Bakersfield Community Concert Association

03/19/2024

My birthday

03/17/2024

03/03/2024

Enjoy this English translation by Shoshana for the lyrics to the enormously popular Israeli song Yerushalayim Shel Zahav (Jerusalem of Gold), sung by Naomi Shemer.

11/03/2023

10/23/2023

Wordle 856 3/6

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10/15/2023

Israel Proves Importance of Second Amendment (RightWing.org) – Israel is still counting the cost of the shocking attack by Hamas terrorists. So far the death toll is over 1,200 people, most of them shot dead in their homes by gunmen who went from door to door, killing everyone they found. This atr...

05/29/2023

According to CBS News, "Female participation in target shooting in the U.S. has nearly doubled in the last decade, growing to nearly five million women since 2001."

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04/27/2023

Mária Telkes spent nearly 50 years exploring how to harness the sun’s power. Battling sexism at MIT, she persevered to design the first successfully solar-heated house in 1948 and held more than 20 patents. Watch “The Sun Queen” on the PBS app. ☀️ 👑

Image: Courtesy of Dittrick Medical History Center, Case Western Reserve University

04/19/2023

Always liked Morgan Freeman but he is officially now my favorite actor 🐝

04/10/2023

U.S. House lawmakers voted in support of an energy bill amendment that would prevent the Department of Energy ...

02/06/2023

Wordle 597 5/6 I’ll take it!!

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12/07/2022

12/07/2022

If we accept the idea that the state does not exist on its own moral plane or that the state should not be ultimately sovereign above all other possible challengers, what is to be done?

First is to not buy into the grift. And it is a grift.

If the state relies on the perpetuation of the idea of the state, we need to at least stop believing the idea ourselves. But most important is to reject the idea that the state gets to function on its own moral plane. We hear this all the time from regime supporters, of course. We shouldn’t complain too much, we’re told, because politicians make “the hard decisions” and we can’t hold state actors to the same standards as mere ordinary people, whose only function should be, apparently, to pay all the bills. This is poisonous thinking, and should be treated with the contempt it deserves.

Moreover, we must fight the historical myths that back the state, such as the regime narrative that the state is a progressive force for humanity and human rights. The state has been immensely successful in writing its own history, in which it is both inevitable and highly beneficial. Both of these claims must be rejected.

Support Secession
The second step is to support secession and radical decentralization.

It’s very hard for people to wrap their minds around the idea of competing sovereignties, and this is an obstacle to winning them over in the fight against state sovereignty. But one thing people do understand is the right to self-determination, self-government, and local autonomy. People don’t want to be ruled by a culturally alien force imposing the will of the majority on powerless minorities within a large state.

The answer to this problem, of course, lies in secession, and in making government power more polycentric, more dispersed, more decentralized. This by itself brings us closer to the prestate model even without requiring a direct attack on the idea of sovereignty.

Moreover, secession does act as a de facto indirect attack on sovereignty in two ways. First of all, because a regime that fails to impose perpetual unity on its subjects is a weakened regime. And secondly, because secession creates smaller states and secession-prone, small states are less able to exercise sovereignty. The smallness of the state, and the relative ease with which people may leave that state, mean that it is more constrained in its ability to raise taxes and impose regulations, and to abuse the population in general.

Build up Other Institutions
And lastly—but perhaps most importantly, because it’s the right thing to do in all circumstances—is build up nonstate institutions.

What are these institutions? They’re the institutions that predate the state. The family, the church, the market. Even local governments are key in this equation.

As Van Creveld has explained that the rise of the state required the triumph over all these institutions. It has been the decline of these institutions—encouraged by the state itself—that has paved the way for state dominance of society in so many cases.

And it’s easy to understand why. Society naturally organizes around kinship, around religious groups, around economic ties, professional associations, guilds, town governments, and even neighborhoods.

The work of the state for centuries has been to destroy and impoverish these natural organizations, replacing them with the artifice of the state, claiming the whole time that the state can better provide what these institutions once provided. But all the while creating a more fragile society. The project of the state and its intellectuals has been to run down especially families and churches and local allegiances, because these groups have been so fundamental in creating parallel institutions that have competed with the state for loyalty and for resources.

Ultimately, it’s not enough to just oppose the state and call it a day, because society has to organize itself around some institutions other than the state. If these alternative institutions don’t exist, people will turn to the state, and it will only be strengthened.

12/07/2022

11/10/2022

"Found in Florida! So one of the owners of a hotel, Judi was walking on the beach this morning cleaning up the junk that washed into shore and finds a bottle with a message in it. There is also some sand and 2 one dollar bills. Once we get it open and read the notes we find out that it is in fact NOT sand. It is the ashes of this woman's husband of 70 years named Gordon. She writes that He loved to travel so she sent him traveling in a bottle with a note and money for someone to call home and tell her where he landed. He started at Big Pine Key in March of 2012 and then went to Islamorada where someone found him. They added a note and sent him traveling again and he landed on our beach in Key Colony. Judi called the wife in Tennessee who was excited to know of Gordon's travels! Judi added her note, we put him in a rum bottle (you know added a little fun to his trip) with the three notes. We added another dollar in case Gordon travels far and a long distance call is needed. We will be having a memorial service or celebration of his life on our beach later today before sending him on his way again."
Credit: Allex1337

11/10/2022

👏👏👏

11/07/2022

Happy Birthday to comedian Dennis Miller. My late wife, Ava, enjoyed meeting with Dennis. I always enjoyed my interviews with him. We need more people like Dennis during these tough times.

11/07/2022

Today I adopted a human...

It broke my heart to see him so alone and confused.

I suddenly saw his watery eyes as he looked into mine.

So I barked with all my might and went after him, the following from house to house.

Finally, I got close enough to touch his hand with my nose.

The man smiled and I felt his cold heart begin to warm.

I moved closer to his face and felt his tears start to flow.

I looked at him and he replied with a beautiful smile.

I jumped into his lap excitedly, promising that I would be fine, that I would love him forever, and that I would never leave him.

How lucky that he passed by where I was and that we could meet like that.

I felt lucky too.

So many people have been there, but only he, only he, looked at me.

I'm glad he made a choice and that I was able to save his life.

I adopted a person.

11/06/2022

Agreed! Thank you to Conscious Parents 🍁