Carl Wells Books

This is the fourth week in which I have been giving my personal reflections on the coronavirus situation. Today will be my concluding post on the topic.

19/Some few people have noted that the actions of the civil government, central, state, and local, represent a threat to our freedoms. I see the point of such comments. They could be right. But I am more cynical on the topic: in my opinion, that ship has sailed long ago. They draft us into the armed forces to fight their evil wars. They destroy the value of our money. They force us to pay for public education which is destructive of civilization. Our freedoms have been gone for a long time. Our job is to shut up, work, and be taxed to a frazzle. We are good at shutting up and being taxed to a frazzle, not so good at working. So they create money out of thin air, which drives prices higher. We don’t even notice, or if we notice, we don’t know why it is happening.

Even the over-the-top incidents which we read about, where authorities arrest some poor slob for exercising in the park with his daughter, or surfing by himself on the ocean, don’t surprise or upset me too much. It all is to be expected. We have been heading toward a soft totalitarianism for a very long time. Will the soft totalitarianism get worse? Will it turn hard when the enemies of civilization are in total control? I guess we’ll find out. Those who complain about the reduction and possible disappearance of our freedoms are definitely on the right track in raising the issue. I do see their point. I really am grateful for them. Maybe I am just channeling my inner Alfred E. Neuman: “What, me worry?”

20/As for Christians and the Christian churches, I think Nehemiah spoke for us a long time ago:

‘”Behold, we are slaves today,
And as to the land which Thou didst give to our fathers to eat of its fruit and its bounty,
Behold, we are slaves on it.
And its abundant produce is for the kings
Whom Thou has set over us because of our sins;
They also rule over our bodies
And over our cattle as they please,
So we are in complete distress.”‘ (Nehemiah 9:36-37)

God deals with every people covenantally. Nehemiah recognized that it was because of the sins of the people that God had set thieving rulers over the people, and had made slaves of them. We are “shocked, shocked” to see God dealing with us in the same way. The central fault is really not with the elite scumbags who run this country. They are evil, yes, but they rule over us really only because we are an antinomian, pietist bunch of Christians who have preferred pietist antinomianism to adult Christian responsibility.

I have said several times in recent months that I believe there are reserves of goodness in American Christians. I do believe that. I think our potential for good is enormous, because we really are inhabited by the Holy Spirit, who is quite willing to lead us into all the truth (John 16:13). But we are going to have to think and live in a more biblical manner, if we are to escape our slavery and become mature, adult believers–the kind of believers God wants us to be (Hebrews 5:12-14).

One fact that the coronavirus has impressed upon me is that Christians as a whole do not have a biblical vision of the future. Our major doctrines of the last things are unbiblical. Both dispensationalism and amillennialism discourage us from thinking that we can make a large difference for good in how the world proceeds. Together, dispensationalism and amillennialism are the two most numerous and powerful eschatologies of American Christians.

Here is the shocking truth: both doctrines are satanic. Please don’t misunderstand me. I am not saying that those Christians who believe dispensationalism or amillennialism are on the side of Satan. What I am saying is that I believe Satan is pleased when we accept d. or a., because both doctrines hamper our ability to think and act in ways that build the kingdom of God. I am also not saying that Christians believing d. or a. are thereby kept from helping extend the kingdom of God. Such Christians can of course serve God greatly. Many do. But I do say and believe that both dispensationalism and amillennialism weaken our ability to think and act in a manner pleasing to God. They are not solid foundations for biblical thinking.

God deals with us covenantally. When we obey from the heart, He finds a way to bless us. When we disobey, that also is from the heart, and it calls down chastisements from God upon us. There are always consequences for going our own way rather than God’s way. One example will suffice. I mentioned the tithe in the first post concerning the coronavirus–at number 6. We are giving 2.5% of our increase to the church, whereas God requires 10%. There are consequences. The consequences are bad. If we refuse to think and act biblically, we are going to get consequences that are bad.

I have been in some branch of the Christian church for well over 40 years. It has increasingly been impressed upon me that we usually prefer our way to God’s way. There are consequences. Now, as Nehemiah says, we are slaves on the land which God gave us. If we want to believe silly things, and act in silly ways, we are going to continue to be slaves. The coronavirus simply pointed up what weak and tame slaves we have become. For the church to put such enormous faith in the civil authorities–civil authorities who demonstrably are liars and bullies–is simply a symptom of our weakness. (For a 235-page paperback on how the church has let down not only our God and ourselves, but also our fellow citizens, please see my book The Christian Betrayal of the United States (2010). It is available for $18.00 plus $1.26 sales tax, shipping free, or for a pittance as an ebook at the usual outlets for such thing.)

God has been merciful. He has given us a wake-up call, in the coronavirus, which has been relatively gentle. We can learn from this, and begin to adjust. I don’t expect us to learn much from this, but we might. It seems that the only way we ever get inspired to change a losing game is if we are hit with vast disaster. This disaster has not been vast enough, I think. But maybe I am too pessimistic.

21/Finally, my own personal situation with regard to the coronavirus has been basically good. My routine has changed very little. I am able to work at my part-time job. I exercise and go to the grocery store. I watch DVDs and read books, which is basically how I spend my free time anyway. I have been restricted from going to fast food joints, since I don’t like drive-throughs, but I was able to go to the local pizza place. I tried to get a haircut and was surprised to find I had to put it off–thus earning a good laugh from one of my friends who knew I should have realized the shutdown would keep me out of the barber shop. I haven’t been able to go to the library, but I have plenty of books and DVDs stocked up; I could last for several hundred years without really needing to go to the library. Probably I am in the 1 percentile of people who have been least affected by the coronavirus. I have just learned that our county fair has been canceled for 2020, which I find vastly annoying, but it will give me more time to read. I have not been able to attend church, but that hasn’t really bothered me. It is a good excuse to stay home and loaf. (Don’t tell anyone I said that.) I know I need to be with people, and I do enjoy being with them to a certain important extent, but I am not a person who needs to be with people constantly. I have my sister and my Aged Parent living next door, and we interact without wearing face masks. I have been basically as happy as a clam on Valium.

Thus endeth my personal reflections on the coronavirus situation. Enjoy the gradual reopening of the country. Life is good, because the God of the Bible is good and gives us good things.

In the past few weeks I have been giving some of my personal reflections on the impact of the coronavirus on our lives. My relections have been influenced both by family/friends, and by public figures. We are ready for number . . .

14/To a certain extent, the panic has been inexplicable. The virus is dangerous, and I respect its ability to kill and to harm. But all this? When the math suggested, almost from the start, that there was a strong possibility the response was too great? Maybe we have just become the kind of people who respond without wise thought. We do that in picking our wars; maybe we were ready to do it in picking our response to a virus.

15/The government bailouts are the worst decision possible. Spending money we don’t have is an excellent way to cause a serious rise in prices. My frequently sapient friend Brad Herndon has commented on one aspect of that foolish spending. With his permission, I quote from a recent email he sent me:

“Carl, I’ve been thinking about the unemployment situation in America. In the past few weeks 36,000,000 (that’s millions) Americans have been laid off. Let’s just run some figures in Indiana at first to see how unemployment looks to the average person that has been laid off.

“In Indiana, you receive 47% of your average weekly wage for unemployment if you are laid off, up to a maximum of $390 per week. That means it’s cut off at a $43,150 per year wage.

“Now for a simple example, let’s say mom and dad both work in Indiana and they both just happen to make $43,150 per year. Combined, mom and dad make $86,300 per year. For 6 months they would make $43,150 combined.

“They are talking about extending the extra $600 per week for unemployment you get from the government through January. Assuming they do, the laid off mom and dad in Indiana both making $43,150 per year would receive $990 (the $390 plus the $600) each per week in unemployment compensation. Take $990 per week times 2, times 26 weeks (6 months) and you get $51,480. So, if mom and dad can both work hard for 6 months and make $43,150 or stay at home on unemployment and make $51,480 for doing nothing, I wonder if they are going to be excited about being called back to work. Crazy stuff.

“By the way, 36,000,000 unemployed people times $600 per week is $21,600,000,000 per week! For 6 months the tally is $561,600,000,000! Crazy stuff.”

Back to moi. The word “crazy” is on target. Brad’s numbers are correct, by the way. A couple weeks ago I had a customer in the store where I am a clerk. He was getting $390.00 per week unemployment compensation from Indiana, and another $600.00 per week from the national government. He was getting $990.00 per week not to work. He told me he wasn’t too eager to go back to work. What a surprise! (He also told me, with a touch of humor, that his wife was more eager for him to get back to work than he was!)

Leave aside the fact that unemployment compensation is a silly idea to start with. The math is just funky. All that $990.00 has to come from taxpayers who work and pay taxes. So we take the money productive people earn and give it to people for not working? Is this a great country or what? This kind of craziness sort of leads into my next point.

16/The Deep State elites don’t really know what they are doing. Their power is enormous for destruction. They are wicked and hate ordinary people. But they don’t really understand how reality is put together. They think of themselves as intelligent and sophisticated and well-deserving rulers of us stupid proles. But they have an exaggerated opinion of themselves. In fact, the possibility exists that all their crazy bailouts and over-the-top shutdowns will end up in the eventual downfall of the Deep State. They are still on top for now, but their policies may be what cause them to be deposed in the relatively near future. The Deep State may be committing suicide. It couldn’t happen to a nicer bunch.

17/The U.S. cannot be reformed. It is too big and the rot is too widespread. There is a solution, and it is practical and involves zero bloodshed. The solution is for the U.S. to break up into many small countries. Let the fascists/communists have numerous portions of the country. They can kill babies until they’re blue in the face, wage war on other countries, transgender everything, do whatever they want. Fine. But also let a few of us old fogies who believe in Jesus Christ, in freedom and responsibility, have our few small countries. I don’t claim for one second that we Christians are ready for such a responsibility. We clearly are not. But we might be able to learn on the job. At the worst, you leftist elites will be rid of a troublesome bunch of stupid Neanderthals. At the best, from the left’s point of view, we Christians will make a complete botch of our small countries, and we will within a few years come crying to momma begging you to take us back and rule us, please! It is win/win for the left to get rid of us as soon as possible.

Leopold Kohr has written a classic book showing that countries which are too big inevitably become reckless in their behavior. The book is entitled The Breakdown of Nations. The United States is Exhibit A that Kohr was one hundred percent correct. The U.S. needs to die, and to break up into many constituent parts. The break-up will be messy, but it need not be violent. The break-up will help all of us. The best price I could find today for The Breakdown of Nations was $8.99 (free shipping) at AbeBooks. (I devote one full blog post to Kohr’s book, on Oct. 13, 2016.)

My book Getting Ready for Secession was published in 2016. It is dedicated with gratitude, respect, and affection, to Leopold Kohr. It is for sale for $18.00 plus 7% sales tax, free shipping, from me. It is also available as an e-book, for $1.99, from the usual suspects.

18/If they come up with a vaccine for coronavirus, be very careful. Very likely the Deep State will insist that you be vaccinated. Don’t trust them. A few years ago–perhaps 12 or 15–my Aged Parent got a flu shot. She got very sick and vowed never to get another flu shot. She has stuck to that decision. She is 101 and doing pretty well. Will we let the Deep State give our Aged Parent a vaccination for the coronavirus? No, I think my siblings and I will be on the same page on that topic.

The Deep State always knows best, of course. At least in their own minds. Think about how wise they have been on a dozen topics. Here are just three examples off the top of my head: a/waging preemptive war on foreign countries; 2/promoting sexual perversion; 3/destroying the country via the national debt. Then consider that they most likely will be just as wise on the topic of vaccinations. Enough said.

I thought I might finish today, but it will be better to wait a week. I have very few reflections left, but one of them might take up considerable space.

Enjoy the gradual reopening of the country. Consider the faint possibility that you could, if you wanted to and if things work out just right, live in a small country where babies were never murdered in the womb. Maybe the coronavirus will help us get to a place where some of us could live in such a country.

Last week I began to give some of my personal reflections on the coronavirus situation. We resume that discussion today. We’re ready for number 7.

7/Mainstream Media is our enemy. If they are ever right, it is in the same way a stopped clock is right twice a day. We should not trust them. They are a wholly owned subsidiary of the Deep State. They don’t care about truth. They want to manipulate us, rather than find out the truth and report it to us. They cannot be reformed, any more than a rabid dog can be reformed. We need to replace them. This will be hard to do, but very much that is worth doing is hard to do. For information about the coronavirus, we need to be searching out alternative sources of information. By all means we can consider what Mainsleaze Media has to say, but we are going to have to supplement that with other sources.

8/What was the source of the coronavirus? All kinds of theories abound. It is going to be hard to find out. If I had to guess, I would guess that it originated in the Chinese “wet markets,” where Chinese people buy and then subsequently consume extremely unusual forms of animal life. I make this guess based on very little except that one public person who has told us some hard truths in the past and has been right, thinks that the Chines wet markets were the source. It is strictly a guess on my part. I hope we find out exactly what happened one day, although we may never know. I doubt if this was something planned. Lied about, covered up? Of course. What else do governments do but lie? However, planned? I’m guessing no. I stress again as I have from the start, these are simply personal reflections by me. I’m just a guy. Think for yourself.

9/One thing that I have noticed is that everyone in the U.S. wants a subsidy. Covid-19–an alternative name for the coronavirus–has given most of us an excuse to lobby for government subsidies. We are not doughty yeomen anymore. I think we had a lot of doughty yeomen in the U.S. at one time. Think about the courage it took for men and women to head into the wilderness and somehow wrestle–or try to wrestle–a living out of the untamed land. They did this without the government writing them a check to subsidize their attempt. We are not that people anymore. We want our subsidies, and we have plenty of cogent reasons why we deserve them. It doesn’t even occur to most of us that we simply need to earn our own way no matter what.

10/The Powers That Be will never admit they were wrong about the decisions they have taken to shut down the U.S. If they were wrong, that is. Think for yourself. I believe they were wrong, but I could be incorrect. The thing is, if they were wrong, they are not going to be able to admit it. Most likely they will be unable to admit it even to themselves. Admit it to us? Of course not. So when you do the evaluation of whether the lockdown was wise, remember you’re going to have to figure that out by yourself. The Powers That Be have a vested interest in believing themselves always to be right. They are elite and sophisticated and intelligent and honorable people who have a right, due to their moral superiority, to tell us what to do. We are stupid and bigoted proles; our job is to shut up and obey.

11/It is quite informative to realize that we proles tamely went along with the lockdown and everything that surrounded it. A few people were skeptical, but percentage-wise their numbers were few. This tells me that, taken as a whole, the American people still have a lot of faith that our leaders really know best and have our best interests at heart. Wow. When have our leaders ever known best? When have they had our best interests at heart? These are baby killers, warmongers, promoters of sexual perversion, promoters of racial hatred, and liars. They have buried us in debt, allowed us to be overrun by immigrants unwanted by us, and they hate the God of the Bible with a passionate hatred. So where in the world does our tame acquiescence come from? We proles apparently still believe in our leaders being on our side! Amazing. We really seem to have lost the ability to think for ourselves.

12/One of the unexpected but dramatic blessings to come out of the coronavirus is the shutting down of the public schools. One thoughtful Christian friend has pointed out the possibility that lots of people will realize that homeschooling their children was more practical and helpful than they expected. I think he could be correct. What if even one percent of the children are not returned to the humanist seminaries? One percent does not sound like a lot. But it amounts to a lot of young people. Let’s do some math. There are about 50,800,000 students in public schools in the U.S. One percent of 50.8 million is 508,000 students! That is a huge number. Even one-quarter of one percent would be 127,000 students–still a lot of young people permanently free of public schools.

Rebuilding Christian civilization is not going to be done in a day, a year, or five years. It is going to take a lot of time, with a lot of Christian families beginning to act with practical wisdom, one family at a time. Meanwhile, even if many fewer than one percent, or fewer than one-quarter of one percent, drop out of the public schools permanently, at the absolute worst the children got a few months’ break. They will always remember that life went on, when there was no public school, and that their lives were not ruined by those quiet and unusual weeks.

13/I think to some extent many of us have enjoyed the excitement of something very different. That may seem weird, and it probably doesn’t apply to all of us. But I think it is human nature to enjoy the drama of something radically different. Shutting down everything! No sports, no haircuts, no schools in session! Of course we were annoyed when our personal ox was gored. (I missed my weekly free sandwich at McDonalds, and I missed going to the library, for two minor examples.) Nevertheless, the c-virus situation offered excitement which most of us sort of appreciated. Maybe the appreciation was gradually replaced by annoyance, as the weeks grew longer. But I think our human nature was always there whispering in our ear, “Hey, this is at least something different and interesting, somewhat unlike our boring routine.”

That is enough for part II. Hopefully next week we will wrap up the discussion on this topic. Meanwhile, be glad of the fact that the U.S. is gradually beginning to open up. Work and earn a living and enjoy life.

“Here is what I have seen to be good and fitting: to eat, to drink and enjoy oneself in all one’s labor in which he toils under the sun during the few years of his life which God has given him; for this is his reward.” (Ecclesiastes 5:18)

We’ve been through quite a few weeks of dealing with the coronavirus. We’ve had lots of illness, lots of deaths, shutdowns of much of U.S. business, shutdowns of sports events, and plenty of government economic action. Here I will give a few of my reflections on the whole phenomenon. I have been influenced by family and friends, by reading what public figures say, and by my own observations. In the comments which follow, please attribute anything sensible to me, anything questionable to my family, friends, and public figures. [I’m kidding. I have definitely heard some thoughtful comments from people I know. And I doubt that my instinctive feelings or guesses are always right. Think for yourself, as always.] This will take more than one week. The comments which follow are in no particular order.

1/The virus is dangerous. People die, and not just old people already close to death. However, it is currently impossible to know the real degree of danger. The death rate may be sort of like a typical flu death rate. Could it be worse? Yes, but it may take a while to know for sure. I saw one line of statistics on the Internet which said that in the U.S. there had been 1,263,243 cases, with 74,809 deaths. That is a death rate which is quite high–5.9%. If that is even close to being accurate, the virus is very dangerous. But I’ve also seen places where the death rate is estimated as being under 1%. Will we ever know what the death rate is? I’m not sure. How many people are committed to finding out and telling the truth, rather than to pushing their own agenda? If the truth is ever available, it may take some work to find it. Well, truth is worth searching for, I guess. We shouldn’t assume it will come to us easily.

2/I think a sense of proportion might help us. If the 74,809 deaths is close to accurate, that is a lot of people! But in the 1918 flu worldwide pandemic, there were possibly about 675,000 U.S. deaths, in a population much smaller than our current 320,000,000. We would have to lose about nine times as many to the coronavirus, to match the 1918 deaths–or, if the size of the country in 1918 versus the size of the country in 2020 is considered, 28 times as many, since the U.S. population in 1918 was approximately 103 million. I am not shrugging off 74,809 deaths, just asking that we think proportionately.

Or think of it this way. The American Life League said we had about 862,320 instances in which people killed their unborn children via abortion, in the year 2017. So c-virus deaths would have to increase about 8.7 times to be able to match the murder by abortion deaths of one year. And 2017 was just one year. We have that many deaths via abortion year after year. We’ve had over 61,000,000 babies murdered since Roe v. Wade in 1973. Oddly, you don’t see the U.S. closing down everything because we killed 862,320 babies in one year, and that many more or less every year. The abortion deaths are only the surgical murders. The chemical abortions are extremely numerous as well. Every one of the 74,809 virus victims had some span of life on earth–many of the people had long lives and were taken by the virus only in old age. Each one of the babies murdered got no life on earth at all. And life, remember, is good. That is why we’re all supposed to be wearing masks and keeping our distance from other people–so that we can go on enjoying life, which we instinctively all agree is good. But life wasn’t good for the babies. They got murdered. The Deep State does not have its panties in a wad about those deaths–only about the people who didn’t get aborted. Apples and oranges? Maybe. But maybe we need to think more honestly about what is important.

3/The cure may be worse than the disease. What is this going to do to people who can’t work and earn a living? Unemployment payments have to come from somewhere. That money has to be earned by someone, taxed away from the working someones, and then given to those not producing. The math is funky. It can’t work in the long run. If we don’t produce, we can’t really make our own way in life. If the government prints money out of thin air to give it to us, sooner or later that is going to lead to a massive rise in prices. All the government bailouts have been very destructive. I think the lockdowns were an overblown response, but the national government financial response is totally wrongheaded.

I noticed that one of the government bills rolled out was supposed to be about 1,100 pages. Wait, in a few days they came up with 1,100 pages? No, they must have had an emergency bill ready to go at the first opportunity. And how can a law be just, when it consists of 1,100 pages of legalese intended to tell us what we must do? The search is not for justice, obviously. The search is for power, and to reward certain people at the expense of the rest of us.

4/The instinct of many in government is to boss other people around. Telling us to stop working, stop attending sports events, don’t go to church, is instinctive with most of our political class. This is true of the politicians of both major political parties. I live in a state with a Republican governor, and we receive a newspaper from a state with a Democratic governor. I can’t see much difference in the response of either man, and that seems to hold true throughout the country. I suspect there are a few states where the political class did better, but also suspect such places were few and far between. We don’t hear much about them. We need to start creating our own political parties. Not one new party. We need dozens or hundreds of new parties, concentrating on our local issues. If we continue to be passive recipients of what the Democrats and Republicans shove at us, maybe we fully deserve what we get.

5/Everyone well-known tamely went along with the mainstream. It was of course easier to go along. For going along with the mainstream, there was no price to pay. But was the mainstream really so wise? Were honest questions being asked? Only outsiders questioned the mainstream consensus. For example, at LewRockwell.com, there have been literally dozens, perhaps hundreds, of articles and videos indicating that the mainstream consensus was by no means the only option for ways to think about the virus. For just one example, the masks that are supposed to be so helpful, may in fact be the opposite of helpful. Maybe the mainstream is right–masks forever! But maybe we should discuss this. Maybe intelligent people have good reasons for warning against the masks. An issue like that cannot even be raised in the political and media mainstream. If masks are so wonderful, surely the mainstream can survive honest questioning about the masks. But no–crickets. Everyone in the political and media class simply went along with the mainstream, from the start.

6/With the churches closed for so many weeks, many churches are probably hurting for income. This had to be pointed out to me by a thoughtful friend. People who are used to giving a certain amount each week, may not be willing to make up the arrears when they finally go back to church. This had not occurred to me, because my own giving is automatic. I believe the Bible teaches we are supposed to tithe to the church (Malachi 3:8-12; Matthew 23:23), so my giving is not dependent on putting money in the pot each week. I should have been more alert to the fact that most people are not tithing. The Christian organization emptytomb–I would gladly donate a capital letter to them, or even two–says that we Christians currently give about 2.5% of our increase to the church. That’s one quarter of what God requires of us. So now lots of people who already were giving much less to the church than God requires, will most likely be giving even less. Well, I can stand it if they can, as Huck Finn says.

That is enough for one week. I hope to return with parts II and III eventually. Right now I have to attend a high school track meet. Oh, I guess I don’t. I’ll take a nap instead.