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”!

Facts Simply Don’t Matter

I keep reading analyses of the economy, of the upcoming election, of the political landscape. For example, J. Robert Smith in an astute article in American Thinker, presents a fact-based, highly hopeful recitation of why it is that the GOP should win big in November.

It doesn’t matter.

Way too many otherwise thinking people will vote based on nonsense like the debt forgiveness plan, the “inflation reduction” bill, “Republicans are mean,” “Orange Man Bad”, and celebrity politics, as usual. Or, they’ll lazily vote the way they always have. That includes voters of all stripes.

No one thinks anymore. No one considers the knock on effects of their vote. People are driven by what “feels right”, by what is popular, by what will make them feel virtuous. The facts about what the Democrats and Biden have done to our country simply don’t compute for them. We can cite facts till we’re blue in the face. They will not be HEARD much less considered. The Media (see my August 25th post) will cover up the idiocy, will with world-class production values twist perception and reality to gaslight and brainwash lazy, non-thinking lemmings into thinking all is well, that failures are successes, that bad is good, that what we see with our eyes and hear with our ears are not real…that what they SHOW and SAY is what’s real.

The outcome of the November election will turn on the perceptions created by the Media in the last couple of weeks before November 8th. The only thing that will win back this country are charismatic, inspiring, so-good-they-can’t-be-ignored, made-for-Hollywood or by Hollywood personalities who will repeat slogans that will pull at heart strings, make sycophants feel valued, goad the angry, feed the egos of the dumbed-down sheeple, all the while giving sanctuary to every American whether Democrat, Republican or Independent, who cares about traditional values and returning our country to what it once was and could be again.

Is that personality De Santis? Jim Jordan? Devin Nunes? Tom Cotton? Ted Cruz? Mike Pompeo? A reformed and more statesmanlike Trump? While we have many qualified and charismatic women Republicans, I believe we need a kick-ass, take-names, testosterone-filled but articulate MAN for the next several iterations.

I truly hope that the inflation, shortages, international disrespect, internecine fighting, gaslighting, border invasion, education perversions, history destruction, get properly ascribed and attributed to Democrat policies and that Americans of all persuasions wake up by November 8th. I’m hopeful but not confident.

Christmas 2020

Wishing others “Merry Christmas” this year seems misplaced somehow. For millions of people around the world the day is hardly “merry”. While I try very hard to see the bright side and the cup half full, count blessings and prayerfully remain hopeful for the future, I can’t help but feel terribly sad, not for myself so much, but for those who have suffered, are still suffering and who will yet suffer from everything that is happening around and to us.

A couple of months ago I predicted that Trump would win in a landslide and the Left and the evil it embodies would be driven back down into the hell from which it emanated. Now I’m witnessing a tsunami of unleashed, woke hellhounds that forebodes a period of chaos such as has never been seen before in our history.

It truly is a tipping point. The forces of the Left, seemingly uncoordinated but actually, masterfully directed by skilled manipulators sewing fear and creating mass delusion, have successfully brainwashed and conditioned at least half if not more of our population to believe good is evil and evil good.

Our institutions have failed us. Our judicial system, for example, has stuck its head in the sand. I attribute this to human failings of vanity, inertia and self-interest. Judges from Night Court to Supreme Court glare down from their elevated daises, ruling their fiefdoms as if they were omnipotent, demand obeisance, treat all around them with condescension (contempt, really .sic), and rule on the basis of a convoluted, ambiguous set of administrative laws that having nothing to do either with justice or the well-being of the plaintiffs and defendants appearing before them. Often their rulings are arbitrary, sometimes vindictive and sometimes even malevolent. They rarely if ever contemplate the good of society or our country as a whole. Even if they DO rule based on conviction and a desire to do what’s right, they have been so warped by Leftist rot they actually believe that society is better off with gender-neutral bathrooms! Finally, since their own livelihoods depend on what I call “popular justice”, instead of halting the Leftist, metastatic idiocy, they let it slip through their courts, kick the can down the road or punt to a higher court to preserve their income and power.

In healthcare, the “scientists” and doctors are so contradictory that even they don’t know what’s going on with either the Wuhan Virus, the other health problems that have been exacerbated by it and the influence of profit considerations on the medical-industrial complex as a whole. We are left, sadly, to hoping our doctor prescribes the right thing at the right time for our individual needs and circumstances!

In education, we’re losing an entire year of development from pre-K through post-graduate programs. The balkanization/anti-social behavior created by social media has now been institutionalized in “remote learning”, where the vast majority of students are learning little and becoming more and more socially inept. Millions of parents looking over the shoulders of their children as they watch/listen to their teachers on tablets are shocked at what their kids are being taught. Forget the three r’s….it’s woke indoctrination 24/7!

Our military and police forces are demoralized. It’s now accepted that they fight for the man or woman next to them instead of the principles of freedom, democracy or defense of the homeland. Never has the term “enemies from within” been more used or appropriate!

Politics has descended into megalomaniacal warfare – win at all costs, no holds barred, “if we have the power we can make things right” utopian lunacy. To see grownups behave like petulant adolescents, insolent malcontents, snickering brats…it’s disgusting and the Chinese, even the Europeans, are laughing at how puerile, superficial and petty our so-called leaders have become. To watch Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, the Squad, Swalwell, Schiff, Abrams and their ilk, and of course the cream of the crop, Biden and Harris, speak much less appear in public and attempt to say anything useful or uplift in any meaningful way, is to get that burning sensation when a burp comes up one’s gullet just a little.

Projection – the displacement of one’s feelings or actions onto another is the basis for all rhetoric coming out of the mouths of the Left. If we want to know what they’re doing, just listen to what they accuse the Right of! It’s like that childish, “I know you are but what am I,” phrase.

But wait. 

There is the other half or more of the country that doesn’t just sense our way of life slipping away from us, but is angry at what’s happening. Because we care about doing what’s right and acting, for the most part, in a civilized manner, we mutter to ourselves, wave flags in defiance and at our most active, call or write our congressman and women decrying the insanity. But we all sense that something is building…a righteous indignation that is a dam about to burst.

There is a quiet crying out for leadership that will right the ship as it lists in the violent, tossing waves. We’re muzzled, we’re scoffed at, we’re being treated like losers. BUT WE’RE RIGHT, and I don’t just mean politically and socially Right! Something DOES stink and it’s still the majority of Americans who recognize it, not just half or less.

And by leadership I mean, and I’ve said this before, an attractive, articulate, traditional statesman who can not just bludgeon the Left, but make it sexy, cool and desirable to be Right and Good again! He (or she) has to be tough as nails, take no BS from the media, espouse, exude and teach correct principles to the half of the population that is so dumb-downed it doesn’t even recognize it, and lift everyone up whether they no what’s good for them or not!

Perhaps it’s a military leader with civilian persuasion skills. Perhaps it’s another businessman who can navigate the political minefields and persuasively help us reconnect with our traditional roots, the roots that made us the greatest nation on earth. Perhaps, just perhaps, it’s Trump 2.0!

So this Christmas I’m hopeful. I’m certainly prayerful, and I pray there is something that can be done to prevent a Biden/Harris/Puppeteer administration from happening, as well as a takeover of the Senate by the Democrats which truly would spell disaster given their beyond stupid policies, positions, tendencies and downright evil designs. May we turn to the example of the Lord Jesus Christ and turn the other cheek, (while lopping off the head of the Leftist monster that seeks to devour us)… and may we have a happier New Year!