An Updated SITREP

SITREP means “Situation Report” and here’s an update of just how bad things are under this administration. It’s in the form of a simple list of things we’ve all heard about. There’s just so much, however, that it’s a fog of acidic filth and it’s difficult to keep tabs on everything. That’s of course exactly how the Left wants it…create so much chaos that as more and more people give up fighting, government will step in to take everyone under wing and “save us.”

See if any of these things have fallen off your radar:

Fundamental Transformation
The Laptop
Obamacare
Energy Dependence
Tech spying and intrusion
Afghanistan
China
Military Wokeness
Police Resignations
California’s demise
Chicago’s demise
The 1619 Project
Critical Race Theory
LGBTQ++
The Open Border
Stolen/Rigged Elections – You honestly believe Biden got 81 million LEGITIMATE VOTES???
Judicial Activism – Soros’ prosecutors and judges unhinged
Persecution of Christians and Jews
Radical Envirofascism
Snowflakes
COVIDIOCY
Tech Censorship
Social Media Addiction
Government Unions
The World is Laughing at Us
FBI abuse of power – 51 Signers, they won’t tell us who brought the cocaine into the White House???
Biden’s Dementia and physical incapacity
Kamala Harris – Border and now AI Czar! “AI is two letters that mean artificial intelligence…” So profound!
AOC
The Squad
Joy Behar, Adam Schiff, Anthony Fauci, Stacy Abrams, Louis Farrakhan, Greta Thunberg, Al Sharpton, Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, and so many other grifters, incompetents, liars and anti-American idiots I can’t even list them all!
CBDC (that’s Central Bank Digital Currency)
The war on the suburbs
Biden’s forgiveness of student debt despite the Supreme Court Ruling
Transgenderism/Child Mutilation
Assault on Conservatives (Rand Paul, Justice Thomas, etc.)
BLM
ANTIFA

Need I go on?

God help us!

Leftist Vocabulary & Euphemisms

I’m so fed up with the Left redefining terms and creating euphemisms. “Progressives”?? Hardly! How about “Socialists” or “Leftists” which is what they really are! They so bastardized the term “Liberal” they had to come up with something else. (Ironically, it’s now Conservatives/Traditionalists who are Liberal!)

“Gay”? How about “Homosexual”?

“Undocumented Immigrant”? How about “Illegal Alien”?

“Immigration Reform”? Nonsense! It’s really “Amnesty”!

“Equity”? This is a particularly devious bastardization of “Equality”. It goes to the heart of socialism versus meritocracy, to the issue of equality of opportunity versus equality of outcome.

“Fair Share”? More like “Disproportionate Taxation of the Wealthy” and the underpinning of obscene redistribution.

“Cognitive Decline” (particularly as used in connection with Joe Biden). Really, it’s “Dementia”

“Abortion”, “Euthanasia” or “Assisted Suicide”. How about simply “Murder”, the immoral taking of a human life.

“Pro-Choice”…not really. It’s really “Pro-Abortion”.

“Investments” = “Government Spending”

“Fetus”? How about an “Unborn Child”

“Gender Reassignment”. Really, a sex change.

“Economically Disadvantaged Area”? How about, simply, “Ghetto”?

“Hate Speech”? Anything the Left disagrees with.

“Homophobia” – what the Left ascribes to anyone who disagrees with the LBGTXXX agenda.

“Rainforest” = “Jungle”

“Substance Abuse” = “Drug Addiction”

“Unpaid Sex Worker” = a “Wife” or “Girlfriend”

“Wetlands” – what the Left call “Swamps”

“World Community” – a euphemism for the “New World Order” of “Globalism”.

“Community” = “Government”

“Climate Change” (aka “Global Warming”) which really is a rallying cry for rabid environmentalism.

 “Thought Crime” – anything the Left doesn’t like.

The secularization of language by the Left in an attempt to banish all references to God is another thing that really angers me. There are dozens of examples, but one that particularly galls me is the change of B.C./A.D. which means “Before Christ” and Anno Domini (In the Year of Our Lord) to the godless “B.C.E. and C.E.” which mean “Before the Common Era” and “Common Era.”

I’m getting angrier and angrier just writing this! Truly, the Left seek to “fundamentally transform” our God blessed Nation into a communist/socialist/totalitarian/atheistic hellhole. They think secularization is the foundation for Utopia. Anyone with half a usable brain and a basic knowledge of history knows that every time Leftist policies have been enacted or practiced they have only succeeded in necrotizing society.

I say we reject accepting their alternative definitions, their euphemistic terms and revert back to the words and terms that accurately describe the cancer they’re trying to spread!

The Topics Are Being Covered

I haven’t posted in a couple of weeks. It’s not because I don’t have anything to say. It’s because there has been a groundswell of commentary by others far more articulate than I who cover just about everything on which I might opine! Authors like Victor Davis Hanson, Brian C. Joondeph, Matt Vespa, Derek Hunter, Katie Pavlich, and so many others write superbly, say it like it is, and often take the words right out of my mouth, and before I can form them!

And it’s not just the conservative websites and blogs that carry their thoughts. Increasingly, and finally (!) even leftist media outlets are starting to react to the never-ending stream of BS that emanates from the mouths of the government and their lackies.

Actually, it’s the other way around. The lackies are running the government. The leftist demagogues in big tech, the media, academia, the Marxist implants in the judicial system, the use(less) idiots seeking their fifteen minutes of fame…all are formed into an assault on traditional values. Think the scene from the Battle of Helms Deep in Lord of the Rings, the Two Towers.

The topics are at this point, familiar. There is, like clockwork, an idiocy or atrocity or two or three stemming from the Left each and every day. It truly is like the scene shown above. The forces of good and evil are arrayed against one another, and for the moment, it’s as if evil has the upper hand.

Here’s the problem:

On the Right we have free thinking, self-governing, independent, solo practitioners of Life.

On the Left, we have lemmings, sheep, sycophants, utopian-fantasy, “can’t we all just get along”, head-in-the-sand, dumbed-down, addled and brainwashed followers led by power-and-wealth-hungry demagogues.

It’s extremely difficult for individuals to stand up to the crowd. Especially when the crowd has megaphones and billboards the size of jumbotrons!

It’s not a matter of the Right “waking up”. We’re fully awake. It’s that INDIVIDUALS cannot beat the COLLECTIVE without HELP.

Where does that HELP come from? Is it a charismatic, righteous leader? Is it a conservative institution that rises above all others? Is it a Black Swan/Monumental event that draws us together by forcing us to concentrate on the traditional things that matter? Is it Divine Intervention?

I think nothing short of a catastrophic or tipping point event that compels the weak-minded Left to set aside their foolishness and return to level-headed basics together with the aggregate pleadings of millions upon millions of God-fearing individuals imploring Divine Intervention will break the back of the cancer that has affected our nation and the rest of the Western World.

Another 9-11. China invading Taiwan. The Israelis nuking Tehran. NORKO bombing Japan. Russia using tactical nukes in Ukraine or invading Poland or Finland. Or less likely: a CME (coronal mass ejection) wiping out our electrical grid or Ebola/Marburg exploding in Africa and spreading throughout the world.

These are all what we’d call “known unknowns”. Then there are the “unknown unknowns”. By definition, we can’t see it/them coming.

The situation is beyond “out of control” at this point. We can hope and pray that the consequences of “wokeness” keep materializing. Corporations (Disney, Anheuser Busch) and Schools (school board attendance/protests) are just a couple of examples of the swinging of the pendulum. Late-night comedians (Maher, Gutfeld) are picking up on it. Legislatures are putting their feet down in various red-districts. Churches are sheepishly (.sic) returning to traditional dogma.

Voices more powerful than mine are becoming more bold, more heard, more acknowledged and maybe, just maybe, the ground is being prepared for the final battle. We must win or perish.

The State of the Union Address

I admit. I didn’t watch it. I am so disgusted by the continuing marionette show I prefered to simply review the commentary afterwards. Others far more informed than I have already pointed out all the lies and distortions that spewed forth from the mouth of the puppet-in-chief. I’m going to, rather, address the peripheral question as to whether the GOP over-reacted and/or inappropriately reacted to the deliberate, pre-meditated misrepresentations and accusations hurled at them. Should they have sat quietly shaking their heads as Kevin McCarthy did, or should they have stood and yelled, “liar”, as Marjorie Taylor Greene did?

I’ve listened to both sides of the argument. Some on the Right say that not only was it uncharacteristic of members to shout out their opposition, but unseemly at best, rude and obnoxious at worst. They suggest that having done so, the GOP descended into the mud pit and acted no better than the Democrats. “Take the high road” has more often than not been the admonition of the Right.

What good has taking the high road done? I’m all for nobility and decorum, but when your opposition elevates their game from name-calling to defamation, censorship and character assassination (not to mention threat of REAL assassination – e.g. Kavanaugh), i.e. nonsensical speech to verbal kinetics, and has destroyed all means of civil undertakings to oppose him, the decision has to be made whether to take off the gloves and fight back, or not. The Democrats have so destroyed the principles by which we as a nation have governed ourselves for over three hundred years, so twisted and perverted the vocabulary, the rules of engagement, our history, even FACTS, that we have no choice, really, but to fight fire with fire.

This does not mean that we should simply resort to the kind of perverted antics so cherished by the Alinsky/Cloward and Piven brainwashed Left. Throwing the BS flag onto the floor of the House as was done during the SOTU isn’t a duplication of their style. Rather, it was a transparent, for-all-the-world-to-see return of fire akin (but more honest) to the ripping up of Trumps SOTU speech by Pelosi.

While some on the Right have argued that we gave the MSM a golden opportunity to castigate us further, I could almost hear the unified voices of the Traditionalists and Conservatives in America joining MTG, in unison!

Just as the Chinese push and push to see how far they can go, what our limits are, the Democrats have pushed and pushed to determine how far THEY can go. And once our limit is reached, and we push back, they cry, “See, you’re pigs and fascists and racists and anti-democracy and insurrectionists and threats to America.”

This is projection of the first order! Their banal vituperations are so childish, so outlandish, so petulant, so descriptive of precisely what THEY are and what THEY do, it would be laughable if it were not so destructive.

Shouting “liar” may be rude, but it’s factual, and for many brain-addled, MSNBC/CNN/NBC/CBS/ABC-watching Americans, it’s the first time they’ve ever seen any opposition to the BS spewing forth from their “leaders”.  The MSM has so distorted and censored the truth, they have created an alternative reality that millions of our fellow Americans actually believe! They are shocked to see the Right stand and call “BS”. They are puzzled when the MSM is forced (follow the money!) to cover the Democrats’ patently obvious treachery and deceit, their attempts to hide their failures and the results of their destructive policies and actions.

Is vocal opposition such as that witnessed during the SOTU enough to turn the tide? Does it help push the pendulum back? Will the probes by Comer and Jordan and the continuing exposure by what remains of conservative media start to repair the damage done to the hearts and minds of so many Americans who have fallen for the Leftist “alternative reality”?

I fear not. As good as it felt to hear someone voice what I would have said in the House chamber that night, it’s all talk. Until the GOP uses its power to halt the idiocracy created by the Democrats, until it garners and uses every tool at its disposal to pierce the dark fog of BS with which the Democrats have filled the airwaves, until more MTG’s, Gaetz’s Jordans, Kennedys, etc. create enough headlines with truth bombs to get the lemmings to break from their rush to the precipice, we will continue to simply hurl invectives at one another and continue sliding down the slippery slope.

As I have come to conclude, it’s going to take something monumental to wake America up. Not a balloon, not the Hunter laptop, not yelling “liar”. Something truly nasty may need to happen that will cause us to apply chemotherapy combined with radiation to kill the cancer that has metastasized. The Democrats have skillfully exploited the ratchet effect to incrementally destroy our values, our principles, our country.

We need to strip the ratchet.

No Silver Bullets, No Easy Answers

Since the election, through the Holidays, now well into the New Year, I’ve been thinking about the answer to the question, “What now?”.

Sorting through the “news” each day, I can’t help but see more and more confusion over what is true, what is falsehood, what is sensationalism, what is understatement. The one word to describe our state of affairs is: CHAOS.

I don’t see any cohesive strategy, any clear direction, any comprehensible plan to either ‘make our country great again’ or ‘take it back’ or ‘drain the swamp’ or ‘root out corruption’. I see little to no consequences for malfeasance, for lying, for theft, for waste, for self-abusive destruction of what has since its inception been the greatest country in the world.

‘Common sense’ is no longer common.

Demagoguery,, self-delusion, obsequiousness and self-centeredness are common.

Psychologists call it ‘other-directed’. Fewer and fewer people think critically much less skeptically. Individualism has given way to herd instinct. Emotions rule – no one spends the time to think rationally.

What was fringe is now mainstream. Pushbacks against what would in other time be considered lunacy are met with overwhelming, crushing condemnation. It’s as if the one reasonable person standing in the middle of a valley is being charged by thousands of buffalo. Just read the responses on Twitter or any other social medium to a ‘traditional’ statement or viewpoint.

I’ve long thought that the way to change the course of our national ship is with good leadership, with the development of new Hollywood heroes who successfully fight and win against the encroaching and increasingly pervasive evil infecting our society, with ‘reality’ hitting Gen X and Gen Z such that they awaken from their folly.

It ain’t happening! The megaphone afforded by the Internet puts power in the hands of the deleterious, the destructive, the Evil. On one hand it improves lives. On the other hand, it destroys them.

It’s not just artificial intelligence that has supplanted real intelligence. Social media and the ubiquitous handheld phone/tablet/computer combined is now an addiction.

Pew Research tells us:

  • 46% of teens say they use the internet “almost constantly”
  • 48% of teens say they go online several times a day
  • 48% of teenage girls say they’re online “almost constantly”
  • 43% of teenage boys say they’re online “almost constantly”

Look around you. It’s not just teenagers. So long as our society continues to descend into an artificial reality, fundamental human priorities will be back-burnered, what’s important neglected, what’s moral diminished, what’s good scoffed at.

No hero, no charismatic leader, no game of whack-a-mole is going to turn this around. Artificial reality has become Real Reality!

Thus I am rapidly coming to the conclusion that it will take some kind of cataclysmic event to wake up society and get people serious again. A Black Swan. Something that completely shatters what I will call Artificial Delusion and return us to basics.

It’s long past time to prepare for that Black Swan event.

The Christmas Story

I am dismayed by how many people do not know the story of the birth of Christ. Sure, there are cartoons and videos and picture books that depict the sequence of events, all with high production values to capture the attention of young and old in a world of instant gratification, shiny objects (.sic) and eye-popping visuals, but even I had to stop and think about the main points as I prepared to recount the story to my grandkids this Christmas. They’re still too young and squirmy for me to read it to them from the Bible but I take a few minutes, have their parents hold them down, and remind them of what the Christ is Christmas is all about.

We can lament how commercialism has overtaken the significance of what happened over two thousand years ago, but unless we pause at some point during the next few days and think about it, another year will rush by.

So for those of us with short attention spans or those who wish to recount the story to others without a PowerPoint presentation… here goes:

  • Joseph and Mary are living in Nazareth when one day an angel, Gabriel, appears to Mary and tells her she is going to have a baby boy who is the Son of God and that she is to name him Jesus.
  • Mary travels to visit her cousin Elizabeth who is also going to have a baby (John) and when Mary enters Elizabeth’s house, Elizabeth’s baby jumps in her womb and Elizabeth immediately knows that Mary is carrying the Holy Child. Mary spends three months with Elizabeth, then returns to Nazareth.
  • Caesar demands a census be taken so he can tax everyone, and everyone is to head to their traditional home city which for Joseph and Mary was Bethlehem, about 70 miles south of Nazareth.
  • When they arrive in Bethlehem, there is no room available for them in the “inn”.
  • They are told to spend the night where the sheep were kept. Mary gives birth to Jesus, wraps him in swaddling clothes, and places him in a manger.
  • Shepherds living out in the fields nearby keeping watch over their flocks at night are terrified by an angel that appears to them.
  • The angel says to them, “Behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.”
  • Suddenly a great company of additional angels appear praising God and saying, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.”
  • When the angels retreat to heaven, the shepherds decide to go find the baby the angel spoke of.
  • The shepherds head to Bethlehem where they find Joseph and Mary and the baby lying in a manger. They tell everyone about what the angels had told them about the baby, and they go back to their flocks praising God for all they had seen and heard.
  • Mary had been told by the angel Gabriel that she was to name her son Jesus, but when he was eight days old, according to Hebrew tradition, the baby was officially given the name Jesus.

So what does this have to do with the price of eggs or gas, or the open border, or the election shenanigans, or the crises in our cities, or government corruption? In truth, it has to do with ALL of it. The Lord’s prescriptions really aren’t complicated or ambiguous. They’re straightforward and virtually all of our current problems can be traced to either violations of the Ten Commandments or Gospel Law.

As for me and my house, this year and every year I will insist that we pause to reflect on the real meaning of Christmas.

Hope yours is merry and that 2023 will be better for all of us. Hang in there and may God bless us all!

Changing The Basic Concepts Of Society

As I read about the soon to be passed, euphemistically named “Respect for Marriage Act” I shake my head once again at the Left’s success at changing the definition of fundamental concepts to suit their agenda. It’s all ok, of course, because this is meant to be “progressive” and move us further toward that utopian fantasy where we can “all just get along”.

The skill with which the Left (i.e. Democrats) are able to use the media and high production values to beguile or bludgeon us into changing what we name concepts and thus continue to insidiously change society as a whole is astonishing.

“Illegal Alien” is now “Undocumented Immigrant”.

“Global Warming” is now “Climate Change”.

“Sex Change Operation” is now “Gender Affirming Care”

“Male and Female” is “Sex Fluidity”, “Non-Binary” or any number of other ridiculous labels

“AR 15 Style Rifle” is “Assault Weapon”

“Utopian Absurdity” is “Progressive”

And now, in a reversal of the “Defense of Marriage Act” passed under the Clinton Administration, this “Respect for Marriage Act” changes a definition that has existed since Adam and Eve.

On the one hand, I get it that in some ways calling the committed relationship between same sex couples “marriage” is a shortcut way to ensure that, for example, a same-sex “spouse” enjoys the same rights and benefits as a heterosexual spouse in everything from hospital visits to probate law. On the other hand, these inequities were already being addressed with laws and policies being incrementally changed under the rubric “civil unions”.

What galls me is the degree to which the Left has sought, in many cases successfully, to shove their ideology down our throats. The LBGTQXXX invasion of our school curriculum is another example. Cancel culture, the designation “deniers” of this or that…all are meant to shame and or/demonize what has traditionally been the norm since the beginning of time.

In short, the tail is wagging the dog. A small minority of green or multi-colored haired, aberrant deviants, given a very loud megaphone by the “cool ones”…i.e. the unproductive losers who make up the majority of the print, televised and social media, funded by megalomaniacal, power-hungry and bent-on-domination godzillionaires, are destroying everything that made our country, and society in general, the most prosperous and civilized in the history of mankind. All so they can feel good about themselves, in the case of the deviants, or for power advancement, in the case of the puppet-string pullers.

Not only is the Left successfully changing the meaning of things, it is also successfully demeaning, censoring, blasting any voice that dares utter opposition to this civilizational suicide. Comparisons with Germany in the 30’s and what has repeatedly happened in totalitarian regimes across the globe aside, what’s happening to 2020’s America is nothing less than the necrosis of the greatest civilization in world history.

Can it be halted? Can it be reversed? I think so. For the good of my children, my grandchildren, my fellow-Americans and for all sane and traditional-minded human beings around the world, I pray so.

Why?

The elephant in my room is large and gray. Why did we not crush/sweep/bury the Democrats in this election? With, ostensibly, 75% of the American public saying we’re going in the wrong direction, with inflation, an open border, unchecked crime, energy dependence, stunted education, outright lying, corruption and tyranny at every level of government, with candidates like Fetterman and Hobbs and Hochul even in contention, with so-called leadership in the hands of incompetents and fools like Biden, Pelosi, Schumer, etc., how could there have been any question but that the Republicans would sweep the Democrats from control of Congress?

Sorry to disappoint, but I’m not going to answer the question. There are analysts and pundits wracking their brains and working overtime trying to figure it out.

Frankly, I feared this might happen. Our elation and excitement, then our pre-election hubris was a warning sign.

As I’ve noted a hundred times, the Left was and remains bent on creating chaos, just as Alinsky prescribed. Deftly using the propaganda machine on a now-dumbed down populace, they have created perceptions that have shaped reality for at least half and maybe more of us. Chaos so obscures that weak minds can and were and remain susceptible to the lies and nonsense saturating the airwaves, on both sides.

America isn’t just polarized at this point. It’s balkanized! There is no clean dividing line…the ideological landscape is splotchy…pockets of red and blue intermingled but directly proportional to population concentration. By that I mean, where people are concentrated in the cities it’s blue. As the population thins, it goes from pink to red. Why? Because losers, the unproductive huddle where they can be fed and clothed and taken care of, and concentrations of power and money in the hands of a cabal of Leftist megalomaniacs that can be doled out and used to control the people are attractive to the indolent, the unmotivated, the uninformed. They just want their Obama phones!

The productive, the self-reliant, the industrious, lovers of freedom, truth and meritocracy, don’t tend to concentrate at all. The more elbow-room they have, the more free they feel and the more self-determining they can be. They just want to be left alone to care for themselves and their loved ones. They are red.

Step back for a moment and look at how far we as a nation have descended down the slippery slope. We are now questioning the very essence of humanity…what is a man, what is a woman? We legalize brain-altering substances; we force compliance with unproven and as it turns out, ineffective “cures”; a blind eye is turned towards not just petty but even heinous crime; corruption permeates and has destroyed virtually every institution. The media, writ large, dominates our discourse. Gone are dinner table discussions. Gone is civility. Gone is the unifying influence of faith and dedication to country that once guided us.

Ayn Rand is turning in her grave as person after person shoots themselves in the foot! Half of us won’t even be driven by logical self-interest! Rather, we have allowed ourselves to be subjugated to circumstances that HURT US! How stupid can so many of us be?

And it’s not just happening here in the U.S. It is happening all over the Western World. Any student of history will tell you that what we are witnessing is a repeat of the demise of all the great civilizations. We are past the apogee and in a flat spin plummeting towards a state where third world countries and ideologies are now rising while we fall.

This election was expected to be the turning point, a significant advance back up the slippery slope. Instead, we must now regroup back at the bottom, lick our wounds and coalesce so as to fight the cancer that prevents us from healing. However, we need to forget about trying to unify the whole country. We need to unify ourselves first! We need to identify and rally behind a leader or leaders who will inspire us to set aside our rugged individualism for the good of the whole. We need to organize and speak and act with one voice as the Left so successfully does. We need to use their Alinsky techniques on THEM! We must surround, isolate, belittle, neutralize and eradicate the cancer pocket by pocket.

Let’s study what happened and pray the path back up the slippery slope becomes clearer and better lit.

On A Positive Note

With permission from a friend and reader, I reprint a heartwarming letter from him to his naval officer son as the latter leaves for deployment on one of our great Navy ships. It captures just about everything a God-fearing, patriotic American would and should hold true.

“Dear Son,

Today you start writing the story of the next chapter of your life. Time to flip the switch from student to professional. From this day forward you will be judged by what you say,  what you do, and how you present yourself. All future opportunities in the organization will depend on people’s perception of you and only you can manage that. Always be mindful of your leadership position and the responsibility that attaches.

Grow thick skin. Much stress, feedback and ball busting dead ahead. Your bosses will test you to see how you handle it. Manage response and body language. Never give the bastards the satisfaction.

Embrace the chain of command and resist the trap of micro management. Let your NCOs know what needs to be done and when and turn them loose. Let them deal with the enlisted bullshit, stay above the fray. Delegation is a key management skill. Give your team responsibility and authority to complete tasks and monitor and mentor for compliance. It instills trust both ways and inspires loyalty.

First 30 days: mouth shut, eyes and ears open. Old quote: “Better to be silent and thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt”.  Identify the competent, smart team members and develop relationships but always maintain a degree of professional separation with subordinates.

Lead by example. Appearance, demeanor, language, knowledge etc. Be the “Boss” they will remember as a professional who was competent and had their backs.

Take care of your people. Be fair and just. Do what you know in your heart is right.

Giving people a voice is a great tool and has always worked for me. You may not be able to give them what they want or agree, but they will appreciate the opportunity to present their perspective and ultimately accept your decisions.

Learn from and respect seniors and always maintain an open mind. Listen to their endless war/sea stories with great interest and they will embrace you. Take pearls of wisdom from each and build into your management style/approach.

Finally, head on a swivel, when things start going sideways…slow it down. When the shit starts people will look to you for calm leadership. Inevitably mistakes and accidents will happen. Make reasonable decisions… but make a goddamn decision. Indecisiveness is a poison to the team and mission. Assess all available information, consider options and pick the best path forward.

Take ownership of the good and bad. No excuses only explanations of thought processes and lessons learned.

Finally, be safe and take great care. I love you with all my heart and am indescribably proud of you.

Life starts to speed up now…enjoy the ride.

Fair winds and following seas my boy!

Much love,

Dad”

To which I add, “God Speed”!

Dignity, Honor, Majesty

Spent all day watching the Queen’s funeral. We often note how “no one does pageantry like the Brits” but they outdid themselves today, establishing a standard of excellence that may never be equaled. I texted my English brother-in-law sharing a selfie of my wife and me watching the ceremonies with the words underneath, “Words Fail”. Indeed they did. Only later did Extraordinary Dignity, Honor and Majesty come to mind and no more needed to be said. Once again, tradition, culture, custom and decorum were on display, as were the poignant scenes of thousands upon thousands of people heartfeltly honoring Elizabeth II.

I was struck by the deeply religious and reverent tone of the proceedings. Never in our own country would such a profound respect be given to religious belief in general, and Christianity in particular. Kudos to the British monarchy. Despite welcoming so many people of other faiths into their country, their steadfast allegiance to Christ and Church remain. England makes no bones about being a “Christian Nation”. Can you imagine Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer or virtually any other politician other than perhaps Pastor Mike Huckabee openly proclaiming anything close to that?

The Godless Left in America have all but succeeded in banishing Christianity from government and virtually every state institution.

As I watched the profoundly touching and deeply emotional proceedings today I was once again reminded why it is that I am a Traditionalist. What we witnessed was grounded, solid. The order, precision, highest standards of excellence, TRADITION, exhibited by not just those who participated directly, but also by the British people, were exemplary and things of which they can and may always be immensely proud.

I am ashamed for those times I’ve not exhibited the grace and poise I should in the face of adversity, controversy, hardship, loss but I am grateful for the example once again upheld by the British Royal Family of how the privileged, blessed and called should comport themselves.

But it is Tradition like that adhered to today: heritage, culture, class, dignity, honor and majesty, that ALL human beings should aspire to.