Liberty Liberally - Vol I Issue III - March 2021

From the Journal of Joshua Fryfogle

Liberty, Liberally Volume I - Issue III

March, 2021

Alaska

A Life Of Learning

Kernels of Truth

On Education & Sharing Day 2021

Corporate Media Lies In Wait, We Take The Bait

Rebbe Menachem Mendel Schneerson left behind a legacy of learning, and sharing with each other what we’ve learned. Here he is leaving the Chabad-Lubavitch headquarters in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, observed by his students.

Being raised in a religious household, and being bookish from an early age, I learned to see the Bible as both a religious text and also a literary masterpiece. The more I learned about books, poetry, and literature as a youth - the more I studied to satisfy my own curiosity about these topics - the more I realized that the Bible served as support for the entire corpus of Western Civilization. Although I was raised to revere the Bible as a religious text, I learned on my own that the books of the Bible were pillars, upholding a galilee of higher education.

Unlike many academics who have divorced themselves from this foundation of education, my own reflective studies were built upon it.

As I continued my own studies into various topics, learning on my own, I was never presented with an adversarial or religiously bigoted view of the Bible.

Instead, I saw it as a foundational work of Western literature that could not and should not be disturbed, unless we see the whole of Western Civilization falling in on itself.

Not because of it’s religious significance, which is certainly debated vigorously to this day, but because of the Bible’s profound influence on every other course of degrees that our society has developed.

Rebbe, By Joseph Telushkin A few years ago, I was introduced by a dear friend to the life and work of Rebbe Menachem Mendel Schneerson, who was responsible for a renaissance of the orthodox Jewish traditions. My friend gave me a copy of a book about the Rebbe (as he’s affectionately referred), which I was unable to put down.

From the first chapter, I was intellectually compelled by the brilliance and beauty of the life of the man who would bring about such a change in the Jewish world, and the world at large.

Besides his legendary leadership in Judaism, he also kept company with some of the most powerful, non-Jewish leaders of the world. His wisdom was renowned, and the leaders of the world would often seek it out.

But the Rebbe advocated especially for education for children that would include a moral education, to build up the character of children.

In fact, when a child is born in the Jewish community, it is customary to have a copy of a particular verse from Psalms, Psalms 121, (see below). The verse serves twofold function: comfort the mother in childbirth, and to represent that the child will be learning from day one.

The United States Congress established the annual proclamation of Education and Sharing Day in 1978. The date of the annual celebration is celebrated on a different day of the Gregorian Calendar, adjusting each year for the original Hebrew Calendar date of 11 Nissan, to honor the birthday of the Rebbe himself.

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I find it compelling that this day, each year, serves as a reminder that in matters of history, it is imperative that we invest the tools of continued self-education in our youth. But this requires a curiosity that is sorely lacking. Simply taking the steps, handing out degrees, this doesn’t make a good student. A good student continues as a student, of their own free will, all the days of their lives. It’s not a chore, to the good student, to learn and grow and seek to know.

I think the Rebbe must have realized that the liberal philosophy that that supports our Constitutional form of government was a social philosophy, as well as political. He surely understood that we put the power with the individual, a power that, when removed from a ruling class, defaults into a liberal society.

He must have seen that America was a liberal, free society, that would allow for such moral teaching.

He must have considered the sentence structure of the First Amendment.

He surely knew that there was a public trust in America that didn’t exist in the Communist and Fascist nations of Eastern Europe, where he matured into his own morality. He must have noticed that our First Amendment upholds freedom of religion in the same breath as speech, publishing, and gathering together.

This first amendment encapsulates the freedoms necessary for a moral education, while it respects religious freedom first, in it’s primary clause.

I am inspired by the life and legacy of this man who survived multiple genocidal totalitarian extremes, and who came to the land of the free, and devoted his life to education - as had always been the tradition of his faith.

A good student should be inspired to learn and share what they’ve learned, so I will share something I have learned about the word ‘inspired’. Inspired comes from the Latin ‘inspirare’, which means to ‘blow into, breathe upon’. This is also described in the book Bereishit (Genesis), when the Creator ‘breathed’ the spirit (Neshemah) into Adam and then humanity.

The word spirit, and inspire, share this same Latin root. I’m not trying to inspire your faith with some mystical interpretation here. I’m pointing to a literary observation. Our language today, which is generations removed from the hebrew tongue that precedes it, by many millennia, still reflects a similar connection between breath and creativity, life and spirit. Our American English, still to this day, is influenced by the Bible, and this is only one example of that permeating phenomenon. All of our modern languages are inextricably interwoven, and it’s from that fabric that Western Culture is crafted. Our coat of many colors is to be envied.

Inspirational

Baiting deer is illegal. I grew up in the Southeast US, and deer hunting is a very common part of the culture. And baiting deer is illegal.

What is baiting deer? It’s the practice of putting out corn in one location over the course of weeks and tricking deer into coming there for the food - the bait. After a while, the deer become complacent, and expect the good quality corn to be there. That’s when you shoot the deer.

It’s illegal because it’s unfair. It’s not really hunting, but drawing in the deer with a false sense of safety and security - providing them something that is good for them, and that they like to consume.

That’s how the media has worked over the last many decades.

We romanticize the media of the ‘good old days’, invoking the name Cronkite like it’s sacred or something. But the truth is, the corporate takeover of our culture and communities started just like baiting deer.

They gave us, for a while, what we would find most appealing. Easy access to information. These kernels of truth were really good food, too. That wasn’t the trick, the media can’t trick us with bad bait, bait that we will sniff and ignore. No, the media corporations offered us high quality kernels of truth.

Our appetites were satisfied, as was our curiosity.

We weren’t on guard, because the information we were receiving passed the collective sniff test.

Cronkite, and those like him, are the corn. We’re the deer. The bait can’t be blamed, but the one who placed it there lies in wait.

We ought not be so easily controlled, like animals that are bound to their nature, incapable of reasoning ‘how’ the tasty morsels got there to begin with, much less ‘why’ they would be there.

The animal instinct to taste, test, and ingest, is as basic to our bodies as those of deer. Yet we have a higher function

We’ve gotten a surprising number of donations from community members at The People’s Paper and Make A Scene Magazine over the years, and recently it’s increased with the publication of Liberty, Liberally.

We’ve also received many requests for subscription services, requests to mail Liberty, Liberally, and our other publications to people near and far...

So we thought, why not make it easier to donate, and get something in return, too?

of thought, to consider the conditions we’re in, and understand why those conditions exist.

The inherent flaw in any internet portal is that it centralizes the flow of information, rather than decentralizing it. This creates a bottleneck which is easy to control, and that bottleneck can be sold to the highest bidder. The more centralization occurs, the more powerful it becomes, as does its owner.

The reason deer baiting works so well is because something happens that doesn’t happen in nature. The deer are hardwired to search for food, as humans are hardwired to hunt for answers. The one who baits the deer is not spreading the kernels out all over the place - that would not cause the deer to gather. No, it’s the centralization of the bait, that’s it’s in one spot, over and over, that trains the deer to trust it.

This centralization of the flow of information is an inherent weakness, making minds prey to predators who would trick and trap us if they could.

The solution is obvious, and it’s already affirmed in our founding: Decentralization of the control of information is the only way to maintain free expression.

However, the centralization of information is very difficult to resist.

It’s so easy to consume this ready-to-eat information that they produce using every craft of communication known to man, to supply the willing consumer an experience that will feel very fulfilling.

But as that centralization gains more and more success, the greater the chance that the entire herd will be corralled in, captive and captivated.

Each soul, each individual, is both a physical and mental being. Our tendency to wander in search of morsels is just nature. But our ability to question what we’re being fed, that is more than animal. That is a divine synthesis of self and soul...

That is a human, being.

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Thanks so much for your words of encouragement and financial support over the years. We take your trust very seriously, as we steward content from you and your neighbors onto the printed page. It’s an American tradition which we are blessed to uphold.

A LIFE OF LEARNING CONTINUES ON PAGE 2

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From the Journal of Joshua Fryfogle

Volume I - Issue III A LIFE OF LEARNING

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1 What this suggests is simple. The entire corpus of Western literature and learning, all of it, is being communicated via a language that still connects these ideas. English came after the writing of Genesis, and it is subordinate and intellectually subservient to those ideas that were first set in motion thousands of years earlier.

This means that you literally cannot get a complete education, even if you lived to be a hundred and twenty, without bumping into these earliest biblical texts, and realizing the same thing.

They serve as a foundation for the whole of our reality, even if you don’t believe them to be inspired.

The Rebbe’s vision of Education and Sharing Day was not a Jewish one. It was a biblical view, starting with the story of Noah, whose sons made up the nations of the earth - all of them. It was an inclusive effort, aimed at all of ‘children of Noah’, not only the children of Jacob. For an orthodox rabbi, the Rebbe could be rather unorthodox in his inclusivity. He had learned (as I learned in the book my friend gifted to me) that if his people didn’t find a way to coexist with the world, and demystify the misunderstandings about his people that led to ignorance and prejudice from the descendants of Noah, then the folly of pharaohs and Fascists, Communists and Czars, would lead to more mass murder, which the Rebbe had been fortunate enough to escape.

While it’s important to remember that our religious freedom and public discourse go hand in hand, and that each of us retain the right to come away, and be separate from our liberal society, we are all allowed to engage and affect that society. In fact, we will engage and affect that society even if we don’t do so deliberately, so there is a moral obligation to self-education, so as to be a positive influence on our society.

This can only come from moral teachings, which are the first teachings, that first inspired humanity to study at all. Our inaction and ignorance, as the Rebbe surely knew, would never relieve us of our tendency to moral degradation and lacking education, which tends to precede totalitarian persecution.

Even the modern atheist must consider these connections between the traditions of education themselves, and the traditions of ancient religious practice.

The two are one.

Morality must be instilled in the mind of the young, and in America, the Rebbe new that we could do so from a plurality of religious perspectives. As an Ultra-Orthodox Jewish leader, you would think he would have instead focused his attention on the Jewish community alone, but the Rebbe was revolutionary, like America.

Consider that the field of human knowledge alone is neither good nor evil. It can manifest as either. This is both dangerous and demanding.

Stalin and Hitler made use of scientific knowledge, while removing any idea of a Creator, or the value of individual human life, from the equation. They persecuted the people who kept these traditions alive, vainly attempting to disconnect knowledge from morality, and the results speak for themselves.

The individual, inspired to do good with knowledge will seek understanding, and wisdom. This is the beginning of moral education, which is the beginning of all education. Try as we might, even our language constantly alludes to this reality, that without morality, humanity will use knowledge to bring about our own destruction.

An education, then, must first seek to train the student towards right action

Liberty, Liberally with whatever knowledge that they are given. Continued education, and sharing what we learn, and how we interpret the moral implications of that knowledge, are specifically protected for the individual in the First Amendment.

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Good Student

by Joshua Fryfogle

Information alone, without equal and balanced moral orientation, will only make the individual a danger to themselves and others. We must support our education with edification, we must share what we know with our neighbors, and that requires... inspiration.

Two Become One There are two traditions of Judaism that are coming together this year, in regards to a particular portion of the biblical text: Psalm 121. When a child is born to a Jewish family, it is customary to have a copy of Psalm 121 in the delivery room, as a comfort to the mother, but also as a symbol that the child begins to learn immediately upon birth.

Take just a minute

The day of our birth is the beginning of our education on earth.

Look both directions

The second tradition is also related to birthdays. A common Jewish custom is for a child to learn to recite the Psalms, corresponding with their progressing age, each year learning the next Psalm.

The Lubavitch Jewish community, which was revived and revitalized under the leadership of the Rebbe, honors the Rebbe by reciting the Psalm that would correspond to his own birthday. This year, they’ve progressed to Psalm 121, corresponding to the Rebbe’s 120th year. It’s inspiring to me, to think of the seeming serendipity, that these two traditions are coming together, and I wonder at what might come of that.

Do a good job

Psalm 121

Has done what you’re doing

1. A Song of degrees. I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help.

Spend time together

Review, make corrections

Focus your mind Block out distractions Use your time wisely Weighing your actions

Ask someone who

Learning, reviewing

2. My help cometh from the LORD, which made heaven and earth.

Learn all the lingo

3. He will not suffer thy foot to be moved: he that keepeth thee will not slumber.

And each term of art Doing your duty

4. Behold, he that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep.

Playing your part

5. The LORD is thy keeper: the LORD is thy shade upon thy right hand.

Keep your head down

6. The sun shall not smite thee by day, nor the moon by night.

And keep your work steady You’ll get to wherever

7. The LORD shall preserve thee from all evil: he shall preserve thy soul.

Whenever you’re ready

8. The LORD shall preserve thy going out and thy coming in from this time forth, and even for evermore.

Remember, one thing leads to another.

If you feel inspired to learn something, in honor of Education and Sharing day, I would suggest reading the book, Rebbe,

by Joseph Telushkin. It’s the book that my friend gave to me, and it created connections in my understanding of so many things that I had never considered.

It edified me, adding to the edifice of my own education.

“The great writers to whom the world owes what religious liberty it possesses, have mostly asserted freedom of conscience as an indefeasible right, and denied absolutely that a human being is accountable to others for his religious belief. Yet so natural to mankind is intolerance in whatever they really care about, that religious freedom has hardly anywhere been practically realised, except where religious indifference, which dislikes to have its peace disturbed by theological quarrels, has added its weight to the scale.”

- John Stuart Mill, On Liberty

You can respond to what you’ve read, or write what matters to you.

Most people don’t read the whole article.

Most journalists try to give the reader the gist, a few sentences describing the whole article, right there in the first paragraph. They know that most people don’t read the whole article.

Most of us are hooked by the title, reading the first paragraph if it’s in print, but online we’re more likely to skip right to the comments section, without even clicking the link.

We look to the comment section online, where we make the decision if we’re actually going to read the article.

Clicking through on an internet article is only part of it’s function as a salable media product.

Content creation, whether by a journalist or blog/vlog creator or whatever, is not like print publications, where the content of the article is all there on the page, and that’s all there is.

Unlike print, on the internet the article might affect the public discourse differently. The title, if provocative enough, can create a melee in the comment section, a spectator sport that is more captivating than anything a writer could write. It’s real-time conflict, and it’s very adversarial and compelling. People join in, and most of them haven’t even read the article. As the comments continue, the confusion compounds.

This is by design, mind you. It’s not accidental. The companies that make their money off of clicks and reactions

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and engagement, they are always angling for a few more followers, fans, friends...

It’s not really serving the function of informing the people, but prodding them instead.

As a result, the discourse suffers. People who need you to click on their articles to keep the lights on, who happen to be professional creative writers, will certainly use that skill to compete professionally. And if it gets lots of engagement, they call it a win. Those are numbers that they can brag about to advertisers, and they will eventually realize that their power to push the narrative through creative headlines click bait as they call it - is made more powerful, and more profitable, thereby.

That’s right, the click bait title of a post can intrigue the reader, and the comments can entrap them, so that they never make it to the article. And truth be told, this is most of the online engagement that we see.

The commentator has lost the narrative to the commenter. The writer is subject to the responders. The narrative is shaped by knee-jerk reactions, and a misleading title - that will be cleared up and corrected somewhere in the article they didn’t read - will do more to affect the public discourse than the article itself.

This serves the financial interests of a small group of people, as it sows chaos and confusion in the conversation... in the comments.

From the Journal of Joshua Fryfogle

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Volume I - Issue III

Dear Reader, As you may already know, my small team and I have built my media company around the central pillar of free expression for local people. In this way, our team of contributors number in the thousands!

Whether in Make A Scene Magazine, The People’s Paper, 95.5 The Pass, or on one of the many event stages that I’ve set up for thousands of local voices to be heard, all of my passion and profession have been devoted to Liberty of the individual here in Alaska.

That’s how my team and I do what we do.

However, this new publication Liberty, Liberally - is WHY we do what we do.

I count myself fortunate to have been able to do this civic work in our community for so many years. With this new publication, I hope to inspire more people to contemplate this perfect law of individual Liberty that is the lawful foundation of our great Republic. So many of our problems could be solved if we could simply get on the same page about this one fundamental topic - true Liberalism.

Our Liberty is always under constant pressure, and it’s a bi-partisan pressure from the-powers-that-be, against the individual - you and me.

I’ve been doing this civic work, regarding our First Amendment rights, in multiple ways, for 15+ years, actively engaging my own rights, and facilitating that same right for my neighbors.

Now that this very fight for free expression is at the forefront of our awareness, I need your help to expand my efforts to share with local people

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about our shared Liberty. Not for partisan ends, but to disrupt that partisan narrative with the one thing that we truly have in common with each other: Individuality!

I’m writing you today to ask for your patronage towards these efforts to promote individual Liberty, especially free expression, which I’ve championed for most of my adult life.

Your voluntary donation will be used to continue that work, and to secure for local Alaskans a means of communication that is not controlled by Big Tech.

Please consider becoming a patron of Liberty, Liberally, by committing to a donation.

Liberty, Liberally, is content that I have personally created as an outgrowth of my own passion and profession. For this reason I am seeking patrons rather than advertising support, to ensure to the reader that what they are reading is not ‘the news’, but something else entirely.

Not a publication about the next election, or some salacious sensationalist headline, but a journal about freedom itself.

The level and frequency of contribution is yours to decide. You can make a onetime or monthly contribution, or set up recurring payments as you like.

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Send me any inquiries or suggestions about other liberty-related topics that are of concern to you, and perhaps I’ll explore that topic in future editions.

Joshua Fryfogle 851 E Westpont Dr., Ste B-12 Wasilla, AK 99654 Let’s express ourselves... liberally. Contribute your own writings for publication in The People’s Paper. Visit www.thepeoplespaper.news.

Specious Speech

by Joshua Fryfogle A barb, wrapped in bait A ready debate A means to change subjective views

A dishonest question A rhetorical lesson on How to make sense of the news

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Written on 6.3.2020 When in debate, a formal debate, when an opponent loses their temper, or become angry at the other, they lose the debate.

Formal debates have rules, and form.

These aren’t arbitrary, either. If you study it, you’ll find that someone, somewhere, reasoned through the process.

So, when arguing with people of the older generation - even if they don’t know the first thing about formal debate from a conscious perspective - they are likely immersed in a culture that championed formal debate. In recent years, we’ve drifted from that purpose, and debates devolve into parroted political positions that someone, somewhere, made up.

This is fascinating to me, because I am not one for small talk. I like lofty conversations about ideas that demand the use of analogy and metaphor. I like to feel my scope of understanding expanding within my mind. I don’t follow sports, I don’t do fishing or hunting, I never have. For me, a book, or an intellectually engaged companion, that’s my recreational activity. Hunters do some grueling work, but it feeds the body. I dig into some dirt, to find food for thought.

Debate is something that, if we look back to it’s earliest beginnings, was quite controversial. Plato decried the use of Rhetoric, because he thought it was dangerous. He was right, but Aristotle was sincere in his search for truth, and was not convinced by Plato’s warnings. And the Sophists later proved Plato to be at least partially correct. But I still side with Aristotle.

Debating an idea - really digging in - is something that we do not do today, in real life or on social media. The favorite past-time of many of us is to engage in the comment section, but these displays are only signifiers of how little we’ve learned from history. Rhetoric plays a key role in our civic lives, with or without us. Without the ability to use rhetoric, we cannot hope to affect the outcome of our self-governance. But someone, somewhere, is making great use of it.

But the Sophists were a thorn in the side of Aristotle, teaching people how to argue, but incapable of instilling in them a desire for truth. While Aristotle took for granted that humanity was capable of this fire he’d stolen from heaven, we’ve let the fire go out, or worse, let it get out of due bounds. The results have been destructive to the discourse. Still, I think Aristotle was right about rhetoric.

A Sophist’s defense

The problem with modern discussions online is that there is little to no concern for any standard by which to determine truth. There is no acceptance, from any party, that their platforms and positions need improvement. Only the repeated insistence that they offer something slightly better in certain ways. People use rhetoric, poorly, to make assertions, never making a real point.

A means to an end

This is a loss, for all of us. We do

A civic art form, from Aristotle was borne The burden to search for what’s true

not have a unifying structure within which to work. We do not have enough people doing the work, thinking new thoughts - even though we’ve become adept at making demands. There is no longer even the pretense of honest debate, instead replaced with a threat of shunning or shaming of some sort. The loudest voices can rarely defend their positions sans insults and ad hominem attacks. These types of rhetorical devices can be useful, but only insofar as they serve the truth. When the ugly truth is spoken, it will surely offend someone.

But when it’s only ugly, without any truth, it’s just wasted words.

The search for truth, the sincere search, is what Aristotle had hoped would happen. And in some ways, with some philosophers, it did. But the Sophists taught the methods of rhetoric to anyone who could pay the tuition. They gave them weapons without knowing how they would use them.

Would they be hunters? Or would they be murderers?

Would they have an honest debate? Or would they simply use these techniques to mislead and misconstrue?

Today we see something similar occurring, with many people using poorly - some rhetorical techniques that they don’t even know they’re using.

They’ve been immersed in outrage, convinced that their own indignation is powerful, because they can’t control it.

They mistake the weakness of their own reasoning as proof that they are right.

We ought to be teaching history to our children. Not just these STEM focused curricula that serve corporations and the economy, but a renewed focus on the seven classic liberal arts - first, foremost, and foundational: the Trivium.

The Trivium is the first three of the classical liberal arts, being grammar, rhetoric, and logic. However, Aristotle divided the dimensions of rhetoric into three: logos (logic), pathos (empathy), and ethos (ethics). A good argument will include, to varying degrees, all three.

This is the most powerful knowledge that a free person can have, the knowhow to defend their freedom, with their freedom.

We often wonder why the system seems so contrary, and there are many things I would change about our system if I had the power. Still, nearly every time I research particular issues, I find that someone, somewhere, has reasoned it through. Someone, somewhere, has had some form of formal debate - and chances are the general public ignored it.

We don’t know how to engage the system, and the schools have shifted away from teaching those skills.

Perhaps it was the industrialization of our economy, that necessitated more technical and manual skill, pushing aside the intellectual skills needed to achieve our civic duty. Perhaps it’s human apathy, which Plato feared. The Sophists fulfilled his fears, but I will err on the side of Aristotle.

Recompense the devil his due

A soul should be willing An earnest fulfilling Of duty to think it all through

A concession is made And ends the debate If the conscience is clear of the two

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When you hear someone invoke the name of a founding father these days, it’s usually associated with conservatism. Of course, this is quite ironic.

Those American settlers who opposed the American revolution, they were the conservatives. The liberals who were few brought about the American Revolution by the power of reason, and the prodigious use of the written word. This is the

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liberal tradition, as history records it.

The conservatives at that time didn’t want a revolution.

Conservatism is about maintaining tradition/ status quo, as opposed to liberalism, which supports free will of the individual, even though it disrupts the status quo or tradition.

Be liberal, be free.

From the Journal of Joshua Fryfogle

Volume I - Issue III

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Broken TV Stare

by Joshua Fryfogle

Written on 4.19.15

When you say “trust the science”, you’re implying that science is mystical and beyond human understanding, and that we should simply trust the CDC as if they were priests.

In reality, science doesn’t work that way. Real scientists don’t tell you to ‘trust the science’, they explain it so that you don’t have to trust it. Real science is literally explanation.

Science explains things, so you don’t have to trust some authoritative orthodoxy.

Science is the opposite of orthodoxy.

Science de-mystifies things that we can’t explain otherwise. Science doesn’t leave you with a moral or ethical obligation to simply ‘trust the science’. That is how religion and mysticism works that’s called faith.

Science provides proof and explanation of things that are otherwise unknown.

It doesn’t provide more unknowns, and ask you to just trust. Trust is faith, and science doesn’t require your blind faith.

When it comes to surgical masks, the only real science that’s been done was done long ago, and it did de-mystify the unseen world. They discovered that masks work well in a surgical scenario, where other precautions are taken to create a sterile environment, leaving only the surgeon and nursing staff as sources of possible contamination.

They also discovered that surgical masks are only effective in preventing bacterial contamination, and not viral contamination.

Bacteria are much bigger than viruses, they found, and as a result, can be literally impacted by masks worn over the mouth and nose.

However, viruses are much smaller, and pass right through permeable fabric as if it weren’t even there. There is scientific research that supports this reality, and it’s easy to understand.

There has been no new research to disprove this longstanding understanding. Zero.

No one can produce new scientific literature detailing any scientific process that can serve to improve or disprove that long-established scientific understanding. Anyone can look up this original scientific research, spend half an hour reading it, and understand it - you don’t have to trust the science, because science makes things understandable.

And if understanding is not enough, science provides you the process they used to reach their conclusions, so that other scientists who are skeptical can attempt to recreate those results.

The CDC can create arbitrary directives, that change like the weather, but that doesn’t make it science. The government can issue press releases, lending a sense of authority to those arbitrary and capricious directives, insisting that it’s ‘science’, but that doesn’t make it science.

Science doesn’t need your trust. It needs you to think.

“Reading furnishes the mind only with materials of knowledge; it is thinking that makes what we read ours.”

- John Locke “If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.”

- Albert Einstein

No Reason For Review Science long ago discovered the truth about bacterial infection, and how

But the TV wouldn't care Just another revolution In the cycle of despair

There is no reason to question that longstanding scientific understanding that has been relied upon in surgical suites for decades on end. There is no reason to believe that this scientific understanding is faulty, and in need of review.

We would take up arms as armies If we all were made aware But the TV doesn't tell us So we think there's nothing there

Science is self-correcting. As a skeptical endeavor, science experiments, and produces results that can be counted upon. However, when the expected results of depending on that science comes up short, it draws the original science into question. This is rational, that if the proper application of scientific knowledge does not produce the desired result, then and only then would scientists seek to discover and possibly reconsider the previous scientific understanding.

If through urther scientific rigor some new truth was discovered, it would either disrupt or completely displace the previous understanding.

When it comes to masks, there have been no defining events that would draw into question the efficacy and accuracy of the otherwise longstanding, dependable scientific consensus on surgical masks. The fact that the CDC, and Fauci along with other sycophant public health directors at the State level, have all changed their previous positions on public use of surgical masks only makes the skeptical mind more skeptical.

The faith-filled mind, however, might find comfort in it, as it resembles the religious tendencies of our species. But science is the opposite of that.

A Bit Of Spittle We’ve all had those embarrassing moments, where we’re speaking to someone, and a bit of spittle, just big enough to capture some momentum, flies forth from our mouths. We’ve also had those awkward moments, where a drop of saliva seems to jump out of the mouth of the individual talking to us and we politely ignore it, usually.

It’s embarrassing and awkward because it’s not normative. It is rare. If it were common, it would be neither embarrassing nor awkward. It would be the norm.

The size of the saliva droplet has everything to do with it’s ability to project. Smaller droplets form an aerosol that floats in the air as we breathe. The larger droplets, large enough to see with the naked eye, are the only ones with enough mass to gain enough momentum to project beyond a few inches, before the resistance of the air causes it to float and fall to the ground.

There is an idea has been recently put forward, complete conjecture, but some people have still used this vague theory to justify widespread public masking.

They say that the masks stop drops of spit from being sprayed by careless talkers, who are probably infecting each other that way. It’s a really bad theory, because a drop big enough, with enough mass to gain enough momentum to enter the mouth of another person is easily seen with the naked eye.

What they are suggesting, then, is that the hundred and twenty million cases of COVlD were primarily caused by people spitting in each other’s faces.

CONTINUES ON PAGE 6

Liberty, Liberally

We could start a revolution

masking can truly add a layer of protection between a surgeon and their subject. Along with that understanding came another, that viruses are much smaller than bacteria, and are not inhibited by unsealed, fabric masks.

We could start a conversation But really, who would dare And face the consternation Of the broken tv stare?

Written on 4.19.2015 Journalistic Objectivity is complete hyperbole.

The idea of actually achieving objectivity - in its truest sense - is absurd! To make such claims shows disdain for your audience. Unless, of course, your audience is in on the joke - satire.

Nope, not possible.

Building from an artificial foundation, modern journalism is nothing like the organic concept of Freedom of the Press, and Speech. The first amendment made no statement of objectivity. In fact, the opposite concept (subjectivity) is exactly the point. It's about you.

The first amendment protected the Individuals' rights to say what each of them think. It acknowledges that every human being, endowed by a Creator, was given a right to think, speak, and make known that they do both.

Now, let's go back to the word 'objectivity'.

This word is a necessary part of journalism, modern, corporate journalism, because of the artificial make up of corporate body. The mental construct of 'corporation' represents many potential failures that might arise. Because there exists no conscience, no soul, the corporation itself exhibits none. So, the journalist working for a third party is not writing from their true self, but on behalf of the corporate body, a third party, in the third person.

The corporate body takes on all liability for the words and writings that are produced for the corp.

Objectivity, in the context of Artificial Corporations that are producing 'news', is a necessary thing, though unattainable.

The danger of not having objectivity would be that the 'News' agency could amass an army of paid propagandists, waging a war of words on psyche of the People.

Did I mention that Objecctivity is a Myth?

The act of observation, going into a place with the intention of 'reporting', is an action. Actions cause reaction. The observer cannot help but affect the story.

The words they choose cannot help but

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be led by subconscious associations that represent the writers' truest feelings.

In this way, the idea of the first amendment simply acknowledged that what arose naturally from the People's minds, taking form in words, would remain unhindered - free.

Now, instead, we have disinterested, impossibly objective, underpaid writers, churning our formulaic, AP style emptiness.

The passion of the People, what they care about, is what the first amendment is intended to protect. Plain. Simple.

Objectivity literally means that you don't care about the topic!

A complete reversal from the intention of Freedom of the Press!

Your thoughts matter. They affect matter. The first affect would be to write them down, to impress them into clay tablets or paper, to carve them into stone, to leave an impression.

To make an impression.

The idea that someone else, from somewhere else, is the only one trained in the mystical art of objectivity is superstitious.

The high priests of the press are not any better than you, although they might be more wellspoken. They may be trained in all forms of hypnotic repetition, writing and reading from a script that creates the illusion of consensus - but it's a show!

All a show.

Your thoughts, where you are, are important. And a free press allows you to share that with everyone where you are - enabling a true consensus, if there is one to be had.

The internet is the perfect medium for revisionist theology. I'm not saying it's bad. The internet is good for what it's good for, and nothing else. It can never replace print. Print, not just on paper, but imprints in anything, exist in reality. The three dimensional space around us is physically affected and changed. Everything we know about history is based on the real things left behind. The internet does not leave that record. Humanity needs that record.

From the Journal of Joshua Fryfogle

Volume I - Issue III

The intellectual obligations of liberty cannot be overstated. Liberty is a responsibility, and it has historical roots in self-education.

We’ve become accustomed to education that ends after receiving a high school or college degree. But the founders knew better. They knew better, because they educated themselves.

The People cannot hope to retain their individual Liberty except that they can defend it intellectually. The Declaration of Independence was, at it’s core, an intellectual defense of Liberty.

The Constitution was as well. The founders made that declaration, that defense of the individual’s Liberty, in print, using language to describe what they had learned. Their written words on the printed page literally freed the individual, after years of pamphleteering and newspaper writing, teaching the People to think... freely... about their own Liberty.

There would have been no American Revolution if not for the intellectual rigor of the founding fathers, who before they fought with weapons, fought with words. And if not for their own devotion to self-education - as a lifestyle - they would not have been able to do so. You and I would not have constitutional guarantees of freedom, had these self-educated men been inspired to invest their own time and energy in order to educate themselves, and then use their education to educate their communities.

Once they’d accomplished their goal, and this experiment in individual Liberty officially began, they immediately went to work to secure that Liberty - using more words on paper - giving us the First, and then the Second Amendment,

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5

followed by the others.

Even today, the only thing holding back the modern totalitarians are those same words on paper. The power of language and learning as it applies to Liberty simply cannot be overstated.

The old world philosophy of controlling the peasants is over. It’s dying. The recently revealed light of individual liberty, and the philosophy of liberalism, have proven formidable to the tyrannical tendencies of kings, despots, and totalitarian types.

Here, in America, where geography and distance made it possible for the peasants to revolt and win, Liberty revealed herself.

She is still in the midst of those old world ideas, even today.

We cannot expect that this experiment in freedom - hated by Totalitarians and Monarchs alike - will simply win a war and be done. No, the men who fought that war told us, implored us, to educate ourselves about the science of selfgovernment. They practically begged us, while warning us that if we became complacent with Liberty, if we did not use liberty to speak about liberty, then the old world tyranny would simply, slowly overtake us once more.

Demanding your second amendment rights requires the use of your first amendment rights. To understand your first amendment rights is to think, speak, write and gather to petition - all of these things are intellectual. These are intellectual pursuits.

There is no freedom is we do not demand it, and their is no liberty if we do not command it.

I’ve been liberal my whole life. Even as a boy, I was curious, and inclined to find answers to my questions. I had a set of encyclopedia and a children’s set, too. I loved looking things up, and understanding things as a result of my own ability to read, research, and think.

It was through my own intellectual curiosity as a boy that I first had to fight to know.

My school experience was not conducive to my own interests. In fact, I grew up in an area where the cultural norm was deer hunting and football, and religious attendance on Sundays. In elementary school, I won the poetry contest. Every other entry for that poetry contest was from a girl, so my winning the contest, compared to other boys’ winning football games or killing a big buck, was truly a win for me and me alone.

My parents weren’t too excited about it, they didn’t brag about it at church.

They were proud, but in private.

In middle school, I was called to the principal’s office, and my parent’s were waiting for me. A teacher had found my notebook, where I wrote my own poems and stories, along with quotes from authors and poets whom I admired.

My teacher who found the notebook was taken aback by these words:

In the desert

Who, squatting upon the ground, Held his heart in his hands, And ate of it.

I said, “Is it good, friend?”

“It is bitter—bitter,” he answered; “But I like it

by Joshua Fryfogle

“Because it is bitter,

October 23, 2020

“And because it is my heart.”

Consider what the simple rudder can do Beneath the surface, hidden from view

Consider that the course is corrected,

My principal, my teacher, my parents, they all thought I had written this dark vignette, in middle school. Not only were they all incapable of differentiating the work of a great poet from the boy in front of them, they also thought that a boy who would write poetry like that was perverse, rather than precocious.

There where the rudder makes the turn

In fact, that poem, those were the words of Stephen Crane, who is best known for his work, ‘The Red Badge of Courage’, which had been required reading in my class. My teacher didn’t recognize it, though, and neither did the principal or my parents.

The ship runs ashore with no captain to

and intrigued by my introduction to Crane in class, inquisitive about his

While the means of direction remain undetected

The bow moves first, before the stern

But the educators charged with my education couldn’t even tell that this poetry was beyond any child’s ability to express.

In my view, having already made a habit of looking things up and reading, and even writing my own poetry and stories, this was a pivotal moment in my liberal adventure. This was when I realized that the people in charge in the world haven’t necessarily done their homework.

Liberalism as a philosophy, being the foundation of our Constitutional Republic, would inevitably find me.

With all my reading, and earnest looking, I was bound to find liberalism.

I was already literally liberal, both in my intellectual pursuits, and my resulting worldview.

As I’ve matured, and continued pursuing my interests, armed with the tools of the Trivium, I’ve found the fountain of all my artistic interests, the place from which life its Self springs - Liberty.

There would be no art, no music, no creativity, no books or poems, if not for individual Liberty. Liberty, in the heart and soul of every individual, wells up within them as their own Selfexpression. It’s a natural spring, that can only be directed and dealt with, or left to follow the path of least resistance.

Liberalism, as a philosophical tradition, is to teach each individual how to direct that flow, irrigating society itself from that life-giving reservoir of freedom.

I saw a creature, naked, bestial,

Simple Rudder

other work. I had gone to the school library, and found his name in a book of poetry, and recognized it from that classic novel. I was amazed at how his words were so clearly beyond my own understanding, being that of a child. I wrote them down, so as to consider them and try to comprehend them.

The liberal tradition is about accommodating the human spirit. The liberal tradition recognizes that the individual naturally has the capacity and propensity to act against nature, and thereby, to innovate through artifice. The liberal tradition is about freeing the individual to greater degrees, indefinitely, by enabling the individual to seek information and knowledge on their own.

As a child, sitting in the principal’s office, with the wary stares of the adults charged with my education, I truly learned something about the world - but not what they intended me to learn.

Still, I learned.

“There is frequently more to be learned from the unexpected questions of a child than the There I was, a little boy, bookish discourses of men.”

- John Locke

Consider what the simple rudder can do

Something that each of us ought to take the time to consider, and contemplate, is that liberalism - the philosophy that was practiced by all of our founding fathers and was the origin and our very impetus as a nation - is a social philosophy before it is a political philosophy. In fact, it is a social philosophy by design, and a political philosophy by default.

Unlike political philosophies that aim to take power and control the populace, liberalism turns that old way on it’s head, and puts the individual over their own lives. As a political philosophy, it is contrary to every other political philosophy that precedes it, because it

Liberty, Liberally

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seeks to dismantle that power and control model that is shared by monarchs, tyrants, despots, and totalitarians alike.

As such, it is a social philosophy first.

Liberalism is not only a political philosophy, but more, a social philosophy. If it were only a political philosophy, then it would not be liberal in any sense of the word. Liberalism is social first, in that it insists that the individual be freed from the constraints of political philosophies of those who rule over others.

CONTINUES ON PAGE 6

From the Journal of Joshua Fryfogle

Volume I - Issue III LIBERALISM IS A SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY FIRST CONTINUED FROM PAGE 5 That’s why the so-called ‘cancel culture’ has arisen. Not because of some social conservative movement to use government to silence dissent, but through a social effort to silence dissent through use of emotional coercion and intellectual violence.

In light of recent cultural trends, where we see individuals being fired from jobs, being banned from social media platforms, and being publicly ridiculed and for having opinions that are derided by certain people, we have to consider that liberalism is more than a political philosophy.

As a social philosophy first, liberalism is how we react, regardless of laws and policies of government, to those who differ from us. As a culture, we should react with tolerance of differing opinions. If we are a liberal society (as history records us to be), then most of us would not think it was proper for someone to lose their job for having an opposing opinion. Most of us would reject the notion that certain books should be discontinued for the wrongthink, even if the decision is made by the intellectual copyright holder. In fact, the only way to prove that we are a liberal society is for the exact opposite to be the case. A liberal society, that is culturally and socially liberal, doesn’t cheer when private entities and corporations patronize progressives with revisionist history and cultural cancellation.

Normative Culture Cultural norms are different from culture to culture. Cultural norms in our own nation have always been liberal, in that they have always been presumed that a person who holds differing beliefs might still pursue life in our society with minimized resistance from those whose beliefs are considered normative for that culture. This is not to say that individual prejudices don’t exist, but that our culture idealized the idea that minority opinions and perspectives are allowed to coexist and cooperate with the majority, as a rule. Sure, some people have always resisted toleration, but the ideals of our liberal society are not consistent with that bigoted and prejudiced perspective.

It’s popular to declare the opposite to be true of our nation, our culture, but history proves otherwise. We are a nation of immigrants, after all. Our nation has always been a beacon of light - the light of individual liberty - that drew the attention of people all over the world.

Liberty, Liberally What we’re seeing lately is a strange disconnect from this belief in toleration and liberalism.

It starts with the rewriting of history, casting a shadow of doubt over our aspirations of individual Liberty. The so-called ‘progressive’ movement has sought to reimagine our history, focusing on the all-too-human resistance to our liberal social order. Despite the fact that our nation is where individual Liberty finally got a foothold against the collectivism of the Old World, these detractors with their tired old totalitarian modes of thought have denied the existence of the individual. No, seriously, they don’t think you exist as an individual. They deny the foundation of toleration, being that each individual exists and ought to be free.

But true history tells a different tale.

Our society, against all odds, established in our constitution certain unalienable rights for Individuals. That’s not to say that it suddenly changed human nature when they wrote those words, but it planted a counterintuitive thought, that each individual should be treated with respect as an individual, regardless of race, creed, religion, or any other category that the tyrants of old would exploit to keep the masses under control.

This is liberalism.

When we talk today about ‘cancel culture’, the ‘progressive’ crowd - the loud crowd - tend to make the social conservative argument that it’s not censorship if the government doesn’t do it. But that’s not a liberal argument, because liberalism is a social philosophy first. In a liberal society, you expect less government intervention, and more individual toleration. So when it becomes acceptable to burn and ban books in the private sphere, this is more of an affront to our liberal society than if some government did so by proclamation or decree. It shows that our liberal social order has changed, paving the way for eventual infringement from the government, too.

If our culture becomes so illiberal that we would allow for censorship to become normalized, as long as society itself does the censorship, because of a very loud minority of white progressives harping and haranguing, then we’ve lost our culture of toleration entirely. Certain totalitarian types, who really don’t care about individuality, toleration, or Liberty, they will make any argument to justify this illiberal social order.

Our silence, as the majority, only helps them achieve their goals of undermining the social order of liberalism - of individual Liberty. That’s why they use emotional coercion, intellectual violence, and public ridicule - to keep us from speaking up and proving them wrong.

Is there a unique, distinct, culture for our nation, or is it all in need of eventual cancellation?

By the illiberal progressive’s standards, there is no part of our unique culture as a nation that isn’t steeped in oppression and cultural appropriation. I remember when white nationalists railed against multiculturalism, but I’m disturbed by these so-called progressives supporting that same principle, only framed differently.

Our nation is a multicultural melting pot. The inevitable outcome of the mixture of culture is always going to be a new culture. The people in our most immediate vicinity will necessarily make up our cultural and social experience. If you have neighbors that practice a different religion, or who are of a different ethnicity or race, or votes a different way, they are part of your experience in a liberal society.

The liberal philosophy (being a social philosophy) is a fundamental component necessary for any multicultural society to exist peacefully. Liberalism is the American tradition, in this regard.

John Locke was the most influential philosopher to the founding of our nation. The Father of Liberalism, Locke was responsible for the basic concepts embodied in our own declaration that we are inherently, individually free. That fundamental concept of Liberalism has since made its way into many nations, but it was here in the U.S. that the standard was set. Locke should be revered and researched by every student everywhere. Locke should be studied like we study the founding documents which owe their philosophy to Locke.

Because of his liberal ideas of how an individual should ‘be’ in the world, with each one doing no harm to others, but otherwise living as they choose, we have the opportunity all over the world to advance Liberty.

It’s a counterintuitive philosophy, which lends a sense of profundity and epiphany to the individual mind, once realized.

It’s a beautiful philosophy.

That all these cultures could come together, creating an entirely new culture that would inevitably be a mixture of all of those individuals doing as they please. Instead of a culture that is designed by controlling authority, a culture that crops up because we planted

That’s what made our society a liberal one.

SCIENCE IS SKEPTICISM CONTINUED FROM PAGE 4

Think for a moment, how rare this is.

You can literally see it when it happens, and if the drops are too small to see, then they lack the mass to garner the momentum necessary to overcome the resistance of the air through which they must pass to become a projectile.

Honestly, it’s a very bad theory that doesn’t hold water, any more than a mask can hold back a virus. And worse, it provides a false sense of security about viral transmission that is surely good for the financial interests of the corporations who need our foot traffic to stay in business. But that doesn’t make it scientific, it makes it pseudoscience.

“Religion is a culture of faith; science is a culture of doubt.”

- Richard P. Feynman

“The man of science has learned to believe in justification, not by faith, but by verification.”

- Thomas Huxley

“Science is riddled with doubt, and religion is completely founded on faith.

Rely on faith, and the scientific method falls apart. Insert doubt, and religious

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the seeds ourselves.

Liberalism is the philosophy that gave us this culture, which is an amalgam of so many immigrants who yearned to be free. Because of liberalism as our lawful foundation, individuals were able to come here to our land, yet maintain their own traditions and beliefs.

Liberalism gave us that. And that gave us a new culture of our own, a liberal culture. We have our own stories, our own civic religion, our own mythos and it exemplifies our ideals, not our failures to achieve them. This is what every culture does, forgiving itself of any failure, and focusing on it’s more noble and notable achievements.

But the totalitarian trend is to focus instead on the times when liberty wasn’t protected from the mob, those times when liberalism wasn’t practiced as a social philosophy, and misconstrue it as indicative to our national culture.

This conflation is intentional by the Communists and Fascists alike, who have always been united by their hate of individual Liberty, and liberal philosophy.

While Locke’s philosophy has made its way around the world, it has also resonated in our culture. While the school curricula have been increasingly ‘progressive’, the superior philosophy of liberalism is largely disseminated in the culture, even in our language and learning. Library, Liberty, and Liberalism all have the same Latin root.

In our tolerant, liberal society, everyone is free to be how they want to be. In fact, that idea has never been more accepted in the US than it is right now - except among the loud minority who have used totalitarian tactics to silence dissent through corporate control and social/emotional coercion.

Like totalitarians, these self-proclaimed ‘progressives’ have adopted an illiberal social philosophy that decries multiculturalism as evil - just like white nationalists, who are also totalitarians.

The Left has left liberalism behind, and adopted Old World control systems that seek to disrupt this culture creation.

The trajectory of our ongoing culture creation, here in the States, is clearly aimed at achieving equality under the law. The liberal acceptance of individual Liberty is a new idea, it is our new culture, and the Old World influence of power and control still seeks to destroy it through dishonest misrepresentation of what our shared culture is destined and designed to be: a culture of our own.

“Us”, To Me certainty quickly dwindles.”

- Cara Santa Maria

“Most institutions demand unqualified faith; but the institution of science makes skepticism a virtue.”

- Robert K. Merton

“In religion, faith is a virtue.

In science, faith is a vice.”

by Joshua Fryfogle “Us”, to me, is everyone I see It isn’t some group that is the same

“Us”, to me, is everyone around There isn’t one type that we can blame

- Jerry A. Coyne

“Follow the evidence wherever it leads, and question everything.”

- Neil deGrasse Tyson

“If you think about a mask, you’re breathing into it, it’s a wet, moist environment that’s collecting viruses and bacteria, so in general, it’s not necessarily useful to protect you from other people... if you’re going into a healthcare setting, and your sick, putting a mask on and calling beforehand is recommended. General day-to-day, it’s not recommended.”

- Dr. Anne Zink, Alaska’s Chief Medical Officer, testifying in Juneau to the longstanding and appropriate use of masks, prior to changing her position abruptly according to CDC directives

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“Us”, to me, is all of us at once No matter how different we might be

“Us”, to me, cannot exclude a soul It is the thought of inclusivity

“Us”, to me, does not mean we’re the same It says that all are worthy to be heard

“Us”, to me, should not set some apart That’s not the basic meaning of the word

From the Journal of Joshua Fryfogle