI, and others that could easily take care of the concerns that we have in the country, be it threats from terrorism or the southern border issues and other issues that take place because we live in a mad world and evil people are all around us. I understand that we want to be protected, but at the same time, the burgeoning federal bureaucracy, it's out of control. There's too many people who work for the government right now. And sorry if you're one of them, but hopefully you're close to retirement and you can go ahead and call it quits. Otherwise, I don't know what we're going to do because the growing bureaucracy, in my opinion, is one of the big problems that we have in our country today, besides elected politicians. And not only the growth of the federal bureaucracy, but the partisanship that has manifested itself in the last several years is really troubling as well because, as I've talked about before, there is no accountability for people who are working in the federal government who are not elected to their job. It's we have a hard enough time trying to keep elected politicians accountable for what they do or don't do. And you have these people behind the scenes who are not elected, and it's just a mess, okay? It's just a big mess, and I'm not even sure if there's a way to get out of it now because we're so deep in it. Anyway, back to the Ministry of Truth. You know, George Orwell wrote a fabulous work entitled 1984. And in that wonderful masterpiece, the ministry of truth was the great paradox in that it was the exact opposite of truth. Now think about that for a second. We have a government that is now trying to control what is truth or what is disinformation. If you were involved in that yourself, wouldn't you be thinking right now, man, we have got to figure out a way to control what's coming out of this administration, what's coming out of whatever department you're talking about in the government? Oh, yes, what better way to control it than to create a ministry of truth or an actual disinformation department that ultimately gets to say what is truth and what is disinformation? That's scary, okay? It's plain scary. What is the current administration planning on doing with their minister or ministry of truth? I know, but it's a scary proposition. Listen, here's what I know. We have the greatest constitutional government known to mankind. Hands down, there is none better. I'm not saying that there's not a better country to live in. That's probably a false statement. Of course, there's a lot of great countries that you can live in, and a lot of wonderful countries. But in my view, we have the greatest country because of our founding documents, because of the Constitution and the Declaration. Period. There is none that can match the Constitution that we have. The problem that we have in our society today is that wicked people want to destroy something that's arguably not perfect. It's not a perfect form of government. There is no such thing as a perfect form of government. It doesn't exist because mankind are evil and they're always trying to take advantage of their neighbor and do something that is for themselves, that aggrandizes themselves because of power, because of a lust of power, and a hundred other things. Let's get real. Now, none of us knows what's going to eventually happen with this truth minister or disinformation, whatever. We can only hope that it gets stopped in its tracks and is not allowed to get any traction and become a part of our federal bureaucracy. Because if it does, it just makes it that much harder to get away from it, to really be able to extricate ourselves from this stranglehold that our bureaucratic government has on us right now. And yes, it is a stranglehold that is upon all of us as citizens of the country. We have to do our level best to try to reduce the size of government and to limit the size of government. That is our downfall, and it's going to be our downfall. Mark my words. Undoubtedly, I will have more to say on this topic, so rest assured that in future podcast episodes, I will definitely be talking about this topic. But for now, let me close with a couple of quotes. The first one actually comes from the novel 1984. And it says this If the party could thrust its hands into the past and say of this or that event, it never happened. That surely was more terrifying than mere torture and death. The party said that Oceana had never been in alliance with Eurasia. He, Winston Smith, knew that Oceania had been in alliance with Eurasia as short a time as four years ago. But where did that knowledge exist? Only in his own consciousness, which in any case must soon be annihilated. And if all others accepted the lie which the party imposed, if all records told the same tale, then the lie passed into history and became truth. Who controls the past? ran the party slogan, truth controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past. And yet the past, though of its nature alterable, never had been altered. Whatever was true now was true from everlasting to everlasting. It was quite simple. All that was needed was an unending series of victories over your own memory. Reality control, they called it, in Newspeak, Double Think. End of quote. For context of that particular quote, I have a two-in-one version of the book, which on one side has Animal Farm, on the other side it has 1984. It was published or copyrighted in 2003 by Christopher Hitchens. And that quote actually started on page 119. So if you're a context individual, which you should be, go ahead and look that up just for the context and where I pulled that quote out of. The use of the terms Eurasia and Oceania will make a little more sense to you. The second quote that I want to leave with you comes from our Declaration of Independence. Around the last paragraph, it says, quote, We therefore, the representatives of the United States of America in General Congress, assembled appealing to the Supreme Judge of the World for the rectitude of our intentions, due in the name and by authority of the good people of these colonies, solemnly publish and declare that these united colonies are and of right ought to be free and independent states, that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British crown, and that all political connection between them and the state of Great Britain is and ought to be totally dissolved, and that as free and independent states they have full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do all other acts and things which independent states may of right do, and for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor. That, ladies and gentlemen, is the ideal, and I implore all who have the authority to do so, meaning all elected officials and all bureaucrats in our government not forget from where they derive their power. Meaning, from the Constitution and Declaration of Independence. Or in other words, we the people. If you can think it, you can plan it. If you can plan it, you can do it.