It took just a minute to turn the switch off. But in the Northeast Blackout of August 2003, it wasn’t a matter of flipping the switch back on…the electrical grid had to be brought back on gradually lest some nasty power spikes set the whole system on fire! The COVID-19 mess is similar.
The parallels end with how relatively straightforward restoring power was as compared with restarting an entire economy. The complications: pragmatic, sociological, psychological, political, even spiritual, are mind-boggling. It amounts perhaps to the most intricate optimization problem society has ever faced. Compounding the problem is a lack of good will…the Swamp is the battleground.
One could argue that were the government at all levels to just step out of the way, the ship would right itself. Commerce, ingenuity, inherent good judgment and common sense could very well generate answers to the myriad problems.
On the other hand, so reliant, even dependent have our citizens become on the government to tell us what to do, leaving the re-entry to the good will of society and the workings of the marketplace, especially now that the government like the Blob has inextricably inserted itself into the equation, could result in an s-show of monumental proportions!
What to do?
Think for ourselves. Play strategic “what if” games. Start with the worst possible set of circumstances – there’s a renewed outbreak, the hospitals are overwhelmed, the therapeutic drugs don’t work and there is civil unrest, i.e. roving gangs of looters and killers. What, if anything, could you do about such a scenario?
Then, think of the more realistic dire but potential circumstances: you lose your job, your savings will last only so long, you’re healthy but it doesn’t look like there’s going to be any kind of meaningful recovery for you and your family in the near future and you know anything the government gives you is peanuts compared to what you were making before and your obligations. What do you do then?
Or let’s imagine the other extreme. The crisis was overblown and with a face mask on you return to work by, say, mid May. The kids go back to school with an extension of the school year into late June or July. How will you handle THAT?
To one degree or another any or all of the above scenarios are possible right now! Hard to believe since Netflix and the Internet are still operating, and even though the news shows look like the beginning of the Brady Bunch, with each co-host in his or her own square and your closet is stuffed with toilet paper and paper towels, life while different and crazy, goes on for most of us.
In short, assume the government is not the solution but the problem. How do we inoculate ourselves from a cure that is, indeed potentially worse than the disease?
Unfortunately, the time for preparation is gone. We’re in it now and have to make do with what we have and the circumstances we face. Certainly I cannot tell you what to do. Neither can some bureaucrat. Nor can some talking head on TV. Assume there will be no black and white decisions. All future forks in the road will be shrouded in fog, and ambiguity will reign over every decision we face.
Each and every one of us must think for ourselves, critically, pragmatically and do what is right to the best of our abilities. And each of us will have to be sole arbiters of “what is right”.
Take heart! As bad as things are, they will get better, and better, and better. We can do this! Think of what the Apollo 13 astronauts faced. Think of what the battered bastards of Bastogne faced at the Bulge in December 1944. Remember Winston Churchill’s words, “When you’re going through Hell, keep going!” And think of what we went through on 9-11.
We can beat this thing. Those of us who have survived will be stronger. Those who have perished will be taken care of in a Better Place. Those who have lost loved ones will be comforted, in time. Those of us who have been knocked down will get up and fight again, for our families, for our friends, for our neighbors, for our communities, for our country. We will rebuild. We will rejuvenate, and we will once again re-assert our position as the greatest nation the world has ever known.
Easter Sunday, 2020. The pews are empty. This is our first “video celebration” streamed through thousands of digital mechanisms across the world. Earlier in the week Passover seders were celebrated similarly. A juxtaposition of the technological and the divine.
How one marks the day depends on one’s belief or lack thereof. There are, in my opinion, as regards religion, three states: either we are atheists, believers or agnostics. And, I hasten to point out, we may be one or the other at different points in our lives.
Atheists, a.k.a. secularists, non-believers or those who worship things other than a deity, make up a significant and growing percentage of the world’s population. While there are countless “studies” marking this growth, one has only to look around at the opposite phenomenon, the decline in congregations, to acknowledge this trend.
Aside from the numbers, there are also countless “studies” that seek to explain why religion is on the wane. Could it be that the rapid advancement of technology has simply made us “full of ourselves”? What need have we of a God when we can summon knowledge, convenience and even virtual human interaction instantaneously and effortlessly from the electronic gadget in our hands? Millennials (Gen Y) and Gen Z seem to be the most secular and least religious of any generation. They are, of course, those who grew up with this technology and don’t even recall much of what I call the Analog World (a separate article forthcoming on that subject).
Forget about broad trends for a moment, however, and examine what this means for our families, our local communities and our Country. What happens to a people when they get too full of themselves?
You’ll recall when Moses descended from Mt. Sinai he found this exact circumstance. Not a good scene. The party animals had taken over, they no longer had any need for God, faith or religion and things didn’t turn out well. Isn’t it obvious we’re duplicating that scene at the base of Mt. Sinai right now? What does the future hold if we keep this up?
The battle we as a nation are fighting is a civil war. It is a battle for its soul. I’ve often referred to Bill O’ Reilly’s contention that the fight is between Traditionalists and Secular Progressives. Will we follow a course plotted by a rudderless ship piloted by secularist atheists, or by a people who, irrespective of their denomination, subscribe to traditional principles of right and wrong stemming from a belief in God that have survived the vicissitudes of mankind since the Garden of Eden?
As regards my own views on God and religion. As I begin to think more and more about the subject I’ve yet to codify my beliefs. But here are some thoughts.
Thomas Aquinas tried to “prove” the existence of God in his book Summa Theologica. I’m reasonably well read and educated and no matter how hard I tried, I found it incomprehensible and far more confusing and doubt-provoking than enlightening. The proof can’t be conjured up from within ourselves or “proven” in some way. Whether or not to believe in God has to be an individual determination. Anything else but a personal conviction withers under fire or rusts with disuse. Thus, in thinking and talking to others about God I have often asked others the question: “Who is the only person in the universe who can prove to you whether God exists?” Frequently, the reply has been, “Me.””No,” I submit, “the only person in the universe who can prove to you whether God exists, is God.” Again, it is for each of us to come to our own conclusion.
As humans who reside on an earth that turns, causing sunrise and sunset; as fragile beings who are born and who eventually die, we think in terms of beginnings and endings. Thus, evidence of an expanding universe leads us to conclude that there was a Big Bang that started it all. But that begs the question, “What was there before the Big Bang?”
My suggestion is that if we eliminate the construct of beginnings and endings and assume that there never was either a beginning or end to the universe…that the universe is, in fact, infinite; that it has always existed and will always exist, it becomes a little more logical to think of man’s life as a very very small segment of time within that continuum stretching endlessly (literally, not figuratively) in all directions. It also makes it easier for me to comprehend that there is a being, God, who exists within this infinite continuum and, though I may not comprehend how, also has always existed and will always exist. Similarly, this Easter morning, I can accept that a man name Jesus died and three days later rose from the dead by means that I cannot understand, but which are based on principles and truths that are immutable and exist whether or not either I or anyone else believes them or not. And if the Atonement and Resurrection, and more importantly the purposes and reasons for them made it possible for me to wake up somehow after I die and transform into something else – a different life as wonderful or even better than this one has been, I’m thrilled it occurred.
This morning, thousands of children will go on Easter Egg Hunts. Many will receive gifts from the Easter Bunny. How many will have even an inkling of what Easter Sunday is all about? It has become another so-called Hallmark Holiday for many.
As for me, I pause this morning to reflect on my choice to believe in God. I will seek to do right rather than wrong. I believe in good and evil and hope to embrace the Good and eschew Evil. I believe there are many truths and eternal principles we have not yet uncovered and learned…things that logically explain what we presently see as miracles and the unexplainable. And I choose not to forget that Someone guiding us and worthy of our worship exists and through some truly extraordinary technology, is able to know and communicate and guide each and every one of us.
“On any subject one can find at least twelve world-renowned experts citing documented, empirical, irrefutable evidence to support arguments that are diametrically opposed to one another.” – Grumps
Who you gonna believe? Dr. Anthony Fauci? Dr. Deborah Birx? Dr. Oz? President Trump? Secretary Steve Mnuchin? Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy? Senator Chuck Schumer? Senator Mitch McConnell? Larry Kudlow? Rachel Maddow? Laura Ingraham? Nancy Pelosi? Andrew Cuomo? Chris Cuomo?
Simply put, there are no end of experts, pundits, commentators, ‘contributors’.
Have you ever wondered why these people after being interviewed by some television host most often say “Thank you,” at the end of their segment, right after being thanked by the host? If it were I, my last words would be “you’re welcome”, or “happy to contribute”, or “my pleasure”, or even a simple nod. No, most say “thank you” or “thank you for having me”.
The reason is simple. The media is theater and these people being interviewed are being paid to entertain (.sic…they claim to inform but they’re mostly offering opinion, parroting someone else’s commentary, or simply making up stuff on the fly) so I’ll say entertain rather than inform despite even the best of intentions. If they’re not being paid, they’re hoping to someday be paid. If they’re neither being paid or hoping to be paid they’re desperate for attention and recognition in order to advance their careers, at best, or just their egos, at worst. They got their 15-180 seconds of fame. That’s why they say “thank you”.
I say despite their best intentions because many of the talking heads really do try to present relevant, useful, information and some even say what they really think. And some tell the truth, some omit the truth, some flavor or color the truth, some think they’re saying what’s true, and some disclose that they’re offering their opinions, which many take as truth.
On the other hand, there are many who intentionally deceive, ‘spin’, twist and color truths as well as outright lies to further their agenda. The more outrageous the deception, the better to “make it bleed”, thus “lead”.
And of course, depending upon where one sits on the ideological continuum, lies are truth and vice versa, spin is omnipresent…it’s a question of degree.
So whom to believe?
Ourselves. We went to school and supposedly learned how to think there. Instead of lapping up what the talking heads tell us, we need to think for ourselves. And the thinking needs to be critical. If what we’re hearing is contradictory, obscure, wrapped in gobbledygook or simply sounds like nonsense, it probably is. Doesn’t matter who’s spouting it and it doesn’t matter how much of it is fact, applicable to our own circumstances, or how much is conjecture, fiction, outright falsehood, etc.
We need to believe in our own God-given good judgement and make decisions that are right for us, not just run along with the sheep.
The stock market has crashed. Unemployment is skyrocketing.
The number of confirmed Wuhan Virus (that’s what I call it) cases is
growing exponentially. Grocery store shelves are bare. Gun sales are going
through the roof. Office buildings in Manhattan are empty. People are walking
around with masks. Schools are cancelled. The internet is bogging down because
so many people are home its vaunted capacity (bandwidth) is proving to be
inadequate for the demand. California is “locked down”. Hell has
broken loose.
However… “The wonderful thing about Tiggers is,
tiggers is wonderful things. Their tops are made of rubber, and their tails are
made of springs. They’re bouncy, flouncy, trouncy, pouncy, full of fun, fun fun.
The wonderful thing about Tiggers is, I’m the only one.” Substitute Americans
for tiggers and you’ll have a hint as to why despite the misery and impending
doom I’m optimistic for the future.
My thoughts…
1. As bad as
the pandemic is, it’s not as bad as you think. Simple arithmetic coupled
with basic critical thinking points to the conclusion that greater than 99% of
everyone who contracts the disease will recover, and we don’t know of course how
many people WILL or WILL NOT contract it. Thousands get sick and many die each
day from heart disease, cancer, jaywalking, ‘regular’ flu and chronic lung
disease from smoking, etc. As of this morning, ~a quarter of a million people WORLDWIDE
have been confirmed to have the virus, ~10,000 people WORLDWIDE have died from
the virus, and ~86,000 have recovered. These numbers are DWARFED by regular flu.
In the U.S., ~15,000 people have
confirmed cases and ~100 people have died. This flu season alone (roughly
from October 2019 to the present) 31MM people IN THE UNITED STATES (!) have had
the flu. Somewhere around 275,000 give or take have had to be hospitalized, and
as many as 30,000 (vs. 100) have died from run-of-the-mill flu! (See https://www.health.com/condition/cold-flu-sinus/how-many-people-die-of-the-flu-every-year
for a plain language discussion.) Translation – this isn’t anywhere near as
bad as the media and politicians would have you believe.
2. Despite
what you hear or see, the government is doing the right things. They may not in
all cases being doing things right, but the medical, logistical, economic and
societal response is “gettin’ ‘er done”. I expect the response is
even overdone if you look at the statistics in the previous paragraph. So,
for example, NOT EVERYONE NEEDS A TEST! If you get sick, sure, go get a test.
But it’s self-centered, selfish and “looking out for number one” just
to confirm you’re NOT sick, and may deprive someone who really needs to be
tested from getting the help they need. Testing is NOT a cure, and satisfying
statistical number crunching is nowhere near as important as preventing and
treating the actual disease. Mobilization and coordination among all the health
care agencies, departments and the private sector is exactly what is needed,
and again, no matter what you hear, there are very competent people who care
about others and this country hard at work on the problems. Have some faith in
them!
The backstopping of employers in various ways and the anticipated
support given to individuals and families is being matched by lenders,
landlords, tax collectors… you name it. Everyone’s in this and making
accommodations following the lead of the federal, state and local governments.
Just remember that “the government” is made up of
people who have the same hopes, dreams, fears, constraints, problems as
everyone else in the country. The vast majority are working their asses off to
help and do what’s right within their on organizations and spheres of influence.
I had to go to the department of motor vehicles the other day. Everyone there
had taken a large dose of patience pills and I was both shocked and thrilled to
see how both the people behind the counter and in front of it were behaving.
The government, of course, is damned if they do and damned
if they don’t, but on balance, its response to this crisis has been overwhelmingly
appropriate and helpful. Its communications, despite the handwringing and
teeth-gnashing of a “if it bleeds it leads” media has been solid,
optimistic, informative and suitably cautionary as to get virtually the whole
nation (except the Florida beach Spring Break party animals) to respond as it
should. This all happened in a matter of days, unlike the responses during the
H1N1, SARS, MERS and other pandemics.
3. Gas
prices and interest rates are falling. The one commodity everyone needs is
fuel, and the stimulating effect of a drop in gas prices to the ~$2.00 – ~$2.50
level is incredibly impactful on regular budgets. This will benefit us all,
except of course for oil producers. But Washington is on to the Russian and
Saudi’s game to try to destroy our energy-independent status and crush our
shale industry, and are NOT going to let them get away with it. Similarly,
we’re not standing idly by while China spews its propaganda and stomps its feet
and blames our military for what they caused or worse, threatens us with
withholding drugs such that we become “awash in a sea of Coronavirus”.
We’ve thrown the bull#%*& flag on that already and will continue to rub
China’s nose in the mess they’ve created and left on the world’s floor. Xenophobic?
No, just highlighting the truth in the face false accusations.
4. One of
the silver linings in this mess is the awakening that has occurred among
government, industry and the American people that we must no longer be held
hostage by foreign manufacturers and suppliers. The Globalist agenda has been
thoroughly trounced by this exposure of its flaws, and bringing our
manufacturing and supply chains home may result in higher priced goods, but
we’ll all benefit in the long run.
5. Kids are
getting educated again. Home schooling is exposing the inadequacies, biases and
absurdities of the current state of our education system. Parents are waking up
to what is being taught, and what is NOT being taught to our children. I predict
that for whatever time period home-schooling prevails, our kids will get a
BETTER education than what they’re getting at school, and teachers will be
astonished when students return at how far they’ve advanced. You heard it from
me first.
6. Neighbors
are helping neighbors. Our little local email chain is lit up with offers of
help and assistance. People are getting outside and checking on each other from
afar (i.e. more than six feet). Kids are teaching parents and grandparents about
Facetime, Skype and Zoom. And Animal Planet is running shows about carefree kittens
and puppies. Come on…how much better is it to watch than the gloom and doom
on broadcast tv?
7. People
are learning who their leaders are. Not the ones with the titles, but the ones
who are true leaders as opposed to managers and demagogues. True leaders step
up in times of crisis and go to the front of the crowd, carry a light and turn
back to shout encouragement and instill confidence in others. People who may
have labored in the shadows or punched well below their weight are now emerging
as the shepherds of our society. This separating of the leaders from the
followers can only be a positive development.
8. The Silent
Majority is silent no more. Having to adapt to the situation, conservatives and
the Right who normally are head down working and caring for themselves and their
families are speaking up and speaking out. They are not just throwing the BS
flag on politically correct nonsense, they are ignoring social engineering and
all its related evils and practicing true philanthropy and real, beneficial community
activism.
9. Complacency
is evaporating. It’s amazing what being forced to rely on fundamentals and
things that matter will do to a spoiled and coddled population. In the face of
what’s going on, do people really care what the Kardashians think?
10. Faith is
making a comeback. It’s sad but true that there are no atheists in foxholes.
We’re rediscovering our faith despite not being able to attend Church. And
whether it’s one religion or another, it’s the common principles of right and
wrong, goodness versus evil and a belief in a set of universal truths that are
moving back into the public consciousness. This is a good thing.
11. Families
are getting to know one another again. Yes, we’re cooped up and hunkered down.
And things get testy at times as we bumble around in each other’s way. But for
many of us, we’re forced to seek virtue: patience, understanding, caring for
one another, and learning anew about each other. It doesn’t take a village, it
takes a family, and families are binding together out of necessity and love.
And finally, THE MOST IMPORTANT REASON I’M OPTIMISTIC ABOUT
THE FUTURE is that America has the most natural and other resources of any
nation on earth. We can produce enough of EVERYTHING to take care of
ourselves and help the rest of the world to boot. We have the smartest people.
We have a spirit of “can do” that is unparalleled on the planet. Many
nations think we’re brash, loud, obnoxious, overly proud and nationalistic and
hate us for our bad manners and profligacy. So be it. I’d rather live in the
United States than in any other country. We will not only get through this, but
emerge stronger than ever and once again, we’ll be the city set on a hill
letting our light so shine as to be a beacon of freedom and prosperity to the
entire world.
I’m a pragmatist, and I recognize the challenges that lie
ahead to recover from this mess. But I believe with every fiber of my being
that things are going to be better than ok, and sooner than the so-called
experts predict. I’m not suggesting we all go Hakuna Matata on this, but let’s
put things in perspective shall we?
May God continue to bless us. And may God continue to bless America.
I can think of no better word to describe the feeling I had
last night watching the Democrat debate. The spectacle gave whole new meaning
to the expression “circular firing squad”. What’s more, it highlighted,
again, the absurdity of the Democrats’ positions on just about everything.
Trying to focus on the issues at hand was darn near
impossible. It was a food fight extraordinaire…a stage where each tried to
out-perform the other. Bloomberg hid behind his lectern (.sic), and acted
small, arrogant, smug, and clueless and as he tried hard to stoically look
ahead while taking deserved incoming fire. Warren was her usual shrill,
unhinged self, screeching #metoo platitudes and demonstrating once again how poorly
an academic understands the real world. Sanders with his hand and arm gesticulations
continues to look like he might fly away, and while he’s authentic alright,
he’s authentically idiotic. Poor Joe Biden with his face lift and newly
whitened teeth tried his best to look energetic but appeared the geriatric
politician completely disconnected from today’s world, still stumbling and unable
to find the right words to insert in his sentences and pitching the “good
old days” when his boss was President – coattails on which Obama has made
him unwelcome. Pete Boot Edge Edge represented himself, and his whole
generation of snowflake millennial spoiled brats superbly, demonstrating his
glibness and immaturity at the same time. Finally, Amy Klobuchar, a U.S.
Senator believe it or not, looked completely outclassed, childishly defensive: “Are
you trying to say that I’m dumb? Or are you mocking me here, Pete?”
What a bunch of clowns!
But I flipped to the Phoenix rally that Trump was holding
court over and saw, regrettably, another jester’s performance. Trump really doesn’t
act like we should expect a President to act. He still acts like he’s running
The Apprentice. It’s embarrassing.
But here’s the kicker…Obama, with his nose in the air and
his imperious attitude, his eloquence and presence, was highly ‘presidential’,
and spent eight years fundamentally trying to transform America into some
two-bit foreign midget while Trump, with his bumbling act, is fundamentally
trying to save America from that fate. He may be the most inarticulate
President we’ve ever had, and contra-presidential in many ways, but his
intentions, his actions and his results have been spot on. I wish I could read
what historians will write about him 50 years from now.
If I were a Democrat candidate, and I really wanted to
defeat Trump in November, I’d embrace his nationalism, embrace his policies,
applaud and thank him for his efforts and suggest that with minor tweaks, the
path we’re on could be straightened and smoothed to accommodate the other half
of the country who want a more liberal or “progressive” (although I’d
avoid that term altogether because it’s a joke) approach. I’d adopt a
presidential diction, speech and demeanor and present a serious, no-nonsense
persona to contrast myself with Trump’s antics.
I’d still lose, of course, because more than 50% of the
population, irrespective of Trump, are happy with the Country’s direction and
are optimistic about where we’re going. But at least I’d have a chance to help
down ballot Democrats with their runs, and I might even have a respectable run
myself.
But the Democrats can’t help themselves. They’re so caught
up in hysterics, theatrics, hypocrisy, misandry (.sic), megalomania, and
victim-celebrating they’ve completely forgotten about the true majority: the
millions of Americans with their heads down working hard caring for themselves
and their families, supporting their friends and communities, productively
contributing to the growth and welfare of our entire Nation. The Democrats have
bought into the notion that the disadvantaged, the downtrodden, the tiny
minority of true victims should be helped no matter what the cost to the rest
of society or the nation.
When I was a kid we used to use the expression “My
heart bleeds purple peanut butter for you” when feigning sympathy for a
buddy who skinned his knee. I’m not so callous anymore, but I cannot support,
for example, crushing the agriculture industry in California by restricting
water flows thus jeopardizing farmers and crops and livestock production
because some whiny biologists are distraught that a tiny fish might go extinct
(I’m referring, of course, to the famous “snail darter” here.)
What about the vast MAJORITY? How about we celebrate the
WINNERS? How about we celebrate EXCEPTIONALISM? How about we celebrate
INDIVIDUAL ACHIEVEMENT? How about we reserve the use of NANNIES for our
toddlers instead of treating everyone as if we needed the government to serve
as one.
Trump may be crass, undignified, inarticulate and may appear
at times to be off his rocker, but he’s crazy like a fox in that, like Reagan (“just
a dumb actor from California” according to the Democrats), he loves this
country, he believes a rising tide lifts all boats, that growth (i.e. GROWING
the pie instead of trying to slice the pieces thinner and thinner) solves the
problems of the vast majority of our people and indeed, for the whole world.
The Democrats whine we’re destroying the planet. While that
is simply nonsense (see George Carlin’s famous routine about “Saving the Planet“),
my response to the unlikely possibility that mankind will use up ALL of the
Earth’s natural resources or somehow so upset Nature that we will all die of
carbon dioxide or monoxide poisoning, or that our orbit will decay such that we
fall into the Sun, is to go out and find ourselves another planet to live on
(which is exactly what we’re doing)!!!
Growth. Prosperity. Equal opportunity, not equal outcomes.
To each according to his MERIT, CONTRIBUTION and RESULTS, not his
“needs” is the answer. So long as the Democrats continue to whine and
stamp their feet, I’ll keep smiling as they seek to destroy one another.
With the world falling apart in front of us and Leftists assaulting every sacred and historically treasured traditional value while asserting that the dismantling of our culture is “progressive”, what if we challenged the notion that “there’s no going back”?
What if we were to withdraw our troops from all of our
foreign bases and let Russia and China fight it out for hegemony and see what
it’s like to be the world’s policeman, getting bogged down in endless wars and,
unlike us out of largesse, squandering their resources on attempted world domination?
What if we were to perfect Reagan’s original Star Wars
Strategic Defense Initiative, i.e. reproducing the Enterprise’s “shields up”-
and photon torpedoes capabilities so as to negate or obliterate anything our
adversaries could throw at us?
What if we were to withdraw to secure borders and become
completely self-reliant and self-sufficient as we have with oil? Suppress the
horror and revulsion that leaps to mind when a 55” flat screen television
suddenly but temporarily costs $3,000 again instead of $500. Instead, imagine
“Made in the U.S.A.” instead of “China” or “Mexico” on just about everything we
buy and consume. And Bass Weejuns were once again made in Maine.
What if we were to withdraw from the United Nations and establish
a new organization of free, democratic countries and emerging nations that
subscribe to our federalist-constitutional-‘meritocratic’ approach to government and society?
What if we were to roll back the welfare/nanny state and
restore an “everybody needs to pull their weight” culture? What if we were to
dismantle the safety nets and nanny protections that have made all of us
soft-in-the-belly and turned Millennials and Gen Z into snowflakes? How bad
would it be if they had to actually work hard and produce things of real value?
What if we were to reduce the size of the Federal government
by half? Would we miss having six different departments massaging the same
numbers and producing meaningless (and misleading) reports that cast them in 6
x 6 different ways?
What if we were to eliminate abortion-on-demand, restore
marriage to what it is and has been for thousands of years, and truly
“eliminate welfare as we know it”? Would families matter again? Would “taking
care of one’s own” be so bad as they, and their communities, came together to
help one another out of necessity because the government handout offices would
be closed?
What if continence and self-control, a restored respect for
one another in male-female relationships were restored. What if the natural
consequences, including stigma attached to divorce, abortion, broken families,
of immorality were to come back? Would these constraints on our “anything goes
so long as it feels good or doesn’t interfere with what I want at the moment” approach
toward life be destructive or beneficial?
What if were to eliminate tenure and
“retire-after-twenty-years-with-rest-of-life
pensions-and-100%-healthcare-benefits-coverage” and restore the teaching
profession to the noble one it once was? What if we taught kids to read using
common sense phonics instead of “whole word” recognition. What if we
went back to teaching arithmetic and insist there are right and wrong answers
rather than “good tries”? What if we only gave real winners trophies?
And what if we could once again celebrate victories instead of falling over
backwards to ensure that losers’ feelings weren’t hurt? What if we were to show
the movie “Rudy” to kids instead of some documentary on turning algae
into fuel?
What if we once again started the school day with the Pledge
of Allegiance, and allowed assemblies and the start of sporting events to be
opened with prayer? And allowed the Star Spangled Banner to be sung at public
events?
What if we didn’t reprimand kids for sitting “indian
style” on the floor instead of “criss cross applesauce”?
What if we were to celebrate nuclear families again instead
of “non-traditional” families? And what if we were to put the
“boys” and “girls” or “men” and “women”
signs back on bathroom doors?
Would that be so bad?
As I’ve mentioned in previous posts numerous times, our
society seems so hell bent on meeting the needs of the few that we overlook,
neglect and harm the many.
Failing to convince half the country that its ideology is replete
with “progressive” truth and right, the Left now bypass nuance or
even lip-service to honesty and just outright lie to our faces.
I’ve previously railed against economists and statisticians,
so I’ll leave off the last third of Mark Twain’s famous statement: “There
are three kinds of lies in the world: lies, damned lies and statistics.”
I’m going to focus on the first two, which are rampantly manifest in virtually
every form of media: print, radio, video and social medium.
It used to be called “spin”. In business schools
around the country is was called “creative misrepresentation”. In its
most benign form, it was called “casting the facts in the best
light”.
Today it’s unvarnished, unsubtle lies.
The Left, masters of form over function, appearance versus
reality and impression-creation, use media to touch the heartstrings and
sensibilities of “root for the underdog” -fundamentally-good-people,
convincing them that their causes and crusades are fair and just, and anything that
opposes them are immoral.
It’s not just political theater. It’s mass manipulation.
With great drama and conviction, the Left proclaims as facts
things they themselves know are false.
By repeating the lies over and over again, progressively
(.sic) increasing the volume level and saturating the media with them, the Left
seeks to steamroller their ideology over truth. Even truths that would be
obvious and clear to any thinking human being are crushed by the onslaught.
I’m not going to a provide a laundry list of examples…to
anyone reading this who has half a brain, the lies are obvious. Rather, I’m
going to suggest two approaches for dealing with them depending on whether a) one
just wants to be left alone to do what he or she knows is right or b) be an
aggressive defender of and fighter for the truth.
For those of us who are simply too busy working hard,
raising our families, supporting our neighbors and communities, and who aren’t
news junkies suffering continuous blood pressure spikes, here’s my simple
advice. IGNORE it all! Just keep doing what’s right, teaching your children the
real truth, gently (if possible) correcting the nonsense they’re being taught
at school, keep the tv turned off, and to the extent possible, ban all forms of
social media from cell phones, tablets, laptops and other conduits to the superhighway
of falsehoods called the internet.
For those of us who want to fight…put on the strongest
psychological armor you possess, arm yourself with anecdotes, quips, one-liners
and witty rejoinders (remember, facts will get you nowhere), and learn how to
manipulate THEIR sensibilities and tug on THEIR heart strings. Take acting
lessons if you have to, because you’re going to have to clothe yourself in
sheep’s clothing while masking the disposition and determination of a wolf.
Better yet, become strong enough to be a lion, afraid of no-one, impervious to
the slings and arrows that will come at you from a hundred directions. Be
prepared to see friends turn into enemies, family members shun you.
Join with others of like mind. There are closet conservatives
and traditionalists everywhere…you just have to seek them out. Avoid the
temptation to participate in rant sessions. Although the therapeutic value and
catharsis of being able to speak freely, condemning with gusto what you know to
be Leftist drivel, is great, it doesn’t get us anywhere.
Rather, by word and example cling to, espouse, demonstrate and exude traditional values and principles. Tell the truth. Mind your manners. Speak softly but carry a big stick (something like the guy called Negan had in The Walking Dead) in case you need it. Dress not to impress or to draw attention to yourself (that’s what the Left in its desperation for attention does) but in such a way as to say, “I’m not a fashion hound, I don’t care what the latest and greatest label is”. I also urge you to flee from the slavery of tech…pull out your handheld device only when absolutely necessary, and insist that your kids put a governor on their use as well.
Finally, I urge you to pray to whichever God you know for guidance, wisdom, strength and the ability to fight.
One step at a time…it’s a long way back up the slippery
slope.
I live in a community filled with limousine liberals. Many do take
limousines, around here referred to euphemistically as “cars”, but mostly they
just drive themselves around in $80,000 Land Rovers and Mercedes AMG’s.
Their hypocrisy knows no bounds. But it’s ok because they donate
to the kids who ring our doorbells in the summer representing so-called Public
Interest Research Groups or “PIRGs”, another euphemism for enviro-fascist shake
down artists advocating the banning of fracking (which causes, you know, the
water from your faucet to ignite) and the banishment of gas pipelines (which,
after all, disturb chipmunk and snail darter migrations and can EXPLODE!). And
they also have hybrids sitting in their garages which offset the use of the
Land Rovers.
Sometimes I want to run screaming for the hills, away from these
incredibly shallow, self-absorbed and condescending people who get their
out-of-gym exercise by patting themselves on the back for all their wealth and
accomplishments.
I’m tired of having to collect, memorize and arm myself with the
facts necessary to defend traditional values, economics, etc. And I’m tired and
getting more and more tired of trying to have discussions with these Leftists
to whom the rules don’t apply and facts are relative.
Facts simply don’t matter to them. It is impossible to have a rational discussion with a Leftist because all they do is repeat the drivel they hear. Pointing out facts and using logic is pointless. They merely say stupid things like “You have your truth and I have my truth.” It’s like trying to nail jello to a wall, like pushing on a string. Neither reason nor any attempt to explore the disastrous consequences or history of their ideology or the fallacy of their positions resonates.
The image that comes to mind is from a Will Smith movie
called “I am Legend”. It’s the post-apocalyptic story of the sole survivor of a
plague that transforms humans into bloodthirsty mutants. He wanders alone
through New York City, calling out for other possible survivors, and works on
finding a cure for the plague using his own immune blood. He is badly
outnumbered and the odds are against him, and all the while, the infected wait
for him to make a mistake that will deliver him into their hands. They huddle
in packs in dark places like subterranean parking lots always facing inwards,
shaking and panting. A sound or smell of an uninfected animal or human alerts
them at which point they suddenly and viciously turn towards and run at full
tilt boogie to brutally assault it.
Today’s Leftists are like those mutants. They wait for a
normal, traditional human being to expose themselves and then pounce, spouting
nonsense and catch-phrases with one, shrieking voice that seeks to drown out
and overwhelm them.
Which reminds me of another movie called Invasion of the
Body Snatchers where aliens take over the souls of normal humans and then
intermingle with them. To survive, the normal humans mimic the body language
and behaviors of the mutants. Should a normal human slip up, all of a sudden there
will be a blood curdling shriek from the mutant who identifies the normal
person, and then all the mutants will turn and scream and with outstretched arms
point to the normal human being.
What we witnessed at the Kavanaugh hearings was a perfect
example of body snatchers in unison pointing their fingers at a normal human
being and shrieking.
They will stop at nothing to destroy the innocent. Again, facts don’t matter. The consequences of the personal destruction they inflict don’t matter. Lies and hypocrisy are ok because in their minds they are means to an end. All the care about is power and control so they can pursue and achieve their absurd utopian fantasy.
There, I’ve gotten that off my chest. Now I’ll take a deep breath
and rejoin the fight to restore sanity to our country and communities.
I was alarmed by an article
I saw recently regarding how Silicon Valley, i.e. the tech companies, are
trying to build a social scoring system similar to the one created by the
Chinese to control their population. A social “score” would,
essentially, label you on how well you
adhere to political correctness.
Think of the consequences of the following: Some twenty something kid develops a computer
program that collects every bit of data on you from the internet, including
privacy-invading captures of emails, texts, voice mail messages, credit
reports, and of course Facebook and Instagram posts. An algorithm (basically, a
complex series of equations and instructions) then decides whether the dossier
it has compiled on you adheres to the social orthodoxy prescribed by its mostly
Leftist creators. You are assigned a score which, if insufficiently high, could
prevent you from obtaining insurance, a mortgage, a car loan, weapons to defend
yourself and your family (nor just firearms but think, pepper spray!). Continue
down this path and medical care could be rationed based on your score. Your
ability to obtain a drivers license, or fly on an airplane could all be
impacted by your ‘score’. So too could your ability to check into a hotel, or get
your kids into a private school, camp or music program. How about your internet speed being throttled up
or down based on your number?
This is Silicon Valley tyranny of the highest order.
Artificial intelligence…what the computer geeks call
computer programs that mimic human thought processes through complex “if-then”
rules, is just that…ARTIFICIAL. It’s not REAL intelligence! It’s data
manipulation, whether the data is valid or not, whether it’s true or not,
whether it represents reality or not, whether it is complete or not. While the
geeks would argue its totality represents who you are, I submit individual human
beings cannot be represented by a set of numbers.
Instead of real human beings using real intelligence,
computer programs are making assessments based on monte carlo simulations of
the propensity of an individual to be or do certain things. It’s unadulterated
nonsense. People aren’t average. People are individuals, but the Leftist gurus
of Silicon Valley would have you believe they can categorize you and collect people
into pens like livestock. They use terms like “community” and “social justice”
to connote egalitarianism, but it’s really manipulation, brainwashing and population
control to achieve the Leftist utopian dream.
And we’re letting it happen. The fact that I’m typing this
on a laptop and that I’ll use an intenet connection to first save it in a cloud
repository, then publish it on this website in the hope that people, especially
my family, will read it some day and be positively influenced by it…is a trade-off.
I have no illusions that there are computer algorithms that are mining my posts
for key words and phrases that already categorize me at least as a neanderthal
but at worst, as a old white guy white supremacist. And the thought that the
government and commercial institutions would ever adopt policies to allow or
deny me freedoms or products and services based on where I fall on this social
scoring spectrum, is unsettling to say the least.
It used to be we’d gather our families together for Sunday
dinner and at that table learn the wisdom of our elders. The patriarchs and
matriarchs would instruct and seek to influence us, and by example, teach us
about the world, right and wrong, how to conduct ourselves, how to find
happiness in our lives.
Today, we write blogs, and emails, and texts. Our
conversations are about movies and sports…in some families politics is no
longer an acceptable subject, and if one member of the family is either
agnostic or atheist, religion too is a subject off the table.
We are so paranoid about offending even our own family
members that in a sense, the Left has won. My children can’t discipline their
kids for fear some social worker will show up their door and haul them into some
judicial hearing on child abuse! Have the thought police so intimidated us that
we have abrogated our responsibility to impart our values to our children and
grandchildren to Sesame Street, the Leftist indoctrinators in their schools and
colleges?
Some of us “old people” say, “It’s their
world, and their problem.” I, on the other hand, ask, “Will we stand
by and watch our kids’ world devolve into an immoral and totalitarian cesspool
without speaking up, without using every opportunity to point out the craziness,
the manipulations and fallacies of the demagogues and those who seek to impose their
will on and exercise power over us?”
We can either choose to be silenced and cower, or stand and
fight for the traditional values that have proven throughout history to be the
greatest driving force of mankind’s prosperity.
What is happening in our schools is beyond shocking. A whole
generation has been brainwashed to believe things we and our parents would have
written off as lunacy.
A firsthand account by a public school teacher in Gross
Pointe, Michigan of what’s going on in the halls, academic lounges and in kids’
heads these days alarmingly summarizes what we should find frightening if we
care about our children and grandchildren. The article, entitled “Worse
Than Ever: Government Schools After 35 Years“, by Lawrence M. Ludlow (American Thinker, August 15, 2019)
describes what he found upon returning to the classroom after a hiatus because
the local high school was unable to replace a retiring Latin teacher.
The first clue was the difference between the certification
process in 1982, when he previously taught, and 2018. In his own words: “The
1982 certificate only listed the courses I could teach. In contrast, the
2018 version had a 300-word “Code of Ethics” that amounted to a profession of
faith in collectivism, egalitarianism, state schools, and diversity (typically
limited to superficial things like skin color and gender, not ideas).”
His next exposure was to the students themselves, who were woefully deficient in English grammar much less ready to study Latin. In what was supposed to be a superior school system, many students didn’t bring books to class, complained incessantly about homework, expected to receive high grades regardless of proficiency and performance and the Principal was instituting a process whereby students would not be compelled to take any more than one test in a day! And this kind of education was supposed to be college preparatory!
The warping and rewriting of history, the Leftist brainwashing
on the topics of socialism versus capitalism, communism versus democracy,
globalism versus nationalism, nepotism versus meritocracy, redistributionism
versus self-reliance, moral relativism, collectivism versus individualism, the
blatant promotion of gender dysphoria, group identity, victimology and outrage
culture…THIS is what’s being taught to our children and grandchildren in
elementary and secondary schools and on college campuses today. (I will leave
for another time the attack on boys and boyhood, men and manhood.) Oh yes,
occasionally the three R’s are thrown in, but increasingly, this kind of harmful,
Leftist nonsense permeates every subject.
It’s no wonder that home-schooling is taking off. It’s no wonder the competition for private school slots is cutthroat. And despite ever increasing spending per capita, it’s no wonder “Johnny [still] Can’t Read.”
Where does the fault lie, and who’s responsibility is it to
fix this problem?
As regards fault – I chalk this up to the natural impact of
what I call the “fat and happy syndrome.” Briefly, I submit that the
Boomers, recipients of the peace and prosperity won by the Greatest Generation
and not having to struggle through a Great Depression, allowed boredom,
indolence, envy, drugs, moral depravity and many other societal ills to infect
a “fat and happy” population.
“Free Thinking”, “Free Love”, anti-establishment
rhetoric and the abandonment of God or thousands of years of right and wrong moral
yardsticks resulted in a new educational approach. The result, “New
Math” (remember?) and now, the Common Core panacea. In short, the hippies
took over academia.
Regrettably, George Bernard Shaw was right. “Those who
can, do; those who can’t, teach.” With exceptions, for example shop and
trade-school teachers who pass on truly useful skills and learning,
academicians are so caught up in complying with the orthodoxy established by
teacher union leadership, publishing or perishing the “proper”
material in the case of college professors, or crushed by the collective mob if
they try to deviate from the dogma, that there is little chance of a return to
the basics.
As for the solution. Somehow, and by smarter people than I,
we must eliminate the ability of teacher unions to impose their Leftist canon
on our system. Whether we do this by abolishing teacher unions altogether (and
ALL government employee unions by the way) or through some other means, we must
break up the monopoly and MAKE OUR EDUCATION SYSTEM GREAT AGAIN.
I also suggest that those parents who can place their
children in private schools do so. If unable to do so, I urge them to strongly
consider home-schooling. Something like 2 million school-age kids are being
home-taught today, with extraordinary results as compared to public schooling,
and that figure is growing exponentially.
Finally, I urge parents to demand that their children reduce
their obsession with social media and technology and create opportunities for
them to interact in healthy ways with one another. Supervised play dates for
the youngsters, organized sports (left me emphasize here the importance of competitive
TEAM sports), participation in interpersonally engaging, non-technical social
activities like music and theater, science and outdoors clubs for adolescents.
It’s been argued that our ability to influence our children
ends about the age of 8. While that’s debatable, those of us who have raised
children know that somewhere around the onset of adolescence we become the
enemy and what we say is far less important than the current “meme”.
Yet judging by what I see in college and twenty-something, even thirty-something age kids today, when reality bites and they’re forced to become increasingly self-reliant…they become receptive to guidance and influence once again. All of sudden they discover that their parents have grown up. (As an aside, there is nothing more heartwarming than hearing our own words coming out of the mouths of our older children as they instruct their younger siblings, or their children!)
I urge us to find ways of resisting the temptation to become
our children’s friends as they morph into grown-ups and, hopefully, adults, but
rather continue to set an example for them, teach them correct principles, and help
them understand what was right and what was wrong about the subject matter they
were just exposed to over the previous 12-16 or more years.
If they haven’t learned them already, teach them about
skepticism and critical thinking. Teach them the manners, decorum and civility
that they didn’t receive during their ‘formal’ education. Teach them
self-reliance and how to rise on the basis of merit, not political maneuvering
or nepotism. Teach them about determination and perseverance. Teach them thrift
and self-discipline, and teach them by example whenever possible, the
difference between Right and Wrong, and Right and Left.
I submit that the blatant Leftist indoctrination of our children and grandchildren in today’s schools and colleges (whether public or private) is the REAL DOMESTIC TERROR threat in our country. May we who believe in Traditional Values be strong enough and wise enough to arm and teach our loved ones how to fight this scourge.
TODAY IS
Friday March 06, 2026
The NEW Western Hemisphere
Screenshot
Quips & Quotes
January 27, 2026 "I believe the American people need to wake up. This moment is a warning about where we’re headed. Fear pushes people to care only about their money and their families—I get it. But when fear turns inward, when self-preservation and greed replace moral courage, evil goes unchallenged. And history shows that what we ignore today will come for all of us tomorrow." James O' Keefe on X
January 9, 2026 "Leftists function on the assumption that they can skirt the law while using it as a shield against reprisal. They do it over and over and usually they get away with it. They whittle us down by stabbing at us from behind a curtain of gray legality. I’m tired of it, and I think many millions of other Americans are also tired of it. We’re done playing nice." Brandon Smith, Discern Report, 1/9/26, "How Dare You Fight Back Against Communists"
December 20, 2025 "Subscriber counts are the native language of audience capture—proof that attention has replaced persuasion as the coin of influence." Colby Hall, "Ben Shapiro Is Losing a MAGA Audience That’s No Longer Interested In the Truth", Mediaite, 12/20/25
November 20, 2025 "The president’s goal really is to return education to the states, he believes, as I do, the best education is that closest to the child, that is being supervised by their parents, by teachers, by school superintendents, by the governors in those states." Linda McMahon, interview with Alex Marlow on Breitbart News11/20/25
August, 2025 "Never give up. Never surrender, and always go for the win." Charlie Kirk
April 20, 2025 "There’s a price to pay when you go all-in on DEI—and the piper always comes calling. You can’t lower standards, abandon merit, and inject politics into everything, then act shocked when the results go straight into the toilet. Life doesn’t work that way. Businesses don’t work that way. And elite universities certainly don’t work that way.
Once the gold standard of higher education, they’ve become a punchline—rotting from the inside out thanks to progressive nonsense and DEI disasters. It’s gotten so bad, they’re now offering high school-level math to students who can’t keep up—students who have no business being at Harvard in the first place. These aren’t academic standouts—they’re DEI charity cases, picked because of the color of their skin or their sexual fetishes.
Let’s be honest—you don’t need a Harvard Ph.D. to see what’s going on here. When you stop choosing the best and start choosing the most diverse, you don’t get excellence. You get mediocrity, decline, and total embarrassment.
That’s exactly what former law professor Jonathan Turley is sounding the alarm about.
Turley took to X and pointed out that since 1636, Harvard has prided itself on admitting only the best students with the highest scores. And shockingly now, it only took one generation of woke ninnies to wipe all of that greatness out." Revolver, April 19, 2025 "The Mayo Clinic just tried to pull a fast one on the Trump administration, but social media busted them…"
April 4, 2025 "American families have been strip-mined, plundered, and debrided of healthy tissue, that essential primordial ooze from which happy parents and children spring. Americans have been forced to soak in sterilizing solvent—liberal feminism, K–12 school indoctrination, toxic social media, and four years at woke finishing schools formerly known as “college.” How could anyone escape with their morals, identity, and mind intact? Many don’t.Some manage to make it through the gauntlet intact, but their children aren’t so lucky; their budding hopes and dreams are blown apart or mangled by landmines buried in the ground. These landmines include infinitehorizon dating, the abortion industry complex, the failure to marry or stay married, unwanted childlessness, careerism, opioid addiction, pornography, “finding yourself,” and the temptation to sell your eggs, your sexuality, your identity, and your soul to the highest bidder—among many others. All that’s left is a cohort of young people unable to form meaningful relationships, raise children, and otherwise perpetuate the species into the future. Loneliness, depression, drug abuse, infertility, and generalized despair have taken hold." Peachy Keenan, (2003) "Domestic Extremist", Regenery Publishing, New York
January 2, 2024 "As we enter 2024, there is widespread public agreement about two things: (1) something big is about to happen, and (2) whatever that something is, it sure as hell won’t be pretty! While it may get pretty ugly pretty fast, though, there is an upside to what’s coming: as a country, we can finally pull this disgusting Band-Aid off, face reality for what it is, and stop pretending. However bad this year might prove to be, it might also be tremendously liberating.
Why? Because, one way or another, things will soon change. For too long, those who “run” America have had two things in common: (1) a hatred for individual freedoms, and (2) an even deeper hatred for the one country on the planet explicitly founded on their protection. As a national security surveillance State superseded the U.S. Constitution, leftists have controlled academia, journalism, the legal system, and entertainment. They have shoved anyone with a working brain out the door while assuring themselves that they deserve their privileged social positions and unearned accolades. They tell themselves that they are smart and enlightened, but anybody capable of self-examination knows this not to be true. Leftists are not happy people. They have not figured out any special meaning to life because, to them, life is meaningless. In other words, for too many years, a collection of the most depressed, least curious, morally relativistic, and intellectually homogenous people on the planet have been given pampered positions in exchange for acting as nihilistic and narcotic-dependent sea vessel captains willing to steer America into an iceberg of decline and failure." J.B. Shurk, American Thinker, January 2, 2024 "Do We Hit the Iceberg or Finally Change Course?"
November 3, 2023 "There’s a subtext to nearly all American political trends today. It’s hardly ever spoken about overtly and explicitly. But the topic is nonetheless always there. All insiders know about it. It’s also the central and critical debate concerning America’s future.
The question is as follows. Will the United States continue the present system whereby representative democracy persists as a mere veneer to keep the public distracted and defocused on the real rulers in the nation? Or will something dramatic be achieved whereby the swamp is truly drained, the administrative state gutted, the agencies disempowered, and we return to an actual constitutional system in which the people truly rule themselves through their elected representatives?
These are the two paths. It’s one or the other. They’re mutually incompatible." Jeffrey A. Tucker, November 3, 2023, Epoch Times, p A22, "Are You an Institutionalist or Anti-Institutionalist?"
October 30, 2023 "If you want an indicator of how lost Western civilization has become, go to your kids’ school and check their rules on fighting. Most likely, you’ll find out if two kids get into a fight, both get suspended, regardless of whether one was a punk bully who started it and the other was simply defending himself or some little kid. This is a moral disaster, of course – violence in the defense of what is right is a moral obligation and a symbol of a greater rot within society."
"The world's true nature is that good is forever pitted against evil."
"We must learn again to be ruthless in defeating our enemies. The big lie that Western civilization tells itself is that there are no real enemies, that there are no bad people – except the people of the West themselves, who bear some sort of original sin for not being corrupt and inept Third World barbarians."
"We have forgotten our strength and our courage. We have forgotten that we survive not through gentle hugging but through sword-swinging.The idea that Israel should somehow give these Hamas barbarians food, water, and electrical power even if it surrounds Gaza and prepares to attack is mind-boggling insanity. The moral illiteracy of expecting Israel to care more about the Palestinian people than other Palestinians do is simply bizarre."
"The hard truth is that the world contains bad people who must be crushed through ruthless violence, which shocks and horrifies modern sensibilities. But it is reality nonetheless. When people want to kill you, you are at a decision point. You can either let them kill you or stop them. But stopping them often involves aesthetically displeasing actions, such as blowing them into little bits with bombs or shoving a bayonet into their guts and watching them die in agony. And it necessarily means inflicting death and damage on the noncombatant camp followers around them. That’s why they say war is hell. And that’s why starting one is probably not a good idea. But when someone else starts one, you have to choose them or you. Someone’s going to die badly, and you know, I propose it is those other guys."
October 16, 2023 "Though around the world sociopaths stabbed some folks, the Day of Jihad fizzled in America – how many bummed patriots slammed in a mag hoping some mutant was going to choose his small town to prove Jason Aldean right? But it is only a matter of time. When you allow millions of military-aged males to come unvetted into your country, including many from bizarre hellholes where hatred for Americana is more common than food and indoor plumbing, there is a non-zero chance that some of them are part of sleeper cells waiting for the signal to murder Americans here at home." Kurt Schlichter, Town Hall, October 16, 2023, "We Are Sitting Ducks And Our Leaders Do Not Care"
August 22, 2023 "When arguing in federal court in HI in 2020, I had to get permission from the governor to enter his precious state to argue that his silly COVID lockdowns violated the Constitution. I lost. This same state, in real life, has shown how little respect for life its leaders really have. My perfectly healthy clients were not allowed to travel from one island to another to visit their own property. American citizens were turned away at the airport because they got the wrong COVID test on the mainland. The hotel gave me “parole” from the one way card key rule only to do my legal business and leave. I could not call an Uber or take a taxi at the airport. The National Guard met me at the gate to escort me to Hawaii COVID immigration to provide my information, which they verified with the hotel. I was to keep my phone on at all times so that they could track my location. This same police state didn’t turn the water on in Lahaina, didn’t have sirens, can’t begin to tell you how many children died from their incompetence. Or begin to explain it. Remember all this the next time you are asked to comply with farcical, unjust “laws” made by dictators. They are lying when their lips are moving about how much they care about you and your little life and your paper constitutional rights. Americans are beginning to realize how much we are on our own. Such a betrayal." Harmeet K. Dhillon, on "X", 8/22/23 12:44 AM
August 17, 2023 - A MUST READ!!!! The following is a transcription of Newt Gingrich's comments on Hannity last night. "“I think what you’re seeing tonight is one tree in a forest, and I think we are drifting towards the greatest Constitutional crisis since the 1850s, uh, and the rise of secession and the Civil War. I don’t mean that as hyperbole. Uh, if you read Andy McCarthy’s remarkable book, Ball of Collusion, which came out in 2019, he makes very clear that it is Barack Obama who corrupts the Justice Department, it is Hillary Clinton who routinely breaks the law and gets away with it. And now we have Joe Biden who’s learned, he’s learned from Obama that is doesn’t matter what you do, if you’re a liberal Democrat, you will not be prosecuted. He learned from Hillary that a person in high public office can get millions and millions of dollars. And they learned from watching Donald Trump that a true outsider, willing to take on the entire system, could destroy their entire machine. So what you’re seeing across the country, is a desperate, last-ditch effort by a corrupt machine to destroy their most dangerous opponent in a way which not only breaks the Constitution, destroys the rule of law, and establishes a moment of bitterness, uh, which I think will last for a generation or more. I think this is gonna be a horrendous period and we just need to understand: The people who want to control America and dictate to the rest of us will break any law, lie about any topic, and manipulate the system any way they can, and that includes a lot of the elite news media.”
August 10, 2023 "The fact that young men are getting more conservative is a cause for optimism. Remember, if you grew up male in the last ten years or so, every institution has been deployed against you. You’ve been told you are bad and horrible and evil and worthless. In contrast, every girl is an empowered girlboss ready to take her rightful place at the pinnacle of society. And to facilitate that, they must displace the dudes. And it’s no secret – that displacement, that consignment of men to second-class status, is not merely admitted but celebrated by our trash ruling class." Kurt Schlichter, August 10, 2023, Town Hall, "Angry Young Men Are Going To Disrupt The Garbage Paradigm"
Articles/Writings We Think Are A Must Read
Who Will Say No More to the Current Madness?
Once again, Victor Davis Hanson has nailed it. In his article there is a list of the most egregious crimes and failings of the Left and this Administration. Stronly urge readers to read the whole article. Here’s an excerpt of the most salient points:
“America is in existential danger.
The Biden administration has utterly destroyed the southern border — and immigration law with it.
Biden green lighted 7 million illegal aliens swarming into the U.S. without legal sanction or rudimentary audit.
China spies inside and over the U.S. with impunity. Beijing has never admitted to its responsibility for the gain-of-function COVID virus that killed a million Americans.
President Joe Biden printed $4 trillion at exactly the wrong time of soaring post-COVID consumer demand and supply shortages. No wonder he birthed the worst inflation in 40 years.
In response, interest rates tripled, gas prices doubled.
Our military is thousands of recruits short. It lacks sufficient munitions.
Following Biden’s humiliating pullout from Afghanistan, vast troves of arms were abandoned in Kabul. Billions more in scarce weapons were sent to Ukraine.
The Pentagon’s woke agenda trumps meritocracy in promotions and advancement.
Our enemies — Russia, China, Iran, North Korea — are on the move, while the U.S. seems listless.
The Biden renegade Department of Justice, CIA and FBI have become weaponized. Ideology, politics, and race — not the law — more often guide their investigations, intelligence operations and enforcement.
The downtowns of our once majestic major cities are becoming unlivable.
They are mired in refuse and trash, violent crime and homelessness. Stores and businesses leave. Millions each year flee the blue urban coasts to the red west and south.
To even say there are still two biological genders, that global warming may not be entirely manmade or necessarily destroying the planet, or that class, not race, is the proper barometer of inequality is to face ostracism and career cancellation.
The public assumes that Biden is severely cognitively challenged, likely corrupt, and a serial fabricator.
Most know what must be done, but few will tell the truth: Balance the budget. Return to legal only immigration. Restore a well-funded, but unwoke Pentagon.
Insist on racial unity. Curb the overweening administrative state. Enforce the rule of law.
Produce more gas and oil. Reestablish civic education. Insist universities protect free speech and due process — and stop proselytizing.
In other words, restore what until recently made America the strongest, most prosperous, and freest nation in the world. And quit undoing all the great good that eight generations of prior Americans bequeathed to us.”
Victor Davis Hanson saying it better than anyone. Perfectly describes the childish, impetuous behavior of the Left. A quick and incredibly accurate take on everything we see before our eyes.
An excerpt:
“Cry-baby tantrums won’t win over the public. These nonstop puerile meltdowns have turned off most Americans who tire of whiny narcissistic hypocrites.”
Strongly recommend the artful summary of what the Left is trying to do with the Disinformation Governance Board canard written by Michael Walsh in “The Pipeline”, May 2, 2022. You’ll find the whole article here. Some excerpts:
“So now the mask has dropped and, for the first time, the American people can see the modern Left in all its hateful, unadorned, vituperative, spiteful glory. Case in point: the announcement last week that the Department of Homeland Security—one of the excrescences of the Bush administration, cobbled together in its panic over 9/11—has created the “Disinformation Governance Board” in order to combat what it has, via its hitherto little-known Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, already dubbed “mis-, dis-, and mal-information.” Otherwise known as alternative points of view, but shut up, citizen.”
“Let us now remind ourselves of the late historian and Soviet scholar Robert Conquest’s third law of politics: “The simplest way to explain the behavior of any bureaucratic organization is to assume that it is controlled by a cabal of its enemies.” At this point in American history, that is not only a theory but a fact. Having narrowly “won” the 2020 election by stealing it fair and square, the Left is putting pedal to the metal to accomplish as much of its anti-foundational agenda as it can before the clock runs out on its tiny congressional majorities this fall.”
On the Subject of “Things happening in the background to purge the illicit Biden administration“
The article in American Thinker by Dr. Brian Joondeph entitled: “Nothing Can Stop What is Coming. What if Nothing is Coming?” lays out the case for the increasingly skeptical that anything is going to halt the Leftist Leviathan. Strongly recommend this article not to throw cold water on all the hope so many of us have of there being some justice on the horizon, but to lay out the stark possibility that it’s all wishful thinking and we’re stuck with what we’ve got at least until January 2023.
On Climate Change Fraud
One of the best debunking articles/videos I’ve seen recently on the revolting fraud being perpetrated by the climate alarmists. In very calm, easy to understand terms the author shows how graphs and picking the right starting point for data visualization is being used to create the narrative that they rely on for their funding, their power, their nefarious attempts to alter society and our world. This same manipulation occurs with ALL kinds of data and the Left is expert in obscuring truth, altering perception and brainwashing a lazy, non-thinking mass of sheep to believe what they want them to believe. Strongly recommend watching this…12 minutes long and a must see!
Featured Friends
Straight Line Logic
Robert Gore’s blog. I put Gore up there with Victor Davis Hanson, Jordan Peterson and Thomas Sowell. His theses are chock full of substance.
The Burning Platform
Unabashedly conspiracy-theory driven, but thoughtfully so and well-written. Makes one think, “could this really be what’s happening?”
