Goings and Comings

There are some things we ought to have a conversation about in theoretical form, ahead of too much emotion or time pressure. We’ll cover a couple of those today.

A University of Texas class photo
in the shape of Texas, 2013
found here

Texit

Texas is a bit different from other states. Texas was an independent nation, not a colony or territory, before joining the United States. And it has kept the notion that it has the right to return to being an independent nation.

Let’s be clear about this: joining the United States means pledging allegiance to the republic of the United States of America, “one nation under God, indivisible.”

Very much like entering into a marriage covenant, this contract to unite with the other states—and “state” means a self-governing sovereign entity; it is not a province—is intended to be permanent. Most countries think of themselves as a state—a sovereign nation. Here in America, the United States is a state, applying that meaning. So the 50 states are actually states united within a single confederated state. Sorry if that’s confusing, but it wasn’t confusing for the founders when they did it.

So there was no intention of ever dividing again, once uniting. However, we know that marriage contracts, which are also intended to be permanent, do sometimes end. As with other contracts, they can end when one of the parties breaks the contract, meaning they refuse to abide by the agreements in the contract.

The agreements we abide by are contained in our US Constitution. It is a particular form of government. While there are democratic elements in it (voting by the people is involved), it is not a democracy, which would mean tyranny by the majority, regardless of laws, ethics, or agreements. It is a republic, which means there are representatives sent to represent the people, instead of having the people vote directly on each and every issue.

But it is also a particular kind of republic. The representatives can’t go do whatever they deem best on any given day; they must adhere to the limitations of the contract—the Constitution. What we have is a constitutional republic. That is what Texas—and each of the other states—signed on to join.

I am very much in favor of keeping connections that I value. But you can’t do that on one side only. There’s something about loyalty you have to get right. It’s a two-way thing. Being loyal to someone who is not loyal to you doesn’t maintain ties. You have to know what principles you’re acting on and be loyal to those principles—which will include loyalty to those people who are loyal along with you.

Loyalty to a person, or even a group of people, is the wrong idea. Yes, you want to be loyal to the person you’re married to and the people in your family. That means you seek the best for them. It doesn’t mean you follow them down a wrong path. You don’t hide a child from the law when they have done a heinous crime, for example. You don’t support an unfaithful and unrepentant spouse in mockery of your marriage contract.

So, how does this relate to Texas and the United States? If and when there comes a time when we can no longer say that the United States of America is a constitutional republic, then the contract is broken. This is not something to take lightly. As it says in our Declaration of Independence,

Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient Causes; and accordingly all Experience hath shewn, that Mankind are more disposed to suffer, while Evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the Forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long Train of Abuses and Usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object, evinces a Design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their Right, it is their Duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future Security.

That comes just before the list of abuses in the Declaration, many of which are grievous, but many we will recognize today as much milder than what we’ve been suffering under a federal government that is usurping ever greater power.

To name just a few relatively new ones:

·       Government refuses to hear the evidence of voter fraud that has affected the state of Texas (and all the other states), dismissed the case as if it were none of our business how much other states use illegalities to affect the outcome of their elections.

·       Government has refused to protect our border—the longest length of which affects the state of Texas. Texas has long had to spend from its own treasury to do the border protection work that the federal government refuses to do. And then, when illegal aliens are apprehended and turned over to the federal government, the federal government sets them free among legal Texans, and requires Texans to pay for their food, housing, and education—and to suffer their crimes.

·       Government has trodden on our natural God-given rights of religion, speech, and assembly; has collected information to be used against us without warrant; and is attempting to disarm us so that we have no self-protection.

·       Government has attempted to control what is taught in schools, and to limit as much as possible the choice of parents to use non-public forms of education. Particularly, government has tried to institute a false history about our country and its founding, meanwhile indoctrinating our young people with harmful sexual deviancy.

·       Government has attempted to label as “terrorists” anyone who doesn’t go along with its usurpations. There is clearly a political double standard, and justice is no longer blind.

·       Government is currently in the process of arranging circumstances so that dissent will be stifled, and opposing views will never again have an opportunity to gain power by the normal means of election of legislators and executives, or appointments to courts who will abide by the written law. This includes threats (studies underway already) to pack the court, and to add states designed to give more representation to the current regime.

·       Government threatens to de-platform any dissenting voices, and threatens to “unite” by “cleansing” dissenting ideas from public discourse, using political prosecution, incarceration, and “deprogramming,” or brainwashing, and recruiting large tech companies to discriminate based on ideas or opinions, even affecting the ability to buy, sell, and making a living.

The list could go on almost endlessly. But that’s enough for a demonstration that we need to have the discussion.

Rep. Kyle Biedermann
from his Texas Legislature page

In Texas our legislature meets every other year for about five months of regular session, plus sometimes a limited special session (this year that will happen to address redistricting once the census data is available). The session just got underway a week ago. One of the recently filed bills is HB 1359, filed January 26, 2021, by Rep. Kyle Biedermann, of District 73, around Fredericksburg. It asks for the following question to be placed before the people on the November 2, 2021, ballot:

Should the legislature of the State of Texas submit a plan for leaving the United States of America and establishing an independent republic?

I’ve thought about this idea for a while. Actually, practically every Texan has, because we’re unique in our awareness of our sovereignty. Under Obama, I wondered if we needed something that would trigger such a question to be put before the people for vote. I thought it would be a longer process: put it in the party platform, propose bills to the legislature through multiple sessions, eventually pass something that would only come before the people once some particular egregious federal government actions were taken. And, who knows; it may still take forever.

But things have seemed compressed lately. We did indeed get a plank this past year in the platform:

65.          State Sovereignty: Pursuant to Article 1, Section 1, of the Texas Constitution, the federal government has impaired our right of local self-government. Therefore, federally mandated legislation that infringes upon the 10th Amendment rights of Texas should be ignored, opposed, refused, and nullified. Texas retains the right to secede from the United States should a future president and congress change our political system from a constitutional republic to any other system.

My records show the concept was introduced in the Constitutional Issues subcommittee in 2018 as well, but it didn’t make it into the final platform. That was two years into a Trump presidency when it didn’t seem urgent. Now, suddenly, it does.

I don’t find explicit wording in the Texas Constitution allowing for secession, nor any disallowing for it. Nor do limits on the states in the US Constitution specifically say states cannot secede. But it is understood generally that we are “indivisible”—that is, we can’t divide ourselves off. And there was a Civil War fought to keep states from seceding (other issues, such as slavery were involved, of course). Texas was one of those seceding states in the 1860s, brought back in by war.

No one currently talking about Texit wants war. We want freedom. We want to belong to a country abiding by the Constitution of the United States, which we still view as law and feel loyalty to.

So, we’re at the stage of marriage counseling. If the party that has strayed from the terms of the marriage contract refuses to repent or even move toward accommodation—and in fact continues to abuse the party that has held to the contract—then there may be a need to separate.

When Glenn Beck mentioned this recently, he stated plainly that he doesn’t think we should secede (he lives in Texas); he thinks those who don’t want the Constitution should leave.

I agree. I love our Constitution. But, just as an abusive and unfaithful husband shouldn’t have the power to keep his wife in a contract he has broken, nor beat her back into submission, the US federal government shouldn’t have the power to force Texas to stay where the government isn’t the Constitution we signed up for, but is instead a totalitarian regime attempting to wipe out our freedoms, our prosperity, and our civilization.

If there must be a separation, can we do it by retaining the Constitution—along with any other states that want to retain the Constitution—and allow the remainder, who prefer a socialist form of government, to go their separate ways?

If we’re in that marriage counseling stage, we need to be able to talk as if such a separation is on the table, for leverage to encourage repentance of the contract-breaking party. As our founders did with Great Britain, we need to know we have tried every means to work through the differences and have our grievances redressed.

The White House, viewed from the Washington Monument, September 2015

 

DC Statehood

I’m not giving myself much space for this second large issue. But it’s pertinent as well. Washington, DC, is a particular kind of entity, intentionally. It was set up as the seat of federal government, outside of all existing states, so that no state would be either favored or burdened with the logistics of maintaining the federal government.

It isn’t unique. The Vatican, for example, is a city entity of its own, located within the city of Rome, but not part of it.

The District of Columbia was limited in size, ten square miles, set up as mainly official spaces: the capitol building, the White House, monuments, museums, and government office buildings. It was not intended to be a city where people lived—except as a second home while performing their government duties. Even services, such as restaurants, could employ people in the city who lived without.

I remember a discussion, early 1990s, on radio with host Barry Farber, who in his youth had worked in the capital. But he lived outside the city, I think in Virginia, so that he could retain his right to vote. I hadn’t taken notice of that distinction until then. But to those living and working there, it was a two-century understanding by then: if you want to have the right to vote, you have to maintain a residence in a state.

Over the years, DC has been expanded. Three rather large areas were annexed in the 1880s. It is now a large city, including work, industries, and services well beyond the maintenance of the federal government. It is so big that living outside the city while working inside the city isn’t possible for all. That space that got annexed is where workers live. That’s why it was a bad idea to annex the larger area.

If you look at the reasons for setting up a capital outside of any state, then you can see why it is unthinkable to grant statehood to the federal capital of the United States. In Federalist 43, James Madison wrote,

The indispensable necessity of complete authority at the seat of government, carries its own evidence with it.… Without it, not only the public authority might be insulted and its proceedings interrupted with impunity; but a dependence of the members of the general government on the State comprehending the seat of the government, for protection in the exercise of their duty, might bring on the national councils an imputation of awe or influence, equally dishonorable to the government and dissatisfactory to the other members of the Confederacy.

His vocabulary is challenging for people raised on memes and tweets, so let’s just say that people living in the capital’s state would have unfair access and influence on the legislators and government officials, and those officials would feel beholden to that state above other states, because the work they must do is accommodated there.

In 1961, the residents of DC were given an electoral college vote. But, without becoming a state, they don’t have their own US representative. That single delegate gives them limited voting power, similar to Puerto Rico or American Samoa. Personally, I believe it is wrong to give legislative representation to DC. Who are they representing? Those involved in their major industry—the federal government. The city itself has a mayor and a governing board, elected by the residents, overseen by the federal government. The people have input into that representation.

Again, people who choose to live there were supposed to know they were making a decision that disallowed them from voting. And it would be better if the residential and nongovernmental businesses had not been annexed into the US capital city.

One thing about that city: they love big government. It is their bread-and-butter industry. So much so that they don’t seem to mind that it has brought them crime and poor schools—from which they are not allowed to escape.

It is their taste for big government that makes the issue pertinent right now, under a Biden administration. He promised (threatened) to pack the courts: by adding as many justices as he wanted, in order to guarantee a majority who share his opinions; and by adding states such as DC, Puerto Rico, and maybe Guam, if he could guarantee two Democrat senators and as many congressmen for each. The purpose is to guarantee perpetual power to his party, nothing more. Any talk of “fairness” is just rhetoric.

If the concern is actually about getting representation to the residents of DC, the rational solution would be to split the city and return the annexed parts to their original states, limiting DC to its original 10 square miles, which were never intended for permanent residents.

 

Both of these discussions are in early stages. But they wouldn’t be discussed at all if the federal government were not usurping authority. Let’s have the discussion while heads are still relatively cool. Again, if we’re at the marriage counseling stage, you have to be able to speak freely. If you shut down discussion, then you’re not only breaking the contract, you’re making sure it stays broken.

 

Extra Reading

·       Texas Constitution  

·       HB 1359 bill text, authored by Rep. Kyle Biederman 

·       “Here's Why Washington D.C. Isn't a State” by Tessa Berenson for TIME, April 15, 2016. 

·       TEXAS SECEDE! FAQ 

·       “Parting Company” by Walter E. Williams, Nov. 28, 2012. 

There’s Something Wrong with Masculine Girl Power

I wonder where and how messages get sent through the whole of society. Who starts them? Who sends them? Who propagates them? And why don’t we more often question them?

For the sake of promoting a thriving civilization, I’m going to look at one of these today. Like in the “telephone” game, we can start with something that gets very distorted. Here’s a beginning statement:

·       Girls/women are just as important as boys/men in this world.

Who would argue with that? Not someone civilized. But, from this basic idea that we agree on come a great many distortions. Here are a few:

·       Girls/women can do anything boys/men can do.

·       Girls/women should do the same things that boys/men do, because they can do them as well or better.

·       The things boys/men do are the important things, so those are the things girls/women should do.

·       The things girls/women do are not as important as the things boys/men do, so girls/women should set aside those things in favor of the things boys/men do.

·       Marriage has been used to hold women down; it’s not good for women.

·       Women don’t need men in their lives; women are better off without men.

·       Children are a burden on women that they shouldn’t want—but if they do, only in small numbers, as they might choose to have a pet in their life.

·       Women shouldn’t have to suffer the consequences of sex by being forced to have a baby.

The distortions start out subtly. I’ve been noticing the distortions in movies lately, particularly movies aimed at girls. The intended message appears to be, “Girls are as physically strong as men, or even stronger,” which isn’t biologically true.

Take the new live-action Mulan. In the original, the theme was that a young woman sacrificed herself for the sake of her father and family.

live action Mulan movie poster
found here

In both versions, Mulan’s father was required to serve in the military at a point in his life when he was lame and old. He had no son, and it was shameful to the family to offer no support, so the father was going to sacrifice himself. But his sacrifice would take him away from being protector and provider of the family, and would mean the ruin of them all. So Mulan, seeing this, took his commission papers and sword and portrayed herself as a young man serving in the military.

animated Mulan movie poster
found here

In the original, she was weak and small, untrained and pretty clutzy. But so were a number of other new soldiers. So she trained with them and got somewhat better, although she was not a standout soldier.

In the new version, she shows near magical abilities of balance and agility—because a powerful chi was in her. While she trained with the other new soldiers, she surpassed them, despite her small size and previous lack of training. It was all that chi in her. In one scene, they are required to carry water up a steep mountain. It’s heavy, and wears down many of the stronger young men around her. But she finds that, because of her chi, she can practically float up the mountain carrying the heavy water.

In the live action, the only real challenge to her fighting ability is another female warrior. Because the new theme is, women can be the best warriors, but they aren’t respected, because they’re women. So get out there and show them.

In both stories, Mulan is discovered to be a female. In the animated version, it is because she is wounded, and they of course find out while treating her. In the live action, it is because she lets her hair down and reveals herself to be a woman, to be her true self, because otherwise she doesn’t have as much chi—even though she has had it through all the training. Then she is shunned as a fraud and possibly as a witch, since that’s what they think of warrior women.

In both versions, after being outed as female, she becomes aware of the threat to the empire and must rush to the city to protect it, despite being ostracized. In the animated version, she uses her smarts and boldness, and recruits help from friends. In the live action, she uses her over-the-top fighting skills, plus brings the warrior witch to her defense at a critical moment.

In the end of both, Mulan is honored for saving the empire. In the first, she returns home to her loving family, having brought them honor—plus there’s the possibility that her commanding officer might have more interest in her as a wife. In the second, she’s honored briefly by her family and then goes on to become a palace guard, giving up family life.

I’m not saying you shouldn’t see the new movie. Visually it’s beautiful. But afterward, what do you talk about? Do you ask your daughter what she thinks about how Mulan is valued? Because she’s valued, not for being a female, but for being better at male things—like being a warrior and being strong and skilled in combat against other strong well-trained men—than she is for those lowly female things like getting married or nurturing children. Those things are not valued here, in this latest film.

There’s something to be said for noticing your gifts, developing them, and using them to serve others. But what if your daughter doesn’t have the “chi” to make her magically stronger and more skilled in battle than practically any man? What if her gifts and desires position her better for something this movie and society seem to be devaluing? What do you tell her then?

There was another example we watched recently, a Netflix original called Enola Holmes. The teenage younger sister of detective Sherlock Holmes is, in her mid-teens, both a developing brilliant detective and action hero, apparently in the footsteps of her mother, who has recently abandoned her for more important female emancipation work. She spends much of the movie rescuing a young member of Parliament who is in danger of being murdered. She stumbles, makes mistakes, and gets into difficult situations that sometimes require her older brother or someone to get her out of. But mostly she figures out where to be even before her brother. And her martial arts skills are pretty intense for a girl of the late 19^th Century.

Enola Holmes, image found here

It’s a fun little movie overall. But, again, she excels at being a man—stronger, better at battle. There’s the braininess too, but only if it is coupled with the superhuman strength in physical combat.

What do you talk about afterward? That a girl can be every bit as clever at detective work—or other things that require good thinking skills? Good. That has always been true. And you can put her in karate classes, or some other martial arts training to boost the power in her 78-pound body. But what if a 180-pound male has martial arts training? Who’s going to win in combat? The stronger one. Who is the physically stronger one? Rarely is it the woman, and never is it the 78-pound girl.

What happens when she realizes that basic fact and feels less than adequate, because all the stories are showing women are valued—not because they’re women or do uniquely female things, but because they do men things better than men do. If your daughter can’t do physically impossible things, culture is actually telling her she is less valuable.

It’s the exact opposite of the message of equality we agree is positive.

Three years ago I wrote a piece called “Feminism Does Women Wrong,” in which I said:

Feminism has been about insisting there is no difference between men and women, and then pressuring women to hide their femininity and behave as if they are men.

That is not freeing; that is limiting. And it is anti-woman.

 A couple of days later (exactly three years ago today, it turns out), I wrote another piece on feminism called “Feminism Turns Women into Bad Men.” In it I said this:

Feminism is an ideology at odds with the feminine. Feminism, in a misguided scree, declares that women can be men as well or better than men can be men.

There are many ways in which men and women are equal. Intelligence, according to IQ data, is essentially equal. Individuals differ. And interests differ. Women who enjoy math, engineering, and other left-brain-labeled fields do as well (sometimes better) in those fields as men who enjoy those things. And men who enjoy arts, humanities, social sciences, and other right-brain-labeled fields do as well (sometimes better) in those fields as women do. Nevertheless, a larger number of women gravitate toward the “right-brain” side, and a larger number of men gravitate toward the “left-brain” side.

But it’s a rare woman who makes a better physical laborer than a man. If you can’t carry a fire victim over your shoulder to rescue them, maybe firefighter isn’t the best career choice for you. Same for construction fields, heavy equipment operations, oil rig worker, or a lot of other physically tough jobs.

If you’re 5’4” and 120 lbs., you probably can’t lift a 100-lb. sack of grain as easily as a 6’ tall 190 lb. man. Fact of nature, like gravity, not worth fighting.

Should qualifying women be prevented? No. And in my lifetime (I’m upper 50s) they haven’t been. And during my lifetime, when they do equal work, they get equal pay.

Women are not lesser women, or less feminine, for pursuing something different from most women, nor are men lesser men, or less masculine, for pursuing something different from most men.

But women who pursue something to prove that women can do it too are not doing it to help women; they are doing it with the attitude that women’s choices are less valuable. This is what feminism does; it shames the feminine.

One thing I have found particularly dismaying this past week is young mothers who are so excited that their daughters are seeing a female Vice President. They see this as a good thing, even though the woman in that position started her career by having sex with a person in power who would give her advantages over honest women and men. She had a particularly corrupt history, and was rejected even by the people of her party in the primary election. She accused the eventual nominee of sexual abuse and racism, but then was proud to join him on the ticket. They “won” in the wake of greater voter fraud in more places than we have ever experienced in this country. Her most sacred policy is abortion on demand, paid for by taxpayers, up through the moment of birth and possibly beyond.

Is Kamala Harris the best person to do the job? Clearly not. If you’re praising her simply for having female body parts while being in a traditionally male job, you’re sexist. If this is something you’re telling your daughter, you’re part of the problem.

Did we, in this country, have a problem with Margaret Thatcher’s leadership in Great Britain in the 1980s because she was female? No. Did we have a problem with Golda Meier leading Israel in the 1970s? No. Or Indira Gandhi’s leadership in India in the 1960s? No. It wasn’t an issue of sexism keeping women out of the top US positions; it was not having the right woman. And we haven’t seen that yet. But there have been multiple women in near top positions: Condoleeza Rice, Nikki Haley, Kayleigh McEnany, and on the Supreme Court Amy Comey Barrett—none of whom condone abortion or slept their way into power.

If you’re going to talk to your daughter about her possibilities, why not help her consider how to be the best woman she can be, as God intended her to be, using her natural talents together with her femininity—rather than discounting her womanhood to make her into a wannabe man?

Help her live a life that contributes to civilization—and is also a full and abundant life. Help her be a good woman.

Have those talks with her—because the world is constantly giving those distorted messages. Have civilizing conversations with your sons too, because they’re also getting distorted messages. You don't get civilization by telling men they're bad for being masculine and telling women they're bad for not being masculine.

Keeping the Historical Record

History is something I’m concerned about losing. There are various sources for history: contemporaneous news; government documents; and personal records, such as journals, letters, and photos.

image found here

But sources change more easily when they’re digital, not physical. We don’t have a physical newspaper coming to the house anymore. Online sources are subject to online availability. They say that anything you put up on the internet, on social media for example, is forever. But they also delete the Twitter account of the President of the United States for saying things they don’t like. All the President’s direct communications to the American people, all that history is gone—unless someone archived it along the way.

The Epoch Times did a very long (I think 16 hours) livestream on January 6^th, past midnight, and YouTube didn’t allow it to publish. [That is possibly only for length, not content, although yesterday YouTube demonetized all Epoch Times channels. YouTube so far provides the best livestream features, but The Epoch Times company can no longer make money through YouTube, and this does appear to be for not sharing YouTube’s opinions.] I watched several hours live, but when I went back to rewatch interviews and events, I couldn’t. Some of them were reproduced individually on The Epoch Times website, but some of what I wanted is gone. History as recorded was lost.

I was never on Twitter, but I often saw tweets reproduced on other social media. Among these were President Trump’s tweeted short videos on the afternoon of January 6^th, calling for peace. I saved two on Facebook to refer to later, and also a brief recap of that same announcement by press secretary Kayleigh McEnany; even though these were separate from Twitter, they were removed by Facebook. People have tried telling me the President congratulated the bad guys on breaching the capitol; I never saw any such thing.* He only addressed the good people—the million of his supporters who remained peaceful and outside, whom he told to go home in peace. The thing that was against Twitter’s “community standards” was his claim that the election was stolen, not a call for or a support of violence. If there was an additional communication, it wasn’t included in the impeachment documents, and I have not been able to find it captured elsewhere.

What I’m saying is, contemporaneous digital news is both impermanent and unreliable.

Government documents are only available when the government allows them to be. If you know already that something probably exists, you can do a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to get it. That can be time-consuming, possibly costly (for photocopies), and dependent on government’s willingness.

As for personal records, this generation is less likely than past generations to keep physical personal records, printed photos, and handwritten letters. Even journals tend to be kept online. What of the many people who use social media as their personal record? All those baby milestones. All the cute things their kids say and do. They are dependent on your keeping an account—which we learn now is totally at the discretion of Big Tech. There are ways to archive your account. Check for videos online showing you how. I’ve done it. But the result was an unreadable file, no photos or images. I don’t know how to use that in any meaningful way.

Most of us by now know to back up our computers. But what happens if you lose access to your cloud account? It’s like having your house burn down along with all your memorabilia.

This is to say, history is something that has to be intentionally preserved. And that isn’t as easy as it used to be. Today I’m intentionally preserving a few US history details for future reference.

A Facebook friend put up a collection of items yesterday, just to mark where we are at this point in history. I thought these were good to remember: 

·         Gasoline is currently $2.11 per gallon in Texas.

·         Interest rates are 2.25% for a 30-year mortgage.

·         The stock market closed at 31,094, though we have been fighting COVID for 11 months.

·         We have not had any new wars or conflicts in the last 4 years.

·         ISIS and N Korea have been quiet.

·         The housing market is the strongest it has been in years. Homes have appreciated at an unbelievable rate and sell well.

·         Peace deals in the Middle East were signed by 4 countries.

·         Unemployment sits at 6.7% in spite of COVID.

·         Gold $1849 / Silver $25.21 / Platinum $1,109.91.

That will give us a benchmark in the future.

President Donald J. Trump, giving his farewell speech on January 19, 2021
screenshot from C-SPAN

Along those lines, President Trump gave two speeches this week, recounting the accomplishments of his administration. This list is mostly from the transcript of Tuesday's speech, with some slight editing: 

·         We passed the largest package of tax cuts and reforms in American history.

·         We slashed more job-killing regulations than any administration had ever done before.

·         We fixed our broken trade deals:

o   withdrew from the horrible Trans-Pacific Partnership.

o   withdrew from the impossible Paris Climate Accord.

o   renegotiated the one-sided South Korea deal.

o   replaced NAFTA with the groundbreaking USMCA—that’s Mexico and Canada.

o   imposed historic and monumental tariffs on China; made a great new deal with China.

·         After COVID hit here and around the world, America outperformed other countries economically because of our incredible economy that we built.

·         We also unlocked our energy resources and became the world’s number-one producer of oil and natural gas by far.

·         We reignited America’s job creation and achieved record-low unemployment for African Americans, Hispanic Americans, Asian Americans, women—almost everyone.

·         Incomes soared, wages boomed, the American Dream was restored, and millions were lifted from poverty in just a few short years.

·         The stock market set one record after another, with 148 stock market highs during this short period of time.

o   boosted the retirements and pensions of hardworking citizens.

o   401(k)s are at a level they’ve never been at before, both before and after the pandemic.

·         We rebuilt the American manufacturing base, opened up thousands of new factories, and brought back the beautiful phrase: “Made in the USA.”

·         We doubled the child tax credit and signed the largest-ever expansion of funding for childcare and development.

·         We joined with the private sector to secure commitments to train more than 16 million American workers for the jobs of tomorrow.

·         We produced not one, but two COVID-19 vaccines with record-breaking speed, and more will quickly follow. They call it a “medical miracle.”

·         When the virus took its brutal toll on the world’s economy, we launched the fastest economic recovery our country has ever seen.

o   We passed nearly $4 trillion in economic relief,

o   saved or supported over 50 million jobs,

o   and slashed the unemployment rate in half.

·         We created choice and transparency in healthcare.

·         We stood up to Big Pharma, especially in our effort to get favored-nations clauses added, which will give us the lowest prescription drug prices anywhere in the world.

·         We passed:

o   VA Choice,

o   VA Accountability,

o   Right to Try,

o   and landmark criminal justice reform.

·         We confirmed three new justices of the United States Supreme Court.

·         We appointed nearly 300 federal judges to interpret our Constitution as written.

·         We achieved the most secure border in US history.

·         We have given our brave border agents and heroic ICE officers the tools they need to do their jobs better than they have ever done before, and to enforce our laws and keep America safe.

o   This includes historic agreements with Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador,

o   along with more than 450 miles of powerful new wall.

·         We restored American strength at home and American leadership abroad. The world respects us again.

·         We reclaimed our sovereignty by standing up for America at the United Nations and withdrawing from the one-sided global deals that never served our interests.

o   NATO countries are now paying hundreds of billions of dollars more. We were paying the cost for the world. Now the world is helping us.

·         With nearly $3 trillion, we fully rebuilt the American military.

o   We launched the first new branch of the United States Armed Forces in 75 years: the Space Force.

o   American astronauts returned to space on American rockets for the first time in many, many years.

·         We revitalized our alliances and rallied the nations of the world to stand up to China like never before.

·         We obliterated the ISIS caliphate and ended the wretched life of its founder and leader, al Baghdadi.

·         We stood up to the oppressive Iranian regime and killed the world’s top terrorist, Iranian butcher Qasem Soleimani.

·         We recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and recognized Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights.

President Trump, signing the Abraham Accords
Reuters photo found here

·         We achieved a series of historic peace deals in the Middle East. The Abraham Accords opened the doors to a future of peace and harmony, not violence and bloodshed.

·         We are bringing our soldiers home.

·         I am especially proud to be the first President in decades who has started no new wars.

·         We have reasserted the sacred idea that, in America, the government answers to the people.

o   Our allegiance is not to special interests, corporations, or global entities;

o   It’s to our children, our citizens, and to our nation itself.

He summarizes with this:

This, I hope, will be our greatest legacy: Together, we put the American people back in charge of our country. We restored self-government. We restored the idea that in America no one is forgotten, because everyone matters and everyone has a voice. We fought for the principle that every citizen is entitled to equal dignity, equal treatment, and equal rights because we are all made equal by God.

There was plenty of time before the election, and also since, to heighten awareness of the dangers we’re in. Biden is starting out by doing when he threatened to do. On day one:

·         He killed 50,000 jobs by rescinding federal permits for the Keystone Pipeline.

·         He forces women and girls to accept biological males in their bathrooms, dressing rooms, and private spaces.

·         He will, by executive order, place us under control of the Paris Climate Accord—as Obama did, without congressional approval as required for a treaty—even though we have outperformed the agreement while not subjecting ourselves to economic hardships it unfairly imposes on the US but not on nations like China.

·         He plans a 100-day mask mandate and economic shutdown in response to COVID—even though most people already wear masks, socially distance, and suffer from business closures and limitations—none of which have stopped the spread of the virus.

·         He plans to unilaterally implement DACA, without regard to eligibility.

·         He will impose “diversity training” in government agencies.

·         He cancelled contracts for constructing the border wall.

·         He got rid of the 1776 project to teach actual American history and our founding.

Look through the list. Find one that benefits the American people. Find one that ought to even be considered constitutional.

That’s just a partial day-one glimpse of what is to come, which includes rewriting history, stopping free speech, and “cleansing” America of opposing views (defined in this newspeak** as “unity”).

The records, if we can keep them, will show each and every one of his policies leading away from freedom and toward tyranny, away from prosperity and toward poverty, and away from civilization and toward savagery.

Being able to say “we told you so” in the wake of the tremendous loss of our constitutional republic is not what we freedom lovers would call satisfying. But, one thing we know from history is that God is in control. And we know how His story ends. I am looking forward to that Great day***—which it will be for us—rather than the Dreadful day that it is likely to be for the tyrants and their enablers.

__________________

* Twitter has admitted the words do not incite violence or speak of violence; the claim, "The President's statements can be mobilized by different audiences, including to incite violence." As Daniel Oliver, Jr., explains in a commentary, "In other words, they admit that there's no incitement in the tweets themselves, but Trump may be removed from the public square because of how other might reasonably or unreasonably react." That standard is so arbitrary as to be simply censorship at the whim of the Big Tech provider.

** Refers to George Orwell's book 1984, in which the prevailing government statement was put out daily, called newspeak, and previous words were disposed of, instantly rewriting history.

*** Malachi 4:5 "before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord."