Coronavirus, Covid-19, strain S or strain L – or both – is the
unannounced candidate in the 2020 presidential race. Democrats have already been calculating how
to use the epidemic to make Trump look bad; they haven’t been calculating,
much, as to how to protect citizens and residents from the disease, or to restore
the pharmaceutical industry to the United States. Hatred will do that: blind the carrier to its
contagion, making him, or her, feverish and seeking a point of blame. Trump will do.
Theft is very similar.
Where the blind virus can steal a person’s health, mobility, outlook and
good nature, so can hatred, equally blind, make off with decorum, civility,
kindness, compassion and good sense.
Both patients are… sick.
But theft, as any victim of a thief can testify, destroys
belief as it reduces one’s economy. A
break-in to one’s home, for example, leaves residents distrustful, vulnerable
and suspicious. New information coming
to those people is filtered through a different set of beliefs than prior to
the act of thievery. Eventually,
assuming no repetition of the crime, distrust fades, safe feelings return and
life goes on. Love for others replaces
fear. But what if the nature of the
theft is not precisely known… and what if the feeling of one’s safety and
privacy having been breeched, one’s familial or even personal integrity being threatened
by unrecognized thieves, almost continuously… what does a person believe then?
A person would certainly be angry at the violation, the
assault on privacy, safety and personhood.
And that feeling would lead a person to be mad at, well… someone –
whoever is stealing from him or her.
What is being stolen? Who is it
that should be punished for the constant thievery?
We live, today, right now, in a world of constant thievery,
and among those things being stolen are the traditions of America’s
founding. One could posit that history,
itself, is being stolen from us as “we” dis-educate our youth and restrict and
belittle the beliefs that made the American experiment work and the American
Dream real. It’s unsettling. What other thefts are being perpetrated?
Pick a state, any state.
How many of its agencies are staffed beyond need and paid beyond
reason? How many departments or programs
are suspected of malfeasance, misfeasance and corruption, often political? Surely some.
Honesty is being stolen every hour of every day. How many have died from opioids? How many from in-hospital errors? How many children in state care were
neglected so badly that their health or lives were threatened, perhaps
lost? How are such questions answered to
the public on whose behalf all such
actions are taken? Almost never in
full truth, often in blatant deception and cover-up.
We are forced by police power to sacrifice our private
properties – the gains from our labors – to PAY for governments that lie to us
as normal operating process. It is
unsettling. A little anger is
justified. If one is not angry, he or
she isn’t paying attention.
What about our past 3 years nationally, when one political
party conspired with federal agencies and officers to attempt to unseat a
president? So many lies were told to us
by so many official and “news” organs that the count is without total. The political divisions exposed over the past
20 years have been sharpened so fiercely that the next 20 years are in grave
doubt. Taxpayers pay for everyone who
works in the federal government and they have been lying to us, all, and never
more grotesquely than in the years 2016 through 2019 and through the
impeachment of president Trump. They,
including many in congress, have lied and stolen from our present and future
the innate trust we ought to be able to enjoy with regards to our representatives, so called.
That our heritage has been stolen, tossed away when we weren’t
looking, can be realized by noting the groundswell of support for an old
communist/socialist as he claims to be the “leader” America needs. Young people, college students, even many
adults seem enthralled by attacks on capitalism and free enterprise, the
unfairness of success, the inequality of unequal results for unequal
efforts. It’s all a matter of “fortune”
and “unfortune.” The fortunate ones,
regardless of their path to wealth and regardless of the millions of jobs they
create and the trillions of tax dollars their enterprises and employees pay to
support common goods, should not have any more than they need to live on… the
rest to be divided amongst the “unfortunate.”
Truth and reason have been stolen, as have history and
fact. And, it is unsettling. Even those espousing socialist nonsense feel
stolen-from, although they refuse to recognize what their losses truly
are. It makes them hazily angry at the fortunate
thieves, for they have no mirrors.
Inheritance far greater than one’s grandmother’s silver has
been, is being stolen right from our dining-room buffet, and we have not only
left the back door open, we’ve marked the shortest path to the buffet with
bright orange duct tape. How can we tell
all these thefts have gone on? Check the
books, the ledgers of our balance sheets.
We’re out of balance. “What
happened?” we ask one another. “How did
we get $23 Trillion in debt?” “When did
it become illegal to separate boys’ and girls’ bathrooms?”
“When did people start to hate others so much that teams of
thugs would be allowed to beat them up while police watched?” “Is this what Socialism has done? Made us hate each other?” “They” are stealing our nation. It’s unsettling.
It seems Prudent to pray. Humans have an urge to worship, whether unto a deity of the personal perception of each supplicant, or to a set of deities connected to important natural phenomena like trees, rains, sunlight, moonlight, stars, winds, lightning, high and low temperatures… and more.
If not truly worshipped, natural aspects of locales are generally respected with some attribution of supernatural importance, power or influence. Caves, mountains, bodies of water, great forests and vital rivers are considered more than just natural by populations on whose lives they have life-giving or life-threatening influence. Whether the Holy Spirit or the Great Spirit of native tribes, life’s continuous foibles, phenomena, fertility, feelings, fears and finality cause humans in every kind of society to come to terms with what can’t be controlled through forms of spirituality or religious faith.
What does it mean to all of those who claim to have no
attachment to any church, religion or spiritual belief structure? There are many and the number grows as
government schools and liberal-leftist guided private schools divest themselves
of morality and other quasi-biblical philosophies. Only “science” can satisfy agnostics and
atheists, those so declared tell anyone who’ll listen. Religions are “mumbo-jumbo.” So certain of their cold, scientific facts
are many atheists, that they feel compelled to prevent any expression of
religion or faith or spirituality. The
Prudent observer might think that they protest too much. Their innate need to worship something is simply
satisfied in a different way.
An argument can be made that Socialism is the secular faith, as it were. Those who believe in this “ism,” must take
its tenets on faith, since there is no empirical evidence that Socialism has
worked anywhere. Yet they work tirelessly to impose socialism
so that individuality and human nature are replaced with the collectivist
ethos, and innate capitalism is replaced with Utopian premises of “from each
according to his ability, to each according to his need.” A lot of faith is required to believe such
ideas in the face of utter failure in every example.
Inevitably, Socialism devolves into tyranny. In place of “guided honesty” of free
individuals, Socialism is required to impose rules for correct behavior, and
they inevitably become very granular.
The logical concerns we have about the American administrative state are
genuine fears about a Socialist bureaucracy that is charged with imposing a
statist conformity on large populations.
Although a modern socialist state might refrain from police-state
status, today’s technology empowers social engineers to gather voluminous data
that help identify non-conforming citizens, whose lack of adherence to rules
threatens, or are perceived to threaten, the health and safety of the
group/collective for whom the state exists and is dedicated.
Power, ultimately, and before very long, concentrates in the hands of the higher echelons of bureaucracies.
Also logically, politics within socialist systems can’t be
allowed to offer significant opposition to the functioning bureaucracy. There is a certain necessity to promoting,
educating about, proving and re-proving a high level of infallibility of the
state. The benign nature of the system
that all benefit from and must support, has no room for serious opposition to
its own quality. Calling socialist
leadership into question is simply anathema to the established rules of
conformity. Freedom and socialism are
essentially antithetical. There is no
need for freedom when “everybody” already benefits from the state.
The reactions to freedom and independent sovereignty can be seen in the United States today. Wherever the premises of socialism/atheism are challenged by Christians, in particular, the socialist response is most often anger: the public face of hatred. If any question of this set of observations remains, just consider the nature of angry reaction to Trump and to any of his supporters. Hatred.
For every form of governance and social cohesion, there is a
beginning and some sort of end-game.
Given the ubiquitous factor of human nature, which is fundamentally,
personally, independent and capitalistic, in the sense of retaining the
products of one’s labor – the whole “private property” thing – the founding of the
United States did the best job yet in history, to craft a Constitution and the
original institutions that, in the hands of both faithful and honest officials,
judges and democratically elected representatives, might survive the tyrannical
tendencies it was designed to oppose.
From the beginning, the desires of some for power over
others, for self aggrandizement and for monopoly economic advantage, have been
trying to erode the bases of liberty. As
the philosophies of tyranny also matured, the description of socialism as the utopian supplantation
of capitalism, and thereby of individual freedom, caught the interest of those
who already hated the chaos of freedom as much as they distrusted the unity of
thought that resulted from religious faith.
Any system of human organization that did not need the guidance of the
state, was/is to be discredited and destroyed.
And so it has gone since at least the (second) Civil War. Never let a crisis go to waste.
The blind faith in socialism is not so dissimilar to
religious faith: life-changing belief in something that can’t be seen, and acceptance
of various scriptures. On the other
hand, but in the same way, erstwhile conservatives show blind faith in
unregulated capitalism, as if human nature were fulfilled by monopoly,
government-protected wealth concentration, and as if the super-rich billionaire
class were going to become benign rich uncles to us, all. There is foolishness aplenty to go around…
the world.
Rather than thinking with our human-nature selfishness, a
little statesmanship is the better prescription. We need, first, to recognize that these,
again, are the times that try men’s souls.
At the founding of the independence struggle, those who signed the
Declaration of Independence were placing their support for what was a civil war, not truly a revolution, out in the public eye,
making themselves primary targets for the British military fighting to hold the
American part of the British Kingdom tightly to England. It took phenomenal courage, as they pledged
their “… lives, fortunes and sacred honor.”
Where is sacred honor, today, as we face the United States’
greatest enemy: the failure of belief in the American Dream? Where are the statesmen and women who will
risk everything to restore America’s path?
There is no question that stepping back from the brink of tyranny – from
the brink of unfathomable debt – will be quite unpleasant, uncomfortable,
unpredictable and will require a continuity of leadership we have not seen
since Lincoln and Washington. It will
not be possible for Americans to work 30 and 35-hour weeks, take multiple
vacations each year, and waste as much income on frivolous, games, goodies or
fattening foods. Everyone will have to
sacrifice.
Especially governments.
The federal budget must be rendered $1 Trillion
smaller. Sounds easy when the number is
so even and simply stated. A trillion… a
thousand billion dollars. In none of our
lifetimes have we seen a congress cut – as in spend less money this year than
was spent last fiscal year – ANY federal office or program, without spending
much more elsewhere.
Local governments would have to assume the absolutely
essential social services, and forego multiple other demands… demands like
raises, fancy equipment, landscaping that isn’t done voluntarily, new school
buildings and numerous non-essential municipal jobs. States will find cutting even more difficult,
since all those unionized state employees are the same people whose families
donate to and work for campaigns. Plus,
there’s all that graft on enormous public works. No more $750,000 state university presidents
in those days, either.
None of these politically unlikely changes will happen, of
course, until a far greater hurdle is crossed: making everyone, both parties,
and everyone else, public and private, believe
that eliminating debt-based government is more important than all of everyone’s
private concerns. More than during any
war-time mobilization, Americans will have to agree to the importance of
national sacrifice… to the importance of living within our means,
Constitutionally, and with added sacrifice to pay off all of our loans.
There is no other path to financial freedom and
strength. Every dollar of debt is a loss
of independence; every dollar in taxes is a loss of freedom. Can we strike the correct balance going
forward? – the balance between
independence, freedom and responsibility?
– the balance envisioned in our founding that relied upon morality and
personal responsibility?
Or shall we succumb to the blandishments of socialist, identity politics, and hollow promises of greater freedom through national controls? Shall we continue down a path that promises the slow loss of all we hold dear in America… slow, until one day we lose everything that’s left, abruptly, cataclysmically, destructively, unrecoverably? We hope we know when that will be, but we don’t. We hope we can pull back from the brink before all is lost, based on some arcane calculations that, literally, no one knows how to make.
Will the path to sanity commence before the next
election? Not bloody likely. What about after the next election? Well, not until all the other spending
promises are fulfilled, and by then it will be mid-term elections and there’s
no way in Hell those congressional giants are going to bear the brunt of
mismanagement long before THEY were first elected.
There are people who believe that the latest health threat
to emanate from China is caused or somehow made contagious by Corona Beer, a
well-known health threat from Mexico. It
is on this canvas that the gloppy acrylics of impeachment, economics,
presidential politics, petro-dollar monetary policy, Antifa, Hezbollah, North
Korea, opioid deaths and suicides, and the real threat of coronavirus must
create a picture that is both truthful and meaningful to majorities in dozens
of countries including our own. Whew! There are 15 national leaders whose views and
beliefs about these and other issues, will define the next ten years and
beyond: Donald Trump, Boris Johnson, Angela Merkel, Vladimir Putin, Benjamin
Netanyahu, Ali Khamenei, Kim Jung Un, Xi Jinping, Ram Nath
Kovind, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, Volodymyr Zelensky (who at least has a sense of humor), Arif
Alvi (who doesn’t), and both last and least, Nicolás Maduro, who is an idiot.
Mixed up in all of their opinions is the existence
of American constitutionalism, our ostensible structure of rights and freedoms,
and our unbalanced, imperial economy.
Our primary concern must be the survival of the United States and
freedom itself. What presidential
politics does every four years is stir us enough to reflect on our beliefs
about our nation and our country, not the same things.
Democrat hotheads, committed to control of… well,
everything, have impeached Trump to no good end, although his acquittal was
never in real doubt. No good end,
certainly, but the disinformation value of, first Mueller, and then impeachment
itself, must appear to elected Democrat leaders as a worthy end
nevertheless. Those who now shy away
from bottled Corona most assuredly cling to bottled hatreds, known and unknown,
but felt viscerally. So there is the
worthiness of relentless hatred of the aforementioned Mr. Trump.
There should be little disagreement with the
proposition that hatred is the worst
basis for political competition, yet hatred is everywhere employed in the United
States, of all places. Hatred doesn’t
develop automatically. Fear does: it’s
pure ethnocentrism, even “racism,” per se.
But racism and fear of difference are not hatred. Hatred is a visceral
desire to kill or destroy the “other.”
To fear or to mistrust a stranger – or a strange “culture” – is
instinctive and need not be taught. To HATE
that person or group requires coaching, teaching, explanation and
mythology. It’s a long-term, methodical
process to convert fear to hatred. Who
does crap like that?
Here and there are parents who were, themselves,
taught to hate certain others and to varying degrees manage to convince their
children to also hate them. But it’s not
as easy to do in the modern era, as public schools, ostensibly, fight the urge
to bully or to gang-up on the unusual or most defenseless kids. To some degree, children receiving messages
of hatred at home are going to hear enough lessons countering that prejudice,
that fewer and fewer reach early adulthood with firm hatreds.
Yet, now we have a split electorate, fueled by the
sweet lies of socialists (people complain about Trump’s looseness with the
truth but never a peep about the absolute and historical bullshit spread in the
name of socialism). A virtual communist is
at or near the front of the pack in the ostensible “Democrat” party’s campaign
for nomination to the presidency, and giddy polls regularly trumpet the
acceptance of “socialism” by millenials.
There are reasons to fear Bernie Sanders’ cry for “transformation” of
the United States, just as there were for the stated intentions of Barack Obama
to “fundamentally transform” the United States.
Consider just the “ACA,” Affordable Care Act, which was not “affordable,” whatever that was hoped to mean, and it wasn’t about “care,” particularly: it was about coverage, the perpetual stumbling bloc to health care. The nature of every “coverage” entity, whether “insurance” companies and HMO’s or governmental agencies that both regulate and directly pay actual care providers, is to reduce costs. The main difficulties inherent in the ACA-expanded coverage industry were made worse and more expensive, nearly removing people from decision-making while nearly removing physicians and others from caring about their customers.
These sorts of change ought to be anathema to citizens of a nation with the heritage of the United States. Our mythos is founded in individualism, self-made success, pioneering advancement into unexplored territories, and homesteads created even where the only building material was prairie turf. Somehow the steady erosion of socialist promises of “free” safety and comfort have weakened the resolve of Americans to take control of their lives and circumstances, and to do so responsibly.
Obama also made substantial changes to our foreign relations and to our ability to control events to our benefit, rather to enhance the influence and strength of Muslim regimes. Fundamental transformation. Here in 2020 these same intentions are voiced repeatedly by Bernie Sanders and others whose vision is not to improve or “perfect” our union, but to replace our form of government by altering Constitutional institutions and original rights. The “new” goals are not comprised of strengthening liberty, but to “set” everyone’s standard of living so that no one is “above” his fellow residents: ultimate “fairness,” a new form of political organization that removes the interference in individual beliefs by churches, and in which every sort of human pleasure-seeking will be permitted… by benign elites, and, perhaps, taught in public schools.
The struggle of socialism is never-ending. While “we” in the American, Judeo-Christian
traditions of individual liberty and responsibility tend to assume our battle
for freedom is won… and done, globalist socialism never rests on its continuum
of undermining and destroying liberty and faithfulness. It is a continuum that extends back to the
“Garden of Eden.”
“What?” you say, “nothing Prudent about that silly
claim.”
Well, a few terms we don’t think about enough: Thesis – The Word of God, or the first premise; Antithesis – Direct opposition to the Word of God; Synthesis – Human-generated, pretended, compromise position with the Word of God. The synthesis becomes the new Premise, no longer the Word of God, something less. Is this not exactly what the “Serpent” offered to Eve, assuring her that God’s threat to not eat of the tree in the midst (center) of the Garden, or touch it “…,lest thou die.” would not come true. “thou shalt not surely die.” the serpent told her. God issued the thesis to Not eat of the tree; Serpent offered the antithesis that the punishment would not be death (at least not right away) and the rewards of knowledge were worth the chance. Is this process any more or less than the Hegelian dialectic? Thesis – Antithesis – Synthesis. Abortion is no longer murder; socialism will create a better America than God did.
If there were, finally, a convention of the States under
article 5 of the Constitution, there are many concerns that people across the
political spectrum would like to “fix,” and some of these are appropriately “Constitutional.” Care must be taken to control the content of
the hundreds of proposals that will likely inundate the convention. Still, here are a few problem areas that are
the result of either inadequate institutional structure for today’s
technologies (communication, globalism, trade and warfare), or the result of
the infusion into federal responsibility dozens if not hundreds of matters that
are the appropriate business of sovereign states within a federal system. Here is a list as seems Prudent:
Lifetime Sinecures – Senators and Representatives are in
office too long. The basic mechanism of
election and re-election has become anachronistic in the age of, first,
widespread and rapid communication, and, now, virtually instant and digitized
communication and data analysis. The
control of data and virtual control of news/information, results in mostly “safe”
seats, quantified as 94+% re-election rates.
If each were motivated by purity of public service and statesmanship,
longevity in office might be laudable.
Unfortunately, we see over recent decades, that federal office-holders
not only tend to ignore their constituents, preferring to deal with and respond
to their confederates at the next Senate or House desk, but they become wealthy
while in office, leading them to focus on pleasing those Congressional
associates so that re-election is made more likely. Once the first re-election is accomplished,
relationships with lobbyists and interest-group advocates of all stripes become
more and more crucial and consuming.
This means that change #1 should be Term Limits which, most
Prudently, should be stated in terms of continuous service. That is, being a past Senator or
Representative should not preclude running for that office at some future
date. The issue is: How many terms must
pass before an individual can run again?
Prudence suggests that one full Senate term and two House terms are
appropriate periods.
Administrative Statism – For many reasons we are devolving
into a national, rules-based control system, rather than a willing federation
of semi-sovereign states, based on laws and shared cultural mores. Since the Great Depression, the many
Congresses and 13 more or less feckless Presidents have overseen massive growth
in administrative departments and programs.
Erstwhile “representatives” have successfully divested themselves of
most of their governing responsibilities, save two critical ones: Expanding the
scope of issues that must be federalized, and Debt Creation. This massive, unelected, regulatory bloat
must be reversed, and the only way to do so is to regain control over federal
budgeting.
Federal Budgeting – Of the three key covenants the federal
government holds with the citizens of the several states and with the states,
themselves, how tax monies are spent is the one that affects everyone, every
day. For the past 50 years, or so, there
has not been a “budget,” in fact, for a budget would limit expenditures to
match, virtually, the revenues raised.
Moreover, the revenues raised would, in an honest federal system, be
expended only by vote of the two houses of Congress and agreement of the
President. We are told this is the case,
still, but in truth, most of the budget is “entitlements,” and these are
rarely, if ever, considered as manageable by Congress, and if some slight study
of them is attempted, the result is generally to increase them by increasing the indebtedness of the United
States. That is, we have outlived our
means for decades – a most mendacious process.
By itself, the failure of a string of Congresses to debate,
analyze and produce an expenditure plan that is honest with the citizenry, and
affordable through taxation, is proof of the utter failure of political
leadership since the inception of the Great Society. These failed potentates of promiscuous
promises get re-elected at a 90+% rate, while their “work” product becomes
smaller and smaller. They receive
automatic pay raises.
So, correcting the budget process will solve multiple losses
of freedom. There should be an amendment
that requires that the “budget” of EVERY Department, Agency, Program and Title
within them, shall be approved separately by the Congress through
legislation. In short order this will be
seen as “impossible,” and the impossibility of financing more “line items” than
can be understood or even counted, should become clear. The redundancy and overlap of purposes for
the thousands of expensive programs, must be cleared away and reduced to fewer
than one hundred. The federal government
must get out of much of the peoples’ business that it is in. Some of it is best managed by States with
overarching direction by federal laws that ARE APPROVED by Congress, not by
relatively hidden agencies and functionaries.
Americans deserve REPRESENTATION in all matters lawful and
budgetary. This brings us to another
section of this amendment.
Legislation – There shall be no “omnibus” bills or laws. That is, no bill shall be brought forth the
content of which is not directly related to a single purpose clearly described
in its title, nor should the text of any section be longer than 250 words, with
budgetary supporting statements of account allowed, nor should any bill in its
entirety contain more than 2,000 words.
Prudence would dictate that unrelated attachments to “must-pass”
legislation should be banned.
Further, no new policies or expenditures may be included in
any “budget” or taxation legislation without a separate bill that shall be
studied and approved by committee and brought to a vote by the whole
Congress. Legislation for such “new” federal
activities must contain provisions for financing said actions or policies
WITHOUT causing any increase in the indebtedness of the United States.
Balanced Budget – Having established over many decades that
Congress is incapable of limiting or cutting virtually ANY expenses other than
by shifting expenses from the Defense
Department toward domestic expenditures, elected Representatives and Senators shall
establish a balanced budget. However, a
limit must be set as a percentage of, what?
Gross Domestic Product? Some
percentage of all taxable income? Can
any “federal” metrics be even trusted?
Some clear standard of measure must be set, else the habitual connivance
of re-election interests will modify and obfuscate the intention of this
amendment. Further, no budget shall be
passed that increases the indebtedness of the United States except in times of national emergency or declared war.
Citizenship – No person shall be counted among the census,
nor be part of any apportionment of Congressional representation except he or
she be a naturally born or legally naturalized citizen of the United States. No person may be considered a naturally born
citizen unless one or both parents shall be a legal citizen at the time of
birth.
Sanctuary – No state may interfere with legitimate and
proper execution of federal laws, nor with the proper functions and procedures
of federal law enforcement personnel. No
law passed by any state or subdivision thereof shall be deemed enforceable if
it shall interfere with execution of federal laws or attempt any form of
nullification of federal laws. Federal
law enforcement agencies may withhold financial support from those state or
local law enforcement agencies that attempt to inhibit, delay or interfere with
proper federal law enforcement procedures and personnel. Interference with proper and appropriate
federal law enforcement and personnel shall be adjudicated in federal courts.
Prudence tells us that once a Convention of the States has
come to pass, the prospects of another are much greater. The actions of the organizers and
participants of the first such convocation will form crucial precedents that
may, one hopes, set a pattern similar to the traditions of the supreme Court,
the membership of which has been only discussed, never changed. Consideration might be given to yet another
amendment that limits the frequency of Article V. conventions.
What shall we do, we American people, holders of the temporary promises of freedom and individual sovereignty, with our new gift, the year of our Lord, 2020? What will be our direction? Toward greater wisdom and enlightenment, growing nearer to God as we know Him… or Her? Or, as this millennium has presented, toward firmer rejection of God, morality, purpose and humanity; toward greater animalism and destruction of the Constitution? Big choices, either way.
We err terribly if we devote ourselves to any politician, thinking, dreaming, hoping or wishing that that one person will “fix” our own lives, our uncomfortable feelings or our deep concerns about the future of America. A terrible mistake, that. The only true value of a political leader is that he or she might cause large segments of the constituent population to develop a new sense of hope, of good expectations and of a belief in their social abilities to solve problems. Unified purpose – not coordinated, necessarily, but unified – is the most powerful force on Earth.
Unified purpose can ignore the pain of sacrifice, as it has during times of war, for example, or during the 8 years that created the Apollo space program. Tyrants create a form of unity by instilling fear. Dominated subjects believe they will suffer if they act on contrary thoughts. Free people, unified in purpose and hope, will overturn the dominator every time. Nothing can resist the power of free people who believe in freedom.
The only way a free and sovereign people can be defeated is
to render them less and less free over time – even it takes 4 – or 20 –
generations. Those who are threatened by
freedom, who fear it, never stop trying to destroy it. They, too, have a unified purpose. When they are the only unity on the playing
field, freedom cannot survive. When
young citizens are at an intellectual point where socialism appears preferable to “capitalism,” several of the
methods of rendering a free people less free are revealed.
First is re-education.
Naturally conservative people, enjoying freedom and responsible for
themselves, have to be taught to rely on “the government” when ill fortune
finds them. That purchase of philosophy
might not have worked if the “government” hadn’t created a misfortune, like the
Great Depression, that seemed too difficult and complex for individuals to
withstand on their own. Social Security
easily became law and was tiny, a mere minimum for old widows. Today Republicans defend it as if part of the
granite of Mount Rushmore. Older former
conservatives speak up for “their” Medicare, now that the government has made
health care so costly and complex that individuals cannot contend with it on
their own. A little socialism goes a
long way.
Second is education, itself.
The best plan would be to populate the education licensing bureaucracy
with unified liberals/leftists who
could guide education degree programs such that new teachers would tend toward
socialist ideals of equality, fairness, anti-racism, anti-discrimination of all
sorts, feminism, bi-lingualism and multi-culturalism. Pretty soon they’ll be teaching youth that
our Constitution fails to defend these important principles and needs to be changed
or supplanted with new thinking. Pretty
soon a proto-communist can be elected president, and the long march to the end of this democratic republic will be underway.
Thirdly, enough rope, in the form of creature comforts, new
cars, easy credit and wide-screen TVs, must be provided for erstwhile Americans
to hang themselves while their heritage is forgotten and their freedoms swept
away. Let illegal entrants have the
country – we don’t seem to want it any longer.
Lastly, promote new “rights” that no one ever heard of, but
the lack of which can be made to appear oppressive. Link the denial of such rights to the
constantly re-boiled slavery-guilt/systemic racism civil rights struggle, and
soon these new rights gain the power of civil rights that once nearly split the
nation… politicians must respond.
Shortly after, laws are proposed, agitated for and passed to, perhaps,
force boys and girls to bathe or perform their toilet together. What, “never,” you say? Or, as a fantastic example, licensed,
educated teachers could actually lose their jobs for failing to call a boy a
girl. “Impossible.”
We have contributed mightily to our “mis”-education and “mal”-economics. The worst of our economics has two parts:
Unconstrained debt creation, and incredible inflation. You’re objecting, now, that “inflation” is
only at 2%, or some such low number. You’re
talking about price increases, which
are not what inflation is. Prices go up and down for reasons of supply
of goods, demands (desires) of consumers, including competitive products, and
availability of spendable cash (or credit, nowadays). “Inflation” affects only the last factor:
spendable, or “excess” cash and credit. “Inflation”
is inflation of, or artificial expansion of, the money supply, something
individuals cannot control. Politicians do
that or allow it to happen by government agents.
Don’t confuse inflation with a rise in the cost of
goods. Inflation is tolerated or actively
promoted when government needs more money
and is politically unwilling to raise taxes. Foolishly, we have converted our money system
to a debt-based system whereby the federal government borrows every new dollar it wants to balance the federal budget
with. As it does so, it infuses added
dollars into the economy as a whole.
This will increase sales of thousands of products as companies that do
business with the government get new contracts and, presumably, hire more
people or raise wages. Increasingly,
more of those products are imported, sending a lot of those “excess,” “new”
dollars to other countries. This
increases domestic profits, but not domestic, widespread, individual wealth. Consumer prices don’t experience much upward
pressure because the actual inflation of the money supply is siphoned into the
hands of multi-billion dollar companies, or concentrated in the hands of
external multi-billion dollar companies or government-run companies, which is
to say, in the hands of foreign governments.
What does this mud puddle of excessive profits and concentrations of
wealth have to do with most people?
It diverts their freedom and personal sovereignty, and… it
so corrupts free enterprise that socialism, despite its total history of failure
– history little known by today’s youth – can be made to appear
attractive. Step by step, the
never-ending plan to destroy freedom and independence (non-globalism) is being
carried out. Our government education
systems, including “private” universities and colleges made wealthy by
government-promoted student loans, are almost the last places to depend upon to
correct this historic ignorance.
And all of those inflated dollars? Since our prices haven’t risen too, too badly, can we pretend they are no concern of ours? Every dollar “bill” is a bill America must eventually pay. If the rest of the world no longer wanted (thank you, Saudi Arabia) U. S. dollars, our economy, and those of several other countries, would collapse. Along the way every dollar, printed or electronic, would drop in value like a stone. How’s $50 or $80 gas sound? At those prices the “national debt” will be manageable, won’t it?
Meanwhile, we, who should be totally pissed-off, are
comfortable enough that we worry about climate change, UFOs and the NFL
standings, rather than what should be job-one for American citizens.
Increasingly Mr. Donald Trump is becoming the fulcrum on
which our democratic republic balances, and he has not shown, yet, that he is
rigid enough to affect the balance. This
is not to say he isn’t tough. The
constant attacks, threats of impeachment since inauguration, and unusual
hatred, would wilt lesser men, and often has.
Much has been made of the turnover in Trump’s administration, as if it
represented “chaos” in the administration.
While it may yield a little “chaos,” it is temporary. The problem is that Trump believes that when
someone is hired, he or she owes an outward loyalty, at least, to the “boss.”
What has taken him some time to recognize is that every – as
in, every single one – person in a position to execute policy or influence
policy, has an agenda. Worse, since the
Obama administration, agendas in Washington are no longer matters of how to
accomplish national goals, no nuanced approaches to policy. Agendas now are only to accept or to oppose
the direction desired by the elected president.
Many of those recommended for top appointments, especially on matters of
international policy, held an agenda of opposition, and deserved replacement. The president now must become very strict
towards his appointees, and this mood must extend deeper and deeper into the
many agencies who are happy to oppose him.
(see: http://www.prudenceleadbetter.com/2019/11/28/due-process/
)
Is Trump up for this?
It is hard to tell. He seems not
to take very much advice, else someone would have tempered his Tweeting; on the
other hand, his selections for judgeships reveal good work and recommendation
by someone else. Still, he has not been
as thorough in replacing appointees as his predecessor was, and many of those
in the White House, State Department, Department of Justice and the
“Intelligence Community,” are actively opposed to Trump, his background, his
style of work and speech, and to his America-first policies. Their allies in the Congress and other covens
of Democrat-leftists, have done their worst to hamstring the president since he
first appeared to have a chance at the nomination,
never mind the election.
Despite the roadblocks and mistreatment by much of the
press, Trump has managed to accomplish quite a bit, and he has changed the
nature of American diplomacy somewhat.
Will it all bear fruit? It is
impossible to say, but certainly no more impossible to predict than have been
the results of “normal,” deep-state diplomacy over the past 50 years. The best way to guarantee the predicted
outcomes in all that time has been for the United States to give up more –
including sovereignty – than we ever have asked… or received in return. Predictions of opposing sides’ accepting all
the American largesse our “negotiators” could give away, always came true.
One hopes that should we not obtain the quality of a deal we
need for U. S. benefit, that our “side” will stay strong and not immediately
throw more value to the other side in order to “win” some sort of a deal that
politicians can crow about, knowing that after a few dust-ups, most voters will
forget what was even at stake and accept that the deal we got is better than
“not talking” at all. This is national
hogwash, of course, and it stems from a general attitude of American
unworthiness compared to other nations’ interests. Trump supporters want a bull-dog negotiating for our side, both domestically and
internationally.
At some point, one would surmise, the mendacity of the FBI,
the CIA, the State Department and even the Obama White House, and the 3-year
story of failing to prove any – as in, not even one – of the amazing
allegations against Donald Trump and his appointees and supporters, would begin
to dissipate the hot tempers that accompanied those allegations, both personal
and legal. At some point, the charges of
“racism” and “sexism” should abate; the so-far indefatigable charges of
“collusion” with Russians, well-debunked at great effort and expense, should
fade away as the truth penetrates haters’ consciousness. At some point, all of the energy needed to
maintain hatred of Trump, the person, could be expected to turn toward
political action.
But, with the gaveling into passage of two gaseous “articles
of impeachment,” not yet.
Leftism, global socialism, in fact, is transforming America’s national unity and our local states, counties, cities and towns. It is insidious. Because of George Soros’ financed groups, for example, several counties are suffering under prosecutorial regimes that refuse to prosecute “small” crimes. Unfortunately, the definitions of the nature of crimes that fall in the “serious” and “minor” lists, are subjective, and proving to be dangerous by their very existence.
Every major metropolis, at least all the ones run by liberals… but I repeat myself, is turning away from public order. Several have District Attorneys who campaigned on platforms of “criminal justice reform,” which is Orwellian newspeak for leniency toward criminals. In Boston, which is mostly in Suffolk County, the new D. A., Rachel Rollins, ran with a list of “petty” crimes her administration would not spend time prosecuting. This was so that “they” could concentrate on “serious” crimes. One might suppose that every petty criminal – particularly those that enjoyed doing those crimes, or who felt a right to the proceeds of those crimes, or any of their relatives who thought it unfair that their otherwise “good” sons, daughters, nieces, nephews or grandchildren should be hassled or incarcerated when, after all, life has already been unfair to them, voted for Ms. Rollins… all in the interest of social justice. The D. A., it is fair to say, has never made a living running a convenience store, or an auto-parts store or small grocery. She has never paid the increasing insurance rates for small businesses victimized by thefts deemed non-serious; she has never paid the extra-high prices for the products those stores’ neighbors must pay to cover the no-longer-sanctioned thievery.
She represents the very odd, even twisted logic of
liberalism: people of certain skin colors and economic circumstances are not
responsible for their actions, since they are largely RE-actions to (pick all
that apply) racism, systemic racism, institutional racism, heritage of slavery,
social injustice, police brutality, departmental (police) racism, lack of
education resources, having to pay for Transit rides and poor housing. In fact there IS systemic racism and it is
the outrageously expensive welfare racism that has destroyed the family
structure of inner-city populations – mostly of color – since the “Great
Society” began. Regardless of what
people of any color may think about
brown-skinned people, even if their thoughts are racially vile – and they’re
out there – it is only the actual impact
of “racism” that truly matters. It is
safe to say that only an infinitesimal fraction of “racist” or prejudicial
thoughts have any impact on anyone besides the ignorant thinker.
Racism is as natural as breathing, otherwise, today, there would be no ghettos forming. People, however, prefer people like themselves: those who look like, sound like and “live” like themselves… even those who eat the same foods and attend the same churches. It’s as natural as breathing. What each ethno-centric group thinks about the others is mostly inconsequential. Should they think nicer thoughts? Probably, but it’s not anyone’s business what thoughts they think unless… unless they take some negative action because of them. Burning down or looting some Korean’s store because of racial hatred is racism that actually matters. Stealing from any store because you think life has been unfair to you because of “racism,” is actual racism that matters.
Consigning 4 or 5 generations of black and brown people to
welfare dependency, and now “legally” enabling them to be more effective
criminals, that is real racism that matters.
To help counter black welfare hopelessness, the same liberals promote
and finance abortion-on-demand as some sort of civil right, and, as evidently
intended, it reaches 60% or more of its pinnacle of “success” by killing off
black and brown babies. What a country.
San Francisco, formerly under the guidance of Gavin Newsome, now the winsome governor of California, has, in the span of less than a decade, converted itself from a city of beauty to one where humans are enabled, if not encouraged, to live more like animals, thanks to new “rights” afforded to those so inclined, to camp out in public spaces, take illegal drugs in public, commit certain levels of crimes to support their “oppressed” life choices, fornicate in public, and relieve themselves wherever the fancy strikes them, now amounting to 20,000 or more defecation “rights” in public places, including sidewalks, parks, playgrounds and schoolyards, each year! Uptight “conservatives,” San Francisco authorities discovered, have no right to impose lifestyle choices on others not as fortunate.
Dogs and other animals at least endeavor to cover up their
feces. Once public nudity was found to
be a “right,” was public defecation far behind?
Once public defecation was ensconced among constitutionally protected “rights,”
was defecation in a super market far behind?
That’s where the toilet paper is, after all. The astronomical property values in San
Francisco are starting to slip, and segregation from public areas is growing
for those able to afford it. Dystopia.
Liberalism appears to have partnered with global socialism
on the path toward destruction of “Western” culture and North American culture
in particular. A very effective way to
accomplish that goal is to disrupt cultural norms, one of which has ALWAYS been
that laws mean what they say, those who break those laws deserve legal
sanctioning for those criminal acts, policing, prosecution and adjudication
shall be, BY LAW, unbiased, fair and based only on the law. In other words, no individual in the chain of
justice has the power, logically, to decide the resolution of cases outside of
the lawful process – certainly not on the premise of some sort of triage due to
“limited resources.”
Who represents justice for victims? Isn’t justice the key reason for
relinquishing personal sovereignty to a government? Where does ANY law convey authority to an
individual to judge some people’s justice as more valuable than that of others?
None does, in fact, but many are deciding that justice somehow varies based on skin color. This is not to say that injustice hasn’t been
meted out by white authorities based exactly on skin color. It was shameful then, and is shameful,
now. But how is injustice for most
citizens able to correct, or balance, injustice meted out for some others in
the past… even if the past was yesterday?
It isn’t, of course, unless perceived in a certain level of hatred…
hatred spawned in racism, a terrible way to conduct public safety and other
policies.
Public safety is attacked hourly by the growing hordes of “homeless”
people accumulating in major cities, all liberal bastions of victimhood. Clearly, feeling sorry for people who, in the
vast majority, choose to be how and where they are, neither improves their
condition or living circumstances, nor their health or humanity. Victimhood requires someone to be “oppressing”
those in uncomfortable straits, and liberals/socialists, never exhaust the
reasons that misfits, criminals, drug addicts and otherwise “homeless” denizens
are not responsible for their situations.
Indeed, it seems more cruel to perpetuate – practically promulgate – living
“on the streets” rather than forcing those who do so to “shape up.”
Public vagrancy laws have, in some liberal jurisdictions, been set aside as somehow un-Constitutional. In other words, “society” has no right to require either living or sanitary standards. Drug addiction and public urination, defecation and lewd exposure are now civil rights. “Crimes of survival” are to be tolerated by the more fortunate in order to balance past – possibly current – oppression of “the homeless.” Cultural standards, norms, are now simply suggestions. By extension, then, one is left to decide which laws enforcing standards are worth obeying: very poor statecraft, to be sure, helping, steadily, to dissolve social and political unity. The natural result will be imposition of social order by a police state. The mindset of modern liberalism is creating, or has created, sets of problems that are insoluble by democratic republicanism.
A woman in Seattle was brutally raped at a car dealership by
a “homeless” man. Her screams brought
help too late to prevent the consummation of the assault. She has spoken out as loudly as she can
against policies that foment Seattle’s growing homeless/lawless
population. Liberals, at least those who
still feel sorry for poor, victimized, homeless criminals, attacked the victim for spreading a story that might reduce public
sympathies for “homeless” people!
In Los Angeles many homeless people “live” in the terminals
at LAX international airport. They cause
problems, of course, including filth, lewd and lascivious exposure to both
adults and children, stealing of small packages and purses – generally discomfiting
the traveling public. Some keep
themselves clean in the restrooms, some don’t.
Some avail themselves of indoor plumbing, some don’t. The situation is tolerated.
Liberal administrations shrug at the existence of these “intractable”
problems. Cities spend tens of millions “addressing”
the homeless problem, basically in trying to contain it. But they cannot, or will not, contain the
drugs, the diseases, the “petty” crimes or the human failure. Liberalism is incapable of creating or
imposing order and standards in urban centers.
Does this mean the problems are unsolvable? If liberals declare a condition as “normal,”
does that stop consideration of ideas for its solution?
To correct the
conditions, or causes of homelessness and addiction, requires changing the
beliefs of those who cling to that way of life.
This is not to say that most, or even very many of those living on the
streets intended to live this way or even want
to live this way, but they cling to it out of fear. It is their life and their comfort. It is where their co-sufferers live, their friends
and drug dealers, some quite petty, sharing more than selling. To be torn away from them is the most
grievous outcome imaginable. They help
one another and bond with one another. “Arresting”
them is no solution, since the penal system cannot provide what is missing. Individual cities cannot simply “place” them
in housing: their beliefs won’t have changed and their habits and life-choices
will immediately resume. For most of the
“street” people, a new belief in both themselves and in their legitimate place
in civilization, must be learned – inculcated, if you will.
OMG! Do you mean “re-education
camps? You fascist!” Yes.
The loudest screams will come from leftists, for whom the
entire country is a well-orchestrated re-education camp – but let that go for
the moment. There is no long-term, or
even short term solution to rampant,
growing homelessness, other than changing the beliefs of those who cling to
that way of survival. Pursuit of
happiness, indeed. They need a new happiness,
and not one drug-induced. A test-city/county
needs to be selected and a tightly defined state of emergency declared. The resources of a wealthy nation, and its
brain-power, must be applied to a new community where survival depends on
learning and practicing the skills of construction, farming, sewerage
treatment, fire-prevention… every single skill and craft needed to operate a
small town. Every homeless or addicted
person in the test region will be brought there.
Removed from filth and literally forced to be clean, in
every way, and drug-free, our test-community will rise from a tent-city to a
constructed one. Individuals will be
detoxed and then taught nutrition and self-care and then their old skills or
new ones will be employed – as will they – to create a model community. These people are not worthless, they are lost
or trapped. If they do not work they
will have meager sustenance. If they
work and contribute and grow, they will eat better, live better, perform
better. Much like the American legion’s “Boys’
State” and “Girls’ State” programs, they will form neighborhood groups and
eventually town or city councils. They’ll
elect leaders and establish schools for themselves and their children. They’ll learn how to build and furnish houses
in the most eco-friendly ways, and they’ll produce goods or foodstuffs to sell
to others so that their town can afford fuel, electricity and so forth. From completely subsidized they will become
completely independent, a program that will probably take 4 or 5 years. With success, every drug addict, homeless or
not, could be sentenced to “New Life Town.”
To accomplish this will require military discipline and
regimentation, and a domestic “Peace Corps” to assist relatively backward
people to learn to be civilized, to live well through self-discipline and
responsibility, rather than enforcements.
They are the wayward children of America. We know how to effect adult maturity and responsibility,
we do it all the time with our own children.
For how many more decades and ruined lives will we refuse to “raise”
these people?
Despite his New York crudeness and bragadocio, Donald Trump
has begun a service to the foundational ideas and premises of America, and
thereby to every American. He, himself, and every one of his most loyal
compatriots, is oblivious to the magnitude of that service. What has he done?
His presidency has operated, as most have done, at a public
level, variously reported in praise and condemnation, broadcast and published –
the level at which modern politics are negotiated and fulfilled. Beneath that, he operates within the secret,
classified levels that are presented to each president as though to initiate
him to the centers of real governance, hidden from public view for reasons of
“national security,” wink. This secrecy
conveys a patine of power and influence to which he has been inaugurated,
shared by very few. It is heady stuff,
becoming a member of the world’s most august and arcane fellowship. The continuity of the secrets, of the
secretive machinations, of the vital, world-controlling decisions that only he can make, of the “nuclear launch codes,” and
of the distilled intelligence few others will see, is really out of his hands. It is shared
with every president as part of the fable of democratic, civilian control not
only of the vast domestic bureaucracies, but of even the military-industrial
complex. But, it is a fable.
Here and there brief windows open between the public and
private presidencies and much heat is generated, politically, some of the
citizenry become agitated, editorials are written, commenters supply commentary,
and even Congress expresses its dudgeon, both high and low. The portion of the public made restive by the
once “secret” revelations is assuaged by palatable political lies and life goes
on. Very few lives are affected. Elections, however, can be effected because
of them. Still, not much changes over
time.
Beneath the “secret” level of (mostly military and
international) governance, there is the amorphous, faceless, simultaneously
unorganized yet unified, unelected and permanent, administrative state. This vast majority of our “governors” have
virtually no connection to any president or even presidency. Each new “head” of the administration is
largely uninvolved with this level. It
was in place – two millions strong – long before his election to the “most
powerful office on Earth’ and it will remain in place long after he has “left
his mark” upon America.
And now, Trump. Trump
got elected by defeating the penultimate deep statist, Hillary. Hillary is a political deep statist; the
permanent deep statists are, however biased, mainly interested in their
individual interest areas, perhaps thanks to some college degree, and in their
economic security, excellent benefits and virtual tenure. Political deep statists are more likely to adhere to
either the socialist world view – and power – and to the eternal struggle to
impose it upon the United States, or to simple, tawdry, utterly corrupt and
corruptible personal financial aggrandizement.
This is where Hillary Clinton has spent nearly five decades and America
has finally had enough of her. Trump is
clearly on a path quite divergent from the Clintons’.
Trump doesn’t much care about political correctness. He doesn’t care much about whom he offends,
even when he intends to offend them.
Most are offended because that is their “shtick:” finding offense
everywhere and garnering immediate social media support that will bring the
weak-willed to their sniveling, apologetic knees within the hour. Otherwise decent, even productive and useful
people, are made weak and malleable by the “woke” offense industry. Soon, people like Joe Biden and Beto O’Rourke
are apologizing for being white. This
doesn’t work with Trump, one of the reasons his supporters stick with him.
Because he doesn’t suffer fools, Trump has engendered
impressive levels of hatred here and there within the deep state. He has a pro-America agenda, which is to say,
an agenda that hews slightly more closely to the presumptions of liberty that
were part and parcel of her founding. He
wants domestic policy to reflect individual responsibility and even-handed law
enforcement, for example. This is not
the policy of the deep state, crafted in tens of thousands of regulations
whereby virtually everyone may be persecuted or prosecuted for broken “laws”
created by those unelected regulators.
Regulators hate Trump, even though he hasn’t struck all that deeply into
their regulatory empire. It is hateful
enough that he undid some of the “great regulator, Obama’s” glorious flood of
executive orders.
The deep, deep state, State Department department hates him
because he wants America’s treaties and foreign relations, trade and otherwise,
to work FOR the United States and no longer against us. Most presidents make diplomatic noises while
the State Department’s deep statists (largely globalist socialists) do what they
“know” is best for the world; Trump intends to reverse much of that and make it
pro-American. They will undermine his
policies wherever possible, like in Ukraine.
He has no interest in helping George Soros.
The EPA minions surely detest him because he wants land use
to include humans. It may sound silly,
but many EPA regulators literally prefer squirrels and other four-or-more legged
denizens of Earth over almost any two-legged ones… except for them, of course,
and the other climate-change thinkers who, they dream, will wind up taking care
of the planet far better than most humans have been, and in deserved comfort – few,
if any, America-first conservatives included.
Interior has little use for Trump. The careerists at Interior cannot imagine any
wide-open spaces that are not restricted to bears, wolves and armadillos. Humans don’t belong in those habitats, just
lizards and beavers and so forth. Any
humans already mistakenly thinking they “own” a plot in those open lands can be
eased – or forced – out of the “habitat,” and eventually housed in a 300 square
foot dormitory space powered by solar panels, vegetables growing on the roof, drinking
recycled water. Only by being as uncomfortable
as possible could humans – non-ruling humans – ever balance the ways we’ve
despoiled all the “habitats.” Trump
isn’t into that view of the future.
It is impossible to evaluate the motivations of 2 Million
federal workers. The majority are lifers,
eventually to retire from their federal jobs.
Each has his or her own motivations, personal “profits,” philosophies
and biases. No single description can
apply to 5 people, let alone to a million or more, but given their similarities
of employment, there are obviously some motivations, satisfactions, that they
share.
Primary of these is a general approval of government, defined as interlocking
bureaucracies within which, and among which, are performed the “real” work of
government. Federal government personnel
are generally in favor of federal government: perfectly logical. Next, each long-time employee is generally
favorable toward his or her own agency or office. Each perceives his or her work as valuable,
if not vital. Each, then, is likely to
be resistant to any diminution of his or her agency or mission. The managers in each agency are, more than
just stability, desirous of growth –
growth of mission and growth of personnel numbers. Growth equals importance, promotion, better
pay. Built into the 15 executive
departments of the Cabinet, are so many agencies that no firm count of them
exists!
There are 200 at least, but there may be over 400. These, alone, provide a substantial force for
permanence and growth – a force that politicians cannot find the courage to temper. Four hundred or so would seem to be a
manageable, or at least a take-controllable number. But it is merely the blueprint. Within them all are PROGRAMS, programs and
more programs. Congress creates
them. For every one there is an advocacy
group that at some time identified a problem that a federal agency/program was
not addressing specifically. The good
intention of every advocate is probably real.
Problems exist. Solutions are
often obvious, but rarely easy to effect.
So, politicians are scratched at their most itchy spot:
re-election. Soon a bill is filed to
great publicity, that will finally, after years of Republican inaction, solve this or that terrible problem.
Mainly out of ignorance for some, and out of innate anti-liberty
socialist beliefs for the rest, problems, no matter how small or how caused,
are federalized. That the federal
administrative state is possibly the least effective way on earth to solve
problems, only describes the cynicism of politicians who put every problem in
the federal lap or on the federal breast.
That they do so while the federal budget is $22 Trillion in debt – and
more – only describes their utter mendacity and failure, over many terms, to
uphold one of the most basic covenants the federal government makes with its
citizens. For shame.
Trump, unfortunately, has yet to express a willingness to
change federal budgeting.
Still, whether it is because of, or in spite of himself,
Trump has caused to be exposed the infidelities of globalists and socialists
who prefer a continuing, costly, international policeman role for the U.
S. Several have been ejected and more
soon will be. But even if all of the
untrustworthy DOJ, DOD, CIA and NSA apparatchiks were cleaned out… all of them…
the liberty-corroding machinations of the molasses-heads just a bit deeper
entrenched in the hundreds of agencies and thousands of programs (did you know
there are over 1,000 federal programs “addressing” poverty?), will plod along,
inflicting regulations with the force of law, able to strip citizens of their
constitutional rights, among other things.
It is insidious, yet not corrupt, actually – it’s a way of stultifying,
nightmarish administrative life. Blame
for it rests on 50 Congresses and a dozen presidents. And on us.
Conservatives like to think that they are upholding the
Constitution when they oppose communists, socialists, liberals and other
Democrats. They tout principles and vote
to increase the debt ceiling like lemmings.
They are hated roundly for this, by the “woke” socialists who are not
only not awake, but are barely aware of either the Sun or the Son. God help anyone who threatens to cut the
budget; only enemies of the Republic would conspire to allow the “government”
to “shut down.” It never does.
Impeachment. An ugly
term, certainly, but one so frivolously cast that it’s meaning and impact are
widely misunderstood. To impeach
means to indict. “Well, like, ‘Duhh’ man. What am I supposed to think, now?”
In simple terms, an indictment is just a charge levied against an individual,
that is agreed to by a selected panel
of citizens sworn to listen without bias to evidence supporting the charge, and to vote their consciences
according to the applicable laws pertaining to the crime that the charge alleges. How’s that?
Still a little unclear? Perhaps
an example will help.
A small business owner is awakened at night by a call from
police informing him that there was a “break-in” at his building. He throws on some clothes and rushes to his
business to observe that, in fact, (real, or “solid” evidence) a windows was
jimmied somehow, and other damage done to the window frame and to objects and
materials inside the building. There are
no clear fingerprints or blood drops or other identifying foreign matter that
could immediately identify who did the observed damage. A search is performed to see if something
were stolen, and a police report filled out.
Eventually a person is arrested during a similar break-in,
and the state, through the District
Attorney’s office, brings him before a Grand
Jury composed of that select panel of sworn citizens, and the charges are
presented, including such evidence as has been gathered. That evidence
may be circumstantial or it may be direct evidence such as eye-witness accounts
of the commission of the crime, or of the sale of items stolen from break-in
victims, or even testimony from people who heard the accused talking about
committing the crimes. That panel, the
Grand Jury, “hands up” an indictment to the District Attorney, who will become the prosecutor in the trial of the accused, and he or she
files the case with the appropriate
court. The accused will be represented
by his defense attorney, whom he has hired or whom the court (the state) has provided to him at taxpayer expense. This is called “Due Process” in the United
States.
Following a “just” trial according to the rules of
jurisprudence, the accused, if convicted, may still appeal his conviction on various technicalities, including poor legal representation.
What has any of this to do with the impeachment show we are
anticipating, now?
“Impeach” was a cry hurled toward Trump and toward anyone
who would broadcast it, even before the brash, vulgar, non-Washington-molded
President-elect was inaugurated. “For what?”
would be the response from his supporters.
“For “collusion” with Russians!”
That the charges hurled against Trump were mirror images of
the actions of the Clinton Campaign, the Clinton-dominated Democratic National
Committee, AND of the nefarious elements of the F.B.I. and C.I.A. and of the
Obama administration, itself, in no way mitigated the inflammatory calls for impeachment that were hurled by politicians and elected
office-holders throughout, so far, his first term as President. Barely had the dust settled from the utter
collapse of the collusion with Russians construct, but new, nebulous charges have
been leveled that are purported to justify… wait for it, impeachment!
The new charges stem from a phone call President Trump made
to the new President of Ukraine in July of 2019. Ostensibly, and it is strictly subjective,
Trump threatened to withhold already approved military assistance unless
President Zelenskey investigated apparent influence peddling by Joe Biden while
Vice-President in the Obama administration.
So far, at least, there is no proof that a so-called, “quid pro quo” was
actually required, but that is the crux of the impeachment cries. Mr. Trump deserves some recognition for not
folding before the onslaught.
But, it may be instructive to consider the alleged “crime”
of demanding something from the
government of Ukraine in some sort of exchange for American largesse.
Ukraine has long been considered corrupt, inasmuch that
numerous officials enrich themselves at the expense of the citizenry, including
bribery to get anything actually done, including, amazingly, defending the
integrity of the nation against Russian incursion and encouragement of civil
war on behalf of the supposedly ethnic Russian minority. The U. S. stood still while Russia separated
Crimea from Ukraine, and virtually still as irregular Russian insurgents
created a nearly autonomous region around Donetsk. President Trump has finally begun to send
armaments to Kiev for defensive purposes against the restive Russians.
Ukraine has last been independent for fewer than 30
years. Upon the breakup of the Soviet
Union, the new Republic of Ukraine inherited a bureaucracy of corrupt officials
and apparatchiks whose prior graft was tiny compared to the
opportunities under a more open-market, open-for-business environment. But Ukraine is also an example of the most
unholy alliances our own government has made with international socialist
organizations who, for 30 years have been undermining governments to install
socialists. George Soros is at the
center of those efforts and our own tax monies have been funneled to his groups
in multiple countries (Egypt, Macedonia, Ukraine, Chile, Somalia, Libya, and… wait
for it, the United States!)
Bit by bit, President Trump and the relative handful of
honest patriots who serve with him, have exposed the wholly un-American efforts
of those who agree with international socialism and who actively support it
with every form of subterfuge and disingenuousness true Americans can only imagine. Mr. Obama was the most blatant socialist, ne’
communist, we have ever elected… and Mr. Trump is the antidote to his two terms
of American decline. Joe Biden
thoroughly agrees with Obama’s work and his missions to Ukraine as Vice
President, where Soros and U. S. efforts had taught young socialists how to
topple a government in 2014, are perfectly legitimate areas of inquiry for an
America-first president to follow.
The shady-looking insertion of Hunter Biden, a sketchy individual in his own right, into a corrupt gas company spawned by a corrupt Ukrainian oligarchy, in a country into which the U. S. was poised to pour several hundred millions of taxpayer monies, made the need to obtain some sort of clarity that the money wasn’t an example of good money after bad, a virtual duty. The parallel issues of “Crowdstrike” actions to interfere with the 2016 elections simply accentuated the need to encourage the eradication of corruption before more money were turned over. If Trump had NOT asked for a “quid pro quo” he should be judged a fool.
Now there is a form of “grand jury” attempting to , quite unfairly it appears, assess “evidence” against the accused President. There isn’t much to the process so far that adheres to what we enjoy as “due process” in the matters of indictment and prosecution. To date there has not been described a crime for the “grand jury” to evaluate the nature of any evidence for, yet they struggle onward, certain that the unpleasant America-firster, Donald Trump, is guilty of something – if not everything.
Eventually, and probably just as interest in the “historic” impeachment inquiry begins to fall off, the House of Representatives, that august and impartial grand jury, will vote to “impeach,” as in, they will “hand up” an indictment. But the hand-up goes not to a prosecutor but to the Senate. There a “trial” will be held, presided over by the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, John Roberts. The once and future “grand jury” will take the responsibility of “prosecutor,” having filled the role of persecutor for three years to no avail. They will employ various attorneys to make the House’s case in the Senate. Should be a great show.
Two world-changing events occurred in 2016: the U. K. vote
to leave the European Union… and the election of Donald Trump to the U. S.
presidency. There are many parallels,
both in the respective happenings and in their aftermaths. Both events have exposed flaws in the
collectivist trends both nations were in the midst of. Both nations have experienced hate-filled
political discourse ever since.
The “UK” – Britain – had taken an economic step away from sovereignty when it joined the “European Community” in1973, and reinforced the decision by referendum two years later. After the Maastricht Treaty in 1992, Britain took a political step away from sovereignty, as well. Now the European Union, The “EU” placed controls and limitations on member “states” regarding citizenship, borders, immigration and judicial decisions, with the avowed intention of forming a “United States of Europe” and subverting cultural distinctions and national rights. Britain has always been restive about the changes to its sovereignty, and public pressure and petitioning finally caused Parliament to create the referendum, yes or no, on leaving the EU: the so-called “Brexit.”
What is interesting is the emergence of hatred as a dominant British political tool, more than even during existential threats of war over Britain’s lengthy warring history. Per usual, all of what Brits call “hooliganism” is laid at the feet of “ultra-right-wingers,” who, apparently, are too stupid to recognize the wonderful future that’s possible with globalization. If anyone objects vociferously to the slippery amalgamation into an ephemeral United States of Europe, he or she is pigeon-holed as a “right-winger” and not worthy of considered attention.
In other words, “nationalism” may be viewed only through the
lens of Nazism and racism and all the other “isms” leftists use to end
debates. The benefits of national
competitiveness in the elevation of living standards of every sort, is
carelessly conflated with government’s benign intentions and centralized economic
control. Individual liberty is the first
victim of centralization. The unholy alliance of history-ignorant education and
a leftist press have proven useful in the imposition of this theory.
A similar effect has clearly been evidenced in the rise of
Donald Trump. With calls for his
impeachment even before his inauguration, there is no surprise that his
political opponents are clamoring ever louder for impeachment, now. The only thing missing is an impeachable
offense, but they’ll construct one or hire a contractor to create one for them. Why not win at the ballot box by putting the
efforts at impeachment to work building an electoral coalition? That’s a good but separate question.
Why the hate across academia and liberal-leftist “communities?” From Antifa on up, the degree of hatred for
Mr. Trump and his supporters is indicative of tremendous fear: fear of losing something so dearly held that nothing is too
extreme to defend it… even if that means disrupting democratic republicanism
and the Constitution, itself. What could
that be? That is the question, and a
larger question in the U. S. than in the U. K.
Do leftists simply hate all non-leftists? Maybe… they don’t like us, certainly, and think
we are stupid for not appreciating their view of history’s inevitable direction. But, hatred?
Takes a lot of energy to hate, maybe that’s why they aren’t very
cheerful. It could be that they have
plans to facilitate the supposedly inevitable direction of human activity (and
serfdom) and that those plans are so important that they must destroy everyone
who opposes – even by disagreeing with – the idea of a universally socialist
future.
Is it as simple as just hating Trump, the man? He has lived a very exposed life and, until
deciding to run for president, he enjoyed the benefits of wealth and acceptance
in the elite circles of power and influence open to those who appear to not
oppose the leftist vision. You might say
he exploited those benefits. While not a
perfect husband, he has been a good father by all measures, and treats his
ex-wives gently. Evidently he married
more of his female affair partners than John F. Kennedy did his. He has never had any questionable deaths
connected to him or his companies, and no one has had to “take the rap” for
him. Is he a sweetheart? No. He’s
rather ruthless in business… a requirement in the kinds of businesses he has
worked in. He’s a scrapper, willing to
fight back when politically punched. He seems
quite patriotic. What’s to actually hate so vehemently?
Trump must be a threat to something held very dear by all of
those who have reared up to stop his presidency. The measure of his enemies helps us size up
the President, no longer simply Mr. Trump. Trump’s life and past business successes and
failures, did not include diplomatic niceties, euphemistic half-truths and
pretend alliances. Trump, himself, has
never tried to present himself very differently than he actually is: brash,
defensive, crude and vulgar at times.
He is vulnerable, politically, mainly from being a braggart, from which he slides in and out of embellishing the truth, even small truths. Unlike people in ordinary life, many of whom have the same bad habit of embellishing stories, but for whom it doesn’t make much difference, Trump’s overstatements are described only as lies. Others’ families and acquaintances recognize the habit and live – or work – around it. It may even be a source of humor.
In the position of U. S. President there is no room for it…
none, we’re told.
People want to hear the lies they expect. They want to hear about “diplomacy” and “budget
cuts” and “working-class” families like Teamsters, and about “working families”
with indefinable careers, and the great favorite, “investments” in the future
or in our children. Another whopper we
like to hear is “religious freedom.”
While more liberal leaders are expected to purvey “white” lies that keep
America happy and keep secret the daunting business of the executive branch, Trump
is pilloried for overstating, he is the worst liar in American history, after
all.
Trump’s election, though, has interfered with our worldwide economic position, our military standing, the sanctity of our national borders, our ability to complete or repair relations with many nations, and with our ability to conduct domestic business. Why? Because of something Trump has done? Some action that has hurt our standing everywhere? That doesn’t seem like the Prudent answer.
Hatred of Trump, the man, is the damaging cause. Hatred, stirred by certain leaders in the
Democrat party, and continuously stirred up by them, to a degree pushed by
international socialists, is the hammer that has been pounding the U. S. domestically
and internationally since before he was
elected! Hatred. Political action founded on hatred.
Trump has awakened and exposed the essential fraud of the socialist,
administrative, “deep” state – the statist monster of socialist dreams and the
ultimate threat to our constitutional form of government.
When has this phenomenon ever been seen in the United States? Leading up to and during the second Civil War. Now we are entering the fourth.
Widespread hatred, particularly violent hatred like that exercised by so-called “antifa” gangs, is a symptom of civic breakdown. Political leaders are the very people whom we hire to subdue these effects of social dissatisfaction, or hopelessness, yet many are foregoing their responsibilities or actually encouraging the breakdown.
There are many threats to freedom, the greatest of which from outside, is China. They have permanent interests from which they do not deviate. One of those is to achieve dominance over the United States – everything else is secondary. Yet we, U. S. citizens AND our so-called representatives, are allowing Chinese interests to dominate us internally! Who voted for Nike? Politicians on both sides are profiting mightily – and in cash – from connections to Chinese companies. We keep re-electing them. Trump is trying to stand up to the Chinese and receives bitter domestic resistance for trying. You just can’t gore a single ox, anymore.
Meanwhile, we are doing our best to ignore history, these past few decades, and many seem determined to undermine the American idea from within. A world that is still fundamentally not-free, and dominated by soulless international bankers, is in no way the place for the end of national identities, to be replaced with global socialism – for “climate” reasons or any other. It seems more than Prudent, now – today, to defend and strengthen our Constitutional, democratically-elected republican form of government.
