Coming closer to the end of one’s tenure in physical life leads that one to consider both past and future and the multiple meanings of both. There isn’t anything unique to that; millions of people who have gone before and who are in similar periods of contemplation have had such thoughts or are now contemplating what and how to face that transition. Then there are the thoughts of sadness for those who are prevented from the luxury of contemplation or who are not wise enough to seize the opportunity to contemplate their various lives.
Love is the spiritual force that drives our contemplations and our hopes that we might add something more that is positive to the world and to those we love. Why is that the motivation? Merely for kind memories after we’re gone? Or, is the existence – virtually universal – of love in the “hearts” of those who know us, now, or who remember us from years prior, but even, somehow, of love we have for children too young to know us, really. Love is more than a vapor that blows this way and that: it is like an abiding, surrounding fluid that is everywhere we look and think. One cannot wash it off.
It can be repelled with hatred, illustrating the force that is love and its strength and simultaneous fragility. Each of us has a responsibility – spiritually – to defend love from the nibbling intrusions of hate. Some become so fearful of the imputed power of hatred that they stop feeling, let alone expressing, love. Yet love is infinitely stronger. Religious explanations of love are somewhat confusing since most are complicated by political or financial power over populations. The confusion has become worse as scientific inquiry has appeared to disprove many religious tenets. This threat to religious infallibility has caused many branches of Judeo-Christianity to soften scripture and history so that modern social justice may be elevated to something religious. True Love is largely left behind. The frequent declaration of God’s love for each of us is disconnected, somewhat, from the universality of love and the earthly, daily battle with hate.
The best expression of love… and the best way to multiply love, is marriage and children. It is a simple, not quite infallible formula that has worked for millennia. It is a formula that, like changing water into wine, changes everything in the worlds of the husband, the wife and the souls entrusted to them as co-creators with God. Love expands in families.
Hatred, on the other hand, usually is not generated inside of families. It steals into families, perhaps because of drugs or alcohol, or because of some human vector that generates unrequited angers or, worse, self-hatred. It spreads. The wise society maintains a social – perhaps religious – infrastructure that can mitigate, if not resolve, familial dysfunction. It would strengthen everyone. It would assure that subsequent generations of citizens will be smarter than the last, and well-balanced and nurturing.
If unchecked, hatred becomes a means of judgement, both of acquaintances and friends or family. Like other addictions, it begins to look for reasons and justifications for itself. Soon, it’s pleasurable and satisfying. Those who don’t hate seem less wise than the one who is smart enough to hate those who deserve to be hated. In short order, correspondence is reduced to only the circle of co-haters – all enjoying the satisfaction of being more discerning than those who float along disregarding the hateful qualities of this or that person, or group, that are so obvious. Society, the civil, unregulated cooperation that reinforces everyone, can break down at this stage. The visible and invisible lines of hateful judgement create unbridgeable chasms that advance some at the expense and pain of others. There is no longer society… only an uneven police state in which most trust very few others.
The aging individual must choose, now, what his frame of mind will be when the hour comes to leave. Leaving immersed in hatred would seem to be the wrong “way” to face whatever comes next, and this should include self-hatred, possibly the most common form of hate. Hating oneself leads to a search for confirmation from others, perhaps from society, that the self-hating individual is correct in his outlook. If he is “confirmed” as a member of a properly hated group, he will then have found a mission to either spread the hate or better define it, or to find a way to correct the reasons or balance the reasons it is hated. Inevitably this “balance” is perceived as an economic one: forcing people who have nothing to do with why a group is hated today, though long dead, to pay reparations to others alive today, who have virtually nothing to do with the hated people, again, long departed. It is illogical in its conception and unfair in execution: a reward for hatred.
It appears that hatred is a personal matter, one that individuals can control or reverse. Historically, however, most starkly described in “1984,” hatred is a political tool. For many movements, for whom to hate is the sea-anchor that keeps them on course. It is part and parcel of psychological warfare where repetition and cross-citation becomes “truth,” not because it is true but, because it is believed. The same process works personally, creating self-hatred. It is all destructive: from simply feeling like a failure, to rejecting opportunities to triumph… to attempting suicide. “Satan” wins.
Some are unable to process love, which is one of the most difficult mental states to overcome. It is the enemy of self-worth or self-esteem. One should not prepare to die feeling this way.
Nor should a nation die in self-hatred. Good national “health” and a good future, depend upon knowledge of real history, good and bad, and accepting that the imperfections of humans have happened, are happening and will happen, and that we are willing to apply steps of improvement to how we act. Nationally, we can do better for ever larger numbers of people… if we believe in our ability to do so. Hating one another, or our nation, or ourselves, is the recipe for failure. Do we know better?
The concept of TRUTH: unvarnished, unbiased, unalloyed actual, real, provable TRUTH… is a commodity upon which the greatest philosophies are built or related to. So far in human history, no one has been able to connect for more than brief periods, to pure truth. This is not to belay the claims of strong connections to truth; there are millions of those, but they seem to be temporary. Moreover, each claim is subject to language and the meaning of words, not to overlook cultural beliefs of both claimant and listener. It is uncommon that a new “revelation” of truth will actually change cultural or other long-held beliefs. Columbus didn’t prove or reveal that the Earth is round – many already knew those things – but his success at finding a “new” continent gave millions of Europeans something new to “believe in,” but until a colonist or conquistador actually experienced being on this land, he or she had no idea what was actually believed-in. The existence of this land, north, south and islands, was absolutely true, regardless.
Let’s imagine, then, that so-and-so colonist were to visit her home country and try explaining how wonderful the new colony is and the beauty and bounty it offered. What would happen during that conversation? You might be able to perceive several dangers to truth already.
The teller’s enthusiasm – or perceived enthusiasm – would be heard by the listener with automatic reservation. Are conditions as good as she says? Isn’t she overstating how wonderful things are? Just thinking about winters over there makes me shiver!
Was any TRUTH conveyed? The teller wasn’t trying to lie to her correspondent, but did she actually share what her listener accepted as truth? Was such a conveyance even possible? Is truth possible only as a result of experience?
TRUTH has a lot to do with the welfare of nations and citizens: everything from public safety to public health, to macro-and micro-economics. Economists, or business “experts” are often asked about “inflation” these days. Everyone is impacted by rising prices for basic necessities of life, for example, and they would like to know why they rose so quickly and when they’ll return to “normal?” Those asked are likely to say that the “rate of inflation” is coming down to where it was four years ago. This might please many, but none of them will have heard the truth. The queried experts will have referenced a number, or value, concerning “inflation,” but proceeded to describe something else entirely. Even if said expert believed he or she was being accurate, the resulting “information” was unrelated to the topic asked about. BELIEF will have been conveyed… even honest belief, but no truth, per se. The listeners receiving that belief will probably accept it as if true, and even go on to repeat it as if it were. No harm was intended and, probably, none was done unless, that is, one of the listeners has a role in macro-economic policy somewhere. Let’s hope – and we all do – that the policy-making listener knows what “inflation” actually is and makes decisions on that basis.
Truth is precise and provable when experienced. A person touching a tree-trunk can rest assured that the tree exists in the exact form he or she can feel, see and possibly smell. If the observer is a good speaker and tells a person who has a decent command of their shared language, what the tree looks like, feels like and smells like, and exactly where it is, the listener, IF HE OR SHE BELIEVES THE SPEAKER TO BE HONEST, will have received some truth about a bit of reality, and be confident that is the case. How often we complete conversations with the general feeling that we have learned something that is basically true, or is close enough to truth to make a decision about or act upon. “True enough,” we say.
The description of a tree has no future impact on the life, health or fortunes of the receiver of that information. It won’t keep him from going to work, from eating meat or picking up his child from baseball practice. Even if the description by the observer/experiencer of that tree were wildly exaggerated to a point of nonsense, the rest of the listener’s life would be unaffected, unless he or she were to one day encounter that same tree and find that the observer had lied about it, thus changing their relationship for the future. There are, decidedly, different “levels” of truth that we all have learned to manage the impacts of. Indeed, we have learned to manage our own relationship with truth that connects to or emanates from ourselves. Neither society nor civilization could function OR IMPROVE, without a certain level of truthfulness that most members agree to. But, how to measure the levels or, to be more precise and truthful with ourselves: how to make judgments about “truthiness?”
Judging others is virtually automatic by age 12 or so, but the habit deserves more thought than it is typically afforded in today’s social-media environment. We are constantly assailed by strong opinions about people and topics, with little time spent on using our judgment power. Concepts slide into our consciousness without much analysis and become part of a background of belief – or “truth” – against which newer ideas are compared and sources thereof, judged. It doesn’t seem Prudent to try to socialize only in terms of absolute truth. Personalities would be overridden by analytics; friendship and love would be impossible: the strengths and weaknesses of individuals would be disregarded. The very essence of judgment, sympathy, empathy and charity would be subsumed in a distillate of pure truth. The joy of wonder and hope would be made unnecessary if humanity were defined only by pure fact.
If interpersonal relationships must include true feelings and honesty as essential parts of managed truth, where is unvarnished truth required in modern society? Education, government, law-enforcement and medicine. It is easy to see why, with a little reflection.
First, Education: Learning has been slipping badly over the past 40 years. It is crucial that there be real human teachers keeping students on course – it’s part of maturation – but there must be a high percentage of absolute truth conveyed. No human will be bias-free, but that’s useful in terms of engaging students in the subject matter: interaction with the teacher/professor. Healthy argument speeds internalization of crucial parts of the subject matter, and not the same argument for every student. Humans are essential, but each should be judged or evaluated on the true percentage of TRUTH that is conveyed – and learned – by students. Education by indoctrination is failing miserably.
Second, Government: Maintaining governing structures and processes that are most effective in lying to citizens and others will only hasten the demise of the nation. Advancement, free-enterprise and success of the citizens can only occur with a high degree of honesty in every interaction with government. When dishonesty is the order of the day, people commence to make their own decisions about which laws each will obey. If more than one person in 15 becomes criminal, society will implode. Moreover, dishonest government will lie most actively about budgets and debt, ultimately bringing [Society cannot survive] financial ruin down upon the people, generally, and on the nation.
Third, Law-Enforcement: The most basic covenant between citizens and their government in a Republic, is equal application of the laws. It is counter-productive entirely to create different classes of people based on how laws are enforced; it is beyond logic, fairness and honesty by any definition to enforce laws more harshly on citizens than on illegal entrants. Society cannot survive when its leaders dissipate the value of citizenship.
Fourth, Medicine: Crass industrialization – and politicization through money – of medicine, medical research and pharmaceuticals, has cheapened medicine to mere employment and made the medical “system” an untrustworthy power-player with access to the taxing/inflation power of the federal government. Worse, it spurs globalization for the potential marketing of marginally useful, if not dangerous products to billions, not just millions, of customers. The CARE element of healthcare must be restored to prominence, along with free-enterprise innovation and competition… to keep truth the key factor in care and honesty the key element of healing.
The concept of MERIT, or meritocracy, in all phases of governance and every facet of civilization and social/human advancement, is based on truth and honesty. The ability to actually perform the functions of critical work, or to acquire and grasp the knowledge to invent, innovate and execute increasingly technical skills, are crucial elements of merit. The originators of socialism in its various colors, are the source of “DEI” and other ideas that weaken or specifically deny merit as the right philosophy of honest, benevolent progress. All of such injections of “anti-merit” education, training, hiring and firing, including even in business, have occurred in entities controlled or involved with essentially socialist-influenced government.
Americans should compare ALL political candidates in terms of meritocracy or anti-meritocracy, regardless of related pejoratives employed by either “side.” Our standards of living, health, safety and comfort can be weakened in just a few years of twisting society towards sympathetic “equity” and away from meritocracy… and truth.
America appears to be at its weakest condition both nationally and internationally (if the two can be considered separately), if not ever, certainly since the Civil War. We’re entering the last few months of the most questionable Presidency in our history, during which the actual levers of power and communication seem to be in the hands of unknown people other than the erstwhile president, Joe Biden. Major changes in our international relationships have taken place in the same period, including significant failures both military and diplomatic. Our greatest enemies have formed new or stronger alliances against the U. S. or its allies, and our economic position is under daily assault, also both domestically and internationally.
Our financial structure is groaning under the weight of excessive borrowing and debt. Even as the cost of INTEREST in the federal budget has exceeded One Trillion Dollars per year, the Biden-Harris regime is planning deficit spending that will take our total debt to over $50 Trillion in another 10 to 15 years! Even without the Marxist welfare plans they have, deficit spending is now such a habit in federal budgeting that the concept of balance income and expenses at the federal level is so politically distant that the risks to solvency AND OUR ABILITY TO DEFEND OURSELVES, are far away behind a fog-bank of self-service and electoral enrichment.
Our Navy, for example, is at its smallest, least-modernized status of the past 50 years. Our latest aircraft are so expensive that fleet size has been curtailed, as are, sadly, some of the advanced technologies, themselves. Piece by piece, we have reduced the number of defense contractors, and thus the competitive pressures that yield the best innovations and quality. Many armaments depend on materials and chips, in particular, that must be imported. It is questionable whether the U. S. could sustain more than a week or two of all-out war with either Russia or China. Indeed, we are strained to provide arms to Ukraine and Israel at the same time.
And our allies, solid and ephemeral? The Biden regime has disturbed them at every turn. The inexplicable retreat from Afghanistan, after pouring treasure and people into that odd, horribly expensive balancing act of inexplicable purpose, has other nations wondering about trusting the U. S. when the chips are down for their countries. Why didn’t we hold Baghram Air Force Base? Because the Chinese Communists told Biden they wanted us out of there? They didn’t want the U. S. able to strike from a few hundred miles instead of several thousand? What should India think… or Pakistan? Or, anyone else?
We’re no longer the “arsenal of Democracy…” more like the arse-holes of Democracy. We’ve been sending our treasure and our best young people to other lands to instill a form of government and ostensible freedom, that we don’t want, ourselves! Indeed, one of our major political parties delights in encouraging demonstrations and riots that tear at the roots of our society as if they prove how wonderful and “free” our system is. It is, apparently, a message that 70 MILLION aborted Americans can’t transmit.
A majority of Americans no longer trust our basic institutions of government and society, including even medicine and higher education. One political party constantly tells us how crass and dismal our history is, how the high-falutin ideals of our founding are really lies told by enslavers, how religion is part of the lies we have been told, and how children can be helped to change their genders. It is difficult for citizens to keep their mental footing.
Marriage is crumbling. There is no more significant pillar upholding Western / American civilization than strong, committed, life-long marriages. Those on the left, opposed to religion, particularly Christianity – and the farther Left the more virulently opposed – look to government laws and regulations as the only source of ethics or, even, morals. Satisfying government bureaucrats, so-called “experts,” is the goal of anti-religionists. Satisfying personal, conscientious beliefs and oaths of honor, is the abiding guideline of those raised in a religious environment, in families strengthened by the same sort of personal honor. There is nothing stronger or more life-affirming. No civilization or culture can survive or grow without a commitment to LIFE. The growing commitment to anti-life, anti-marriage and anti-growth in America, is a recipe for doom. We are reinforcing this trend with our mendacious economics, as well.
The left, placing its entire hopefulness in the hands of government, cannot trust in individuals or their ethics. The private economy is a mystery to leftists / socialists / Communists and Democrat liberals. They call themselves “progressives” so as to avoid anyone mouthing those other names. They believe that welfare and massive government spending will somehow make individuals smarter, stronger, more productive and more moral. Having rejected spiritual life, entirely, Progressives place no trust in any individual’s motivation to do what is right or beneficial. Consequently, Progressive, far-left Presidential administrations will, and always have, diverted resources away from Defense and into domestic “free stuff.”
On Mayday, 2010, a major water main bringing water from the Quabbin Reservoir in Massachusetts to the Greater Boston city and regional system, burst at a gigantic valve in the town of Weston. It created a major water emergency. Governor Deval Patrick issued directives for people to boil their water until further notice. Made eminent sense. At the same time, the MWRA brought truckloads of bottled water to key distribution points. One might think that boiling water would be a function that most humans in the United States could handle… even in 2010. Fights broke out over the bottled water distribution, fights that made the news. Amazing. Even for such a simple emergency situation: the recommendation to boil tapwater before cooking with it or drinking it, large numbers of people expected government salvation without delay. They wanted enough bottled water to take baths with, not just for consumption. It seemed weird.
What is likely to happen when Americans are forced to sacrifice? What if we must fight all-out war? What if the economy, $35 Trillion in debt, collapses and foreign countries won’t accept payment in devalued dollars? Would people find a way to persevere as they did during the Depression? Or, during World War II? Would we be capable of boiling our water if an enemy has contaminated water supplies? One wonders. What if we lose the internet, GPS, cell-phone service or electric power for long periods? Are we tough enough to survive? Smart enough?
As a cruise ship plows forward, forcing water aside, waves are created, however short-lived, and they are real… impermanent, but real. Perhaps that is because they last for more than a moment. From windows forty feet above, with the sun shining against the ship and water, there appear light and dark patterns – like lace – flashing into and out of view, only “real” because I have perceived their ephemeral patterns. Engaging someone’s consciousness: is that essential for reality?
Someone sitting at another window could not perceive the same tracery despite its reality to me for a flash of time. It’s much the same as Love or Anger or Sadness or a dozen… no, ten-dozen other emotions, the reality part, at least. Usually they flit across one’s being like a shadow, gaining reality only if your consciousness grabs hold and commits mental energy to one.
Suddenly, from a flash of fear or loathing of someone’s odd difference from your own self you have made a decision – a choice – to hate the different one, even for a few moments… a feeling that is no longer fleeting, but real. If left private, shared with no one else, it is neither bad nor good. While it may affect your own physiology, quicken your breath and pulse, you may choose from evil. You may release the ill-feeling before it becomes a belief. Only belief can render such a flash real.
Funny thing, belief. We all suffer from it, it is how we live. Faith requires it and Hope is made of it. Faith, compounded of hundreds of stories – ideas, really, that can’t be replicated or proven, on the surface, can’t be tested to establish some sort of “proof” for the benefit of others who doubt is premises. It need not be put to any test for those who have it. Faith is trust and that means trust in A source of the idea, or in THE source of the idea.
We, humans, live in faith. It surrounds our beings, functions and beliefs. Much is made of religious faith in this day of militant, feral atheism. Religious faithful especially are denigrated for beliefs in “mumbo jumbo,” although these besmirchments apply almost exclusively to Christians and Jews. One never sees “protesters” opposed to Hindus or Muslims or Buddhists. There are some opponents to Mormons: mostly a quirk of Christian intolerance – the same that underlay many wars, even AMONG Christians, but no worse than sectarian conflicts elsewhere. It has never been settled whether tolerance, per se, is good or bad. Tolerance of what?
But, in terms of faith, itself, those who trust in the solidness of soil, rocks, wood or ice are no less faithful, however shallow that faith may be. After all, if doubt creeps in, one need simply pick up another rock and have his or her faith restored. However, “science” shows us that rocks and other “solid” things are comprised of atoms which are mostly empty space, each part of which is a mere vibration of energy. So, how is it enough of these supposed “atoms” can hold up the weight of others of its kind, plus the weight of us, our rocks, cars and houses?
Well, let’s not worry about such things. Thank God they do… ummm, I mean, thank goodness. Same thing.
We trust in a lot of life we can’t control – or understand – so why is trust in God so singularly questioned? Does His / Her possibility threaten us? Is it because God proclaimed rules that humans are “commanded” to follow? Rules for Good and Bad and Love and Life and Death? One of those rules, that EVERY human once had faith in, Is “Thou shalt not steal.” It’s a pretty good rule, too: easy to understand and without compromise.
We expect, for example, to be impacted by government – an expectation that is so often realized that it becomes a “matter of faith.” We know government is going to limit or coerce us in matters of stealing and, frankly, in almost every action we take. We have FAITH in government’s intrusiveness for it is proven to us a hundred times each day… or, a thousand times, if we open our eyes and ears. It’s part of our belief system – giving us faith in the likelihood that “our” government will impact us similarly tomorrow. There is every reason to believe so.
Admonishing us to not steal implies the existence of private, individual ownership of “things,” “items,” “money” and so forth. In our illuminated existences we like to consider “rights” as something we possess, as well. Maybe we do… possess rights. How so? By virtue of birth? Do our parents give us these amazing, non-substantial things… these rights? Perhaps on a certain birthday?
If they are “parents,” in fact, they provide necessities like food, clothing, shelter, a bed, one hopes. Do children then possess a “right” to these things? Or must such rights be “earned? If earned, at whose expense? “Our” government says, “At all of our expense. We, collectively, will guarantee availability of these necessities for the children in our country whether or not their parents are able to – or choose to – provide them.” The government, in effect, creates those “rights” as extensions of the “Right to Life.” Really?
How can the government do this when it has no means (money) to do so?
This same government does its damnedest to pay for and otherwise facilitate abortion, although the government, per se, has no money. It would seem that “our” government has chosen to steal a thing from the “abortee:” its Right to Life, at the same time stealing the money needed to inflict the abortion, from all of the rest of us. Thou shalt not steal must have severe compromise built into it… hmmph.
One could leap to the presumption that the TWO parents of the human working to be born, had not only some right to copulate but, instantaneously, the OBLIGATION to provide for the child of their union. Further, it would be more honest and fair if there were some punishment or sanction for creating a child while denying any of the coincident obligations. Do they have a “right” to create an obligation for all of us not involved in the procreation? By whose authority?
Birth may be induced within a week or two of due date; other forms of early delivery may be employed up to two MONTHS earlier. In some jurisdictions the proto-mother can elect to terminate that life for convenience’ sake… even to the time of natural birth. Indeed there are instances of babies surviving abortion who have then been “eased” from life after delivery or while their heads are still in the birth canal… on the whim of the mother. That doesn’t seem different from murder.
Wasn’t that live baby a U. S. citizen by virtue of being born on U. S. soil? Who has the right to steal its Right to Life? Who can grant such a right to steal? Thou shalt not steal.
Does not the brand-new U. S. citizen have unalienable rights under the Constitution? Rights like Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness? Was there some point… a single breath, perhaps, at which “we, the People…” invested “our” government with the power to take those rights away from a citizen? That’s a major theft, it seems Prudent to say. That baby owned those rights; they were stolen from him or her. Thou shalt not steal.
Our we-the-People-created government has not only assumed for itself the power to grant the right to murder one’s offspring, a U. S. citizen, for no reason, but also to steal the Right to Life from the recipient of the abortion process.
To sell the idea of child assassination as a net “good” requires a remarkable re-making of beliefs. The person / mother who is responsible for the life gestating within her, almost always sees her own life, and Right to it, as precious, if not sacred. In the course of her re-education she is brought to a belief about the new person for whom she is responsible, that is completely different: her baby has no rights and she has no obligation to defend either the baby or the rights. She must come to believe that the baby is anything but a baby: it’s a mass of cells, like a tumor; or, he or she is a parasite, invading mother’s physical sanctity and convenience. Well, if the re-education is thorough, the removal of the invading mass is “health care,” albeit for only one of the parties involved. At least the parasite has no name and can’t feel anything… the proto-assassin hopes.
Sadly, tragically, this is not the case after just a few weeks of gestation.
Imagine a company the business of which were the aborting of kittens or puppies – say, puppies. The mother dog’s guardian (one cannot “own” another life form we’re told) knows the bitch has allowed to be done to her what dogs do, doggy-style, and is exhibiting signs of pregnancy. The guardian, not wanting the expense of another dog/puppy, or puppies, decides to have some convenient “health-care” performed on the pregnant bitch and the unborn puppies excised… like parasites. “Planned Puppyhood” might then sell the fresh, wet-iced organs of the puppies to “science” for research.
A neighbor of the guardian tells her that she hasn’t noticed “Buttons” running around for a few days and asks if everything is okay… with the dog? “Oh, yes,” says guardian, “she was pregnant and I took her to “Planned Puppyhood” for an abortion; 3 pups were removed. She’ll be home by tonight. Thanks for asking.”
The neighbor recoils in shock. “How could you do such a thing?” she cries. You could have let Buttons give birth and brought the puppies to a shelter! There are places that will take them and find them good homes. Oh, gracious, I feel terrible! I would have taken them!” Neighbor is crying.
“Oh for Heaven’s sake,” exclaims the guardian. Having those puppies would have been more trouble than I could put up with. I just don’t have the time, with work and all. What’s done is done and things will be back to normal going forward. Calm down. I still love Buttons.”
Neighbor shares the tragedy with others and local news gets the story. Do you think PETA and hundreds of pet-lovers and veterinary assistants will be picketing the guardian? Signs will call her a murderer and puppy-hater. She did, after all, STEAL the right of the bitch to give birth to her puppies and nurse them. Thou shalt not steal.
Probably, Planned Puppyhood would never get a permit to open a new facility in guardian’s county: dogs don’t contribute millions of dollars to political campaigns… at least the smart ones don’t.
The facilitators of abortions, that is, proto-mothers (women don’t actually receive abortions, they participate, but the recipient of the abortion is the baby: the abortee, as it were) have developed a great faith in the new meanings of words they’ve been re-taught. The multiple aspects of Life and Humanity NOT being those things MUST BE TRUE. If they aren’t… OMG! Not that they intend the meaning of “OMG” literally, it’s a social media thing, the meaning of which has been stolen by vulgarity.
Apparently, “our” government has perfected stealing and, usually, when theft is the subject, money is the object, in most people’s minds. Some person steals your wallet and everything in it and they have not only your cash but your credit cards and identity. He or she could steal even your house as well as drain your bank account – stealing from your future. God forbid. Clearly there are multiple crimes possible and, let’s hope, “our” government will harshly sanction the thief in every case. After all, everyone recognizes the truth and justice of Thou shalt not steal. Just consider how firmly “our” governments deal with shoplifters after they steal from store-owners.
“That’s not a fair sarcasm,” some automatically say, “those people have insurance against theft.”
Sounds like a definition is being stolen right from under us: “stealing” isn’t stealing if the victim is wealthy, or insured, and not known face-to-face. No kidding? Thou shalt not steal.
Moreover, if “religious” people think that rule is sacred, having come from God – especially Jews or Christians – then to Hell with that. We’re not going to have religious doctrine shoved down our throats, it’s un-Constitutional. Now they’re stealing the meaning of “Constitution,” too. But, back to the money thing.
A truly clever group would want its theft of EVERYONE’S money… I mean, if they had a very damned good reason to pull that off, they would find a way to hide the theft and their hands in it from… well, everyone. To do that they’d have to steal some word definitions such as “Inflation.” Every public commenter, including the smart ones, say “inflation” when they mean “price increases.” Generally the “rate” they talk about is the rate of increase or decrease measured by the “CPI,” the Consumer Price Index. The true “CPI” is comprised of a market “basket” of things that consumers can’t avoid buying in the normal course of providing for themselves and their families. Our government has stolen the meaning of this measure.
The “basket” includes food, cleaning products, clothing, housing, energy, TV, phone and internet services, insurance, transportation, taxes and accounting, health care and medications, maintenance and household services, banking and credit services, education and child-care. There are more, but sustenance and advancement are possible from that list.
Everyone but the wealthy elite agonizes over rapid price increases for items in the market “basket.” It’s heard everywhere: “Eggs used to be 99 cents a dozen, now they’re $4.79!”
“Inflation is high,” someone replies. News commenters refer to the “rate” of inflation as the average rate of, say, 3 and ½% as proof that “our” president’s policies have “brought down” the rate of “inflation.” What a wonderful piece of work. All are misusing the term, “inflation.” By repeated, round-the-clock misuse, the meaning of inflation has been stolen. Here’s a little lesson:
Inflation means inflation of the money supply… simple. Inflation, by itself, doesn’t mean the increase in a price… of any thing. It does, however, REDUCE THE VALUE of all the dollars there are sloshing around the economy: one of the greatest thefts ever devised. Only governments can do that. Thou shalt not steal.
Inflation is a government policy. It’s not caused by changes in the weather or lunar cycles. Politicians decide to use inflation to their advantage, either to buy votes or to cover up errors they have made with other policies. “We, the people” are the last and least consideration when inflation is being contemplated. Any legislation that increases federal spending, cannot, by definition, “reduce” inflation. To say otherwise, perhaps by naming said legislation an “Inflation-Reduction Act,” is a complete lie, told by politicians to their constituents from whom they have just stolen monetary value of savings and pension plans and liquid cash assets. It is not only mendacious, but cruel. Thou shalt not steal.
But, why do prices go up after the government inflates the money supply? Supply and demand: the very essence of economics, trade, valuation of goods and services and, wait for it, TAXES! The insidious economics of “our” (federal) government results from constant “deficit spending:” spending more to operate the government than tax receipts and other revenues can cover, which sounds pretty stupid. But in order to do that, the government borrows the difference, virtually on a daily basis, for which it incurs an interest obligation – all done on “our” behalf.
That interest obligation is now greater than ONE TRILLION DOLLARS per year, and growing. Most of the money borrowed to fill annual “budget” gaps is basically air… (see: https://www.prudenceleadbetter.com/2020/09/27/knife-edge-election/) … for which we pay real-money interest. It’s the theft that keeps on stealing. When your favorite politician sends you some re-election mail, be sure to send him or her a check, won’t you?
Inflation automatically, in a sense, causes reactionary DE-flationary effects, bringing balance back to the supply of dollars and the supply of goods and services to be purchased. The fastest adjustment is the higher price of things. Eventually, the price of labor also rises. All of these increases generate – wait for it – higher tax revenue! It’s a miracle! Or, it’s a policy… who’d have thought?
So, who can commit such a crime? Who benefits from this theft? Who can even DO the crime? “Our” government, that’s who. The rate of inflation IS high, BUT, and this isn’t good news, as a percentile increase, even the last FOUR presidents have been unable to increase the rate more than a total of 100%!
“Really? Where did it go?” one asks. Why, to the greatest deflationary mechanism ever invented: DEBT! It’s now over $35 Trillion!
“Whose debt is it?” you could rightly ask. Well, it’s YOURS, mine, all of ours. “How will we repay it?” could be the next logical question.
“We can’t unless we run surpluses in the federal budget for the next 50 years or so.”
“When will we do that?” Also a good question. Likely answer:
“Never. Our Reps and Senators will have to change their habits and, right now, their habit is to get re-elected and they have to buy a lot of votes.”
“So, it’s a debt that will never be repaid?”
“Yes. It’s indistinguishable from theft. In this case, the money has been stolen from generations into the future, to whom the thieves will never answer.” Thou shalt not steal.
Along the path of perpetual debt many meanings of words and principles have been stolen… and rights, as well. To maintain the lie of theft-as-debt, we are paying interest, which is a “current” obligation, competing with federal departments, like Defense, for limited resources, along with other key obligations comprised of horse-shit, chicken-shit and bull-shit, not to overlook the mountain of citizen and illegal welfare we feel compelled to pay.
Our “representatives” (a questionable term) have aided in this multi-generational embezzlement for decades, as it buys their votes, too. Aside from a handful in either House: a dozen in the Senate, perhaps thirty in the House of representatives – both parties have facilitated and voted for repeated deficit-spending packages, including “continuing resolutions” that merely continue rates of spending that exceed revenues… over and over and over. They lie, in other words; indeed, they fail to represent our interests TO or AGAINST the government, as directed by our Constitutional covenant. Instead they represent the government to us! They have stolen the term, “representative,” one of the worst of thefts. $35 Trillion. Thou shalt not steal.
Kidnapping is the most heinous of THEFTs and, if there are degrees of heinousness, kidnapping a child is a still greater level of evil. Yet, every weekday we willingly pass off our children to “public” education systems where ideological and unionized teachers and equally warped administrators divert children’s beliefs away from those of their parents. If a person’s beliefs are taken from him or her, it is a theft of the most personal property. Uniquely foul is the daily effort to make children question their own being: boys aren’t actually boys; girls not actually girls. For shame.
Such “teachers”… no, “educators,” are the worst thieves possible: willing to steal children’s selves. Ultimately, they are willing to perfect the theft by having kids be subjected to chemical sterilization and, if they can reach the nadir, surgical mutilation. In the process they may even get to rejoice the theft of the children from their parents, altogether. Oh, the glory! Once a thief… Thou shalt not steal.
The United States is, essentially, a “Christian” nation. We were founded by Christians and our fundamental laws and jurisprudence are inspired by the laws and advisories of how to live and love that are contained in the Old and New Testaments. For hundreds of years the lessons of Christ have slowly converted relative pagans into empathetic Christians. It never worked universally; there have always been agnostics and atheists, but until quite lately, they were the outliers. Virtually automatically, the divine lessons and instructions have been modified, structured and even diluted by men (mostly), since they were first revealed. As quickly as Jesus, the Christ, declared His “church,” Peter and his spiritual descendants have seized Christ’s teachings as the means to political power and economic, let alone intellectual, control of “the masses.”
It was unavoidable. We have “free will” and the daily, hourly, momentary opportunity to choose from evil, which seems to lurk around every corner… when not lurking right beside us. Still, prelates of churches based on multiple emphases of certain teachings and of the traditions of Catholicism or Orthodox Christianity, have continued to prod us toward incrementally closer adherence to Christ’s teachings. It worked for centuries, resulting in the evolution of what we call modern ethics and economics… and freedom. Ultimately, the pinnacle of American success was reached, approximately in 1962.
The forces attempting to unseat Christianity have never wavered. The energy they have employed was noted as “early” as the story of the Garden of Eden. As quickly as God had prepared Man and Woman to take dominion over His “garden,” the serpent offered a great temptation. At the moment of choice, God’s creation chose to accept the risk to enjoy the “benefits.” Today we call those temptations “socialism.” Its “benefits” are the promise of avoiding both responsibility and hard work, while having access to everything in creation. Ancillary benefits include debauchery and license to enjoy sexual perversions and the thrills of hatred. No longer would the “serfs” have to earn their own way or face the responsibility for their decisions. Paradise on Earth.
The simplest, clearest distinction between the “forces of God” and the forces of anti-religious socialism can be stated as Life versus Death. God promises not only life on Earth, but eternal life. Socialism promises irresponsible cavort on Earth and then, lights out. Rather than growing both spiritually and physically by accepting the tests and responsibilities, even hardships and opportunities of life, many are tempted to seek comforts, enjoyments and conveniences of life without hardship, unfairness, or injustice, as promised by the sirens of socialism and, even more promissory, Communists. Throughout the growth of the socialist opposition to Christian-based government and economics, Democrat or Social-Democrat political parties have drifted (if not skipped) closer to outright Socialism while pretending to adhere to the traditions of “Western” civilization and civilian governance. But, like all opposition to Christian influence, their efforts are constant – sometimes incremental, sometimes leaping and bounding as they undercut those same traditions in pursuit of power.
Since that same 1962, leftist forces have assumed control of the “Democratic” party. First, they killed Kennedy… not the ordinary Democrats like Johnson and others, but the rabid defenders of the C.I.A. and other elements of the growing, deep, administrative state – the true leftists. One by one, people who overtly dislike everything about religious freedom – Judaism and Christianity, specifically – managed to obtain election to the House and Senate. First through opposition to fighting Communism in Viet-Nam and marshaling students to widespread demonstrations against the government, and then, cherry on top, unseating President Richard Nixon. A new landscape emerged in American politics and power; trust in government was gone. Rebellions of the ‘60’s shifted morality to the dark side as federalized welfare began to erode family strengths and the raising of children to be new, moral, responsible adults. As the old order, the fundament of governance, liberty and improved standards of living, imperfect but wildly successful, was dumped, the new order of Roe v. Wade was imposed on the flimsy premise that the “penumbra of the Constitution” protects a brand of “privacy” that permits personal convenience to be worth more than human life.
Since the explosion of drug addiction as new streams of tar heroin entered the U. S. market from Southeast Asia (thank-you, C.I.A. and the Golden Triangle), the “War on Drugs” has managed to capture tons of drugs and dollars, but the total flow of both has increased for decades. Drugs provide a foul but profitable – and corrupting – business in cities large and small, and a slow-motion suicide process for thousands of addicts. We’ve never had the upper hand on drugs. As we have helped to feed the growth of Mexican Cartels (and their Chinese providers) there has grown a deep division in American politics: Democrats have favored illegal entrants and “sanctuary” status for cities and states, where police cannot cooperate with federal deportation enforcement. Republicans have been opposed to both, and yet thwarted in every attempt to sanction so-called, law-nullifying, “sanctuary” declarations.
Today, drugs, mainly fentanyl, kill 100,000 mostly younger Americans EVERY DAMN YEAR! If we were facing groups of people who were SHOOTING and killing 100,000 Americans every year, this American hopes that we would marshal our forces and destroy them, saving the lives of our sons and daughters. Yet, for some reason, we have neither the wit nor will to stop drugs. Apparently there is a “right” to suicide by addiction. Did I mention profitable corruption? Who opposes rampant addiction? Well, it seems to be a right-wing thing which is condemned by the left (Democrats) since so many people wind up incarcerated for drug dealing. Boo-hoo. There must be a racist component since there is a preponderance of black and brown people breaking laws involving drugs. So, less than nothing is done. Indeed, in Democrat cities there are varieties of programs that FACILITATE drug use on the basis of… hold on to your brains… SAFETY!
A hundred-thousand lives are not enough. The same forces apologizing for drug users are rabidly in favor of abortion up to the moment of birth AND EVEN BEYOND THAT MOMENT. Indeed, they base their election efforts on appealing to women who agree with having the RIGHT to destroy gestating beings. First they must remain convinced that the growth in their bellies is not a human being.
Finally, the same leftists in the U. S. tend strongly toward both globalism (communism) and wars of maintenance (leftists in both parties) where, in effect, our greatest export are young men and women who risk death or disability for circumstances that have no plan for victory. And, still, there are too many Americans.
Democrats have an affinity for globalist fantasy, like “Climate Change,” as the reason to change U. S. policy to the detriment of our economy and, now, our food supply. They’ve gone so far as to advise numbskulls to consider the climate before having children… not before having sex. After all, if something goes “wrong,” we can always kill the product. Instead of promoting a clean, non-polluting economy, they prefer the more fascist approach of restriction, mandation and coercion through economic leverage, like encouraging banks and others to not do business with anyone who threatens the climate, as they see it, or, God forbid, exercises Constitutional rights. This includes changing the technologies of washing machines, stoves, toilets and schoolbuses, and not for the better. After all, a lot of those manufacturers are white people, and of Euro-centric backgrounds who don’t deserve any consideration for climate and a hundred other reasons, especially if Christian to boot.
Covid-19 showed that the W.H.O., China and the U. N. can fool all the people some of the time, but they were able to kill off only a few million humans with the original bug and then the mRNA shots. They’ll have to do something more, ummm… effective, yes, effective, to get the world population down to their “ideal” of a billion or fewer. That many people could eat beef all they want without damaging the Earth. Still, it will take a lot of dying to achieve the “safety” of our planet in a single lifetime.
The most precious commodity in the World, hard-won and yet expansive, is United States citizenship. Our history as a nation, and as colonies prior, is as well-recorded as that of any nation. Our reasons for independence from our British colonizers and the philosophies upon which we have based our form of government – unique among the nations – are also well-recorded and, indeed, among the best studied in the World.
Sadly, our own citizens – there are some – are among those LEAST AWARE of our own remarkable history and founding purposes. To our shame we have fallen into the communist trap of politicizing our past… not that we can change it, but great effort is being made, even in schools, to change our beliefs about it. With new beliefs rampant – not new truths, new beliefs, we can create new tensions, divisions and social decay in the present. It’s a “plan” of action for some, part of which is the denigration of citizenship and of the United States, itself.
The “plan” has a greater purpose than attacking our nation and citizenship in it. We can see it actively pursued daily and hourly: the denigration of fellow citizens as being somehow “White Supremacists” for our belief in the values and purposes of the U. S. A. That epithet can erase any truths we might speak, as though anyone ACCUSED of White Supremacy is so vile that he or she need not be listened to or acknowledged for our opinions about, well… anything. That is, even if our statements are true and evidence-backed, our having been accused of white supremacy makes them automatically hateful and UN-true. Tails we win, Heads, you lose. What are the values of U.S. citizenship that people have died to protect?
First among all is the protection and guarantee of unalienable rights under our exceptional Constitution. Nowhere else on this planet are people so protected – at least in intent – as in the United States. The most common relationship of governments to citizens / residents of their countries is one of dominance and control and subjective law enforcement. Despite the declamations of Barack Obama and others, the United States IS exceptional and our history proves it. Nowhere else has ANY nation fought a civil war in order to improve its legal structure and end slavery. Indeed, in many places, SLAVERY is still practiced! Even more, it is practiced here in America because of the Mexican cartels and the open-border policies and misfeasance of the Biden administration! Sex slavery and indentured labor is taking place under the guidance and policies of one our most racist presidents since Woodrow Wilson. To our shame… and his.
Next among exceptional protections is equal application of the laws. We have virtually emasculated this protection to our long-term danger. No one is “free” if some are punished according to the law while others, for non-legal reasons, are not. That is, if some are punished extra-legally or only through unusual stretching of word meanings in order to craft charges upon which unique prosecutions may be based. In the latter cases, the typical Constitutional protections are rendered inapplicable for some citizens. Perfect examples of this can be seen in the recent New York State conviction of Donald Trump for financial fraud where, in fact, no fraud occurred and no damage was done to anyone taking part in the questioned transactions. As part of his “judgment,” the judge required that the full value of his outrageous fine must be posted in cash or bond in order to exercise the common right of appeal. The Attorney General for the State of New York had campaigned for that office on a promise to “get” Donald Trump because of a series of unsubstantiated opinions of his political statements and policies during his 2017 – 2021 term as President.
The standards of jurisprudence should apply EQUALLY to all citizens of the United States, else the unique value of U. S. citizenship is cheapened to worthlessness. The politicization of law is the corrosive undermining of the United States that cannot be accomplished by external enemies… only by those of our neighbors who have turned against their own country: purveyors of treason.
In the current atmosphere of “open borders” and conscious failure to enforce immigration law, so-called “Constitutional rights” are being freely sprinkled upon illegal aliens, including, but certainly not limited to, guarantees of legal representation if charged with a crime. That is, upon encouragement for political reasons, to breech our legal, national borders, those entering our country ILLEGALLY, are immediately offered legal representation at the expense of the legal residents of the country. Adding to the IN-justice of government promulgated law-breaking are the cash and other direct benefits to people who have no statutory right to those benefits.
The concept of PRESENCE is, step-by-step, replacing the rights of CITIZENSHIP. Various regulations and laws have been emplaced that prevent agencies of governments that are legitimized by the votes of CITIZENS, from even asking about citizenship status in matters as diverse as drivers’ licensing to renting of housing, census surveys, qualification for public welfare, and, effectively, VOTING! One can fairly question how these rights, privileges and expenses can not only be legally conveyed to illegal entrants, but such questionable conveying may then be hidden from the citizenry on whose behalf, ostensibly, the government agents doing the conveying are supposedly SERVING (“public servants,” they). “It’s the law,” they say.
There must be something wrong with this. The “rights” of illegal entrants have taken precedence over the rights of citizens… citizens who are the ONLY LEGAL CONSTITUENTS of elected officials at any level of government. That is, the covenant between government and those who CREATED the government can apply only to citizens, the protection of citizens, the protection of the rights of CITIZENS and the protection of the property of CITIZENS. There is NO COVENANT with non-citizens. Whoever says or acts differently is a traitor. Simple.
Recent acts by leftist jurisdictions are diluting citizenship at an accelerated rate. In various cities non-citizens are being permitted to vote in “local” elections. Residents of Washington, D.C. even went to court to challenge an ordinance that permits non-citizens to vote in local elections and for ballot measures, even to serve in city government offices! Logically, and what ought to be, reasonably, they argued that U. S. citizens have a right, protected by the Constitution, the 5th and 14th Amendments among other provisions, to govern themselves. Therefore, no non-citizen should be able to govern them. The judge, displaying an all-too-common ignorance and bias against Constitutional Republicanism, ruled that since the plaintiffs had not articulated any damage to themselves, THEY HAD NO STANDING to bring the suit! The reasonable among us would immediately see that any non-citizen’s vote that opposed a citizen’s vote has disenfranchised the CITIZEN. This sounds – and is – illegal to do. Judge, are you paying attention… to anything?
In the immediate travesty-treason of the effective elimination of immigration laws and border protections, U. S. citizens have watched an estimated NINE MILLION illegal entrants swarm into U. S. territory with no meaningful resistance from the federal authorities whose legal charge is to prevent those very actions and results. To pour burning salt onto an open national sore, Democrats have fought off a recent attempt by Republicans to require that Constitutionally mandated census counts be limited to CITIZENS, only. What is the result of this intentional ignorance of the Constitutional covenant with the citizenry of the United States? A foul and subversive distortion of the Electoral College and other “representative” relationships of cities, states and citizens to the federal government.
The Democrat subversion effectively changes the number of representatives in Congress to which a state is entitled under the Constitution! Any reading of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, makes clear that it is the CITIZENS of the United States who are ratifying and PLACING THEMSELVES SUBJECT TO the conditions and RIGHTS embodied therein. Illegal entrants DO NOT HAVE THESE RIGHTS regardless of levels of empathy or sympathy from actual citizens. Ours is a nation of laws… until it isn’t. Shame on ANYONE who claims otherwise or who acts to unseat that truth. For shame.
Compounding the subversion of representation, the counted presence of illegal entrants distorts the number of Electoral College votes to which a state is entitled in the election of a President. This effect shifts elections to works of fraud. They are automatically tilted toward left-leaning states where the largest, strongly Democrat cities are located. It has the potential of disenfranchising large fractions of the states, where the election of Presidents is supposed to reside. It is such a blatant crime that reasonable people cannot believe it is actually happening. Democrats walk among us and even look like regular citizens. They live and work in our neighborhoods. Normal Americans who are concerned with external threats to our existence as a free and self-governing Republic, can’t imagine that fellow citizens would be working so deviously against the existence of our nation and our Constitutionally protected unalienable rights.
How wrong we’ve been. It would be Prudent to fight back and reclaim the legal basis of the United States. We have citizenship, after all. May God bless America.
Scene at the Signing of the Constitution of the United States, Oil on Canvas, Howard Chandler Christy
There is a term that is never heard in modern discussions about governance and government and citizens and citizenship. People who care – and pundits who often do not – spend much breath on politicians and on certain policies, issues, fads and economic problems… but, none employs the term, PARTNERSHIP. It is worth our consideration.
Understanding the place of partnership in the American system requires our grasp of the Constitution and its original intent. The Constitution is a COVENANT, not a LAW, necessarily, but a sacred agreement between the people who ratify it – us, at every election – and the people to whom we have granted power to create and protect an orderly society. It’s a bargain… an agreement to treat people equally under the laws that are passed ON BEHALF OF THE CITIZENS, the private half of the covenant, and it is a set of boundaries to restrain the human tendencies of those blessed with political, legal power, the public half of the covenant, to protect the citizens and to sanction those who commit criminal acts.
This is all well and good, but it is not the real story of the formation of a Constitutional Republic. Why establish a nation, no matter how beautiful or philosophical? Is it because God instructed mankind to take dominion over the Earth, so why not this piece of it and why not our self-selected fraction of mankind? That’s too much hubris for any group.
No. The Constitution was created because people had already formed – and fought for – a nation and national identity called America. People had moved here and were moving here to create better lives in a basically Christian and capitalist format, and their society could neither protect itself or its members without an agreed set of rules and bounds, recognized from within and without. As the Declaration of Independence had proclaimed, upon separation from an unjust form of dominance, the right to “…assume among the Powers of the Earth, the separate and equal Station to which the laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them…” It is part of the Covenant that the existing population clearly proclaim its claim to certain territory AND the right to govern themselves as they see fit. A Covenant.
It seems Prudent to describe that covenant as a PARTNERSHIP. It is formed to protect the SUCCESS of the citizenry or, at the very least, to protect the opportunities to succeed for each citizen and family. Any government that ceases to “partner” and commences to “provide,” will shortly become tyrannical, for its “provider” attitude is based on a belief in the incompetence of its citizen-partners. It is a tiny slide from that attitude/altitude to believe that those at a “lower” altitude of competence will need rules to live by. This is not to say “rules” to avoid criminality, at least initially, but rules to govern daily, family and personal life. Almost abruptly, the sanctions for failing to follow rules governing one’s person, become new laws, the breech of which demand sanction as if criminal: a “police” state.
Lately, since, say, 1964, American politicians have concerned themselves more with countering or imposing incompetence-inspired “rules” for everyone’s life. Prudent contemplation shows this to be true. Combined with a relatively communistic takeover of education at all levels, the average intelligence, competence, maturity and self-reliance of Americans born since 1960 has plummeted. At the same time, as the administrative state has found reason to multiply the number of rules necessary to enable less competent citizens to survive, those who are more competent and politically connected have become wealthier and commercially controlling, often allying with government to impose even more rules on those of lesser economic standing… rules that political forces have been unable to impose. This is called Fascism, a slightly different-colored form of socialism, but still a police state
How refreshing it would be if a candidate for, well… ANY office, would introduce two rare policies into his or her campaign rhetoric and promises: clear, open honesty, and determination to render his or her future office as a tool for PARTNERING with citizens so that each might be more successful in life. Partnership and truth-telling. What remarkable promises to make, let alone fulfill.
How would a government-citizen partnership operate?
First, it would examine weaknesses in current systems, but that implies that it knows what the countervailing strengths ought to be. We could start with strong families.
There is no structure, program or law in the world, let alone in the United States, that is more effective in creation of “good” children and adults, than functional FAMILIES. At risk of offending a few, those are families with a married mother and father, who are able to provide for themselves and their children. Every threat to successful child-rearing is dramatically lessened in a married-couple environment. Sadly, our own governments, federal, state and county / municipal, are geared up and funded to encourage single-parent family units – the opposite of what actually works the best. We know this to be true in every single jurisdiction, yet we keep growing the socialist, administrative welfare state.
Should our “governors” choose to become partners in our success, the welfare state would be the first place to reform almost everything that comprises it.
The overarching question for any successful society as for any family: “How are the children?” – obviously connects with the state of education, public and private. A true partnership between citizens and government would dictate that government schools, at least, be employed to perform their primary educational mission, while reinforcing the desires and intentions of parents. Fighting with parents over alternate ways to raise children is a decided breech of that partnership covenant implied in the Constitution.
Economic freedom is the key social pillar of success in the modern economy. Partnership by a government granted its powers by the people, would imply that government would neither punish citizens through taxation nor destroy the value of the money they earn. Clearly, Washington and the 50 States’ governors have a long way to go to restore partnership in place of financial serfdom. Not only are those on welfare rendered financial serfs, but so are most taxpayers. On our behalf, our “representatives” and governors have contrived a debt greater than the economic output of the entire nation, soon to require payment of nearly ONE TRILLION DOLLARS in annual interest payment. No effort is underway to reduce that debt or to reduce the deficit spending that adds to it. This is a strange partnership.
Economic independence from the government and from welfare, should be the goal of the government in a Constitutional Republic. That is, the success of our Constitutional structure can be measured only by the reduction in dependence upon that government. A bloated, largely uncontrolled administrative state is the glowing example of FAILURE of our Constitutional system. The only reason it has survived as long as it has is its ability – shrinking ability – to coddle the population and businesses with borrowed “money” and comforts. Now that a roughly communistic presidency has been installed, the ability of the government to continue on this path is nearing its end. Both internal and external forces are gathering against the administrative / executive state. The partnership promised by representation is dissolving with every failure to budget the people’s money, and with every thousand-page “bill.” Soon the nation will be unable to afford to defend itself.
The FIRST job of partnership is to protect the citizenry, not the last.
A true partnership… which is to say, the truth of the Constitutional covenant, would be marked by partnering with every CITIZEN to facilitate his or her enjoyment of the RIGHTS guaranteed by the Constitution. Sadly, the federal and states’ governments are currently consumed with using the Constitution and tens of thousands of laws and rules to CONTROL the people rather than helping each succeed in life. “Expertly managed failure” is how our governors measure their success, not ours. Our success merits some form of punishment amidst a set of accusations and sanctions, even to the point of separating us from our own children. Soon, Americans will be looking for partnership with fellow citizens in order to return our Constitution to supremacy. Certainly the present government will not do so.
May God grant us the ability to accomplish restoration through elections, and the strength to prevail should they fail.
A major factor in the success of the United States and its economic freedom (among other freedoms) is the honesty and relative strictness of its judiciary, both federal and State. The honesty of contracts at every level, including the contract between the American people and the federal government: the Constitution, relies increasingly upon the Supreme Court, the final arbiter.
Article III details the legal circumstances that require original jurisdiction of the Supreme Court, which means that the supreme court is the first, and only Court, that can hear those cases and rule upon the issues in conflict. In all other cases – and there are hundreds – the Court must agree to accept an appeal from litigants who not only aren’t satisfied with the decision made, but who also believe there is a Constitutional issue involved in their conflicting claims. At least four Justices must agree to accept a case, and one of them is likely to write an opinion, if not THE opinion that will form the Court’s ruling. It takes time. When the majority opinion is delivered there usually is a dissenting opinion. Lawyers everywhere study both. Crucial interpretations of Constitutional issues will form arguments in other cases. Sometimes the issues raised in the dissenting, or minority opinion, will be refined to bolster other cases. The written words of the Supreme Court are critical to our success as a nation.
The Congress is given the power to establish inferior federal courts and charge them with certain authorities over types of crime or types of conflicts. There are courts for immigration matters, for example, or for tax issues, and several others. The country is divided into 12 “Circuits” and Justices often visit those Circuits. See https://www.uscourts.gov/about-federal-courts/court-role-and-structure for a comprehensive view of federal court structure.
Leftism consistently challenges our Constitutional Republic. Socialism / Communism is inherently counter to the structure of morality and individual responsibility that is embodied in the Constitution. Freedom includes the freedom to fail, to try again and to make choices about how to advance in life. Forces of the left consistently attempt to tie individuals to government rules and regulations. This can be seen in attacks on religion and in unionized “public” education, itself. Little by little, leftist philosophies, even direct Marxism, like “minimum wage” laws, constantly distort our economy and increase dependence on government. These stresses generate social-issue conflicts that threaten domestic tranquility and even personal safety. This places immense public, if not mob pressure, on the Court and on individual Justices. Starting with Judge Robert Bork in 1987, the left – personified by Senator Ted Kennedy, an avowed socialist – has attacked and refused to compromise with “conservatism” in any form.
Leftist, or “Progressive” policies, inherently are on the attack against the premises and ideas expressed in the Constitution. The Supreme Court was and is charged with primary defense of the ideas underpinning the Constitution. Judge Bork represented a shift away from leftist activism on the Supreme Court. The retiring Justice, Lewis Powell had often been the swing vote on issues like abortion, tilting the Court to the left. Bork was a strict constructionist, unswayed by social pressures. To leftists like Kennedy, that threat of a shift away from the attack on original intent, was a threat so serious that the destruction of the reputation of an esteemed legal scholar like Bork, was well worth the effort. The attacks continue, as evidenced by the violent reaction to the reversal of Roe versus Wade in the “Dobbs” decision in 2022.
Among our “Unalienable rights” listed in the Declaration of Independence are “Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.” Within them has developed a severe conflict, mainly due to the equality of status that women have acquired since the beginning of the United States. “Liberty” and “Happiness” both depend upon freedom of action by individuals. Pregnancy, uniquely, with its 9-month period of physical commitment and subsequent lifetime obligations, can interfere, unquestionably, with happiness and liberty of the pregnant woman. So far, we have not found a balance between the rights of the mother/parent, and those of the baby growing inside her.
Does the right to LIFE take precedence? Many think so. Do the rights of the mother take precedence? Many believe this is so. Mainly non-religious, non-Christian or anti-Christian persons, are pleased to take dominion over natural life, and grant women the absolute right to abort their child. Religious people tend to support the rights of the new life to be born and to thrive after birth. They are “pro-life.” Abortion absolutists have done their best to pervert the meaning of conception and of what a fetus actually is: a human baby, growing. Inevitably, this conflict landed in the Supreme Court. Sadly, Roe versus Wade resulted in more than 60 Million Americans being aborted, most of whom were growing inside women of color. It is a number that should give Anti-life believers some pause.
The Supreme Court makes mistakes. The “Dred Scott” decision is recognized as the worst of them, as Chief Justice Roger Taney attempted to undo several state and federal laws governing the status of slaves and even of any free negro citizen. Taney went so far as to declare the Missouri Compromise un-Constitutional and to state that the concept of “free soil” and freedom of slaves who resided there, was constitutionally unenforceable and need not be recognized by other territories or states. The decision helped to push the South to secession and proved to be recognized in its disregard among free states and territories. The 13th amendment made Taney’s decisions moot.
Another simpler, but still egregious decision was the “Kelo” decision: a 7-year battle over the “taking” of private property for public use, that was decided – many feel, wrongly – in 2005. The city of New London, Connecticut, decided that development of land next to a new Pfizer plant, would increase tax receipts to the city, and therefore qualified as a public good. Unfortunately, Suzette Kelo and her neighbors lived on that land, many on long-time homesteads, in perfectly acceptable, non-condemned homes. The city turned the land over to a new, semi-private development Commission along with the power of “eminent domain,” with which the Commission forced homeowners to sell their real estate. Tragically, The Supreme Court interpreted the “taking” clause in the 5th Amendment to include not only the clearly stated “public use,” like a school or water treatment plant, but for an amorphous “expected benefit” for the public, such as increased tax revenues might provide. In other words, amazingly, “public use” was interpreted to include “private use” if it raised more taxes than current landowners provided. Several States have amended their own laws to prevent exactly the premise of the Kelo decision.
The American public is right to challenge the Supreme Court and, through the Senate, to carefully examine the beliefs of nominees to the Supreme Court. As political conflicts, largely fomented by the Left, become more heated and hateful, the ability of Justices to ignore such matters becomes ever more difficult. It is more crucial than ever that the strength and intention of the Court must be to preserve the originating ideas and ideals of the Constitution, resisting all attempts, regardless of political heat, to drift, stumble or run-away from them.
Americans are, to a greater extent than at any time since the “Great” Depression, unhappy and untrusting of others. For all of our history as the United States of America, we have shared several senses of hope: economic, health, safety and cleanliness. We might also add a sense of religious hope. These hopes have slowly been… and are now quickly, being erased from our shared beliefs. It is unsettling.
Our origins as a people are exceptional as are our philosophies of governance and religious freedoms and numerous other rights protected by the Constitution. The fundament of American exceptionalism is that the government(s) are formed and defined by the people. Yet, since the beginning, those forces that believed the exact opposite: that governments are formed to control the people, their styles and means of living and their status in society, have been hard at work to undo the exceptionalism that once defined us. Starting in 2020, the virtual Communist enemies of America have believed that success is within their grasp and, sadly, very many Americans, particularly young Americans, agree with the destruction of our culture and nation.
We are losing our hopes.
Every person has grown up with a pattern of habits and beliefs imprinted by or in reaction to our parents or guardians or lack thereof. Other key people and childhood friends and classmates – and TEACHERS – all contributed to each of our belief structures and general outlooks and reactions to problems and opportunities. Huge industries of psychologists, child-psychologists, counselors and psychiatrists have developed to channel our feelings, guilts or irrationalities relative to our upbringing. In one way or another, at some level, we are, all, “screwed up” and seeking someone to blame for how we are. How is it, then, that most of us have, throughout the history of the United States, turned out so well?
Indeed, through the times of greatest tests: The Civil War, various economic crises, World Wars One and Two and the Civil Rights movement, Americans have impressed the world with our drive to “do the right thing.” Perfectly? Naturally not; but, overall we used to tend toward the best response to challenges – personally and nationally. Was it a miracle? Was it a set of millions of coincidences? Were children raised more perfectly then?
A qualified “yes” to the last question, but it was no accident that most of us grew up reasonably rational and morally straight despite our imperfect parents and circumstances, and the fundamental reason was culture.
We had a beautiful culture based in honesty and responsibility. The rest of the world envied it and struggled to emigrate to our land of opportunity. Our laws were equally applied, mostly, and our contracts were honestly enforced, mostly, and our private property – the fruit of our labor – was fairly protected by civil authorities, mostly. We rewarded initiative and success and, mostly, forgave failure for those who strove to do better. We honored churches and charity and respected marriage – even encouraged it in policy. We respected learning and the learned, and the inventors who kept our economic future bright. Parents could reasonably expect their children to have better lives than they had. It almost sounds funny to recount these “American” qualities.
Our culture was the best there was, in our capitalist democratic republic, and we tried to share it with others. Americans, individually, were enormously charitable toward one another and with the rest of the world, and we supported our nation being the same toward other peoples. American citizenship was a golden possession, yet anyone who applied to be one had to meet only the simplest tests and commitment to be welcomed into our nation as an equal possessor of our “gold.” Our basic Judeo-Christian ethics made us tolerant. What have we done?
In spite of obstacles, our young people used to grow up in pretty good shape, and the reason was culture. Schools, churches, libraries, police departments, pronouncements from the work of Congress, the military branches, radio programming, music and lyrics, television programming and news reporting, and even cinema… all reinforced our shared cultural beliefs. Today? Today, nearly all of these institutions challenge, if not tear down, our basic cultural norms. Parents are nearly alone in their efforts to pass our culture along to and in their children. What have we done?
As society becomes, almost daily, less and less honest, and our institutions less and less trustworthy, young people facing difficulties tend toward immediate suicide or the long-term suicide of drugs. Adults seem to have no valid response to this. Indeed, we allow for policies that make drug-addiction SAFER! We don’t even want to enforce sanctions for criminal behaviors! What are we doing?
None of what is going wrong is inevitable or guaranteed by the Constitution. We human beings created the mess we’re in and we can “un-create” it the minute we decide to be adults, again. What are we going to do? God save us.
Prudence has noted in the past that 2020 seemed to be the year that the globalist, anti-American far left determined that it could overthrow the American system. The manufactured “pandemic” surrounding COVID-19 and resulting destruction of civil liberties, social structure and logic following the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis, seemed to be making the long-planned destruction of America possible. The primary tool to make such a profound change in the direction of history, is managed hatred.
The largest hatreds over the millennia are spiritual, if not identifiably religious. This is sad, in many ways, but also understandable given the nature of non-compromise at the heart of most organized religions. The power lies in belief. Shared belief is the strongest human force. Rare are they who can listen to alternative beliefs and subsequently change their own. Beliefs direct the actions of individuals, even to the point of destroying those with opposing beliefs. When added to “mob” coherence, shared beliefs account for more deaths than any other social circumstance.
To a great degree, religions are – or began as – tribal belief systems, and in the earliest periods they had few alternative ideas to resist. This fact makes the interesting similarities among early origin stories and beliefs about gods and an afterlife, even more remarkable. However, fairly small differences between belief systems can spark enormous conflict, like that between Protestants and Catholics or between Sunni and Shia sects of Islam. The religious differences translate readily into political and military differences, but at their core, they tend to be conflicts between which humans are in charge of the “religions,” not the deep principles underlying the beliefs.
Sadly, some belief systems are based in hatred, such that no form of compromise will permit even suspicious co-existence: the premise of one system being the elimination of the other system. If success appears to find the “destroyer” system, that system prepares to take on the next system it opposes. We can see this pattern with Marxism/Communism. Its basic opposition to private property is enabled by its fundamental opposition to religion of any form. However, one of the most hateful systems appears to be Islam, the premise of which is that the entire world must become Muslim; there is no workable form of co-respect or co-existence with other religions. We have become a world governed by competing hatreds.
In a Prudent view, that is not the way any God of humanity would have wanted mankind to develop.
Regardless of the scale of the groups toward whom hate is directed, the act of hating is still a very personal one. Pressures to convince large groups to direct their hatred at certain targets – politically in purpose and effect – can be successful only if lots of individuals are personally convinced of the “legitimacy” of that hatred. It’s not the same as “following orders” issued by authoritative leaders. And it’s not the same as “hating” those who are simply different from oneself – different sounding, looking, acting – which is closer to fear rather than actual hate. It is fairly easy to learn to stop fearing others, to gain understanding of those differences, to eventually become neutral toward the different and, perhaps, friendly. Soon, we’re marrying one another and blending our differences in beautiful children who will be less fearful than we used to be.
But to become hateful of particular others is a commitment with oneself. It’s hard to casually hate, but relatively easier if one can be convinced to do so, whereupon he or she becomes more comfortable in hatred if he or she convinces him- or her-self that hatred is part of a belief system to which he or she is committed. Soon, the haters are not being led to it, but are pushing for increased purity of hatred, often punishing or rejecting those leaders who seek compromise. Hatred is an awful way to guide or lead people. But, it’s cheap and effective.
America was once described as a melting pot. Ostensibly, people from all places could “become” Americans. Without offering multiple forms of welfare and help – including taxpayer-financed attorneys – in multiple languages and multi-lingual public education, people came only because freedom was offered. Everyone learned English and agreed to live within our legal system, one of the most honest… not perfect, but fairly evenly applied under the Constitution. “Melting pot” was not the most accurate description: “salad bowl” is probably better. America invited the best of the world to join us. Despite our mistakes, particularly with slavery, we learned to respect everyone who was willing to make and pay his or her own way. Things have changed. American “representation” has, in the past 30 years or so, become the politics of competing hatreds. From the Clintonian “politics of personal destruction,” we have devolved to the “politics of social and familial disintegration.”
There is a certain ease of slipping into hatred, for most humans, not all. Hating some one else or millions of someones else, requires justification. If a person can find justification for hatred, no matter how flimsy, additional scraps of justification will stick to that hate like double-sided carpet-tape, bonding it just as tightly to one’s beliefs – perhaps to one’s soul. Add in the power of group (mob) psychology and soon a novice hater is leading the charge. Somewhere or somewhen along the spectrum from distrust to embedded hatred, every individual must decide to continue in that direction or to take another. Every person, regardless of justifications, is responsible for his or her actions – including hatred.
Every person can choose from evil, which hatred certainly is, whether political or something else. Every one of us can make that choice. In spite of decades of public indoctrination, our ability to choose to be responsible still exists. We are Americans, still able to lead, including ourselves.
