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Authored by John Whitehead via The Rutherford Institute,

The Christmas narrative of a baby born in a manger is a familiar one.

The Roman Empire, a police state in its own right, had ordered that a census be conducted. Joseph and his pregnant wife Mary traveled to the little town of Bethlehem so that they could be counted. There being no room for the couple at any of the inns, they stayed in a stable, where Mary gave birth to a baby boy, Jesus.

Unfortunately, Jesus was born into a police state not unlike the growing menace of the American police state. And when he grew up, Jesus did not shy away from speaking truth to power. Indeed, his teachings undermined the political and religious establishment of his day. He was eventually crucified as a warning to others not to challenge the powers-that-be.

Yet what if, instead of being born into the Roman police state, Jesus had been born and raised in the American police state?

Rather than traveling to Bethlehem for a census, Jesus’ parents would have been mailed a 28-page American Community Survey, a mandatory government questionnaire documenting their habits, household inhabitants, work schedule, etc.

Instead of being born in a manger, Jesus might have been born at home. Rather than wise men and shepherds bringing gifts, however, the baby’s parents might have been forced to ward off visits from state social workers intent on prosecuting them for the home birth. One couple in Washington had all three of their children removed after social services objected to the two youngest being birthed in an unassisted home delivery.

Had Jesus’ parents been undocumented immigrants, they and the newborn baby might have been shuffled to a profit-driven, private prison for illegals where they would have been turned into cheap, forced laborers for corporations such as Starbucks, Microsoft, Walmart, and Victoria’s Secret.

From the time he was old enough to attend school, Jesus would have been drilled in lessons of compliance and obedience to government authorities, while learning little about his own rights. Had he dared to step out of line while in school, he might have found himself tasered or beaten by a school resource officer, or at the very least suspended under a school zero tolerance policy that punishes minor infractions as harshly as more serious offenses.

Had Jesus disappeared for a few hours let alone days as a 12-year-old, his parents would have been handcuffed, arrested and jailed for parental negligence.

From the moment Jesus made contact with an “extremist” such as John the Baptist, he would have been flagged for surveillance because of his association with a prominent activist, peaceful or otherwise. Since 9/11, the FBI has actively carried out surveillance and intelligence-gathering operations on a broad range of activist groups.

Jesus’ anti-government views would certainly have resulted in him being labeled a domestic extremist. Law enforcement agencies are being trained to recognize signs of anti-government extremism during interactions with potential extremists who share a “belief in the approaching collapse of government and the economy.”

While traveling from community to community, Jesus might have been reported to government officials as “suspicious” under the Department of Homeland Security’s “See Something, Say Something” programs.

Rather than being permitted to live as an itinerant preacher, Jesus might have found himself threatened with arrest for daring to live off the grid or sleeping outside. In fact, the number of cities that have resorted to criminalizing homelessness by enacting bans on camping, sleeping in vehicles, loitering and begging in public has doubled.

Viewed by the government as a dissident and potential threat to its power, Jesus might have had government spies planted among his followers to monitor his activities, report on his movements, and entrap him into breaking the law. Such Judases today—called informants—often receive hefty paychecks from the government for their treachery.

Had Jesus used the internet to spread his radical message of peace and love, he might have found his blog posts infiltrated by government spies attempting to undermine his integrity, discredit him or plant incriminating information online about him. At the very least, he would have had his website hacked and his email monitored.

Had Jesus attempted to feed large crowds of people, he would have been threatened with arrest for violating various ordinances prohibiting the distribution of food without a permit. Florida officials arrested a 90-year-old man for feeding the homeless on a public beach.

Had Jesus spoken publicly about his 40 days in the desert and his conversations with the devil, he might have been labeled mentally ill and detained in a psych ward with no access to family or friends.

Without a doubt, had Jesus attempted to overturn tables in a Jewish temple and rage against the materialism of religious institutions, he would have been charged with a hate crime. Currently, 45 states and the federal government have hate crime laws on the books.

Rather than having armed guards capture Jesus in a public place, government officials would have ordered that a SWAT team carry out a raid on Jesus and his followers, complete with flash-bang grenades and military equipment. There are upwards of 80,000 such SWAT team raids carried out every year.

Had anyone reported Jesus to the police as being potentially dangerous, he might have found himself confronted—and killed—by police officers for whom any perceived act of non-compliance (a twitch, a question, a frown) can result in them shooting first and asking questions later.

Charged with treason and labeled a domestic terrorist, Jesus might have been sentenced to a life-term in a private prison where he would have been forced to provide slave labor for corporations or put to death by way of the electric chair or a lethal mixture of drugs.

Either way, as I show in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, whether Jesus had been born in our modern age or his own, he still would have died at the hands of a police state.

Remember, what happened on that starry night in Bethlehem is only part of the story. That baby in the manger grew up to be a man who did not turn away from evil but instead spoke out against it, and we must do no less.

Demonization is the first step toward making something illegal.  Over the past couple of months, Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies have experienced a tremendous surge in popularity.  Personally, I was completely floored the other day when my nephew wanted to ask me questions about investing in Bitcoin.  It seems like the whole world is getting caught […]

Copenhagen’s Grundtvig’s Church is a rare example of expressionist church architecture, and one of the most well-known churches in the Danish city. French photographer Ludwig Favre was attracted to the perpendicular lines that compose the early 20th-century structure, in addition to the nearly six million yellow bricks that fill its interior. Favre decided to shoot the building’s 1800-seat congregation, capturing the minimal ornamentation found in the famous church’s massive vaulted halls and nave. More

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Let a,b,c,p in R, p ≥ 0.$ If for any xin [-1,1], |ax^2+bx+c| ≤ p then, for any xin [-1,1], |cx^2+bx+a| ≤ 2p

From the abyss of WWII, an elevating reminder that we each contain a universe within that contributes to the universe without.

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Ask veteran gamers whether it’s possible to get too hooked on a game and they might have stories of a World of Warcraft raiding buddy who used to pee in a can that lived next to his Alienware tower. Or they might confess they got so into their Zelda: Breath of the Wild playthrough that they forgot to shower. But is that sort of thing a diagnosable disorder?

Yesterday, when a draft of the World Health Organization’s 2018 international classification of diseases made the rounds, readers raised an eyebrow at one entry in particular: 6D11, or “gaming disorder.” Classifying gaming as an “addictive behavior,” the WHO explains that gaming disorder looks like “impaired control over gaming,” “increasing priority given to gaming to the extent that gaming takes precedence over other life interests and daily activities” and “continuation or escalation of gaming despite the occurrence of negative consequences.”

It’s been a burst of electricity through something psychologists and clinicians have hotly debated for years. 2013’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, a sort of psychologist’s bible, listed “Internet Gaming Disorder” as a condition for further study. Five years of meditation on it still has experts raising basic questions, like “What are the warning signs?” Despite wildly conflicting individual studies and expert opinions, efforts from industry leaders have slowly cemented a concept of “gaming disorder.”

The World Health Organization’s bold move might be what solidifies “gaming disorder” as a recognized, diagnosable, and actionable thing. Countries would take that opinion into account when considering what resources to allot to which health care needs. A lot of psychologists are not happy about that.

“I have considerable concerns about this proposed diagnosis,” said Dr. Chris Ferguson, a psychologist who studies the effects of consistent game-playing. Ferguson is one voice in the sizable backlash against the WHO’s draft. He explained that, early in psychologists’ debates about gaming addiction, some compared apparent victims’ compulsive behaviors to substance abusers’. Ferguson thinks that was their first mistake.

The push to pathologize gaming, he believes, is based off misguided comparisons to heroin or cocaine addiction: “There are many myths such as that games involve dopamine and brain regions similar to substance abuse,” Ferguson said. “There’s a kernel of truth to that but only insofar as any pleasurable activity activates these regions. How gaming involves them is more similar to other fun activities like eating chocolate, having sex, getting a good grade, etc., not heroin or cocaine.”

University of Oxford psychologist Andrew Przybylski echoed Ferguson’s concerns, adding that “It’s a very bad idea.” He’s concerned that most studies done on gaming addiction are low quality. Codifying gaming addiction as a tried and true disorder could risk “stigmatising millions of players and may divert limited mental health resources from core psychiatric problems such as depression or anxiety which might be at the heart of problematic play,” he said over e-mail.

Both Ferguson and Przybylski acknowledge that some people overdo gaming at the expense of their health and sanity. What’s worth focusing on, they say, is less the “gaming” aspect of that behavior, but the “overdoing” aspect. The impetus to approach something compulsively might matter more than what that “something” is. Research they’ve done and read suggests that what looks like gaming disorder, a lot of the time, is a symptom of depression, anxiety or attention deficit disorder. The WHO’s definition of gaming disorder could inspire an inaccurate diagnosis when, in fact, gaming could just be a coping mechanism for something already known.

“It doesn’t appear to be a stable construct,” Ferguson explained.

Last year, dozens of psychologists, including Ferguson, penned a grave article in response to the WHO’s proposal to list gaming disorder. Declaring that the proposal had “fundamental issues” like poor research quality and a lack of consensus, the paper warned that a rushed decision could have bad consequences. It could contribute to a stigma around gaming that affects healthy gamers. It could also waste public health resources spurred by an echo of the ‘90s moral panic around games.

Even if gaming disorder isn’t the next attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), gamers with problematic habits still need help. Publicly recognizing their struggle to find balance could make a big difference for them. Cosette Rae, who co-founded ReSTART, a facility for treating internet and gaming addiction, sees 32 patients a day. The facility is full until April, 2018. She is supportive of the WHO draft. Noting that while gambling and gaming disorder are “close relatives,” Rae says that the people who come to her facility have difficulty getting good treatment alongside alcoholics or drug addicts. Playing Guild Wars 2 in complete solitude for a year isn’t a lot like getting blackout drunk at a bar every single night of that same year.

“It’s difficult for the two groups of people to understand what each other is going through,” she said.

Rae acknowledges that lots of gamers don’t have a problematic relationship to their favorite media, but referenced a patient whose teeth rotted out of his mouth while he couldn’t stop himself from going at it. The WHO’s designation could help get folks in similar situations insurance benefits or convince professors to teach coping methods for gaming disorder to in-training psychologists, she said. “Because people don’t understand it, they haven’t regarded it as a real problem,” she explained. “They dismiss what this person is experiencing.”

There’s no debate that video game addiction destroys lives. But is it worth codifying “gaming disorder” into something that could cast a shadow over normal game use—or distract from treating well-known disorders that might inspire over-eager gaming in the first place?