Governor Brown thinks we’re liars. A May 26,2021, mask guidance article by Elisabeth Nieshalla described Governor Brown’s Oregon Health Authority’s new mask guidance as follows:
Businesses, employers, and churches may allow fully vaccinated persons to not wear masks in their establishments but, if they do that, the establishments must have a system in place to check the vaccination status of the persons, essentially a vaccine passport-type system.
If the businesses, employers, or churches do not set up a vaccination-check system, then they must require everyone to wear masks.
This insidious policy tells Oregonians that Governor Brown and her Oregon Health Authority believe that we’re liars and cannot be trusted to tell the truth. The policy also allows Governor Brown to maintain her mask mandate in perpetuity and cynically say that she does not have a mask mandate for vaccinated Oregonians. After all, she can say businesses, employers, and churches can allow vaccinated Oregonians to go maskless in their establishments. They just have to spend thousands of dollars and delay customers and patrons as they enter their establishments. It also allows Governor Brown to continue the restrict the worship experience for Oregonians attending church services. Governor Brown’s Oregon Health Authority vaccine mask mandate is also an insidious back door to a vaccine passport system for Oregonians which would likely violate HIPPA laws and our privacy.
I received my first Pfizer vaccine March 13 after at least a four hour wait due to a morning computer failure at the vaccine site. I lost a beautiful Saturday afternoon to get that shot. l received my second vaccine on April 11.
About three weeks ago, I shopped at the Cornelius Oregon Walmart Supercenter without a mask. On June 2, I was forced to ware a mask at the same store. The manager told me that the Oregon Health Authority guidance had changed; and masks were required for all, including the completely vaccinated in contradiction to Center for Disease Control guidelines for the fully vaccinated. On June 3, I spent a couple of hours talking to Walmart customer service and on their website trying to lean whether the change in the Oregon Walmart store mask policy was due to Governor Brown’s Oregon Health Authority requirement for businesses, employers, or churches [to] set up a vaccination-check system. Since these Walmart resources would not comment on the reason they now require masks for all customers, I must assume that Governor Brown’s vaccine verification requirement is the reason I must wear a mask in Oregon Walmarts and all other businesses, employers, or church locations despite CDC guidelines.
Permit me to close by saying, Shame on you, Governor Brown. Your actions speak louder than your words. You think that I am a liar. You do not believe in the science of Covid-19 vaccines. You want to control Oregonians, restrict our economic recovery, and control our worship experiences in church.
One last question, Why would any more Oregonians get vaccinated when they will never be mask free?
Please, Governor Brown, let your vaccinated people go mask free!
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Our Founder’s nation, like every nation that cannot defend itself, maintain geographic integrity, and loses its unique culture, economic and political identity will wither away as Marx and Engels stated it. The Marxist left, whatever name they have used throughout the last two centuries, communists, socialists, Critical Theorists, humanists, progressives, liberals, or Democrats have accomplished a significant transformation of our Founder’s nation using their plan to transform America. Progressives used the tools provided by our Constitution and culture in a relentlessly incremental process to transform the United States into a nation that our Founders never envisioned.
The Founders also understood that God (Providence) had His hand on this nation.
From colonial times until the Constitution was ratified and well into the twentieth century, We the People of the United States shared a strong, significant Judeo-Christian heritage which the Founders clearly understood. In the late eighteenth century, the majority of the population was of British descent, spoke English, and attended one of the many Protestant denomination or Catholic churches. All of the universities were of Christian origin, including Harvard which was named after a wealthy preacher who gave his theological library and wealth to the university. Most of the first departments established at these universities were Divinity Schools and Law Schools. Additional universities were established after the Great Awakening revivals of the mid-eighteenth century to train more evangelists. Our Founder’s nation shared a strong Judeo-Christian heritage.
VISION FOR THE FOUNDER’S NATION
The Founders also understood that God (Providence) had His hand on this nation from the time the first colonists set foot on this continent. This sentiment was eloquently stated by John Jay, first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States of America, in The Federalist No. 2 where he wrote,
Providence (God especially when conceived of as exercising this) has blessed it (Independent America) for the delight and accommodation of its inhabitants. Providence has been pleased to give this one connected country, to one united people, a people descended from the same ancestors, speaking the same language, professing the same religion (Christianity with all its orders and denominations), attached to the same principles of government, very similar in their manners and customs, and who, have nobly established their general Liberty and Independence.
This country and this people seem to have been made for each other [by] design of Providence for a band of brethren, united by the strongest ties, should never be split into alien sovereignties.
Similar sentiments have hitherto prevailed among all orders and denominations of men among us (Parenthetical remarks added).
James Madison in The Federalist No.14 was also confident that a constitution so ordained and based on Judeo-Christian morality, ethics, and law would be a model for mankind. He stated,
Posterity will be indebted for the possession, and the world for the example of the numerous innovations displayed on the American theater, in favor of private rights and public happiness. Happily for America, happily we trust for the whole human race, they pursued a new and more noble course. They accomplished a revolution which has no parallel in the annals of human society: They reared the fabrics of governments which have no model on the face of the globe. They formed the design of a great confederacy, which has been new modeled by the act of your Convention, and it is that act on which you are now to deliberate and to decide (Ratify the Constitution, Remark added).
Fifty of the fifty five men who attended the Constitutional Convention were practicing Christians including theologians, denominational leaders, pastors, and evangelists. Many were also legal scholars and attorneys. After shepherding the nation through the first eight years of our experiment, the Father of our Country, George Washington, expressed similar sentiments in his Farewell Address to the Nation:
“With slight shades of difference, you have the same Religion, Manners, Habits and Political Principles. You have in a common cause fought and triumphed together; the Independence and Liberty you possess are the work of joint councils, and joint efforts “ of common dangers, sufferings, and successes.
Of all the dispositions and habits, which lead to political prosperity, Religion, and Morality are indispensable supports. “ In vain would that man claim the tribute of Patriotism, who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness, these firmest props of the duties of Men and Citizens. Let it simply be asked where is the security for property, for reputation, for life, if the sense of religious obligation desert the oaths in Courts of Justice? And let us with caution indulge the supposition, that morality can be maintained without religion. Reason and experience both forbid us to expect, that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.
Cultivate peace and harmony with all. “ Religion and Morality enjoin this conduct; and can it be, that good policy does not equally enjoin it? “ It will be worthy of a great nation, to give to mankind the magnanimous and too novel example of a People always guided by an exalted justice and benevolence. Who can doubt that the fruits of such a plan would richly repay any temporary advantages, which might be lost by a steady adherence to it? Can it be that Providence has not connected the permanent felicity of a Nation with its virtue? The Experiment, at least, is recommended by every sentiment which ennobles human nature. “ Alas! is it rendered impossible by its vices?
The Father of our Country clearly stated that the international reputation of the United States, sound governmental policies, and the integrity of our courts were dependent on our shared Judeo-Christian religion and morality, our cultural and societal identity. In our Founder’s nation, We the People had leaders like John Jay who summarized the Founders’ view of the importance of Christianity to the successful future of the United States as follows:
No human society has ever been able to maintain both order and freedom, both cohesiveness and liberty apart from the moral precepts of the Christian religion. Should our Republic ever forget this fundamental precept of governance this great experiment will then be surely doomed.
Not only did these four Founders express this view, but virtually all the significant Founders wrote expansively about the importance of our Judeo-Christian heritage to previous success and future benefits that would come to the world as a result of the virtue and religious morality of the United States. Consequently, our Founder’s nation was a Judeo-Christian nation. In my opinion, most of the current societal, cultural, political, and legal problems in our nation are the consequence of our abandonment of Washington’s admonition concerning Religion and Morality.”
Historically, great nations deteriorate from within. Moral and ethical deterioration of cultures normally precedes political, economic and military instability. These problems often lead to the inability of nations to defend themselves against external economic or military forces. In the United States, our national greatness flowed historically from the individual and collective character, virtue, strength, and moral integrity of We the People. Our Judeo-Christian heritage, Constitution and the rule of law, and our economic system based on individual entrepreneurialism and capitalism have been largely responsible for the success of the United States on the world stage. Virtually every aspect of the historical cultural, political, and economic strength of our nation is being incrementally undermined by forces seeking to fundamentally transform the United States of America.
The preamble to the Constitution of the United States outlined five general functions of constitutional governance, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity. Only those areas of life and governance detailed in the various Articles and Amendments to the Constitution were intended to fall under the authority and responsibility of the National or Federal government. In the Founder’s nation, Tranquility, general Welfare, and the Blessings of Liberty were the responsibility of citizens, state, and local governments. The Constitution was established for a virtuous, moral, industrious, and responsible citizenry free to pursue their personal general Welfare and secure the Blessings of [their] Liberty.
In my view, one word in the Preamble to the Constitution has great significance to understanding why our Founder’s nation subsequently exceeded the expectations of the world. The word is “ordain,” to set apart for a sacred function in service of God. The Preamble states, We the People of the United States do ordain’ and establish this Constitution. This meaning for ordain is the only one that fits the context and definitions of ordain and establish found in Samuel Johnson’s 1755 Dictionary of the English Language because all of the meanings for establish are synonymous with the non-sacred meanings in the definition for ordain. If the Framers had not intended the sacred meaning of ordain, they would not have included the word establish which would, therefore, have been redundant. The Constitution was not written as a strictly secular document. The Constitution of our Founder’s nation was a document design to serve God.
During the first half-century or more of the history of our Founder’s nation, our Judeo-Christian heritage was critical to the principles and doctrines of law. Sir Edward Coke (1552-1634) wrote, The Law of Nature is that which God at the time of creation of the nature of man infused into his heart, for his preservation and direction the moral law called also the law of Nature. Similarly, Commentaries on the laws of England by William Blackstone, was a widely respected commentary on law in America. In a statement almost identical to that of Coke, Blackstone wrote, Upon these two foundations, the law of nature and the law of revelation (Biblical Law), depend all of human laws; that is to say, no human laws should be suffered to contradict these. Additionally, prior to the mid-1800’s, it is safe to assume that Constitutional manifest tenor was the basis of court decisions related to the constitutionality of laws. Manifest tenor is the readily perceived, obvious, plain understanding of the course of thought running through the applicable article, amendment, section, or clause of the Constitution in relation to the case or statute under consideration. A synonymous phrase for manifest tenor is contextual original intent. During this period in the history of our Founder’s nation, the “law of nature” which “God… infused” into the “heart” of We the people was critical to our understanding of the meaning and purpose of our laws and duties as citizens.
TRANSFORMATION OF OUR CONSTITUTION
Progressives have used several tools to “fundamentally transform America. The first, and possibly most important tool, is the transformation of Constitutional law which has had a significant effect on our Founder’s nation. In 1848, Marx and Engels published The Communist Manifesto promoting atheism and social evolution; and in 1859, Charles Darwin published Origin of Species positing biological evolution which challenged Biblical creationism. Both concepts were widely embraced by academics throughout the world. In 1869, scholars at the Harvard Law School embraced evolutionary thinking as keys to life and the law. They taught that great legal scholars and judges could develop the laws governing mankind since mankind did not need God and Scripture for guidance in law. All references to both God and Scripture were eliminated from legal education, and consequently, from the practice of law.
To accomplish this goal, these legal scholars developed the concept of case law in which legal principles, doctrines, and presidencies are developed over time by degrees through a series of cases. John Chipman Gray, summarized the concept by stating, The law is a living thing with a continuous history, sloughing off the old, taking on the new. After three to six decades of the development of legal principles and doctrines based on case law, Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, summarized the legal system as follows, [Law is] simply an embodiment of the ends and purposes of society at a given point in its history, beliefs that have triumphed and nothing more. These two statements regarding constitutional law bear a striking resemblance to the following discussion of truth found in A Dictionary of Marxist Thought edited by Tom Bottomore:
The criterion for evaluating truth-claims normally is, or involves, human practice, a practicist criterion of truth. Truth is conceived as essentially the practical expression of a subject, rather than the theoretically adequate representation. Truth becomes a totality to be achieved in the realized identity of subject and object in history…. Truths are the this-worldly manifestations of the particular class-related needs and interests. Truth is an ideal asymptotically approached in history but only finally realized under communism after a practical consensus has been achieved.
Apparently, according to legal scholars, jurists, and philosophers, the Constitution, law, and truth are living things, ideas that have triumphed at a given point in history. Through case law over time, judges have transformed our Constitution and laws into a changing body of this-worldly manifestations of the particular class-related needs and interests. One could say that the Constitution of the United States of America, as envisioned by the Founders, has already withered away; or the Constitution is being transformed and will soon wither away.
Progressives have been using courts and the concept of living Constitutions to challenge long held Judeo-Christian cultural norms for decades. Consequently, progressives have used our courts to undermine the sanctity of life through abortion and right to die decisions, marriage and the traditional family through same-sex marriage decisions, biological sexuality through decisions recognizing LGBT identity and access to previously gender specific public facilities, and religious freedom in business, public schools, governmental lands and facilities, and government agencies. Our courts have been the most effective tool used by progressives to fundamentally transform the Judeo-Christian culture of the United States of America. As time passes, the United States of America is becoming less and less like our Founder’s nation.
TRANSFORMATION OF EDUCATION
The second tool used by progressives to fundamentally transform America culturally is the establishment of a public education dictatorship. Our current public education curriculum promotes progressive cultural, social, economic, and political values and principles from pre-school to Ph.D. These curricula seek to undermine or eliminate discussion of the influence of our Judeo-Christian heritage and culture, in relation to our Constitution and legal system. Curricula ignore or minimize our Founders’ emphasis on the relationship between shared moral and ethical values and cultural harmony, individual and national prosperity, and national identity and strength on the world stage. Curricula stress claimed abuses of all western civilization on the rest of the world, capitalism as a form of western imperialism a concept espoused by Marxism, the benefits of socialist systems, and the progressive cultural agenda. The left’s educational dictatorship has been extremely effective as an agent to fundamentally transform the United States of America which has less and less resemblance to our Founder’s nation.
TRANSFORMATION OF OUR CULTURE
The third tool used by progressives to fundamentally transform America culturally is our telecommunications and entertainment industry including social media and pop culture. Television, movies, and music promotes non-traditional families and include LGBT characters, single parent families, illicit sexual content including workplace affairs between co-workers and supervisors of both sexes with subordinates, violence, and murder. Christianity, the essence of our Founder’s nation, is often mocked, portrayed as a form of manipulation, or Christian leaders portrayed as criminal. Capitalism is portrayed as an evil often criminal economic system. Our government is also portrayed as a source of problems in the world. Mainstream news outlets including print and on-line sources forward narratives supporting the progressive cultural, political, and economic agenda, policies, and candidates. The advertising industry is a more subliminal medium used to promote the fundamental transformation of America.
The final tool used by progressives to fundamentally transform America culturally is legal immigration policy and border security. Between 1960 and 1970, the 1965 Immigration Act began to change the composition of the US foreign-born population. Due to the ethnic and religious strife between Balkan Muslims and various Christian sects that started WWI, the 1965 Act ended a 1924 regional immigration quota system that discriminated against Southeastern Europeans including Italians, Asians, and Africans. The previously favored regions included Northwestern Europe including the British Isles, and Canada.
TRANSFORMATION OF OUR POPULATION
“Only one other great republic has ever experienced such a change in the texture of its people ” the Roman Republic.” It failed.
Many considered the 1965 Immigration Act to be an extension of the Civil Rights and Voter Rights legislation of the Johnson Administration granting immigration civil rights to the world by eliminating regional quotas. Although some Republicans supported the 1965 Immigration Act in its initial form, the Democrat Party promoted the bill in the legislature giving assurances that the bill would not adversely influence our nation, economy, and culture. When he signed the bill into law, President Lyndon Johnson said, “This bill we sign today is not a revolutionary bill. It does not affect the lives of millions. It will not restructure the shape of our daily lives.” Immigration Subcommittee Chairman Edward Kennedy (D-MA.) reassured his colleagues and the nation with the following:
“First, our cities will not be flooded with immigrants. Secondly, the ethnic mix of this country will not be upset. [The bill] will not inundate America with immigrants from the most populated and deprived nations of Africa and Asia. In the final analysis, the ethnic pattern of immigration under the proposed measure is not expected to change. It will not upset the ethnic mix of our society. It will not relax the standards of admission. It will not cause American workers to lose their jobs.”
Senator Hiram Fong (R-HI) testified that Our cultural pattern will never be changed as far as America is concerned.” In an October 4, 1965 article on the immigration bill, The Washington Post author wrote,
“The most important change [is that] preference categories give first consideration to relatives of American citizens instead of to specially skilled persons. This insured that the new immigration pattern would not stray radically from the old one.”
Sen. Strom Thurmond (R-SC), testified as follows: “The preferences established by this proposal are not entirely dissimilar from those which underlie the national origins quotas of existing law.” With hind sight as twenty-twenty, it seems fair to ask whether the supporters of the 1965 Immigration Act were actually honest about their claims that the new immigration policy would not alter the culture and ethnic composition of our Founder’s nation.
Some opponents and legislators asked critical questions painting a less rosy picture of the potential outcome. William Miller of New York wrote:
‘The number of immigrants next year will increase threefold and in subsequent years will increase even more.’ He asked, ‘Shall we, instead, look at this situation realistically and begin solving our own unemployment problems before we start tackling the world’s?'”
Myra C. Hacker, Vice President of the New Jersey Coalition, testified in the Senate Immigration Subcommittee hearing:
“We should remember that [the bill will] lower our wage and living standards [and] disrupt our cultural patterns. Whatever may be our benevolent intent toward many people, [the bill] fails to give due consideration to the economic needs, the cultural traditions, and the public sentiment of the citizens of the United States.”
In his 1982 book America in Search of Itself, Theodore White contradicted President Johnson’s signing-day assurance that it was not a revolutionary bill, writing that the bill was revolutionary and probably the most thoughtless of the many acts of the Great Society. In reality, critics were correct and the assurances that the Act would not upset the ethnic mix of our society were not justified as noted by the above data on the changes in foreign-born population associated with the Act.
Data from the US Census Bureau showing the region of birth of the foreign-born population of the United States is informative regarding the cultural transformation of the United States. From 1850-1960, Europeans and Canadians averaged approximately 95% of the foreign-born population. Southern and Eastern Europeans were greatly underrepresented in the US foreign-born population prior to 1960. In 1960, Europeans and Canadians comprised 75% which was a reduction of more than 15% of the foreign-born population compared to the previous 90 years. In 1970 this group comprised 61.7%; 1980, 39.0%; and in 1990 Europeans and Canadians comprised 26.9% of the US foreign-born population which was less than one third of the 1960 level and slightly more than one fourth of the 1850-1960 level. In contrast, Hispanics comprised an average of only 2.8% of the foreign-born population from 1850-1960. In 1960, the composition was 9.4%; in 1970, 19.4%; 1980, 33.1%; and 1990, 44.3% nearly 16 times the 1850-1960 average of the US foreign-born population. Asians comprised an average of only 1.7% of the US foreign-born population from 1850-1960. In 1960, the composition was 5.1%; 1970, 8.9%: 1980, 19.3%; and 1990, 26.3% which was more than 15 times the 1850-1960 average of the foreign-born population. In 1990, people from Africa and Oceania composed less than 2.5% of the US foreign-born population. By 2050, the racial and ethnic composition of the US population is expected to be 47% White, 29% Hispanic, 14% Black, and 9% Asian. According to this projection, the composition of whites will decline; the composition blacks will be stable; and the composition of Hispanics and Asians will increase. Although conservative pundits and other intellectuals agree, progressives always start immigration discussions with the phrase, We are a nation of immigrants, or We are all descendants of immigrants. What they fail to say is that, prior to the 1965 Immigration Act, we were a nation of European and Canadian immigrants; and after 1965, we became and nation of Asian and Hispanic immigrants .
Thirty years after implementation of the 1965 Immigration Act became law some conclusions are relevant to this discussion. A new era of mass immigration ensued in which country origins of immigrants changed radically. The European economy stabilized resulting in fewer European immigrants. Mass entry of people from Asia and Latin America and emphasis on family reunification ensured that these groups could bring in their relatives, freezing out potential immigrants from Europe and from other developing nations because of limits on total immigration numbers. Unfortunately, twice as many immigrants as native-born Americans did not have high school diplomas in the mid-1990’s. This contributed downward wage pressure to a growing pool of blue-collar workers competing for a shrinking number of well-paying jobs. This issue is compounded by increasing levels of illegal immigrants who also compete for these jobs.
In 2000, sociologist Christopher Jencks predicted that the US population will grow to 500 million by 2050 if our immigration policies do not change. After evaluating congressional politics, Jencks concluded that congress did not want to appear to be racist and their leaders would not direct change. Consequently, Jerry Kammer, in his 2015 concluding remarks, included a dire analysis of our national future by Theodore White concerning of the potential impact of the 1965 Immigration Act,
‘Only one other great republic has ever experienced such a change in the texture of its people ” the Roman Republic’ He then observed that ‘Rome could not pass on the heritage of its past to the people of its future’ and ultimately unraveled so badly that it could no longer govern itself. ‘
Kammer also included this contrarian and optimistic quote from a 1965 Immigration Act, 50th anniversary book, A Nation of Nations (2015) by Tom Gjelten, which disregards the lesson of Roman Empire history,
While immigration may swamp us, it may, if we seize the opportunity, mean the impregnation of our national life with a new brilliancy. It is only in the half century after 1965, with a population connected to every corner of the globe, that the country has finally begun to demonstrate the exceptionalism it has long claimed for itself.’
One Amazon reviewer of A Nation of Nations wrote,
“While Gjelten doesn’t make statements about assimilation with current tides of immigrant groups, he suggest[s] that these groups who differ more widely culturally than past [European immigrants] will ultimately accept the national ethos and fit in well.”
Apparently, like most US progressives, Gjelton and the reviewer believes that we can do things better than the Romans, the Soviet Communists, the Maoists, and the Cuban Communists, and achieve an internal globalist culture of new brilliancy and exceptionalism in the United States.
Without the benefit of actually reading his book, it appears that Gjelton does not believe that our Constitution and Bill of Rights are exceptional guidelines for governance or that turning the tide of victory in both World War I and World War II were exceptional events in world history. It doesn’t appear that he considered our Industrial Revolution, railroads, interstate highway system, technical revolution, IBM, Microsoft, Amazon, Facebook, and Twitter to be brilliant contributions making the United States the greatest economic power in history. As a true progressive globalist, Gjelton apparently believes that until the United States looks like the rest of the world, we cannot be either brilliant or exceptional. None of the reviews or excerpts answer the question posed by White, [With] such a change in the texture of [our] people, will the United States of America be able to govern itself? The cultural and racial diversity created by the 1965 Immigration Act has not resulted in a political and social environment of greater stability. Our educational, cultural and political elites discourage acceptance of our national ethos, our Judeo-Christian heritage, Constitutional capitalism, and individual freedom. The progressive elites consider and communicate that this national ethos is offensive to the rest of the world, especially the regions of origin for most of today’s immigrants. Under these circumstances, how can we expect these immigrants to fit in well? Under the current circumstances in which we are losing our national ethos, my fear is that the admonition of John Jay portends a dire outcome for the United States of America, Should our Republic ever forget this fundamental precept of governance this great experiment will then be surely doomed. This component of the fundamental transformation of the United States of America could help ensure that our nation will wither away. Phrased alternatively, our Founder’s nation will cease to exist.
Border security is a critical component of immigration policy. Secure borders insure that nations have control over immigration into each country. Without secure borders and immigration policies that immediately detain or expel illegal immigrants, all immigration has the potential of becoming legal immigration which is the goal for progressive open border advocates. In this situation, citizenship and related voting rights would be meaningless; the wealthy and unscrupulous could import voters to gain control of any jurisdiction; or politicians could promise immigrants free benefits for their votes. Criminals, revolutionaries, insurgents, and freeloaders as well as unskilled and skilled workers, artisans, entrepreneurs, technicians, and highly educated professionals could flow in and out of countries. All pretexts of economic, political, legal system, and numerical population stability and predictability would be eliminated. Determination of population based representation in our republic, as in the US House of Representatives, would not be fair with the fluid population possible without immigration control and border security. This would be a fundamental transformation of the United States of America; and our Founder’s nation could wither away.
TRANSFORMATION OF OUR NATIONAL DEFENSE
The final requirement necessary for nations to persist is the ability to remain strong and defend themselves against both foreign and domestic enemies. For the most part, we have adequate local, state, and national law enforcement and legal system to ensure domestic Tranquility; but this nation has a great deal of difficulty to provide for the common defense. The primary reason for this difficulty is the fact that the Democrat and Republican Parties have vastly different priorities regarding defense and domestic expenditures. The two parties seem to have vastly different ideas regarding the necessity maintaining the world’s most powerful military force that can defend our nation on multiple battle fronts and contingencies simultaneously. Progressives and the Democrat Party do not see this level of military power as a national necessity for funding compared to domestic program spending. Military power and force size was drastically decreased in the Carter, Clinton, and Obama administrations. Each of the intervening Bush Administrations and the current Trump Administration were confronted with depleted military forces which they attempted slowly rebuild throughout their Administrations. Unfortunately the overall trend in our military strength since the Carter Administration is downward in both numbers and capabilities. The problem was compounded during the last Bush and Trump Administrations by the long multi-front war on Radical Islamic Terrorism which has resulted in attrition of equipment due to fiscal constraints. With reduced force size, our military heroes are forced to deploy more frequently or for longer tours in theater. The result is combat fatigue, home front family difficulties for deployed forces, and potential reduction in re-enlistment numbers resulting in less experienced fighting forces.
Currently, our military cannot fight on two fronts, equipment is old and waring out with high percentage of the equipment out-of-service due to lack of repair and replacement parts. This problem and inadequate funding for continuing training means that many of our military unites are not combat ready. These problems have resulted in higher numbers of military training and mission related accidents, personnel injuries, and deaths in the last few years. In my opinion, this situation has the potential to become a threat to our national security due to increasing tensions throughout the world.
The threat of North Korean ballistic missiles armed with nuclear warheads capable of striking anywhere in the United States intensifies our military readiness issues. Incursion of China into the South China Sea seeking to control sea travel, trading routes throughout the south Pacific, and exert their naval power in the region is also worrying. The fact that China is expanding military forces with the goal of becoming the world’s preeminent military power is cause for additional concern. Iran’s expansion and aggression in the Middle East is troubling. Radical Islamic terrorism is growing not declining in Africa where the opportunity to train is enhanced due to weak governments unable to control terrorist activities. Other parts of the world are also subjected to Radical Islamic terrorist attacks. Threats to the safety and security of the United States of America are increasing worldwide. This aspect of the transformation of the United States of America is the most concerning to me. Without a strong military capable of defending our nation against all enemies foreign and domestic is essential to ensure that my country, the United States of America, does not wither away.
In my opinion, the progressive plan to fundamentally transform of the United States of America has been executed in an incremental evolutionary manner for approximately 170 years. The goal of this transformation has always been a unified global community and economy, a utopia, governed by Marxist principles which ensure that all people share equally in all the benefits of the world regardless of their ability or willingness to contribute to the good of the world community. Phrased another way, from each according to his ability to each according to his need wealth will be redistributed on a global scale. For this goal to be achieved, the United States of America must wither away, a really fundamental transformation. Our Founder’s nation would no longer exist.
Join the fray. All of the America’s Crossroad Posts are listed by categories in the BLOG CONTENTS tab. If you decide to read a few, please leave comments about your “Patriot Visions,” start or join the conversation, and share the Posts with friends and political frienimies.
With their national poll approval ratings at or below 20%, it is not surprising that 80% of the population hears lies and damn lies when politicians and journalists open their mouths to speak or write. A discussion of the concepts of truth and lies may be an appropriate place to start this discussion. In The Ten Commandments we read this, You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor (EX 20:16, NIV), or do not lie. The Merriam Webster On-Line Dictionary definition of lie is to make an untrue statement with the intent to deceive. Conversely the same dictionary defines truth as, the body of real things, events, and facts, actuality, the state of being the case, fact. For We the People, the Deplorable Class, these concepts appear to be quite clear.
Lies of commission and omission advance the progressive cultural narrative to influence our social, political, and economic system.
ACADEMIC LIES
The 1983 Harvard University Press publication, A Dictionary of Marxist Thought essay on truth sheds a very different light on truth. Truth is described as the practical expression of a subject totality achieved in the realized identity of subject and object in history and this-worldly manifestations of class-related needs and interests. In the essay defining historiography, the study of history as a discipline, the definition of truth is refined, in the context of history, as an ideal chosen from an infinite number of similar, potential ideals determined by history and finally realized under communism once a consensus regarding the new truth of history is achieved. Joseph Stalin said, America is like a healthy body and its resistance is threefold: its patriotism, its morality and its spiritual life. If we can undermine these three areas, America will collapse from within. As a result, obscure and often discredited depictions of history are presented as historical facts to incrementally alter the existing historical paradigm and promote the progressive, Marxist agenda, academic lies. For example, the left ruthlessly uses this process to discredit the notion that our nation and Constitution are based on a Judeo-Christian society, principles, and laws.
With these thoughts regarding truth and history in mind and the current atmosphere on our college campuses and all levels of academia, it may be well for readers to consider the roll of the left’s educational dictatorship in today’s society to accomplish Stalin’s Marxist, progressive plan for America. Consequently, it is relatively simple to view the Constitution as a living, evolving document rather than a constant, unchanging basis for the rule of Law. The change, in jurisprudence from the preeminence of original intent to case law where precedent and the opinion of judges prevails and the Constitution became a living document, began in the middle of the nineteenth century at the Harvard Law School, the start of the left’s educational dictatorship. For the left, social truth is relative and changes with time and the current societal situation; and a lie is a contradiction of the current Marxist, progressive, social paradigm.
CLIMATIC LIES
The environmental movement in general, and the notion that climate change or global warming is primarily associated with industrialization, pollution, and carbon-based energy, is a movement in which academic, political, and journalistic lies and collusion regarding a narrative is obvious. It is interesting that the climate change narrative has turned 180° in the last half-century. In the 1970s the climate change narrative was the coming Ice Age. Today’s narrative is that man caused global warming will destroy the earth and all its inhabitants within 100 to 200 years at the most. There is no interest in the academic, political, or journalistic communities to explore or explain the cause of this narrative change in such a short period of time. That is a question we the deplorables need not ask; and a discussion of the narrative change doesn’t fit the current narrative. The reality is that both narratives placed the cause as industrialization, pollution, and our dependence on carbon-based energy.
This question regarding geological evidence of climate change is rarely considered. How is it possible, in the absence of human activity and industrialization, that the earth has gone through multiple ice ages and subsequent periods of global warming ending each ice age? Some geologist have attributed the cooling cycles to impacts of huge meteorites or asteroids which filled atmosphere with impact debris causing the cooling and the subsequent Ice Ages. Natural atmospheric cleansing resulted in rising temperatures over time ending each Ice Age. This seems to be a logical theory, but here is an interesting question. If such impacts are the cause of the global cooling and ice ages with subsequent atmospheric cleansing resulting in slow steady global warming and the end of the ice ages, does that mean that the earth is too close to the sun? Are such asteroid impacts the only phenomenon that has prevented temperature increases too great to sustain life on earth? Without these hypothesized asteroid impacts, would earth be too hot for life and more like mars? These unasked questions are interesting to a young geezer. To me the real scientific question that should be asked is, if carbon dioxide pollution from carbon based energy sources is the cause of climate change, why did earth experience extreme cyclic ice ages and subsequent global warming before the industrial age? Of course, such questions do not fit the current narrative explaining climate change; nor do they warrant real scientific inquiry according to the narrative.
The majority of academics, journalists, and politicians claim that man caused climate change, currently considered global warming, is settled science. This claim is not without controversy. John Coleman, a founder of the Weather Channel has said that man-made climate change is a hoax and climate change is not happening. He declared there is no consensus in science. Science isn’t a vote, science is about facts. Coleman is skeptical about claims that 97 percent of climate scientists are in agreement on the issue noting,
They don’t have any choice. If you’re going to get the money, you’ve got to support their position. Therefore 97 percent of the scientific reports published support global warming. Why? Because those are the ones the government pays for and that’s where the money is.
Current Weather Channel management does not agree with Coleman. My question is, Who currently pays Weather Channel bills?
Not all scientists and environmental economists agree that costs of climate change mitigation will significantly alter climate change.
Another group of skeptics regarding man caused global warming is Patrick Michaels editor of CLIMATE COUP: GLOBAL WARMING’S INVASION OF OUR GOVERNMENT AND OUR LIVES along with seven other contributing climate scientists and economists. In the introduction to this publication, Michael’s demonstrates how academicians and climate scientists select data to support the current global warming paradigm. While discussing California’s K-12 climate change curriculum guide, he writes,
…The 50 “ year trend in California temperatures is 0.43 degrees Fahrenheit per decade, or 4.3 degrees per century¦.
But starting in 1960 is highly misleading¦. Records began in 1895. Using the whole record, the trend is only 0.08 degrees. California’s alarmist guide over estimates the over “ all trend by over 500%. Further, it is rather apparent, even in the 50 year sample, that the warming takes place largely between 1960 and 1980, with no net change in the succeeding 30 years.
This selective use of data to support the climate change narrative or paradigm is an academic lie of commission, just another damn global warming lie.
Similarly, Chapter 3 of this publication, Bias in the Peer Review Process: A Cautionary and Personal Account, reiterates Coleman’s claim regarding climate change publications. The author, Ross McKitrick, opens the chapter with the following statement:
Unfortunately, Climategate e-mails revealed that indeed there has been systematic pressure on journal editors to reject manuscripts not toeing the line about disastrous climate change. Even more unfortunate, my experience and that of others are that the post-Climategate environment has made this situation worse, not better¦.
The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), by claiming to be the consensus of scientists,’ is actually defining a paradigm in the sense of the late historian of science Thomas Kuhn. To Kuhn, paradigms are overarching logical structures, and the work of normal science,’ is the care and feeding of paradigms with data and research findings that confirmed that indeed the paradigm is a correct representation of scientific reality.
This is the story of those difficulties with the IPCC and with the keepers of the paradigm¦.
Unfortunately, policymakers and the political class cannot see what is happening because the absence of these publications gives the appearance of unanimity in science that is not there.
Throughout this 28 page chapter, McKitrick discusses the issues raised in his introduction. In conclusion he states,
The paper I have discussed makes the case that the IPCC used false evidence to conceal an important problem with the surface temperature data on which most of its conclusions rest¦.
In the aftermath of Climategate, a lot of scientists working on global warming-related topics are upset that their field has apparently lost credibility with the public¦. I would like to suggest that the climate science community consider instead whether the public might actually have a point¦.
The policy community has aggressively intervened in climate science because of all the breaches of normal scientific procedures¦.. It appears to be a profession-wide decision that, due to the conjectured threat of global warming, the ethic of scientific objectivity has had an asterisk added to it: there is now the additional condition that objectivity cannot compromise the imperative of supporting one particular point of view.
This strategy is backfiring badly: rather than creating the appearance of genuine scientific progress, the situation appears more like a chokehold of indoctrination and intent intellectual corruption. I do not know what the solution is, since I have yet to see a case in which an institution or segment of society, having once been contaminated or knocked off balance by the global warning issue, is subsequently able to right itself. But perhaps, as time progresses, climate science will find a way to do so. Now that would be progress.
Although the authors concede that some warming is occurring, CLIMATE COUP goes on to challenge most of the dire claims related to the global warming paradigm, the extent of man’s contribution to climate change, and the relationship between the costs and benefits of most of the proposed solutions to the problem.
Evaluation of the Paris Climate Accord shows that it appears to be more of a wealth redistribution plan exempting major polluters like China and India and extracting huge costs on the developed world especially the United States of America. This is especially true for carbon credit payment plans where individuals, businesses, and nations pay penalties or taxes for excessive carbon energy usage which is transferred to developing nations. When the world’s most significant carbon polluters are excluded, the actual or scientifically perceived, reduction in temperature creases is relatively insignificant in comparison to the exorbitant costs. Touted benefits appear to be nothing more than political, journalistic, and academic lies, damn lies all. Consequently, the fact that President Trump withdrew from the accord will benefit the United States far more than the accord would benefit the earth with its insignificant impact on changes in the rate of purported global warming.
POLITICAL LIES
In today’s highly partisan environment, with slim legislative majorities and complex legislation often pairing liberal with conservative elements forcing lesser of evils considerations, principled votes can be difficult or impossible. The inevitable result of this type of legislation is political lies since it often hides issues that cannot pass on their merits within other critical legislation such as funding for Planned Parenthood within a an unrelated appropriation bill. The only way to end this political legislative gerrymandering is to require that all legislation relates to a single issue that stands or fails on the merits of the issue. The current legislative process is deceitful and makes political lies inevitable.
A related legislative issue is the Senate rule requiring 60 votes to pass non-budgetary legislation and the resultant filibuster. When the majority party does not have 60 Senatorial votes, the filibuster often forces Senators into defacto lies because they cannot fulfill campaign promises. The situation causes We the People to distrust politicians and the political process rendering election of Senators a somewhat thankless process. Alexander Hamilton observed that the filibuster is not democratic. He discussed what could be described as the tyranny of the minority where the minority overrules the majority. This is inconsistent with the republican form of government and democratic principles where the majority rules. Hamilton also discussed the remote possibility that unscrupulous campaign financiers would only need to come up with money to influence 40 equally unscrupulous Senators rather than 49 such Senators to alter the result of a vote on an issue. Withholding funds would be a more likely and less obvious strategy. This 60 vote super-majority rule often turns hope in the power of our Republic into a damn political lie. This is unfortunate since the origin of the filibuster rule was a simple misunderstanding not part of the Founder’s plan for the Senate.
We the People often feel that politicians simply say what they think their constituents want to hear during campaigns. Once they get into office, politicians seem to vote as the money tells them to vote, We the People be damned. Unfortunately, when politicians do stand on principles and vote based on campaign promises, they are often ridiculed, derided, and ostracized for the purpose coercing a change in their vote which would turn campaign promises into lies. Some unattributed examples will suffice; we really care about the people of the United States (but if bipartisan legislation will reduce our political power we will not participate in any such legislation), the IRS will never be used as a weapon against political opponents, if you like your doctor you can keep your doctor, if you like your healthcare insurance plan you can keep your plan, Under the ACA you will save an average of $2,500 a year, a cut in a government program occurs when the program increase occurs at a lower percentage than the rate of increase in the previous year or a lower than expected increase in a government program is a cut to the program (current Medicaid discussions for example), if you elect a Republican Legislature and President we will repeal and replace Obamacare, If you elect GOP Representatives, Senators, and President we will end illegal immigration and pass immigration reform, If you elect us we will reform Medicare and Social Security and insure that these programs will be available for all future generations, or elect us and we will lower your income taxes and reform the tax code. Of this list of major “lies,” Republicans did reform the tax codes and lower taxes. We the People could add pages to this short list of damn political lies. Liars must be replaced at every level of our political system.
HEALTHCARE LIES
The current Obamacare, healthcare insurance, repeal and replace debate is a discussion where journalistic and political liars collude. Collusion occurred during the debates for and passage of Obamacare. The first question regarding the current debate is the actual portion of the economy involved in the healthcare industry and the individual healthcare insurance market, Obamacare. The claim is that healthcare occupies one sixth of the US economy. Politicians claim and journalist report that the debate is critical because of this large proportion of our economy. Some questions are appropriate. Is healthcare insurance included in the healthcare share of the economy? If not, is the total healthcare contribution to our economy closer to 20% or more? Additionally, the combination of those currently involved in Obamacare and the uninsured is approximately 20% of the total healthcare insurance market. This is also known as the individual healthcare insurance market. Between 50 and 55% of healthcare insurance is provided by employers. Approximately 25% of the healthcare market is provided by VA healthcare, Medicare, and Medicaid. If the above proportions are generally accurate, then the debate regarding repealing and replacing or keeping Obamacare actually involves only 20% of the healthcare portion of the economy, or 3.3-4% not 16.6-20%, of the overall economy. Does this conflation of information, a gross overstatement or exaggeration, of the contribution of the individual healthcare insurance market to the overall economy constitute political and journalistic lies?
Terminology for the funds used to expand the individual healthcare Insurance market to able bodied low income workers through Medicaid using Obamacare is another area where politicians and journalists collude to at least misinform the people of the United States. In my opinion, Obamacare payments to supplement premiums, deductibles, and co-pays for this group constitute Marxist or socialist wealth redistribution from those tax payers with the ability to pay more to those having a greater need for healthcare insurance. In the words of Marx, From each according to his ability to each according to his need, wealth is redistributed by this plan. Depending on their political philosophy, politicians and journalists, use a variety of terms to describe this wealth redistribution. The terms include subsidies, entitlements, corporate welfare, and cost or premium reductions. The term wealth redistribution is not used nor is the fact that wealthier tax payers are financing the Medicaid expansion program ever discussed openly. These damn lies are lies of omission.
Politicians claim and journalists report that the individual market will be a competitive free market controlled by patients providing close patient doctor relationships and treatment choices. How can a market that involves at most 20% of healthcare be a competitive free market when 65-75% of the healthcare market is controlled by Medicare and employer provided healthcare insurance with contracts covering prices and availability? With these thoughts in mind, no one should be surprised that the promises of Obamacare turned into political and journalistic lies. Will the promises of any replacement for Obamacare, or improvements, in the individual healthcare insurance market also turn into political lies? Under the current paradigm, a real patient controlled, free market individual healthcare insurance market providing meaningful doctor-patient relationships, lower costs, and real choice is highly unlikely. Perhaps, it is time to consider an alternative.
JOURNALISTIC LIES
Journalistic lies are as complex as political lies. They are lies of commission and lies of omission. For this discussion, journalistic lies of commission are simply falsehoods intentionally reported as facts or unsubstantiated information and speculation based on anonymous, unverified sources. Lies of omission are simply the failure to report on legitimate factual stories that do not support the current news or social narrative. Both types of lies are developed to support the news narrative that the elites of journalism and the culture determine necessary to mold the opinion of the populace. Both types of lies undermine public trust in journalism.
It is a well-established fact that the vast majority of American journalists refer to themselves as liberal or progressive. These two labels along with communist, socialist, and Democrat are synonyms for Marxist. The difference between these terms is merely the speed and manner in which Marxist philosophy is implemented as the basis for governance. Many conservatives think that the primary purpose of news narratives is to provide information that supports, promotes, and insures that the central concept or ideal of progressive narratives are internalized by the majority of the population over time, social propaganda and indoctrination. Narratives being promoted by the progressive elites of our education system, pop culture, journalism, and progressive politicians, Democrats, are the previously described mission statement of Stalin for America, America will collapse from within¦ if we can undermine¦ its patriotism, its morality and its spiritual life. When Stalin referred to morality and spiritual life, he was referring to our Judeo-Christian heritage. Adding individualism and capitalism to the list of characteristics essential for American exceptionalism provides a fairly complete list of personal qualities and institutions that Marxism must undermine to ensure the internal collapse of America and usher in governance based on Marxist philosophy, socialism. It is these five areas of American culture, patriotism, morality, spirituality or Christianity, capitalism, and economic entrepreneurial individualism, that the progressive journalism narrative seeks to undermine.
Advancing the progressive social agenda starts in academia primarily in the social sciences. Regardless of the specifics, the narrative and agenda is almost always aimed at undermining our Judeo-Christian heritage, American morality and spiritual life. As soon as academia establishes a strong narrative, journalists join the fray. If politicians are unable to enact laws supporting the agenda, progressives take issues to the federal courts. Consequently, academia, journalist, and politicians collude to accomplish the progressive social agenda. This assault on American morality and spiritual life began with school prayer. The next phase was abortion rights which were followed by gay-rights and the battle for same-sex marriage. Next, progressives began their battle for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) rights. The final battle in this area could be totally open bisexual polygamy. Each progressive agenda cause would be worthy of extensive discussion. Suffice it to say that this has been a concerted effort to undermine the America of our Founders and the Judeo-Christian principles that made America the greatest nation in history.
Academicians, scientists, politicians, and journalist are all embroiled in a contest for the future of the United States of America based on the difference between lies, damn lies, and truth. Often the difference between lies and truth is in the eyes of the beholder and related to the narrative and motivation of the protagonists. In my opinion, the progressive narrative is that American patriotism, morality, and spiritual life must be undermined to insure that their vision for America will be realized. On the other hand, We the People in the Deplorable Class are diametrically opposed to the progressive narrative and agenda. We believe in the Founder’s vision for the United States of America. We believe in American exceptionalism, the critical impact of our Judeo-Christian heritage, the values espoused in Scripture, and the system of Constitutional capitalism that has evolved in America from colonial times to the present.
We the People in the Deplorable Class know that these values will help Make America Great Again.
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