When it comes to REST endpoints, I have been amazed at the conflicting and bad practices employed for response codes.  Specifically the use of the response codes:

• 404 (page not found)
• 204 (content not found)
• 400 (Bad Request)

The HTTP response codes are a very rich and detailed set of answers. But there is a very strange practice, when it comes to 404 and 204 for endpoint responses.  I’ve seen it degrade into a soapbox debate at times.

• Many people argue that 204 is only a valid response for a PUT action: the object to update is not found.
• 404 is well-known as Page Not Found, so sometimes it’s just “use 404 because that means it does not exist.”  Often the person arguing this way is not even aware of the other “2xx” successful result codes beyond 200.

There is a well-known meme which can help visualize the confusion, and its cause. It’s known as Car Not Found.

People appreciate this example if they have ever seen a 404 page not found error page, and there is an underlying lesson in the picture which applies to what I am saying, because the picture kind of epitomizes the thought process which causes the problem.

The picture shows that at spot 404, there is no car.  Is this problem an absence of a car, or an absence of a parking spot.

Now for this example, let’s imagine that instead of 404 being the spot number, B17 was the spot number.  This is often the case in a parking lot for rental cars.  In the programming world, there are a number of endpoints which report no car at B17 as a 404 (Not Found Error).  But what if spot B17 did not exist (e.g. the last spot in row B was B15).  Does responding with 404 for spot B17 mean:

• There is no car at B17.
• There is no spot labeled B17.

… and when troubleshooting starts, this is where the ambiguity creates a lot of headaches when the only response code is 404.  So I am a strong advocate of returning 204 for not only PUT and DELETE calls, but also on GET calls.  Note: there is no restriction in the W3C documents I have found which limits the use of 204 to only a PUT method.  The Mozilla specification for 204 is worth reading.

Another thing to consider is that 404 represents a non-existent resource, which can also mean a static resource–even when the path to that resource is built from path parameters.  So something interesting can happen when path parameters are being used.  Let me give you a scenario to consider.

Say that my endpoint is /car/find/{spot}, where {spot} would be passed as /car/find/B17.  The spot exists, so my response could be 200: “Toyota”, etc., or 204 for nothing there. This works fine.

Now say that I have a regular expression tied to the {spot} argument on the path.  It allows a single-letter followed by two digits, so I have to send B09 and not B9.  If I make a call to

/car/find/B9, which violates the regex validation, what is the more appropriate answer:

• 404 (Not Found)
• 400 (Bad Request)

In the case where the path parameters are static (not a variable resolved from the content), then 404 is the only answer.  But in our example, while B9 as an argument is incorrect, the spot does exist–it just has to be represented as B09 for the endpoint to accept it.  This generally occurs with unrectified input from the source.

The issue here is more of a 400 (Bad Request) problem, but it takes code in the middleware handing the path routing to test the path without arguments for a clear answer whether the processing endpoint itself is actually present.  If it is, the 400 (Bad Request) is a better response because the issue is not with a missing endpoint, but a value in the path (an argument) which is invalid.  Response Code 400 is described in the Mozilla spec as “… indicates that the server cannot or will not process the request due to something that is perceived to be a client error…).

An invalid path argument should qualify for a 400 response, since it is part of the request and not the path. You can write some quick tests on platforms to see what you get back for this.  404 is  common for this case. I understand that using platforms for your end point routing (Mulesoft, etc) will dictate your answers to this, since that code is theirs.

I have seen a lot of implementations where a successful call (not necessarily successfully processing) always returns 200, and a JSON object which has admin wrapper properties to describe the success/failure of the processing, and some details about the error and any special processing steps.  This is OK, because the REST spec is not this restrictive, but I often wonder how much of this evolved from a lack of understanding the existing response codes and what they communicate.

Don’t get me wrong: I love REST.  I just pass this along as food for thought.

I thought they were gone forever, but it turns out two major commentaries I wrote on Y2K in 1999 and 2000 were hiding in the Internet Wayback Machine.

It’s 2023 now, and nearly a quarter of a century has passed since these were written.  If you would like to compare where we are now, versus where we were back then (and see how off or on my projections were), check them out on this page:  Legacy

If you have not heard of Valkyrie before, it was the cover name of the failed attempted coup by German Nazi officers to assassinate Adolf Hitler during WWII.  It was honored by the movie Valkyrie in 2008, four years after the release of the movie Downfall in Germany–a landmark moment when Germany finally started a very real come-to-terms phrase with its Nazi past.

Klaus Von Staffenberg led the group, and only in recent times has he and the entire group been honored for the courage they displayed in their daring attempt to end the destruction of WW2 from the inside.

One of the supporters of the group was Dietrich Bohnhoeffer.  His family had immigrated to the United States, but he felt a calling to return to his native Germany because of the Nazi reign he saw destroying his beloved country.  Bohnhoeffer was captured with others, and was sentenced to death and hanged in 1945.

While he was in prison, he wrote a lesson and a warning as true today as it was then.  I recommend reading this and passing it on to others to read as well:

Upon closer observation, it becomes apparent that every strong upsurge of power in the public sphere, be it of a political or of a religious nature, infects a large part of humankind with stupidity. It would even seem that this is virtually a sociological-psychological law. The power of the one needs the stupidity of the other. The process at work here is not that particular human capacities, for instance the intellect, suddenly atrophy or fail. Instead, it seems that under the overwhelming impact of rising power, humans are deprived of their inner independence and, more or less consciously, give up establishing an autonomous position toward the emerging circumstances.

The fact that the stupid person is often stubborn must not blind us to the fact that he is not independent. In conversation with him, one virtually feels that one is dealing not at all with him as a person, but with slogans, catchwords, and the like that have taken possession of him. He is under a spell, blinded, misused, and abused in his very being. Having thus become a mindless tool, the stupid person will also be capable of any evil and at the same time incapable of seeing that it is evil.

This is where the danger of diabolical misuse lurks, for it is this that can once and for all destroy human beings.

Note: Keep in mind, as you read this, that Bohnhoeffer was an ordained Christian pastor.

— TL;DR —

The full text is here: Bonhoeffer On Stupidity

Updated: 22 Jul 2024 to include more relevant text in the excerpt.

“The real danger is not that machines will begin to think like men, but that men will begin to think like machines. ” — Sydney J. Harris (former journalist for the Chicago Daily News)

I recently watched a YouTube video about an incident which came close to starting a nuclear war, and it reminded me of Harris’ quote above. I knew about the incident growing up but didn’t know the details described in the video.  The meaning of Sydney J Harris’ statement can be seen in this video. I encourage you to watch it, before finishing the rest of the post. It is about 20 minutes long: This War Game Glitch Almost Ended the World.

Harris’ statement is really a warning for our time as well.  There’s a practice of labeling things on social media as “misinformation,” which has been called censorship.  When it is abused, it is censorship.  (And yes, it has been abused and it will continue to be abused in the future).

But there’s a good reason that labeling things as misinformation started. Misinformation is a war tactic (deception). The opening of unfiltered free expression on social media gave rise to the problem. Free expression is a good thing, and is part of a healthy democratic society. But the lack of accountability for what is said has led to immeasurable damage, including opening up an uncontrolled propaganda channel for state actors. In the case of cyber-bullying, it has even cost people their lives.

My real concern with misinformation labelling is the push to use automation, particularly Artificial Intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML), to automate it on a mass scale.  This is also a part of Harris’ warning.  If you are not familiar with Scott Adams, the creator of the comic strip Dilbert which is loved by IT Professionals everywhere, he did something interesting starting in 2020.  On Facebook, he began to speak out about the misinformation labeling and blocking which Facebook began to do.  But since he was aware that the technology at Facebook was using algorithms to look for accounts violating whatever policy about free speech they chose to have at the time, Adams would occasionally throw in a post with “…and here’s a cute puppy video” or “… and here’s a funny animal video”, et cetera, to throw off the algorithms.

He may not have stated it, but he demonstrated an understanding of how these algorithms actually tend to behave.  Unlike the human brain, computers can only operate on the algorithms they have been given, and the information they have to work with.  As such, they aren’t actually a form of intelligence, because they ultimately degrade into swarming and tribe mentality.  This is what happens when there is no conscious to apply as a governor, or… when the conscious has been burned out (the warning against a “hard heart”).  This means they become closed (or are intentionally closed) to outside influences and operate on their own understanding.

The behavior is not unlike lemmings, who will decide to literally jump off of a cliff because the “tribe” is heading in that direction.  I remember one of my relatives, when trying to explain to me why it was not a good idea to do something, explained it as, ” Well, if everyone else is going in this other direction, why aren’t you?”

Mass, united mentality is never a good reason to go in a particular direction–unless it is ruthlessly vetted.  If you want to have some fun with this, try this exercise with a group.  Propose the following question: “If someone were to pay you $1,000,000 to jump out of an airplane without a parachute, would you do it?  And no… you can’t sacrifice yourself and have your surviving heirs inherit the money.”  It is a really insane concept (except to maybe a handful of daredevils or extreme sports enthusiasts).  Many people will laugh it off as such… unless they ask for a specific, simple clarification: Is the plane flying? Now the meaning of “jumping out” has a completely different context, since it is on the ground.  If the plane was large (like a 737), the fall to the ground might be enough to break a bone or two… but it is highly survivable.  Is that risk worth the $1,000,000? It’s still a personal decision, but the risk is way less than when the plane is airborne.

And it is amazing how many people draw a conclusion without asking that simple question.  So it is with artificial intelligence.  The computers in the 1979 incident couldn’t make an accurate conclusion about the missiles not being in the air: they had only been programmed by people with what they knew. We can give AI and ML context to a certain extent, but not “a flash of inspiration”.  What struck me in the video was that the operators at NORAD had actually asked that same question as the exercise above, when they saw the indications of the attack: “Are they (the missiles) actually flying?”  That’s vetting information, which is needed for a true understanding. It saved the world from going to war.  The airplane question opened up the possibly of earning $1,000,000 and keeping it for your own use.  The missile question stopped a disaster from occurring. BOTH questions prevented a missed option or opportunity, that radically change the outcome.

That same issue is in regulating social media today.  People’s ignorance or just downright evil hearts have created the need to control (or, better, keep people accountable) for what they say on social media.  It will be an ongoing challenge, that’s here to stay.  The problem all boils down to the the Book of Proverbs (15:7, CSB): “The lips of the wise broadcast knowledge, but not so the heart of fools.”  Our hearts are a uniquely human quality that computers can, at best… poorly mimic.

Finally, I strongly recommend reading this blog post for a deeper understanding of Sydney J Harris’ quote.  Keeping our humanity and its influence is more important than ever.

Note: If you are interested in another near-war incident in 1983, with a similar human factor in the outcome, I recommend this video: The Nuclear Close Call of 1983

During a vacation in the Florida Keys this past June, I had an eye opening experience.  While on a fishing boat about 40 miles south of Marathon Island, we came upon a small, abandoned and clearly home-made boat which had no one in it. And it was an eerie feeling.

As we circled the boat, we saw CGOK spray-painted on the boat.  There was an assumption we made that CG probably stood for Coast Guard, and there was no sign of people or abandoned cargo (possibly indicating someone went overboard)–so we moved on.  Later, as we got closer to shore (and back in Cellular range), we discovered that our assumption was correct: CGOK stands for “Coast Guard, O.K.” When a boat carrying refugees from Cuba is discovered by the United States Coast Guard, they evacuate the people on the boat to their ship, and make sure they are provided for medically, nutritionally, etc.  Prior to taking the refugees to shore, they spray paint these letters on their watercraft to inform other boaters that it is knowingly abandoned–and that all occupants have been extracted.

Encountering homemade escape boats like this is evidently, from what I can determine, not an unusual experience.

What surprised me later on as I continued investigating this, is what happens after the refugees from Cuba get to shore.  Prior to 2012 (during the Obama administration, and prior to normalizing relations with Cuba), the refugees would have had a chance to file a petition for political asylum to stay in the U.S. as political refugees. As a condition to normalization of relations with the United States, Cuba demanded that the U.S. return all refugees. The United States agreed.

Since then, relations have been normalized. Now, even those Cuban citizens who risk their lives at sea to get to freedom from Communist tyranny and oppression–are automatically returned to Cuba.

This was truly sad to discover.  I spent six years living in (West) Berlin Germany when I was in the Air Force.  West Berlin was inside communist East Germany (aka The German Democratic Republic), and there were constant attempts by East Germans to cross into West Berlin (or into West Germany itself) to escape communist rule–for the entire 28 years the Berlin Wall was standing.  There is still a museum in Berlin near the old Checkpoint Charlie border crossing to East Berlin, named The Checkpoint Charlie Museum.  It is one of the best places in the world to discover how ingenious the human spirit can be, in its drive to be free.

When a person made it out of communist East Germany, asylum in the West was nearly automatic. And the exodus was consistent, up to when the Berlin Wall fell on November 9, 1989. This brought about the demise of all the Communist regimes in Easter Europe.

This boat should serve as a warning. The country which was the light of freedom to the world, which embraced those running from tyrannical, oppressive governments–has allowed itself to become an enforcer of tyranny. That’s a drastic change from just over 30 years ago. In fact, the lockdowns (including thought control) which were a staple of Communist rule, have now made their way deep into the West–including the United States.  If you can’t see through the façade of controlling and suppressing misinformation, you have a lot of catching up to do.

I used to joke about it, but I can’t anymore.  Ask yourself this, the next time you see the Status of Liberty (Lady Liberty) in New York harbor. Does she still embody the phrase, “Give me your tired, your poor, your weak in Spirit, who yearn to be free.” Or, is she now yelling…

“Taxi !!”

This has nothing to do with election fraud.  Over the years I have lived in many states across the United States, and I have seen something people do in voting which is … well, founded only in habit or conditioning, and not understanding.  With the primary elections coming up, it’s definitely worth pointing this out.

Voting is an expression of one’s opinion or preference on a representative or issue, where they have knowledge and a vested interest.  It’s not a test.

By now, everyone who grew up in America has experienced the multi-choice testing form as they went to school.  It’s known as a mark-sense form which requires a #2 pencil (or the digital equivalent in modern times).

Those old tests in school have engrained a way of thinking about multi choice questions on ballots, which isn’t applicable.  In school, you answered the questions you know on the test, and skipped the ones you didn’t … hoping your brain would give you the answer as you answered the others. But at the end, there were some blanks on the questions.  And what do you do when that happens?  Simple.  There are points when getting the question right, and no penalty for guessing wrong … because no answer is counted as incorrect on those tests.  So, take your best guess(es) and don’t leave anything blank on the test,  and you can actually get a better score if you are right.

But on a ballot, you don’t have to cast a vote for every item. There is no right or wrong, and there is no gain for guessing (in fact there is a risk of damage when it’s done), or penalty if it is left blank.  If all you cared about is the President of the United States, you can vote for the President, hand in your ballot, and it’s a valid ballot which is counted. If all you had was an opinion on who should be your local representatives, do the same with only the local representatives.  I am always amazed at the number of people I talk to who have voted as if it were a test requiring answers to questions, and just guessed at how they should vote.

And quite frankly, you shouldn’t vote for anything you are unfamiliar with–especially if it does not impact you.  I left two items on the Florida ballot as unvoted (i.e. no opinion) this year, because I have no opinion on either.  One was for a circuit court judge, and the other for a local ordinance.

If you vote for something just because the conditioning of school taught you to not leave anything blank, you will inevitably vote for or against something you do not understand.  That’s the danger of democracy: it only works the way it should when the voters actually understand what or who they are voting for, and why they are doing it.  Empowering the masses is great, until the masses stop thinking and treat every entry on the ballot as something accountable.

The fact that you voted makes you feel good, but little habits like voting outside of your understanding… undo the good that voting is supposed to accomplish.

NOTE: Years earlier I posted about one of the best ways to get educated about voting issues.  Sadly, I’ve only seen it in Los Angeles County: it’s the voter’s guide released by the County government.  In 30 minutes, you could walk in to the polls with a decent understanding on what you were voting for, free of commercial or personal bias in the information.  The reader gets both sides of the issue.. and a lot more detail than a two-line bullet statement.

I have to start this with a story.  When I was in High School, I had a history teacher who went on a very emotional rant against the Founding Fathers of our country–in front of the whole class.

His reason?  He thought that it was ludicrous that the United States would have a House of Representatives based on population, but also have a Senate which has only 2 representatives for the state without any regard to population. I was in California at the time, and he made the point that the state had 43 congressmen and a state like Rhode Island only had one. But both states have 2 senators apiece. This literally drove him nuts to think about it. “Why should a state like Rhode Island have as much influence as California?”

He was championing a pure democracy.  The founding fathers of America, who understood the real dangers of it, fought against it.

My history teacher’s thinking is unfortunately becoming more prevalent as society, heavily influenced by a centralized social media, leans more and more toward making populous opinion prevail.  The populous opinion prevailing is also part of the thinking behind the challenges to the usefulness of the Electoral College as well.

More and more people talk about the threat to American Democracy, while forgetting that the United Sates was intentionally designed by the founders as a republic. The founders were wise men who understood that a democracy historically devolves into an oppressive majority rule and usually ends very badly, but a working democracy always gives a fair voice to the minority.  They struck a balance between state, public and personal interests, which is the democratic model for the world today.

This has worked for over 200 years, but the value of it is not taught in school anymore. Those limits in the constitution on any one group (or branch of government) having unchallenged control is intended to pressure all parties to continue to work together and iron out differences, so that one party does not unilaterally implement its agendas unchallenged.  It is a valuable concept that people are sadly villainizing currently.  It’s called compromise, and it is a foundation of good government–and good relations.

I heard someone say it quite well once.  “The number of points of debate in all areas of your life, must always greatly outnumber the number of points causing division.”  This way of thinking is critical to our national motto:  Out of many–one (E Pluribus Unum).

A subtle threat to keeping the majority from becoming oppressive made its way onto the ballot in Florida as an amendment to the State constitution this fall (November 2020).  It was Amendment 3.. It proposed a change to the way elections occur for the primary and general elections. The primary election has always been a pre-qualification of candidates for office, with the winners of each party moving on to the general election.  Amendment 3 changes the candidates who move forward to the general election, to be the top candidates REGARDLESS of party affiliation.

While it may seem like a good logical change, it upsets the balance in the American republic which protects the interests of the minority from being usurped by the majority.  As my high school teacher made his rant about, Rhode Island is underrepresented in Congress, but equally represented in the Senate.  While most times there is no conflict, when Rhode Island and other smaller states are unfairly threatened by a law passed by Congress, they have the ability to vote down the law in the Senate to prevent what is essentially legal bullying.  This forces the majority and the minority to negotiate and compromise on the law to make it acceptable to all (or at least, enough to be workable without excessively favoring one over the other).

When multiple candidates from only the same party go to the general election for an office, that balance is lost.  Parties in America have become hives of specific doctrines and worldviews, which isn’t to be unexpected.  This is especially true nowadays, with each party putting enough pressure on their members elected to office to “stick to the party line”.  Not having a candidate from parties of opposing worldviews and thoughts in the general election truly increases the danger of not only oppressing a minority, but losing the influence on local government policy to a nationalized or central agenda.  This is exactly what the founding fathers were fighting against, by putting in the safeguards to keep a balance of power at the Federal government level–yet this threat exists at all levels of government.

Never forget, that in every Communist country (and in many socialist countries, including Germany), the ballot is always really asking “what party do you want running the country?”.  In socialism parties are elected, but not people in a party (which means no personal accountability, only “party” accountability).  In communism, there’s always only one answer to the party question.

Think about whether that’s what you really want.  This proposal and similar ones are a pathway to it.  And anyone who understands democracy should recognize… that’s not a democracy.

(In the end, the Florida ballot failed short of the majority it needed to pass, even though it received a 54% yes vote)

Dominion Voting Systems and other companies who make automated voting systems have been under suspicion for systemic fraud after this presidential election.  And recently a Georgia election office supervisor produced a video showing how fraud can be done in the Dominion Voting System.

But … is it really enabling the systemic, and mass fraud that Trump and the Republicans claim it is?  The video can be watched here.

There have been several areas of concern for fraud in the election, namely…

• Ballot harvesting (which can easily circumvent a chain of custody for tracking and accountability).
• Lack of transparency in electronic tabulation.
• Lack of a clear unalterable audit trail in some voting systems.
• Lack of verification of voters and residences, determining whether they even have the right to vote.

Automation systems have the potential for widespread fraud, but is this really the case in the video?  What the video shows is a standard method for an election worker to retrieve a single questionable ballot, to review it and make a clarification or adjustment–if needed.  It’s simply a standard managerial or administrative function, but in automated form. This same process exists in primary schools for correcting or rectifying problems with mark-sense tests after they have been scanned. To claim that this capability enables fraud would be to claim that the paper system it replaces is also fraudulent.  The ability to make this change is not new, nor is it a serious threat.

And while it is a door for fraud when abused, it isn’t a door for mass fraud as shown.  Imagine someone sat at the terminal and wanted to change lots of votes. Each vote has to be loaded individually, and go through more than one screen prompt to confirm the change.  A good operator might be able to change a vote every 10-15 seconds, or 240 to 300 per hour.  That’s really not the efficient level of fraud that needs to take place to steal most elections–especially those large scale federal elections.

In fact, the electronic voting systems have logging built-in.  So every action an operator takes on a ballot scanned in to the system has an audit trail.  That’s more likely to detect fraud via a managerial function than a manual review process, and there is a case in Pennsylvania where it happened.  But that case also showed how a simple audit trail detects it.

If you’re looking for bulk fraud, the clearest case which has any merit is the Atlanta, Georgia, where the person in charge of the ballot counting told the observers to leave, then the workers pulled boxes from under tables and counted them while the observers were out.

Still waiting for any action on any law enforcement on that one.  But that’s the only case I have seen (outside of ballot harvesting) that has any real merit as far as a widespread conspiracy to commit voter fraud.

Over the years I have posted a number of things related to the timing and sequence of removing paper currency and coin currency from all societies.  My earliest post was in 1999 on my own website, as part of a long article on why the Y2K scare was never going to be allowed to happen.  The reasoning was simple: the forces working to build the New World Order (the end times One World Government) were not going to let any trust with computers and commerce be broken: this distrust in the aftermath would have set back, by decades, the use of them in the future as a control mechanism for commerce.

Sadly, that original post has been lost… I can’t find my backup of it, and even the internet way-back machine has rolled it off (sigh).  Here are some others I have made over the last 10 years since that original one in 1999, for reference:

A giant leap towards the cashless society

Paper currency… its final countdown has begun

And now, the first actions of Phase 4: a (costly) disincentive for using the old, and actually removing the old so that it is no longer available.  That is, removing cash (the old) as a payment method.  COVID-19 started the first indirect actions to eliminate cash.  Walmart stopped stocking cash in all their automate registers for a period of time, requiring a credit or debit payment.  Note: they changed this for awhile, about a month or two after COVID-19 and did stock some registers.  There were other stores also complaining about a shortage of cash.  Whether or not that is true, COVID-19 provided a convenient (and, face it, true) reason to want to handle cash less–or not at all.

Yet, touching a credit card to take a payment can have the same danger.  Oh wait…I remember!  The stores started turning the payment terminal in your direction, so you would insert or swipe the card and not the clerk… or use the option of “tapping” the credit card on the payment terminal to use its touchless payment method.

Note: the same radio frequency responder in the new credit cards for “tapping” on the payment terminal is also the mark of the beast in Revelation 13, just not in an implantable form.  The only difference in the future will be, that the back of the hand is waived over the payment terminal instead of the card.

Knowing this, I had to smile a little when I realized that Revelation 13 says the location of the mark is the back of the right hand or the forehead.  I understand that there has to be an alternate location for people with a missing limb. I hope this doesn’t mean that in the future, some people make payments by head-butting the payment terminal.

Or, depending on your point of view, not head-butting … but bowing before it.

Elimination

SunPass, the electronic toll system in Florida, has announced that cash payment at all toll booths on the Florida turnpike will no longer be available starting January 15th (two days from now).  For anyone who does not have a SunPass transmitter and account, they will still bill the toll by mail using the license plate (with an added service fee).  That added service fee is the disincentive to stop using cash and get the electronic payment–the transmitter.  For each recipient which shuts off cash in the future, this extra service fee will appear as the disincentive for those still cling to the freedom of cash.

Expect more of this, until the next phase of elimination kicks in: it’s already started (in a very early phase) and will accelerate very soon in the United States and abroad.  It’s hyperinflation.  The US Dollar has been losing about 10% real value per year for the last 2-3 years, so all the arguments for cash will get the final nail in the coffin when this kicks in.  I’ve discussed why in the other blog posts.

So why will we miss it when electronic payment is so easy and convenient?  Because there is always a middleman who can cut off any payment between you and the other party in a transaction. People are upset about how Twitter and Facebook have been cutting off certain posts and accounts. Well, when electronic cash (including most if not all cryptocurrencies) is the only option, anyone for any reason can be cutoff by a central entity.

It starts with enforcing this on the state’s declared enemies.  This video produced by 60 Minutes Australia about two years ago shows where this path leads: Exposing China’s Digital Dystopian Dictatorship | Foreign Correspondent (TL;DR … the whole report is excellent, but watch from 09:30 to 15:10 if you are pressed for time)

Maybe you will notice that the description the Chinese reporter provides about the state of the Chinese populace, doesn’t apply just to China.

The Book of Revelation has warned us about this for almost 2,000 years, and other related texts in the Old Testament have also warned us for longer than that. Censorship from a totalitarian central authority is part of the end times judgment, where extorted loyalty and worship to God’s enemy is enforced through the control of buying and selling.

The Lord Jesus is calling everyone to repent and turn to Him.  He is the only one who can save your soul from the devil’s claim on it. Don’t wait.. cry out to him now. He didn’t die in vain, unless you don’t claim the gift of life which he gives freely to anyone who calls on His name.  His sacrifice did what was necessary to make our relationship right with God: something we can not do ourselves, ever.  He died as a sacrifice out of love for us, to restore the relationship with God.  But you must also sign the pardon… which is you confessing with your tongue and crying out for that pardon.

If you want to get right with him, do it now.  Dark days are coming… soon.

In an earlier post in 2016 after the presidential election, I noted how many angry people falsely believe the United States is a democracy, and forget (or just don’t know) that our structure is a republic. Some politicians were even pushing for reforming or even eliminating the Electoral College.  You can read it here ( So, what did you learn at the Electoral College? ).

As I pointed out in the previous post, the Electoral College is one of two safety valves the founding fathers put into the Constitution to prevent a federal government from becoming tyrannical. Originally, after losing the Revolutionary War to the colonists, it would have been used to keep King George III’s loyalists from using their allegiances with England to install a puppet president who was still loyal to the king.  But the Electoral College was designed to be a check and balance against more than just an old royal tyrant not happy with losing a part of his kingdom.  It’s a tool against corruption.  That’s why the electors are fully free to vote their conscious, with no binding on them from any outside force–even the election results.

The wide-scale fraud which occurred in the presidential election balloting this year is not much different to what the King of England would do: use subversion.  This time, the outside influences are mostly from China and people loyal to them spiritually, politically–and especially financially by being on their payroll, or on the payroll of an entity with the same goal of toppling the United States government from within.  So the purpose of the Electoral College as a filter for determining the next President of the United States is really no different than it was 220+ years ago.

Make no mistake: the stakes are really high. The Electoral College deviating from traditionally following the popular vote allocations is intended to be done only when there are clear indications of manipulation and gerrymandering (i.e. subversion) going on. And only those who are deluded and misled don’t see it–even when it is right in front of their eyes.

The Constitutional Convention (the other safety valve) is now inevitable, thanks to the attempts to defraud the electorate. The other cleanup will occur there.

(Dec 9, 2020): The Epoch Times published a commentary related to this which is worth reading. Dec. 8 Does Not Have to Be the Day Democracy Dies in America