Can America’s traditional cultural possibly be restored?

 

September 2, 2025

A kindergarten teacher posted some comments on Facebook about her experience with some youngsters on their first days at her school.

“It broke my heart these past 4 days to see how many kindergarteners showed up to school with NO previous exposure to almost anything. It was so overwhelming for them to understand the concept of staying in line, wiping themselves, buttoning their own pants, opening a milk container, holding a pencil correctly.

“I had one who didn’t understand how to unzip his lunchbox so he could eat. Some can’t tell you their name, or don’t KNOW their actual given name that is on the roster. So many had never held a pencil at all, couldn’t sing the alphabet song (let alone recognize any letters/numbers), couldn’t count to ten or recognize shapes/colors.”

She expressed the frustration others show her, saying things like: “Isn’t that what school is for??” Or, “Why should parents have to do YOUR job for you?”

“Yes, school is for learning,” she said, “But when they come in SO far behind right off the bat, it is so defeating and frustrating for these babies. Even at the age of five, they recognize when they don’t know things other kids know. If a child knows who Pennywise the clown is and can recite every word (including the explicit ones) to the latest Cardi B song, but can’t recite the alphabet, count to ten, or open a ketchup packet, we got probs.” 

Now to be realistic, there probably have been some young people like this for as long as there have been humans on the Earth. But apparently, the proportion of this type of unpreparedness for life’s basics has grown enormously.

In the old days, things that previously occurred at home started the learning process. Learning to dress ourselves, feed ourselves, follow rules and procedures, doing simple tasks. And when we got to kindergarten or first grade, or whatever the first “school” experience was, we had a functional basis to begin learning our ABCs, numbers and the other subjects that schools help us learn.

But the nuclear family that has been such an important part of America since its founding is dwindling away. Far too many single-parent families exist today, with many children growing up in a family with no father, or perhaps only a part-time dad.

And there seems to be a lack of understanding among adults about true parenting, the importance of proper and traditional child rearing. And, there is a substantial lack of knowledge about America’s story, and the culture upon which our country was built that parents would pass on to their children by interaction.

And so, we now find that many in the younger generations — Gen Z, Gen X, Gen Alpha, for example — have less and less of an understanding of the background that the older generations have always had. And with the decreased understanding of our founding and our development, we find a country with an ever-weakening sense of itself. 

Our traditional values, institutions, arts, and morality are weakening. More and more we see family instability, materialism, entertainment saturation, and political division. We are losing our identity, our soul. We are committing cultural suicide.

Not only have we as a people failed to maintain our standards, but the ridiculous and dangerous virtual open border of the Biden administration, which invited millions of people — we still do not actually know how many — to enter the country illegally, has compounded the problem. This was done without having any idea of who these people were, or what their intent was.

Some of them were good people looking for a better life. But many others were drug and child traffickers, robbers, rapists, terrorists and murderers. And even those illegals who sought a better life were not oriented to the core values of America, which further diluted our cultural values.

Feelings about a cultural decline are not new. Former U.S. Secretary of Education William J. Bennett noted in an article in Education Week back in 1993 the following: “When the late Walker Percy was asked what concerned him the most about America’s future, he answered: ‘Probably the fear of seeing America, with all its great strength and beauty and freedom ... gradually subside into decay through default and be defeated, not by the Communist movement, demonstrably a bankrupt system, but from within by weariness, boredom, cynicism, greed, and in the end helplessness before its great problems.’”

At the end of the article, Bennett offers this: “The social regression of the past 30 years is due in large part to the enfeebled state of our social institutions and their failure to carry out their critical and time-honored tasks.”

Thirty-plus years past Bennett’s dire observations we find the country even further down the path to cultural collapse. Whether that direction can be reversed is a question yet to be answered. 

Our political division is so great that it challenges our future

April 29, 2025

Why is it so important for some on the left — some, not all — to put so much emphasis on supporting and helping illegal aliens in this country?

A good example is the situation of illegal alien Abrego Garcia, happily referred to by the left as “a Maryland man.”

Information available online about Garcia has been missing in many reports of his recent deportation. Here is some of that.

According to police and court records, Abrego Garcia was arrested in Hyattsville, Maryland, in October 2019. He was identified by the Prince George's County Police Gang Unit as a member of the notorious Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13) gang.

Garcia was pulled over by a Tennessee Highway Patrol trooper in 2022 driving an SUV belonging to Jose Ramon Hernandez Reyes, another illegal alien who in 2020 confessed to human smuggling across the U.S.-Mexico border. Garcia was observed speeding and unable to stay in his lane.

There were eight individuals in the car with Garcia, who said they were headed for Maryland from Texas for construction work. However, the trooper suspected it was a human trafficking incident, as there was no luggage in the vehicle. The officer only gave Garcia a warning for driving with an expired license.

Garcia’s wife, Jennifer Vasquez, said that he is a "violent" repeat wife-beater in 2021.She wrote in a complaint, "At this point, I am afraid to be close to him. I have multiple photos/videos of how violent he can be and all the bruises he [has] left me."

Garcia is said to have admitted to entering the United States illegally in 2012, and was issued a deportation order in 2019. By that time, two judges had believed him likely to be a member of MS-13.

That year, an immigration judge ruled that Garcia was removable to anywhere other than El Salvador because of a threat from a rival gang. It was not a mistake by the Trump administration to deport Garcia, but he should not have been sent to his home of El Salvador. However, since that time the rival gang alluded to is apparently no longer a threat to him, and he has been unharmed since his arrival in El Salvador in March.

However, White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller said that Garcia was no longer eligible for any form of immigration relief in the United States after MS-13 was declared a terrorist organization.

Contrary to the commonly reported idea, there seems to have been a lot of due process over several years. 

And, referring to Garcia as “a Maryland man,” implying that he is a law-abiding person in the U.S. legally and a loving husband and father, is as dishonest as saying that China, Russia, Iran and North Korea are our best friends.

The FBI arrested a Milwaukee County Circuit Court judge who reportedly has ties to left-wing activists last week. Judge Hannah Dugan was arrested after she allegedly helped hide a migrant charged with violence from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents.

The Daily Caller News Foundation reported that “ICE agents visited the courthouse where Dugan sits on April 18 to arrest a migrant scheduled for a hearing with Dugan that day, the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel reported. Dugan reportedly directed the man and his lawyer to walk down a hallway toward another floor where the ICE agents wouldn’t find him.”

Another judge, this one in New Mexico, has been arrested, along with his wife, accused of harboring an illegal immigrant suspected of being a member of the Tren de Aragua street gang in their home.

According to U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi, Judge Joel Cano is facing obstruction charges. “He took one of the TdA members’ cell phones himself, took it, beat it with a hammer, destroyed it, and then walked the pieces to a city dumpster to dispose of it to protect him,” Bondi said, adding that his wife is also facing charges for destroying evidence.

It is relevant to note how many judges have become involved in ruling against the Trump administration’s efforts to rid the country of violent illegal aliens. The cries from the left in defense of the illegals noting a lack of due process and other complaints is loud and shrill.  Those same judges sat quietly in their chambers while millions of foreigners walked illegally into the country during the Biden administration’s tenure. And the left was unmoved by the lack of due process and the abundant crime during those four years.

And then we have members of the U.S. Congress going to El Salvador to lobby and work for the return of Abrego Garcia.

Judges are put in place and trusted to be honest and unbiased in legal matters. Is our country’s sense of honesty and integrity so unimportant that judges now do such illegal, dangerous and un-American things as we are seeing today? 

And why would members of the U.S. Congress go to such extraordinary lengths to defend such a person as Garcia, the El Salvador man, and to demand he be brought back, and allowed to remain in, the U.S.?

At least part of the problem is the dislike for Donald Trump, and people putting that dislike above all else.

Perspective! Critically important, but horribly out of sync!

April 8, 2025

Those seasoned citizens among us are frequently a bit dazzled by what they see going on in America today. Seeing how the younger generations are so unimpressed and displeased with the way things are, causes them to scratch their heads in disbelief.

Having grown up decades ago, when life was very, very different, we watched as technology and culture gradually evolved over many years into what is readily available today.

Some of us remember times before television, hand-held telephones, microwave ovens, and a long list of things that are commonplace today.

We had radios, but only AM stations, and they had to be plugged into the wall, or the car’s electrical system. When TV came around, it was little boxes with a black and white picture. And we got only one or maybe two stations, which we received over the airwaves by rabbitears on the TV, and later an antenna mounted on the roof. 

And remote control involved someone getting up from their chair and walking up to the TV and twisting the channel selector, adjusting the volume, or turning the set on or off. Later, color TVs and FM radio came along, and cable TV service

We had typewriters and adding machines, but not computers or calculators. Our telephones were connected to the world by wires and after a while we were able to replace the operators who placed the calls for us with the ability to dial a phone number by ourselves with a wheel device on the phone base.

Milk bottles were delivered to our front porch by delivery people. And the kids entertained themselves playing games outside like tag or hide and seek, riding their tricycles or bikes, or some sport. Or maybe they played inside with plastic bricks to build things.

Cooking was done on the electric kitchen stove, or perhaps a campfire. Our houses were heated by a coal or gas furnace, and air conditioning consisted of opening windows and turning on the fan.

Travel around town could be on foot or a bicycle, by city buses and trolleys, or by the family car if we could drive. We could listen to music performed live, but at home before the late 60s, early 70s, if it wasn’t on TV or radio, we heard it from a 78 rpm, or perhaps 33 rpm record player system that had mono sound.

As the years passed, things improved. More options became available, and life became much easier and more enjoyable.

Kids born since the 90s — Gen Z and Generation Alpha — are so lucky, compared to us. Whereas we saw these improvements come gradually over many years, these young people found all of this waiting for them when they arrived. So, all of these wonders are just normal to them. Nothing to get excited about, folks. Just dull, always-the-same stuff all the time.

An interesting perspective on this situation recently appeared online. It was written by a 26-year-old college graduate student working on her MBA. Alyssa Ahlgren was sitting in a small coffee shop trying to think of a topic to write about. 

“I scroll through my newsfeed on my phone looking at the latest headlines of presidential candidates calling for policies to ‘fix’ the so-called injustices of capitalism. I put my phone down and continued to look around,” she wrote.

Among the sights in her view were people talking amongst themselves, working on their computers, ordering food, which they got rather quickly. And then, reality dawned on her. “We live in the most privileged time in the most prosperous nation and we’ve become completely blind to it,” she wrote.

“Vehicles, food, technology, freedom to associate with whom we choose. These things are so ingrained in our American way of life we don’t give them a second thought,” she continued.

“We are so well off here in the United States that our poverty line begins 31 times above the global average. Thirty. One. Times!!!”

She notes that virtually no one in America is poor by global standards. And the fact that someone can place an order online one day, and receive it the next day does not impress so many of us. “Oh, that’s just normal. No big deal,” they think.

And then, the real trouble is brought to light. “Our unappreciation is evident as the popularity of socialist policies among my generation continues to grow.” She references New York Democrat Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez as commenting that the entire millennial generation, which is a very large electorate, has never even seen prosperity in America. 

They live it, daily, but haven’t noticed how good they have it. And they look to socialism to turn the best country they could ever live in into another Venezuela.

The current protests further highlight how little so many Americans actually know about America and its priniciples.

History instructs us how every great nation eventually collapsed, or killed itself. America appears to be on that track. We have failed to teach so many people about life and their country. And unless dramatic changes are made, America will become just one more memory, and a sad chapter in history.

America’s strengths are being weakened from the inside and dying

December 3, 2024

A major problem in America today is the abandonment of its traditions. The two-parent family is no longer the dominant feature it once was. The idea of citizenship, love of country, is less obvious these days. So many things have changed, as the culture of America devolves.

And one of the greatest of those is the honor and integrity that once accompanied some of our professions.

People in education too often no longer embrace and abide by traditional concepts and values. They often change what is done in classrooms without notifying parents, or going through official processes. Too often, schools teach what to think, rather than how to think, pushing certain concepts while hiding others.

News journalism once was a clear-cut process of reporting to the public what actually happened in news-worthy events. It didn’t hide relevant information. When reporting on a political topic, it did not take sides. And opinions were not expressed in news stories. The ideals of free speech and objectivity were respected and obeyed.

Yes, there is a place for opinions in journalism, but opinions must be clearly labeled, and not sneaked into news reporting to advance a particular point of view.

That sensible, honorable rule no longer exists for far too many people claiming to be journalists. News is largely no longer the process of keeping the people informed. Far too often news organizations are not providers of needed information, but sources of inducement to a particular way of thinking.

During the COVID frenzy lots of things were labeled as misinformation or false information, and were hidden from the public. However, many things that were labeled and withheld proved to be true and beneficial, and things presented as truth were found to be false.

Among topics where the opinions were hidden from the public were problems with the mRNA vaccine, the source of the COVID virus, and the issue of facemask use and uselessness.

The greatest and most harmful journalistic failures were in the realm of politics. Among those items, in addition to COVID censorship, were opposition to the Hunter Biden laptop story, the Steele dossier fiasco, and the Russian disinformation mess known as Russia Gate.

Social media sites also frequently banned certain pieces of information, claiming they were false. Sometimes this action, even though improper in a nation supporting free speech, was due to honest beliefs that the information was truly harmful. Other times — likely in the majority of cases — it was a politically motivated action, designed to prevent the spread of information contrary to the preferred narrative.

Neither of those are justification for the denial and restriction of the free expression of ideas guaranteed to us by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Even unpopular speech is defended by the free speech guarantee.

Workers at newspapers, magazines, radio and television stations and networks were also guilty of banning certain ideas.

Individuals yielding to political philosophy was often the problem. But there is a much deeper problem. Whereas some so-called journalists allowed political ideals into their work, because they hoped to convince the public more than they wanted to hold to their career integrity, others did the same thing for a different reason: they were trained that way, and believed they were acting appropriately.

There is a broad movement in academia away from the notion of objectivity. Jonathan Turley, a law professor at the George Washington University Law School and legal authority, addressed this in his new book, The Indispensable Right, dealing with the right to free speech guaranteed to us by the U.S. Constitution.

Turley wrote, “In journalism schools, professors now denounce objectivity’s place as the ‘supreme deity’ of American journalism.” One professor, Stanford’s Ted Glasser “has called for an end of objectivity in journalism as too constraining for reporters in seeking ‘social justice,’” he wrote.

This infection has spread from the classroom into the newsroom, as graduates enter the workforce, and join in with those who prefer political success to professional honor and personal integrity.

Speaking of this new view of journalism Turley wrote: “Reporters must serve as active interpreters in framing the news to convey what they view as the truth, including the suppression of opposing views on issues like climate change, the pandemic, or gender identity.” 

“In 2023, former Washington Post executive editor Leonard Downie, Jr. and former CBS News president Andrew Heyward released the results of their interviews with over seventy-five media leaders and concluded that objectivity is now considered reactionary and harmful,” Turley wrote, adding that “Emilio Garcia-Ruiz, editor in chief at the San Francisco Chronicle, said it plainly: ‘Objectivity has got to go.’” 

In his book, Turley follows up the discussion of the infection of journalistic principles with a similar infection of the field of law and interpretation of the Constitution and legal concepts.

In this context, the ideas and circumstances that brought about legal principles based upon the forces at work at the time they were implemented can now be ignored because “things have changed.” Laws and Constitutional principles can be changed at the whim of individuals rather than through established and necessary processes.

This line of thinking will not protect the freedoms Americans treasure and depend upon.

The United States of America: Is it a democracy, or not?

September 17, 2024

An article on the Analyzing America website goes into a good bit of detail about America’s status as a democracy. Much of that article follows.

“A CNN reporter addressed Trump supporters calling the U.S. a republic as an ‘attack on democracy,’ sparking a debate on the country’s governance. 

Historian Anne Applebaum emphasized America as a democratic nation, attributing doubts to Trump’s influence and narrative. 

“The discussion delved into the constitutional definition of a republic, historical views on democracy, and the distinction between forms of governance. 

“‘America is a democracy. It was founded as a democracy,’ Applebaum said.

‘I’ve heard a lot of conspiracy theories. I hear a lot of things out on the road, but to hear Americans, people who would describe themselves as patriots, say that America is not a democracy, that stopped me in my tracks,’ CNN’s Donie O’Sullivan said.

“‘You are hearing people say America is not a democracy because there are people around Trump who want them to be saying that, who’ve been planting that narrative,’ Applebaum said.

“‘Honestly, the word ‘democracy’ and the word ‘republic’ have often been used interchangeably,’ Applebaum said. ‘There isn’t a meaningful difference between them.’

“‘If they can convince people that we don’t have a democracy, then it’s okay that Trump is attacking democracy, because it doesn’t really matter,’ Applebaum added. 

“‘There is, of course, a legitimate debate discussion to be had on what form of democracy we have here in the United States, direct democracy, representative democracy, in fact, constitutional republic, which you heard people mentioned in that piece, that is a form of democracy. But look, this is not actually a debate about government, about democracy, it’s an attack on democracy,’ O’Sullivan said. ‘People have heard the warnings that Trump is a danger to democracy, and therefore you have people trying to convince others that, well, the United States isn’t a democracy in the first place, and therefore Trump can’t be a threat.’”

The reality is that the U.S. is not now, and has never been, a pure democracy.

A democracy is a political system that focuses on universal equality, where the people select their rulers by a majority vote at the polls. Essentially, a 50.1 percent majority can decide what goes and what does not, and the 49.9 percent minority is at the mercy of the majority. These rulers have absolute power, and they may make whatever laws they want by a majority vote among themselves.

Similarly, a republic is a form of government more focused on individual liberty, and is ruled by representatives of the citizenry on the principle that sovereignty is with the people, not just the government. However, exactly who is considered in the category of “the people” is not a hard and fast thing that may be misused.

Our Founders saw potential problems with both of those systems in their pure form. According to Colonial Williamsburg online, a “democratic government, they feared, might dissolve into anarchy. A republican system, conversely, invited an aristocracy to rise.”

So, they decided to go with neither in its pure form, and instead designed a system which combined features of each of them, and which is superior to both: a constitutional republic.

In a constitutional republic the people also select their rulers by a majority vote at the polls. But these rulers are restricted in what they can do and how they must do it by the U.S. Constitution.

So, while the nation observes democratic principles, referring to it as a democracy is inaccurate. And criticizing those who refer to it as a republic is out of bounds, because it actually is a republic, the government of which is controlled by a constitution.

However, by criticizing those identifying the country as a republic, their effort to sell the democracy angle is somewhat advanced.

Many of those who call the country a democracy know that the term is not accurate, but wish it was. They prefer a democracy to the constitutional republic we now have.

Efforts have been underway for many years to subvert our constitutional republic and turn it into a democracy. This would provide the left the control over the rest of us that they have been so desperately seeking.

By continuing to do this, these people obscure the true system of our government. It is their hope that most Americans will go along with this mis-identification and come to regard America as a democracy. 

In doing this, the door for America to become a totalitarian state is opened, and the effort to put into the dustbin of history a government system superior to any yet devised is well underway.

All great nations eventually fall, sometimes because of actions of other nations, but also sometimes from factions within it. If that is allowed to happen to the United States of America, the likelihood of there ever being another like it is virtually nil.

Should this effort succeed, it will be due in large part to the failure of our culture, particularly the family, the education system, and the no-longer-neutral or honorable news media.

We must strongly oppose this subversive effort.

A Harris administration will move the country down the wrong road

August 13, 2024

The following is said to have been written in 1954 and attributed to a former judge from California named Keith M. Alber, who at the time was 85 years-old. In the piece, Alber wrote that he was a law student, and in a political science class there was a half-page outline in a textbook on “a few steps to overturn a democracy.”

The steps he mentioned are: Divide the nation philosophically; Foment racial strife; Cause distrust of police authority; Swarm the nation’s borders indiscriminately and unconstitutionally; Engender the military strength to weaken it; Overburden citizens with more unfair taxation; Encourage civil rioting and discourage accountability for all crime; Control all balloting; Control all media.

“What was printed in 1954 as a possible diabolic nightmare has become an emerging reality,” he wrote. “I hope that Americans will unite enough to pen a good finish.”

This article was found on Facebook, posted by several people. And that is all that is needed for the Democrats, socialists and Marxists to automatically write off the ideas expressed in the article, saying that because of its origin, it’s useless.

But the ideas expressed are worth considering, because even Vice President Kamala Harris and New York Democrat Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez sometimes make sense.

Is our nation philosophically, politically divided? Absolutely. Are we witnessing racial strife where all white people are considered oppressors? No question. Do some people distrust police authority so much that they want to defund them? Yep. Are our borders indiscriminately and unconstitutionally being opened up to whoever wants to cross them, including criminals, drug traffickers and child traffickers? Unquestionably.

Has our military been weakened by considerations of gender, equity and inclusion instead of merit? Yes! Are taxes an unfair burden on many/most Americans? Yes. Have we seen a frightening increase of civil rioting with those involved in the riots not being held to account? No question! Are important ballots much less secure than in the past because of mailed ballots, unguarded submission bins and other factors? Yes. Is the news media primarily the spokesperson for one political side? Yes.

So, is it a matter of an actual effort to transform America that we are seeing? Or is it merely a matter of people holding ideas that are at odds with our founding principles? Actually, it is both.

Harris criticizes Donald Trump’s campaign to “make America great again” as going backward, and wants to move “forward.” But Trump wants to restore the much better country we had before the Biden/Harris administration came along. We had energy independence, hardly any inflation and prices were much lower, a much more secure border, a world with fewer international conflicts, a lower tax burden, etc.

But despite her recent politically motivated flip-flops, Harris is trying to move even further toward a socialist/Marxist nation that features the things she has embraced for decades.

Her past and present positions include these: As San Francisco district attorney in 2004 she declined to seek the death penalty for a gang member who had killed a police officer. In 2014, as state attorney general she supported the idea that the death penalty was unconstitutional.

Harris was one of the first Democrats to support Senator Bernie Sanders' 2017 Medicare for All bill to provide government-run medical insurance for every American, doing away with private health insurance.

She supports the radical Green New Deal and introduced a climate equity bill. She opposed fracking and has called for federal legal action against the fossil fuel industry. And, she has outlined a climate plan for net-zero CO2 emissions by 2045.

As a presidential candidate she promised to use executive action to enact stricter gun control. She has supported more regulation of gun manufacturers, mandatory background checks, tightening loopholes and a ban on “assault weapons.” She said she was open to the idea of a mandatory buyback, compelling owners of “assault weapons” to forfeit them.

Harris has pledged to offer a path to citizenship to the millions of undocumented immigrants living in the US, supported decriminalizing border crossings by illegal aliens, and wants to provide taxpayer-funded healthcare for those crossing the US border illegally.

Further, she has drawn parallels between the Ku Klux Klan and the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, which is responsible for securing the borders.

Her pick for running mate, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, in championing gun control, compared available weapons to those he carried in combat. He didn’t do combat. He signed into law a bill that allows abortion up to the moment of birth. In 2023, Walz signed into law the Trans Refuge Act, making Minnesota a refuge for children to flee to so they can be chemically or physically mutilated. 

More and more, the dystopian world of George Orwell’s classic novel “Nineteen Eighty-Four” is developing in the United States of America. And the brilliant work of our Founders to look at the world’s nations under government control and create a system that puts the people in charge is being abandoned. Why? Because some do not understand their country, and are falling victim to others who do understand it, but think they can do better with one of the other systems. 

Many do not appreciate D-Day or Israel’s fight for survival

June 11, 2024

Last week we observed the 80th anniversary of D-Day, which occurred on June 6, 1944. At that time the forces of eight allied countries, including the British Commonwealth and the United States, began an action that would over the next year defeat the horrible forces of Nazi Germany.

At the time it was the largest amphibious invasion in military history, and in restoring democracy and peace to much of the world, and the United States played a very significant role in that action. And thousands of U.S. and allied military personnel gave their lives to save the world from Nazi Germany.

The importance of this action is observed and celebrated annually, attended by remaining veterans of that action who are in their 90s and over 100 years-old, the President of the United States, and leaders of other countries.

The ceremony in France is observed by the French citizens whose nation benefitted greatly from it. They solemnly and thankfully observe D-Day at the official ceremony, and many or perhaps most of them display American flags at their homes and businesses.

It has been reported that more French people display our flag to celebrate D-Day than Americans do at any time.

How things have changed in America. One red flag is that D-Day celebrations are valued more by the French than by Americans. Another is how many Americans do not understand that the current war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza in the fault of the Hamas terrorist organization, not Israel. 

Hamas’ savage, unprovoked attack in Israel on October 7 of last year at a peaceful music concert left more than a thousand innocent people dead. Among the dead were some 40 American citizens. Others were taken hostage, and many of them have been killed or have died as a result of their imprisonment. Some Americans are among those hostages, as well.

And yet, protests at college campuses condemn the Jews, not only those in Israel, but from wherever they reside, even here in America. Not only are the Jews blamed for responding to the terrorists in order to defend their very existence, the terrorists of Hamas and other Iranian proxies are regarded as heroes by some, and given the sympathy that is only deserved by true victims.

The Hamas worshipers chant “Death to Israel,” “Death to the Jews,” and even — believe it or not — “Death to America.”

How can so many of us know so little about what actually happened, or know a version that didn’t occur? Or perhaps worse, know what happened and not care that Israel was savagely attacked, and more than a thousand were killed in often the most disgusting and horrific ways? 

What is currently happening in Gaza is totally justified. It is essential to Israel’s continued existence, and was caused by the savage Hamas terrorists. Hamas, the terrorist proxy of Iran, was elected to rule the Palestinians of Gaza by the Palestinians of Gaza.

The failure to appreciate D-Day for its world-changing result, and the huge role America’s military played in that event, and the other traditions of our country that are not appreciated or are despised, is more than a little unnerving.  

And history tells us that this has happened before. Other great nations existed for centuries, and then collapsed because of weakening attitudes from within. That is where we are today in America.

We have failed so badly to teach our young about the great things of America. So many do not really know about their country, and do not appreciate it. And indeed, some even hate it. 

And it is not just our failure to educate younger generations about the wonders of their country that is a problem, we have a large faction actively working to subvert that education process further by deceitfully changing what should be being taught.

Other troubling things are happening, too. We have China buying up farm land and land near military bases, and buying interest in or ownership of food producers. There have been several suspicious fires at food processing plants.

While other countries are focused on developing a military that can conquer other nations, we have military leadership focused on diversity, equity and inclusion instead of merit, competence and being the deadliest force on Earth.

We have borders that are essentially wide open, allowing anyone who wants to enter the country for any reason to enter, and thousands of others being flown into the country by the government. Rampant inflation harms everyone in the country. Attorneys general and district attorneys in many places value criminals over victim, and that has led to a serious increase in crimes.

We have a man in the Oval Office who is a beloved leftist, but a disaster as President of the United States of America!  The leftist faction is determined to destroy the USA as designed, and replace our limited government structure that gave us a world-leading level of personal freedom and innovation with another one-party government that seeks to control everything.

Is it possible to undo all the subversion, mis-direction and false knowledge? Can the country our Founders created be saved? Or will America slowly decompose into Venezuela II?

We must not yield to those seeking global governance

May 28, 2024

Some of the countries on Earth are independent. Some are voluntarily members of a group. Others are ruled and totally controlled by another country. America, blessedly, is an independent nation, and has been since 1776.

When our country was organizing after declaring and winning its independence from the British empire, the Founders worked hard and long to design a nation that would be sustainable, successful and somewhat unique.

Their design has proven to be a very good one. “Today, it parallels old empires like Rome and Britain in scope, aesthetics, and influence,” WorldAtlas online notes. “Rome's legal system, infrastructure, and language permeated the known world, much like the USA's cultural exports, English language, and democratic principles. Britain's former naval prowess and colonies echo the USA's global military bases and economic reach. However, the USA differs in its soft power emphasis, using cultural, economic, and political influence more than direct colonial control.”

The WorldAtlas description continues: “Fueled by immigration, innovation, and resources, it emerged as a global power post-WWII. Its strengths lie in its diversified, technologically-advanced economy, military supremacy, and cultural influence. Furthermore, as it occupies a fairly isolated continent, it is currently near-impossible to successfully invade.”

For nearly 250 years the US has been a nation of individual freedom that has made great contributions to life on Earth. Its government has held fairly strong on the ideals upon which it was built, including being an important nation in the interests of the world, using its influence and strength generally for its benefit as well as the common good, and at the same time maintaining and protecting its national independence.

The USA belongs to and participates in many international organizations, offering its knowledge and wisdom to help solve international problems. And it is the wisdom of our unique design that has allowed the US to provide such leadership to the rest of the world.

There are political and ideological factions within the country that actually want to abandon what made America the great, often world-leading nation it became. Their desires and actions have often been in plain sight for many years, and their actions have actually moved the country in small steps toward that goal.

Included in this movement is a path toward one-world government. Organizations like the United Nations, the World Economic Forum and the World Health Organization seek to control some of what many or all nations do, or perhaps to be part of a world government.

An attitude contrary to things the US currently and historically does is alive and well, and factions in the US seem all too eager to change them.

One example of shifting national control to an international agency is the plan supported by the Biden administration to give away American sovereignty by supporting two World Health Organization (WHO) treaties. This has received very little public discussion.

Signing onto these treaties would transfer to the WHO the rights of states to make decisions on public health. However, the federal government does not possess the right to do this under the U.S. Constitution, even if taking this action was a sensible thing to do. And, we must recognize that anything that subverts the nation’s ability to make its own decisions to another nation or international body is foolish in the extreme.

This action is opposed by the Republican Attorneys General in 22 states. In a letter put together by Montana’s Attorney General, Austin Knudsen, the AGs said, “We will resist any attempt to enable the WHO to directly or indirectly set public policy for our citizens.”

This significant threat to our independence and national sovereignty is discussed on ConservativeHQ.com, a site operated by Richard A. Viguerie. It says, “The WHO will discuss drafts of its proposed pandemic agreement and amendments to the International Health Regulations at the upcoming World Health Assembly, May 27 to June 1. The proposals aim to give the WHO more authority to prevent, prepare for and respond to pandemics.”

The 22 Attorneys General believe that these amendments would “transform the WHO from an advisory, charitable organization into the world’s governor of public health.”

And ConservativeHQ notes that “[a]t the end of May, President Biden intends to join other nations in supplanting our Constitution and the liberties it guarantees with something called ‘global governance.’”

“Their plan, which has been stealthily negotiated for several years at the World Health Organization, would permit no informed debate – let alone require the approval of the American people through their elected representatives in the United States Senate.”

This is wrong on many levels. It goes against our Constitution, and the idea of an independent constitutional republic that it created.

Because of its unique design the US has amassed great successes over its nearly 250 years of existence. It must not become just one of dozens or hundreds of nations following a path determined for it by others. Many of them hope to see the US lose its independence, and become a nation of sheep doing what they are told by the elite globalists. 

We the people must make the important determinations for our country, and protect the freedoms the Founders so judiciously provided for the people.

America’s future is threatened by those who want to change everything

April 9, 2024

The future of the United States of America may be less secure than at any time since its inception. The country that has provided so much for so long, and has set a standard that no other country in the world has ever matched, is now seen by a large faction as no longer good enough.

What made America so great? Many things. A tripartite government with no single branch more powerful than the others. Each branch has the ability to respond to the actions of the other branches in our system of checks and balances. 

We don’t have a ruler; no king/queen, emperor or czar. Our leaders are our employees — they work for us! And the President, Vice President and members of Congress are selected at the ballot box by the eligible voters, who choose from candidates that they have participated in choosing. Judges and Supreme Court Justices are nominated by the President and approved by the Congress, and others are simply hired as employees.

Our system provides vast amounts of personal freedom, with a Bill of Rights that guarantees us the freedom for important things, like speech, the press, religion, peaceable assembly, redress of grievances, security in our homes, fairness in legal matters, national defense.

So long as what we do does not violate a constitutional principal or sensible laws, we may do as we please. We can buy whatever house, car, appliances, clothing, entertainment, or personal items we choose.

Our Constitution provided the greatest degree of personal freedom in the history of human beings, but it is being replaced by restrictions on virtually every conceivable area of life. This is not new, of course, but has taken a dose of amphetamines in recent years.

Personal freedom, once a hallmark of the nation, is seen by this dissatisfied faction as a threat to the future. And the secret to a positive future in the mind of these people is a life that is much more controlled, with the bureaucracy having much more authority over the people.

Many restrictions exist on what we can and cannot do with our property, what kinds of things we can and cannot purchase. We are told there are legitimate reasons for these limitations. that is true, up to a point. But the number of federal, state and local regulations is huge, and cumbersome.

And many of the regulations are made by unelected bureaucrats, and are not approved by Congress, but nonetheless have the force of law.

The Code of Federal Regulation has 50 subsections where the government has seen fit to issue regulations that control what we can do, and how it must be done. One example of this was discussed by the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) on its website.

A NAM survey last summer found that “U.S. manufacturers’ concerns over federal regulations have reached a six-year high as nearly 100 new major regulations — from 30 federal agencies and offices — threaten jobs and investment.”

Ohio Manufacturers’ Association President Ryan Augsburger noted that “In the next year, the Biden administration plans to issue even more regulations — approximately 3,200, including about 280 ‘major rules’ and 1,326 ‘significant rules.’”

Augsburger wrote that “More than 63 percent of manufacturers are spending more than 2,000 hours per year complying with federal regulations, diverting resources that would otherwise go towards employee compensation, new hires and additional investment in U.S. facilities,” citing the NAM’s Q2 2023 Manufacturers’ Outlook Survey.

He then listed examples of the cost of these burdensome regulations:

** The Environmental Protection Agency’s proposed particulate matter rule, which is expected to cost “up to $197.4 billion in U.S. economic activity and endanger as many as 973,900 current U.S. jobs”;

** The Securities and Exchange Commission’s proposed climate-disclosure requirement, which the NAM recently advocated against in testimony before the House; and

** The Federal Trade Commission’s proposal to ban noncompete agreements, which 70 percent of manufacturers use to safeguard their intellectual property.

Negative consequences such as these are not limited to manufacturing; they occur in virtually every area of work.

Our government is too big, too controlling and spends too much. Our national debt is $34.6 trillion. That comes to just under $103,000 for every person in the country.

Is it possible that this large faction of Americans desiring to impose restrictions on our freedoms actually has a plan for a better country in mind? Well, yes, they have a plan. But it is not a plan to make America better. 

Their plan is for a larger, more restrictive government, and much less personal freedom for the people. It is very much opposed to the concept that our Founders had in mind, and for which they created our governmental system. They and their plan are un-American and anti-American.

This continued degradation of the brilliant system we inherited must be reversed, or before much longer America as it was designed will no longer exist. Our freedoms must be restored and protected. And our government must be returned to its intended limited status.

Lowering standards for success is a foolish and dangerous concept

October 11, 2022

Some of America’s younger generation are failing to understand what their country is all about, how it works, how they are supposed to work to succeed in it, and make the country work like it should.

In one of the more disturbing instances that demonstrate this problem, an 84-year-old New York University (NYU) professor with long tenure and wonderful credentials was recently fired.

Maitland Jones, Jr., who taught organic chemistry — an important subject for future medical doctors, and a necessarily difficult subject — authored the 1,300-page textbook “Organic Chemistry,” now in its fifth edition, and had been a star teacher at Princeton.

In its story on Jones’ firing, the New York Post wrote this about Jones’ subject: “Organic chemistry is a very difficult subject. Doing well in the course in college has been a litmus test for medical-school suitability. It demands discipline, ability to think in three dimensions, memorizing complex structures, managing a series of chemical rules and solving intricate problems. Its intellectual demands and need for disciplined study are surrogates for the discipline and problem-solving physicians must demonstrate throughout their careers.”

During the pandemic, Jones went the extra mile to tape his lectures, at his own cost, to help students who were having attendance problems attributed to the pandemic.

Despite Jones’ sterling credentials, his experience in the classroom, and his knowledge of the subject, 82 of his 350 students — about 23 percent — signed a petition against him claiming he had made his class too difficult and was at fault for their failing grades.

And that was enough for NYU to oust Jones for making the course “too hard.” The New York Times had a story about this saying that students revolted because they feared that “they were not given the grades that would allow them to get into medical school.”

Apparently, these students believe grades, that may not reflect what they actually learned, are more important than what they learned, or didn’t learn, in college.

The Post story, however, tells us, “The professor, meanwhile, saw a different problem: ‘They weren’t coming to class. … They weren’t watching the videos, and they weren’t able to answer the questions.’ But the school terminated his employment rather than the students, who are on track to become physicians despite struggling to get into med school.”

In an interview Jones had with the Times, he told the paper that “Students were misreading exam questions at an astonishing rate. In the last two years, they fell off a cliff. We now see single digit scores and even zeros.”

Don’t we want and need the country’s future physicians to have successfully mastered a difficult educational background in medicine and related topics? 

Dr. Stanley Goldfarb, who wrote the Post story, had this to say about the education of future physicians: “Jones could not be more correct in his judgment that his organic chemistry course should be tough. Entry into medical school these days is almost a guarantee that a student will one day have a medical degree and a license to practice medicine.”

Goldfarb then noted that “Even struggling students are coached through to graduation. I know this as I was the associate dean for curriculum at Penn’s medical school. But until recently, the standards for admission were so high that one could be sure that at least students admitted had the potential to excel. Jones’ experience at NYU makes clear that assumption is no longer correct.”

Today, many colleges and universities offer majors in subjects that may be interesting to students, but that do not prepare them to get a job when they graduate. 

NYU is bowing to fewer than 1-in-4 of Jones’ students’ demands that he be fired, because they think he is the problem. He was the problem because he made his class too hard — like it has been for many years — rather than that the students who were failing were the problem, using the pandemic as an excuse for why they didn’t study as they should have. This is a troubling sign, especially in a critical and demanding field like medicine. 

Goldfarb’s story increases concern: “Every American should be worried because this kind of standard-lowering is becoming commonplace in medical school.”

In every career field, in every job, we need the best available person to fill positions. That is accomplished not by the silly idea of equity, where positions are filled based upon gender and race, so that every gender and race gets its fair share, but on merit: he/she who is best suited for a position gets the position. 

The American standard is that we must all work to be the best we can be at whatever productive career we choose. That is what builds individual success, and what makes a country as good as it can be.

There are other countries in the world — China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, for example — that are doing their best to be effective and capable enemies of America. We need schools and the next generation to keep America at the top of its game against these and other challenges. And that means working hard, not easing up and looking for excuses.

Why do so many young people think America is a bad place?

July 12, 2022

One of the things that bothers many of the seasoned citizens among us is the high degree of discontentment that many in the younger generations feel about their country. Many of us were born and raised in a time when we learned at home, in school, and in church about our country. We learned to appreciate America for the freedoms it provided us that were unmatched anywhere on the planet.

And while we see and know that America is not perfect, and that not all members of those younger generations view their country as a bad place, it is still disturbing to see how many of them think that America is a bad place, and what they imagine would make America better.

They are cheered on and led by older folks, who ought to know better but, sadly, do not.

And then, magically, to make us feel better about this situation, a video by a member of a younger generation appears in an email.

The video is the senior speech by Julie Hartman, delivered in Harvard’s Memorial Chapel on May 3, 2022. 

Her speech begins, “Last Spring Break I went on a trip with a hundred other Harvard graduates to Israel. It was one of the most extraordinary experiences of my life. And I will always be grateful to Harvard for that.

“I recall the trip with awe and joy. But a certain moment rattled me” at a dinner her group attended at a Tel Aviv synagogue. “The Rabbi proclaimed, ‘Welcome to Israel. You are all here from America, the best country in the world.’ He paused. But not a single person clapped. The Israelis stared in disbelief.”

Like those of us who really know and understand our country, the Israelis were surprised at the lack of appreciation these youngsters showed.

Harvard grad Hartman then listed some of the things that have occurred that criticized America, and should have received pushback, but didn’t.

* “The New York Times won a Pulitzer Prize for reporting that the sole purpose of the American Revolution was to preserve slavery. And we remained silent.”

* “The Oregon Department of Education observed that showing your work and finding the right answer in math is white supremacist. And we remained silent.”

* “The American Medical Association has stated that the U.S. should remove gender from birth certificates. And we remained silent.”

* “Howard Zinn, author of the most widely read history text in American public schools, said that America has done “more bad than good.” And we remained silent.”

* “A huge percentage of the donations to the national Black Lives Matter organization have been spent on compensation and benefits, including several extravagant real estate purchases, and questionable consulting contracts. And we remained silent.”

* “On this campus we often hear how oppressive America is. Just outside of this church, there was a sign for Israeli Apartheid Week, of an upside-down faded America flag with painted bullet holes in it. And we remained silent.”

“We must not lie to ourselves, or to one another,” she said, “by denying that a large reason that we remain silent is that we see personal and professional advantages in doing so. We are ashamed to be American? The shame should be on us.”

“The people who excoriate religion live in a society where their freedoms are based on the Bible,” she said. “Many who say that the nuclear family is antiquated grew up in two-parent households. Those who condemn the police as oppressive still summon them when they are in danger. And too many use their right to free speech to advocate suspending it for all who disagree with them.” 

Reiterating that Americans are the freest, most privileged people on Earth, she said: “Yet many of us are ashamed to show any, even the tiniest trace of national pride. Why?”

 And then she explained: “Because we Americans of recent generations have been swaddled in prosperity and security, and in consequence have become ungrateful for the blessings we enjoy. It requires vigorous, athletic imagination for most of us to consider the basic brutal reality that much of the world experiences daily. Even worse, we have consumed a cultural diet that reduces America to its ugliest moments, and dismisses its noble ideals and accomplishments as jingoism.”

“What a litany of dishonesty. We are using our privilege to undermine the very system that has given us that privilege.”

In closing, she noted that despite its problems, America stands alone in its level of individual freedom, and it is therefore the last stronghold of individual freedom. 

“We must speak up against this now or our civilization will face a somber reckoning. As President Reagan said, ‘If not us, who? If not now, when?’” 

How refreshing to hear this message from one of those in the disturbed and oppositional generations. Especially one who attended and graduated from one of the most liberal and anti-American biased institutions in America.

Our traditional standard of free speech is under attack in America

More and more these days, people seem to be having fits over what other people think and believe. No longer do they just go on their way, shaking their heads in dismay and disagreement, but they plot how to punish those horrible excuses for humanity who dare to think for themselves.

Back in the fifties, a song in a Broadway musical was about “standing on the corner, watching all the girls go by.” After a couple of verses, the lyric says, “Brother, you can’t go to jail for what you’re thinking.” 

Today, you may not go to jail for what you think, but you can get attacked and “cancelled” by those who dislike your ideas, and therefore dislike you, and will see to it that you get your just desserts.

Examples of cancelling someone are not hard to find. You may have heard about speakers on college campuses being shouted down as they were speaking by students who disagreed with their ideas. A professor at the University of Southern California was put on leave because of the outrage that occurred when students mis-heard a Chinese word the professor used, and claimed he had used the N-word. He had not.

Such high-handed behavior is sharply at odds with the First Amendment’s protection of our ability to speak freely and the other freedoms the Founders of our country had in mind. That is un-American.

What someone thinks or does has become deserving of public rebuke in the minds of some who think differently. Given the radical thoughts of so many in positions of influence, perhaps in the not too distant future, it may become an area of criminality.

People see themselves as judge and jury, and convict someone on nothing more than a different point of view. Our traditional standard of free speech is being killed.

Another of our once strong standards is the sense of right and wrong. That is much weaker, given the large number of people who willingly commit crimes and other lesser wrongs. These impulses have been nourished by idiotic liberal concepts, such as defunding the police, the no-cash bail movement, and those whose job is to prosecute crime, but refuse to do it.

We haven’t forgotten the rash of incidents in cities across the country that were taken over by bands of ne’er do wells and criminals trashing public buildings and businesses, and robbing and killing people.

Newsmax magazine published a story about a crime spike in its April edition. It involved an ABC News analysis of data supplied by the state police in each of the states reported on, showing new homicide records in 12 cities in 2021. Two of the records broken last year were set in 1984 and 1987, and two others in 1990 and in 1991. The rest were in the 2000s, most on them in 2019.

The crime centers are: Columbus and Toledo, Ohio; Albuquerque, New Mexico; Austin, Texas; Baton Rouge, Louisiana; Portland, Oregon; Tucson, Arizona; Rochester, New York; Louisville, Kentucky; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Indianapolis, Indiana; and St. Paul, Minnesota.

What do these cities have in common, besides crime? They are all run by Democrat administrations.

There used to be three strong elements in our society that helped children learn how to be good humans: the home, the schools, and the churches. Actually, there still are three, but one of them has seen a dramatic decrease in participation: the churches. 

According to a Gallup 2019 poll, “… Gallup finds the percentage of Americans who report belonging to a church, synagogue or mosque at an all-time low, averaging just 50 percent in 2018.

“U.S. church membership was 70 percent or higher from 1937 through 1976, falling modestly to an average of 68 percent in the 1970s through the 1990s. The past 20 years have seen an acceleration in the drop-off, with a 20-percentage-point decline since 1999 and more than half of that change occurring since the start of the current decade [2010s].”

And while the other two areas have seen changes, too, those changes are less about numbers than about what goes on, or no longer goes on, in homes and schools.

Families too often consist of only one parent, and too often child rearing is not an important focus, at least not in the traditional way.

Schools are more and more becoming ideological training centers, and less and less educational centers. 

The grading system that has existed for decades is being replaced with a feel-good mish-mash that replaces actual testing for subject knowledge with a broad subjective judgement by the teacher. It’s not whether students earn an A, B, C, D or F, it’s about whether students made a respectable effort. Even basic discipline is missing.

These weak standards are not everywhere; not in every school system or in every school, of course, but they should not be anywhere.

So many kids and young adults today do not know and exhibit the strong traditional standards that built this great nation. Many, perhaps most, were not taught and expected to mirror those ideals, and some have just subscribed to an “easier” way of life.

Whatever the reason, the nation is suffering and becoming weaker.

America is being torn apart from within by bad politics, leftist policies

Watching America collapse or, more accurately, be torn apart from within, is very disturbing. The country has had challenges before. Some of us remember the turbulence of the sixties. The Vietnam War, the hippies and the Civil Rights Movement all had things stirred up. But the country settled down after a while.

Today, the large number of “Americans” who do not know why our system of government is superior to the others, because they were not taught about it, did not learn about it when they were taught, or who just don’t accept it, is truly troublesome.

Barack Obama’s pledge to “fundamentally transform the United States of America” if elected should have started a revolution against that concept. Instead, due to the large number who disagree with and/or don’t understand our nation’s founding principles, it fired up a lot of people who agreed with that idea. Today we are seeing where that mindset has led us.

Our country is divided more than it has been since the Civil War. One political faction wants to change many things, frequently because “times have changed.” Things like doing away with the Electoral College that protects minority interests and getting rid of the Senate filibuster that helps discourage the introduction of highly partisan legislation, and makes it easier to pass one-sided legislation. 

It has also discussed packing the Supreme Court with liberal activists to make laws rather than to correctly interpret laws. This will strengthen and maintain leftist power in Washington for a long time.

And even though Joe Biden won the 2020 election with 81.3 million votes — the most ever — and with the highest voter turnout percentage since 1900, it wants to change election laws to “increase voter turnout.”

The other side, however, wants to protect and defend the brilliant concepts of the Founders that made America superior to every other governmental form yet conceived.

This conservative faction understands that the principles of the U.S. Constitution do not change with the winds of time, or the preferences of political parties. And it understands why they should not change. 

The “conservative” justices on the Supreme Court and other courts work to maintain founding principles, and to save the republic from the suicidal tendencies of the socialist/communist radical left.

Laws that protect people must be followed and protected. And people that cannot or will not live and act in compliance with those laws must be punished. The safety of the populace is of utmost importance in the workings of a good government.

Fortunately, the disastrous results of defund the police, no bail/low bail, and not punishing some crimes are being seen for the irrational blunders they are. Yet millions among us still want to change direction from that which brought us a strong nation, and they are having negative effects on our country.

Education, which has been made far less effective because of the fear surrounding the Covid virus, now is home to a movement, mostly in secret, to improperly change the history curriculum. Some of this occurs at the school board level, some at the school level, and some at the instructor level. And it has spread into other subject areas.

Critical Race Theory (CRT) has been sneaked into classrooms, and rather than teach children that each of them is a valuable individual, it classifies them as either an oppressed person, or an oppressor. The distinction depends not on individual character, but on skin color. 

Instead of encouraging kids to understand and get along with each other, CRT pits groups of kids against each other, further intensifying the discord we see.

Some school boards deny parents their right to express concerns at meetings, and deny them requested materials. Some board members tell parents “I don’t work for you.” Teachers unions resist the importance of getting back into the classroom, and restoring the learning environment.

Reactions to the Covid variants have had devastating effects on the country, and much of the world. Combined with the other issues, things are truly upside-down.

Advice from the scientists has been all over the board. Some of that is a normal part of learning to deal with a new disease. But two years in, there is beginning to be resistance to the control mechanisms put into effect to protect us. 

Governments and businesses mandate vaccinations. Vaccines are designed to keep people from getting a disease. Vaccines in the past have done that. The Polio, Tetanus and Measles vaccines, for example, prevent contracting those diseases. 

Some people use those vaccines to justify forcing Covid vaccinations. But there is a big difference. Covid vaccines do not prevent catching or transmitting Covid. They reportedly reduce the effects of the virus, but do not prevent catching or transmitting it.

And then there is the selective censorship by social media platforms that impede the free exchange of important ideas. It is aimed primarily at conservative politics, and the “approved” Covid messages.

Comments contrary to the approved message were taken down, labeled as “false information” by the self-appointed media judges. Much of that information, however, proved to be correct.

Free speech is guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution. Without the free expression of ideas — good and bad ideas — we are doomed.

Government spending; what the ice says; and troubled democracies

The federal budget for fiscal year 2021 was $6.8 trillion, and revenue was only $4.05 trillion. That added nearly $3 trillion to the $29 trillion national debt.

Congress just passed an infrastructure bill with bipartisan support of $1 trillion. And the House recently passed the Democrats' sweeping $1.9 trillion budget reconciliation package, which still needs Senate approval. Both of these spending packages will add nearly $3 trillion more to the national debt.

A meme on Facebook asked that we consider how long 1 trillion seconds is. One million seconds equals: 16.67 billion minutes; 277.8 million hours; 11.6 million days; and 23,800 years, counting leap years.

Then, it said, think about money. So, what can $1 trillion buy? 1 million houses that cost $1,000,000; 2.86 million houses at $350,000; 16.7 million cars that cost $60,000; 40 billion hours of labor at $25/hour, or a year’s wages for 19,200 people at $25/hour.

At the rate that the Democrats are spending money we don’t have, pretty soon, we will be talking about real money.

At some time, we must address this gargantuan debt, and start spending only what we collect, and that spending must include paying down the debt.

* * *

A recent emailed video contained a presentation from several years ago by Jorgen Peder Steffensen, Professor of Physics - Ice, Climate and Earth, at the Niels Bohr Institute.

In the presentation, Steffensen said that the NorthGRIP (Northern Greenland Ice Project) was reopened to drill the last few meters through the ice sheet to the rock beneath the ice station.

“The ice core, over 3 kilometers in length, has been hauled up to the surface piece by piece, and holds important data on the history of the climate of the Earth,” he said. “It bears the fingerprints of climactic conditions for more than 120,000 years.”

Steffensen used a chart showing the temperature changes in the ice core over a period of 8,000 years. The temperature changes are shown on a chart using 4 gradations, top to bottom, with 4.0 being the warmest, and 0.0 being the coldest. Remember, ice forms at 0 degrees Celsius and 32 degrees Fahrenheit.

The warmest temperatures are 3.7 on the 4-gradation scale starting 7,500 years ago, lasting until about 4,800 years ago. At that time a long period of cooling began, ending roughly 2.6 gradations cooler 2,100 years ago. The temperature at that time was at 1.1 on the scale.

Then a warming period occurred, during which the temperature rose to about 2.5 on the scale about 1,000 years ago, which Steffensen identified as the Medieval Warm Period. That temperature was about 1.0 gradation warmer on average than today.

Other core samples from elsewhere in Greenland confirm that the Little Ice Age ended 140 or so years ago, Steffensen said, the coldest point in the last 10,000 years, at 0.6, near the bottom of the scale. 

So, the warmest temperatures detected by NorthGRIP were 3.7 on the scale, and the coolest temperatures were 0.6 on the scale, a difference of 3.1 units on the 4-gradation scale.

Steffensen said, “I agree completely that we have had a global temperature increase in the 20th Century. But an increase from what?” 

The answer: From the Little Ice Age’s 0.6 mark. From there to today’s 1.5 mark is an increase of 0.9, which is less than the rise during the Medieval Warm Period.

NorthGRIP showed that Earth was much warmer 8,000 years ago than it is today, and a good bit warmer during the Medieval Warm Period about a thousand years ago than today.

While Earth’s temperature has been rising since the start of the 20th Century, this warming follows the coldest temperatures in 8,000 years. And a warming period is a natural occurrence after a cooling period.

Perhaps the visions of climate catastrophe we see all around us are not really warranted.

* * *

The Washington Post reported last week on a report released by the Stockholm-based International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (International IDEA). The report, the Global State of Democracy 2021, listed “back-sliding democracies,” and for the first time, the United States is on that list.

The Post quoted from the report: “The United States, the bastion of global democracy, fell victim to authoritarian tendencies itself, and was knocked down a significant number of steps on the democratic scale.”

The organization bases its analysis of about 160 countries, looking at 50 years of democratic indicators.

“The study, which analyzed trends from 2020 and 2021, found that more than a quarter of the world’s population now lives in democratically backsliding countries,” The Post wrote, “which International IDEA defines as nations seeing a gradual decline in the quality of their democracy.”

The International IDEA report said, “The world is becoming more authoritarian as non-democratic regimes become even more brazen in their repression and many democratic governments suffer from backsliding by adopting their tactics of restricting free speech and weakening the rule of law, exacerbated by what threatens to become a ‘new normal’ of Covid-19 restrictions.”

Along with the other disturbing news we are dealing with, this is especially disturbing for those of us living in the “land of the free.”