The important things

Let me have your attention for a moment, with apologies to Alec Baldwin as Blake in Glengarry Glen Ross (1992). The legacy media are complaining today about Donald Trump getting his Special Master, and why he’s still on the streets. Likewise, the alternative media are still talking about That Speech Joe Biden made on September 1. They’re complaining especially about the staging, which was so bad that CNN actually altered it in their out-stream, downlink, etc.

And some of my colleagues complain about that, too, saying CNN might as well say they co-produced That Speech. Maybe they’re right. Or maybe That Speech was bad enough without the awful staging. But they’re all missing the point. All of it – including whether anyone thinks Trump broke any laws (or how serious those laws were), or whether Joe Biden has anything more sinister than the worst producers and publicists any President ever had for an address to the nation – is incidental. So to continue the metaphor about motivational speaking, let’s talk about something important!

Important – what kind of society to live in

Let’s talk, in other words, about what kind of society we want to live in. Let’s look at what Americans have built, and what kind of policies will build it up – or tear it down.

What does anyone suppose most people want? Let’s start with the minimum anyone not only wants, but needs. Survival training emphasizes these things in the Rule of Threes. It tells you that you can last three minutes without air, three hours without shelter (to protect you against the worst the elements can throw at you), three days without water to drink, and three weeks without food. So there you have it: air, shelter, water, and food, in that order.

By any measure whatsoever, America had all those things in abundance once. Sheer incompetence – or malicious mischief – has actually curtailed food. Shelf after empty shelf in grocery stores – and signs limiting you to one or two items – testify to this. We still remember when those shelves were full, and no store manager would dare set such a limit. No one even thought of doing that. Because we had an economy that worked.

Not have v. have-not, but what the least have here – and over there

Those who would have you doubt that, talk about how much more some have than others. That’s not the important comparison. The important thing is to compare the lowest of our society to the lowest anywhere else. Not only did America serve the needs of survival abundantly, but America does it better than anyone else. Or did until noon on January 20, 2021. Not only that, but the lowest in America today is far higher than the lowest in America at its founding.

But the current President didn’t talk about that, and still won’t. Or if he does, he’s telling you a pack of lies. Only a socialistic economy ever has to be a zero-sum game. An economy with free minds and free markets benefits everyone. Again, if you doubt that, compare America to the Soviet Union. Less than two weeks ago, Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev, last of the Party General Secretaries and Presidents of the Soviet Union, died. But why was he the last? Because he knew his country was not working, and at least put it on a path to start working again.

Important – rule of law – and a basic education

Let’s talk next about what keeps a country strong. For ever greater strength, economically and otherwise, you can do no better than a republic. A republic is a country of law, not of the strongest or most popular people who can call themselves leaders. But more than that, a republic is a multi-level government. Each level manages the one below it but ideally does not presume to manage any lower levels. The lowest governing level in a republic is the household. That’s the basis of parental rights in education, one of the most important ways to preserve republican values.

Parents are heads and vice-heads of households. (Vice- means “in the place of another in that other’s absence.”) So parents have the duty to decide how to educate their children, or have them educated. Nothing anyone says, about funding, teacher training, or anything else, matters if they try to deny that fact. But a certain class that call themselves “experts,” do deny it. And when they go so far as to say they relieve you of the responsibility for your children, run, don’t walk, away from people like that. When they tell you that your children are not yours, again, run, don’t walk, away from such people.

Of curriculum – and good and bad philosophy

Let’s talk next about what your children need to learn. They must learn the skills they will need to function as adults. After that, they should learn the skills they can combine with their talents to take the highest places in our economy for which they can qualify. But they do not need to learn to hate one another. They certainly don’t need to learn to blame others for any “group disadvantage,” or blame themselves for any wrong acts of their forebears (whether those bad actors are their direct ancestors or not). Nor do they need people to tell them that they were born wrong, and need surgery to put them right again. None of these things will put food on their tables, water in their glasses, or roofs over their heads.

And they absolutely do not need to hear that they are blights on this earth. But maybe you can appreciate that they do need to hear that a loving God did create them. Not only that, but He also created this earth for us to live on. Of course we should exercise proper stewardship over this earth, to continue to reap blessings from it.

Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed.Sir Francis Bacon

Some people want you to die

But that’s not what you’re hearing from people like the Sierra Club or the World Economic Forum. Instead you hear that the world has too many people on it as it is. It might in fact have too many people on it to suit them. That’s why you hear the active promotion of inherently anti-procreative lifestyle choices and adaptations. And the drive to urge women to end their pregnancies, even to offering to pay their travel expenses. (But not to grant maternity leave, or even to pay adoption expenses.)That was also the basis of the Georgia Guidestones, before their fortuitous (and, I maintain, Divine) destruction.

Most important – your vote

Now you know the important things. But the most important thing is to recognize truth, and tell it apart from lies. Lay aside for the moment anyone’s feelings about elections gone past. Who (and how many) voted for whom in the past, is less important than choosing for whom to vote today. Ronald Reagan famously asked whether you were better off now than when his rival took office. Today, I ask whether the policies any given candidate propounds in Congress will make you better or worse off than you are today. Decide with discernment, and vote accordingly.