DEFINING OUR TERMS
Ersatz refers to a substitute, typically an inferior one, for something else. The ersatz version is not real or genuine.
Perhaps in this day of artificial intelligence with computer generated images and voices, sometimes we're really not sure if we're talking to a human being or not. I literally asked a phone representative of a credit card company not long ago whether he was a real human being or a computer because his enunciation and diction were just more perfect than anyone I've ever heard. He assured me that he was perfectly human and that his wife was happy that he was. So I suppose, he really was human. Unless he was a perfectly programmed AI.
Think about what I just said that sometimes that which is not real appears to be more perfect than what is real. People are human and we make mistakes. Computers sometimes also err and the results are exponentially worse. But sometimes the voices and images which they generate are better than what we mortals can come up with.
So we live in a society where reality and pretense are sometimes indistinguishable to the naked eye or ear. This is compounded by deliberate attempts by our enemies to mislead us like lemmings over a cliff.
IT WASN'T ALWAYS THIS WAY
Our lives are very much a product of our times. If you or I had existed with exactly identical DNA, intellect and talents at the time our country was founded, the environment would very much have determined how we manifested these innate gifts from God. We are not even the greatest generation that won World War II and preserved our liberties. I'm only one generation removed from that era, whereas many of you are two or three.
If you haven't already read my previous article about The Federalist Papers, you can view it here:
The people are the only legitimate fountain of power
Let's review some of the most significant articulations from that first installment, then we will turn to subsequent writings.
FEDERALIST NUMBER 15
"Why has government been instituted at all? Because the passions of men will not conform to the dictates of reason and justice, without constraint."
Alexander Hamilton
[Comment: Our Founders were under no illusions about how human nature will negatively impact any government, both by those who govern and those who are governed, no matter how assiduously we attempt to achieve perfection, which they fully understood to be unattainable.]
FEDERALIST NUMBER 22
"One of the weak sides of republics, among their numerous advantages, is that they afford too easy an inlet to foreign corruption."
Alexander Hamilton
[Comment: Foreign intrusion in our national affairs was something they fully anticipated and is not unique to the 21st Century.]
FEDERALIST NUMBER 25
"For it is a truth, which the experience of ages has attested, that the people are always most in danger when the means of injuring their rights are in the possession of those of whom they entertain the least suspicion."
Alexander Hamilton
[Comment: Madison, Hamilton and Jay warned their contemporaries about what we would call wolves in sheep's clothing.]
FEDERALIST NUMBER 26
"The citizens of America have too much discernment to be argued into anarchy."
"It is impossible that the people could be long deceived…."
Alexander Hamilton
[Comment: This is where we should begin to consider how we have gone wrong. Why did these patriots of long-ago consider all their countrymen to be so perceptive and unable to be deceived? What has happened to that discernment over the course of well over two centuries?]
FEDERALIST NUMBER 37
"It is impossible for any man of candor to reflect on this circumstance without partaking of the astonishment. It is impossible for the man of pious reflection not to perceive in it a finger of that Almighty hand which has been so frequently and signally extended to our relief in the critical stages of the revolution."
James Madison
[Comment: The man who was the chief architect of the United States Constitution and our 4th President understood Divine Providence in a way that our present society has forsaken. I would conclude that candor and piety are the elements which we now lack that he so inherently recognized.]
FEDERALIST NUMBER 40
"The prudent inquiry, in all cases, ought surely to be, not so much FROM WHOM the advice comes, as whether the advice be GOOD."
James Madison
[Comment: Contrast these words to the tendency today to attack the messenger as a diversion or decoy to avoid addressing the substance of an issue. How many times does that happen in social media? How often do they just say a website is not credible without even once trying to refute that which was reported? That is the ultimate cop out of our age which are Founders would not have tolerated in their opponents.]
FEDERALIST NUMBER 41
"The choice must always be made, if not of the lesser evil, at least of the GREATER, not the PERFECT, good."
James Madison
[Comment: We are often confronted these days with what we refer to as the lesser of two evils. But, the problem is not only when one person or one side of an argument is inherently evil. Unless we do that which is the most we can under the circumstances, claiming that we will settle for nothing less than perfection, by default, we let our enemies impose something exponentially worse.]
FEDERALIST NUMBER 48
"The conclusion which I am warranted in drawing from these observations is, that a mere demarcation on parchment of the constitutional limits of the several departments, is not a sufficient guard against those encroachments which lead to a tyrannical concentration of all the powers of government in the same hands."
[Comment: Our Founders understood that putting something into writing does no good unless those in power abide by the Constitution. What we saw in our recent national American elections was that the Constitution did not fail, but those who had sworn an oath to uphold the Constitution failed in their duties. That applied to all three branches of our federal government: executive, legislative and judicial. We are a nation of laws, but laws mean nothing if they are ignored. We must respect them, abide by them and prosecute to the fullest extent those who disobey them and who dishonor all those who sacrificed their fortunes and even their lives to pass them down to us.]
James Madison
FEDERALIST NUMBER 49
"But a nation of philosophers is as little to be expected as the philosophical race of kings wished for by Plato."
James Madison
or Alexander Hamilton
[Comment: Those to whom we owe our freedom and our liberties had no delusions. They did think that Americans were intelligent and discerning. But they understood there were limits. I'm not sure they anticipated the atrophy of our national moral fabric however.]
FEDERALIST NUMBER 51
"But what is government itself, but the greatest of all reflections on human nature?"
[Comment: Government is not just an abstract concept. It exists only as it is applied by mortals of flesh and blood.]
"If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary."
[Comment: The first thing I notice here is that the recognition of Divine Power and Authority beyond this mortal sphere of human existence was so natural to our Founders, that they assumed it to be Universal. They didn't argue for the existence of angels. They expected their readers to stipulate that. So very different today as mankind has tried to elevate itself in blasphemy against our Creator. How can you inspire anyone to aspire to righteous governance, when they accept no higher authority than their own mind?]
"It is of great importance in a republic not only to guard the society against the oppression of its rulers, but to guard one part of the society against the injustice of the other part."
[Comment: The concept of guarding society against the oppression of its rulers, whether explicit or implicit, pervades all the writings of those who gave us this Republic, which, as Benjamin Franklin expressed so cogently, they hoped we could keep.]
Alexander Hamilton
or James Madison
FEDERALIST NUMBER 55
"The present genius of the people of America…."
[Comment: Taking time to read and absorb The Federalist Papers, one is struck with a recurring thread of respect for Americans to know and to do the right thing and not to be misled. So, how did we reach this point of the dumbing-down and functional illiteracy of so much of our society? I would submit that so much of it is due to being spoon-fed in snippets of information, some of which have to fit into 280 characters. Genius may be hereditary but it is nurtured by erudition. It is killed by hedonism, laziness and complacency.]
"What change of circumstances, time, and a fuller population of our country may produce, requires a prophetic spirit to declare, which makes no part of my pretensions."
[Comment: Yes, they were contrite enough to realize that they could not possibly look into the future and know what America would be like centuries later. But they gave us an exquisite system of governance and it is up to us to maintain it.]
Alexander Hamilton
or James Madison
FEDERALIST NUMBER 57
"Ingratitude is a common topic of declamation against human nature; and it must be confessed that instances of it are but too frequent and flagrant, both in public and in private life. But the universal and extreme indignation which it inspires is itself a proof of the energy and prevalence of the contrary sentiment."
[Comment: One element of human nature that does not change with the seasons or the centuries is ingratitude. That, in my estimation, is the number one reason for today's ersatz society which is not even a vague shadow of that which was bestowed upon us by patriots who thought very deeply and who cared very deeply, not only for their contemporaries, but also for posterity. If we have never had to fight or defend our way of life, we simply do not place upon it the value which it deserves. We are easily led astray.]
Alexander Hamilton
or James Madison
SO, WHAT HAS GONE WRONG?
Nothing could ever have destroyed America when we were of one accord, but, our enemies today have mastered the technique of divide and conquer. America is crumbling from within. Patriotism is considered passé.
Our country has lost the awareness of our unique role in human history and become just another nation as Barack Obama predicted. To him, that is a desirable state of affairs.
Whether this degeneration and disintegration of the United States of America is inevitable, or whether it is reversible, only you and I can determine. Madison and Hamilton were born for their times. We were born for ours.
What went wrong and led to this ersatz society today, is that we have forgotten who we are, history has been deliberately erased. I have always believed that the USA has a unique and vital role in human history. Our liberties, until recently, have been totally unprecedented.
We must not let a plan-demic undermine the continuity that has sustained us. We do not have to all agree on everything. That is not possible. It wasn't even possible back in the 18th century.
But, then, unlike now, they understood cause and effect. So many of us now simply exist without thinking about why we do what we do.
Why do you do what you do?
You may fail to recognize a piece of art as a counterfeit or phony unless you view it alongside the real thing.
Unless we have an understanding of that which is real, we will always fall for an inferior ersatz substitute. The way to dispel the darkness is by turning on the light. Knowledge is the antidote to deception.
IS THERE HOPE FOR AMERICA?
Yes. You alone can replace despair with unbounded hope. Together, we are the future of the United States of America.
'The Purge' by Big Tech targets conservatives, including us
Just when we thought the Covid-19 lockdowns were ending and our ability to stay afloat was improving, censorship reared its ugly head.
For the last few months, NOQ Report has appealed to our readers for assistance in staying afloat through Covid-19 lockdowns. The downturn in the economy has limited our ability to generate proper ad revenue just as our traffic was skyrocketing. We had our first sustained stretch of three months with over a million visitors in November, December, and January, but February saw a dip.
It wasn't just the shortened month. We expected that. We also expected the continuation of dropping traffic from "woke" Big Tech companies like Google, Facebook, and Twitter, but it has actually been much worse than anticipated. Our Twitter account was banned. One of our YouTube accounts was banned and another has been suspended. Facebook "fact-checks" everything we post. Spotify canceled us. Why? Because we believe in the truth prevailing, and that means we will continue to discuss "taboo" topics.
The 2020 presidential election was stolen. You can't say that on Big Tech platforms without risking cancelation, but we'd rather get cancelled for telling the truth rather than staying around to repeat mainstream media's lies. They have been covering it up since before the election and they've convinced the vast majority of conservative news outlets that they will be harmed if they continue to discuss voter fraud. We refuse to back down. The truth is the truth.
The lies associated with Covid-19 are only slightly more prevalent than the suppression of valid scientific information that runs counter to the prescribed narrative. We should be allowed to ask questions about the vaccines, for example, as there is ample evidence for concern. One does not have to be an "anti-vaxxer" in order to want answers about vaccines that are still considered experimental and that have a track record in a short period of time of having side-effects. These questions are not allowed on Big Tech which is just another reason we are getting cancelled.
There are more topics that they refuse to allow. In turn, we refuse to stop discussing them. This is why we desperately need your help. The best way NOQ Report readers can help is to donate. Our Giving Fuel page makes it easy to donate one-time or monthly. Alternatively, you can donate through PayPal as well. We are on track to be short by about $5300 per month in order to maintain operations.
The second way to help is to become a partner. We've strongly considered seeking angel investors in the past but because we were paying the bills, it didn't seem necessary. Now, we're struggling to pay the bills. We had 5,657,724 sessions on our website from November, 2020, through February, 2021. Our intention is to elevate that to higher levels this year by focusing on a strategy that relies on free speech rather than being beholden to progressive Big Tech companies.
During that four-month stretch, Twitter and Facebook accounted for about 20% of our traffic. We are actively working on operating as if that traffic is zero, replacing it with platforms that operate more freely such as Gab, Parler, and others. While we were never as dependent on Big Tech as most conservative sites, we'd like to be completely free from them. That doesn't mean we will block them, but we refuse to be beholden to companies that absolutely despise us simply because of our political ideology.
We're heading in the right direction and we believe we're ready talk to patriotic investors who want to not only "get in on the action" but more importantly who want to help America hear the truth. Interested investors should contact me directly with the contact button above.
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