Liberty's Place 4 U WY

Community sharing ideas promoting Freedom and Liberty
Liberty's Place 4 U WY

Finding Comfort Amidst Chaos

The clock ran out after twenty years in Afghanistan. Ten years too late. Pushed out by, according to Obama, the “JV” Taliban. We’re told all US troops are out, according to CenCom General Frank McKenzie, who dared to brag about the Taliban’s help. Sadly, we don’t know how many Americans are left behind. In a Republic seriously divided, politically and philosophically; succor’s in short supply today.

It’s troubling to our allies and NATO partners, watching in disbelief at the inept and deadly decisions made about this Afghan withdrawal. Those left behind face death’s inevitability since our government granted legitimacy to an unelected Afghan body-the Taliban-as Joe Biden danced to their timeline. The same blundering buffoon, who was VP during Benghazi, oversaw the bloody train wreck in Afghanistan. This ending has our allies skeptical and our enemies emboldened.

Most troubling is that this tragedy was avoidable, despite Biden’s denial otherwise. Many anticipated a blood bath and carnage, as the White House chose the teat of the Taliban for nurture. Biden’s foreign policy, with unbridled deference to our enemies, will predictably lead to our troops around the world being more vulnerable than ever to enemy attacks. Thirteen American families live’s are forever altered after their door bell rang. Biden’s legacy is forever sealed. Wyoming’s own U.S. Marine, Rylee McCollum took his last breath in Afghanistan.

At first glance there appears to be no silver lining to this preventable tragedy from our mortal plane. We now know there’s a vibrant underground church that has been sharing the Good News of the Gospel of Christ to Muslims for decades. Eternity is its’ heritage. Only God can unravel this apparent web of complexity. Worldwide, many continue praying fervently for those “left behind.” That term has a lonely, beguiling sound to we who watch from afar in relative comfort. What’s next on the horizon?

Existentialist Soren Kierkegaard’s theology was surely unorthodox, yet his observation’s irrefutable, “Trouble is the common denominator of living. It is the great equalizer.” Prince or pauper, sparks will fly. War, family tragedies, natural disasters, pandemics, protests, economic upheaval, and political division, press us on every side. Some say it’s the bitter fruit of life in this chaotic fallen world. Was this Afghan disaster part of a calculated diversion from the assault on our liberty here in America by unseen forces? Has God orchestrated such a time and events to get our eyes off circumstances, regardless of how jarring it is to our senses, and look to Him for answers beyond our mortal domain?

This Progressive Socialist leaning administration has used January 6th, and COVID to cudgel Americans into submission with the plan of “vaccinating every American” and identifying Trump supporters as terrorist and “threats to national security.” Patriots are convinced it has opened the door for “mandated vaccination” for all Americans, or else; denial of basic goods, services, healthcare, banking, commerce, air and interstate travel; and our God-given liberties. Hospitals are bullying employees to choose: A jab or a job? It’s in Casper, Wyoming, Dickinson, North Dakota, Chicago and beyond.

Our culture’s increasingly hostile to the possibility of Divine intervention. However, when the national conversation turns to nations like Iran (Old Persia) Jerusalem, and Russia (Is it Gog in Ezekiel 38), it becomes more appealing when inexorable events, with eschatological links to the Bible are renewed. Such is the case every time Americans are drawn to, or threatened by war, loss of liberty, natural disasters, or when we’ve once again become too big for our breeches, before the God, who has spoken in space and time before about our propensity to forget Him and His ways, with predictable consequences. Never trivialize forgetting God. (Psalm 9:17)

True, comfort’s a rare and inestimable commodity. It may masquerade itself for a season as affliction. C.S. Lewis inimitably said, “In religion, as in war and everything else, comfort is the one thing you cannot get by looking for it. If you look for comfort you will get neither comfort or truth-only soft soap and wishful thinking to begin with, and in the end, despair.” It’s no surprise that there are those who’re unwilling to face the storms and vicissitudes of life, to brave the battle, exposing their soft underbelly, leaving them vulnerable and miserable. Affliction knows our address.

The comfort of choice of mortals is as diverse as the affliction itself. Some find solace in a book. Music doth soothe the savage soul. Others clutch their pet. Distress, anxiety and suffering drive some to the drug of choice. The degree of cheer or comfort may be transient. In the fiction world, Beatrix Potter, in her classic, “The Tale of Peter Rabbit,” describes a not other-worldly remedy, “Peter was not very well during the evening. His mother put him to bed, and made him some chamomile tea: One table-spoon to be taken at bedtime.” Smart rabbit. Our race is most adept at finding temporal potions and elixirs. Most have expiration dates, and a short self life.

To the casual observer of Biblical Christianity, Jesus is often mischaracterized as either a full-time comforter or a harsh afflicter. Neither are true. He comforts as only He can. He comforted the woman trapped in adultery, forgiving her, and told her to “go and sin no more.” Conversely, the Pharisees were denounced with a scathing rebuke, designed to afflict, characterizing them as hypocrites, evincing their feigned purity as whitened sepulchers. A harsh dose of truth was administered. Unvarnished affliction. Their only comfort was clinging to their traditions that trumped the Law, that gave them unauthorized power.

Not surprising, we too seek a place of comfort and respite from conditions that assail us and disrupt our reverie. Most parents eventually learn that a constant dose of comfort is counterproductive to a balanced, healthy offspring-at risk of rearing a self-indulgent, layabout, turned loose on unwary onlookers. We must prepare them for affliction that will come as surely as the sun rises tomorrow. It’s easy to conflate the need to comfort and taking away pain. Comforting a parent after the loss of a child doesn’t abrogate the pain. Comfort simply pulls up a chair beside the pain, until it ends. A hand on the shoulder transcends language barriers. Nearly anyone qualifies.

Universally known, the 23rd Psalm wasn’t penned in “sunny valley.” Verse four sets the context, “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for thou are with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.” It was His presence that comforted the shepherd boy, not the environment. God comforts us not to make us comfortable, but to permit us to be comforters to others. We’ve heard accounts of victims from mass shootings reporting that nothing prepared them for such an event. Still in their fog of disbelief, someone came to comfort them at their greatest time of need, found in 2 Corinthians 1:3-5.

Average citizens are easily distracted by quotidian events, while navigating this circuitous path on planet earth. Even in the heat of battle to defend our God-given individual liberty, we’ll need comfort to muster strength to stay in the fight. What of the existential threats from Communist China, Iran or Russia? Some are now convinced our gravest threat is internal from our own rogue government. No matter how many times we’ve read the Founders warnings about the loss of virtue, too many Americans have been duped by an ever burgeoning centralized government, and the concomitant enslavement that ensues when surrendering to “free” allurements and fear tactics.

Don’t misunderstand, there’s nothing wrong with that comfy, cozy corner or nook, where it feels good to us, augmented by our favorite beverage. However, we weren’t created for a reclusive life, immune from calamity or joy. Refrain from prolonged stays at the therapist’s couch, or dulling one’s senses with prescription drugs or opioids. “Safe spaces” become a bunker from life. Neither wealth or life’s privilege are any assurance of solace. When one’s conflicted about which to seek-comfort or affliction-it’s not an either or proposition. It’s a fact they sell Lazy Boy rockers. They sell Total Gyms too. We needn’t spend time on only one. One’s for our comfort. The other for our affliction.

It’s understandable in chaotic times to lack the wisdom to know what one needs, how much, how often, or when. That’s His realm. In this world of uncertainty, finding rest for one’s soul is compelling. In the midst of burdensome affliction, Jesus hastens us to seek His comfort. There’s a nostrum for this predicament. In our bareknuckle, real world, one discovers, it demands the radical unmasking of quixotic sophistry, that offers an escape ramp to nowhere. God will not be mocked. It’s too bad to be true. It only adds delusion to the pain. What do you think?

Mike Pyatt’s a Natrona County resident. His email’s mikepyatt44@gmail.com

Letter from Ammon Bundy

Hey Bob,

Earlier today I had a friend reach out to me and ask what I thought about the hundreds of Los Angeles firefighters refusing to get the vaccine and vowing to fight the administration who is forcing it. Of course my response was “AWESOME AND ABOUT TIME!”. However, now that I have had a few hours to think about it I am a bit bothered that these COVID mandates have gone so far and the people’s response has been so weak and slow.

If you remember, by this time last year my patriot friends and I had made international news several times for pushing hard against the unprecedented loss of liberty that somehow became excusable to many because of an unverified pandemic caused by an unidentifiable virus. In fact, my friends and I were arrested many times last year for exercising rights that “THE GOVERNMENT” said were only privileges. Let me give you an example: In April of 2020 we held a public Easter service in an old warehouse just days after Governor Little issued his statewide lock-down order. Through public records requests we now know that Governor Little was planning to send the Idaho State Police to raid our Easter worship services. According to the public records, lead “law enforcement” officers in Idaho felt the raid was justified but that it would be a public relations nightmare because “I owned the building”. Therefore they did not go through with the raid.

Imagine what must be going through these people’s minds to justify raiding people having a worship service in the United States of America. They must have no regard whatsoever for the United States Constitution. Do you think they have ever read the First Amendment? The part where it says “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof”? What about Article 1 section 4 of the Idaho Constitution where it states that “The exercise and enjoyment of religious faith and worship shall forever be guaranteed.” But no, Idaho State Police, Colonel Kendrick Wills, along with Governor Brad Little, plotted to raid a worship service in Emmett Idaho. They must believe they have the authority to raid and arrest people In Idaho for holding a service where people are worshiping the Lord Jesus Christ without their permission. I hate to say it but I am positive that almost every ISP officer (if not all) would have gone along with it and justified their actions by saying “I was just following orders”. What about the oath they took to uphold the Constitution?

Anyhow, I am glad that more people like firefighters and nurses are finally standing up to this nonsense and terrible destruction of liberty. Will it be enough? I am not sure. The propaganda has been so deceptive, the censoring so complete and the funding so great that not even honest, world-renowned doctors screaming at the top of their lungs have a voice loud enough to penetrate.

The human side of me wants to say to these firefighters, nurses and police, Where were you when this same thing was happening to the ranchers, miners and loggers? Were you some of the people saying we were crazy and radicals for standing up against those forcing us from our livelihoods? Were you some of the people that mocked us and made fun of us while our entire lives were turned upside down? Were you one of the people that believed the news reporters when they demonized us for trying to protect our lives and our property? How does it feel now that it is happening to you?

I know these thoughts are not thoughts that are conducive to unity or liberty. I know I must put these thoughts away and have compassion upon these people, even though some of them did not help us and only made the pain more intense. Why is it the nature of almost all humans to only care when it personally affects them? My human side wants to say to the nurses and firefighters, Weren’t you the ones pushing COVID last year while the rest of us were being locked up in our homes with our businesses and jobs shut down? Weren’t you the ones that received all kinds of bonuses and benefits for being on the ”front lines” “saving us all” from a virus that has a comparative death probability to the flu? Weren’t you the ones pushing everyone to wear a mask and to do what we were told? Now things are different, right?. Now when the same people who paid you those great bonuses are pushing you to inject poison into your body you are crying for help. After saying nothing about shutting down churches and businesses, locking us in our homes, now that it affects you personally, you want our help.

Almost every day I have someone come to me from the medical profession asking for help. Asking, Ammon, will you stand for us, will you help us fight to keep our jobs? We don’t want to lose our jobs and we have seen what the vaccine is doing to people. Well, like I said, it’s about time. After the private ranches have been decimated to almost nothing. After family loggers and miners have been completely destroyed and replaced with federal corporate contractors. After small businesses and churches were closed because they were categorized as “non-essential”. After many patriots were arrested for non-compliance with COVID mandates and you had your laugh making fun of us. After all of this, will we help you? Yes, yes we will help you. We will put aside our families duties, our jobs, our comforts and peace and we will come stand with you!

But remember this before you unite with us. We have been radicalized. The loss of our homes, our jobs, our churches. The threat to our children’s future, our liberty and our freedom. The time we have spent in jails and prison standing for your and my rights. All of this has radicalized us and awakened us to the awful situation we know we are in. So don’t ask us to join you if you’re not really committed to solving the problem. If all you want to do is keep your job, that’s not good enough. If all you want to do is get more benefits and a pension from the very people that are destroying liberty, that’s not good enough. However, if you want liberty for all, then we will stand with you. If you want peace and justice for everyone, now is the time to unite. If you are willing to give up your job, your comforts and even your honored reputation to help your neighbor, then let’s talk.

These medical professionals are right for refusing the poison in the COVID shot. Should they lose their job for refusing it? NO. Can we work together? Can we help each other? Yes. Should we?….YES, yes, yes we should. As children of God we forgive each other and we stand together on correct principles. I am grateful that many doctors, nurses, firefighters, and even police officers are speaking out and refusing to allow other people to make decisions over their body. I forgive them and desire to stand with them as they stand for what is right.

Your Friend,

Ammon Bundy

Liberty At The Brink

A recent Facebook post declared, “We need another Tea Party!” How about a Second American Revolution? Such a book was written by constitutional attorney, John Whitehead, in 1982, nine years after Roe v. Wade, “The Second American Revolution,” that argued without a dominant Christian culture, our system of government and jurisprudence make no sense, ultimately leading to our demise and loss of individual liberty. His 2015, book, “Battlefield America” may be the primer for liberty minded citizens today, to combat this run-amok government, hell-bent on assaulting on our Second Amendment, eroding other liberties that threaten to evanesce before our eyes, and simultaneously spending our nation into oblivion. Sound daunting?

Our most dire threat is domestic-our own government-coming soon to your own back yard, neighborhood or town, to assault our liberty. Are we that far down road of no return? Who predicted that the 2020 Wuhan virus would be used to cudgel the American public into submission, shutting down the world’s most vibrant economy, with barely a whimper from dutifully masked American citizens, who voluntarily waved the flag of surrender, aided by health officials, mainstream media, and social platform moguls.

Swarmy Dr. Anthony Fauci, the pied piper and face of COVID-19, serial liar, who, without hesitation, peddled new scare tactics with each cameo appearance. Gullible, frightened Americans, obsequiously swallowed it hook, line and sinker. We’re watching another lockdown being foisted upon us, in many states, some of which never recovered from the 2020 lockdown. Small businesses and school kids are most vulnerable, despite the seductive CARES Act bailout, that’s corrupt, undermine independence, individual liberty and sense of dignity. Formerly, some recall feeling ill, going to the doctor, only to be told, “There’s nothing I can do, it’s a virus.”

Jurisprudence’s wobbly too. Sadly, Trump’s last Supreme Court appointment, Amy Coney Barrett, who oversees the federal appeals court, in the first anti-mandate case, after lower courts declined to block it, denied eight student’s legal bid, she ruled that Indiana University students can’t block the school’s vaccine mandate before entering school this Fall. She offered no rationale. Another body blow to individual liberty as our judiciary drives another spike into liberty’s coffin, like Roe v. Wade.

That shining beacon on a hill, is now a dimming flicker, under a basket somewhere. We must rekindle that flame. Losing the battle to not be vaccinated poses a direct threat to freedom’s liberty, that will remove our guard rail of defense; our Constitutional God-given rights. Apparently, advancing liberty isn’t a spectator sport.

Our once unshakable foundation of moral rectitude, anchored in biblical principles as our core, now embraces and promotes a “gender fluid” sexual preference nightmare, ignoring only two genders, at birth, since Adam and Eve. The rogue American Medical Association recommends not designating new borns as “male” or “female.” Their reasoning, the committee said, “assigning a sex using a binary variable and placing it on the birth certificate perpetuates a view that it is immutable.” Birth certificates, they argue, have historically “been used to discriminate, promote racial hierarchies, and promote miscegenation.” Woke physicians are hazardous to our health and liberty. How does the AMA appoint committees like this? In 60 AD, Apostle Paul opined, “But indeed, O man, who are you to reply against God? Will the thing that is formed say to Him who formed it, ‘Why have you made me like this?’”(Rom. 9:20)

History chronicles the longing for freedom and liberty in every mortal, since time immemorial. To offer a working distinction between freedom and liberty, often used interchangeably, it’s pivotal to understand that freedom is that internal longing, burning in the bosom of all mortals-from birth. Liberty is the external, or outward manifestation of that internal longing. For example, freedom abides in the soul of billions who are less than chattel in brutal nations like Cameroon, Communist China, Iran, North Korea, Russia, Venezuela, and Zimbabwe, according to Human Rights Watch. Yet, those who’ve tasted liberty, albeit fleetingly, are undeterred by capture, incarceration, endless torture and death, as millions have been slaughtered in these gulags, though longing for a morsel of liberty.

Sadly, Americans have adopted a callous, cavalier attitude toward engaging liberty, and it shows. Even a cursory review of writings by those who have inspired, defended freedom and liberty throughout history like Edmund Burke, John Adams, James Fenimore Cooper, Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine, Frederic Bastiat, T.S. Eliot, Friedrich Hayek, Alexandr Solzhenitsyn, Ayn Rand, Milton Friedman and Ron and Rand Paul, underscore the necessity of grasping the inestimable cost of liberty. Most opposed the heavy hand of a central government, who delights in vexing their constituency with burdensome taxes and draconian policies, designed to leverage and protect elitist professions and politicians.

What’s the nexus between debt and liberty? By 2028, should liberty prevail, the national debt, according to Forbes, will be $78 trillion. Since 1913, the Federal Reserve’s unconstitutional monetary policies, have created crushing debt that is unsustainable and threatens our Republic’s sustainability. Once the gold standard was abandoned in 1971, the federal budget has had a surplus in only four of forty-eight years. When Jimmy Carter took office, the debt was about $670 billon. Four years later, it had risen to $965 billion. Through January, 2020, under President Trump, debt grew $3.3 trillion, according to Fortune Magazine, “How Could Debt Blow Up the Trump Economy?”

How much debt is too much? The government is only as solvent as it’s citizens. Covid-19, with rare exceptions, severely crippled corporate and individual solvency, disrupting the balance of the economy and supply chains. Under Trump, at least jobs were plentiful and wages at the highest in nearly sixty years. However, with that level of debt, with Biden, and his parasites, taxation’s haute couture. Ronald Reagan understood, apparently theoretically. Debt increased $1.77 trillion during his two terms, according to self.com. He stated, “There is a clear cause and effect here as neat and predictable as a law of physics: As government expands, liberty contracts.” Econ.101.

What happens when moral motions clash with economic prosperity? Calvin Coolidge’s moral economic philosophy was tied to his devotion to the Constitution. He understood the difficult task of implementing economic policies rooted in limited government. Furthermore, Coolidge warned, “A government which lays taxes on the people not required by urgent public necessity and sound public policy is not a protector of liberty, but an instrument of tyranny.” He also warned, though it has gone unheeded for generations of presidents and congress, “One of the chief dangers to the success of popular government is that it will throw away self-restraint and self-control and adopt laws, which being without sound economic foundation, bring on such financial distress as to result in want, misery, disorder, and the dissolution of society.”

British historian, T.B Maculay, warned of a government, even with a Constitution that lacked dogged fiscal restraint, saying, “Your Constitution is all sail and no anchor.” He understood the peril of elitist using economic domination, stacking the coins in their favor, as elitist always do. Consider Senator Rand Paul’s steadfast admonition, “The national debt is a threat to our national security and prosperity.” Edmund Burke understood that economics and politics are not independent sciences; anytime the two conjoin, mischief percolates just below the surface. Consider that age old moral and economic question, “What does it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?”

Scanning our nearly unrecognizable moral, social, economic and Faith landscape, is it possible to dodge the question that lurks in the mind of many liberty minded Americans, “Is liberty at the brink of disaster?” President Coolidge may have been the last president to understand that wealth can be a seductive temptress. He also knew it can be a benevolent tool for good in the right hands with virtuous liberty as its guide. It was obvious to him that centralized government is a bane to solving problems of any kind. It creates swamp creatures-that cannot be removed from the top down-as President Trump discovered belatedly-and it’s a cruel task master.

Federal and state politicians, like our Wyoming legislature, tout both Constitutions, yet ignore its checks and balances, squandering our money through profligate spending habits, then promote needless tax hikes to offset their fiscal tom foolery. A strong, sound fiscal policy is one piece of a stable, potentially sovereign Wyoming.

Poverty of the soul has been the downfall of nations, while reaching the summit of prosperity and sophistry, yet denying the cavernous moral abyss that lay at their feet. Though ancient, still powerful statism fosters a false, beguiling mood of optimism, when decadence has rotted its core. We’re not off the hook either. Don’t dismiss God’s judgment for our wicked ways. Sixty million unborn slain on the altar of convenience. Who will deliver us from this reproach and renew our days of old? Where are the Watchman? What do you think?

Mike Pyatt’s a Natrona County resident. His email’s mikepyatt44@gmail.com