‘Unraveling False Narratives: Covid and Constitution’

 

The official narrative surrounding covid that the Establishment has been pushing is nearing its final collapse.  In recent testimony before the US Senate, the former CDC director has admitted truths that heretofore were being labelled as ‘conspiracy theories’:

Former Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Director Robert Redfield confirmed the dangers of mRNA COVID-19 vaccines in a U.S. Senate hearing Thursday, calling them “toxic” and saying they should never have been mandated.

 

Redfield’s admissions came during a Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs hearing on government oversight of taxpayer-funded high-risk virus research.

 

The late admission of vaccine injuries underscores the failure of public health agencies and the medical establishment to provide informed consent to the billions of vaccine recipients worldwide.

 

“It’s important that he is telling the truth now,” vaccine researcher Jessica Rose, Ph.D., told The Defender. “Adverse events were hidden and still are being hidden to prevent injection hesitancy.”

 

Redfield, who led the CDC from 2018 to 2021, didn’t stop there. He declared biosecurity “our nation’s greatest national security threat,” calling for a halt to gain-of-function research pending further debate.

 

The hearing, which featured contentious exchanges between senators and witnesses, also touched on controversial topics such as the COVID-19 origins lab-leak theory and allegations that health agencies suppressed data.

 

During the hearing Redfield, who oversaw the CDC during the crucial early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, elaborated on his recent statements about mRNA vaccine safety.

 

“I do think one of the greatest mistakes that was made, of course, was mandating these vaccines,” Redfield said. “They should have never been mandated. It should have been open to personal choice.”

 

Redfield went further, admitting that the spike protein produced by mRNA vaccines is “toxic to the body” and triggers “a very strong pro-inflammatory response.”

 

He noted that in his own medical practice, he doesn’t administer mRNA vaccines, preferring “killed protein vaccines” instead.

 

Redfield’s statements stand in stark contrast to the CDC’s official stance during his tenure, which strongly promoted mRNA vaccine uptake as safe and effective.

The Elite made a major move with the covid epidemic to try to consolidate power.  Thankfully much of their effort is failing.  As a result of it all, a great many people have had their eyes opened to the falsehoods they had previously accepted as truths.  Jeff LeJeune has spoken of this process quite a bit lately:

Americans, whether we choose to partake in the battle or not, are entrenched in an information war that is seeing the illusory framework of church and state crumbling more and more by the week.  . . .  a growing number of dramatic examples–as fictional character Bruce Wayne puts it in the Dark Knight film series–that periodically pops up amidst the slower breadcrumbing of truth in a seemingly orchestrated process that is systematically waking up the world.

One more important line from him:  ‘We are living in a most unbelievable shatterpoint in human history . . . .’

Indeed.  And what if part of that illusory framework of church and state that the current shatterpoint is breaking apart is the current federal constitution itself?

You see, it is not just the current group of Elites that manipulated things to their liking.  Such actions by such groups have existed throughout history.  And one of them in the US used an uprising called Shays’ Rebellion in Massachusetts to scare the States into ratifying the current federal constitution:

“Never let a good crisis go to waste” isn’t just some modern invention by people who want to expand government power. It seems to be an approach used to convince people of the need to replace the Articles of Confederation with a new Constitution in 1787.

 

Even James Madison admitted as much later in life.

 

Shays’ Rebellion was one of the most prominent reasons given for a system of government more “energetic” than the one formed under the Articles. Federalists, who had for years failed to expand congressional power under the Articles, repeatedly cited the Shays’ crisis as a glaring example of the weakness and insufficiency of the system – and a reason for a new one.

 

For instance, in a 1787 letter to William Carmichael, John Jay asserted that the rebellion and the federal government’s inability to fund troops to put down the uprising made “the Inefficiency of the fœderal government [become] more and more manifest.”

 

In a 1786 letter to Henry Lee, George Washington described the rebellion as “clouds that have spread over the brightest morn that ever dawned upon any Country.”

 

“You talk, my good Sir, of employing influence to appease the present tumults in Massachusetts. I know not where that influence is to be found; and if attainable, that it would be a proper remedy for the disorders. Influence is no Government. Let us have one by which our lives, liberties and properties will be secured; or let us know the worst at once.”

 

However, as prominent Anti-Federalists warned, there is evidence that supporters of a strong centralized government were merely using and even hyping Shays’ Rebellion in order to achieve their goals of more centralized power.

 

 . . . In 1821, James Madison went so far as to admit that Shays’ Rebellion was overblown and resulted in a more powerful government than what was “warranted.”

 

In a letter to John G. Jackson, Madison wrote, “most of us carried into the Convention profound impressions, produced by the experienced inadequacy of the old Confederation, & by the monitory examples of all similar ones antient and modern, as to the necessity of binding the States together by a strong Constitution.”

 

Madison specifically mentioned the “alarming insurrection” led by Shays, writing that it had “a very sensible influence on the public mind.”

 

“Such indeed was the aspect of things, that in the eyes of the best friends of liberty, a crisis had arrived.”

 

But Madison went on to admit that, “This view of the crisis made it natural for many in the Convention to lean to a higher toned system than was perhaps in strictness warranted by a proper distinction between causes temporary as some of them doubtless were, and causes permanently inherent in popular frames of Government.” [Emphasis added]

Deceit and manipulation of the peoples of the States by their Elite bookend the early years of the United States and now her latter years.  Just as covid restrictions weren’t rolled out to protect us from a virus, but to make us more subservient to a degenerate oligarchy, so it was with the Philadelphia constitution of 1787:  It wasn’t meant to safeguard the centuries-old English liberties of the plainfolk that had been handed down generation after generation; it was meant to limit them by placing them under the control of a powerful central government run by the Elite cliques of the time.  You have just read their own admission of that.

This being so, we owe an apology to two groups in US history.  The first is the (misnamed) Anti-Federalists, the opponents of the ratification of the Philadelphia constitution.  They foresaw many of the dangers arising from it which we are now dealing with.  The second group is the Southerners who seceded from the union in 1860-1.  Like the Anti-Federalists, they saw well enough that the current federal constitution and government were taking the union in a tyrannical direction, and they were none too pleased with that.  So they did something about it:  They seceded from the union, just like their forefathers had in 1776 from the British union.  Jefferson Davis lays out some of their reasoning as follows:

 . . .

The rest is at https://thehayride.com/2024/07/garlington-unraveling-false-narratives-covid-and-constitution/.

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Holy Ælfred the Great, King of England, South Patron, pray for us sinners at the Souð, unworthy though we are!

Anathema to the Union!

Offsite Post: ‘Pine Beetles, Plagues, and Living Faith’

 

Louisiana’s timber industry is undergoing a difficult trial.  Louisiana Radio Network reports,

 

The House Emergency Beetle Subcommittee is meeting in Baton Rouge today. The drought last summer made pine trees extremely susceptible to beetle infestations. Pineville Representative Mike Johnson said they are holding the hearing to discuss ways to combat the issue because pesticides won’t work.

 

“The only way you can stop them is to cut about 150 feet around an infested tree, so it’s a massive undertaking,” said Johnson.

 

Johnson said the Ips (I.P.S) beetles move from treetop to treetop and within a short amount of time can and have killed many pine trees.

 

During the session, Johnson sponsored legislation to create the subcommittee because the timber industry is one of the largest in the state.

Modern, science-obsessed, religiously skeptical man is left befuddled by such events, thrown back on his limited store of facts, equations, etc.

In places and eras where and when Christian Faith was stronger, the people had recourse to greater powers for help in times of peril: to God, and to His saints, and to holy, sanctified objects.  There are examples from the past that are very similar to what we are undergoing here in Louisiana with our tree beetles:

 

Man's bitter enemy, the most-wicked Satan, in order to harm the supreme creation of God, as much as possible, turns with destructive rage against the material and soulless things that have been given in the service of his needs. Thus he infects fruit trees, vineyards, gardens, fields, various crops, homes and facilities in order to bring pain and misery into people's daily lives. In the life of Saint Anthony we see the attacks that the Saint received in his humble hut, from the demons, in the form of reptiles and wild beasts, which made terrifying noises to bend the fighting spirit of the great ascetic. The cunning enemy is capable of causing diseases, accidents, and bodily harm to humans and animals.

 

In these cases the act of sanctification is a valuable and effective deterrent weapon. The sanctified water, according to the relevant prayer, becomes for the "healing of souls and bodies and a deterrent of any opposition". After the immersion of the honorable cross in the water, "all opposing forces are crushed. The aerial and invisible idols always retreat", and in the water "electrified" by divine grace "a dark demon and a wicked spirit can no longer be hidden, which lead to the darkening of thoughts and agitation of the intellect".

 

Various natural evils come to us. The elements of nature often strike man and his works. . . .

 

In these difficult circumstances man feels alone, weak and defenseless. Coordinated human societies and the most organized state mechanisms are unable to intervene and effectively alleviate those who are severely tested. It is the old and blessed custom of ordinary people of the countryside in such difficult situations to resort to the act of sanctification, as a gift of God for overcoming difficulties and preventing calamities. The faithful farmers, when clouds of destructive locusts appeared in vineyards or other vegetable crops, went to the place as a family, together with the priest, performed a sanctification of the waters service, and sprinkled the affected areas. After the sprinkling, locust clouds rose and fell into the sea, the lake or the river that existed in the area.

 

From many such incidents that have been preserved in the collective memory of various regions, very characteristic is the catastrophic locust invasion that devastated the vineyards of Attica in 1600. Then the inhabitants of the region, unable to face the situation and in their despair, called for the abbot of the Holy Monastery of Domvu in Thebes, Saint Seraphim. Crowds of people flooded the Church of Saint Spyridon in Piraeus, where in an atmosphere of prayer the Service of the Sanctification of the Waters was performed. Immediately after the act of sanctification, locust clouds rose from all over Attica and drowned in the sea in the port of Piraeus. A close relative told me a similar incident that happened in the 1960s on the small island of Symi in the Dodecanese. Here, too, the few vineyards were devastated by locusts. They called the abbot of the Monastery of Archangel Michael, sanctified water, sprinkled the few crops and immediately thousands of drowned locusts blackened the sea in the port.

 

Another incident that is recorded during the years of Ottoman rule in Maroussi, Attica, is also memorable. The Turkish aga of the area saw the Christians who, in such difficult situations, called the priest and with the act of sanctification the locusts disappeared. On a similar occasion, he called on the hodja of the Muslims to do his own thing, in order to get rid of the calamity. Naturally, the hodja, despite his efforts, did not bring about what he wanted, as a result of which he was severely beaten.

Not only can pests be driven away, but the damaged creatures can also be healed.  Louisiana’s blessed Patron Saint, Martin of Tours (reposed in 397), once did this for a fallen tree he came across.  St Gregory of Tours (+594), one of the fathers of French history, records:

 

In Neuillé-le-Lierre, a village in the territory of Tours, there was a tree that fell over during a strong wind and blocked the public road.  When the blessed Martin was travelling on this road and noted that the way was blocked by this fallen tree, he was moved by pity.  He made the sign of the cross over the tree and raised it up.  Still today this tree is seen to stand up straight next to the road (Glory of the Confessors, Raymond Van Dam, trans., Liverpool UP, Liverpool, England, 1988, p. 25).

There are also examples in the Lives of the Saints of wooden staffs becoming living trees when stuck in the ground.  Among others, St Joseph of Arimathea’s staff at Glastonbury in England did this (+1^st century), and St Audrey of Ely’s staff, also in England, did the same (+7^th century).

Broadening our view, in the wake of covid, and with the Establishment trying to gin up fear over bird flu, these same kinds of remedies are available to help cure human illnesses, too.  Continuing from the previous web article:

 . . .

The rest is at https://thehayride.com/2024/07/garlington-pine-beetles-plagues-and-living-faith/.

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Holy Ælfred the Great, King of England, South Patron, pray for us sinners at the Souð, unworthy though we are!

Anathema to the Union!

Offsite Post: ‘Landry the Lawyer Slayer?’

 

Governor Landry is coming under increasing scrutiny from his conservative supporters for his refusal, thus far, to back legislation or take other actions that would significantly lower insurance rates in Louisiana, owing to his desire not to ruffle the well-feathered nests of the very wealthy and powerful trial lawyers that the latter have made for themselves here in our beloved Bayou State.

Such a course of action puts him at odds with the working class, to whom he has consistently sought to present himself as a defender.  He cannot continue to try to serve both the corrupt trial lawyers and the honest plain folk.  To try to do so would consume the remaining years of his administration in futility, along with the welfare of most of Louisiana’s citizens.  The moment has come for Gov Landry to decide:  Will he devote himself to the high-flyin’ trial lawyers or to the lower classes?

For his encouragement in making the right decision, he has the benefit of historical figures who have made heroic stands to break the power of oppressors and to uplift the downtrodden.  One of the most spectacular of those men is Basil II, the Emperor of Constantinople-New Rome from 976 to 1025 A. D.  Like Louisiana today, the Byzantine Empire in Basil’s time was plagued by a class of oligarchs who exploited the lower classes and spurned the legitimate power of the rulers of Constantinople.  Basil succeeded in subduing these powerful men and in prospering the working classes:

‘The ruthlessness and tenacity that served Basil II in his military and diplomatic activities were displayed in his domestic policy as well. Its keynote was the strengthening of imperial authority by striking at his overpowerful subjects, particularly the military families who ruled like princes in Asia Minor. The by-product of this policy was the imperial protection of the small farmers, some of whom owed military service to the crown and paid taxes to the central exchequer’ (Joan Hussey, ‘Basil II,’ britannica.com).

‘Basil was popular with the country farmers,^[105] the class that produced most of his army's supplies and soldiers. To assure this continued, Basil's laws protected small agrarian property owners and lowered their taxes. Despite the almost constant wars, Basil's reign was considered an era of relative prosperity for the class.^[35][106]

‘Seeking to protect the lower and middle classes, Basil made ruthless war upon the system of immense estates in Asia Minor^[34]—which his predecessor Romanos I had endeavored to check^[49]—by executing a legal decree in January 996 that limited rights to property ownership. If the owner of an estate could prove that he claimed his estate prior to the Novels of Romanos, he would be allowed to keep it. If a person had illegally seized an estate following the Novels of Romanos, he would have his rights to the estate declared null and the legal owners could reclaim it.^[107] In 1002, Basil also introduced the allelengyon tax^[108] as a specific law obliging the dynatoi (wealthy landholders) to cover for the arrears of poorer tax-payers. Though it proved unpopular with the wealthier sections of Byzantine society,^[109] Basil did not abolish the tax;^[110] . . .’ (‘Basil II,’ Wikipedia).

In addition to these oligarchs, Constantinople was threatened for years by the Bulgars to her north.  Warfare between them was nigh unending during that time.  But Basil II, as alluded to above, was able to bring peace – not by capitulation to them but by a decisive victory over them:

 . . .

The rest is at https://thehayride.com/2025/04/garlington-landry-the-lawyer-slayer/.

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Holy Ælfred the Great, King of England, South Patron, pray for us sinners at the Souð, unworthy though we are!

Anathema to the Union!

Offsite Post: ‘Two Kinds of Economies’

 

Louisiana finds herself in the middle of a debate about the best ways to spur economic development.  Regulatory reform, tax reform, budget reform, tort reform, and others are all part of the conversation.  This is a long overdue discussion, but there is another aspect of the economy that also needs our attention – the end goal of it all.  What is the purpose of a growing economy?  How should we use the surplus that it creates?  These and other questions must be answered if we want a rightly ordered economy here in Louisiana.

There are really only two options for these end goals.  The first is what we will call the Golden Calf type of economy; the other is the Christian type.

The Golden Calf Type

For those who remember their biblical history, while the Holy Prophet Moses was upon Mt Sinai receiving the Ten Commandments and the other laws from the Lord, the Israelites had set up a golden calf to worship in the place of the Holy Trinity (Exodus 32).  This is similar to what has happened in Louisiana and the rest of the States:  Economic development by and large has become, not a means to an end, but the end itself.  It has become the reason for being of mankind, and everything must be subservient to the growing economy, including Sundays and other holy days, family cohesion, etc.

The Pelican Institute formulates this secular vision this way in their Louisiana’s Comeback Agenda document:  ‘Louisiana’s collection of safety-net programs needs a paradigm shift so its low-income, work-capable citizens can move out of dependency on government and find hope and lasting self-sufficiency. This starts with connecting people with a job, which is the best path to prosperity. Work brings dignity, hope, and purpose through the life-long benefits of earning a living, gaining skills, and building social capital.’

The measure of success in this vision of the economy is generally whether or not each generation is better off materially than the one before.

The excellent Southern writer, Elizabeth Madox Roberts, gives a helpful illustration of these elements in her short novel The Great Meadow, which follows a Virginia family of the late 1700s as they migrate into Kentucky for the sake of better economic opportunity.  She writes,

 

Around them stretched the delirium of a fine land, level expanses delicately tilted to fine curves, here and there cane patches of rich fat growth, here and there noble trees.  . . .

 

‘What do we want here?  What did we come for?’  She was shaken with delight and wonder.

 

‘We want a fine high house, out in the rich cane.  We want a farm to tend . . . fields . . .’

 

 . . . There was a low temporary cabin on this ground, a mean hut which no one occupied since the enemy made life outside the fort insecure.  Berk viewed this humble shed with contempt.  ‘I want a fine high house, the roof high up off my head,’ he said, turning back to the stockade.  ‘Room for a man to lift up his head in’ (Hesperus Press, London, 2012, pgs. 102, 108).

This, ultimately, is what man strives for in the Golden Calf economy:  more, bigger, etc.  Nearly all attention is focused on the material side of life, while spiritual things are mostly ignored.

The Christian Type

Economic development is not forbidden in the Christian vision, but it does happen sometimes in ways that are very different from those in the Golden Calf type, for the simple reason that progress in the spiritual life is paramount rather than material advancement alone.

We have seen how the Golden Calf economy sees a reduction in a person’s or generation’s material prosperity as an indicator of failure.  Often in the Christian vision this has been seen rather as a sign of great spiritual progress.  Across the wide expanse of Christendom, from the West to the East, scores and scores of men and women have abandoned all they possessed to become monks and nuns in monasteries or hermits in the wilderness for the sake of obtaining the Pearl of Great Price, union with God.

And in doing so, their holiness of life, the Grace of God that overflows from them, attracted hosts of people, seeking to benefit from their spiritual gifts of wisdom, healing, prophecy, and so on.  In time, entire villages and even cities grew up around these isolated places in the middle of nowhere.  In the far west, in Orthodox Wales, there is the example of St Deiniol of Bangor (reposed c. 584):

 . . .

The rest is at https://thehayride.com/2024/07/garlington-two-kinds-of-economies/.

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Holy Ælfred the Great, King of England, South Patron, pray for us sinners at the Souð, unworthy though we are!

Anathema to the Union!