America’s dangerous internal problems may bring its demise

March 24, 2026

A lot of Americans believe and say outright and with pride that America is the greatest nation on Earth. It was designed to give its citizens more individual freedom than any nation, and give them a government that they controlled, rather than a government that controlled them.

It was both a unique and a brilliant design, one that the Founders developed by having witnessed other nation’s designs, which were authoritarian and otherwise unacceptable to them. But while it is still the greatest nation on Earth by virtue of its design, it has many problems that attack its reputation and threaten is continued existence.

Today we see that America’s unique and superior design is being ignored. The country is somewhat like a wonderful house, with lots of good rooms and features, but over time some of them have gradually been unused.

People didn’t understand what some of the rooms and features were for, and no one ever explained that to them. So, they quit using them, and now spend more time in the new under-developed wing, trying to make it suit them and their desires.

This has occurred for the most part because so many people do not have a good understanding of why things were established as they were: they don’t know the story of their country’s birthing and history. This is largely due to a failure to maintain the two-parent family and the broad culture that created it, and a public education system that has slipped off the rails and now spends valuable time on things that are not part of the traditional successful curriculum.

One of the most important things of our culture that has slowly been declining is the two-parent family, something that senior citizens remember as being nearly universal.

The Institute for Family Studies tells us that “Approximately 63 – 65 percent of U.S. children live with two married parents, a decline from 77 percent in 1980. Roughly 30 percent of U.S. children now live outside a two-parent home, with 22 – 26 percent in single-parent households (mostly mother-only). The U.S. has the world's highest rate of children living in single-parent households.”

The Niskanen Center published that “roughly 40 percent of American children are born to unmarried parents.” And the America First Policy Institute tells us that:       

* Single-parent households often have fewer economic resources than married-couple households.

* Children in single-mother households are more likely to experience lower school performance and higher risks of behavioral issues.

* Research indicates that the absence of a father figure is strongly linked to higher delinquency rates in adolescent boys, regardless of income differences. 

As for public education, like the two-parent family, things are not what they used to be. 

The Pew Research Center asked for the reasons public K-12 education is going in the wrong direction. About half or more say the following are major reasons: 
* Schools not spending enough time on core academic subjects, like reading, math, science and social studies (69 percent). 
* Teachers bringing their personal political and social views into the classroom (54 percent). 
* Schools not having the funding and resources they need (52 percent).

Looking at education among nations of the world, The Balance published this evaluation: “Singapore consistently ranks first globally in K–12 education, particularly in math and science, according to 2022/2025 PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment) data and analyses. Other top-performing systems include Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Finland, often recognized for rigorous curricula, high-quality teacher training, and high achievement rates. The U.S. ranks above the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) average in science but lower in math.”

So many people today are in love with ideas that threaten our country’s greatness by subverting its beneficial qualities. And, of course, some are focused on gaining power for their group over the rest of us, like what happens in so many other countries across the globe.

Thomas Sowell is a brilliant 95-year-old American economist, economic historian, and social theorist. He warns us that America is being destroyed from within. This destruction, he says, is directed by a reckless elite that is obsessed with social justice, cultural decay, and a reckless disregard for history. He calls this intellectual bankruptcy, and says that expanding government power for social justice, for example, creates despotism, and kills American freedoms. 

His ideas and observations on what is happening in our country have been quoted hundreds of times. Here are some: 

“Some Americans will never appreciate America, until after they have helped destroy it, and have then begun to suffer the consequences.”

“Ours may become the first civilization destroyed, not by the power of our enemies, but by the ignorance of our teachers and the dangerous nonsense they are teaching our children.”

“Virtually every stupid idea in vogue today was thought of by somebody in the past — and has led to disaster, again and again. That is why it is dangerous to neglect the study of history, so that we have to keep on learning what is wrong with clever ideas the hard way.”

We can turn things around if enough of those on the wrong path return to being traditional Americans. That is a tall order.

The State of the Union speech was more like a campaign appearance

February 14, 2023

President Joe Biden continues to set records as President of the United States of America. His State of the Union (SOTU) message of February 7th set a record. It was the least-watched SOTU since viewership has been tracked, beginning in 1993, with only 27.3 million viewers. 

This year’s SOTU was 30 percent lower than last year’s 38.1 million. The only one with lower viewership was his unofficial one in 2021, which was termed an address to a joint session of Congress, and drew only 26.9 million.

Contrast those numbers with Bill Clinton’s 1993 unofficial SOTU of 66 million viewers, and George W. Bush’s 2003 address of 62 million viewers.

This year’s SOTU was the second longest one since 1964 at 1 hour, 12 minutes, and 44 seconds. That’s about 16 minutes shorter than Bill Clinton’s SOTU of 2000.

Perhaps this disappointing showing reflects the public’s dissatisfaction with the Biden presidency, of which only 41 percent of Americans approve, according to the latest Reuters poll. And currently, only 37 percent of Democrats want him to run for reelection in 2024. Worse, only about 25 percent of Americans think the country is heading in the right direction.

Perhaps the fact that Vice President Kamala Harris earned an even lower approval rating helps Biden feel a little bit better about his numbers.

In the interest of what the actual State of the Union is, here are some pertinent items, in no particular order:
* The inflation rate of 1.4 percent when Biden took office is now 7.0 percent.
* Thirty-year mortgages have risen from 2.7 percent to 6.5 percent.
* Prices of goods have risen, too. Eggs are now $7 a dozen, steak is about $15 a pound, and plywood is $95 per sheet.
* Biden’s war on fossil fuels ended America’s recently realized energy independence, and has killed nearly 70,000 jobs since 2021.
* Gasoline prices rose from $2.39 a gallon to $5 a gallon in some states, and while prices have dropped, gas still costs on average $3.42 a gallon.
* Natural gas prices have tripled over the last year.
* In his two years as President, more than 5 million people have illegally entered the country over the southern border.
* The disastrous pullout from Afghanistan left 13 American military personnel dead, stranded dozens of friendly Afghanis and left an estimated $7 billion in American military equipment behind for the Taliban.
* During his tenure, we have given away so many of our weapons from our arsenal to Ukraine without replacing them, and lowered the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to a dangerous level to try and lower gas prices.

The SOTU was marked by some unusual and objectionable things. Perhaps the most frequently mentioned is the “raucous” and “rude” behavior of Republicans reacting to Biden’s comments.

Congress members normally are quite polite and reserved in reaction to a speaker who speaks with dignity. That was not the case this year. Both the President and the Republican members of Congress strayed beyond the normal, acceptable and expected behavior.

While not excusing this aberrant behavior, we must recognize that it was in reaction to “misstatements” and “errors” in the President’s remarks.

For example, Biden claimed to have created 12 million new jobs, but neglected to say that most of them were people going back to work after the Covid pandemic killed 22 million jobs. 

He also didn’t mention the millions of Americans who lost jobs and aren’t looking for another job, due to over-generous and unnecessary government payments. These people who dropped out of the workforce make the unemployment figures look much better than if they were still in the workforce looking for a job.

He falsely accused a group of Republicans of wanting to sunset Social Security and Medicare, which drew the loudest rebuke from them.

He also asserted his confused understanding of taxes paid by people and businesses. Criticizing businesses and wealthier Americans for not paying “their fair share” appeals to many people. But such a tactic ignores so much of the sad reality of our broken tax system, our too-big government, and the 42 percent of total taxes that the wealthy actually pay.

And, he carefully avoided talking in detail about China spying on us. Beginning before the SOTU and ending after it was the situation where the administration allowed a Chinese spy balloon to float across the nation for days before taking it down. 

News of this balloon first became public when airline passengers saw something odd, and a civilian on the ground saw it, had a co-worker photograph it, sent the photos to the government, and published the photos. The Department of Defense then announced it had been tracking the balloon for a few days.

Since that fiasco at least four other unidentified objects have been spotted in our airspace and taken down. These objects have apparently been visiting us for some number of years without the Defense Department’s knowledge. 

Hopefully, Biden will do something to get the Defense Department to focus all of its attention on its critical mission of protecting the country.

The State of the Union is not good. And it is getting worse. 

Democrats can’t achieve their extremist goals with system our Founders created

May 24, 2022

A recent newspaper column did a wonderful job of illustrating the lengths to which the Left will go in trying to achieve its goals. The writer’s name is not important, because the writer is not the topic here. The topic is the dreadful thought process used by the writer in creating this misrepresentation of U.S. Senator Steve Daines’ comment. 

Such shenanigans are pretty common. The Left often does similar things to shift the focus away from actual issues.

The column began: “Sen. Steve Daines from Montana compared women to reptiles, pregnant sea turtles to be exact. No, seriously.”

Quoting Daines, the writer continued. “’Why do we have laws in place to protect the eggs of sea turtles, or the eggs of eagles?’ he thundered. ‘Because when you destroy an egg, you’re killing a pre-born baby sea turtle.’”

The writer then explains the process sea turtles follow to travel to the proper place to lay their eggs, where they will mature and hatch in 60 days. The writer then noted that women do not have to go through such a protracted process, as if that has anything to do with Daines’ point.

The writer exhibits several significant issues. First and foremost, he/she missed — or more likely, deliberately avoided — Daines’ point, then spent a lot of time writing about the wrong topic. 

Daines did not compare women to reptiles. He contrasted the degree to which turtle and other animal progeny are protected by law with the lack of that protection for not-yet-born human babies.

What Daines did do was pose the matter of why unborn sea turtles are protected by law from interference by people, but unborn children are not.

The writer most likely could not provide a sensible defense of the concern Daines’ brought up, so he/she spent time trying to focus readers’ attention away from that issue. The true purpose of this article was nothing more than to ridicule Daines’ defense of the unborn. Shameful.

                                                                   * * *

What we often find as tools of the Left are such things as outrage; claims of racism, white privilege, and/or white supremacy; defensiveness; and threats of protest or violence. These tactics are designed to affect the emotions of those on both sides of an issue, and they deliberately avoid using logic.

The white 18-year-old accused killer of 10 people at a mostly black retail outlet was termed a “racist.” That is totally appropriate in this case. He was also called a “white supremacist” by the President of the United States, and others.

What is a “white supremacist?”  “A person who believes that the white race is inherently superior to other races and that white people should have control over people of other races,” according to Merriam-Webster. And recent stories about the accused murderer show that he actually holds white supremacist views. 

No doubt he is not the only such person in the country. But is white supremacy really a threat? Or, is that just a Leftist effort to fire up their crowd by exaggerating a relatively small number of people into a real threat?

Calling someone a racist works. It often arouses negative emotions toward that person, as well as others who look like or hold similar beliefs as the targeted person. Throwing around the term “white supremacy” serves the same purpose.

Some of the far Left’s tactics are extremely radical, and some even un-American. That’s because they are unable to easily achieve their extremist goals using the system our Founders created. Because they can’t muster enough support to get their nation transforming goals accomplished through proper methods, they are forced to use other means.

They want to stack the Supreme Court with like-thinking justices so that the Court will support their agenda. The “stacking” process will put the current conservative — or non-activist — justices in the minority. They want to end the Senate filibuster so that the minority party — in this case, Republicans — will no longer have a way to protect the country from their radical ideas.

Speaking of the Supreme Court, when Justice Samuel Alito’s draft opinion regarding Roe v. Wade was improperly leaked, the Left immediately flew into a rage. They believed that if the Court voted to overturn this previous decision, it would mean the end of abortions in America. 

That’s wrong. It would not end abortion, it would merely move the decisions on abortion to the individual states, where it belongs, and away from the Supreme Court, where it does not belong.

Nevertheless, the Left then decided to try to “persuade” those justices who were expected to vote to overturn a faulty ruling to change their minds by having organized protests at their homes. 

It is highly improper to attempt to influence a Supreme Court justice or a judge in doing his/her job. But more importantly, it is against federal law. 

Yet, those with the authority and responsibility to enforce the laws against intimidating the justices, such as U. S. Attorney General Merrick Garland and the Department of Justice, have failed to do the job.

There is a great deal of failure to enforce laws these days. And that, too, is a feature of Leftist/“progressive” politics.