“FEAR” IS FAR FROM BEING OUR ONLY CONCERN

President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s first Inaugural Address, delivered March 4, 1933, included the long since famous words: “ . . . the only thing we have to fear is fear itself—nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.”

Yes, his first inaugural address took on an unusually solemn, religious quality (tone). And for good reason—by 1933 the terribly crippling and debilitating so-called “Great Depression” had reached its depth. And Roosevelt’s first inaugural address outlined in broad terms how he hoped to govern and reminded Americans that the nation’s “common difficulties” concerned “only material things.”

And while the tragedy of the “Great Depression” was to be endured very up-close and personal by my parents and countless others, my personal gift-of-life journey didn’t begin until several years after Roosevelt shared the above noted words of intended hope and encouragement to a terribly challenged nation.

A personal gift-of-life journey that has led me (now among the dinosaur generations), and no doubt countless others, to more and more believe that “fear” is far from being our only concern. For in addition to “fear,” the seemingly ever-growing mixed bag of threats to us personally, and as a nation, also includes but is not limited to, “ignorance,” “apathy,” “complacency,” “denial,” and “greed.”

Threats that serve as barriers to our rational dealing with agenda-driven “fears” stirred-up and profited by in some manner by the more-greedy and self-serving among us.

“Fears” such as, but not limited to:

(1.) The “Population Bomb”—the 1960’s fear that we are over-populating the Earth, will run out of food, and hence all soon starve to death, etc.

(2.) “Another Ice Age” and “Running Out of Oil”—the 1970’s fear of freezing to death from a rapidly approaching “Ice Age,” as well as the gut-wrenching fear of all the inconveniences resulting from a world “Running Out of Oil.”

(3.) “Nuclear War”—the 1980’s heightened fear of being destroyed by the outbreak of “Nuclear War” resulting from a weapons race and tensions between the U.S. and Soviet Union (now Russia).

(4.) “Climate Change”—the 1990’s-Present fear that our use of evil-old-fossil-fuel (oil) is changing the Earth’s climate such that the North Pole and South Pole ice caps will melt, causing the oceans to rise to the extent of dooming all of civilization.  Yes, “Climate Change”—originally labeled “Greenhouse Effect” ...later changed to “Global Warming” ...and then not so long followed by the present preferred label . . . “Climate Change” . . . which is of course a “shoe that fits all.”

Yes, throughout my relatively limited life journey, there never seems to be a time when—according to the fear-promoters and doomsday predictors—that we were not (and yet are not) destined to soon self-destruct in some manner.

Nevertheless, there has always existed—and yet to this day exists—unlimited hope! A rock-solid protection against even the worst of our concerns! 

That so-called "hope and protection" (or more likely our "worst threat") of course being “more government”—funded by sufficient numbers of taxpaying citizens consumed in ignorance, apathy, complacency, compliance, denial, greed, and . . . yes you guessed it . . . “fear.” 

                                                             —William James Moore.

"The Sound of Freedom"

The “Sound of Freedom” is a “must watch movie” coming at a time when global statistics on human trafficking are on the rise: every day thousands of women, men and children are trafficked worldwide for various exploitative purposes . . . in an estimated $150 billion Human Trafficking Business!  A most shameful and rapidly growing tragedy for all countries and communities, with currently an estimated 25 million victims of human trafficking around the world!

A “critically important” movie inspired by the life and work of Tim Ballard, who left the Department of Homeland Security around 2013 and founded Operation Underground Railroad (O.U.R.), an anti-trafficking non-profit, to work with local police in other countries to catch child sex traffickers.

Work on the script began in 2015.  Reportedly, Ballard personally requested that Jim Caviezel portray him, and Caviezel has reportedly stated that he considers Sound of Freedom the second most important film he has ever appeared in, ranking it behind only his starring role as Jesus Christ in The Passion of the Christ (2004).

Endorsements and special screening: Mel Gibson, Dana White, Elon Musk, Ben Shapiro, Jewel and the Family Research Council have all endorsed the film.  President Donald Trump also hosted a special screening of the film at Trump National Golf Club Bedminster on the night of Wednesday, July 19, 2023.

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(Links To Movie Trailers & Other Info)

"Sound of Freedom" --- Tickets & Show Times & Official Trailer --- Angel Studios.

Official Final Trailer for "Sound of Freedom".

First Movie Trailer for "Sound of Freedom".

"Wisdom of Ayn Rand" - - - The Consequences of Avoiding Reality!

[ Note: The below article was taken verbatim from the "American Thinker.”  - - - an especially apt and interesting article shared with me by my dear friend Mike H. ]

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 July 18, 2023 

"Ayn Rand has some prescient thoughts about Democrats' avoidance of reality"

By R.W. Trewyn 

The consequences of avoiding reality are killing us … literally!

American leaders and policy makers in the 21st century should have paid attention to the profound wisdom put forth by Ayn Rand in the last Millennium: 

“You can avoid reality, but you cannot avoid the consequences of avoiding reality.” 

It pinpoints the basis for countless problems in America run by Democrats in recent years, clarifying why they occurred. Consider the following illustrations: 

1. “You can avoid [the brain-dead] reality” of funding coronavirus gain-of-function research in a communist country whose long-term goal is to destroy you, “but you cannot avoid the consequences of avoiding [that] reality.”  There’s nothing like a global pandemic to help validate an argument.  Only someone truly brain dead — or totally devoid of ethics and integrity — would argue otherwise today.  Even purveyors of the wet market diversion ought to concede.  Shouldn’t the U.S. government worry about communists anywhere doing gain-of-function research on pathogens? Obviously! 

Think what an out-to-conquer-the-world regime could do — intentionally or inadvertently — with bioengineered viruses. Cause a pandemic? We’ll return to the communist aspect of this stupidity below while plugging in another variant into Rand's same observation that’s especially concerning for America’s future.

2. “You can avoid [the brain-dead] reality” of defunding the police, “but you cannot avoid the consequences of avoiding [that] reality.”  Anyone with even limited brainwave function back when this idea arose could have told you what the outcome was going to be.  Crime would explode in every city where this mindless experiment was launched.  Bingo!  Moronic has been proven multiple times, coast to coast. There is also this: 

3. “You can avoid [the brain-dead] reality” of destroying America’s energy independence, “but you cannot avoid the consequences of avoiding [that] reality.”  Clearly, increases in gas prices were going to accompany this executive duncemanship.  However, once that domino fell, a whole cascade of additional ones tumbled immediately thereafter.  Higher gas costs led to supply chain problems which created product shortages that drove up consumer prices thereby providing a vessel for … what?  Inflation!  A third grader could have figured that out.  Well, a third grader pre-COVID.  Maybe a sixth grader now. 

Then, the domino scenario recycled again … and again … and again.  Obviously, the Afghanistan withdrawal fiasco could have been used as another exemplar or the open border insanity.  Whenever and wherever reality is ignored, stupid, needless outcomes are the result.  The fallout from all these examples should have been apparent to anyone, but as Ayn Rand also said: “The hardest thing to see is the glaringly evident which everybody had decided not to see.”  Yes, that’s more reality wisdom she conveyed. 

Unfortunately, significant numbers of Americans have now opted to close their eyes to reality.  Glaringly evident is no more.  Unmistakable has transformed into mistakable writ large.  Welcome to the U.S.A., 2023. 

Ayn Rand passed away in 1982, so America has done without her foresight for quite some time.  An author and philosopher, she always had something to say and an amazingly quotable way of saying it.  Ayn Rand was her chosen name.  She was Alissa Zinovievna Rosenbaum when she was born in the Russian Empire in 1905.  Alissa was the eldest child of a prosperous St. Petersburg pharmacist; prosperous until the Russian Revolution in 1917.

Communists took control and seized her father’s business.  Then came the Soviet Union, Vladimir Lenin and Alissa’s formal introduction to Marxism-Leninism.  Her intimate knowledge and hatred of totalitarianism grew from there.  Nonetheless, Alissa Rosenbaum graduated from Leningrad State University in 1924 and two years later, fortuitous family circumstances allowed her to travel to the U.S. 

Arriving here, she took the name Ayn Rand, and in 1931, she became an American citizen.  Experiencing the communist conquest in Russia early in her life led to another unique insight that is of particular relevance today. “There is no difference between socialism and communism, except in the means of achieving the same ultimate end: communism proposes to enslave men by force, socialism by vote.  It is merely the difference between murder and suicide.”  

Why is this pertinent? Because the understanding and fear of socialism have been lost by far too many Americans.  A decade or two ago, essentially no politicians would have run on a platform advocating socialism.  Now, candidates for public office call themselves “democratic socialists” unashamedly.  And what does the qualifier add?  Nothing!  Attaching democratic merely validates what Ayn Rand said a half century ago: “to enslave men … by vote” (democratically) is voting to commit suicide. 

Somehow, though, few Americans appear to understand that. Socialism doesn’t scare them like it should.  They don’t see the “glaringly evident” reality. At least communism still seems to make most people in America squeamish.  As a result, there hasn’t been a “democratic communists” political movement so far.  Democratic murder is a harder sell than democratic suicide.  

Regardless, America is heading down a slippery slope that may not be reversible. U.S. voters need to wake up to these issues and start purging local, state and federal government of socialist wannabes, communist collaborators, and all those evading the reality of their actions.  The results are obliterating liberty and freedom.  “You can avoid reality, but you cannot avoid the consequences of avoiding reality.”  America … stop avoiding reality!  The consequences of avoiding reality are killing the U.S. … literally!  

It’s time to confront those destroying our country. Vote the brain dead out of office!

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R.W. Trewyn earned a Ph.D. after surviving Vietnam combat, and more treacherously, endured 53 years postwar slogging academe’s once hallowed halls. 

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Source Link:   Ayn Rand has some prescient thoughts about Democrats' avoidance of reality - American Thinker