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.
U.S. President Trump Addresses Joint Session of Congress – Washington, U.S. – 28/02/17 – U.S. President Donald Trump addresses Congress. REUTERS/Jim Bourg – RTS10VKB
The United States was born in a time of idealism, and “we” incorporated many ideals into our structure of distributed governance within which power is distributed across centers of responsibility: executive, legislative and judicial. Ostensibly, the legislative center is the most powerful because it represents the people, not the government. That’s a critical distinction: the EXECUTIVE and associated departments thereof, is the government; the REPRESENTATIVE LEGISLATURE (House and Senate) represent the people and the states, respectively, TO the government. In other words, the legislative “branch” is not technically part of the government. It exists to reign in the government and to make certain that the executive branch is conducting business AS THE PEOPLE WANT it done.
Unfortunately, but ideally, the system depends upon honest executives and honest representatives, and that means widespread sharing of a moral code, never a perfect circumstance, and much less so today than ever in our short history. The trouble with dishonest representatives is that they quickly figured out that they can vote themselves riches from the federal treasury. Taking more money required new justifications, mostly comprised of establishing one’s own importance and unique abilities to act as our representative. Senators started out very differently than representatives, and much differently than they claim to be today.
Senators started out being chosen by the legislators in their respective states, based on the concept of states being somewhat sovereign and deserving of their own representation, specifically separately from citizens, themselves. That is, states’ interests deserved to be watched out for, essentially to keep the federal government from encroaching on states’ rights and authority, which was a good thing for states to do. It didn’t take too many decades before legislatures demonstrated their inability to agree on who to send to Washington, particularly in the run up to The (second) Civil War. By 1900 vacancies in the Senate were common and years long. Voters were really irked.
Finally, in 1913, the 17th Amendment was passed providing for direct election of senators, as there had always been for representatives. “More democracy” always sounds good, despite its own spotty record, and there has rarely been a senatorial vacancy since then. The upshot of direct election is that Senators, with their 6-year terms, are now simply more important “representatives,” who may or may NOT represent the interests of their state, and the Senate is the favored way for the lucky Representative to feather his or her retirement. It’s a nice, cushy job with few responsibilities. Senators don’t have to answer for every vote, and have found that they can depend on voters’ forgetfulness, while they campaign for re-election in the sixth year of their terms. Those unlucky Reps have to campaign every other year, if not more, with voters remembering more of what they promised and have done in the first half of their terms.
Still, one of the bright marks of the failure of our ideal system is the 95% re-election rate for our “elected” representatives. Along with voting themselves (automatically!) increasing amounts of pay, Reps and Senators take part in the finest health care and pension programs in the country. And, they have monstrous staff and support agencies who barely enable the two houses of Congress to get their work done! The work burden is unimaginable. There’s plenty of vacation time to provide relief from those burdens and to allow for basic mental health, there’s so much stress.
There’s so much stress, in fact, that basic work required by the Constitution and the by the citizens who send these sacrificial men and women to Washington to reign in the government on their behalf, often gets rushed through if done at all… stuff like an annual budget, for example. Not that it must be annual; the constitution says “…from time to time.” With all the stress noted, bi-annual budgeting would be perfectly useful IF, and only IF the Congress published a “…regular Statement and Account of the Receipts and Expenditures of all public Money… from time to time.” Other burdens not listed in the Constitution are preventing this requirement from being fulfilled. What a load… these public servants bear.
Now that the financial underpinnings of representatives and senators are firmly in place, and now that most of those same are likewise firmly in place, we find that members of Congress are mostly representing the GOVERNMENT to US, not us to the government. If you, the employer of these elected bureaucratic swells, ever attend a meeting where one is speaking – maybe even a “Town Hall,” – you’ll find the discussion one of why things that their employers (you) want done by the “government” can’t or won’t get done. Then you begin to recognize that our “representatives” are anything but… unless money is going to enrich a favorable someone in the district or state. Then it’s full steam ahead.
You may also realize that the language of Congress is not freedom, justice or Prudence, it’s power. Oh the money is nice, and all the trappings and perks, they’re okay. If a congressperson is able to take sufficient advantage of his or her influence over public monies to become wealthy during his or her decades of sacrifice, who really cares? But when talking power, there are but two potent factors: re-election and avoiding blame. For these things it is crucial that voters vote at least twice: once with their checkbooks and at least once at the ballot box. Indeed, public service has become so service-oriented that if voting at the ballot box is too great a burden for you, why friends of the congressperson will do it for you! And if there are citizens too infirm, confused or temporarily deceased, why they’ll make sure that voting isn’t burdensome on them, either. Re-election, step one precedes all things.
Step two, also an unending step, avoiding blame for much of anything, requires careful cultivation of scapegoats, but not just any scapegoat, he, she or they – especially “they” – must be plausibly portrayed as directly responsible (blame-worthy), probably responsible (blame-worthy), responsible for someone who made the mistake (blame-worthy), part of a group that has historically been responsible for a history of mistakes (blame-worthy). It’s simple, but requires a number of staff to keep abreast of. So, do you get it? Re-election and avoiding blame… re-election and avoiding blame. One need not be a genius to run or win for congress; just understand two principles. The rest of us are left to deal with honesty, honor, duty, tolerance, charity, courage, wisdom, thrift, family, service to others and Prudence. There is a point to this disparity of lifestyles.
The principles of purposeful citizenship in the United States are a burden that Americans gladly accept… at least they do if educated and prepared to do so. But they are easily set aside amidst a land of plenty, including plenty of diversions. Unless we are constantly reminded or constantly remind ourselves of our exceptional responsibility in the world, the principles and responsibilities with which we are charged as U. S. citizens can be forgotten, as will our unique place in the firmament of mankind.
In other words, “America,” the ideas that created and sustain her, can be lost in a single generation. Unfortunately our elected representatives, given their disconnectedness from the exigencies of real life and utter concentration upon the two factors outlined earlier, seem to forget the longer list of principles that must be upheld by citizens who remain the strength of our nation. First of these to become foggy, slipping into haze and irresolution once re-election is achieved that first time, is honesty. This no longer means lying about what one believes or does, something that can be ferreted out with evidence and records; now it means being afraid to tell the truth about what one does believe!
Now, we need courage in order to exercise honesty. Americans have been lied-to for decades… by people who promised to “fight” for us once in office. What does such a “fight” consist of, one wonders? Does he or she, candidate to represent US, promise to tell the truth about, say, the budget? Will he or she promise to read and understand every bill that comes to the floor?
Will he or she promise to fight against any bill that includes items unrelated to the purported title and subject of the bill? Will he or she insist on budget, and therefore, policy approval, for every titled agency and program in the Executive branch? You’ll be able to judge where to give your vote if the answer to any of these questions is some mealy-mouthed explanation of why things can’t be done as we ask.
The Courage to be Honest with voters – what a concept. Maybe there’s hope for Charity (with their own money, not our great grandchildren’s), Wisdom and Thrift. Thrift would mean reducing the profligate federal budget, something that must be done as part of Honesty. Of course, they’d have to become conversant with the budget in the first place, and not simply enough to blame one another for wrong-headed spending. The federal budget is essentially a Trillion dollars out of balance. Ask any rep or senator you have a chance to meet if he or she is going to fight to cut spending? Will he or she fight to prevent raising the “debt ceiling,” so called? Honesty requires an answer, doesn’t it?
Will your representative and senators represent us with Honor? No sly side-agreements that do not serve their constituents FIRST? No personal aggrandizement through any piece of legislation? Honesty would demand proper response to these questions. Who, after all, is at the top of our system? The government? “Brrraaaap!” You’re out.
We are at the top. We are sovereign citizens who have ceded LIMITED power and authority to the federal and state governments, and to municipal governments; all other rights, powers and freedoms belong to each of us as sovereign individuals who possess unalienable rights. Don’t you forget this. People in government are there to serve us and protect us and our private properties – including our rights: private properties we are born with.
Our success as a self-governing people can be measured only by how much SMALLER we can render our governments, not by how much larger. Ask your rep and senatorial candidates if they will fight to make government smaller. Good luck.
You may have heard of this new virus, COVID-19? Many have.
It’s not as widespread as “the flu” or hemorrhoids, but it’s becoming a
popular meme. The Chinese provided the
best possible environment for the rapid spread of “Coronavirus,” but they are
quite reluctant to take full credit for their successes with this new flu virus. Funny, that, for the progressive and benign
inventors of virtually everything, starting with justice for all.
People and governments,
businesses and schools and other institutions, have reacted in some ways
foolishly. Again, the Chinese were world
leaders, although they have started to forcibly push that honor onto the United
States, displaying their progressive generosity, to the point of claiming the
highest honor of all: being the victims of COVID-19, rather than the originators. How friendly is that?
There
are numerous “corona” viruses, 7 at least.
Some of them haven’t “sold” as well due, possibly, from their not having
been granted cool, mysterious names.
Right now, COVID-19 is hot, and everyone seems to want it… or, at least,
wants to worry about it. 229E (alpha coronavirus), NL63
(alpha coronavirus), OC43 (beta coronavirus), and HKU1 (beta coronavirus), all
gain customers every year but are never celebrated as much as SARS, MERS or the
king, COVID-19. I mean, who the Hell
would want people to know he or she were suffering from “NL63?” No one, that’s who.
“Coronavirus,” however, or COVID-19, clearly carries a certain élan, some people are so
excited about it they are posting their symptoms and difficulties for all to
envy and, perhaps, copy, if they’re lucky.
Admittedly, your correspondent, who has never caught SARS, MERS,
229E, NL63, OC43, or HKU1, and not even the 2009 Swine Flu, and whose ability
to get within 6 feet of COVID-19 is equally in doubt, still shares your desire
for victimhood and all the benefits that go with it. President Trump and Congress have cooperated
to pump air into our virus-deflating economy.
They call the air, “money,” so-called “billions” of dollars’ worth. It, and many regulatory changes may prove
valuable in the limiting of COVID-19’s popularity, so those of you who have gotten
hold of some will be even more famous as the weeks and years go by.
Popular and social media, along with other “influencers,” have
managed to whip up a pretty good frenzy over “coronavirus.” In response, every business that typically
attracts crowds of people to its products, from Wal-Mart to the NBA, major
league baseball, the NHL and various marathons and fun-raisers, have cancelled
or postponed their events, at great economic loss. Individual star-players have stepped forward
to financially support the hundreds of ancillary employees and businesses that
function to operate sporting events and to serve their attendees. Real generosity, as compared to the “federal”
type. A lot of the lost or displaced economic
activity will never be restored or replaced.
Some businesses, naturally, will benefit mightily… paper-goods
manufacturers, for example and any store or supermarket that sells them. Bottled-water purveyors and those same
stores, again. Company’s that make hand
sanitizer, antiseptic surface wipes and face-masks, among other goods, are
doing nicely as sheeple attack their supplies to obtain extra quantities of
those items that no one and no family, certainly, could bear to do without.
Toilet paper is a big item as the perceived threat of worldwide
pestilence rears its empty head. Dozens
of rolls. If the supply chain for toilet
paper gets severed, people are calculating, their family is not going to suffer
the absence of toilet paper until the very last possible minute. This is perfectly logical, possibly even
Prudent, although neither quality can be judged on real merits. Faced with a frightening disease, the natural
reaction is to stock up on toilet paper.
Clearly adherents of this philosophy have not thought things through: if
conditions deteriorate to the complete cessation of toilet-paper production,
there likely won’t be any food to eat, either, and wiping one’s butt will mean
less and less in the grand scheme of things, until we are all smothered by the
final, rapid descent of what’s left of the sky, bonking us all on our heads,
rendering us senseless. No shit?
Basically, coronavirus, COVID-19, is a new strain of an old
friend, causing a variant of the seasonal flu.
AS WITH ALL “FLU” VIRUSES, elderly, especially elderly nursing-home residents
are at the greatest risk, as are those with other respiratory diseases or
weaknesses, smokers and those otherwise immune-compromised. Without strong immune systems, infected
victims will find it hard to conquer the virus, and in those, the virus will
replicate at its fastest, causing fluid build-up in the lungs and death from
pneumonia or, in effect, drowning. No
one wishes such an end on anyone.
The “flu,” we have observed, tends to decline in the spring and
virtually disappear in the summer. Why
would that be so, if it’s so virulent?
Why are some people able to fend it off easily in its “high” season, mid
to late winter? Why are carefully-tended
nursing home residents so susceptible?
It’s all dependent upon individuals.
It is our habits, our practices, our health and nutrition and our good
sense that enables a virus like COVID-19 to succeed or fail.
Why do flu viruses infect more people in the winter? In large part it is because humans tend to
have more bronchial and rhinopharyngial inflammations in cold weather. We cough, our sinuses produce more fluids and
mucus, we blow our nose, and our bronchial tubes collect mucus and fluids. We work hard to get rid of these intruders
and enflame these sensitive linings.
Both bacteria and viruses find welcoming environments and it’s off to
the races. Over the period of a couple of
weeks to a month our bodies fight off the infections and our immune systems are
invigorated. Fairly soon there are fewer
and fewer people who are contagious and the season passes into spring and summer,
and another factor kicks in: sunshine.
Vitamin D is essential in all sorts of organic functions,
including strengthening our immune systems.
We are likely to be a little healthier in warm weather because we get
more sunlight and our skin creates more vitamin D. It’s not just that simple, but it’s not a lot
more complicated, either. Nursing-home
residents don’t get as much sunshine, for one thing, rarely consume really good
meals, don’t get to take supplements, and are kept away from viruses to a great
extent, thus rarely exercising their immunities, leaving them more vulnerable
than just age alone would make them.
With flu warnings hammering us every “flu season,” we also modify
our habits, cover our coughs and sneezes more diligently, stay away from others
when we’re feeling ill, take our vitamins more diligently, wash our hands more
often, things like that. And, we survive
the flu, kind-of like the way we are surviving the new “coronavirus” this year,
too. There aren’t many MORE ways to have
reacted badly to COVID-19 than the ones we have and are trying, starting with
the Chinese in particular. If we had
simply described this virus as an especially aggressive flu bug and blasted the
airwaves with how to protect ourselves and what to do if our symptoms are one
way or another, we’d be acting extra carefully and still going about our daily
and business activities. There’d be more
absenteeism, but no mania, the cost of which we can hardly estimate.
COVID-19s is a nasty bug.
It has a more severe effect on lungs than other coronaviruses, making
breathing difficult and stressing hearts.
The death rate is higher, too, and, like other coronaviruses, mainly for
senior citizens, rates spike with age and certain pre-existing conditions. Number-one is heart disease. Another big one is diabetes, which is its own
epidemic in overweight America. If your
health is already under attack, please protect yourself. For age groups over 60 the risks are
higher. Compared to other well-known flu’s
– the ones that come back every winter – the death rates spike higher with this
new one for these at-risk, older groups.
Use good sense: don’t snuggle with anyone exhibiting ANY flu symptoms.
In the United States, hyper-politicized and divided into sets of
enemies, we have allowed the entry of the latest coronavirus to modify our
governance and our economic relationships, citizens and federal government, and
states and federal government. It’s
dangerous.
COVID-19 is a serious disease, mainly because it is more easily
transferred than other flu’s. It doesn’t
mean we’re all doomed to catch it, nor that every senior citizen is going to
die if he or she is infected. The speed
of its spread has tripped up health systems, but now that it is better
understood, the natural anxiety caused by the rate of infection can be set
aside and replaced with best practices to help people recover, AS MOST OF THE
INFECTED ARE GOING TO DO. Reactive
mania, while politically irresistible, is not particularly helpful beyond the
shortest of terms. The concerns about
testing rates have more to do with getting the infection statistics right than
with specific treatments for those infected.
One of the reasons South Korea has relatively low infection and death
rates is its widespread testing. That
data keeps panic at bay. With cleaner
air nationwide, and lower smoking rates than Asian nations, Americans are in
some ways healthier and somewhat less at risk.
Americans have learned, on a sudden, how quickly their freedoms
may be curtailed by a handful of press conferences and an executive declaration
of a “state of emergency.” Families can
be disrupted with school closings and by “woke” corporations changing job
descriptions without notice. Whole
businesses may be shut down by arbitrary event-attendee limitations, mostly by
state authorities. It seems unreal, yet the
expansion of economic, social and religious displacements is evident with every
hourly newscast. It seems imPrudent.
Take your vitamins, extra C, as much as 3,000 IU’s of vitamin D, eat fresh fruits and veggies, and an orange every day. It makes a lot more sense to stock up on oranges, lemons and limes than toilet paper. Don’t smoke… anything. Get plenty of sleep. Don’t frequent venues where people are packed tightly together; stay away from others if you feel sick, have a tough cough or are sneezy. Pray – praying for those who are sick is always recommended. While you’re at it, ask God to protect our hapless United States of America.
