Category Archives: Immigration

THE PARTNERSHIP COVENANT

Scene at the Signing of the Constitution of the United States, Oil on Canvas, Howard Chandler Christy

There is a term that is never heard in modern discussions about governance and government and citizens and citizenship. People who care – and pundits who often do not – spend much breath on politicians and on certain policies, issues, fads and economic problems… but, none employs the term, PARTNERSHIP. It is worth our consideration.

Understanding the place of partnership in the American system requires our grasp of the Constitution and its original intent. The Constitution is a COVENANT, not a LAW, necessarily, but a sacred agreement between the people who ratify it – us, at every election – and the people to whom we have granted power to create and protect an orderly society. It’s a bargain… an agreement to treat people equally under the laws that are passed ON BEHALF OF THE CITIZENS, the private half of the covenant, and it is a set of boundaries to restrain the human tendencies of those blessed with political, legal power, the public half of the covenant, to protect the citizens and to sanction those who commit criminal acts.

This is all well and good, but it is not the real story of the formation of a Constitutional Republic. Why establish a nation, no matter how beautiful or philosophical? Is it because God instructed mankind to take dominion over the Earth, so why not this piece of it and why not our self-selected fraction of mankind? That’s too much hubris for any group.

No. The Constitution was created because people had already formed – and fought for – a nation and national identity called America. People had moved here and were moving here to create better lives in a basically Christian and capitalist format, and their society could neither protect itself or its members without an agreed set of rules and bounds, recognized from within and without. As the Declaration of Independence had proclaimed, upon separation from an unjust form of dominance, the right to “…assume among the Powers of the Earth, the separate and equal Station to which the laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them…” It is part of the Covenant that the existing population clearly proclaim its claim to certain territory AND the right to govern themselves as they see fit. A Covenant.

It seems Prudent to describe that covenant as a PARTNERSHIP. It is formed to protect the SUCCESS of the citizenry or, at the very least, to protect the opportunities to succeed for each citizen and family. Any government that ceases to “partner” and commences to “provide,” will shortly become tyrannical, for its “provider” attitude is based on a belief in the incompetence of its citizen-partners. It is a tiny slide from that attitude/altitude to believe that those at a “lower” altitude of competence will need rules to live by. This is not to say “rules” to avoid criminality, at least initially, but rules to govern daily, family and personal life. Almost abruptly, the sanctions for failing to follow rules governing one’s person, become new laws, the breach of which demand sanction as if criminal: a “police” state.

Lately, since, say, 1964, American politicians have concerned themselves more with countering or imposing incompetence-inspired “rules” for everyone’s life. Prudent contemplation shows this to be true. Combined with a relatively communistic takeover of education at all levels, The average intelligence, competence, maturity and self-reliance of Americans born since 1960, has plummeted. At the same time, as the administrative state has found reason to multiply the number of rules necessary to enable less competent citizens to survive, those who are more competent and politically connected have become wealthier and commercially controlling, often allying with government to impose even more rules on those of lesser economic standing… rules that political forces have not yet been able to impose. This is called Fascism, a slightly different-colored form of socialism, but still a police state

How refreshing it would be if a candidate for, well… ANY office, would introduce two rare policies into his or her campaign rhetoric and promises: clear, open honesty, and determination to render his or her future office as a tool for PARTNERING with citizens so that each might be more successful in life. Partnership and truth-telling. What remarkable promises to make let alone fulfill.

How would a government-citizen partnership operate?

First, it would examine weaknesses in current systems, but that implies that it knows what the countervailing strengths ought to be. We could start with strong families.

There is no structure, program or law in the world, let alone in the United States, that is more effective in creation of “good” children and adults, than functional FAMILIES. At risk of offending a few, those are families with a married mother and father, and who are able to provide for themselves and their children. Every threat to successful child-rearing is dramatically lessened in a married-couple environment. Sadly, our own governments, federal, state and county / municipal, are geared up and funded to encourage single-parent family units – the opposite of what actually works the best. We know this to be true in every single jurisdiction, yet we keep growing the socialist, administrative welfare state.

Should our “governors” choose to become partners in our success, the welfare state would be the first place to reform almost everything that comprises it.

The overarching question for any successful society as for any family: “How are the children?” – obviously connects with the state of education, public and private. A true partnership between citizens and government would dictate that government schools, at least, be employed to perform their primary educational mission, while reinforcing the desires and intentions of parents. Fighting with parents over alternate ways to raise children is a decided breech of that partnership covenant implied in the Constitution.

Economic freedom is the key social pillar of success in the modern economy. Partnership by a government granted its powers by the people, would imply that government would neither punish citizens through taxation nor destroy the value of the money they earn. Clearly, Washington and the 50 States’ governors have a long way to go to restore partnership in place of financial serfdom. Not only are those on welfare rendered financial serfs, but so are most taxpayers. On our behalf, our “representatives” and governors have contrived a debt greater than the economic output of the entire nation, soon to require payment of nearly ONE TRILLION DOLLARS in annual interest payment. No effort is underway to reduce that debt or to reduce the deficit spending that adds to it. This is a strange partnership.

Economic independence from the government and from welfare, should be the goal of the government in a Constitutional Republic. That is, the success of our Constitutional structure can be measured only by the reduction in dependence upon that government. A bloated, largely uncontrolled administrative state is the glowing example of FAILURE of our Constitutional system. The only reason it has survived as long as it has is its ability – shrinking ability – to coddle the population and businesses with borrowed “money” and comforts. Now that a roughly communistic presidency has been installed, the ability of the government to continue on this path is nearing its end. Both internal and external forces are gathering against the administrative / executive state. The partnership promised by representation is dissolving with every failure to budget the people’s money, and with every thousand-page “bill.” Soon the nation will be unable to afford to defend itself.

The FIRST job of partnership is to protect the citizenry, not the last.

A true partnership… which is to say, the truth of the Constitutional covenant, would be marked by partnering with every CITIZEN to facilitate his or her enjoyment of the RIGHTS guaranteed by the Constitution. Sadly, the federal and states’ governments are currently consumed with using the Constitution and tens of thousands of laws and rules to CONTROL the people rather than helping each succeed in life. “Expertly managed failure” is how our governors measure their success, not ours. Our success merits some form of punishment amidst a set of accusations and sanctions, even to the point of separating us from our own children. Soon, Americans will be looking for partnership with fellow citizens in order to return our Constitution to supremacy. Certainly the present government will not do so.

May God grant us the ability to accomplish restoration through elections, and the strength to prevail should they fail.

BIDEN’S OBAMINATION

After the past 3 years of criminal malfeasance on the President’s part, malfeasance that has spread throughout “his” administration, it is time for all Americans to admit to the gross damage that inserting Biden as president has caused. Democrats have nothing to be proud of – and much to answer for – in the matters of the 2020 elections. The possibility that Biden was fairly elected dwindles almost daily. A fair observer should concede that Trump’s suspicion of unprecedented election fraud and wrong-doing is well justified. His frantic attempts to reverse the certifications of “votes” were justified actions of a chief executive officer. Unfortunately, there is neither time nor mechanism to expose distortions as grand and effective as those employed in 2020. January Sixth played out as the phenomenal political hatchet that certain rabid leftists and anti-Trumpers had only dreamed-of hitherto.

As a result of the various crimes and distortions of 2020, Joe Biden and a gaggle of idiots came into power, including for the third time, Barack Obama. Biden, it is clear, has neither the thoughtfulness nor mental capacity to contrive the policies his administration is following. He has never understood history. Neither has he ever judged the nature of foreign leaders properly, accounting for decades of poor decision-making through his Senate and Vice-Presidential tenures. Worse, he is personally weak, leaving him easily manipulated by stronger personalities like the aforementioned Mr. Obama. His declining mental sharpness places the United States’ existence as a world power at existential risk. Woe are we.

It is hard to isolate a single Biden failure to discuss, but it seems Prudent to consider the open borders policies he has fostered. One must ask oneself, “Why in God’s name would anyone with influence in the U. S. promote or favor or allow such policies?” There are two reasons that have been stated over and over in multiple ways, neither good for the USA: 1) Change the demographic majority of our population (white’s need not apply); and 2) Divide the U. S. against itself and weaken it economically. Accomplishing the first will install Democrats forever in power – priority 1 – and accomplishing the second will enable globalism to replace Independence. For shame. We can see a dozen other leftist, anti-American policies working toward the same goals in education, communications, medicine and constant erosion of religious thought, but none will achieve the two main goals as rapidly as Biden’s flood of 10 MILLION or more illegal entrants.

The premises under which Biden acted to carry out Obama’s long-time plan, derive from “Executive Orders,” and were illegal in and of themselves. An executive order by a president can, legally and constitutionally, impact only the executive branch in terms of how the LAWS, passed legislatively and signed into law by a president, shall be executed. An executive order may not prevent the faithful execution of the laws, or set them aside in favor of un-legislated directives put forth by a president on his or her own initiative. However, as Mr Obama is confident of, there are few remedies available in the case of a president’s abuse of power. The only one is “impeachment” in the House followed by conviction by two-thirds of the Senate – a never-accomplished set of actions. No Congress has yet had the political will to carry through an impeachment (allegation) to actual conviction, even when laws have been broken by a president. Hence, “Biden’s” open border policies have remained in place for more than 3 years despite the breaking of and failure of enforcement of, immigration laws.

Millions of words have been spoken and written about the unfolding tragedy and dangers of the failure to enforce our border and immigration laws… except two: “I’m sorry” (for damaging the Nation, the States and hundreds of communities), spoken by Joe Biden. Oddly, no State, even Texas, has yet sued the federal government for imposing costs on States and municipalities in the furtherance of illegal federal actions. Another suit could be filed in federal court concerning those same States and municipalities being forced to not enforce their own laws on behalf of their own citizens. Nor has Biden, himself, been impeached in the House. An illegal travesty continues unabated.

At some point, when the Chinese Communist Party dictates, there will be an horrendous terrorism event inside the United States, perpetrated by some of the thousands of Chinese who have walked into the U. S. and by some of the thousands of entrants from terrorism-sponsoring Muslim countries. Everyone will be upset and casting blame, perhaps even at Joe Biden, who will be long gone or oblivious when it occurs. When it does those Democrats who engineered the certification of Biden’s electoral vote count on January 6th, 2021, will finally offer two words about the open borders policy: “Who, ME?”

BIDEN, BIDEN, Who’s got the Biden?

Information flows take the form of “news” stories – often opinions – social media scattershot (watch the spelling, there) some print media, and then there are “Special Reports.”  Among the “Special Reports” we can include White House press briefings.  In the “Biden” White House, though, press briefings provide almost no information: Mostly they provide obfuscation.  Still, many “news” sources can manage to create “news reports” that parrot the daily obfuscation – which is what “The White House” intends, while others make news of the gross failure of “the White House” to tell much, if any, truth.  Still, as Prudence has instructed us, there ARE truths about what is happening to our nation and the rest of the world, and careful sifting will reveal kernels of it… much like an archeological dig where arti-facts are revealed from under the crap and detritus of imperturbable soil.  Digging and sifting.

More than any other people, Americans deserve to hear the truth – all of it.  Unlike most other “Westerners,” however, Americans are about the least likely to hear it.

Competing countries – and forces – have their own “truths.”  We can see this most glaringly in the stories and hatreds and imaginings of Palestinians, although we should not discount the elements of truth amidst some of their “histories.”  That’s the trouble with hatreds and competing hatreds:  each employs truth to justify the hatred and to maintain the political power that comes with it.  Hating Jews, for the worst example, did not start with the Balfour declaration, and certainly not with the German Nazi Party.  Many Christians harbored hatred of Jews for centuries, ostensibly because they “killed Jesus.”  Plus, Jews banded together, kept their own customs, helped one another to succeed financially, and did not accept Christ as the Messiah.  Jews became bankers, often perceived and in fact, unsympathetic towards inabilities to repay debts.  And, they became jewelers, purveyors of expensive things for which prices had to be paid.  Plenty of reasons to dislike them in the eyes of many… or to hate them if cajoled relentlessly.  Rather than seek understanding, refined potential haters found it more comfortable to ignore or ostracize Jews even as they lived among the majority.

Almost every “Western” society has been unwelcoming to some degree toward Jews, despite the immense contributions to science and medicine and other highly educated pursuits in which Jews tend to excel, and prosper – even the great United States.  Yet, the treatment of Jews – “Hebrews” – by political leaders in the U. S. is far from exemplary, most particularly during World War II.  Despite American sacrifice to defeat Nazi Germany, Franklin Roosevelt was heartless toward Jews attempting to escape Nazi Genocide.  Based on spurious fears that even Jewish refugees might be Nazi spies, the Roosevelt administration refused entry to thousands of Jews seeking asylum.  Many of them were forced back to Germany where a large fraction of their numbers would die in the Holocaust.

Today, the U. S. holds itself out as a great defender of minorities, especially against “hate crimes.”  This extends even to cultural/religious groups that have been frequent, even documented, threats to Americans and to our nation.  Things are different.  No longer are we governed by parties that both want to protect and defend the United States, just with different methods.  One party appears to be in thrall of globalist forces that are essentially Communist, and that same actively appeases – or cooperates with – Communists and other totalitarians.  Indeed, one party seems determined to convert American politics to a totalitarian model… in the interest of “safety.”  At the same time – in the interest of idiocy – that party has dropped all defenses of its international border with Mexico, and facilitated the illegal entry of some eight Million aliens, a million of which have not even been interviewed: the “gotaways” who specifically avoid interview.

There may be a logical value to an open-border policy (that flies in the face of all existing immigration law), but no variation thereof seems Prudent.  The President of the United States, at the direction of – probably – former President Obama, has set policies by executive fiat, that must serve some interests, albeit not those of the citizens of the United States.  Dissolving a nation’s border is tantamount to dissolving that nation, and a citizen of that nation would be advised to ask his or her President why, and on what authority, he would allow such a crime?  For, a crime it is.  Indeed it has accumulated to several million crimes, and then it has become a federal imposition of unlegislated expenses – one might say, “illegal” expenses – upon the sovereign states that are protected(?) by the federal covenant we call the Constitution.

Those on the left defend the facilitated invasion of illegal entrants as some sort of “humanitarian” sacrifice the United States is obligated to make.  It is as though we are to blame for other countries’ crappy politics and socialist-totalitarian economics.  But it has become a grandiose lie being told hourly at our southern border – a lie told to the actual citizens of our country.  Illegal entrants from over 150 countries have crossed that ephemeral border, including thousands from “hostile” countries… those who are actively working to weaken, if not destroy, the United States.  The Biden administration is solely responsible for the breeching of our border(s) and the illegal release of illegal entrants into our nation.  One has to wonder.

Over the next decade we will have to capture and deport most of the Biden illegals.  Very, very few of them are legitimate asylum candidates.  According to international law, an asylee must accept asylum from the first country that allows him or her entry.  We’ve had illegal entrants from 150 or more countries.  Many had to pay for passage by air or by water to enter Mexico and then the United States.  Their presence at the Rio Grande is ridiculous and outrageous.  Why aren’t Americans outraged?

One of these days, it is sad to contemplate, there will be a significant terrorist event inside the United States.  We have, thanks to the President’s illegal policies toward an open border, INVITED terrorists into our nation and communities.  Nineteen radical Muslims executed the September 11th attacks; we know that some much-larger number of terrorist types have snuck into America in the past 3 years.  We know that both Muslim and Chinese espionage has undermined the federal government agencies and departments, even members of Congress and major cities’ governments.  Do we think that unfettered access to “The American Way” will magically convert these professional America-haters into Boy and Girl Scouts?  Not under the Biden administration… they seem to hate America, too.

GULLIBLES TRAVELS

You're ***tting me, right?
You’re ***tting me, right?

Amidst the anxiety, worry, fear and complete inversion of logic that comprises “Climate Change,” a sad failure of the heart is heard as gullible men and women who might create families, declare that they are afraid to bring children into this world which is doomed by the follies of pollution and fossil fuels.  It should be a mental thing, but it’s not: it’s a function of gullibility that is divorced from clear thinking.

America cannot survive gullibility.  Americans, more than citizens of any other nation, are OBLIGATED to study and understand the words, and the meaning of the words, and the philosophies supporting them… in our Constitution and other founding documents.  The United States of America – those are words, too, and we are obligated to understand them just as clearly.  Ours is a country with a role in history unlike every other.  “United” tells us that we are OBLIGATED to share common laws and moral guidance.  “States” tells us that our States are the structure of our nation, and our strength.  Ours is not a national government, it’s a federal one, yet every scrap of legislation that Congress passes EXPANDS national power over the states and the people, when it should be doing only what the states cannot do for themselves.  Words matter.  Whoever – or whatever – attempts to change the meaning of words is announcing its willingness to confuse the polity and steal our ability to discuss, reason and understand.

What American voters have allowed, so far, is an administrative bureaucracy that makes itself appear to be so important – so vital to our ability to remain fed and comfortable – that threats to its power or existence, even of tiny slivers of it, are tantamount to Hitler’s Nazism.  Minor interruptions, like temporary shutdowns until appropriations are approved by Congress, are described as imminent defaults on U. S. obligations and threats to every aspect of life from stocking grocery stores to providing health care and life-saving operations.  Worse, a government shutdown is racist, homophobic, transphobic and misogynist… and no one wants to be any of those things, let alone the whole country!

What illogical nonsense.  Yet, that is the definition of our “democracy,” today.  The “democracy” that we must impoverish ourselves to protect around the world, yet do our best to undermine, here, despite the fact that we are a Republic… that employs democracy.

Are your children gullible?  Possibly.  Once ideological teachers have taught our kids to believe untrue things, the pathways of gullibility are established.  If a first-grader believes the United States was founded upon racism in 1619, he or she can be led to believe that gender can be changed.  Pretty soon they’ll believe that their parents are a threat that cannot be told that their son or daughter is changing to daughter or son.  So, now it’s better to hide truths from parents.  We can’t survive gullibility.

Education, essentially dominated by government schools and unionized teachers and staff, is the fundament of culture and citizenship.  Along with language, math, geography, civics, science and a second language, the success of our nation requires that our children learn about our history, our founding, the ideas behind the Constitution and how it works, and basic economics.  Turning out students who cannot read – at huge expense – puts our nation at risk; filling their heads with untruths and radical theories of race and biology is the opposite of what parents – and our nation – need teachers to do.  Yet, as schools fail to educate, teachers’ unions dictate policies to management that increase costs, compensation and staffing while reducing accountability for teachers’ lack of results.  The incredible refusals to work and teach during “COVID” can never be forgiven.

Have we the intestinal fortitude to correct the direction and OWNERSHIP of our so-called “public” education system?  Can we place the management of public schools back into the hands of those we elect to manage them?  Or will we go to our graves with leftist, virtually communist teachers’ unions operating this huge fraction of our government for their own benefit… not for the advancement of our children?  Government employees should be severely restricted in their abilities to influence elections.  As it is, politicians charged with financial management of all departments rely on unions to get themselves elected.  They (the elected) then “negotiate” with unions for pay and benefits.  Those who are charged with representing citizens wind up basically representing only the unionized, public employees.  What a debilitating economic farce.  Will we continue this?  Or are there politicians with the courage to break it up and restore fairness, balance and honesty to our republican form of government?

We are $33 Trillion in debt.  Clearly the past 6 decades of “representative” government has failed to manage the people’s business.  We are on the path to insolvency and economic ruin when that day comes that other nations will refuse payment in dollars.  This is a system our “representatives” created in our name.  Now we have a poop-head as president who has invited SEVEN MILLION or more new welfare recipients, many of whom are actual criminals and terrorist threats to our nation, to our people.  Shame on him and shame on all of us who voted for him in 2020.  We knew he was a fool from his 40 years of history in the Senate and his 8 years as Obama’s V. P.  We knew he was a public policy and foreign policy idiot, yet we dutifully followed his party’s directions.  Now, we’re the fools.

Are we patriotic enough – still – to make wiser, more sensible, economically aware choices about who will represent us American citizens and who will be our President, representing all of us and our country?  Or, are we so gullible that we will again elect a caricature of a leader and toadies who claim to be our representatives?  How many of our Senators and “Representatives” are receiving money or gifts of some sort from China?  More than one, for sure.  Why do we re-elect them and then cede them power in their respective houses?

American citizens are the most powerful people on Earth.  We can affect both domestic and foreign policies of our powerful government.  Yet we continuously give up our unique rights in exchange for not being called names, and we continuously re-elect relatively ignorant and corrupt people to both state and federal offices – people who soon give up representing we, the People, and then learn to represent their personal interests by cooperating with other corrupt “representatives” who have learned how to steal, legally.  Whenever they actually face their voters, these worthies tend to represent the government to us rather than the other way around, explaining why this or that policy position that got them elected, cannot be accomplished.

Are we awake enough in 2023 to exercise our Constitutional rights and powers to put in place a legislature that will actually force the executive swamp to do the right things?  How is it that we couldn’t even get the border closed with a threat to shut down the government?  How is it that the Biden administration thinks it is “American” to force expenses upon the States in the breaking of federal immigration laws?  We ARE gullible, but, are we crazy?

VOTE PRUDENTLY

What on Earth

Prudence wonders about whether America will resolve to solve its problems – actually stop nonsensical policies – reduce federal spending – let men be men and honor the majesty of motherhood… stuff like that.  Questions abound.  Why don’t we have a secure, tightly regulated border, all around?  That’s one to which there doesn’t seem to be a good answer.

Why have we allowed about 7 MILLION illegal entrants over the past 3 years – unexamined adults and children, with unknown backgrounds and unknown useful skills – to pour into our country IN CONCERT with criminal drug and trafficking cartels?  How do we propose to house them in a nation where housing costs are the highest in the world?  How will we educate them in schools that are becoming a black mark on our society, in how many languages, at costs per student that are the highest in the world with the lowest quality of education results?  What sort of a plan is there?  Looks like there isn’t one.

How can a country that is 33 Trillion dollars in debt invite multiple millions of illegal migrants onto our welfare rolls?  No good answer – or reason – here, either.

Americans are wondering – or should be wondering – how it is that our military is being reduced precisely when China’s military, especially their navy, is being increased at its fastest rate ever?  Why are our soldiers, airmen and sailors being weakened by critical race and gender theories as Russia, China and Iran are growing as direct threats to the United States and our allies?  For that matter, why weren’t the military leaders who engineered the stupid and dangerous abandonment of Afghanistan, fired and forced to answer for their stupidity and the preventable deaths of service members at Courts Martial?

Here’s a crucial, life-or-death question for Americans: Why did President Obama and, now, Joe Biden, fight so hard to help Iran become a nuclear power?  Keep thinking…

How can the once-best medical system in the world allow itself to be compromised by a federal government agency that is financially beholden to pharmaceutical companies, to the point of dictating treatments and even outlawing viable treatment options(!)?  How can that medical system allow licensed doctors, many who are recognized researchers, lose their licenses and positions – including having their research suppressed?  How could it?

How could so many tens… no, hundreds of thousands of needless deaths of Americans be permitted, even forced, by the rotten collusions indicated above?  How can we ignore the thousands of “sudden adult deaths” occurring among young, healthy recipients of mRNA injections?  Why are those same being pushed down to 5-year-olds?  Have we lost our minds?

We seem to have lost “America.”  To some, the “some” that wish to eliminate America from the future, there is no good in any part of the United States because of slavery, a practice our nation sacrificed horrifically to end.  The promise of freedom and individual sovereignty for which we also fought and sacrificed – a promise made to all who descended from our founding and which is enjoyed by all who wish to destroy America, now, is a promise based upon Christian sacrifice and faith in God.   There is nothing coincidental that those same wish to destroy Christianity as they tear down America.  When did we lose our courage to defend both?

Rubbing raw the memories of slavery is a process very similar to climate fear-mongering.  The abiding purpose of both movements is never solution or even resolution of those supposedly existential threats to humanity: it is only to empower centralized, political control of humanity and its various nations and economies.  Where is the American Constitution in all of this?

Lately we have taken to defunding police departments where they are MOST needed, in cities where crime has been the worst, and where normal people and commerce are being threatened to the greatest degree.  There must be a good reason to do this in the minds and hearts of those who control those funds.  Prudence cannot discern what it might be… unless, and it’s becoming less and less of a long-shot, those who advocate and promulgate those anti-police policies, are actively trying to destroy America, too.  Evidently, they believe that the hollowing out of American cities – turning them into crime-ridden enclaves, will weaken America’s ability to defend itself when the final push to turn America communist, arrives.

The economic stress of “losing” the cities will also hasten the downfall of the nation.  Cities are the engine of growth and strength; they are always attacked in war.  George Soros and, now, his son, Alexander, have targeted American cities for collapse by financing District Attorneys who are radically opposed to bail, prosecution and incarceration of criminals.  Capitalizing on the unfortunate death (not a murder, more a suicide) of George Floyd, Soros and other anti-American types in the Democrat party, fed so-called protests that mingled with brutal, destructive riots and demanded the end of policing as we knew it in cities.  Some purpose is being served by what seems completely stupid.

The United States, Canada and Mexico sit atop the richest sources of carbon-based fuels on earth.  With the right economics and politics, North America (and South America for similar reasons) could be energy-independent and wealthy, industrialized and CLEAN.  Unfortunately, Mexico is nearly controlled by criminal cartels, Canada has slid into globalist socialism, and the U. S. has fallen sway to anti-scientific “climate-change” hogwash that leads us to sacrifice both freedom and wealth – and global influence – as well as our national sovereignty.  For unfounded reasons, we can’t use the energy we own; we must buy it from hostile countries that obtain it less cleanly than we do, and ship it by the millions of tons in dirty ships.  This dumb idea makes sense to a fringe element that benefits from battery-powered vehicles, solar panels and windmills.  As with other, numerous life-changing trends and forces at work within the federal administrative state, government falsehoods are actively diverting our nation from its history and heritage.  Why do we allow this?

Lithium-ion batteries, mostly controlled by China in terms of materials and manufacture, are being forced upon a public that doesn’t want them.  Why?  Because the government-types believe we need to want them.  They don’t work well and they are toxic and dangerously combustible.  This is all to reduce “carbon,” one of the key building-blocks of life on earth.  There is a belief – an ideology – that claims that carbon-dioxide, the major product of breathing, is capable of such a massive “greenhouse effect” that it will destroy life on this planet, including raising sea levels 20 feet or more.  People motivated by their faith in this concept are unable to consider that it is probably incorrect… and they are noisier than most of us, gaining political sway.  They are forcing the switch away from our extraordinarily efficient gasoline-fueled vehicles and from the freedoms they enable.  So, we are being forced – not encouraged, FORCED – to switch to less capable and less safe modes of transportation that cost more to operate… when they do operate.  They do have slick electronics, but they are relatively useless except in very limited applications.  Why do we, the People, permit our government to batter(y) us?

Our so-called Representatives have divested the Congress of most of its responsibilities.  Article I, section 8 of the Constitution, among other financial responsibilities of the Congress, states that “the Congress shall have the power… To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures; …”  Yet the same band of worthies created the Federal Reserve in 1913 and, in stages, slipped the “Fed” into a position of financing unlimited debts on the credit of the United States.  Despite its supposed purpose of managing liquidity among banks and preventing financial crises, the Fed enables politicians to make economic promises that they generally do not understand the consequences of, knowing that there is unlimited funding available by “borrowing” from the Federal Reserve.  The Treasury issues U. S. “bonds” of various maturities and the Fed “buys” them with money it doesn’t actually have.  What could go wrong?  Socialism… socialism devolving into communism… that’s what could and is going wrong.  Why are the inheritors of the world’s greatest political and economic system allowing their nation to be stolen by socialist enemies… from inside?

The next set of presidential elections in 2024, may be our last opportunity to reverse at least SOME of the stupidity we have been borrowing for since 1963.  It will be Prudent for Americans to reaffirm their Americanism rather than their adherence to any party, and vote accordingly, and not by mail – DON’T VOTE BY MAIL!  It’s too easy to steal your vote or negate it.  Show up and vote… for America.

THE NEW COLONIALISTS

The world cannot continue as it is.  We Americans, like most people around the world who work for their livings, every day, quickly – automatically – adjust to, and begin to ignore, whatever significant news we’ve been pummeled with.  For us, the electricity and clean water stay “on” and we can take a shower whenever it pleases us.  Things can’t be very bad, can they?  Night comes and our homes or neighborhoods seem safe… and the electricity is still on, after all.  We wake up the next morning, the kids go to “school” and hubby goes off to work and no bombs have fallen.  Life is still good and the worries that crept in about inflation, drug abuse, China, Taiwan, Fentanyl and Ukraine… drift away.  Anyone that wants to discuss any one of those “issues” more than an hour or two later, must be a conspiracist or a radical, and quite boring.

Yet, off in the fuzzy distance, major forces are changing how the world “works.”

Once upon a time, independent countries could deal with one another on a wide spectrum from complete ignorance to invasive war.  What happened in Africa or Southeast Asia didn’t matter much to the enlightened few who lived mere cannon-shots apart.  As America took form, way, way across the daunting sea, things changed in ways unforeseen, and unplanned… or not – depends on your spiritual view.  Still, moving Judeo-Christian morals and urge to sacrifice, and the newly-developing economics and technologies to the “new” world, changed virtually every other nation’s future, for both good and bad.  The “old” world could not continue as it was.

Exploration and economics: old-worlders believed in ownership of the natural world, things like stockades, forts, fences, stone walls and armed defense of them all.  Homes and farms became permanent – at least compared to nomadic ways of life – and concentrated cities, stone fixtures defining streets, brick buildings and wheels, horses, oxen and the “tack” to harness their strength.  There shortly became a new “in” group and all others were in the “out” group and deemed “savages,” for their lack of Christian godliness… and technology.  The world could not continue as it was.

The colonial period lasted for 500 years, both good and bad… largely bad.  There are vestiges still, even as a new colonialism is preparing to take the place of nationalism and of freedom.  Communications have brought us together, but also into conflict.  It is not simply the conflict of nations, but conflict of individuals.  Powerful propaganda, as one form of colonialism, seeks and succeeds to take over our most valuable possessions: belief and morals.  Indeed, we can be led to reject even our personal selves in favor of a gender fantasy of becoming someone else.  Like the failed process of turning indigenous peoples into Europeans, attempting to change genders will create lifetimes of failure as people attempt to believe two diametrically opposed ideas simultaneously.  As belief structures, moral structures, religious structures weaken and fade, we find our governors changing laws to ENFORCE this false dichotomy onto everyone else with the vile tools of hatred for those who disagree.

Mind-addling drugs have been a tool for individual colonization for many decades, but rare until the Viet-Nam war.  Now, with fentanyl and other created chemicals, there is not only colonization of brains, but high volumes of death.  Whether live addiction is better is hard to discern.

But there is a world of colonization proceeding, also.  It’s called globalization.  If the United States allows it to happen, the concepts of individual liberty, sovereignty and free-enterprise – and of responsibility – will be as dead as doornails.  At the very time that citizens of the United States of America are most needed to defend our Constitutional way of government and of life, the purposeful lack of education about our unique role in the world, is bearing its most bitter fruits.

Our “Democrat” co-Americans, the cats’ paws of global leftism, are engineering a gross, illegal colonization of the United States, itself.  Attempting to justify an open border on “humanitarian” grounds has allowed, so far, over 6 MILLION illegal entrants to claim asylum status with virtually no limitation or follow-up by federal Border Patrol or Immigration authorities – the very “authorities” charged by law to prevent exactly what they are now forced to ignore.  Everyone in the chain of command from the President on up to the Border Patrol agent required to “process” invading hordes, is party to crimes and treason.  This is the new colonialism in the 21st century: displacement of rightful citizens as a public, global policy.

There is a legitimate, Constitutional question as to whether the federal government can impose costs upon any, let alone all, of the states and their ability to tax their citizens, including diverting STATE resources that were acquired for completely other reasons?  What legal thread allows the federal government or any President, by extra-legal executive order, to degrade the ability of a state to support and serve its own citizens?  What extra-legal authority allows the federal government to divert federal funds placed in the hands of states to administer and fulfill LAWFUL obligations, based on a Presidential executive order?

An even greater question is whether anyone except a United States Citizen is entitled to Constitutional rights and privileges?

Make no mistake, the “Free World” is being colonized by leftists with distinctly anti-American philosophies – Communists, for all intents and purposes.  We rarely hear of the “Free World” these days – it’s almost gone.  Not even the United States of America is number one in freedom any longer.  We, who used to defend freedom and exemplify it, can no longer define it except in terms of license.

In the “old days,” colonizers would appear with different tools, weapons, clothing, languages and religions.  Today?  Today they come with the very same differences… they just don’t have to travel as far, perhaps across the street or the down the halls of a school.  Do we rid ourselves of them?  Or, surrender?  So far, it’s surrender – the world cannot go on as it is.

The globalist colonizers approve of the amoral colonization of America.  Only America – the U. S. of A. – stands in the way of global Communism, yet we barely remember that to be our role in history.  The world cannot go on this way… not for long, anyway.  Of course, it will go on somehow.  But HOW is the business of all Americans – favoring Patriots, Prudence hopes.

There have always been economics, even when families were managing their own food, construction and defenses.  Aside from more elaborate ways to steal, the purposes of economic metrics are still the same, although the scale has exploded.  The United States, alone, squanders enough money to put the world economy at imminent risk.  Here we stand, on a sliver of eroding support for the Dollar, borrowing and spending faster than accounting can measure.  We should be ashamed.  We claim to represent a form of freedom and classless economics with which anyone can succeed with competence, work and integrity.  We elect our representatives democratically and send our best and bravest overseas to defend or create our model virtues while, back home, we don’t want or defend that system for ourselves!

Why would anyone take our advice?

The world cannot go on the way it is.

IDENTIFYING ENMITY

Secretary-General António Guterres (left) speaks with Volkan Bozkir, (Russia)
President of the UN General Assembly.

The position of the United States of America, once the beacon of hope, justice and honesty, relative to the rest of the world’s nations, has changed.  It’s not a change most Americans have hoped for or, cruelly, even anticipated – certainly not one that our erstwhile “leaders” have anticipated.  In a nutshell: our enemies have identified themselves.  None of the bribes or blandishments by which we have executed “foreign policy” are sufficient any longer.  The outright gifts to those who will be just as happy to watch our demise as grand influencers, have proven to be a waste… unappreciated largesse from our grandchildren’s grandchildren that bought, evidently, only tolerance.

Now that the Bidens have destroyed faith in our money, in our courts and in our foreign services, Americans have what might be perceived as an opportunity to stop lying to ourselves the way we’ve been lying to other nations.  Honesty is not a commodity that is banked in any quantity by our federal administrative state or by the elected trolls it maintains for our imagined benefit.  We vote and vote, hoping and praying that the latest lines spewed in campaigns are, at last, the true ones, but nothing changes very much.  The only change agent in the past 9 administrations has been hounded and vilified, attacked and threatened by the administrative state’s agents, since before he won election in 2016.

The internal and external destruction of the United States of America, has been engineered by the Communist Party of China – CCP.  The majesty and Christianity, tolerance and charity of America has been given away, diluted and stolen by even our trusted friends, neighbors and “public servants” as we’ve barely watched, so consumed are we by technology and hyper-sexuality and self-hate.  “They” have divided us against ourselves – the only way America and Americanism could have ever been defeated.  We’re still standing by the Grace of God, but our own determined effort will put an end to that.  Still, while we yet stand, we have an opportunity to make some radical decisions.

A quick and painless one, an obvious one, is to get rid of the United Nations and renounce every connection or treaty that we’ve ever honored with that den of thieves.  Kick them out of New York, out of our State Department and out of any influence in our curricula (aside from history) or our medical establishment.  We are Americans – we own this country and we can clean out this fetid closet of worms if we wake up in time.  Let China build a new set of club-houses for the International Liars’ Club to meet in.

Next, recognize who our enemies actually are and stop treating them like imminent friends whose undying friendship may be cemented by only a few billion more debt-dollars from our grandchildren’s grandchildren.  If they wish to trade with us or even enter our country, they will have to be at least courteous towards our national sovereignty and honor.  Let those who are proven friends to our nation, have advantage over other nations in terms of trade, commerce and intercourse.  Let us make mutual defense agreements with those who will commit as much to those treaties as our nation does – who will risk their citizens’ lives in our defense as we have and will in theirs.

Our international agreements should be mutually beneficial while not draining our treasury.  We’ll need some honest financial managers to replace the band of liars who operate the mis-named Federal Reserve, FDIC, Treasury Department and the IRS.  They operate as controllers of or enemies of American citizens.  Naturally, our federal budgets must be in surplus all-the-friggin’-time.  Inflation of the money supply has only limited value to AMERICAN CITIZENS, and then only in times of war or national disaster.  These do not include local hunger or personal failures or homelessness or drug addiction or unhappiness.  We’re talking only the business of the federal government, personal matters notwithstanding.

It is not the business of the federal government to house people, feed or clothe them, educate them or wipe their bottoms.  At least half of the federal departments and sub-agencies can be eliminated along with half of the work-force… to start.

It IS the business of the federal government to defend and control our borders, ports of entry and the presence of non-citizens.   Illegally residing non-citizens should be humanely rounded up and deported to their home countries, from where they can apply for visas.  Our country has allowed its past half-century of federal administrations to over-promise and over-spend to the amount of some $32 Trillion of current debt, and over $100 Trillion of future socialist obligations.  This is the same as pointing out that we have exceeded our productive surplus* over the past 60 years in order to transform other countries, provide comforts to non-productive citizens/residents of our own country, act like we are the most wealthy nation in the world, and to add numerous socialist programs for political reasons (vote-buying).  We cannot afford to live the way we have been.  We must stop borrowing and pay our loans off.  We must teach/force our citizenry to take responsibility for themselves and take that same off the back of the federal government.  The future can be one of freedom or of socialism/Communism; it can’t be both.

We need more tax-PAYERS, not more tax-TAKERS.  Currently, and since the outbreak of COVID-19 in particular, the long, slow creation of federal dependents has been operating at hyper-velocity – the dream of the Communists among us.  Sadly, we have been electing Communists to positions of influence and power in our states and in the federal government.  Part of how this could be is our hasty acceptance of people from widely diverse cultures, making them citizens and allowing them to create pockets of cultural distinction rather than assimilating them into our unique American culture.  We can identify the Communists among us by observing their disdain for that American culture.  We allow many of these weird people into our education establishment and then marvel at how differently our children treat American values.  In too many cases, our children have never learned what those values are.

Recently, 700 professors on the staff of the University of North Carolina signed a letter opposing a new requirement to include instruction in America’s founding documents and Constitution.  They feel that “academic freedom” is threatened by teaching American history.  A great university is represented by faculty who, evidently, fear the inculcation of AMERICAN values.  Perhaps their best efforts are perceived as the separation of their students from American values, should the primary and secondary schools not done an adequate job.  Maybe this explains why teachers see parents as the enemies of “education:” they might be teaching their own children the American values that teachers are committed to destroying.  America Awake!

*Productive surplus is what is available to be taxed out of payrolls and profits. 

BEING A LONG SHORTLY – 4

How we deal with national problems need not, in all cases, be nationally.  A large fraction of our national weakness has resulted from the least-efficient mechanism in the country – and the most expensive – the federal Government in its thousands of permutations, assuming responsibility for local and intensely personal problems and discomforts.  These would include things like food, education, employment, housing, and sexuality… not to mention the nature of household appliances and pronouns.  We are becoming weaker as a people and weaker individually, as we wait for unrelated bureaucrats and disingenuous politicians to make us comfortable.  Only in the past 30 years, or so, have we begun to recognize that every bit of comfort has come at a loss of freedom.  Let’s move forward.

IMMIGRATION

Every nation must deal with immigration.  It’s an outgrowth of the “greener-grass” syndrome.  People in many countries live in economic and political systems that are pretty crappy.  Often there isn’t enough food or the government is mean to people.  Many of those countries are led by dictators or communists of various shades of red, leaving the residents not very happy.  Eventually some of those people do what it takes to move to some other country where the political and economic “grass” is greener… or prettier… or less crowded.  All countries, including those that people leave, have laws – or fences – to control entry, which means not crossing their border until or unless the new country actually thinks it might be good to let the foreigner across that border.  Every country does this: controls and guards its border, mainly because one never knows when a foreigner might try to steal from the new country or from its people or, worse, try to do harm to the new country or to its people.

So, every country on Earth controls its borders, umm… except for one: Ours, the U. S. of A.  Interestingly, ours is one of the freest and the most blessed with food and blessed with the idiocy of perpetual welfare.  How would a relatively modern, successful country like ours, ever select a leader who would not defend its borders?  It is a conundrum.  Our current leader, chosen according to legend by 80 Million of his fellow citizens, has actively subverted the laws – and the fences – of his country resulting in the unbridled entry of more than 5 Million strangers from 100 other countries (or more), a million of whom sidestepped the polite greetings of the so-called “Border patrol” staff so that they could enter in secret, perhaps with less than honorable intentions toward their new country.  What an odd “leader” our country is entrusted to.

Let us hope every voter with the opportunity is able to choose a far, far different leader so that our country’s border will again be protected and guarded.  It’s a simple thing.

DRUGS

Drugs can heal or injure or kill.  These 3 options are true for both licit and illicit drugs.  In concert with the problems of immigration, tons of illicit drugs cross the unguarded border we just discussed, and they definitely injure and kill the legal residents of this country.  Our erstwhile government, hired to protect us, the citizens, has failed to solve the problem of mind-altering and often deadly drugs for, well, virtually forever.  But, under current leadership and the inactions of our bureaucratic “deep state,” the swath of death such drugs have wrought has reached new depths of death and failure.  One wonders why this particular national problem has proven insoluble.  Our national government reflexively tries to force the solution to deadly, destructive drugs back upon individuals and localities, while grasping onto personal problems that earn votes and the continuation in power to make them national ones.  Someone is not being honest with the citizenry.

Over the span of 9 years or more, America sacrificed about 55,000 of its young men and women fighting Communists in Viet-Nam.  We have agonized over the waste of those young people for the 50-plus years since we pulled out.  Lots of lies and untruths were told to the American people during that botched conflict, yet we persevered until there was nothing left to fight for, and we left.

Drugs kill between 60,000 and 100,000 young people EVERY DAMNED YEAR nowadays – mostly due to fentanyl that comes through Mexico, our “friends” to the south.  The victims don’t need the Defense Department to ship them overseas to be killed; overdosing can be accomplished close to home… sometimes in the home. 

Fentanyl is fairly easy to make from its constituent chemicals, benzylfentanyl and 4-anilinopiperidine and our other “friends,” Communist China sells large quantities of those chemicals to Mexican cartels.  Toluene, an easy chemical to obtain, they don’t need to import.  “Fentanyl” is 100 times as potent as morphine in its ability to react with pleasure receptors in the brain, so a user must be very, very careful as to dosage.  Its other effect is suppression of breathing, and a user certainly wouldn’t want to end up like George Floyd, late of Minneapolis.  A deadly dose, even for a man as big as the late Mr. Floyd, is about the volume of one shake of salt on some food – very, very careful.  Unfortunately, most users of drugs, particularly drugs of questionable origin, are somewhat stupid.  Tens of thousands smarten up every year, right before they stop breathing.

A president, especially one elected due to his immense popularity with some 80 Million of his fellow citizens, would go out of his way, at least a little bit, to guarantee that they or their offspring would be safe from the ravages of illicit drugs like fentanyl.  It’s the least he could do for the millions of people who loved him so much, once.  It turns out that that President is more enamored of the one-point-something Billion friends he has in China, dwarfing the paltry crowd who “voted” him in.  So, he has done less than nothing to stop the flow of illegal drugs or illegal aliens across our once-guarded border.  Indeed, his actions have facilitated both of those illegal border-crossings, and here we are.  Parents and lovers who are mourning the loss of loved-ones to fentanyl and other “southern” drugs, are advised to never forget who their President cares about least.

Drugs could be stopped, but not one plea-bargained case at a time.                                               (See: https://www.prudenceleadbetter.com/2016/05/15/drugs-and-governance/)

It would be refreshing to hear a campaign speech that included the protection of the American people as a key promise.  It would elicit many Prudent votes, particularly if the death penalty were revived for drug distributors.

MEDICINE & FREEDOM

Recently, as in 3 years ago, a “new” coronavirus swept across the planet.  A lot of people died as a result, but not always from that virus, COVID-19.  We’ve talked about this, but the virus is not the biggest damage-causer.  The presence of COVID yielded a massive loss of rights and freedoms – un-Constitutionally – and changed the relationships among individuals, health-care providers and institutions, and changed the relationship between the federal government and individuals.  We who are plagued with short memories, owe it to ourselves and to our descendants, to keep alive the abuses Americans have been subjected to and why the new relationships must be reversed in law.  Lately we have heard the CDC and the NIAID branch of it, try to walk back the directives they issued during the “pandemic” that cost many their jobs, licenses and even lives.  Governors, school systems, public agencies, even branches of the military created executive authorities and powers to direct the actions of individuals because they were “following CDC guidance” or “following the science” as imaginatively defined by people like Dr. Anthony Fauci who claimed to “represent” science.  People like to think that “doctors,” including Phd’s, are “scientists,” but many are followers of others.  For medical doctors, with the brutal intrusion of federal governance into health care, many are employees, now, and they can be fired by the institutions that they turned to for stability and protection, if they don’t kow and tow.

Police and fire departments forced trained members to accept the experimental injections or lose their jobs; military branches forced members to accept the shots or lose their position, despite the investment in training and skills.  Teachers were forced to accept the experimental chemical injections on the same basis.  People were forced to get the injections or forego normal exercise of their rights of movement,  assembly or commerce.  Almost none of what was imposed on us, free, sovereign, Americans, was Constitutional.  Those who were questioned on these actions used various claims of ignorance by citing the “CDC” advisories as their authority to restrict freedoms.  Ostensibly, thanks to active fear-mongering by government entities, that same CDC and NIAID (Fauci) and ignorant media (to the point of marshalling hatred against those who disagreed with the fear… mixing it all up with “racism,” lack of “equity” and even “white supremacy” as reasons that people questioned “the science”) COVID was such a threat that states of emergency were justified and people could be arrested or economically destroyed for opening their businesses.

To be Prudent, most of “science” touted during the dark medical age of 2020 through 2022, was bogus.  Real science was often put forth and literally suppressed by government and media working together to protect a single narrative, and those actions killed tens, if not hundreds of thousands of Americans who would have survived COVID relatively easily had less harmful treatments been allowed early in their infections.  In some cases, those alternative treatments worked in very late stages of infection, but it took a contentious legal battle to obtain them.  Hundreds of thousands.

Science is not a place or even a consensus, it is a process.  Stopping investigation, data analysis and experimentation by claiming “settled science” or similar baloney, is as anti-science as can be.  That’s what the “great” Anthony Fauci represented throughout.  The entire National Institutes of Health – NIH – should be disassembled and reconstituted in a way that will improve health and longevity, not the bottom lines of pharmaceutical companies.

The only legitimate role of government in our democratic Republic is to be a partner in the health, safety, advancement and prosperity of its citizens.  Consider what it is, in fact today, and recognize why Prudence indicates that these should be revolutionary times.

DOLLARS

The world is awash in dollars including the trillions we create through productive enterprise in our own economy, those we create through productive enterprise in other countries, the “air-dollars” the FED creates for us at re-election times, and the dollars created by foreign banks and enterprises.  Lots and lots of dollars.  The “air-dollars” have been tolerated by Saudi Arabia and other OPEC nations (OPEC being largely a creation of Henry Kissinger and the American oil industry) and nearly every other nation in the world since Nixon closed the “Gold Window” of the Treasury in 1973.  Simultaneously we guaranteed to protect Saudi Arabia and its oil markets and they agreed to market oil only in dollar denominations.  People who wanted oil, and many other traded products, were happy to accept dollars in payment and just as often would sell their goods in terms of dollar values rather than their own currencies.  The need to maintain “exchange rates” with all other currencies and the dollar, gave rise to incredibly lucrative currency speculations that have been not only a financial lever but a political one, as George Soros and others can testify.  So many dollars.  Every one is a bill – a bill against American productivity, and each must eventually be paid with something valued by the holder.

Many in power today seem to view the ocean of dollars as something that will be tolerated forever, and, further, that our incomprehensible debt – over 32 Trillion, now – can be “mentalized” as opposed to monetized.  That is, we will eventually be able to talk our debtors out of worrying about it or even wanting it paid back.  Without grasping what their attitude means, many people just roll their eyes when asked about how we will ever deal with our national debt?  Since it can’t be dealt with now, the best thing is to not let it worry us too awfully much, and let someone worry about it in the future.  Apparently, since we have made ours the largest single element of worldwide debt, all other nations should realize that if our debts are called the world will be worse off without an independent United States… so there: deal with it.  That’s some convenient mentalizing, but it’s not likely to work.

Until 10 or 15 years ago, the majority of nations accepted the dominance of the dollar as a trade-off for stability and extensive military aid from the U.S. to the more than 150 nations in which Americans were posted to protect or stabilize smaller countries facing politically crappy enemies.  Militarily, the U.S. had established a global empire that benefitted itself in both trade and influence, yet also cost it more than its own productivity could afford, hence the enormous debt being tolerated.  But tolerance isn’t love.  There was and is nothing about our past relationships that will inhibit smaller countries from accepting “help” from Communist China, our sworn enemy.  Part of China’s all-dimensional war against the U.S. is the unseating of the dollar as the global currency of trade.  If we lose the “petro-dollar” advantage other nations will quickly decide to not accept payments of international trade obligations in dollars.  One hopes that some one of the geniuses who brought us to this point of astronomical debt, is working on how the U.S. of A. is going to survive as an independent entity without the petro-dollar economy to sustain it.  Voters should ask politicians this question.

Fellow Prudentialists will appreciate the growing, unique responsibilities of U.S. citizenship, ignored or un-taught only at our peril.  Let’s move further.

BEING A LONG SHORTLY – 2

America is mired in at least 39 or 390 serious problems, but we’ve dealt with only 4 of those we’ve Prudently identified.  Time is short.  We must continue.

NUCLEAR POWER

Those who have submitted, mentally and emotionally, to the “green” cult, are uniformly opposed to so-called fossil fuels on the premise that carbon-dioxide is going to ruin Earth’s climate and cause the demise of civilization and of life, itself.  That CO2 is the prime “green” component of the solar-driven oxygen cycle upon which all life depends, seems not to affect their thinking.  Those same are virulently opposed to nuclear energy, the cleanest, least damaging source of electrical energy currently available.  Something doesn’t make sense.

Green leftists always reference “Chernobyl” as the end of the argument against nuclear; if that fails, “Three-Mile Island” is expected to shut-up any pro-nuclear stragglers.  Both of those supposed examples of what’s wrong with nuclear power plants, are non-sequiturs.  Chernobyl, in particular, is an example, but it’s an example of how NOT to build a nuclear pile and of how NOT to run and maintain it.  Rather than condemn the natural process of nuclear fission, opponents should correct their opposition to the technological stupidity the Soviet Union rewarded.  Chernobyl would have been a big nothing had it been designed and built like, well, Three-Mile Island, actually.

Chernobyl was, technically, not in a containment structure as nearly all nuclear plants outside of the USSR were.  That is to say, the weaknesses of the design and overall misunderstanding of the processes at various states of operation of their graphite pile reactors, make the Chernobyl-design power plants risky for mistakes and accidents under the best of circumstances.  A long list of nuclear accidents at those plants was finally made public after the investigation into “Chernobyl” was completed.  Some engineering traditions should not be permitted to operate or build nuclear plants.

Still, nuclear power plants have so many inherent advantages that it is foolishness to avoid making use of the continuously-improving technology that goes into their design and construction.  The largest deterrent to nuclear power is fear, often fed by reference to bad technology, like that employed in Chernobyl-design plants and methods.  New series III and IV plants are smaller, modular and 5 to 10 times safer than Three-Mile Island era plants, including passive safety systems.  They’re also much less expensive to build and license.  And, they are clean in both product and operating lifetimes up to 60 years and in eventual decommissioning costs and impacts.  There is no “all-electric” future without massive, weatherproof generating capacity like what nuclear can provide.

TRANSPORTATION

Ours is a highly specialized and competitive global economy.  Both commodities and finished products must move from points of origin to points of consumption; this is not going to change no matter how many “community gardens” are created, and it won’t change despite all efforts to go “carbon neutral,” either.  Some tasks must be performed.  Daily there are millions of them.  Reducing the efficiency of completing those millions of tasks places huge burdens on society, the economy and on freedom.  Forcing wholesale changes on how transport is performed… without a more efficient way to do it, is risky at best and foolish by definition.

We are in the midst of a green revolution, and we have been for over 100 years.  From time to time wisdom has been applied through government regulation that has sped up the process of becoming more efficient and therefore cleaner in our consumption of energy to get materials and people moved from place to place.  Increased mileage standards is one example, and automobiles are far cleaner and more efficient than ever, today.  On the other hand, there are far more cars on the road than ever – in virtually every country – causing ever more gasoline, diesel and lubricating oil to be consumed while propelling substantially more “transport” per gallon or quart, and overall.  For green evangelists there has been no progress at all – things are oh, so terribly worse because people insist on private, self-directed transport, and reject, for the most part, “public” transportation: too many cars, too many people driving cars.

Bad government, bending to the political pressure of “green” acolytes, responds by forcing people to pay for and to switch to public conveyance, and then fails to render it clean, comfortable or safe.  Worse, public transit doesn’t go to every place where people need to go, and it never will.  Government then considers how to force people to go to where public transit does go, imagining “model” communities that may never exist.  There are clean, electric alternatives, but so much money and political force has been committed to “public transit” that alternatives are now less likely to be considered than if government went back to being wise, again.  [See: https://www.prudenceleadbetter.com/2017/07/20/a-home-on-the-beach/; or https://www.prudenceleadbetter.com/2016/07/10/automotive-economics-and-freedom/.]

Battery magic seems to many, especially to “green” proselytes, to be cleaner than those awful carbon-based fuels; we should all shuck our internal combustion engines and switch to battery-powered vehicles.  Bad government is listening to them and is virtually forcing car manufacturers to make more magic cars and fewer reliable ones.  The ads are impressive.  Batteries, themselves, are dirty products to make, both physically and politically.  A person changing from gasoline or diesel to battery power has to drive upwards of 60,000 miles before the ecological cleanliness of an “electric” car starts to improve upon that of an internal combustion model.  The only advantage of lithium-ion battery-powered cars is that the filth of mining and tailings, processing and effluents, unsafe mining (including child labor) and ecological disruption and pollution… well, it all happens in other places, out of sight of “green” Americans and others.  Right in our neighborhoods things are pollution free!  Forcing indigenous people off of their ancestral lands in South America is meaningless to us: they’re not OUR indigenous people about whom we care very deeply… very, very deeply.  Improvements to Communist China’s manufacturing base and our long-term dependence on it for parts and replacement batteries, should keep China from ever damaging relations with the United States… so that’s good, too.

No matter how much cleaner internal combustion engines become, it is – and will never be – clean enough; only perfection is barely adequate in the business of planet-saving.  So, in partnership with an entirely anti-American regime, the “green” (actually Red) movement has twisted our economy to the point of throwing away phenomenal manufacturing and servicing skills and technology, as well as discarding remarkably and increasingly efficient electric generation in favor of windmills and Chinese solar panels.  Soon, there will be millions of used cars rusting away as planet-saviors force the end of internal-combustion cars and trucks and the adoption of battery-powered replacements, while limiting the number of “licenses” to sell gasoline… or refine it… or transport it, making continued use of gas or diesel power a little more awkward and unreliable than even severely limited-range electrics are and will continue to be.

Ultimately, (see “only perfection” in the preceding paragraph) owning and driving personal vehicles will become so troublesome that only grossly expensive “public” transportation will be able to provide a modicum of mobility.  Personal freedom and sovereignty that Americans have invented the technological means to enjoy, will be lost forever.  After that there will be millions of battery vehicles that no one wants or can sell, and will find difficult to recycle.  Everything will be approaching perfection.

IMMIGRATION

For many nearly forgotten reasons the United States of America has for over 230 years been the most attractive nation and place for people from every nation to emigrate to.  Americans, themselves, no longer understand (or are taught) why this could possibly be.  Today education appears to include – is compelled to include – every tawdry mistake anyone in our history ever made.  Worse, to complete a communistic circle, the effect of those mistakes is to absorb and render null and void, every great idea and action of those same people.  The net effect of this twisted lens of American history is to grow up blaming your country for every problem in the world, rendering the existence and founding of it indefensible.  As a result, fewer and fewer people do defend it… at least from inside the country… even as more and more people flee their home countries and sneak into, well, HERE.

Actual sovereign nations, however, have laws to govern and, basically, restrict entry to their jurisdictions.  Nations are defined by their borders.  The United States is defined by both borders and ideas of freedom and individuality – not by groups or identities, but by individuals, individual responsibility and equality under the law for – every – individual.  For the past 65 years or so, we have turned our backs on our unique and majestic ideas, and dispersed the gold of citizenship as millions of people who don’t want to become Americans flooded to the insides of our borders.  

Barack Obama was the first president who actively modified immigration practices if not policies, to try to change the demographics of the United States.  Democrats had been dreaming of pushing white America into the minority category since Teddy Kennedy, an avowed socialist (and idiot).  They couldn’t get it rolling any faster during the Clinton administration, but things started moving under Obama.  He was probably the first president who seriously does not like the United States or its Constitution.  Trump, obviously, was an unexpected speed bump in the race to change races.  Biden, on the other hand, knows only two speeds in that race: “flat-out” and “stupid.”  Some FIVE MILLION illegal aliens from over 100 countries have walked in to the U.S. since the 2020 votes were “certified.”  About a million of those never even checked in with the Border Patrol, preferring to sneak in with various subterfuges planned, including serious drug-dealing and, for some hundreds or thousands, terrorist crimes.

Biden is hard to pigeon-hole.  A patriotic observer is hard-pressed to declare him merely sloppy or foolish, when the very next day he might be presented with greater evidence of Biden’s treason toward his own nation.  Breaking, or failing purposefully to enforce U. S. laws, which enables the entry of enemies to our nation, is exactly what President Biden has been doing since taking office… and it’s treasonous.  That treason has come in many flavors, primarily these two: entry of those seeking to execute criminal activities including terrorist acts, and entry of those transporting deadly narcotics with intent to distribute.  That fentanyl kills 10’s of thousands of Americans – mostly young men, but certainly not exclusively – one would think might wake up Americans to the crime of making its importation easier!

The importation of people is also a crime.  Mexican cartels, who control drugs across Mexico and across the U. S., have found a new billion-dollar industry in the trafficking of people into the U. S., especially, by a factor of 10, since the Biden administration took office.  For all of the cooperative police work – DEA work – between Mexico and the past 5 administrations, the flow of drugs, now including abundant fentanyl, has not slowed.  Where there once were 5 or 6 cartels there may be 15 operating in every Mexican state and every U. S. state, as well.  They’ve become more violent in Mexico, causing record levels of homicides, destroyed families and widespread official corruption.  At the same time, with the cooperation of Chinese chemical suppliers, they are partners in at least 100,000 deaths in the U. S. from fentanyl overdoses.

President Biden commits treason against his own country in other ways, often by providing “aid and comfort” to our enemies.  It’s subtle, but definite… well, subtle except for scuttling Afghanistan.  According to sworn congressional testimony, Biden demanded immediate withdrawal despite the advice of military advisors, including the abandonment of Baghram Airbase and more than $7 BILLION in weapons, ammunition, aircraft, including some high-tech personal and tactical hardware.  The Taliban, of course, has never been an ally of ours or friendly toward America or Americans in any way.  They’re enemies, Joe, you dope.  And we armed them to the teeth, abandoned real allies to danger and death at the hands of the Taliban.  We could have retained Baghram and much of our equipment, and we logically should have regardless of costs.  So, militarily, why did we do things the way we did?  What on Earth was the headlong, damned stupid rush?

It seems Prudent to realize that we abandoned all of our work because China wanted us to.  China didn’t want us to maintain a base so close to their border.  China is happy to see us shoot ourselves in the foot – it saves them the trouble.  They have invested many millions into the Biden family; our retreat was a return on investment by a factor of a thousand percent.  When we look at all the players and pressures involved in 20 years of U.S. actions in Afghanistan, only the U.S. acted like an idiot, against its own interests.  Treason, thy name is Biden.

When China is invited to “help” the United States eliminate drug abuse, and elections are “temporarily” suspended to get a handle on “crime,” it will be too late to rid ourselves of the gaggle of assholes from the Obama and Biden regimes.

So many words and only 3 more issues discussed.  Prudence says stop here, wait for the next.

FREEDOM’S FUTURE

Predictions are generally not very Prudent uses of mental energy.  Every new year period yields predictions from financial experts, various historians, and, practicing their strong abilities to follow trends, politicians.  Politicians are no more intelligent than 99% of the polity they claim to lead.  Their skills are no greater than roughly that same percentage.  They DO have unusual experiences, having agreed with their own ethics and advisors of various sources, to get involved with politics, campaigning and the miasma of half-truths and virtual untruths that “politics” seems to require in order to gain majority support.

Prudence is very close to a man who ran for office in the 1980’s.  One of the most common questions directed to him was, “Why do you want to get mixed up in this stuff?”  His strong beliefs about where his state government was off kilter didn’t really answer that question.  In its simplest terms, it was almost, “Why would you want to become a cesspool adjuster?”  Hard to answer.

One must multiply the paltry and rotten problems of one state by ten times or twenty, to appreciate the corruption of the U. S. Congress and the “swamp” it finances.  Where does that leave us in the matter of predictions?

One of the most prescient observations, which sadly became a clear prediction, was from Scotsman, Alexander Fraser Tytler: “A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. …”  It would be difficult to fashion a more succinct description – warning – of the political history of the United States.  Having just watched the querulous assignation of the Speakership of the House of Representatives to Kevin McCarthy of California, and appreciating the truth of Tytler’s observation-prediction, some fresh predictions are now become Prudent.

Much of the battle for the speakership involved demands from actual conservatives to cut federal spending, even holding it to 2022 levels (a very low bar for measuring success), which would be a departure from the profligacy of recent decades of lies and spending.  In other words, what those 20 or so conservatives promised to win elections is a departure from the direction of the past 7 or 8 administrations.  Based on his history of “working across the aisle,” as though that were a mark of wisdom to be celebrated, McCarthy’s instincts would not have led him to run the house, its committees or the budgeting process, such as it is, along those lines.  His history in the house, and some of his comments on hot issues, indicate that McCarthy acted as much in service to his party position as to hard principles.  He supported Trump and criticized him.  He voted for and against what might be considered “liberal” legislation.  He has been more steadfast in opposing Biden-supported spending plans.

This all leads to both speculation and prediction.  Not even Prudence can discern the innermost motivations of a politician, so trying to predict what the McCarthy-led House will actually do on specific issues is not likely to be useful.  However, it seems Prudent to predict that some of the 6 holdouts who led the opposition to McCarthy, will face retribution, regardless of any promises from the new Speaker.  The Speakership brings a lot of power, both administrative and political… plus a fatter paycheck; threats to that power will be punished.

Further, any motion to “vacate the chair,” now makeable by a single member, will never result in a change in speakership.  Accepting this new rule seems like a major concession by McCarthy, but it will prove hollow.

A lot of heat will be generated from “oversight” investigations by several committees.  Will any dishonest Biden administrator, of which there are several, actually be impeached or forced to resign?  This is unlikely, despite the substantial law-breaking and lying to Congress that has transpired.  Will anything substantive come from an investigation into Hunter Biden’s and presidential brother, Jim Biden’s, nefarious foreign influence-peddling over the years Joe Biden was Vice President?  This appears to be a slam-dunk, but is also likely to be mostly heat, not light.  There may be some sort of resolution passed by a slim majority in the house, but no impeachments.

Can the House, alone, force Biden to close the southern border?  Theoretically… and according to the Constitution, Congress’ control of the “purse strings” can be used to propose “revenue”-raising legislation, taxation and borrowing and the like.  All such must arise in the House.  In addition, the ability for the Executive branch to draw moneys from the Treasury is dependent upon Congress’ passing of appropriating legislation to that effect.  Amidst all the horse-trading and dealing done between the House and Senate, let alone in each House, the likelihood of targeted restrictions on expenditures in order to control or punish any executive department or agency for bad behavior, lying to Congress or various malfeasances, is quite small.  It would be a watershed event, in practice, and seems doubtful in Prudence’ view.

It is more likely that specific appropriations might be voted for the purpose of closing the border and other needful actions, but, barring the willingness to perform quick impeachments, those directions given via appropriations can be “slow-walked” by the “swamp” for the duration of an administration.

Ultimately, in order to impose its will in any meaningful way, the “Republican” House will have to endure a government “shutdown.” In our lifetimes there has been very little political stomach for accepting the slings and arrows that are always directed at Republicans for such a “crisis.”

The pressure in Washington, within the deep state, certainly on Capitol Hill and, to our detriment, within the so-called Biden administration, is to send money from the Treasury out to thousands of programs that reach millions of Americans, buying their votes in the process.  Along the way we may adequately defend the country, but that is becoming more questionable as “woke” nonsense infects the military establishment.

Can a couple dozen conservatives in the House actually change the direction of our decline? May God make it so… otherwise, let’s all be prepared to defend our nation, economy and border.