Still the Last Best Hope of Man on Earth

 

There are so many ways to compare President Trump and DemocRat presidential candidate “Hidin’” Joe Biden.  They are worlds apart on foreign affairs, foreign trade, economics, taxation, and on and on.  But perhaps their differing views on America itself may be the single greatest difference between them.

Watching President Trump, I believe that he genuinely loves America and Americans.  I get the sense that he holds America and Americans in high regard.  I think he believes in the American dream – of “rags to riches”, of people doing, being, and accomplishing all that they are capable of.  Mr. Trump seems to hold our history and heritage in awe and respect.  And in that regard, if no other, Mr. Trump is very much like most of us.

Watch Mr. Trump at his rallies.  Tens of thousands of people in city after city turn out to see this man.  There is a genuine outpouring of affection from the crowds – but that affection is reflected back from the President.  He wants what is best for the people – and all that he has done – up until the China virus hit (if it really did) was to make things better for us.  And by and large, things were a lot better up until the China Virus.

What really does Mr. Biden think about America and Americans?  How does his vision of our heritage and history affect what he wants to do?  Interesting question, when “Hidin’ Biden” damn near refuses to tell us what his positions are on major issues.  Maybe “Hidin’ Biden’s” latest commercial tells us all that we need to know.

Read the transcript from Biden’s latest a - “America was an idea, an idea.  ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident.’ We’ve never lived up to it, but we’ve never walked away from it before. And I just think we have to be more honest. Let our kids know, as we raise them, what actually did happen. Acknowledge our mistakes so we don’t repeat them. So, I think it’s important we teach history, not in a prescriptive way, from my perspective, but what actually the facts were without also acknowledging that there’s 400 years of racism in the United States of America. That’s what it is. And it’s able to be fixed.”

Read this again, and read it carefully.

“America was an idea.”  AMERICA WAS?  Is the candidate saying that America no longer exists?  Is he saying that the America that we built, that we sacrificed for, that many of us died for no longer exists?  Is he mocking us for loving an “idea” that “we never lived up to”?  If America WAS what are we now?

Where is your perspective if the statement “there’s 400 years of racism in the United States of America” is the focus of your presidential TV ad?  To whom is Mr. Biden speaking?  How can one think about the history of our nation and somehow come to the conclusion that “400 years of racism” is the first thing that you mention?  How can someone running for president see our country, our history, and heritage as nothing but “400 years of racism”?

I have a real problem with this.  This is not how I see America and I’m sure most of don’t either.  America IS still an idea that we honor, love, and respect. America still is the greatest country in the history of the world.  And for all of her flaws, she’s still a hope and inspiration for anyone who loves freedom and individual liberty.  There is no place in my view of America for the dark, ugly vision that “Hidin’ Biden” expresses in this ad.  This alone should be reason enough not to vote for the man – if you need one more.

Oh, yes.  And let us always remember – and remind others of what Ronald Reagan said about our American place in the world: “You and I have a rendezvous with destiny. We’ll preserve for our children this, the last best hope of man on Earth, or we’ll sentence them to take the last step into a thousand years of darkness.”

It’s up to us whether we choose “an idea that we never lived up to’ or “the last best hope of man on earth.”

Was I Kicked in the Head?

 

I truly wonder sometimes how stupid the political class thinks the rest of us are.  As I listen to the political ads on TV, I can’t figure out what these dudes are talking about.  I’m wondering if maybe that last kick in the head, back in ’91, has left me comatose and living in an altered state of reality for the past 30 years.

I’d really hate to think that my sub – conscious created 2020, the Covidiocy, Wolfman and Cuomo, social isolation and the rest of it.  Honest to God, if I created this nightmare in my coma – addled brain, I genuinely apologize.  And if 2020 and the Covidiocy is just in my mind, I KNOW you all are having more fun than I am!

But I’ve digressed.

Here’s an ad on TV – “Hidin’ Biden” is saying how “he” took a failing economy in 2008 and built a roaring economy and that Trump took that great economy and ran it into the ditch with Covid mismanagement.  Now, here’s the thing – the Great Recession lasted for the entire 8 years of the Biden – Obama administration.  There were numerous articles written on how weak and tepid the “recovery” was.  Obama fans wrote that it was the “new normal”.  The jobs, the industries, the ever-growing prosperity were forever gone.  Progressives wrote about how well qualified Obama and Biden were to “manage” the decline.  In fact, in a now famous video clip, President Obama says, “What’s Trump gonna do?  He got a magic wand? Those jobs are gone forever!”

OK – I’ll grant that I might still be a coma from getting kicked in the head – but, I can research stuff and see how many new jobs were created in 2017, 2018, and 2019.  I can research the real economic growth and growth in GDP in those 3 years.  Lord have mercy!  Real incomes went up more in 3 years than they had in the preceding 16!   Somebody is in an altered reality – and I’m not entirely sure that it’s me.

The second part of the ad is even funnier – claiming Trump has mismanaged the pandemic.  Now, once again, we can all Google stuff and see for ourselves.  Trump banned travel from China on January 31. At that time, only one or two cases of “da Rona” had been diagnosed in the US.  I mean, how much sooner could the man have acted?

The political class must think we’re stupid.  We can look up the DemocRats reaction to Trump’s ban.  Every nationally known DemocRat beat up on Trump calling his ban racist, xenophobic, and alarmist.  Nancy Pelosi was on TV inviting folks to come out to San Francisco’s Chinatown to party in the Chinese New Year.  NY Mayor Bill DeBlasio and Senator Chuck Shumer did the same thing – invited folks out into the streets to celebrate in crowds.

So, like who really mismanaged the crisis?

The “Hidin’ Biden” ad goes on to say how he’s going to manage the pandemic when he’s President; and there are some familiar about what the candidate is saying.  “Hidin’ Biden” says he’ll listen to the experts.  Didn’t Trump set up a guiding committee?  Didn’t Trump let Dr. Fauci run the damn show?  Didn’t Trump shut down the economy for “15 days to flatten the curve” on the advice of Fauci and the other “experts”?  How’d that turn out?  Biden says he’ll “shut it down” again if the so-called scientists tell him to.  Or, if his Chinese and Ukrainian paymasters tell him to?

What else is in “Hidin’ Biden’s” bag of tricks to save us from “da ‘Rona”?  We’re gonna make, ventilators, and hospital beds, and PPE – all made here in American!  Didn’t the Trumpster do all of that back in March and April, or is my hoof – addled brain playing tricks on me again?

Every body is entitled to their own version of history, but no one is entitled to their own version of the Truth.  Trump did as much as any leader of a free people could have done to try to deal with the “pandemic”.  As we get farther along, the contradictory statements from the so-called experts should make anyone with any functioning thinking ability question the hell that these “experts” have put us through.  

I truly hope that the voters prove that they smarter than the political class thinks that we are, even if this unbelievably scary reality is just the result of a kick to my head.

Why Do They Hate Him?

The intensity and volume from the anti-Trumpers truly baffles me.  I can’t get my head around why people so despise this President.  You might think that he traveled around the world bowing to foreign kings and emperors, apologizing for America   No, wait!  That was Obama.  Or you might think that Trump paid the Iranians $150 million in cash and looked aside while the Iranians paid terrorists to attack us.  No, wait, Obama too.  Maybe you’re thinking that Mr. Trump refused to send military aid to our embassy in Libya and left 4 American diplomats and warriors to be slaughtered by the mob.  Nope, that was Obama, too.  Signed legislation making it a crime not to buy health insurance? Obama.  Passed a heath care bill that drove health insurance premium costs up by 200% or more?  Not Trump either.  Left about 40 million Americans without health insurance?  Not Trump.  Over saw the weakest economic recovery since the Depression? Presided over the worst employment situation since before the Second World War? Obama, too.  Let Moslem terrorists form their own country? Nope, wrong again. 

Looking back over the first three years of the first Trump term, I really have a problem understanding the vitriolic hatred.  The Trump bashing in the media began election night with some knucklehead on MSNBC or CNN suggesting that since Trump won the election, the only option left was impeachment.  They were still counting ballots and the fools were floating impeachment.  The anti – Trump protests began with Code Pink and the “pussy” hats before the inauguration. Think about it for a minute – before the last ballots were counted and before the man is even inaugurated there were protests and talk of impeachment.  Before he was legally the President there were protests! 

There are those anti – American, anti – Trumpers who want to blame Trump for the division and the strife and the hatred burning up America.  But I think that the previous paragraph does a good job of pointing out that it was not Trump nor Trump supporters who are fanning the flames of sectarian and racial violence in America.  The riots that continue unbated for 4 months in major American cities are organized, equipped, and paid for by Antifa and Black Lives Matter, Inc. – NEITHER OF WHICH are Trump supporting groups.  Antifa is not a devil spawn love child of Donald Trump. Modern antifa politics can be traced to the emergence of neo-Nazism in Germany following the fall of the Berlin Wall.  Ain’t got nothing to do with the Trumpster.

Similarly, Black Lives Matter, Inc. (not to be confused with the humanistic and Christian ideal that “black lives, like all lives, matter”) had its origins in 2013 following the shooting death of Trayvon Martin.  BLM came to prominence during the unrest in Ferguson, MO following the police shooting of Michael Brown, by Ferguson police.  Again, BLM, Inc., like Anita, predate the Trump presidency and are leading the violence, not reacting to some other act of violence brought against them.  Let me also point out that the two murders that hatched BLM, Inc, happened during the Obama years.  Again, nothing to do with Trump.

Let’s also point out that the cities that are seeing rioting here during the Summer and Fall of Covidiocy are cities that have been run by DemocRat politicians for decades.  Chicago has been in thrall to the corrupt Cook County DemoRatic machine for nearly 100 years.  In each of the cities that have seen weeks and months of rioting, there is a DemocRat mayor and a DemocRat Governnor.  It is completely foolish to blame President Trump for either the police brutality in multi – generational Democrat cities, or for the riots in those cities.  Put the blame where it belongs.

Never in my life have I seen this type of behavior toward an elected president.

I think back to the start of Mr. Trump’s administration and I must wonder why his 2 major efforts have generated so much angst.  The first thing Trump talked about when he started running in 2015 was to build a border wall and get control of illegal – note ILLEGAL – immigration.  It was why so many people voted for him.  Why was anyone surprised?

But let us consider the desire among “Deplorables” to close the border. Leftists, liberals, progressives and other anti – American types want to claim that the desire for controlled immigration is based in our “racism” and “xenophobia” (fear of foreigners), but these have nothing to do with it.  Among the “Deplorables” and the “Great Unwashed” is a deeply held understanding that the thing that ties all Americans together is our nearly universal understanding that we all must follow the laws.  A great many “Deploreables” are deeply, deeply troubled when our governments do not follow the law.  We have watched Congress after Congress pass border controls and immigration laws; and we have watched President after President sign these laws and pledge to close the borders only to watch millions of people come pouring into our country, ignoring our laws.  It is not racism nor xenophobia – it is our deep-seated respect for the concept of a nation of laws.

Donald Trump ran on a simple economic platform; cut taxes, simplify regulations, free the entrepreneurs, and renegotiate trade deals that hurt America.  He did all these things and before the ill – advised (and stupid) shutdown, the American economy was doing better than it had ever done in peace time in the history of our nation.

More Americans were working than at any time in 70 years. For several months before the “Covidiocy” our nation was at full – employment.  Unemployment rates for blacks and “Hispanics” were lower than they have ever been. And even in the pandemic, unemployment rates are now, October 2020, back down to where they were in the Obama – Biden years. 

It’s not just good economic policy and governance, that Trump turned the economy around in 2017, and that is driving the recovery again.  There is something else, something that the “progressives” and the sophisticates can’t understand, and it is this:  Donald Trump believes in America and in Americans.  Like most of us “Deploreables, Mr. Trump believes in America, in American greatness, in the American Spirit, in American Exceptionalism.  We, like the President, believe that we can make America great again – for all Americans.  There has not been this kind of faith, belief, and trust in the American people in the White House since Ronald Reagan – that, is what lit the economy on fire and it is the only thing that will pull us out of this self – imposed recession.

I really wish you anti -Trumpers would give some serious thought to all of this before voting for Senile Joe and the Ho.

"Whatever position I take on that, that’ll become the issue." - Joe Biden

 

Last Tuesday night’s so-called Presidential “debate” was a disgusting “shit show”, a disgrace, and an insult to America, Americans, and our national heritage.  Everyone involved with it should be ashamed of themselves and their part in the disgusting spectacle.  After an hour and a half of completely wasted time, I know nothing new about any policy position of either candidate.  I despise the cop-out that “both sides do it”, but both President Trump and ex – Vice President Biden were childish, unprofessional, rude and crude.  Neither of them looked or acted presidential.  The level of disrespect that Biden showed to Mr. Trump was unprecedented in American history.  Biden’s disrespect transcended even the worst of the past three years’ non-stop disrespect from DemocRats and their ass kissing puppets in the news media.

Chris Wallace of Fox News was a total failure as a moderator.  He either could not or would not maintain order. He was obviously and disgustingly partisan toward Biden.  It appeared at times as if Wallace was siding with Biden.  His questions were not specific and concise.  He spent entirely too much time asking the questions and not enough time keeping the candidates on message.

Perhaps the biggest disappointment was that Mr. Biden just flat ass out would not answer any of the questions.  He accidentally revealed one or two positions – but quickly swerved away from what he had just said.  The once vice president said that he intended to eliminate all of the Trump tax cuts.  This action alone will be a major tax increase for all American tax payers.  Then, in the next breath Biden said that he wouldn’t raise taxes on anyone making less than $400,000.  But reversing the tax cuts will raise taxes on EVERY taxpayer.  It doesn’t matter how you spin it, eliminating the Trump tax cuts will be tax increase for the half of the Americans who pay income tax. 

Biden accidentally gave viewers one very clear and concise statement on his campaign message, but Mr. Trump failed to catch it and lost a fantastic opportunity to show the American people why the Harris – Biden ticket is so incredibly dangerous.  Mr. Wallace was questioning Biden about his plans to “pack the Supreme Court” with Liberal judges to off set the conservative judges that President Trump has appointed.  Biden refused to answer, eventually saying, “Whatever position I take on that, that’ll become the issue.”

Whatever position I take on that, that’ll become the issue.

Mr. Biden, Ms. Harris – your positions on matters facing the country SHOULD be the issue!  It is not enough to spend the few minutes each week that you campaign telling us that Donald Trump is a failure.  You two are not offering any details about what you intend to do if you are elected.

You say that you are not going to raise taxes on anyone making less than $400,000 per year.  But there is video of you saying to people “Your taxes are going to up if I’m elected.”  Even with your dodging at the debate, you said that you would roll back the Trump tax cuts.  The simple truth here is that the changes in the tax law under Trump DID cut taxes for every American that pays income taxes.  Eliminating those cuts will INCREASE taxes for the people who received the cuts in the first place!  Regardless of how your supporters might try to twist this reality – it is what it is.  Unlike my more “sophisticated” compatriots, I am not impressed with how you lawyer types try to twist truth into absurd pretzels of illogical logic – if I pay more in income tax under your plan, it is an increase.

And this is not the only uncertainty in your platform.  What is your position on defunding police?  You said you were in favor of it – now you’re not.

What is your position on disarming civilians?  Both Kammi Harris (the Indian pretending to be a black chic) and ‘Beto’ O’Rourke (the Irish guy pretending to be Hispanic) have called for actual confiscation of civilian guns.  Ms. Harris is you vice-president (who will be President within a year) and you have said that you will put O’Rourke in charge of your gun policy.  It seems to this observer that you intend to disarm the American public.

What is your plan for dealing with the Pandemic?  You trash the efforts of the current Administration and the plans that you discuss are freaking exactly what the Trump administration did in March and April.  You say that you will follow the science – but what about all the scientists who are against forced isolation and lockdowns?  It ain’t settled science no matter how loudly you shout.

Speaking of not settled science, what exactly is your position on the Climate Change hoax?  You embraced AOC’s “Green New Deal” in which she calls for the elimination of private autos and airlines and the total elimination of fossil fuels in 10 years – or some such lunacy.  In fact, you have said that AOC will be in charge of your energy and climate policies. You have emphatically said that you will immediately stop the production of gas and oil production from fracking and shut down the coal industry. Please tell us how any of this will benefit the American people.

Yes, Mr. Biden, your positions on issues is the issue in this election.  And, there is your record to consider.  You opposed desegregating schools saying that you did not want your kids in a “racial jungle.”  You supported anti-crime bills that disproportionately affected young black men, whom you called “predatory animals.” You supported Obamacare which has been horrific for working class Americans.  The individual mandate was unconstitutional.  The “one size fits all” approach, which forces young people to pay for geriatric coverage and the elderly to carry maternity coverage drove the cost of insurance sky high; with most Americans seeing more than a 200% increase in health insurance premiums.  And there are still 30 million Americans without health insurance. Your “big fucking deal” has done more harm than good.

Lastly, we can look at your history of bribery and extorsion during your years as Vice President.  You and your son, Hunter, became billionaires by strong arming foreign governments and selling influence around the world.  I cannot think of a more corrupt, self-serving person who has ever sought the White House than you – maybe Mrs. Clinton, but it would be close.

I only hope that the “Deplorables” turn out in large enough numbers to prevent you party from stealing this election.  The course that you are plotting for our nation will not end well, whether you are elected or not.  You and your Party have set a course that can only end in violence.

 

 

Only 6% - That's Something to Consider

 Quietly, with very little fanfare and absolutely no coverage in the mainstream news media, the Centers for Disease Control released “new” information on American Covid 19 deaths.  The CDC reported that of the 161, 392 deaths covered in the report, only 6%, or 9,684, had only Covid listed as a cause of death.  The other 94% had, on average 2.6 other diseases listed as “comorbidities”.  It is fair to assume that in most cases one or more of the 2.6 “comorbidities” predated the Covid, resulting in weakened immune systems, making contracting the Covid more likely.  Taking the CDC report at its face value, any thinking person must wonder why we’re still acting like this thing is the “black death”?

People who were paying attention questioned the death toll numbers after about two weeks of the constant reporting.  “Experts” warned that New York City would need 50,000 ventilators and thousands of additional hospital beds. President Trump used war time powers to force manufacturers to produce ventilators.  He sent the Army Corps of Engineers to New York to build field hospitals in Central Park and to convert the Javits Convention Center into a medical facility.  To meet the projections of the “experts”. The President also sent the US Navy hospital ship “Comfort” to NY.  All told, the Government added nearly 5,000 beds to the city’s treatment capacity.  Doctors stopped seeing non – Covid patients and stopped doing all but life essential emergency surgeries.  The entire nation’s health care system poised, primed to treat the hundreds of thousands of expected China virus victims.

All that planning and preparation and the hundreds of thousands of dying people failed to materialize.

The Comfort staff only treated 182 patients before the Navy recalled her.  By mid – April, the City and the Federal government cancelled the construction of the field hospitals.  The tsunami of deathly ill Covid patients never materialized.  Hospital beds stood empty; tens of thousands of ventilators waited – before the “Wizards of Smart” realized that ventilators killed more than they helped. Hospitals around the country were laying off nurses, technicians and doctors because there were no patients.

Thinking people couldn’t help but begin to wonder what was going on. Logic and common sense told those of us who were listening that something very odd was going on with these numbers.  Bear in mind that in March and April, while the nation waited the coming horror, the only health guidance had given us was stay away from crowds, stay home if you don’t feel good, cover your coughs and sneezes, wash your hands, and use hand sanitizer.  Somehow, the experts got it wrong and the China virus did not crush the nation’s healthcare system.

Soon, dozens of county coroners around the country went public complaining that the States were inflating the death counts.  Like this past weekend’s revision in the CDC numbers, the mainstream news media ignored the coroners’ complaints.  But thinking people couldn’t help but wonder.

Remember, if you can, back on the 13th of March when President Trump declared a national emergency and asked for our patience for “15 days” to “flatten the curve”.  Looking back 172 days now, there wasn’t ever a curve that we needed to flatten.

I am fighting the urge to let my rage and sarcasm have full sway here, but there are some valid things that I want to say.  Part of me just wants to unload the gallows humor, the harsh verbal slings, the zippy one-liners guaranteed to enrage a huge chunk of people, but I’d rather have my Faithful Readers give some serious thought to the words that I am writing.

Nothing happens in a vacuum.  People, and therefore by extension, organizations take actions for reasons, or motives, or for some expected gain.  There was a reason that the statisticians at CDC and the various state Health Departments chose to report the deaths this way.  They didn’t just flip a coin, there was a reason, motive, or expectation of gain in the decisions to report deaths “with” rather than simply report deaths “by” Covid 19.  The results of this method of reporting led to a series of bad decisions by a host of governors and others in authority.

One can never make good decisions if all the information one has is flawed.  Consider, if you will, the route that information about the Covid infection took to get to CDC and the governors of our sovereign states.  The outbreak began deep in the heartland of China.  The Chinese government controls the news media with an iron fist.  China also refused to let foreign medical people travel to Wuhan to see conditions for themselves.  We truly do not know how serious the Covid was in Wuhan or in other parts of China.  We have no way of knowing just how accurate the information coming out of China was.

We must not forget that the Chinese government was not pleased with President Trump and the United States during the last half of 2019.  Trump had come down hard on the Chinese during trade negotiations, taking back significant giveaways that previous US administrations had awarded to China.  At the risk of sounding like a conspiracy theorist, is it possible that China hyped the severity of the epidemic, hoping to disrupt the American economy?  Stranger things have happened.

Nor can we know with any certitude if the World Heath Organization truthfully and accurately analyzed and reported their data to the rest of the world. Remember, there is always a reason why an organization chooses to do something.  I am sure that many of us want to believe that the UN and the WHO are only interested in what is best for all of us, but the reality is that the people who make up the UN and the World Health Organization are PEOPLE and can be driven by less than honorable motives.  We cannot assume, considering the long-standing anti-American attitudes in the United Nations, how well-intentioned guidelines coming out of the WHO might not have been.

It is possible, more possible than not, that China brought pressure on the leaders of the WHO to do their bidding with regards to hyping the virus.  It is very possible, that China “bought” the Director – General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus to help in their disinformation campaign against the United States.  “Honorable” men have been bought throughout the history of the world.  There are a very, very few men who cannot be bought.

I write these paragraphs to suggest that our own CDC MAY have been working with very inaccurate data in the beginning.  It is very likely that the Chinese and the WHO had supplied bad data, and the CDC accepted it as being valid. It is likely, that CDC over estimated both the transmissibility and severity of the virus.  It is almost a certainty that the information that our CDC had was faulty, at best, fraudulent at the worst.

One of the most difficult things for anyone – and therefore by extension, any organization to do – is to admit they are wrong.  Once the President asked for the 15 day “quarantine”, CDC could not, or would not, admit that they were wrong.  Perhaps they took the “in for a penny, in for a pound” approach.  

There is, also, the very real possibility that some of the decision makers within the CDC willingly went along with the disinformation campaign to hurt the President’s chances of re-election. The “Deep State” is real and reaches into all levels of the Governments.  It doesn’t really matter, though, what caused China, WHO, and CDC to do what they did.  The result, considering that less than 10,000 people in America have died from Covid 19 alone, has been catastrophic.  

Perhaps it needs an essay of its own, but the complicity of the main stream news media to question and investigate the death counts is the saddest part of this whole ordeal.  Real journalists, real news hounds, would have started digging around back in April when New York City was not hit as hard as the experts projected.  Real journalists would have tried to find the truth.  Our current news stooges are content to parrot the Democrat Party talking points trying to destroy the president.  the vaunted “4th Estate” has fallen so far from the days of Watergate.  Back then, they brought down a president – now they are political lapdogs for the Democrats.

It has become one of my fondest hopes that the whole Covid-19 hoax will someday be exposed.  I’m not counting on it.

That Mask Ain't No Hero's Cape

I think that the virulent militancy of the pro – mask people might concern me almost as much as the blatant attack on our human and civil liberties by certain Democratic governors.  Voters in the affected states will eventually remedy the actions of the governors, but I am afraid that the damage that the “mask, no – mask” controversy has done to our society may never heal.  The level of anger that the pro – mask people are expressing is frightening.

Almost as troubling, and assuredly more annoying, are the self – righteous, sanctimonious, arrogant posts that some of the pro – mask folks are posting on social media.  To their view, they are so much more intelligent, sophisticated, caring, and socially conscious than the rest of us. Frankly, I find myself disagreeing.

Pro – mask folks, you are not more intelligent than we are.  Intelligent people do not accept what the so-called “experts” tell them without applying critical thinking, knowledge guided by experience, their own research, and in the case of anything that comes from any government through any news organization – a hearty dose of skepticism.  For every “scientific” statement supporting masks there is one suggesting they don’t work.  Often, these conflicting statements come from the same “scientific” entity on different days.  You can pick and choose whether the WHO or CDC is in favor of masks or against them.  Both have put out conflicting statements.

An intelligent person will consider the question and apply some common sense and real information to the question.  A virus is tiny. Some are as small as 0.001 microns. A micron, or micrometer, is equivalent to 1/1000 of a millimeter (0.000039 inch).  In real life, an American dime coin is just a little bit thicker than a millimeter.  I’m not sure I can do the math, but a virus is 1/000000 the width of a dime.  Or, stated another way, 100,000 Covid viruses in a pile would only be as tall as a dime is thick.

Most of us can’t even conceive of something that small. It is microscopic, it is tiny.

In comparison, the filter on the N95 mask is 0.3 microns.  The pore size on a surgical mask is 100 microns. Bandanas and other cloth masks have even much larger pore sizes – simply truth, viruses are small enough to penetrate all generally available masks. Your mask isn’t protecting anyone.

Pro – mask folks, you are not more “progressive” or “sophisticated than we are.  You are neither “progressive” nor “sophisticated” because you are wearing a rag across your face when common sense, logic, and about ½ of the published science says you ought not to.  To put it plainly, it’s stupid.  Telling each other that you are both “progressive” and “sophisticated” is simply feeding your delusions.

You all love to tell us how caring and compassionate you are because you’re wearing a mask, you are going to “make a difference”, you are going to “save the planet”.  No, you aren’t.  You are running around with a rag across your face, breathing in all kinds of bacteria and pathogens that are busily growing in that rag over your mouth and nose.  The moisture in your breath and the dark in the fabric make a great incubator for all kinds of organisms in your breath and in the air around you.  You aren’t protecting anyone, you are a freaking, walking, mumbling “typhoid Mary”, spreading God only knows what infectious crap in your wake.  No, you’re not caring and compassionate.  You are annoying and sanctimonious.  You are not making a difference, you are not saving the planet, you are wearing a rag on your face and starting fights with people who disagree with you and who might just know more than you do.

The sun will come up in the east tomorrow morning and will set tomorrow in the west whether you wear a Covid mask or not.  Regardless of what you try to do to stop it, spring time is going to follow winter every year world without end, Amen.  Nothing that you nor I can do will in any impact the natural, physical world around us.  “All we are, is dust in the wind.”

You ain’t no hero and that mask ain’t no cape. 

From where I see it, just having state governors “order” us to wear masks is a far greater risk to our lives than the Covid – 19 virus.  You stand a greater chance of dying in a car accident than you do of contracting, getting sick from, and dying from the Covid – 19 (or, “da Rona” as some of my friends down South call it.).  With each passing day, the news reports x number more cases – but they are counting asymptomatic and fraudulent positive antibody tests as “new” cases.  Almost every day, there is a new report of grotesque mistakes in reporting test results, or a report of unused tests returning with “positive” results.  Even one such report should make an intelligent, “progressive”, sophisticated person question EVERYTHING that the media and governments have reported. 

It is sad to me that one’s life can be so meaningless that one can become fulfilled and driven by wearing a useless facemask.  I am sad that so many people are willing to fight over something that doesn’t matter one wit in the final analysis.

Every one of us is going to die.  That is about the only thing that is certain in life.  Diseases caused by viruses have always been with and always will be.  Various types of the Corona virus cause the common cold.  Over 2 million years of human evolution and there is no “vaccine” to prevent the common cold.  There so – called vaccines for the flu but whether they help is hardly settled science.  I received a flu vaccine one time and as far as I can remember, that was the only winter that I ever got the flu.  I won’t take the pneumonia shot either.  There are countless causes for pneumonia, and the vaccine protects against 5 pathogens.  I’m not a mathematical wizard, but even I can figure out that I am far more likely to get pneumonia from one of the countless other causes and not one of the 5 that the vaccine protects against.  Putting alien material into your body without a huge guarantee of success seems rather stupid to me.

But I have been wrong before.

One of the great hall marks of our American character has always been a healthy “live and let live” attitude.  Until very recently, Americans have been mostly willing to let other Americans be themselves and express themselves with little interference.  Public America was pretty much a complete “free marketplace of ideas”.  A Libertarian heritage of “do what you want to do as long as you don’t hurt anyone else” was a hallmark of our People.  It is no longer.

Over the past 50 years, we have seen in our nation a disturbing trend of intolerance for the expression of many legitimate ideas, social, and political opinions.  I think it began with the anti – American, anti – Vietnam War protesters.  When confronted with opposing ideas, they would shout down and out scream their opposition.  During the last quarter of the 20^th century, the “progressive” left added “political correctness” to their arsenal of censorship tools.  The political left has determined what things can be said in public discourse.  Should you present an unapproved opinion – you will be labeled as a racist, bigot, homophobe, or some other negative label.  And, once labeled as such, your opinion is no longer valid because you are whatever they have labeled you.  And no one wants to be labeled as an “enemy of decency”.

The “mask – no mask” conflict has moved thought control and censorship into new and dangerous territory.  The “progressive left” is now “virtue – signaling”, virtue – shaming”, and “team identifying” with their assault on those who won’t mask up.  Now, this is not entirely new – they have been using similar tactics with “climate change deniers” for half a generation.  Your value as a person – to the left – is not what you contribute, not what you create, not the help that you provide, but rather whether or not you hold the “opinions”.  One can be a disgusting, reprehensible, vile person, but if one expresses the correct opinions he remains with the “right” group.  Holding (or expressing those opinions) out weighs whatever short comings a person may have.  Identifying the compliant and the non- compliant will make it easier the next time a government wises to impose its will on the people.  They will know who will surrender and who will resist.

It does not matter to me which side of the “mask – no mask” controversy that you are on.  All that I care about is that you be decent, kind, and tolerant of others.  Please accept, as I do of mine, that your opinion may not be right.  Treat those who disagree with you with tolerance, forbearance, patience, and forgiveness.  As the Good Book says, “judge not, lest you be judged” and “do unto others as you would have done to you”. 

And if the masked folk are right, those of us who are “unmasked” are going to be dead before long anyways, so be kind to one another.

The Price They Paid

On this day two hundred and 44 years ago, 56 leaders from the 13 American colonies signed and published a simple document declaring the colonies to no longer be British possessions, but rather, independent sovereign states.  These were not radical, wild eyed revolutionaries; they were lawyers, farmers, merchants – men of stature in their communities.  They had worked within the system for years to redress grievances, to no avail.  Breaking away from the Crown was their last option.

We can most assuredly know that these men had thoughtfully, prayerfully weighed their options and considered all the risks that they were taking.  Signing that declaration brought them up against the single most powerful man in the world at that time.  Each one of the signers knew that with their signature they had crossed the line and become “out lawed” in the original sense of the word – no longer protected by any of the King’s laws.  They risked everything for their belief that men should be free to govern themselves.

I am taking the liberty of sharing this with you, Faithful Readers.  It comes from michealwsmith.com web site.  I have heard both Paul Harvey and Rush Limbaugh read this on their radio shows.

This is the Price They Paid

Have you ever wondered what happened to the 56 men who signed the Declaration of Independence?

Five signers were captured by the British as traitors, and tortured before they died. Twelve had their homes ransacked and burned. Two lost their sons in the revolutionary army, another had two sons captured. Nine of the 56 fought and died from wounds or hardships of the revolutionary war.

They signed and they pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor.

What kind of men were they? Twenty-four were lawyers and jurists. Eleven were merchants, nine were farmers and large plantation owners, men of means, well educated. But they signed the Declaration of Independence knowing full well that the penalty would be death if they were captured.

Carter Braxton of Virginia, a wealthy planter and trader, saw his ships swept from the seas by the British Navy. He sold his home and properties to pay his debts, and died in rags.

Thomas McKean was so hounded by the British that he was forced to move his family almost constantly. He served in the Congress without pay, and his family was kept in hiding. His possessions were taken from him, and poverty was his reward.

Vandals or soldiers or both, looted the properties of Ellery, Clymer, Hall, Walton, Gwinnett, Heyward, Ruttledge, and Middleton.

At the battle of Yorktown, Thomas Nelson Jr., noted that the British General Cornwallis had taken over the Nelson home for his headquarters. The owner quietly urged General George Washington to open fire. The home was destroyed, and Nelson died bankrupt.

Francis Lewis had his home and properties destroyed. The enemy jailed his wife, and she died within a few months.

John Hart was driven from his wife’s bedside as she was dying. Their 13 children fled for their lives. His fields and his gristmill were laid to waste. For more than a year he lived in forests and caves, returning home to find his wife dead and his children vanished. A few weeks later he died from exhaustion and a broken heart. Norris and Livingston suffered similar fates.

Such were the stories and sacrifices of the American Revolution. These were not wild eyed, rabble-rousing ruffians. They were soft-spoken men of means and education. They had security, but they valued liberty more. Standing tall, straight, and unwavering, they pledged: “For the support of this declaration, with firm reliance on the protection of the divine providence, we mutually pledge to each other, our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.”

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Many of them lost their lives and their fortunes – none of them lost their honor.  This declaration was the first step in forming the most amazing nation that the world has ever seen; a nation founded to protect God given liberties.  Enjoy the sun, the cookouts, the fireworks, but sometime over this holiday weekend give some thought to sacrifice and honor and what it should mean to Americans.