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Free Repress

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I had a short sit-down with a most charming and intelligent lady recently – very Prudent in my judgment.  We agreed on nearly everything concerning her professional expertise and shared each other’s reminiscences from too many decades.  At a couple of points she had alluded to being “very liberal” without it influencing our discussions, while describing how her work improved individual  performance for business leaders and managers.  At that Prudence suggested that she probably is not as liberal as she thinks.  We never did get into either of our social views, but before parting it became very clear that conservative news sources could never be trusted while “liberal” ones always could.

In the end I opined that I wasn’t sure that President Obama was a natural born American, that his released birth certificate was forged in some way and that he was the only person in his administration who ever claimed he was born in Kenya, and I cited a statement on a “book jacket.”  She was able to name everyone related to or near the president in any way as scurrilous in the light of “more than 30 indictments,” for Heaven’s sake.  I suggested that they weren’t connected to Russian involvement with Trump and she listed a couple where people had been working for Turkey (Flynn) who later lied about meeting a Russian, and Paul Manafort, of course.

I was wrong about the “book jacket” reference: the claim was made by Obama’s literary agency in a booklet it used to promote books to large buyers, but Obama, himself, never challenged it until a couple months after declaring himself in the running for the Democrat nomination.  The literary agent lady claimed it was her personal mistake and that Obama himself had never told her personally that he was born in Kenya.  She probably derived the “belief” in his place of birth from the information in the Harvard Law School yearbook that listed the very same Barack Hussein Obama as having come from Kenya.  The very same Obama hadn’t challenged that, either, after having certainly seen it, he being the first African-American editor of the Harvard Law Review, after all.  So there is some validity to Prudence’ having formed a belief about his Kenyan origins.  Harvard, of course, “corrected” the yearbook entry after the controversy became news in 2007.  Lots of mistakes connected to one little-known individual’s demographics.

The idea of Obama’s grandmother, in Kenya, having been present at his birth, there, however, is not substantiated.  One of Obama’s half-brothers, among others, tried to float a fraudulent claim about a Kenyan birth certificate, which muddied the waters even more.

To the lady’s credit, despite rattling off every “Trump” negative possible in a very brief couple of sentences, there are many questions about Trump’s associates, himself, and even about his relatives – but it seems Prudent to await some sort of proof of the many embellishments certain media layer on to every indictment that has emitted from the Mueller operations.

Prudence would indicate that most of those who voted for Donald Trump don’t like him, particularly.  (See http://www.prudenceleadbetter.com/2017/11/29/trumpism-is-a-ghost/)  Many obviously do, imputing to him the persona of “one of the guys” even though he doesn’t drink or smoke.  They like the way he says what he thinks, even without the politically correct filtering.  Those who don’t “like” him also appreciate his willingness to throw out his opinions and willingness to call people out for their bad acts, lies and falsities of various sorts.  It doesn’t help that he is reckless in many of his statements to the point of stating his own falsities, but in most cases it doesn’t sound like “lies,” in the sense of malicious mendacity.  Opinions vary.  Still, a majority of states wanted the degree of change Trump would bring, regardless of his “baggage.”  Prudence agrees.

It is obvious, Prudence would indicate, that the creation of Fox News dramatically altered the “news” business, perhaps on a par with the creation of CNN.  The challenge to the amorphous leftism of, first, broadcast networks and then cable networks, caused those outlets to sharpen their stances and to attack “right wing news.”  With so few right-leaning networks, right-leaning politicians have naturally hewn closer to Fox and a handful of independent “blog,” YouTube and “Podcast” sources for “alternative” news and opinion… and confirmation.

CNN and others turned to spend more and more time and content in sharply partisan “reporting.”  The news business is now not just corrupt, it is failing its vital role, guaranteed to it in the First Amendment.  Government types are delighted to be allied with the “press.”  It removes all that “truthiness” pressure.

However, the slippery immersion into partisan defense by most media, is not only destructive of our separation of powers, but an abject disregard… a besmirching of the role of a free press – not “free” to pander but free to be honest, something journalists in many countries die for.  Of all the ills America suffers today, the loss of an honest, free press may be the worst.  For shame, and shame upon the magnates and business titans who own various outlets of partisan claptrap.  Who is watching the watchers?

The biggest watchers, today, are the largest cyber-media monsters: Google, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and others.  In the span of fifteen years, virtually everyone who utilizes the internet for communication or information, has adapted to obtaining both through one of these companies.  It is the most rapid transformation of human interaction… and most rapid concentration of power – power over human knowledge – in all of history.  Only now is the danger and threat of this concentration being recognized.

-Google, in particular, is succeeding at convincing schools to forego books and other paper media for everything from studies, assignments, homework and testing.  Kids who spend excessive hours on screens for games, Facebook, Twitter, You Tube and Snapchat, have been shepherded onto screens for even more hours per day!  Worse, they are being taught from the youngest possible ages that truth may be found on a Google screen.  Except that, now we learn that Google has a very specific view of what truths are find-able on those very screens.  Can democracy survive this evil filtering of facts?

Indeed, not even Constitutional republicanism can withstand it.  Have we the necessary vision and courage to reverse this extra-constitutional threat?

Education, Governance, Politics 2018, Responsibility

Mid-Terms… and here we are.

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The mid-term elections of 2018 provide a vibrant graphic – Kodachrome – Technicolor – Cinemascope (old terms you can Google) of both the failings and successes of the American experiment. Every stress and resolution since King Philip’s War has contributed to how the U. S. was formed and how we arrived… here. Which is where, exactly?

Hard to say. We have paddled, splashed, kicked and floated out past the string of floats, out past the raft and out to where a dense fog obscures the shoreline so well that we can’t be sure from where on the shore we departed, nor are we sure if that’s the shore we wish to return to. The fog is Socialism, the raft is principled education and the string of floats that marked the edge of safety, is the Constitution. The barque we are riding is Progressivism, and if we sink, at last, the people on shore who can barely see or care about us, will simply say good riddance; we were more trouble than we were worth, us and our God and our founding principles.

From where we Faithful constitutionalists are, we must devise a way back to shore – the ideas of America – while we convince the socialists that Constitutional republicanism based on democratically elected representatives, within which individuals are responsible for their choices and duties… and failures… is the only true direction to follow.

The mid-term elections in 2018 are an obsidian mirror reflecting every dark political urge, lie, distortion and fraud either party is inclined to use to further its ends. It all stinks, albeit obscurely. There is very little truth at work this year. It appears that if several media outlets were not repeating and amplifying increasingly strident and unsubstantiated statements, particularly in reference to Judge Brett Kavanaugh, Democrats would have a very thin campaign “platform.”

Republicans stand for a closer approximation of Constitutional strictures and forms, but fail to stand firmly on much beyond Defense and tax cuts. Their own adjustment of principle for purposes of re-election is no less corrupt than that of their opponents. Connections to Chinese moneys, subtle, legal bribes, in both parties but sizable among Republicans, distorts decision-making on a hundred policies and problems. Somehow these two groups of self-serving oligarchs deserve our trust in the fulfillment of our Constitutional form of government. Now they are both demanding a hold on Constitutional power, vested in the Congress. Their tools are neither truth nor justice, but belief.

Republicans believe in the direction Trump wants to take us, for example, even if they dislike him personally. Democrats believe he is evil and their enemy, worthy of any form of resistance and defeat. Yet, he was elected by sufficient states to become president. Most of the nation preferred his promises to Mrs. Clinton’s. Effectively, Trump is on the ballot in every state again in the mid-terms. His opponents and all socialists are focusing on Brett Kavanaugh in order to coalesce their ostensible “base:” minorities, those dependent on government support, illegal entrants, abortion-lovers and the abortion industry, angry – likely single – women and the ‘deep state,’ itself. Their utter lack of ethics and decorum during the hearings, however, may not create the groundswell they hope for.

Democrats are also employing the final tactic in the 150-year war against Constitutional republicanism: pure socialism/communism. In the wake of socialist upset wins in a couple of primaries, numerous candidates for higher offices have come out directly in support of pure socialism. Socialism and Constitutional republicanism are antithetical and diametrically so. One wonders what country’s offices these former Democrats think they are seeking.

That obsidian mirror makes it hard, but not impossible, to see the shadowy actions of bad actors in the Department of Justice and elsewhere, as they strive to upset the result of a clearly-won presidential election. A perpetually compromised Congress, far more exposed in its work, attempts to expose illegal actions resisting the president, inside executive department agencies. It is not limited to Justice – far from it. Yet the demands of re-election distort the timing of their expository work.

Prudence would indicate that our biennial election “show” serves other-than-governance purposes, while it appeases, briefly, the unsettledness of the populace. People have followed, for decades… no, for centuries, political divisions. They followed them into civil war in 1861, and into other, bullet-less, civil “wars” since then, no less disruptive in a sense, including the current one. Now we must choose to continue towards restoration of Constitutionalism, or to hasten our descent into globalist socialism. For the aware, the mid-terms are how we’ll make that choice.

For everyone else, this is when we vote for more free stuff from Uncle Sucker.

Culture, Economics, Education, Governance, Immigration

America on the High Wire

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Constitutionalists and other conservatives, along with the rest of the world, are watching the American high-wire act being performed without practice and without nets. Having had top billing in the center ring since WW-II, The U. S. has also had unique control of the world’s money supply and, in the pleasant swaddling clothes of the so-called “Federal” Reserve Bank, has enjoyed unlimited debt creation for more than a century, financing sticky, anti-Constitutional socialism, sold so softly that once-conservatives defend its pillars, now.

Along the way the innate goodness of American ideals enabled the U. S. to also liberate and rejuvenate millions of people and dozens of countries, imperfectly, but with the best of efforts. On balance, the United States has done sufficient good in the century of its financial dominance that people living under much crappier politics still risk everything to get here. Unfortunately, unlike the struggle to get to “America” during the first 130 years of our existence, immigrants come less and less often for the opportunity to perfect themselves and their families, and more and more to grasp the socialist welfare for which we have indebted several generations to come, to provide for the “less fortunate,” who, in the minds of virulent anti-American socialists, comprise the rest of the world.

Therein is the outline of one of the strands of the high wire we, through our virtually inept governments, are attempting to navigate across a chasm so dark that most of the citizenry will not look into it… or acknowledge it, believing that nothing so threatening could possibly exist nor could our Senators and Representatives have allowed it to manifest. Yet here we are, gingerly sliding one fat foot before the other, hoping to cross to a better century to come.

In that better century we won’t be in debt up to our annual eyebrows, or obligated socialistically for many multiples of our entire annual economic output. We love our Social Security, our Medicare and a thousand other benefits. We love being able to shove the irresponsible in under the umbrella of Medicaid, lest we worry ourselves sick over them. But we aren’t loving the loss of independence that ungodly debt represents, nor the loss of freedom that taxes represent – at least we shouldn’t be. You do understand these concepts, don’t you?

Taxes are a loss of freedom? It should be obvious: freedom and economic freedom are symbionts. Debt, on the other hand, threatens freedom of the nation in terms of independence – economic independence. We owe a year’s economic output to someone, many some-ones, and a lot of that we owe to people who wish to destroy us.

Independence. It’s another strand in that taut, high wire on which America balances.
Most of those who would weaken, dominate or destroy the United States, removing us from our global economic chairmanship, and from our military empire, do not have the internal dissent that freedom allows. They do not have debilitating, enervating victim-based political mine-field governance. Nor are they constricted by waves of illegal and criminal aliens and hired armies of “antifa” street thugs who use violent force to make points that duplicitous media endorse. They aren’t required, politically, to attempt to coexist with a dozen opposing cultures within their borders, schools and core cities. They aren’t burdened by thousands of laws that are never enforced, or enforced differently for citizens and non-citizens.

And, like badgers, or jackals, they probe and push and nibble at our strength, waiting… waiting for the moment we are so distracted, or weary, or confused about our existence, that we can be toppled. Such an occurrence will mark a new dark age.

The high wire is not unable to hold our weight, or our debt or our dissension. Our confusion is more worrisome, but right now, it’s holding. There is no net. We have succumbed to debauchery, as it were, with governments decriminalizing activities and products they can tax… or gain votes from. It’s tawdry. What sort of government can profit from the temporary or permanent mental incoherence of its citizens? Our individuality no longer breeds responsibility or cohesiveness, rather division and wasted potential. As a people we are becoming more clever and less intelligent. Instead of rewarding success and improvement, we are rewarding failure, deviance… and incoherence.

Immigration, once a strength, we are now rushing – indeed fighting – to make a weakness and a threat. It’s not the stuff of socialism, but it is a weapon to prevent resistance to socialism. Socialism, a virtual denial of the spirit, is threatened by freedom – not by licentiousness, for that weakens freedom – because freedom, described by God in a million religious texts and well-distilled into our Declaration and Constitution, empowers individuals, not groups or classes. The majesty of individual sovereignty, barely recognized or remembered, today, is at the foundation of the American idea. For those blinded by the allure of socialism: the ability to get something for nothing – American independence of the individual is the enemy. The high wire is not yet severed, but the blowtorches of the original lie, now emboldened as “socialism,” are trying to soften its tensile strength.

Still we proceed, one foot before the other, carefully sliding and balancing, while the burdens of debt cower us and the rending of our muscles by a million jackals weakens us. The ideas of America – not her mistakes – are so strong that we are able to find new ways to rejuvenate her body, albeit more temporarily each cycle.

Belatedly, Trump is trying to “clean up” international problems that have encroached on our peace and prosperity for decades. Politically we have botched many circumstances, treaties, agreements and relationships around the world – too many to list. Currently we worry about North Korea, Iran, Russia and China, along with Afghanistan, Pakistan, Syria, Turkey, Libya, Zimbabwe, Sudan and South Africa… oh, and Venzuela, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Mexico, Brazil, Haiti, and even Canada. Ooops, forgot Philipines, Indonesia, Somalia, Poland, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia. Other than that, things are pretty calm… unless we want to not overlook the entire EU and Britain in particular and the Balkans, Romania, Bulgaria, and Ukraine. And Georgia. Never mind the DNC.

The point is, it is a consummate balancing act the U. S. performs to keep its dominance through both economics and diplomacy, while shoveling huge volumes of “foreign aid” in the form of military aid, if not intervention, into over 150 countries. This doesn’t begin to quantify activities of the C. I. A. No wonder everybody loves us. All this while our enemies – every one socialist, communist or fascist (socialist) – watch for weakness, indecision, or introversion, or, for “leading from behind.”

If at some point the U. S. stumbles, fails to defend itself or, worse, fails to stand up for its majestic founding principles, the jackals will pounce to bring down – as in destroy the greatest affront to socialism and tyranny the world has ever seen: our great, lumbering hodge-podge of cultures and beliefs which had not the good sense to teach its own children the ideas of its founding and its exceptional place amongst humankind.

Our greatest balance pole has always been freedom, outlined in the Bill of Rights and elsewhere. We will do best to preserve ourselves and our countering role by cleaning our own house and by returning to our long climb toward honesty and perfection based on the sovereignty and individual responsibility of our people. We’ve drifted away from our ideals as we’ve carefully stepped far out above the abyss. Every reader knows the cleansing that must be done. There is no amount of political Febreeze that will correct for the rot it covers up.

We must regain our balance, and in fairly short order, Prudence indicates.

Education, Governance, Politics 2018, Representation, Trump

St. Mueller the Silent

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The “Mueller Investigation” as the “Special Counsel” investigation is known, is a confusing, obfuscatory, scattershot, and stupefying, yet crystal clear example of the failure of American self-government. Mueller has played his role very well: careful, quiet, indictments of several people who a) will never be extradited for trial or, b) have nothing to do with what the public believes is the purpose of his investigation. A cool character, he.

Now the big press controversy is over a pre-election meeting attended by Paul Manafort, Jared Kushner, Donald Trump. Jr. and some ostensible carriers of dirty dirt about Mrs. Clinton, Russian origin. The meeting wasn’t illegal and nothing illegal was done for all of its 20- or 30-minute duration. BUT! BUT! Did Trump, Sr. know about the meeting?

If he had known, it still wasn’t illegal. But, if he lied about knowing about it – which some claim, although there’s no evidence – and all one needs to do is accuse Donald Trump of something for certain people to “know” that he did not only that of which he is accused, but much worse, he’s such a terrible human being after all, then maybe Mueller can get him to testify that he didn’t know about the meeting under oath and then he may be accused of perjury because someone like James Comey, an established liar and hater of the aforementioned Mr. Trump Sr., and of Jr., too, most likely, has said he told him he did know of the meeting.

Mueller can choose whom to believe when testimony conflicts, and therein lies the flaw in the grand-jury / indictment system, proving the maxim that a good prosecutor with a grand jury could indict a ham sandwich. All he needs is for some homeless witness who claims to have seen the meat inside the sandwich in question, and to accuse the ham sandwich of being, in fact, a turkey sandwich. Soon the prosecutor’s suspicious attention is turned toward the sandwich so accused, with demands to hear what the purported ham sandwich has to say in its defense, only to find that the sandwich refuses to answer! Indictment follows.

Manafort is in big trouble. He apparently committed crimes by hiding income received from some sort of work for the then pro-Russian president of Ukraine. So his crimes were financial. His offense was working for the Trump campaign in 2016, during which time he committed no crimes. But, he breathed the air in Trump Tower and Mueller has treated him very differently from anyone else accused of similar crimes, including revoking his bail and holding him in solitary confinement. All this for a case that Mueller could have handed off to other federal prosecutors as he has other cases his broad investigation uncovered.

Manafort is obviously different because of his direct connection, briefly, with the eeeevil Mr. Trump: Mueller’s real target.

The official charge establishing this unique “Special Counsel” for the DOJ is short and incredibly broad:
ORDER NO. 3915-2017
APPOINTMENT OF SPECIAL COUNSEL
TO INVESTIGATE RUSSIAN INTERFERENCE WITH THE
2016 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION AND RELATED MATTERS

By virtue of the authority vested in me as Acting Attorney General, including 28 U.S.C. §§ 509, 510, and 515, in order to discharge my responsibility to provide supervision and management of the Department of Justice, and to ensure a full and thorough investigation of the Russian government’s efforts to interfere in the 2016 presidential election, I hereby order as follows:
(a) Robert S. Mueller III is appointed to serve as Special Counsel for the United States Department of Justice.
(b) The Special Counsel is authorized to conduct the investigation confirmed by then-FBI Director James S. Comey in testimony before the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence on March 20, 2017, including:
(i) any links and/or coordination between the Russian government and individuals associated with the campaign of President Donald Trump; and
(ii) any matters that arose or may arise directly from the investigation; and
(iii) any other matters within the scope of 28 C.F.R. § 600.4(a).
(c) If the Special Counsel believes it is necessary and appropriate, the Special Counsel is authorized to prosecute federal crimes arising from the investigation of these matters.
(d) Sections 600.4 through 600. l 0 of Title 28 of the Code of Federal Regulations are applicable to the Special Counsel.

Mueller was head of the FBI for years and worked closely, indeed friendly, with all the people who have lost their jobs there, over the past year: Comey, McCabe, Strozk, Yates, Paige, and others to come. Rod Rosenstein, not yet fired, who appointed Mueller, is also a close friend of his. The investigation team is comprised of anti-Republican and avowedly pro-Democrat, pro-Clinton personnel. It is reasonable to be suspicious of the even-handed application of the “law” likely to be arrayed against a Republican president who defeated “their” candidate. Mueller says nothing, but his treatment of Paul Manafort is louder than words.

Where the average sentence for Manafort’s alleged crimes is less than a year and a half – in a low-security “club fed,” Manfort is threatened with many decades of incarceration. A logical observer would recognize the prosecutorial tactic of squeezing a low-level criminal to get him or her to “rat” on his boss. There is plenty of doubt of that outcome.

But the Mueller probe is masterful in any case. While it makes clear the inability of our rotten, fatuous federal institutions to keep their own houses clean, it also has provided tidbits for rabid anti-Trump forces in media, the establishment parties, and in a thousand “non-profit” activist groups whose lifeblood comes from a thousand rotten grants of socialist funding whereby they separately and collectively weaken the body politic on a daily basis, and most foully from within the very government institutions created and sold to a heretofore “free” people as the fundaments of law and order.

And all of these seize on every tid and bit and crumb… and ham sandwich, with which to assail the President and all who granted him power to do what he is struggling to do. In truth he is neither Republican nor Democrat, yet the states are with him in the hope that our Constitutional republic might be saved.

On a sudden, the long knives of utter socialism are out. “Deminos” (Democrats in name only) are exposing their hatred for the ideas that formed The U. S. of A. Socialism, like the “serpent” that tempted Eve, is antithetical to Americanism. The American Constitution and Declaration of Independence cannot coexist with socialism. One need only to understand our founding and the majesty of liberty to recognize that truth. The heavy oil of socialism chokes out the life-giving waters of freedom and personal sovereignty. Need proof? There are twenty Trillions in proof hanging over our heads.

Mr. Mueller is faithfully serving the haters. Perhaps he knows this – his own past is far from pure.

Trump

Jerry Wescott’s thoughtful thoughts on Trump

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[RESPONDING TO “(WORD)HOLE REDUX” from Jacksonville, Florida]

Shortly after news of his foul comments surfaced, Trump tweeted, “It is my duty to protect the lives and safety of all Americans. We must build a Great Wall, think Merit and end Lottery & Chain. USA!” Now, I have no problem with a president finding it his duty to protect us – of course it’s his duty, he’s the top cop, and the enforcement of the law is a tough job, one that requires a firm hand. I do not agree with the idea of a physical wall though. I realize that Israel has a wall, but so did East Germany and China. Those walls have been destroyed or compromised, and they cannot function to keep people from crossing. They represent old technology and in this world, they cannot be as effective as an electronic one. Trump is good at building walls, both physical and financial ones, but his walls are only as good as the technology that monitors them. Better mice defeat once-better mousetraps though, and as technology improves, the physical obstruction of a wall across our southern border becomes less and less useful until it becomes useless altogether as all the prepositions are applied to make it so. Drugs and illegal aliens will still come into the country, but by other means.

“Think Merit,” he says. If “merit” is a term only applied to foreigners, then I agree. They should be properly examined, and they should be willing to become good, productive, law-abiding citizens of our country, and they should do so in the right way, with all the documentation in order, and all the pertinent research on their personal history complete. But what if we turn the merit-seeking microscope around and examine Donald Trump. The rest of America and the world know his (every) thoughts – even the crude and thoughtless thoughts.  He puts (them) all out there on Twitter without shame. Every so often, I see the worth of what he says, but I rarely see the value in the way he says it. One of my favorite quotes from the Proverbs of Solomon is, “A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in pictures of silver.” If Trump acknowledged this concept, I might call him a statesman. If he honored the Creator’s determination of nations, or God’s love for each human being, I would consider him worthy of leading our meritocratic government. I see little merit in him, and his willingness to use profanity to describe global political and social situations in which the rest of mankind exists, repulses me. His careless and childish practice of name-calling not only dishonors the despised places and their leaders, and humiliates the millions of unfortunate people living in them, but the mud slung splashes back on Donald, his office, and his own people!

Okay – I believe I know what I’ve led you to think. You have me down as a bleeding heart who wants everyone to trample our borders. No, I don’t. It is not lost on me that God has created our nation as well as those which have been spat upon by the bully who has become president. He claims that we must “end Lottery & Chain.” I understand the problem. I don’t think we should simply end it, just modify it in a sensible and responsible fashion. We should have handled the repeal of Obamacare more intelligently as well. Sometimes it seems like he needs to smash things just so he can erect a new tower in the history books with his name on it. Never mind that – I know I can be too down on Trump sometimes. The point is, he needs to be more thoughtful about what he says. He needs to be way more careful about how he says it. A thug threatening you with a knife will not get the respect he craves, only fear. Respect has to be earned, and, as I see it, all he has earned is money. The fear he has generated, and the foolishness with which he presents himself, and us by proxy, has turned a global community with problems into a pending disaster. Believe it or not, I can cope with that because I expect that all of this is setting the stage for the end of the age. I’m gonna’ get un-engaged from this outrage.

Sorry – didn’t mean to rap. I don’t even like rap. I consider it to be rather … end-times stuff. It’s a destructive force that tends to tear society into subcultures and fragment any remaining sense of community that we might still have as a nation. Yes, I believe in a rapture of the saints and a seven-year tribulation period when the Antichrist arises to global power and wherein the nations of the world are judged. So the Donald is age-appropriate, after all.

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Thought Leaders and other followers

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The evolution of politics in the U. S. is only a symptom of the collective consciousness of our people, as reactions to the much-anticipated “Nunes Memo” makes stark.  So-called “thought leaders,” who, in earlier times, might have been recognized as “leaders” by any definition worthy of follow-ship, are now best identified by a mix of shrillness and hypocrisy, the latter readily ignored by erstwhile and very temporary “followers.”

Any Gen-X’er or Millennial who stumbles across this scree is advised to watch “Saving Private Ryan” or “Apollo 13,” where he or she might get a glimpse of real adversity, dignity and bravery.  Shouting at people with whom you suddenly disagree doesn’t begin even to cast a shadow in the sunlight of true grit.  Who are the “thought leaders” of these most recent generations?  Barack Obama, may be one, although none of his great thoughts come to mind; just as much so is Colin Kaepernick, just as hard to comprehend.  And looming over Hollywood there is always Barbra Streisand.  For both Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Obama Saul Alinsky was a thought leader, as he was for a generation of radicals.  Thought leaders, all.

Universities – in the “West,” at least – no longer place much emphasis on historical thought leaders, nor much on history, itself, sadly.  It is as though their role in preserving and increasing knowledge of western civilization is no longer worth the price of admission, which is trending toward the upper half of a hundred thousand bucks a year.  For those kinds of dollars one’s sons and daughters deserve safe spaces where never is heard a discouraging word.  Real debate requires grief counseling – parents have paid enough to get some.

George Soros might be a thought leader.  He certainly has enough followers, including those he pays minimum wage to riot on call.  But, there’s the nagging question, what does he THINK?  And, the gloomy corollary, what could his followers be thinking?

Soros thinks, in part, that a system of governance in which individuals are sovereign – like that outlined by the U. S. Constitution – must not be tolerated on this planet, he being a rabid socialist.  We also know that when Nazis were actively collecting and killing Jews like himself, that renouncing his faith, family, heritage and neighbors was not too high a price to pay to preserve his own life and comfort when all one need do was cooperate with Hitler’s Fascists, perhaps helping them steal Jews’ property.  No regrets, he says, and one might suppose his followers think the same way, as do partners, colleagues, compatriots and comrades who either have or hope to benefit from Soros’ wealth, whether an influential Democrat or a $15-an-hour “antifa” thug.  We need not probe too deeply into the erstwhile meaning of “antifa,” but Soros has bought, at least, a place in the thought-leader coven.

Many other political and government types see themselves as thought leaders.  They do their damnedest to lead the news whenever possible, but there they must compete with supposed journalists  who are vying for their own places in the thought-leader cabal.  Dismayingly, thanks to Twitter, Facebook, You-Tube and the like, many of both groups do lead thousands of people’s thoughts, even if only for a few hours… or minutes.  It’s heady stuff, nevertheless.

Mr. Trump has long thought he could lead some thoughts and a good slogan and article of clothing can do that, as evidenced by Madonna, for one example, and “KISS” for another.  Still, he does lead a lot of thinking in that everyone seems to think about him, whether skeptical, neutral, favorable or downright hateful.  People are in various tizzies since Trump decided to run, never mind since being elected, including great thinkers like Nancy Pelosi and Joy Behar of NBC.  Prudence isn’t sure whether great connivance is the same as great thinking.  Maybe.

One can recall when Billy Graham and a handful of other faith leaders were also thought leaders, in that large numbers of people attuned their beliefs to theirs.  In the “old” days, one might say, Cardinals in the Catholic Church were in that same role, in the sense that the Pope was a thought leader for the faithful.  Prudence indicates that their role has diminished significantly, largely from self-inflicted, festering wounds.  Western civilization overall has an abiding stake in the success and purity  of the Roman Catholic Church.  No matter one’s own path of faith, that purity is worthy of prayer.  Indeed, the purity  of EVERY Christian path is worthy of prayer, but each of those will have to find the strength to ignore popular culture and the attractions of money.  Few have.  Still, it is only in folly that we attempt, societally, to disavow the thought leadership of our Judeo-Christian heritage and history, since it underlies our laws, our origins, our forms of economics and capitalism and our sacrificial sense of justice.  There is no single thought pattern  stronger or more pervasive than what is described in the Bible, much as we wish there were no rights or wrongs or, for their matter, conscience.

Regardless of our half-baked feelings and weird higher education “leaders,” every society with endurance requires an abiding, overarching thought or belief in its mission… or purpose… or, failing those, right to survive.  “Balkanization” became a verb for good reason.  It names and describes how and why a nation held together by force will fracture along racial, tribal, religious and cultural lines, whereupon old hatreds, temporarily shrouded, again by force, will spill out into murderous, brutal conflict.

That is a fate to which the United States is not immune… not on the path we are following now.

Why?  What do we think about that?  Do we even hold congruent opinions, or beliefs about our direction?  Our future?  Karl Marx was and lately, is, a thought-leader, who later in life had to forego many of his twisted economic thoughts, since he had not factored in freedom, economic and otherwise.  We might consider that devotees of Marxism, like Trotsky, Lenin, Stalin, Mao Tse-Dung, Pol Pot, Fidel Castro, Che Guevara, and, also of late, Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, were also thought-leaders, but their thoughts have destroyed not only dozens of economies but tens of millions of their citizens.  That isn’t easy to conceive of or even feel badly about – if you’d ever heard of the events – but one can imagine a gymnasium, let’s say with 100 people in it: it’s only 10 rows with 10 people in each row.  One might even know all 100 of them.

But to appreciate these historic thought-leaders we’d have to imagine, say, 250 such gymnasiums just in Massachusetts and with a little help from one’s phone, realize that that is only 25,000 souls.  Hmmmnnn… Various kinds of Communist and National Socialist thinking have eliminated over 100,000,000 people – friends, neighbors, mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, sons and daughters and more.  That’s at least 4,000 Massachusetts-es worth of gyms.  Is that enough murders to care about?  They make Hitler, alone, a very junior partner.  Does Marxism lead your thoughts?  How in Hell has communism gained favor among American youth?  For whom is this change a measure of success?

Somebody… some thought-leader, so called.  It makes one a little happy to be at this end of his life and a little sorry for today’s youngsters who will mature in an America where the thoughts of knuckleheads will be “leading.”

Culture, Race, Terrorism

Racial Fascism

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There is an extraordinary dichotomy playing out amidst a mix of misunderstandings, hatreds and pure ignorance across the United States.  It is fueled by the ignorance and connivance of a predatory press as well as the instantaneous sharing of ignorance and hate over the internet.  It is instructive to diagnose how America became so stupid as to threaten its own existence with so much energy.  There are people and institutions worthy of being blamed for their role in the descent to our current condition.

The highest profile is held by president Trump, of course.  He has drawn fire, as it were, from several stripes of Democrats and other leftists of varied antagonisms, toward himself, individually, and toward the United States collectively… and comprehensively.  America- haters love the current circumstance.  Trump is ultra-sensitive to criticism and literally hurts himself to get even.  It is sad that that kind of give-and-take hurts his agenda – which Prudence indicates the nation needs to see enacted.

In his defense, Trump has been attacked with largely meaningless, deliberately misconstrued charges, along with the handful of real criticisms.  The whole process started out making lots of supporters angry, but now the attacks have devolved into calls for impeachment on amorphous, hate-based charges.  These are dangerous to the president and to the country, but the hatred – not political opposition, but hatred – actively encourages more virulent enemies like George Soros and his forces – like Antifa and Black Lives Matter.  They think they’re winning.  What they are winning is ill-defined.

The conflict in Charlottesville, Virginia is widely – and wildly – misunderstood, even after weeks of angst and anguish.  We are supposed to believe that it’s about the offensiveness of statues, as though the history represented by those statues were about to repeat itself with chains and slave auctions, given the pudding-like mentality of white people.  The lessons of history are best to be learned, Prudence instructs, not buried.

But there are certain elements of anti-white fervor who must have fresh targets on a regular basis.  A pudding-like press and equally useless politicians latch on to that pious hatred and feed the demands for removal of “symbols of slavery” as if removing the statue of military genius and anti-slavery southerner, Robert E. Lee, would place a strong brick in the wall against slavery’s breaking out again!  Where are the adults?  Where was education?

The new jack-booted thugs, “Antifa,” really care not a whit about Robert E. Lee, or Stonewall Jackson or even Jefferson Davis.  They are paid, literally, to break heads.  Screaming about anti-fascism while executing fascism better than anyone since 1945 may fire up the pudding-heads in the left-wing media – print and broadcast – but it doesn’t make anything “Antifa” says or does true or honest.  “Black Lives Matter” is nearly as debauched.  They, too, have seized upon a flaming hot button that delivers money and power into their hands – police killings of blacks, some of whom are innocent and whose badged killers deserve jail time.  The deaths of thousands of other blacks in inner cities, mostly drug and gang-related, has no commensurate value.  Making themselves enemies of local police is not helpful, but, sadly, rational to “BLM.”  What is the end-game?

One would think that there might be different judgments directed toward people who are paid to hate, as many of the “Antifa” are – paid, that is, by George Soros-connected “organizations.”  Soros, when not cooperating with real Nazi’s during WW II, has made his disdain for the American experiment quite clear.  He hates the ideas of America.  He hates individual sovereignty.  He pays his thugs not to defend ANY of the purported causes they shout about, but to generate discord.  Even in Charlottesville, slowly being revealed as “staged” in large part, the result that was sought by Soros and other enemies of freedom, has manifested:  widespread belief that many Whites are racists with KKK and, illogically, Neo-Nazi beliefs.

This media-touted “meme” of widespread racism is the ideal “lever” by which anti-freedomists  can and have manipulated public policy (such as removing statues – not out of understanding but out of fear) to change the culture of a nation.  Combined with left-dominated public education that is sympathetic to everything being “wrong” with America, purpose-driven forces opposed to our sovereignty, nationality and freedom are dividing us from our heritage, our history and our future as a free people.

Photos show that fighters for both sides in Charlottsville arrived on the same buses.

 

 

Culture, Governance, Politics 2017, Responsibility, Trump

The New Tyranny

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Everyone decided to chide President Trump for privately describing New Hampshire as a “drug-infested den.” Oh, the horror! Why, there are genuinely nice people living in New Hampshire; how could he say such a derogatory thing about them?

Well, he didn’t, of course, and the release of the content of that conversation was a crime, but who cares if discomfiting Trump is the possible result. Let’s use our brains, now, and realize that the point Trump made was that even in New Hampshire, for more than 200 years the veritable definition of good, clean living, based on religious morals and flinty work ethic, the corruption of drugs had penetrated every town and city, and was destroying the heritage of “New-Hampshire-ness” with little to stop it.

It is no wonder that closing the southern border is taken so seriously by Trump and many others. The worst flow of drugs into our nation – and into New Hampshire – begins in Mexico and points further south. Making it harder to get drugs into the country is a good thing. I’m pretty sure of that, but why?

First, let’s stipulate that human beings are remarkable products of evolution and more. The “more” is best described as a foundation of religiously sourced and codified morals. Whether you choose to accept any religious “truths” or are an affirmed atheist, it is clear that the hundreds of religious histories and traditions on Earth have brought us to a fairly honest and moral civilization, capable of correcting and perfecting itself. One of our greatest mores is that we call “freedom.”

We may think freedom is inherent, but it really is intensely fragile, is it not? Historically, since the organization of city-states, freedom has been merely forms of servitude, some quite oppressive. In fact, the age of kingdoms, kings and subjects, or warlords and serf-protectees, was marked by various forms of tyranny. Granted, some was less benign than others, and the basis of great folk-tales. Robin of Locksley and his Merry Men describes the battle for freedom from oppressive taxation and government incompetence – I didn’t invent that irony.

Anyway, back to drugs. None of our heroes in the perpetual fight for freedom, is also described as drug-addled. Indeed, much effort today is described as helping addicts to achieve freedom FROM drugs. So, it seems logical, a free people, ever jealous of their freedom from tyranny, must, by definition, be drug-free as well. Keeping drugs out of America is the logical path to follow IF, and only IF, a leader of Americans is attempting to keep them free. Now we need to look at the headlong rush by various governments within America to actually PROFIT from the cultivation and sale of drugs to their free citizens.

A large element of states’ argument FOR drug legalization, is that it costs too much to enforce laws against marijuana and, besides, isn’t the use of drugs an exercise of the very freedoms governments are supposed to protect? Well, no, not at all, but we seem to have talked ourselves into this twist of “freedom.”

Free people are also responsible for the defense of freedom. This is called citizenship. That is, as we grant powers to an organizing and defensive government, limited by a Constitution that we the people approved of, we also assume an obligation to ourselves, our children and all of future history, to defend those freedoms that government was constituted to PROTECT. That is, by all logic, we are FREE to be FREE, but not free to enslave ourselves, as we do in the grip of drugs.

Oh, come on, you say, pot is no worse than alcohol! Well, perhaps not, that’s arguable, what with alcohol being metabolize-able and being only ingestible and not smoke-able. Too-heavy ingestion of alcohol will kill liver and other cells and disrupt neural communications for some time, until naturally removed from the body. The same could be said about marijuana, except that the danger is directly to the lungs, about 20 times that of tobacco cigarettes. The body does expel a lot of the elements of marijuana smoke, but does a poor job of removing THC, tetra-hydra-cannabinol. THC has the friendly quality of being easily absorbed into fat cells.

Fat cells are found all over the body but one of the greatest concentrations is the brain. This is good because fat cells are hardy and relatively long-lived, but it’s also a liability when exposed to certain toxins like… well, THC. THC tends to store in fat cells – not only brain cells – which is why it’s a risk for lactating mothers to smoke pot, but it is a “freedom,” right? Back to brain cells.

THC stores in brain cells and surreptitiously clogs up the intricate, microscopically tiny connections that enable complex thoughts and memory. “Maybe for real pot-heads, but not me,” you say, “I hold down a job and have no problems smoking pot for relaxation on weekends and once in a while other times. No problem at all… did I say that already?”

From the standpoint of defending freedom, however, the softening and dulling of voters’ intellects is perfect ground for planting illogical political distinctions, thereby guiding voting patterns in the direction most beneficial for those in power. Faced with a population clamoring for “freedom” from pot-related criminal records, all the Sheriff of Nottingham had to do was come out in favor of legalizing pot and his hold on POWER would have been unshakable. Populist “Robin Hoods” could dash themselves against that rock to no avail. Look around us – it’s what we have, now.

Even better than political strength, our state budgets are overspent and there are “revenue short-falls.” Actually, there are “spending long-rises,” but the important thing is that potheads will buy the stuff and pay the taxes so that we, your most-benevolent governors can take care of the children. You wouldn’t deny us that heartfelt mission, would you? You right-wing fascist bastard? After all, taxes on tobacco have declined dangerously and we have so many vital needs that only government can take care of – you see that don’t you?

And we bought into this. We accepted, first, that medical marijuana was medical. That’s a good one. You could get it at CVS if that were true, but, if they’ll buy that they’ll buy anything. They’ll even accept that the pay of legislators is somehow related to the incomes of corporate giants. Let’s test that by voting ourselves 60% raises and see what happens…

This in no way belies the fact that there are medical values to some marijuana components. There are medical values to lots of plants and thank God we have discovered those we have. It doesn’t mean that addling our intellects is a goal of a free people, does it? And so we argue about how high the taxes should be now that legalization has been voted-for, with the murder by a pot-stupefied driver with a medical marijuana prescription, of a State Trooper, a mere hiccup in the process. Pot is so benign, in fact, we should recommend it to heroin addicts to help them get off of the “real” drugs.

It has been a big, long-term sale, and we bought it.

Maybe if Trump simply tried a few tokes he could stop hassling druggies, damned right-wing fascist bastard.

Voting for pot legalization is a lot like voting for socialism, the other lie of non-responsibility. “Hey, man, it’s like, a free country, man, and health care is a right, not a privilege, man.” And not a responsibility? Next you’ll be telling us that you’re entitled to your freedoms and the government better make sure you keep ‘em, man. If it doesn’t then you’re voting for whoever is in favor of legalizing pot everywhere. Did you know that George Washington made rope out of hemp?

Culture, Governance, Trump

RIGHT PRINCIPLES and DISCERNMENT

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It doesn’t appear that the background belief that the “world” will be beautiful and peaceful if we just all learn to get along with everyone, is valid.  Even in the microcosm, arguing about “partisanship” and worrying ourselves about the lack of “bi-partisanship” fails to illuminate the real basis for disagreement: right principles.

Many of us have principles that we are, if not governed by, at least motivated by.  We used to call them our “conscience.”  We sort-of always know when what we are doing is “right” or “wrong.” Let’s hope.  Still, modern science and technology, and modern anti-religion trends, have brought us to a time of phenomenal toys and enjoyments simultaneous with a culture of drug use and abuse, and hyper-sexuality.  In the face of these multiple assaults on our “principles,” we have clung only to a couple of erstwhile “truths”:

  • The worst sin is “intolerance;” and,
  • Passing judgements is bad.

The automatic corollary, it appears, is that every culture is equally valid and we should not act as though our own were any better.  Nor, it seems, should we make too much of our exceptional comforts, cleanliness and safety, because it’s not “fair” that we have them and so many others don’t.  This leads to so-called “immigrant advocates” who are not advocating for “immigrants,” but for illegal entrants, and to college campuses hosting wild demonstrations fundamentally against the sovereignty and even the Constitution, of the United States.

Is there someone to blame for this?  How did so many citizens of this relatively free, universally educated country, replete with community colleges, colleges, universities, on-line courses and free public libraries in nearly every town and city, come to hate it?  How did a nation so successful and liberal with its anti-poverty and unemployment programs, peppered with Christian churches of many denominations, arrive at a public governance that is virtually at the point of persecuting Christians FOR THEIR BELIEFS?

How did a nation founded on the very highest principles, led by George Washington, James Madison and Thomas Jefferson, come to despise these leaders because of their economics and practices common to the day?  How has so much ignorance and lack of discernment come to motivate large fractions of our citizens to discard every founding principal in favor of socialism, communism and hedonism?

Why are we spending Trillions of dollars on education when the product of that investment is antithetical to our culture, heritage and survival?  How did this, all, happen?

What does it matter, except that we understand how, so as to not continue practices that brought us to this point?  This premise will generate a lot of discussion, some quite heated, but few actual solutions.  Everyone not consumed by the new liberalism and anti-Americanism, will decry education, lack of religious instruction, rewarding mediocrity and even failure, excessive welfare, stupid politicians, high taxes and sugary beverages.  Oh, and drugs… definitely drugs, both bad and good, including too many analgesic pain killers for minor ailments.  All of the above.

But, so what?  Is there some piece of legislation that will “turn things around?”  Maybe it’s a result of too many immigrants or, at the very least, too many illegal entrants!  That must be it.  Just stop immigration for a while and get rid of these Hispanic gangs – and drugs!  Get rid of the drugs!  That’s the ticket.  Maybe we should be deporting these criminal aliens faster… and keep them out.  And the death penalty; bring back the death penalty and make people truly pay for their most heinous crimes.  We’ve got to get judges to stop being soft on criminals.

It’s also not right that so much wealth is concentrated in Wall Street banks and brokerages, and that there is so much collusion between them and federal agencies and politicians.  Look at how they move back and forth between Treasury and Goldman-Sachs.

Do we think we simple Americans are going to fix all of these things?  By voting?  For whom?  Is there one person we might elect who will carry all of our valid concerns forward and “fix” things?  William Jennings Bryan thought he was one such, and things were a Hell of a lot simpler in 1896 and on, until the first World War.

Donald Trump surely believes he is one such, too, as do a majority of States.  The unprecedented opposition to him shows the depth of socialist statism that he wants to confound and undo.  Believe him or not, we should all wish (and pray) for his success.  The sovereignty of the individual, ostensibly (and once) protected by our majestic Constitution, is OUR freedom and YOUR liberty, the two not synonymous.

If you do not understand the distinction, perhaps we can start fixing “things” by learning what it is.

Culture

More than a game

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What can be said that hasn’t been beaten into the ground already, about football? Well, some things can be said about the meaning of it. Your response may be that there must be something more important to expound upon, but there is a point, here, worth making.

Football is a metaphor for America. Not because of the “sport” aspect, but because of its declaration of excellence being rewarded and celebrated, vicarious inclusion of couch potatoes, and attraction of profits – even the creation of millionaires.

“Aww, c’mon,” you say, “it’s just a game.” No, no it isn’t.

Football is a great business, and Americans react well to this because we are, like every other human, innately capitalist. We recognize and appreciate smart business, smart marketing, and that wonderful effect of smart business: secondary benefits to multiple other businesses and tremendous flows of profit dollars into charities.
Even better, football succeeds, itself, because it grandly recognizes and rewards individual excellence and discipline.

No matter how loosey-goosey our morals appear to be, we each value excellence and we honor those among us who strive, daily and hourly toward perfection. We are awed and thrilled by organizations whose profit motivations imbue their individual members toward constant improvement… and success.

“Do Your Job.” Americans respect and reward responsibility. No matter the qualities of leaders – and successful organizations, particularly business organizations are led, obviously, more than simply managed – every individual following a leader is ultimately responsible to that leader, to his associates who depend upon him or her, and to him- or her-self, for the task each has trained and learned to accomplish at the moment of execution. Ya’ gotta’ love it.

There are a handful of truly great and greatly led moments in our history, when large fractions of the nation followed, even sacrificed, for the proper purpose a recognized leader had placed before us. The Revolutionary War – in a sense our first Civil War, as we “seceded” from England – is a perfect example. Clearly Washington was a superb leader who was able, in the face of extraordinary odds and opposition, to maintain the shining goal and keep his under-fed, under-supplied and under-appreciated troops striving toward an “impossible” goal: Independence.

The Americans weren’t fighting for treasure or even for comfort or out of fear, but for a set of ideas and ideals. To maintain leadership for such an effort is rare and justification for our reverence of General Washington.

Lincoln showed similar, not identical traits. But his sense of “mission” was no less complete than Washington’s. And there was a purity of purpose that never faltered and was apparent to enough people in the “Union” to re-elect Honest Abe in the midst of our bloodiest, most-hate-filled war ever.

In a sense, Washington led his troops to become the prow of the ship facing war’s stormy waters; Lincoln was, himself, the prow of that same ship. Both were leaders for the right reasons… and respected. Those being led were able to sacrifice for the purposes each leader embodied. Americans respect and honor that stuff!

Another, more refreshing example was the Apollo Moon-landing mission. Jack Kennedy was a leader. It’s not because of any significant executive experience – far from it. It was because of vision. For those of us born during WW-II, the 1960 election was the first we could vote in. We grew up under Eisenhower, but he didn’t “speak” to us. His presidency marked the end of an era and of his career… he was our parents’ president.

Kennedy represented the vitality of America and the start of new adventures, new ideas… the New Frontier. He was our start, too, and anything was possible. Somehow, in spite of his practical naiveté Kennedy perceived that the competition with the Soviets was a competition between cultures, between beliefs, between dreams, and that American needed a new dream every so often, and that the times and the possibilities were coming together. The U.S./U.S.S.R. conflict was a challenge to the ideas of America, and there simply was no room to come in second.

Kennedy’s May, 1961 Moon-landing proposal to Congress met every aspect of what a leader should include in laying out a mission: it was bold, it was a challenge, it was timed and measurable, and it had a specific goal – a goal that rose and set every day. It was perfect, and what the nation needed at a time when popular, slanted news was extolling the amazing progress the Soviet system had made in everything from rocketry to housing to medicine and to education.

The other element of the Apollo challenge was technological, and a certain boost to our economy… something every President needed. What happened?

Military leaders, scientists, engineers, colleges, think-tanks, machinists and a thousand businesses with their own leaders, adopted the mission and devised a thousand missions of their own. Most of the knowledge needed to pull off the moon landing and a safe return to Earth, was unknown. Many of the skills were floating around among the disparate parts of the nationwide, about-to-be-team, but they’d never been marshaled to a single goal until Kennedy presented a new dream. Still others had to be invented.

Again, what happened? A new unity of purpose. Indeed, there was an irresistible force of purpose that caused levels of sacrifice, stress, service and a striving for perfection rarely experienced by any industrial society… and success. The success was so profound that it swept up the vast majority of Americans into a new belief in what we stood for and could accomplish. It has not been repeated.

But metaphorically, its impact is out-pictured in teams’ quests to reach the Super Bowl. And the fans of those quests, fans of every team, respect the sacrifice and discipline, study, practice, learning and leadership that’s needed to get there. Brady would be nowhere without good leadership at the head of and within the Patriots organization, and within himself in fact.

Americans get that, and respond, even to buying shirts and hats as if to absorb a little of it.

The same qualities exist in the military, although the sacrifices are so compellingly greater. And Americans grasp what it means. We honor and respect the training, discipline, leadership and near-perfection elite teams strive for in every service… and even more, the physical, sometimes mortal sacrifices made in furtherance of the greatest mission on Earth: defending America. We share the pain when we back out of conflict without victory; we try to honor the many victories it has taken to get even to there.

We felt and respected some of the magic under Ronald Reagan, perhaps never recognizing the nature of his and our victory over the Soviet communist system.

But the momentum of dis-education and the constant anti-American pressure that has marked American culture since Nixon was forced out of office, was bearing fruit… and nuts.

From the utter debauchery of the Clintons, through the distorted semi-conservatism of Bush-43, through the Obama dislike of America, of Whites and of Christians, and his greater respect for everything we are not, Americans have yearned to respect again; to respect, perhaps, themselves. We have yearned to respect our institutions, and people, and systems and teachers and churches and everything that has, no matter how hidden or suppressed, the innate sparks of leadership, training, practice and sacrifice, that we know has created greatness in this land and in us.

No ONE can do that, and certainly he or she cannot BE that – not even Donald Trump. But he, at least, knows what IT is and its importance to the ideas of America. Like JFK, he has succeeded because he sensed Americans’ need for a new dream, every now and then.

Now is good. Go Pats!