Yearly Archives: 2022

Education, Family, Responsibility

LETTER TO A GRADUATE

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Dear Jon,

Congratulations are truly in order.  This is a milestone.  You have a diploma, but what does it mean?

That is, what does it mean to those who do not know you?   The LACK of a High School diploma would mean a lot to people who knew only that much about you, but the fact that you have a diploma simply places you in a group of hundreds of thousands of young people who got one.  Now what?

Some kids are lucky.  They have a strong direction and interest by the time they finish highschool and they go right off to college to learn more about what interests them and some of them even wind up working at what interested them when they began college.

Many don’t.  They go to college, spend tons of money to get a degree and eventually wind up doing something entirely different.  However, the fact that they have that COLLEGE diploma, means a great deal to potential employers and colleagues.  That’s because there is no law that says a person has to attend college.

Gaining a college diploma means that an individual had enough drive and self-management to complete a course of study, and almost regardless of what the course of study was, that diploma marks the person as a good do-er – someone who could get his or her homework done even when parents weren’t there to nag and remind.  So, maybe that person can be trusted to do valuable work in exchange for money.

Some kids are even luckier.  They have a drive to learn and excel in a particular field and then go on to master that field and strive to “make a difference” in the “world.”

For many, the easiest way, or, at least, most certain way to make that difference is by becoming a teacher, and there is some truth to that.  As a teacher one is able to affect the minds and beliefs of dozens and hundreds of children – affects that will be part of them for the rest of their lives.  So teaching is pretty significant… but it’s not the path for everyone.

Sometimes the best difference that a person may make in the world derives from what he or she teaches just one or two other people – maybe children or grandchildren.  You never know.

The world, however, is still there, ready for all those “differences” to be made in it.  All those differences are not made only by high-minded diploma-holders:  the greatest ideas will evaporate if some do-er doesn’t make them real.  Often, the thinker and the do-er is the same person, and we celebrate those people.  Andrew Carnegie, Henry Ford, Eli Whitney, Edwin Land, Thomas Edison, Clara Barton, Marie Curie, and a host of other industrial, military and political leaders are among that group.

Then there are those who are famous for having done what others dreamed up: people like Neil Armstrong.  He didn’t conceive of the machinery that took him to the moon,

but he had an ability of courage and good thinking, combined, to execute the great ideas and engineering of others.

Most of us are not like that.  Most of us are pretty-well occupied dealing with “life” as it comes along, earning a living and meeting our responsibilities.  Eventually, in the course of doing what’s best for ourselves and our families, many of us also give to others in time or money or otherwise, and make our own little, un-heralded “differences” in the “world.”  This applies to most, and is the greatest, cumulative force for good in the “world.”  Some turn criminal for whatever reasons, but most are good and civilization and society move haltingly, unevenly, even stumblingly toward an average better life for all people.  You can see there is a long way to go.

Which means there is plenty of room for you to make your own difference as you make your own way, your own life, your own living.  Eventually you will do your own good.  But, how?  Ay!  There’s the rub.

I know you didn’t have the most happy, care-free experience through school.  Neither did I.  But that’s done, now.  Now – right this instant – you are alive, healthy and strong, smart and good-looking and existing at the time of greatest opportunity ever!  Right now is when you can’t shuck your responsibility to yourself because you “deserve” a vacation or a little “rest” after your twelve grueling years slaving over textbooks.

Right now is when you have to make a map, of sorts.  It’s not a map that shows roads, trails, paths and correct turns at every intersection.  It’s a map of decision, though – definitely of decision.  You are very fortunate – lucky, even – that you are where you are with the people in your life who are here.  You have a smart brain.  And, it’s time to make a decision about making decisions.  Life on this planet is based on assumptions, beliefs and decisions.  And love.  It’s also based on love.

First, let’s examine what love has to do with it.  You are a product of love, for example.  Your mom and dad loved enough to go to the trouble of creating you, but not simply as a gift to YOU, but as a gift to each other, and with some expectation – an assumption, if you will, that whoever you were would give love back in return.  That is the real circle of life.

Love is not infinite.  It’s huge, but it has limits.  People who never return love that you send their way, can literally suck all the love out of you, leaving emptiness.  By returning love, you can multiply it, and the person to whom you returned that love not only has as much love as he or she originally had for you, but more than that.  Multiplication.  It’s a really cool phenomenon.  We don’t always call it love. 

Oftentimes the energy or effect that we might call love, is called and expressed as trust.  When you are trustworthy, when you keep your word, when you keep a secret, when you deliver on a promise, when you meet right expectations… you are expressing the force we call love.  People who learn to trust you develop an assumption about you that is called trust, but is a form of love.  Like love, trust given in return tends to

multiply trust between people.  There are very few “good” accomplishments that do not include a lot of trust between people.  It is the unwritten contract of honesty that enables most of the commerce of life, both monetary and personal.  Honesty, trust, love.  Obviously it’s important and you know you have already learned to trust quite a few people in your first eighteen years on Earth.  Have they all learned to trust you back?  That’s the first decision on your decision map: am I willing to do what it takes to be a person of trust?  Am I willing to sacrifice, sometimes, to maintain that trust?  Am I willing to do what it takes to deliver on promises I have made?  Will people who know me always know that I may be trusted to keep my word?  That’s the first decision, Jon.

People who live in accordance with that decision generally GIVE as much as they RECEIVE.  Like emotional love, people who accept the trust of others and don’t return it by action and discipline, will soon suck all the trust out of a relationship, leaving emptiness.  I hope you decide to be a trust generator.

You are bound to encounter people who are not worthy of your trust and you must be wise and careful of where you place YOUR trust.  You know someone like Frank Allen, for example, can always be trusted, but there are those who will lie to you, take advantage of your trust, even steal from you, and you must recognize when trust is the wrong thing to do with that person.  Trust is big but not infinite, and it’s extremely fragile.   A solid trust relationship is worth more than gold, and you are obligated to protect and nurture it.  It’s everything from doing what you said to saving the life of the soldier next you in battle – or him saving you.

We all live on a path built out of assumptions… assumptions that are part of our personal belief structure.  For example, we assume that the sun is coming up on time each morning; we assume that when we put our foot down on the floor that it will be firm and able to support us – same thing with the ground.  We expect – or assume – that tap water is safe to drink.  There are thousands and hundreds of thousands of assumptions that we have learned to depend upon.  Most accidents, surprises, shocks, injuries… the list is long, that happen, are when something we assumed to be true or real, is not.  Or it’s when something that we are in the habit of assuming, but which can actually vary, has varied and we fail to observe it – we fail to adjust our assumptions.

For example, a driver may assume that the person in the intersection who appears to be signaling for a turn is actually going to make that turn.  We have experienced enough instances when a turn is signaled and then actually made, that we “let down our defenses” and assume that the turn will be made this fine morning, too.  Unfortunately, sometimes the signaler is not aware he or she is signaling and instead drives right into you, or, worse, you drive right into him or her.

Assumptions can let you down.  Assumptions are created out of one-way trust.  Since the ground has always been solid, you can assume it will be today, also, but you can’t “trust” that the ground will be solid, can you?  The ground has no heart.  It can’t love you, it can’t “return” your trust.  You must recognize that making assumptions is strictly

a one-sided activity.  Make a decision, please, to never assume too much.  Maintain conscious awareness… and a sense of skepticism.  It is an old saying, but totally true: “Things are not always what they appear to be.”

The greatest pain and emotional injuries occur where someone has assumed a certain relationship exists – perhaps one of trust, or even love – when it does not, or that it is of a particular nature when it is something quite different.  The assuming party then acts or trusts in a certain way and is thunderstruck when what he or she expected would happen is completely different from what actually does happen – like assuming the other driver were going to turn – and great pain is the result.

From that might spring great anger or hatred, two things you want to avoid with as much power as you can muster, for they are corrosive, like a strong acid, eating away at your abilities to love and trust.  Don’t assume too much.

You know something about the “scientific method,” I’m sure.  An observer takes note of a phenomenon – maybe as simple as a pin dropping to the floor.  He or she measures how long it takes for the pin to reach the floor and creates an experiment where the same pin can be measured falling to the floor, again.  After two or three repetitions, the observer, armed with the recorded observations, may make a statement that gravity has a “rate” of attraction.  In other words, a weight equal to the weight of the pin will fall the observed distance in so many thousandths of a second, every time.  Others won’t even try the same experiment – they begin to assume the truth of the observer’s statement about falling pins.  Can you already see how many mistakes the others are making?  Let’s list a few:

  1. Does a square chip of metal the weight of that pin fall at the same rate?
  2. Does the pin dropped head down fall differently than point down?
  3. What if the pin is dropped sideways instead of head or point down?
  4. Is it different in a vacuum than in the air?
  5. What about if it were dropped in humid air, or bone-dry air?
  6. What if it were dropped in a freezer at 32 degrees below zero?
  7. If you climbed a mountain and dropped the pin the same height at an altitude of 10,000 feet above sea level, would it fall at exactly the same rate?
  8. What about if you went to the shores of the Dead Sea and dropped it there?
  9. What if you went to another place on Earth at exactly the same conditions, would it fall at exactly the same rate?

Wow.  Such a simple experiment with so many variables!   Who knew?  The point is, just like relationships in life, work, families and friendships, a single observation can’t be the basis of trust or love.  You must decide that you will test for some variables before you start assuming that something is true, real or honest – ie. trustworthy – between yourself and new acquaintances.  This also means that you can’t assume that you have the trust of other people, or that you have the right to be combative or quick to anger with others.  You have to find a pattern of truth from multiple observations.  When you have a basis for trust, your relationship with others will be the best it can be.  If you assume a level of trust and it proves to not be real, you will be hurt and so will the other person, and so will some around you.  Please, make a decision that you will be a wise observer: ready to trust, but only when it’s proper and good.

Of course, a lot of these decisions and observations and even skepticism, apply to you, yourself, as well.  Do you keep promises to yourself?  Do you trust yourself?  What if you said to yourself that you were going to become an expert at… gaming software, for example.  Are you willing to do what it takes to become that expert, to gain that expertise?  Will you keep your word to yourself?

Or, if you find that it is hard work to keep that promise, will you talk yourself out of caring about that promise?

Or, are you willing to find out what the steps will be to gain that expertise, so that you can then plan to achieve it?  In other words, are you going to become a great    do-er or simply dream about becoming one?

Maybe simpler terms are easier.  If you lived in an apartment and there was no food in the cupboards or the refrigerator, would you be willing to do what it takes to buy some food?  Or would you go to a soup-kitchen and beg for a meal?

Those are promises you make to yourself.  Everyone has relationships with others where he or she keeps a high trust level, protecting confidences, keeping promises, stuff like that, yet fails to keep a promise to him- or herself.  You are the only person who can make that trust decision; you are the only person who has the ability to observe whether you have proven to be trustworthy to yourself.

It is that tiny, tiny sliver of distance between trusting yourself or not, that determines how we live our lives.  “This above all, to thine own self be true; And it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not be false to any man.”

So, you must decide, and now is when you must.  How will I live?  And you can’t leap, in one step, one experiment, one observation, from where you are to some ultimate dream or goal.  You need a number of observations.  You can try college or junior college and find it a perfect fit for your “map.”   You might observe that it is not.

You could “apprentice” yourself in a field you are interested in, and work for a while before going to college.  You’ll have a lot of observations on which to base your self-trust.

You could take a minimum-wage job and master it.  You will be amazed to see how many doors open up as a result.  It doesn’t matter what it is.  It is YOUR decision to be a drudge or a dynamo.  You took that job with Frank at the Elks and became a dynamo, gaining an excellent reputation, there, while helping a lot of people you don’t even know.  You TOOK the $25.00 but you GAVE much more.  It’s a formula for a good life.  You also gained many observations about cause and effect, work and rest, starting and finishing, cooperation and independence, expertise and apprenticeship.

You can do hard jobs.  You may not always like what has to be done, but you can do hard work.  That’s pretty important.  The greatest successes in America are based on starting at the “bottom” and working your way up.  Every famous general started at the “bottom.”

Finally, you must never stop learning, reading or teaching.  Learn things so that you can teach others about them.  I hope you make this decision / promise to yourself.  None of us knows enough.  The mind is always at a new level, having accumulated the education of yesterday.  Now, it’s today.  You can’t stay here, for tomorrow is coming.  You can try, but you’ll fail in everything if you think today is your forever.

Today is the only day in which you can prepare for tomorrow.  Whether you intend to (which I hope) or not, you ARE preparing for tomorrow.  It’s almost like magic.  No matter WHAT you do today, it is preparation for tomorrow.

The magic is in your soul.   It’s you.

Foreign Policy

BUFFETED

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General Xi’s chicken.

A world that has been buffeted for more than two years by a manufactured pandemic is now witness to a military assault on a neighboring country with full-blown invasion, bombings, heavy weapons and classical military pincer-movement on the neighbor’s capitol.  People and troops are dying, children are screaming and the citizens of the attacked nation are proving their mettle in the face of overwhelming force arrayed against them.  It is happening in the midst of what the World Economic Forum, an assemblage of ultra-wealthy bankers, actual and would-be dictators and global merchants, are hoping is the correct time to execute “The Great Reset” – a globalization of governance and finance and production that will cement the oligarchs into power, while redistributing some wealth to all the less-fortunate denizens of the planet sufficient to keep them from rising up against the idea of perpetual second-class-ism.

Given that the perpetrator is the dictator of Russia, an oligarch and grand grifter in his own right, it is likely that the military assault he is so proud of is happening with at least tacit permission of the “WEF,” if not its approval.  “Why?  And why now?” poorly informed Americans are asking.  Of greater concern to those same questioners: “What will this do to gas prices?”  And so it goes.

Russia is smashing Ukraine, one of the former Soviet “republics” that gained freedom upon the Soviet Union’s dissolution 30 years ago.  Dictator-in-fact, Vladimir Putin, an old KGB operator once stationed in East Germany, is redressing grievances he believes the Russian people have with an independent Ukraine.  The current U. S. leadership has not only hamstrung itself with ideological bindings that, so far at least, severely limit the options the U. S. has for countering or defusing this hottest stage of a war we barely understand.  There is danger at almost every direction we might go.

In other words, hobbling American oil and gas production to accomplish some fallacious climate modification, has exposed the utter “boobishness” of our foreign policy establishment.  The ability of these dopes to risk everything and surrender everything in Afghanistan, should have opened the eyes of those who engineered certification of Biden’s election in 2020.  In a just world, the people, including voters, who put the Biden administration into office would be begging forgiveness from their fellow Americans and from most of the Western world.  Elections have consequences.

Russia’s economy is not proportional to its geography, and it is heavily dependent upon oil and gas exports.  By reversing America’s energy independence and surplus, President Biden provided Russia with both increasing revenues, propping up Putin’s preparations for war, and with increased leverage over western Europe’s need for natural gas.  In short, kow-towing to ultra-leftists and believers in the Climate-Change faith has yielded utterly stupid national and international policies.  Can we hope that the Biden administration might reverse its worst ideas?  We can correct mistakes; it is more difficult to fix stupidity.

Biden, Crime, Culture, Education, Health Care, Immigration, Politics 2022, Religion

FREE TRUCKIN’

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President Joe Biden speaks about his domestic agenda from the
East Room of the White House in Washington, Thursday, Oct. 28, 2021,
as Vice President Kamala Harris looks on. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

Thousands of independent truck drivers in Canada have coalesced to protest their government’s Covid-19 “vaccine” mandate.  Many are “vaccinated” (have accepted the weird injections) but are demanding freedom to choose what goes into their bloodstreams.  Their Premier, Justin Trudeau, has scurried off to hide from them, claiming exposure to Covid – what else?  He’s a heroic figure by his own account.  He looks more like an asshole, but that’s subjective.

In all likelihood truckers in the U. S. are going to form their own convoy in protest of our government’s denial of freedom, too.  Canada’s convoy was up to 45 miles long as it descended upon Ottowa.  The Americans will try to exceed that, one suspects.  Either way, the Canadians have inspired working people around the world to organize against the soft, yet hardening, tyrannies of supposed pandemic suppression; this applies mainly to the Biden Administration.

President Joe Biden has imposed an odd case study of how strange, long debunked theories of leftist governance, can screw up a large nation in a matter of months.  Still, we have to go back further than January 20, 2021 to appreciate the impact of leftism on a supposedly Constitutionally limited democratic republic, particularly in reaction to a national “health emergency.”  Covid-19 was such a perfect foil for destroying freedom and personal responsibility, that leftists have almost rejoiced in the opportunities to show how much better life can be under the firm hands of government control.  It has fit their dreams so well that the creation of Covid-19 might appear to be a gift from the great leftist in the sky… or in China – same thing to some.

All of this brings us to contemplating how many left-ward changes POTUS (Poop-head Of The United States) has made in slightly more than one year.  Among them are a host of UN-Constitutional, EXTRA-Constitutional and ANTI-Constitutional actions and policies.  A number of them will, patriots hope, lead to impeachment and conviction of Mr. Biden.  One glaring example is illegal immigration, one of the first “orders” POTUS issued on January 21st, his first full day in office.  Biden reversed every Trump administration border policy, stopping virtually all deportations and virtually all arrests of illegal entrants.  By so doing he ushered in one of the great travesties in U. S. history.

Since the end of January, 2021, nearly 2 MILLION illegal entrants have crossed the southern border – by the hundreds and thousands – and Joe Biden has forced the Border Patrol and I.C.E. to allow them in and then to provide various articles of clothing, cell-phones, prepaid for a year, hotel rooms and rides, even flights, to wherever the illegals want to go, or wherever Biden wants them to go.  This policy requires the specific subversion of U. S. law.  It forces expenses upon the sovereign states that created the FEDERAL governing system, completely subverting the Tenth Amendment.  There is no pro-American value to it.  Indeed, beyond unfettered access to public welfare programs and illegal residence in our country, illegal entrants are afforded more rights and far fewer legal constraints than are U. S. citizens!  In fact, the federal government bends over backwards to provide Constitutional rights and protections to illegal aliens, including providing attorneys to every illegal entrant to defend their spurious claims to asylum.  Many bleeding-heart liberals consider that it is the duty of the United States to feel sorry for, and provide welfare to, every unhappy person in the world.  While that’s a sweet opinion, it has almost nothing to do with the purpose of nationhood: survival.

Every nation on Earth has a reason for being.  For some, for most, actually, it is ethnicity.  That is, nationhood typically has sprung from tribal identity, although most countries have also been fought for against neighboring tribes, and often expanded thereby. In too many examples nations have been cobbled together through domination and war.  Commonality of language and / or religious belief has proven just as nationalizing as ethnic tribalism.  Many factors combine to establish – and maintain – successful nations.  Only one nation has survived because of a set of principles, almost despite ethnicity.  It is exceptional.

To cement its unique reasons for being, the founding Fathers – and Mothers – of the United States of America, established an ageless covenant with the people of their recently fought-for states: The Constitution, the most respected and “copied” foundational document in the world.  Every President, commencing with George Washington, and virtually every other elected state and federal official since, has sworn to uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States.  One might think that failing to do so would be justification for removal from office.

Every nation, however it justifies its continued existence, recognizes and passionately defends its borders… and its culture.  For a nation to be led by a person or group of people who take actions to NOT defend its borders or even its culture, would seem to honest citizens sufficient reason to remove him or them from power.  Back to Covid-19.

There is a large cohort of ostensible Americans who are charged with the vital task of conveying the culture and heritage of the United States to its children – to our future, in fact.  Unfortunately, teachers and the overarching public education industry, have, over the past fifty years, been co-opted by ultra-leftists and virtual communists.  Teachers’ unions have established themselves as the operators of schools, rather than the parents of children or the local, elected, school committees or boards who, presumably, answer to their constituents.  It all results from political – and financial – corruption, with most of the finances being tax dollars… tax dollars extracted from real property owners, primarily, under the threat of police powers.

As a consequence, anti-American ideologies are taught to students in schools of “education” and then taught to elementary school students with the knowledge of their parents.  This is changing, but decades of damage have been accomplished, reflected in a general malaise infecting 5 to 21-year-olds, noted in rates of drug use, lack of religious education, hyper-sexualization and suicide rates.  Many of our youth believe they prefer socialism to capitalism, and if it’s the form of monopolistic, oligharchic wealth concentration we have allowed to date, they are right.  Our Constitutional Republican form of governance and freedom is designed to allow for hope, imagination, joy and attainment.  Our schools and attendant politics have produced less and less capable or independent young adults, and a lack of hope so profound as to destroy institutions like marriage, motherhood and fatherhood.  If a primary purpose of nationhood is survival, America is failing.  Illegal immigration won’t fix what ails us.

Covid provided thousands of incipient fascists with a perfect opportunity to push people around.  The three most destructive effects of government “emergency” powers are the destruction of thousands of small businesses and millions of jobs, destruction of what was left of American economic freedom and budgetary strength, and destruction of the education and development of millions of K through 12 students.  “Educators,” so-called, in teachers’ unions and administrative positions in virtually every school system, learned to exercise powers they’d only dreamed of prior.  Parents, their schedules and economies and their precious offspring could be controlled in ways never imagined under our Constitution.  As the truth has been spilling out about actual Covid threats and effects, schools are the largest remaining poisoned well of fascism – including pushing these dangerous injections onto kids as young as five years.  It all constitutes a crime against humanity.  Australia, New Zealand and, now, Canada, have enjoyed practicing new-found fascistic powers, to the point of mobilizing against freedom.  Many of those same teachers are envious.

Naturally, parents have rebelled against the cloying, sticky blob of indoctrinators, and have succeeded many areas.  Covid helped to expose the rot.  But the lerftist, Democrat power structure will not relinquish its attempts to replace the American system with global socialism, readily or cleanly.  Its members are clever and cunning, albeit not wise.  The Biden deministration is happy to sic Merrick Garland and his DOJ thugs, so to speak, on parents who resist the wasting of education time on critical race or gender theories.  What the Hell are we doing with the American dream bequeathed to us over the centuries?

Americans like to believe that we can work hard to elect this or that person or set of persons, and thereby change the direction of freedom, opportunity and of government, itself.  It barely works anymore.  Elections come and go, but the direction of government is inexorably toward higher pay and benefits for government officials and employees – higher than for average citizens – toward increasing benefits and rights for non-working welfare recipients, toward increasing benefits and rights for illegal entrants, toward increasing controls over individuals’ rights and freedoms, and toward perpetual, unredeemable debt. 

Two things must happen: 1) voters must become smarter, hopefully wiser; and, 2) candidates for office must become smarter and better principled in terms of commitment to our Constitution, Bill of Rights and the Declaration of Independence. 

Are we wise enough, collectively or individually, to stop electing anti-freedom, anti-American officials and “representatives?  Do we actually believe that we can ignore the Constitution and just vote ourselves benefits from government much longer?  Please.

Biden, Crime, Economics, Education, Elections, Foreign Policy, Health Care, Politics 2022, Religion, Representation

THIS IS THE YEAR

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What can he see?

This is the year.  2022 has been forced by the left to be the fulcrum of history.  The perception of the left in 2020, faced with the likelihood of Trump’s re-election, was that the field was finally fertile enough to sow Communism (under a variety of euphemisms) in the sharply divided and guilt-ridden, formerly United States.  Cities were collapsing in 2020, “Black Lives Matter” had coordinated with thousands of weirdos, “antifa” thugs and students and other youth who had been taught to hate our nation and history.  The time seemed right to pull the trigger on revolution… besides, the media and a strange congress had many municipal leaders so consumed with hatred for Donald Trump and the Americanism he represented, that they too, agreed with “BLM” and allowed rioting in the name of myriad hatreds to destroy their communities.

The demise of George Floyd provided the spark as if written into a script.  If Derek Chauvin had not been so incredibly stupid, some other event would have happened, some other black man would have conflicted with police and drawn fire while unarmed.  Then his family would have become millionaires and Nancy Pelosi and a bunch of other dopes would have kneeled in the rotunda in that man’s memory, while the same cities – and hopes – burned.

The left engineered the answer to a big wish of theirs: dumping Donald Trump.  We can begin to grasp what leftists really have for an end-game, when we dissect their hatreds, and their hatred for Trump – and trump supporters – is instructive.  Trump, they decry, is a “populist,” which is to say, he only goes with what is “popular.”  “Populist,” however, actually means being a member of the “Populist Party,” which gained traction in the late 19th century over issues like initiating an income tax, public ownership of utilities, support for unionization to counter the power of large corporations and banks, and support for fair returns for farmers.  As a “people’s” party, the Populists were seeking to balance  economic freedom for small business and workers, against the explosion of industrial growth and price-fixing power of industrial and financial trusts.  Many of these issues were assumed by Progressives and the “Trust-Busters” in the first decade of the 20th century.

The more meaningful approbation of Trump is that of “Nationalist.”  This is supposedly terrible, and likened to Nazism, ostensibly because Hitler was a nationalist.  “America First” became pejorative in the view of leftists.  So, what is the alternative goal?  Globalism: the dissolution of national identities and, therefore, national heritage and culture.  Destruction of American culture was the primary effect of 2020 lawlessness.  It seemed to have many allies, one of whom is now president.  What were/are they thinking?

Anti-nationalism has only one goal, globalist, one-world government.  Is there any reason to expect that one-world government will be based on the American, Constitutionally limited  model?  We can learn a lot from the last 50 years of United Nations “enlightenment.”  The vaunted U. N. was a creation of liberals and leftists who sold war-weary Americans on the image of diverse peoples all getting along to spread peace, democracy and the end of hunger around the world.  Communists never accepted those premises, nor did other kinds of tyrants… nor Nazi-enflamed fundamentalist Muslims.  To poorer nations it was a way to get money from the United States; to Communists a way to weaken the United States, to Muslims, a way to get the U. S. to pay for oil for poorer nations while weakening Christianity.

Within a very short time the U. N. became an excusatory congress for the U. S. policy of containing Communism, and we were thrust into the Korean Conflict for that stated purpose, but at its heart that war was an excuse to pit the U. S. against the Soviet Union and, ultimately, against communist China, while weakening the only super-power.  It was the first war we won by losing: a new experience for the greatest generation.

Right on its heels the globalist C.I.A. and State Department leftists concocted what became the Viet-Nam War, the scars of which have never healed.  Still ostensibly “containing” Communism, the U. S. consumed about a $Trillion dollars (back when a Billion dollars was a lot of money) and destroyed Americans’ faith in their military.  So many lies were told about the conduct and success of that stupid conflict, that the Army had to hire hundreds of paid dissemblers to keep up with the flow.  Again, we lost by winning, and were shamed.

Since Viet-Nam we have embarked on numerous military adventures, most of which are unknown to Americans and better grasped by other nations, including our enemies, of which there is a considerable list.  At the same time we have exhausted our credit line with policies of welfare, corporate, family and personal, international and more. Nine administrations and 18 Congresses have seen fit to overspend – not at declining but at INCREASING rates.  We now have commitments that cannot be met, and devaluing the currency is the final effect.  Americans are seeking a political solution to a philosophical deficit: we have accepted the blandishments of socialists and communists for 60 years and mismanaged our industrial base so badly that we can barely afford to defend ourselves, much less project power to constrain tyrants.  Freedom is shrinking, everywhere.

Americans have swayed from responsibility to licentiousness, forswearing God and religion, turning instead to the perpetual debt-creation of government.  We are not able to sacrifice for a better future as our parents and grandparents did, automatically.  We have a plethora of foolish rights… and fewer freedoms.  The freedoms remaining are under assault, now that we have elected a tyrant of our own.

So, 2022 poses a host of problems that took a long time to gestate, but which need to be corrected in very short order.  It will take sacrifice on everyone’s part.  America has never been invaded, discounting the War of 1812, and we have not felt the devastation and losses of war.  But a war is brewing, here amongst us, and a welfare check won’t stave it off.  What do Americans have to do, now?  Learn Mandarin?

More than once over the past eight years we have considered our ballooning debt.  For the past two years elements of our deep state, agencies of the National Institutes of Health, elected leftists, George Soros’ minions and Communist China, have conspired to hobble capitalism about as rapidly as has ever been done – our hobbling of ourselves not having proceeded as quickly as they’d liked.  Brutal lockdowns and debt-defying welfare payments to locked out workers and free-loaders, fearful school closings and now mandated injections of ersatz vaccines or firings – even in the military and emergency domestic personnel – have stripped our workforce and businesses of the people needed to produce our goods and productive surplus.  We are broke and rushing to become poorer…, well, except for a few multi-billionaire-global merchants and money manipulators.  We have given up the capitalist opportunity society for an oligarchy of wealth and severe stratification into the rakers, the makers, the takers and the fakers.

Even more effectively, we have turned the “vaxxed” into haters of the “unvaxxed,” while formerly trustworthy doctors and hospitals, in thrall to the pharmaceutical manufacturers, have started denying medical care to those who choose to not be injected with mRNA poisons, whose safety and efficacy have been unknown, only now being revealed as neither safe nor effective.  Our barely recognizable “government’s” only offering is dissolution of the constitution and further expansion of the debt by another couple of $Trillion.  God save us.

It appears that a massive shift in political alignment is in the offing for the mid-term elections, but so what?  We are teetering, contemplating a preposterous war1 and swearing at one another.  Society is rending itself as it awaits the next free-delivery of goodies and gadgets from Amazon Prime and GrubHub, no longer even bothering to cook for ourselves.  We’ve demonized smokers, and glorified tokers.  Will changing control of Congress mean a tinker’s dam?  What do we expect a powerful new Congress to do?

Will a Republican congress cut the federal budget?  Will it use its “power of the purse” to force enforcement of the Constitution and of laws?  Will it impeach scurrilous Joe Biden?  Will it pursue exposure of the deep state and various collusions and corruptions that seem to have happened?  Will it force a complete house-cleaning at the Department of Justice?  Will it impeach Merrick Garland on Constitutional grounds?  Will it stop raising the debt “ceiling?”  Will it undue a host of bad laws and regulations?  Will Republicans eliminate clearly racist distinctions in the application of laws?  Will it pass a budget?  Will it resist any legislation of more than say, 30 or 40 pages in length?  Will it prevent the back-door passage of unrelated “wants” that certain Reps or Senators want to attach to true “needs” legislation?  Do we think either House will reform itself for the benefit of citizens or in defense of Constitutional rights and freedoms?  Given the last 40 or 50 years of congressional history, all these hopes… indeed, ANY of these, seems like a long shot.

We saw, upon the surprise election of both leftist and somewhat questionable Democrat Senators from Georgia, that the Democrat party was poised to push through utterly radical policies.  Indeed, their virulent attempts to “reset” American Constitutionality would lead patriots to accept the plausibility of concerted efforts to steal the presidential – and other – elections in 2020, in order to get the “reset” underway.  It, the rabid intensity for replacing the American system, seems to not be politics, anymore; it is no longer based on how to best represent the needs of the American people, but rather a mission to undo the last bastion of freedom in favor of a Chinese-led global tyranny.

The question, then, aside from “will we descend into war over Ukraine,” is how radically, how rabidly will the Pelosi-Schumer Democrats breach the bounds of law, custom and ethics to achieve victory in the mid-terms?  They have shown, repeatedly, that free and fair elections cannot be depended upon to maintain their majority in either house.

Consequently, given the building expectation of a Republican sweep of the mid-term elections, the threat to a Democrat majority anywhere is also building.  Watching the criminality guiding the Biden administration along our southern border, and the willingness of Merrick Garland to abridge the Bill of Rights, the threat to the survival of the United States will likely be experienced in 2022.  There is no one to our West who will save democracy for US.  We must save and defend it ourselves… right now.

1 There is really only one solution to the Ukraine standoff.  With consequences for invasion on the table, the U. S. must reach out to Putin and President Zelensky, not at the same time or place, but close, to commence negotiations.  Ukraine deserves respect, but not American blood.  Biden or Blinken or one of their apologists must make clear to Zelensky that neither NATO, or an assemblage of European states is going to risk everything to defend Ukraine from the Russian juggernaut.  Russia holds the military cards and killing thousands of them and more thousands of Ukrainians is not going to shift that balance materially.

Russia also must be respected, and assuaged.  The U. S. must assure Putin in no uncertain terms that war will not ensue over Ukraine IF an acceptable condition of neutrality for Ukraine: neutrality with sovereignty, can be established that is acceptable to Ukraine and Russia.  That may involve special trading status between those two nations, and sufficient flexibility for Ukraine to trade elsewhere as well.  It will have to recognize the special status of Crimea as a military enclave for the Russian Navy with some rights of veto by Ukraine for other than agreed uses and operations there, perhaps with a 99-year “lease” of the peninsula.  It could include a pact within which neither nation would take sides with any 3rd party against the other.  It must also recognize the cultural distinctions of ethnic Russians resident in Ukraine, and possible changes in the acceptance of the Russian language within Ukraine.

There is a diplomatic path that the U. S. could broker and cause to be recognized by the European Union and NATO itself, including NATO’s firm rejection of membership by Ukraine and agreement by Ukraine to cease negotiations with or appeals to NATO.  The U. S. should agree to recognize the neutrality of Ukraine and to lead the effort to have the rest of the U. N. similarly recognize the new status.  Russia must agree to exercise no military provocation or threat to Ukraine and to recognize, unequivocally, its independence, neutrality and sovereignty.  It’s possible.  All alternatives to this framework are disastrous.

Crime, Culture, Economics, Education, Family, Taxation

BUSINESS, PROFITS, CHARITY & FREEDOM

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Taking care of business…

Fewer and fewer people understand capitalism, despite every, single, one of us being a capitalist.  This is an odd distortion of knowledge and understanding, and it has taken a lot of work.  There are two kinds of capital: earned and unearned.  Figuring out which is which will make clear where each of us is on the spectrum.

Consider a newborn baby.  He or she will cry and fuss until he or she receives food and/or comfort – often the very same things.  There is no sense of sacrificing for greater rewards an hour or two later, or of “saving up” cries in order to obtain a larger portion at a later time.  Babies exhibit raw capitalism: pure barter.  I won’t make your motherly instincts feel the discomfort of a crying baby if you will provide what it takes to comfort me and put enough food into me so that I will sleep… like a baby.  We all start out as capitalists.

We might also note that a baby doesn’t save any food or comfort for later, nor does he or she offer more quiet alleviation of motherly guilt in exchange for food than it takes.  Everything is on the expense accounts as “current” – no accrual.

It takes a while for infants and toddlers to figure out that kindness and caring can be “banked,” as it were, for increased pleasure and happiness any time later.  It’s a big concept.  If lovingly raised, however, children do learn to avoid punishment for “bad” or costly actions, and to express love and kindness toward parents and others when they are not hungry or uncomfortable… and even to share possessions.  At some point they learn to trade possessions for perceived “profits.”  Something Tommy has seems more desirable than what Jeffy has – and vice-versa – and both parties “profit” from an exchange of goods.  Also a big concept.

Like all human “isms,” even incipient capitalism requires regulation and “institutionalized” bounds.  Almost every child learns that simply taking something of Tommy’s is extremely profitable: nothing is given up in exchange.  Parents or other adults are, at that point, obligated to punish – or dis-incentivize – that practice.  Jeffy’s taking, or stealing the possession of Tommy’s, must be made costly enough that Jeffy learns as immediately as possible, that there is no advantage or profit in that act or acquisition.  And, it must be a cost that exceeds the simple return of the stolen property.  Whether it’s a period of disfavor from a parent, or deprivation of a desired activity, a slap on the hand or something else proportional to the “crime,” there must be a cost that the perpetrator, Jeffy, will do his best to avoid going forward.  Otherwise, stealing becomes a habit and will be perceived as profitable and worthwhile.  Several big concepts.

It’s easy to imagine the fairly short-term consequences of the lack of institutionalized sanctioning of “bad” actions.  In this case, the “institution” is the “law,” or, at least, the automatic and swift punishment (let’s hope, by parents) of theft in addition to retribution.  This is the fundament of civilization; capitalism is woven amongst all the threads of civilized society.

Now let’s assume that our properly guided and sanctioned child grows up, essentially according to the Ten Commandments.  People of faith attempt to obey all ten, there being nothing negative about any of them, which is to say: nothing that hurts social cooperation and quality of life, or the raising of new adults with civilizing self-control.  Strictures against creating and worshipping graven images instead of God; taking the name of God in vain (cursing involving God’s name or power); keeping the sabbath day holy is also a good idea, albeit one that we in America have cleverly set aside; honoring our fathers and mothers is both logical and essential to the health of society; not killing one another; not committing adultery; not stealing; not lying about our neighbors; and, not coveting the property of our neighbors.  These are essentially society-protecting strictures that we attempt to talk ourselves away from only at our peril.  The hate-based riots of 2020 are the clear and clarion proof of the fragility of civilization in the absence of “the Commandments,” whatever their source.

Our new adult decides to start a business.  Having been raised “with a conscience,” Jeffy plans to sell his skills as a carpenter, and he recognizes that he’ll need a partner with similar skills in order to keep his contracting promises and to help avoid mistakes.  He makes arrangements with a local lumberyard to establish an account with sufficient credit to do significant renovation or add-on projects.  The account is based on Jeffy’s reputation as an honest person and, in part, on his father’s equivalent reputation.  The lumberyard considers the potential of a growing business customer as a worthy risk of a certain level of credit, or debt.

By virtue of hiring Aaron, a friend he knows from High school, who also loves building things, Jeffy takes on a remarkable burden of employer obligations, including various benefits that must be paid, including health care and liability insurances, and, of course, meeting “payroll.”  As owner of the business, Jeffy also is responsible for legal contracting with customers, and for other tax consequences of success.  He and Aaron still believe in their abilities and respective roles. and business commences.

“Jeff’s Construction” finds itself busy and able to pay both the owner and his employee reasonable wages while gaining assets in the form of two trucks and several power tools, and while accumulating some money in a local bank.  In other words, “Jeff’s” is profitable.  Knowing that his little company was facing taxes on his profits at both the state and federal levels, Jeff decides to make a donation to his church’s Christmas Food Drive.  With profits on the books of about $12,000, Jeff donates $2,000 to the food drive.  He and Aaron get their picture in the paper handing over a big cardboard check to the chairman of the Drive committee.  The minister and several other key people are also in the picture.  Jeff makes a handful of new connections, as a result, a couple of whom later contract with “Jeff’s Construction” for renovations of their homes.

As the years go by, “Jeff’s Construction” becomes “J & A Builders, Inc.” incorporated and no longer a proprietorship.  They grow to 6 full-time employees.  Each summer J & A work with the regional technical high school to provide summer jobs to budding carpenters.  Aside from income taxes to state and federal government, J & A’s building and garages plus the property taxes on the two partners’ and their 6 employees’ homes total over $100,000 per year, while excise taxes on their vehicles kick in another $26,000.  Donations to the Food Drive, the Boys and Girls Club and to the local “Y” for Summer Camp sponsorships plus support of a local Little League team, amount to nearly $25,000.  J & A also matches 401-K contributions up to 5% of income for all 8 personnel.

Those who misunderstand the immense values of honest profit are always looking for “businesses” and “business owners” to right non-business wrongs in society, perhaps because they are “fortunate.”  But that is not a business obligation.  The business is obliged to operate legally and honestly, delivering what it promises and not cheating customers, and to do so at a profit so that all legal obligations to employees and suppliers are met.  By providing multiple streams of tax revenue, businesses provide for all that civil society is relied upon to provide for residents.  Charity is in addition, and a blessing, not an obligation.

Of course, everything is different for those small businesses that have a room in the back that’s full of cash… cash they’re just too greedy to share with their oppressed workers and every poor person in town.  But, there are damned few of those. 

There are  many ways to add new wealth to an economy and to a nation.  The first of these was personal manufacture, in a sense, where the best tools or weapons compared to other groups or tribes created an advantage in terms of safety, hunting and survival.  Next came agriculture, permanent villages and cities and the need to defend them, which latter need spurred invention, metallurgy, and more.  Along with agriculture, fishing also introduces wealth and spurred marine technology.  In the presence of defensive pressures came a third major source of new wealth: mining.  Everything, of course, required managed labor and the necessary efficiencies that make ever-larger projects, whether construction or war-fighting, possible.  Indeed, it all made the Roman Empire possible – a success of management and leadership that taught some lessons to all of today’s successful – and failed – governments.  Religion, particularly in terms of Judaism and Christianity and the economic and familial ethics they spread across Europe, led, eventually and often unpleasantly, to the enlightenment and the explosion of technology, which made intellectual invention a new source of wealth and source of medical advantage, which is another form of civic wealth.

Today, virtually pure intellect is like a global form of mining.  New products are “manufactured” from a raw material of electrons, bringing new wealth into existence.  Construction, of homes or factories or office towers or highways and bridges, adds new wealth, too: fixed assets, from which use is derived for years and decades, enabling other wealth and our gigantic “service economy.”  Still, no matter the type of business in which one engages, the obligations of businesses and business owners – including stockholders – are the same.

What are they?

  • Operate legally (but don’t hesitate to challenge regulations and laws that are irrational and which amount to unequal application of the law)
  • Earn a profit legally, without cheating customers
  • At best, manufacture a product (best way to create new wealth benefitting the most people)
  • Next best, grow a product and/or improve the growing process
  • Treat employees equally and provide appropriate training and safe conditions for work
  • Provide real services that add value to products and their use or availability
  • Deliver what is promised, never less than promised, and more if you can
  • Do not employ false advertising or sales tactics
  • Maintain honest accounting, pay applicable taxes
  • Do not dirty your property, the air or the waters

Individuals, business owners or not, are always free to be charitable and to take part in politics or social issues they believe in.  But these should be personal decisions and personal resources.  A business owner fails his or her basic obligations to a community , to customers and to employees, by diverting business resources that should be enhancing working conditions, or providing insurance against future threats to the business.  Otherwise, if this sense of purpose and obligation to the health of the business is being weakened for any number of reasons, the business should be sold to those who will work to meet the listed obligations, or folded, having fulfilled, or no longer fulfilling, its mission.

Biden, Health Care, Politics 2022

SUPREMACY IN QUESTION

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Dr. Anthony Fauci responding to charges of lying about origin of Covid-19 virus –
Jan. 11, 2022 Senate hearing. (Greg Nash/Pool via AP)

SUPREMACY IN QUESTION

America’s faith in the ability of the Supreme Court to figure out difficult issues of constitutional law, has been shaken over the past couple of years, and at no point more than during the first week of 2022.  Facing the Court is the question of the Executive branch’s authority to incorporate OSHA rules on workplace safety into its (the President’s) desire to mandate the taking of an injection by a major fraction – although not all – of the U. S. workforce (those who work for employers of 100 or more employees).

Justices Breyer, Kagan and Sotomayor, managed to demonstrate unimaginable ignorance about Covid-19 and the purported vaccines available to fight it, and so much so, that other ideas they may hold could be judged troubling for those who rely on their cognitive discretion.  They believe some weird things.

A fair question for all 9 Justices is, “What research do you do to prepare for evaluating testimony?”  Don’t they have staffs to help them prepare?  They were all aware of this case reaching the Court… what is the source of the false ideas and statistics that these three Justices espoused from the Bench?  It’s scary.  What on earth do they listen to?

Breyer, for example, stated that the vaccines are unequivocally the way to “stop” Covid and the pandemic, itself.  Yet, increasingly, the very opposite of that impression should be drawn from the latest Covid statistics.  He stated that “750 million” people had tested positive the previous day, which is about two and a quarter times the population of the United States.  Rather than enter the Courtroom with knowledge, Breyer appears to have entered with only beliefs.  What sort of penetrating questions would he ask plaintiffs?

Justice Sotomayor shared her “knowledge” that there were 100,000 children in hospitals, seriously ill with Covid, many on ventilators.  In fact there were about 3500 in hospitals across the country, many of whom were in hospital for non-Covid reasons and tested positive for the virus.  She then questioned why the federal government didn’t have police powers similar to those of states, to enforce health-care mandates.  The Bill of Rights should inform her.  Where did she get her ideas?  What sort of preparation to hear testimony on the federal “vaccine” mandate, did she do? Leaves one nervous.

Finally, Justice Kagan stated that “We know” that vaccines are the best way to stop the virus and the best way to stop serious illness is also the vaccine.  The next best thing to do is to wear a mask.  All three ideas are wrong according to the latest data.

Other justices did not add to Americans’ concerns about the understandings of Supreme Court Justices.  We can hope that most were prepared CONSTITUTIONALLY, to issue opinions based on that document.  Supremes’ opinions based on “talking points” or CNN and MSNBC commentary, or on comments from Tony Fauci, should have no place in that hallowed Court.  See: http://www.prudenceleadbetter.com/2021/12/29/in-pharmas-fields-the-rumors-grow/

Crime, Economics, Elections, Governance, Religion, Representation

dry your (T)(F)(Y)ears

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No one really looks forward to what others think may happen in a 12-month period when the calendar changes to a new year.  Given the past couple of strange, guilt-ridden years, many just say or think something on the order of, “Please, just let it be more ‘normal’ or ‘stable’ or ‘American’ than it was in 2021.”  Of course, the question is, Who’s doing the “letting” we’re hoping for?

When we think about it, we are asking some undefined “force” that (also hopefully) permeates all of life and reality, waiting for our entreaties to effect a needed change or “alignment” that will turn our pleas into pleasure, even if it is simply making a handful of traffic-light changes go green when we are running late.

Sometimes we question our very “right” to ask for help from the Universe (if that is where the help emanates), as though our own worth were questionable at that moment.  Perhaps we were really snippy with someone we love and said some regretted words as we were running late, leaving us unworthy until we have a chance to “make up” for the hurt we inflicted.  As that moment of opportunity approaches, we automatically ask the same “force” to put our loved-one in a good mood and able to accept our apology or peace-offering.  Is this religion?  What if we’re not particularly “religious?”  What if Sunday School was our last brush with Biblical things.  Chances are, when “things” seem out of our control or when a tragedy has struck someone we may not even know, we automatically (it seems) turn to a form of power outside of ourselves to adjust or rectify conditions for the better.

So, is there a Who?  Let’s hope it’s not the government.

2021, and 2020, for that matter, are examples in stark contrast of how government power can destroy the lives of millions, perhaps billions, in multiple countries while other millions, perhaps, billions, are pleading with the “government” to make life better, safer, more prosperous and less guilt-ridden.  Doesn’t seem like too much to ask.  After all, government has the money and power to do what needs to be done.  This attitude may not be the most Prudent: it exposes a feared failure of “the Universe” and the absence of hope.

Can’t the intercessor who changes lights from red to green also defeat a mere virus and balance the budget?  We say “who” because humans can’t conceive of an omnipotent being or force without a personality and, to complete the package, a face.  Whether it’s Jehovah or Jor-el, let’s hope the force is with us in 2022, ‘cause we’re running late.

Covid-19 was a creation of at least two governments and was released across the planet by government, as well, while governments insisted the fault lay within animals.  So far no one has been punished for the largely avoidable deaths of millions of people.  Is that the fault of us or of the “Force” itself?  We know government entities caused the plague, we also know that simple treatments can stop it, yet we fret and worry and wait FOR THE SAME GOVERNMENTS to make everything better.  This seems odd.  It’s virtually a declaration of helplessness on the part of millions of people who, if they perceived their place in the “hierarchy of the Force,” could take dominion over their corrupt governors and set things in proper alignment.  Is there a hierarchy?  Are we groveling observers and pawns or do we have a role to play in the direction of life and hope?

At this point we’re all saying or thinking, “Oh, please let us not be groveling observers or pawns.”  There’s that “letting” business, again.

We can’t avoid politics when discussing government actions and failures.  Political parties – or “factions” – are amazingly inept mechanisms for effecting the “general welfare” of the whole nation.  They must, by definition, serve themselves, first.  That is, by some convoluted instruction set, or “truth table,” partisans convince themselves of the welfare of their party being synonymous with the welfare of the nation as a whole.  It almost never is, although it might appear so in bits and pieces.  In any event, more and more of what the party has achieved always appears to partisans to be better for the majority of people than a mere leaving of things as they are.

Troubles accumulate, however, because each party inevitably promulgates some evils that serve key (ie. Powerful) partisans’ very local, even as local as their wallets’ interest, and the opposing party accepts those evils in order to obtain some “goods” that, in the arcane legerdemain of partisan politics, somehow balances out against the evils.

When the levers of power change partisan hands, the pent-up desires for self-interest are unleashed and the immediate saviors of the nation transform into evil-doers, albeit, in their own minds, at much more rational levels than those foul denizens of the other (yuck!) party.  And so it goes.  The “goods” instituted by this or that group of partisans, are replaced, little by little – or, sometimes, in huge gobs – by evils of the other group.  This fact of partisan life can be seen in the unimaginable mountains of debt with which the flocks of both producers and non-producers (who hope that bills are being paid in the background, but which are not, in fact) have been saddled while sloshing back and forth between partisan saviors.

It is most Prudent, going forward, that those of us who still have hope enough to ask for salvation from the What or Who that never employs evil, recognize that partisan politics and personages will never fulfill What’s or Who’s hoped-for intercessionary role.

Still, as with every New Year transition (many people revelers or not, miss the sound of the transition, which is a faint, barely audible ‘Ummm’ in low E) we have a “new beginning,” whatever that means for each of us.  We have, by the good fortune of living into a “new” year, a new set of opportunities to “make up for” things we have done that may have hurt someone else or, often, ourselves.  After all, as part of life, we also deserve to not be hurt or pushed out of alignment.  If we are fortunate enough to still hope that What or Who is listening to us, as it were, when we hope for improvement, we might want to forgive ourselves for errors and omissions or direct injuries we have suffered at our own hands – or hearts.  Perhaps our best hope is to adjust our lives so that we don’t “run late” in 2022.

What about the power we have to undo evils and effect good in the world?  You may have fallen prey to the popular notion that only by doing evil, like burning, looting and destruction… and by hating properly, can humans bring about good, but in 2022 you need not believe that.  If you know the difference between good and evil then 2022 could be the year when you agree to not support evil in the name of “progress.”

What if every adult in your town visited the city council or Board of Select Men and Women and stated, simply, that you want every act of vandalism, shoplifting and public drinking or drug abuse to be punished according to the law, including full restitution and public service by offenders.  That’s it: no shouting, no anger, no hatred or petitions dropped off.  Everyone appears and states his or her desire for good change.  Is there any doubt that our “governors” or erstwhile “representatives” would effect those changes?

The same would work for bad and unfair laws that should be repealed or modified.

We saw this work before school committees in Virginia and elsewhere.  There are no representatives who have as much power as their constituents; there are no elected officials who have as much power as their constituents.  Gandhi showed us that there is no military/police force that has as much power as a people with a unified purpose.

Clearly we cannot allow our self-fulfilling governments to keep heading downward on the same paths they have taken us over the past two years.  We are smarter than that – and smarter than they.  The public good will be more perfectly realized when our government is again restricted by the Constitution, when it is as small as practical for the defense of our nation, and when it costs about a third of what it costs, now.

Over the past 6 decades it ought to have become clear that no government can ever provide sufficient “welfare,” as public charity is known.  Nor is it really charity, since it is not given freely by anyone.  It is taken from supposedly “free” people who never intended to grant sufficient power to the governments they formed to take their personal property under threat of loss or punishment (ie. Police power) so that it could be given to others who did not work for it or, to put it more starkly, who would be arrested if they took it from its owners, themselves.

Is governance so complex that it cannot be reformed?  Is it our nature – or curse – that mistakes, once made by elected “representatives” of we, the people, cannot be undone amidst bountiful proofs of failure or error?  What is it about Americans that we are hide-bound to repeat mistakes made by other Americans who were elected to some office or another?  Why?  Does the happenstance, no matter how dearly sought, of election perform some immutable purification that raises those so blessed above responsibility for their mistakes?  Or, does it transform their mistakes into the most beneficial policy decisions, the perpetual financing of which confirms their near-miraculous properties?

Why is it that we, the people, who caused – nay, granted – the election of mistake-makers are perpetually bound to PAY for those mistakes, and suffer from them?  Is there no means of correction?

One factor we have permitted and even encouraged is “career representation.”  With a 95% re-election rate for federal representatives and senators, and similar rates for state-level reps and senators, the decline in governmental and budgetary quality – honesty – has to be reviewed through the lens of longevity.  Connections and relationships among other denizens of capitol buildings become much stronger than the periodic and temporary connections to voters.  Combined with influence over the spending of billions and billions of dollars – and billions of dollars’ worth of regulations – the personal, rather than representative value of elective office eventually outweighs the higher ethical requirements of representation.  Soon, reps and senators at every level become elected bureaucrats.  Their voters tend to ignore their work until an issue makes the news.  When an opponent runs against a sitting (there is a lot of sitting) rep or senator, there is a desire to not “take away ‘Tom’s’ or ‘Jane’s’ job.”  Can we change these attitudes?

If a thousand people showed up for legislative hearings do you think representatives could be tricked into representing, again?  One of the key problems that inhibit citizen participation in their own government is the simple issue of parking.  Boston, in Massachusetts’ case, has for a variety of reasons, not least of which is some ephemeral effect on global climate, made it more and more difficult to park in the city and most particularly anywhere near the State House on Beacon Hill.  What if there were a 600-car parking lot reserved at certain times of the year for hearing attendees.  It could be where people could take the “T” or commuter rail into Boston at low cost.  With car-pooling there could easily be 1,000 citizens attending hearings. 

Do you not believe that 1,000 testimonies about a topic would get “representatives” attention? 

Is this 2022 a new year…, or less?