" The benefits of government can vary depending on the specific form of government and its effectiveness. Here are some general benefits associated with well-functioning governments:"
And therein lies the rub: what is a well functioning government?
What makes it the thing that we will vote for, support and defend?
What makes us actually WANT a government? To pay taxes? To be brow beaten? Seriously, why do we have a government?
Read more: Questions and Answers - What is Government and Why do we Need it?
“To be GOVERNED is to be watched, inspected, spied upon, directed, law-driven, numbered, regulated, enrolled, indoctrinated, preached at, controlled, checked, estimated, valued, censured, commanded, by creatures who have neither the right nor the wisdom nor the virtue to do so. To be GOVERNED is to be at every operation, at every transaction noted, registered, counted, taxed, stamped, measured, numbered, assessed, licensed, authorized, admonished, prevented, forbidden, reformed, corrected, punished. It is, under pretext of public utility, and in the name of the general interest, to be placed under contribution, drilled, fleeced, exploited, monopolized, extorted from, squeezed, hoaxed, robbed; then, at the slightest resistance, the first word of complaint, to be repressed, fined, vilified, harassed, hunted down, abused, clubbed, disarmed, bound, choked, imprisoned, judged, condemned, shot, deported, sacrificed, sold, betrayed; and to crown all, mocked, ridiculed, derided, outraged, dishonored. That is government; that is its justice; that is its morality.”
The concept of Mother’s Day as we know it in Australia began in the United States in the days of the Civil War by two ladies who were Peace advocates and suffragettes. They started a campaign to care for wounded soldiers from both sides by creating Mother’s Day Work Clubs to improve public health.
They made a Mother’s Day proclamation in 1870 and called on mothers of all nationalities to join together and promote the amicable settlement of international disputes. The movement did not succeed. The lady’s name was Anna Jarvis but she persisted with the idea of setting aside a special day to honour all mothers because a mother is "the person who has done more for you than anyone in the world".
What is it that makes us remember things from our past and, for some inexplicable reason, they stick with us?
Some things are from distant memories of childhoods lived and recalled with great fondness. Others talk about an incident from adulthood. In all cases, they feature an event that has stayed with us as a “ keeper “ in the file cabinet called our memory.
When people approach their end of useful life ( according to the young smart arses that think that they will live forever, or perish due to climate change before their 30th birthday ) it seems to be that our minds retreat to happier times that our brains chose to save, while deleting so many thousands of days.
Why is that?
Read more: The Flight of the Navigator - When We Knew We Were the Centre of the Universe
Martin Luther King Jr.(referred to as Martin) was born Michael King Jr in Atlanta, Georgia, US, on January 15, 1929. His father, Michael King Sr, was the pastor of the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta. King Sr had attended the Baptist World Alliance in Berlin, Germany, in 1934, which condemned the rise of Nazism. On his return home, King Sr renamed himself and Martin as Martin Luther King, in honor of the Protestant reformer Martin Luther.
Martin had an older sister, Christine, and a younger brother, Alfred, who would play influential parts in his life.
At the time of Martin's birth, anti-African American laws, known as Jim Crow laws (Laws) were spread across the previous Confederacy and some other states. Jim Crow was a derogatory term for African Americans, named after a song and dance routine, Jump Jim Crow, performed by a white actor in blackface in the 1820s.
Read more: Martin Luther King The Anti-Segregation Warrior by Flysa
Last night, I watched a documentary about a man who, by being a spy, changed people's lives and, in turn, changed his own.
It began when he saw an advertisement in his newspaper that sought men between the ages of 80 and 90 to work for a 3 month job. The requirement was that the successful applicant had to be technically savvy and willing to deepen that knowledge. He would also have to live away from home for 3 months.
A number of older gentlemen applied. One man was selected and his named was Sergio.
Read more: The Spy Who Loved Them.... a Story of Warm Love from a Chile Place
On January 26th, 2023, Senator Lidia Thorpe addressed a crowd of Melbourne “Invasion Day” protestors. They had gathered at Victoria’s State Parliament to hear her latest racially-divisive diatribe. It was all characteristic and predictable Thorpe — a multiracial woman divided in her own ethnicity, yet ironically consumed by a crazed-monomania to achieve racial division. Incapable of reason, and fueled by discordant emotion, she is a prime example of the perfectly programmed “useful idiot.” The modern Left is dangerously riddled with them.
She is undoubtedly being used to advance an agenda that lies beyond the scope of her present awareness. Brandishing a traditional ‘battle stick,’ and podium-flanked by her red-haired multi-raced children, Thorpe theatrically declared, “This is WAR!”
Indeed, it surely is, but not as she knows it, and certainly not as the cheering throng might have hoped.
Anyone who has ever visited the beautiful town of Queenstown in New Zealand, will know the sight of the steamship Earnslaw.
The TSS Earnslaw is an integral part of Queenstown’s pioneering history and to this day a Queenstown icon. She was commissioned by New Zealand Railways to service the communities around Lake Wakatipu. Launched in the same year as the Titanic, the TSS Earnslaw’s maiden voyage was on 18 October 1912.
And this grand old lady runs on something that is demonised today - hard back-breaking work and coal.
On 7 May 2023, Charles Windsor was crowned King Charles III of England and its dominions with the crown of St Edward the Confessor, made for the coronation of Charles Stuart, King Charles II in 1661, following the Restoration.
The history of Charles II makes the St Edward Crown hardly fit to be at the centre of all the religious pomp and ceremony displayed.
The Battle of the Coral Sea is regarded by some as the action that saved Australia in WW2. That is an over-simplistic view in my opinion. It was certainly a major factor in turning the tide against Japan but it was one of a conglomerate of successful campaigns which, together, stopped their advance in the Pacific.
The battle was fought between the 4th and 8th May, 1942. It was the first sea battle between forces built around aircraft carriers and fought by aircraft rather than ships.
Read more: This Week in History - The Battle of the Coral Sea
I was 15 years old and I wanted to learn to drive. My brothers scarpered. My parents were extraordinarily busy and the queue of volunteers was surprisingly small; much like supporters at a Biden Rally, no one seemed that keen on the task. One of my brother's friends was conscripted He was the kind of lad ( 18 years old ) who would have been ordered to dance with the wall flowers at the school dance and would obligingly dance a waltz or foxtrot with the plain girl or the fat girl or the girl with crooked teeth.
I could never understand why no one wanted to teach me how to drive: I was pretty, blonde, slim, and had very nice teeth. I didn't smell awful and was, in all respects, fairly easy on the eye. But for some reason the prospect of sitting in the passenger seat while I navigated my way around a gearbox, a clutch and three little pedals didn't seem to be as popular as I had hoped.
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