Category Archives: Trump

Culture, Economics, Education, Foreign Policy, Governance, Representation, Trump

HATE TRUMPS REALITY

October 20, 2019 Prudence Leadbetter Leave a comment

Two world-changing events occurred in 2016: the U. K. vote to leave the European Union… and the election of Donald Trump to the U. S. presidency. There are many parallels, both in the respective happenings and in their aftermaths. Both events have exposed flaws in the collectivist trends both nations were in the midst of. Both nations have experienced hate-filled political discourse ever since.

The “UK” – Britain – had taken an economic step away from sovereignty when it joined the “European Community” in1973, and reinforced the decision by referendum two years later. After the Maastricht Treaty in 1992, Britain took a political step away from sovereignty, as well. Now the European Union, The “EU” placed controls and limitations on member “states” regarding citizenship, borders, immigration and judicial decisions, with the avowed intention of forming a “United States of Europe” and subverting cultural distinctions and national rights. Britain has always been restive about the changes to its sovereignty, and public pressure and petitioning finally caused Parliament to create the referendum, yes or no, on leaving the EU: the so-called “Brexit.”

What is interesting is the emergence of hatred as a dominant British political tool, more than even during existential threats of war over Britain’s lengthy warring history. Per usual, all of what Brits call “hooliganism” is laid at the feet of “ultra-right-wingers,” who, apparently, are too stupid to recognize the wonderful future that’s possible with globalization. If anyone objects vociferously to the slippery amalgamation into an ephemeral United States of Europe, he or she is pigeon-holed as a “right-winger” and not worthy of considered attention.

In other words, “nationalism” may be viewed only through the lens of Nazism and racism and all the other “isms” leftists use to end debates. The benefits of national competitiveness in the elevation of living standards of every sort, is carelessly conflated with government’s benign intentions and centralized economic control. Individual liberty is the first victim of centralization. The unholy alliance of history-ignorant education and a leftist press have proven useful in the imposition of this theory.

A similar effect has clearly been evidenced in the rise of Donald Trump. With calls for his impeachment even before his inauguration, there is no surprise that his political opponents are clamoring ever louder for impeachment, now. The only thing missing is an impeachable offense, but they’ll construct one or hire a contractor to create one for them. Why not win at the ballot box by putting the efforts at impeachment to work building an electoral coalition? That’s a good but separate question.

Why the hate across academia and liberal-leftist “communities?” From Antifa on up, the degree of hatred for Mr. Trump and his supporters is indicative of tremendous fear: fear of losing something so dearly held that nothing is too extreme to defend it… even if that means disrupting democratic republicanism and the Constitution, itself. What could that be? That is the question, and a larger question in the U. S. than in the U. K.

Do leftists simply hate all non-leftists? Maybe… they don’t like us, certainly, and think we are stupid for not appreciating their view of history’s inevitable direction. But, hatred? Takes a lot of energy to hate, maybe that’s why they aren’t very cheerful. It could be that they have plans to facilitate the supposedly inevitable direction of human activity (and serfdom) and that those plans are so important that they must destroy everyone who opposes – even by disagreeing with – the idea of a universally socialist future.

Is it as simple as just hating Trump, the man? He has lived a very exposed life and, until deciding to run for president, he enjoyed the benefits of wealth and acceptance in the elite circles of power and influence open to those who appear to not oppose the leftist vision. You might say he exploited those benefits. While not a perfect husband, he has been a good father by all measures, and treats his ex-wives gently. Evidently he married more of his female affair partners than John F. Kennedy did his. He has never had any questionable deaths connected to him or his companies, and no one has had to “take the rap” for him. Is he a sweetheart? No. He’s rather ruthless in business… a requirement in the kinds of businesses he has worked in. He’s a scrapper, willing to fight back when politically punched. He seems quite patriotic. What’s to actually hate so vehemently?

Trump must be a threat to something held very dear by all of those who have reared up to stop his presidency. The measure of his enemies helps us size up the President, no longer simply Mr. Trump. Trump’s life and past business successes and failures, did not include diplomatic niceties, euphemistic half-truths and pretend alliances. Trump, himself, has never tried to present himself very differently than he actually is: brash, defensive, crude and vulgar at times.

He is vulnerable, politically, mainly from being a braggart, from which he slides in and out of embellishing the truth, even small truths. Unlike people in ordinary life, many of whom have the same bad habit of embellishing stories, but for whom it doesn’t make much difference, Trump’s overstatements are described only as lies. Others’ families and acquaintances recognize the habit and live – or work – around it. It may even be a source of humor.

In the position of U. S. President there is no room for it… none, we’re told.

People want to hear the lies they expect. They want to hear about “diplomacy” and “budget cuts” and “working-class” families like Teamsters, and about “working families” with indefinable careers, and the great favorite, “investments” in the future or in our children. Another whopper we like to hear is “religious freedom.” While more liberal leaders are expected to purvey “white” lies that keep America happy and keep secret the daunting business of the executive branch, Trump is pilloried for overstating, he is the worst liar in American history, after all.

Trump’s election, though, has interfered with our worldwide economic position, our military standing, the sanctity of our national borders, our ability to complete or repair relations with many nations, and with our ability to conduct domestic business. Why? Because of something Trump has done? Some action that has hurt our standing everywhere? That doesn’t seem like the Prudent answer.

Hatred of Trump, the man, is the damaging cause. Hatred, stirred by certain leaders in the Democrat party, and continuously stirred up by them, to a degree pushed by international socialists, is the hammer that has been pounding the U. S. domestically and internationally since before he was elected! Hatred. Political action founded on hatred. Trump has awakened and exposed the essential fraud of the socialist, administrative, “deep” state – the statist monster of socialist dreams and the ultimate threat to our constitutional form of government.

When has this phenomenon ever been seen in the United States?
Leading up to and during the second Civil War. Now we are entering the fourth.

Widespread hatred, particularly violent hatred like that exercised by so-called “antifa” gangs, is a symptom of civic breakdown. Political leaders are the very people whom we hire to subdue these effects of social dissatisfaction, or hopelessness, yet many are foregoing their responsibilities or actually encouraging the breakdown.

There are many threats to freedom, the greatest of which from outside, is China. They have permanent interests from which they do not deviate. One of those is to achieve dominance over the United States – everything else is secondary. Yet we, U. S. citizens AND our so-called representatives, are allowing Chinese interests to dominate us internally! Who voted for Nike? Politicians on both sides are profiting mightily – and in cash – from connections to Chinese companies. We keep re-electing them. Trump is trying to stand up to the Chinese and receives bitter domestic resistance for trying. You just can’t gore a single ox, anymore.

Meanwhile, we are doing our best to ignore history, these past few decades, and many seem determined to undermine the American idea from within. A world that is still fundamentally not-free, and dominated by soulless international bankers, is in no way the place for the end of national identities, to be replaced with global socialism – for “climate” reasons or any other. It seems more than Prudent, now – today, to defend and strengthen our Constitutional, democratically-elected republican form of government.

Culture, Economics, Education, Obama, Trump

RATIONAL ENDS

October 5, 2019 Prudence Leadbetter Leave a comment

Antifa thugs with weapons and masks claim to right the wrongs of "fascists", mistakenly named as far-rightists.

One can understand why liberals and other proto-socialists feared George W. Bush. He had developed himself into a patriotic, empathetic and religious man, shucking the follies of his youth and the excesses of inherited power… for the most part. Growing up in the shadow of powerful and successful (read: wealthy) people, going back several generations, creates a different mindset and outward view from those of most of us. The Bush dynasty developed from good fortune and good genes, and, perhaps, some good luck, but no family with the political impact of the Bushes could have had its hand on the levers of wealth and power for so long without ruthless application of power and influence.

But “W” is/was a little different, more empathetic, stemming from his “kinder, gentler” father, George H. W. Bush, and from his newfound humility. Unfortunately, after the 9-11 attacks, “W” also wanted to change the world, exporting and delivering democratic republicanism to other peoples who were not, in themselves, prepared to believe in it. Still, more than most who ascend to the presidency, “W” remained fairly honest, believing in what he was doing, however wrong-headed. Not a bad guy, all things considered, but not a particularly successful leader of the free world, let alone of the United States. The hatred of him was just as wrong-headed, but some of the fears were rational.

The left was more than ready for a change and with some ruthless interventions, able to ride a wave of window dressing and socialism into the White House with Barack Obama. Republicans in general didn’t trust him or ANY of his ideas, while those in congress tended to give him what he wanted for appointments and budgets, despite uniform hostility to the mis-named Affordable Care Act. They couldn’t even make hay from his wild failures internationally and the mis-feasance / malfeasance of his Secretary of State… not even from his demilitarization of the armed forces, socially and financially. He completed two terms, by the end of which he had virtually decimated the Democrat Party.

Still, Obama accomplished much of what he promised to do, starting with the destruction of compromise with Republicans. “We won,” he would say. Policy discussions with Republicans were few and fruitless, if not more derogation than debate. The liberal press learned that access came from right-thinking (left-thinking), not honesty and, indeed, many government types were finding jobs with networks and relatives of powerful network types were finding jobs in the administration – altogether too cozy a relationship and bearing no relationship to the term: Free Press. From 8 years of besmirching “W” Bush at every turn, the left-leaning, Obama-approving press learned that fawning coverage of Obama was a ticket to better ratings.

For the average listener/reader/watcher, the Obama administration was the opportunity to espouse socialism and so-called “multi-culturalism.” Suddenly, finally, it became okay to proclaim alternatives to and opposition towards… umm, actually, more like hatred towards the institutions and standards of “American” culture. Everything that was influenced by the Bible, Christianity and English common law, was fair game for leftist, communists, socialists, atheists and anti-U.S. activists of every stripe, many of whom had been lurking in public education for years. College campuses are full of their weak-kneed and malleable products, now.

Oddly, crony capitalism expanded under Obama, that erstwhile social warrior, as have monopolies, due in large part to the digitization of information and the intellectual laziness of large swaths of the population, particularly educators. Given free rein to proselytize leftward, weaker teachers at all levels literally graded on right-thinking (left-thinking) rather than on true intellectual curiosity, balanced inquiry, research and expansion of knowledge. Indebted graduates and drop-outs emerge committed to ideas untested and unchallenged. Some professors, reduced to tears and seclusion after Hillary’s electoral loss, have never recovered, except to hate the current president and to entertain ways to undo some parts of the Constitution so that such defeat may never recur.

The “politics of personal destruction” first named during the early Clinton era, has become just “politics.” Since The Loss, the only path to power appears to be one that climbs over destruction of opponents, at least for Democrats, and not one paved with better ideas, policies and uplift. As with all socialist movements, uninvolved people are also destroyed, at least in spirit, in order to create a more perfect world, free of merit and everything else that works for the majority of people. Inevitably, the controlling elite minority (also very wealthy) will self-identify and new rules will prevent anyone else from gaining “unfair” advantage in society. Those who “cling” to quaint ideas of individual sovereignty, self-protection, private property, unlicensed enterprise and the Electoral College, will be clearly spotlighted as the reason for others’ failure to achieve, and further restricted to make things even more fair. A final solution for their uppity independence will pass both houses.

Now, too, politics includes the Orwellian “Antifa” gangs. Somehow, and for obscure political reasons never explained, various municipal governments tolerate lawlessness as if it were actually “anti-fascist” in its purposes. Who wants “fascism” in their warmly welcoming and inclusive cities? The thing of it is that “antifa” employs the tactics of classical fascism! Huh. The terrible “fascists” whose heads they try to crack consist of people who believe, basically, in the U. S. Constitution, and there is the crux of modern politics: Constitutionalism and the enumerated and implied rights guaranteed thereunder, is being vilified as “fascism,” an extraordinary twist of language and logic. Our “free press” supports this dichotomous hatred of the country whose Constitution protects them.

The other “new” element of politics in 2019 is a mix-up of anti-legality and anti-Americanism, if not anti-Americans. The hot words are “illegal alien” or, more accurately: “illegal entrant.” One party has invested political capital, much heat, anger and historic blindness on behalf of open borders, unrestricted illegal entry and loose, extra-legal asylum/refugee processes. The net effect of it all is to flood the nation with aliens who are neither committed to earn citizenship or even to learn English, rather to steal from Americans – through government agencies who willingly participate in lawlessness – in order to “share the American Dream” or other phrases of equally opposite meaning. That there is a political party gaining support on this basis ought to trouble all of us.

It seems within the realm of Prudence to doubt the true motives of the Democrat party and its best-known leaders. This is no testament to the righteousness of Republicans, but the rapid leftward skid of Democrats is unparalleled in American history. Since Roe v. Wade the defense of abortion has become more than a mere knife in the heart of Life, itself, morphing into a virtual sacrament that Democrats must receive to stay in the party. Death to unborn children, unborn Americans. It has served its second purpose well, the delegitimizing of religion, most specifically Christianity: the death of America, itself. In leftist hands abortion has been the sharp wedge for breaking the bonds of our federation of states and to break the bonds of freedom, as well.

Some 61 Million Americans have been denied the Right to Life, mainly for convenience. Some millions of them would have grown up to love this nation and its exceptional purposes. They’d have grown and loved and learned and married and taught their children to take care of themselves and their families and their country. Perhaps that is the threat those babies represented – a threat so grievous that they had to be eliminated before they threatened the final solution for our aberrant Constitutionally limited democratic republic, Land of the Free.

Simple abortion has itself morphed into infanticide while illegal entrants are encouraged to sneak in to the country in order to have their babies become U. S. citizens as if by magic. There is magic afoot in abortion on demand: black magic that makes murder the day before birth a right; and for babies who insist on living through abortion procedures, quiet termination in HOSPITALS at the hands of doctors and proto-parents who simply don’t want to take the baby home. Are these children not U. S. citizens by virtue of birthright? How is it that these citizens have not been murdered by willful neglect? Magic most foul, and the hallmark of Democrats – the Party of Death.

Governance, Representation, Responsibility, Trump

votes to whiplashes

August 4, 2019 Prudence Leadbetter Leave a comment

It is not generally Prudent to try to discern historical meaning from quite current events, although the Mueller persecution of the Presidency has been extant long enough to make even some historical judgments without presuming too much. That Robert Mueller is a career creature of the federal law-enforcement bureaucracy, goes with saying. Ronald Reagan first appointed him an acting and then actual U. S. Attorney for Massachusetts; George Bush the elder appointed him and so did Clinton, Bush the younger and even Obama, several positions needing Senate confirmation, including Director of the FBI, a job he held for 11 years.

Mueller is a decorated Viet-Nam veteran and recipient of the Purple Heart, but all of his various public services have not been so honorable. While in Boston as an Assistant U. S. Attorney in the mid ‘80’s and again when in charge of the FBI in the 2000’s, for example, Mueller ignored, in fact fought, an opportunity to right a criminal wrong perpetrated by the FBI itself in the 1960’s, that left 4 men in prison for a murder they did not commit. That miscarriage eventually cost taxpayers tens of $Millions in payments to the innocent men’s families. Mueller’s loyalty was not, then, to the law, but to protecting crooked FBI agents and the FBI itself, from having that rotten, criminal scandal exposed.

Armed with such evidence people should be better prepared to ascribe value to the “work” Mueller has ostensibly done since his appointment as “Special Counsel” in charge of investigating NOT collusion with Russia, particularly, but investigating all related matters, a barn door wide enough to protect the entire Department of Justice. That Mueller hates Trump is easily discerned, that he was not in charge of his own investigation wasn’t clear until he tried to testify to two Congressional committees.

Mueller, as honorable as he may have been before he got into the DOJ, got his special-counsel appointment based on two different persona: Robert Mueller, registered Republican, former FBI Director, decorated Vet, well liked in establishment circles, and Robert Mueller deep insider, defender of the “craft” and its practitioners, manipulable loyalist whose titular presence allowed for a hyperpartisan army of Democrat… no, Clinton sycophants… who would attempt the coup Clinton couldn’t pull off.

When Mueller attempted his committee “testimony” in July, it became clear that he had only cursory understanding of the “Mueller” Report and probably didn’t write much, if any, of it. The grand circumnavigation of Russian collusion, initiated by a hoax, perpetuated by fraudsters with badges for more than 2 years, exposed that the ostensible “head” of the crucial probe was, himself, a hoax, clearly in place for reasons other than guiding a detailed investigation into possibly impeachable crimes. The great “apolitician” was there for hateful politics. One of his reputations was damaged.

Trump is an imperfect man – imperfect human. One need not delve into scripture to grasp that everyone over the age of, maybe, 8 or 9, is imperfect. Newborns and infants and toddlers, one might call perfect; they are not yet responsible for their actions and reactions. Still, somewhere around age minus 3 months, parents, especially mothers, but others as well, begin to impart their own views of humanity, love, relationship, truth, justice and revenge, to their gestating innocent.

The wonderful Michael Johnson song, “There is a Breeze,” includes this prescient phrase:
There Is A Breeze, Michael Johnson, 1973

“You have got to be taught before it’s too late, Before you are six, or seven or eight, To hate all the people your relatives hate…”

… even if the people they hate are themselves.

Mueller seems to hate Trump, and the people he served as Special Counsel all hate him, too. It isn’t Prudent to construct a governing philosophy based on hate, but those who hate Trump are committed to carefully teaching everyone, everywhere, to hate him. So far they have failed, but not for lack of trying.

Trump contains and exhibits many good qualities, woven among his flaws, as do we all. Those who await a perfect person to become President of these United States will die waiting. They seem obsessed with proving that anyone who gains power under a different philosophy than theirs, must be proven flawed – their flaws magnified to frightening proportions as proof that he, or she, is unfit to have elector-granted power. Well, then, it becomes clear that everyone who voted for the flawed victor is also flawed and not worth conversation, let alone compromise. It is a corrosive, dangerous path to tread.

Mueller is caught up in this, diverted from retirement by his loyalty to the deep state: the cadres of smarter-than-average functionaries and true-believers who know that the self-perpetuating structure of control and confiscation that largely subsumes individual sovereignty and electoral “choice,” is by far the rightest possible way to govern, as far removed from religion and independence as possible. It is like a sickness, an infection, except that the patient believes himself more well than the caregivers who feed and clothe him – and her.

Eventually the “deep” state, having consumed all the wealth obtained while hiding, will have to convert votes to whiplashes as those fabled “sovereign citizens” recognize the horrible hoax of the administrative state and refuse to support it in the style for which it is designed, and the socialism within rears up and stands astride America publicly. There are hints of this from the socialist left, here in 2019, and the great Robert Mueller has assisted to the best of his ability, following the instructions from the other swells to whom he is most loyal. Republican, shmepublican… thanks a lot, Mr. Mueller.

Culture, Economics, Education, Family, Immigration, Race, Responsibility, Trump

Party of Hate

February 16, 2019 Prudence Leadbetter Leave a comment

“Doctors” learn this procedure from one another to become “good” at it.

The battle over a “border wall” on the southern, Mexican border is a symptom of larger and more significant hatreds motivating a large minority of American residents. One hopes, and prays, that those same will step back and reconsider their desire to feed such ugly motivations. Led by Democrat leaders like Nancy Pelosi and Charles Schumer, Barack Obama and now, Andrew Cuomo, and many others, these new political haters appear to share several common traits:

They hate the Constitution as it was designed and written. The intent of the founders cannot be accepted, in their views, because some of them owned slaves, a grievous custom, without question, but totally irrelevant to the ideas and philosophies they espoused. In fact, the designers and compilers of the American ideas were ALL opposed to slavery and did their best to help it phase out of American life. Read Frederick Douglass; he understood.
They are deeply ignorant of American and of European history, and of the Bible, itself. The underpinnings of American culture are ignored by them, even reviled.
The institutions of government are trusted by them more than any individual’s motivation, and the seeming ability to legislate or regulate – doesn’t much matter – people to act as their fellow thinkers wish, is so tantalizing as to distort the presence or even the perception of liberty.
They view America’s existence as an affront to all non-white, non-European people, and therefore not deserving of defense, even of its borders, and that the history of America should be erased from people’s minds and certainly from educational systems so that America’s evilness and corruption can never again interfere with universal sharing of all wealth or with individual freedoms to play, fornicate and indulge as Gaia intended, under the careful watch of the Smarter Ones. They’ll identify themselves.

So, politics is not the actions of a free people to choose their leaders and governing philosophies; it is the benign control of wages, prices and production so that everyone is EQUAL, with brownish people being more equal than white people. Skills-based education will no longer be required for most students, so long as there are enough very smart people who should be compensated for making everyone else comfortable.

The quaint chaos of individuality and “freedom” can be avoided.

The majesty of American citizenship is unique in the world. There is no system like ours. Anyone… anyone, anyone who can honestly swear to uphold the Constitution, obey civic law, pay his or her bills and act responsibly, can become an American – an actual, living, breathing, American. One wishes those born here were held to the same standards, but still, it’s impossible to sign up for a French residency and ever, ever become, well, French. The same is true for Japan, China, Japan, Korea, or India or virtually any ethnically defined country. You might get to live in other countries legally, but you’ll never become one of them. America, including Canada, is different. America is defined by the ideas that formed her, and by geography. That’s it. No matter how hard racists of every shade attempt to say America is defined by white skin, it has never been so.

This is not to say there haven’t been some terrible ideas held by “Whites.” There are terrible ideas held by every race. The tendencies to gain power or wealth or women by whatever means can be devised, legality and justice be damned, is pretty much universal. The religious / ethical belief structures that lead us to contain those desires, to channel them for greater goods, to construct families that produce good adults from the children they are responsible for… those we are tearing down by every means possible, even through new laws that give status to the most twisted perversions and hatreds.

Hatred of America is readily evidenced by laws – LAWS – that permit partial-birth “abortion” and even infanticide for the most temporal purposes, even convenience. Since Roe v. Wade was given Supreme Court justification, we have killed-off 61 million Americans while importing 30 million non-Americans to “pay for our Social Security.” The trouble with Americans is they might become infected with individuality, Constitutionalism, responsibility and freedom! So, we destroy those who might make America stronger and import, illegally, those more likely to be dependent upon the whims and pleasures of the Smarter Ones, made widely known by their widely parroted self-declarations.

Trump, for all his flaws and imperfections, is trying, almost alone, to restore the mighty engines of freedom. If we are waiting for perfect, flawless leaders to arrive before we follow them away from rot and debauchery, we’ll wait forever while the last great hope of mankind is pissed away.

Education, Governance, Politics 2018, Representation, Trump

St. Mueller the Silent

August 17, 2018 Prudence Leadbetter Leave a comment

The “Mueller Investigation” as the “Special Counsel” investigation is known, is a confusing, obfuscatory, scattershot, and stupefying, yet crystal clear example of the failure of American self-government. Mueller has played his role very well: careful, quiet, indictments of several people who a) will never be extradited for trial or, b) have nothing to do with what the public believes is the purpose of his investigation. A cool character, he.

Now the big press controversy is over a pre-election meeting attended by Paul Manafort, Jared Kushner, Donald Trump. Jr. and some ostensible carriers of dirty dirt about Mrs. Clinton, Russian origin. The meeting wasn’t illegal and nothing illegal was done for all of its 20- or 30-minute duration. BUT! BUT! Did Trump, Sr. know about the meeting?

If he had known, it still wasn’t illegal. But, if he lied about knowing about it – which some claim, although there’s no evidence – and all one needs to do is accuse Donald Trump of something for certain people to “know” that he did not only that of which he is accused, but much worse, he’s such a terrible human being after all, then maybe Mueller can get him to testify that he didn’t know about the meeting under oath and then he may be accused of perjury because someone like James Comey, an established liar and hater of the aforementioned Mr. Trump Sr., and of Jr., too, most likely, has said he told him he did know of the meeting.

Mueller can choose whom to believe when testimony conflicts, and therein lies the flaw in the grand-jury / indictment system, proving the maxim that a good prosecutor with a grand jury could indict a ham sandwich. All he needs is for some homeless witness who claims to have seen the meat inside the sandwich in question, and to accuse the ham sandwich of being, in fact, a turkey sandwich. Soon the prosecutor’s suspicious attention is turned toward the sandwich so accused, with demands to hear what the purported ham sandwich has to say in its defense, only to find that the sandwich refuses to answer! Indictment follows.

Manafort is in big trouble. He apparently committed crimes by hiding income received from some sort of work for the then pro-Russian president of Ukraine. So his crimes were financial. His offense was working for the Trump campaign in 2016, during which time he committed no crimes. But, he breathed the air in Trump Tower and Mueller has treated him very differently from anyone else accused of similar crimes, including revoking his bail and holding him in solitary confinement. All this for a case that Mueller could have handed off to other federal prosecutors as he has other cases his broad investigation uncovered.

Manafort is obviously different because of his direct connection, briefly, with the eeeevil Mr. Trump: Mueller’s real target.

The official charge establishing this unique “Special Counsel” for the DOJ is short and incredibly broad:
ORDER NO. 3915-2017
APPOINTMENT OF SPECIAL COUNSEL
TO INVESTIGATE RUSSIAN INTERFERENCE WITH THE
2016 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION AND RELATED MATTERS

By virtue of the authority vested in me as Acting Attorney General, including 28 U.S.C. §§ 509, 510, and 515, in order to discharge my responsibility to provide supervision and management of the Department of Justice, and to ensure a full and thorough investigation of the Russian government’s efforts to interfere in the 2016 presidential election, I hereby order as follows:
(a) Robert S. Mueller III is appointed to serve as Special Counsel for the United States Department of Justice.
(b) The Special Counsel is authorized to conduct the investigation confirmed by then-FBI Director James S. Comey in testimony before the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence on March 20, 2017, including:
(i) any links and/or coordination between the Russian government and individuals associated with the campaign of President Donald Trump; and
(ii) any matters that arose or may arise directly from the investigation; and
(iii) any other matters within the scope of 28 C.F.R. § 600.4(a).
(c) If the Special Counsel believes it is necessary and appropriate, the Special Counsel is authorized to prosecute federal crimes arising from the investigation of these matters.
(d) Sections 600.4 through 600. l 0 of Title 28 of the Code of Federal Regulations are applicable to the Special Counsel.

Mueller was head of the FBI for years and worked closely, indeed friendly, with all the people who have lost their jobs there, over the past year: Comey, McCabe, Strozk, Yates, Paige, and others to come. Rod Rosenstein, not yet fired, who appointed Mueller, is also a close friend of his. The investigation team is comprised of anti-Republican and avowedly pro-Democrat, pro-Clinton personnel. It is reasonable to be suspicious of the even-handed application of the “law” likely to be arrayed against a Republican president who defeated “their” candidate. Mueller says nothing, but his treatment of Paul Manafort is louder than words.

Where the average sentence for Manafort’s alleged crimes is less than a year and a half – in a low-security “club fed,” Manfort is threatened with many decades of incarceration. A logical observer would recognize the prosecutorial tactic of squeezing a low-level criminal to get him or her to “rat” on his boss. There is plenty of doubt of that outcome.

But the Mueller probe is masterful in any case. While it makes clear the inability of our rotten, fatuous federal institutions to keep their own houses clean, it also has provided tidbits for rabid anti-Trump forces in media, the establishment parties, and in a thousand “non-profit” activist groups whose lifeblood comes from a thousand rotten grants of socialist funding whereby they separately and collectively weaken the body politic on a daily basis, and most foully from within the very government institutions created and sold to a heretofore “free” people as the fundaments of law and order.

And all of these seize on every tid and bit and crumb… and ham sandwich, with which to assail the President and all who granted him power to do what he is struggling to do. In truth he is neither Republican nor Democrat, yet the states are with him in the hope that our Constitutional republic might be saved.

On a sudden, the long knives of utter socialism are out. “Deminos” (Democrats in name only) are exposing their hatred for the ideas that formed The U. S. of A. Socialism, like the “serpent” that tempted Eve, is antithetical to Americanism. The American Constitution and Declaration of Independence cannot coexist with socialism. One need only to understand our founding and the majesty of liberty to recognize that truth. The heavy oil of socialism chokes out the life-giving waters of freedom and personal sovereignty. Need proof? There are twenty Trillions in proof hanging over our heads.

Mr. Mueller is faithfully serving the haters. Perhaps he knows this – his own past is far from pure.

Culture, Education, Immigration, Representation, Responsibility, Trump

The Progress of Hate

July 22, 2018 Prudence Leadbetter Leave a comment

Since Mr. Trump’s campaign for the presidency commenced, the Left and those easily led by leftist propaganda have virtually exhausted the supply of calumnies that can be thrown against another person. For his part, Trump can take satisfaction at having advanced from “buffoon,” and, one of the worst, “businessman,” to “Nazi” and, topping every other, “Hitler.” And he seems to have advanced so far with no effort. Remarkable.

As interesting, and not just interesting: phenomenal, is the ability of the Left to accuse their most hated opponent of being history’s most reviled LEFTIST! Of course, as the left constantly proves, the meaning of words – and philosophies – is one of the left’s adopted tasks. The danger is that words intended to cut the deepest might become meaningless.

When Hitler attacked the Soviet Union in 1942, Communist sympathizers infesting the West, including the U. S., immediately placed Hitler on the “far Right.” That lie was so successful it has become common “knowledge” and not just repeated casually, but taught as truth by people who ought to know better. Hitler was a socialist and a fascist. “Nazi” is an abbreviation of “National Socialist.” The enmity between Hitler and Stalin was between Cain and Abel. The Soviets suddenly became “allies” of the West by virtue of sharing an enemy – they never became a brother of American constitutional republicanism.

Ultra-leftists, George Soros and others, created the “spontaneous” agitators, “Antifa.” Antifa is an abbreviation of “Anti-Facist” which blithely mirrors the lie of Nazism being a right-wing philosophy. Fascism, as under Mussolini, Hitler’s happy Axis ally, is the primary tactic OF THE LEFT, not of the right. Antifa is a creature of the Left and it’s stated justification is to oppose fascism, a tactic of, well… the Left. Mainstream news outlets repeat their supposed purpose without analysis, in large part because most of today’s news companies are leftists, too, and the lie serves them.

No nation has ever “adopted” Fascism, although Italians were acquiescent following the corrupt failures of World War One and the economic fragmentation that followed. The soup of socialism in Italy was a widely varied mix from Catholic socialists to Communists. None could resolve the economic malaise and inflation. Fascism held out the promise of straightening everything out – putting people to work, making the trains run on time, enforcing dependable utilities of all kinds, where disparate unions had made key functions erratic and thrown people out of work. Mussolini, socialist to his core, perceived himself as the strong-man who could set things aright, and his rallying point was patriotism.

Patriotism for Italy and all things Italian, provided the unifying banner. For 30 years Italians could agree on very little but that they were Italians. The Fascists became “the Right” by virtue of usurping power that Communists and other ultra-socialists had jockeyed to obtain for themselves. Being to “the right” of international communists could hardly qualify Fascism as “Right wing” as the term is used today. Fascism was the penultimate collective, shy of Communism’s collective misery and politically elite control of production. Fascism organized business and industry to do its bidding, employing the profit motive for the State’s purposes. By putting people back to work Fascism appeared benign and was at first. Before long, however, Fascism could not help but take away freedoms as the trade-off for efficient government and, initially, efficient industry. The beliefs of fascist governors that they are in some way the best people to hold the positions they hold, is inevitable, and Fascism provides no mechanism for the governed to “clean house” of the corruption that power engenders.

Today’s “anti-fascists,” in their complete misappropriation of history, place American constitutionalists in the same camp as fascists and accuse them both of being on the “right wing” when, in fact, there is no connection. The exceptionalism of the United States is a form of “Rightness” that is at the opposite end of the political spectrum from the leftist, socialist soup of which Fascism was the outgrowth. Fascism and Constitutional Republicanism are so different as to be diametric. Yet we allow, and leftist media happily reinforce, the concept of “right-wing” and fascism/Nazism to be grouped as synonymous. Thank you, American public schools and most private schools, too. Even the Pope is now infected.

The founding Fathers, or, better, founding Philosophers, of the United States, determined to not simply create a kinder tyranny, but to create a new spectrum of Freedom. To become “an American” meant to agree with the ideas of America and, by adoption, accept the “American Dream,” defined only as the Constitutional Republic where people of all kinds can live together in Freedom and personal responsibility. We have drifted very far from the IDEAS, but not so far, quite, that we cannot row back to the safety of the Constitution.

Unfortunately, the exercise of citizenship in the United States is unlike that in every other nation: it depends upon shared morality and self-discipline. As those qualities erode and scatter in the winds of sexual abandon, the U. S. follows the same path toward leftwing fascism that far less promising nations have done before us. What might that look like?

It is, most sadly, conceivable in this summer’s reactions to normal legal functions at our southern border, that widespread rioting could erupt prior to the mid-term elections. People consumed by irrational hate for Trump’s second Supreme Court nominee and alleged “incarceration” of children in Texas have shown the ability to move thousands of ignorant people – young people – into civil disobedience. Is there a line they will not cross? Could a police incident where a young black man were killed, God forbid, in an urban setting, with cell-phone video spurring Ferguson-type rioting and destruction, spill over into multiple cities? As Federal troops arrive to support local police could shooting break out?

If erstwhile conservatives are in elective power when it becomes necessary to declare martial law, God forbid, again, they’d be accused of “police-state” tactics and “Hitlerism.” The police-state charge would have some merit. But it is a very risky step to take no matter how serious the civil unrest appears. So many legal conditions are suspended under martial law – even under a state of emergency – that “justice” is essentially discarded. Even if martial law ended in a month, say, the legal clean-up would take years.

Executive department bureaucracies would be locked out for at least some period. There is no way that “government” can appear to go on as before and, unfortunately, very little economic investment can proceed without satisfying a federal law or regulation or several of each. Large-scale trade activity would be severely disrupted for days or weeks, and with it, the World economy. No one outside of the U. S. knows how to deal with a non-functional U. S. government, any more than we in the 50 states do.

There are sizable numbers of people on the Left and the Right who would welcome a federal clamp-down in certain circumstances. On the Left one could imagine acceptance of a clamp-down to “stop fascism” and to free “political” prisoners, essentially rendering the U. S. a one-party state: socialist. On the Right, one can imagine acceptance of absolute federal stoppage of the drug trade, purging of bureaucracies of socialist-minded individuals, restrictions on abortion and absolutism on immigration. Neither adheres to the Constitution.

Martial law is too extreme to employ. We will need some rational way to walk our way back from the precipice of daily hatred of everything not “progressive” / socialist /Democrat. To Trump and those millions who wanted him in the Oval Office, the thought of relinquishing the limited exposure of foul and secretive government that Trump has begun, is anathema. Another way.

Unlike most pundits and proclaimed wise observers, Prudence dictates caution in offering solutions to our current divide between retaining the United States under the constitution, and letting it dissolve for the cause(s) of socialism. Do those fighting for dissolution even recognize which side they are on?

Have we allowed, through the actions of our “representatives,” the descent into a dilemma that democratic representation cannot solve? Aye, that’s the question.

Governance, Immigration, Representation, Trump

Citizen Unsettledness

June 16, 2018 Prudence Leadbetter Leave a comment

If you’re anything like me… and I know I am, you try hard every day to see something happening globally, or nationally or, possibly just in your local town or city, that’s good or soon to be so. Yet, try as we might we can’t avoid a certain unsettledness. For every bright spot in the daily news stream there seem to be 5 areas that are risky, messy, worrisome or approaching dangerous crises. Common to most of these is the fact that every level of government suffers from two truths: 1) Government employees are paid exorbitantly in comparison to average taxpayers; and, 2) governments are running out of money.

In spite of the creation of the so-called, “Federal” Reserve Bank, which is neither federal nor a reserve, and in spite of Congress’ unlimited ability to borrow money, the U. S. government (which grants and loans “money” to virtually EVERY state and municipal government, law-enforcement agency and school district) continuously obligates itself to levels of spending that exceed all revenues AND the deficit it borrowed to fill during the previous year. Both political parties have proven feckless in their stated desires to achieve a “balanced” budget. What they have proven to be adept at is convincing enough voters that only the mendacity and inherent (pick all that apply: racism, hatefulness, homophobia, misogyny, Christian fundamentalism, ethnocentrism, open-borderism, sanctuary policies, liberalism, conservatism, fascism, socialism, Islamophobia, anti-Semitism, Russian collusion, lookism, weightism, white privilege or xenophobia) of the opposing party is standing in the way of a well-regulated, egalitarian Shangri-la: A place where everyone, including the ignorant, the illegal, the unskilled and the drug-addled are happy, well-fed and well-respected… and perhaps better-smelling.

A simple increase in the “debt ceiling,” the “ceiling” aspect of which is a bigger lie than medical marijuana, is all that’s needed to protect democracy and guarantee the rights of every known victim group. It’s all unsettling.

To add to our concerns and feelings of helplessness, just as the continuing news of gang rapes and drug-related murders dims in our cerebral cortices, some clown shoots up a school somewhere and the fundaments of Constitutional republicanism are brought into question, non-stop, for about 120 hours. It gives a person worries. More kids die playing school sports every year than die from being shot at school, but that fact doesn’t seem to help… not that it should, really. Both are problems, but conservatism and, in particular, the unusual Mr. Trump, can’t be blamed for sports deaths. And there’s always the NRA. The perpetrator should shoulder most of the blame but he (virtually always “he”) is quickly exposed as a victim of something society or the unusual Mr. Trump and every Trump voter has done to him.

The abject failures of people in positions of authority, law-enforcement and so forth, are never the fault of anyone in particular and readily ascribed to a “lack of resources.”

Many of us, more women than men I’m convinced, deflect every opportunity to discuss political-economic issues because …”there’s nothing we can do about it.” A somewhat larger “many” refuses to discuss politics at all, because politicians all lie and even when the person who seems better gets elected, nothing changes then, either. What’s the point?

The casual observer is, naturally, unsettled.

The miraculous ability of elected (and appointed) officials to become quite well-off, if not wealthy, while sacrificing as “public servants” only adds to the general feeling among everyone else that things are upside-down in America, in the sense that “things” don’t make “sense.” Recently a number of (Massachusetts) State Police officials beat a hasty retreat to “retirement” before the various crimes they may (very likely) have committed while “serving” the public as enforcers of the law, were formally charged to them. Interestingly, as they retired they were gifted with huge (read: obscene) payouts in the tens and even hundreds of thousands of dollars, CASH, for “sick” days they never needed and for “vacation” days they never took. The records of such non-takings and non-needings are never questioned.

It is a fascinating coincidence that a disproportionate number of people whose “contracts” with their State agency include the unique option to “cash in” sick days not needed, are among the healthiest state employees on record. Compare them to employees of, say, the MBTA in Massachusetts, whose union “contracts” include not only exorbitant pay rates but a generous number of “sick days” without the cash-in options, who are found to be among the least healthy. Very highly paid bureaucrats are employed to hire the two groups of workers and one would think that some of the ultra-healthy might accidentally be placed with the MBTA, but, not evidently. For work-a-day tax-payers it is… unsettling.

Locally in the Merrimack Valley we are learning that the unfortunate city known as the Town of Methuen whose immediate past mayor left office much beloved, has realized that in that mayor’s last years in office, in concert with an elected City Council, contracts with their police were signed that raised pay scales this year to $400,000 or so for CAPTAINS, and grants the once-embattled CHIEF an $86,000 raise, bringing his pay to $300,000 country. Just think of the pensions. Can they cash in sick days?

Finally, it’s unsettling how many elected and sworn officials spend more effort and time “representing” illegal entrants: border-jumpers, in effect. Even judges are infected with greater concern for non-citizen defendants, freely releasing them to commit additional crimes inside the United States in contrast to citizens who, had they committed the same crimes that engendered the court appearance, would be incarcerated. Fortunately said “judges” have lifetime appointments, else they’d be kicked out post haste or, perhaps, kicked period. Imagine. Still, it’s unsettling.

Governance, Representation, Trump

Land of the Free

April 14, 2018 Prudence Leadbetter Leave a comment

The current turmoil in our “American Community” is constantly laid at the feet of Mr. Trump. He, of course, can’t avoid making his own contribution to our dis-ease… it is how he got himself elected. But, we appear to be living out the future long forecasted: that we will destroy ourselves from within, and not be conquered from without. Trump is a symptom of the poor health of our self-government experiment, not the cause.

A list of “major” components of modern American life will, topic by topic, immediately bring to the reader’s mind his or her own ideas – opinions – and perhaps knowledge of what is out of balance, if not dangerously wrong in each arena. See if you agree that the following are the “major” components:

1 K – 12 public education 2 Higher education

3 Religious institutions 4 Religious faith

5 Law enforcement 6 Courts and judges

7 Race relations 8 Legislatures & representation

9 Energy 10 Bureaucracy

11 Politics and campaigns 12 Banks and money

13 Families and children 14 Small business

15 Big business 16 Globalization

17 Taxation and licensing 18 Illegal entrants

19 Welfare 20 Drug abuse

21 Health care 22 Health insurance

23 Transportation 24 Pollution and waste

25 Global climate 26 Internet

27 Television, communications 28 Morality

29 Constitution and law 30 Sexuality

31 Nationalism and patriotism 32 Civil rights

33 Culture 34 Language

35 Science and ethics 36 Computers and Artificial Intelligence

Prudence indicates that everything “major” in terms of the molding, functioning and survival of society can be found among and within these topics. This is not to say that “animal rights” and pesticides are not important, as are diet, obesity and vegetarianism. But with some thought every advocate of almost anything can find his or her prime concern under one of these umbrellas… I think.

The unfortunate reality is that we, all of us, almost automatically, today, turn to our federal government, that thousand-headed Hydra, to take dominion over all of these topics or problems. Simultaneously we turn to lawyers and litigation to restore balance when we feel unfairly treated by… well, anything and anyone. “Freedom and Responsibility” have been replaced by “Comfort and Litigation.” Responsibility for one’s freedom is a lot of work.

What, now, shall we do? Your mind has recalled something about almost all of the listed topics, mostly problems and how you’d “fix” them if you ran the zoo. There aren’t enough electrons to paint an LED screen with the “solutions.” We are in debt to our great-grandchildren, each of us having benefited in some degree from that theft, no matter how succinctly that theft may be apportioned to other groups. We got here by being human and we can get out of the morass by human means, too.

It is a mistake to believe that some perfect candidate for whichever office, is going to correct ANY part of ANY of the topical problem areas following his or her election. It happens occasionally, advertently and inadvertently, but we have humanly caused to develop several systems of elective and appointive governance that are most effective in enriching those so elected and appointed, and least effective at solving true problems or injustices.

The operating logic of the Constitution is that representatives of the people would be the least corruptible locus of federal power. They would be just like the farmers and tradesmen they left behind: suspicious of executive authority (like that from which the “Revolutionary War” had lately freed them) and responsible not only for designing and compromising on the legislation they wanted to have signed by the President, but also for holding the Executive departments in check, with ultimate oversight of their actions.

However, to further check the possible coalitions of emotion or temporary economic conditions, the Founders also included the Senate which members were selected by the several states’ own legislatures to, ostensibly, represent the states’ interests as sovereign states that had relinquished a measured amount of that sovereignty to enable the common defense of them, all. Legislation that got “through” the House of the people’s Representatives, must, Constitutionally, ALSO be passed by the Senate with its own interests addressed, specifically those of their respective states. Legislation had to please a lot of people to finally get to the President’s desk.

Of course, Senators have their own ideas and it is and was from the beginning, rare that a bill originating in either chamber will survive negotiations in the other without important changes. As a result, two committees are formed, in effect: one from the House and one from the Senate, who sit together as a “conference” committee. Their task is to iron out the differences between the two versions of the legislation. If they can, with lots of back and forth with their respective chambers’ leadership, then the compromise “bill” is re-voted by each chamber (dual passage not guaranteed) and, if passed by both, finally sent to the President.

The theory at work was that the “people” would hold a check on their representatives; the Senators would hold a check on the passions of the people’s representatives; the House, and the Senate, sometimes together, would hold a check on a President and his administration. Should work, right?

One of the greatest concerns of the writers of the Constitution and of the Federalist Papers, was the possibility of “faction.” Faction is best translated as “Party,” political party. What part have we, each of us, played in the virtual destruction of our constitutional republic? How much of our decision-making at election times derives from anger towards or fear of, candidates from the wrong “party.” Why has this become the marker for political “involvement?” What has hatred got to do with self-governance? With America?

How did we become subjects of the government “we” formed? How did “we” allow the Departments of War, State, Treasury and Navy, plus an Attorney General, become a consuming, barely recognizable monster of 200, 400, 500 or more Departments and Agencies, Offices and Committees who govern us through regulation, fine, penalty, taxation and threats? How did the nation that took on the world’s greatest empire at the time, turn into a population that can’t be trusted by the government it formed to choose what it eats, drives, takes for vitamins or thinks about faith or life, itself? We are not trusted, even, to think about freedom.

Trump

Jerry Wescott’s thoughtful thoughts on Trump

March 17, 2018 Prudence Leadbetter 1 Comment

[RESPONDING TO “(WORD)HOLE REDUX” from Jacksonville, Florida]

Shortly after news of his foul comments surfaced, Trump tweeted, “It is my duty to protect the lives and safety of all Americans. We must build a Great Wall, think Merit and end Lottery & Chain. USA!” Now, I have no problem with a president finding it his duty to protect us – of course it’s his duty, he’s the top cop, and the enforcement of the law is a tough job, one that requires a firm hand. I do not agree with the idea of a physical wall though. I realize that Israel has a wall, but so did East Germany and China. Those walls have been destroyed or compromised, and they cannot function to keep people from crossing. They represent old technology and in this world, they cannot be as effective as an electronic one. Trump is good at building walls, both physical and financial ones, but his walls are only as good as the technology that monitors them. Better mice defeat once-better mousetraps though, and as technology improves, the physical obstruction of a wall across our southern border becomes less and less useful until it becomes useless altogether as all the prepositions are applied to make it so. Drugs and illegal aliens will still come into the country, but by other means.

“Think Merit,” he says. If “merit” is a term only applied to foreigners, then I agree. They should be properly examined, and they should be willing to become good, productive, law-abiding citizens of our country, and they should do so in the right way, with all the documentation in order, and all the pertinent research on their personal history complete. But what if we turn the merit-seeking microscope around and examine Donald Trump. The rest of America and the world know his (every) thoughts – even the crude and thoughtless thoughts. He puts (them) all out there on Twitter without shame. Every so often, I see the worth of what he says, but I rarely see the value in the way he says it. One of my favorite quotes from the Proverbs of Solomon is, “A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in pictures of silver.” If Trump acknowledged this concept, I might call him a statesman. If he honored the Creator’s determination of nations, or God’s love for each human being, I would consider him worthy of leading our meritocratic government. I see little merit in him, and his willingness to use profanity to describe global political and social situations in which the rest of mankind exists, repulses me. His careless and childish practice of name-calling not only dishonors the despised places and their leaders, and humiliates the millions of unfortunate people living in them, but the mud slung splashes back on Donald, his office, and his own people!

Okay – I believe I know what I’ve led you to think. You have me down as a bleeding heart who wants everyone to trample our borders. No, I don’t. It is not lost on me that God has created our nation as well as those which have been spat upon by the bully who has become president. He claims that we must “end Lottery & Chain.” I understand the problem. I don’t think we should simply end it, just modify it in a sensible and responsible fashion. We should have handled the repeal of Obamacare more intelligently as well. Sometimes it seems like he needs to smash things just so he can erect a new tower in the history books with his name on it. Never mind that – I know I can be too down on Trump sometimes. The point is, he needs to be more thoughtful about what he says. He needs to be way more careful about how he says it. A thug threatening you with a knife will not get the respect he craves, only fear. Respect has to be earned, and, as I see it, all he has earned is money. The fear he has generated, and the foolishness with which he presents himself, and us by proxy, has turned a global community with problems into a pending disaster. Believe it or not, I can cope with that because I expect that all of this is setting the stage for the end of the age. I’m gonna’ get un-engaged from this outrage.

Sorry – didn’t mean to rap. I don’t even like rap. I consider it to be rather … end-times stuff. It’s a destructive force that tends to tear society into subcultures and fragment any remaining sense of community that we might still have as a nation. Yes, I believe in a rapture of the saints and a seven-year tribulation period when the Antichrist arises to global power and wherein the nations of the world are judged. So the Donald is age-appropriate, after all.

Governance, Immigration, Responsibility, Trump

(Word)holes, Redux

January 13, 2018 Prudence Leadbetter 3 Comments

Many people worthy of trust and respect are seriously upset about the president’s crudeness. He reportedly asked why “we” should allow people from various so-called “shithole” countries to immigrate to the United States? For all of its crudeness, offensiveness and vulgarity, it is a very good question – one we should not be afraid to ask.

Well, the circumstance of the comment and the comment itself are both fairly straightforward, even simple. But the inherent permutations and nuances are profound, sad, and instructive. This requires some parsing and mapping of the “splatter” that has emanated from the splat of a single word into the miasma of politics, hate, government, and the “American Dream… not to mention social media and hate. Didn’t I already mention “hate?” We shouldn’t overlook hate as a driver in modern… umm, modern ahhh, well… modern everything: media, news, broadcasting, ‘friend’ships, dialogue, religion, holidays, commerce, advertising, movies, philosophy and casual rumination. Facebook, too. Sad.

So, first observation is that every person who has talked about, proclaimed about or even thought about the description of many countries as “shitholes,” could in a few minutes, list a dozen or two dozen countries that fit the description! Let’s change the term to “backward countries” and each could list three dozen. What does it mean to make the identification?

It means, generally, that those countries have truly crappy politics. Our politics are pretty crappy, too, granted, but, as Churchill observed, democracy is the worst form of government ever tried… except for all the others. Corollary to that gem is this: The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.

Even those who could construct a list of “backward” countries probably cannot describe what is “wrong” with their politics – the system of leaders, laws and lies that govern their populations. Typically, under the blanket of crappy politics, the economics of these countries are also pretty crappy… sorry, “backward.” The result is extreme stratification, poor education, low skill levels, limited industrialization and little imagination. Simultaneously, the BELIEFS of their citizens are likely to be very different from those of the majority of ours.

Changing beliefs is the primal tool for the weakening and subjugation of peoples.

One might reply that “America is the melting pot” and go on to predict that “we” will “make” those unfortunate immigrants “better” and therefore more like ourselves. Seems like hubris. This attitude sounds magnanimous and sympathetic but it was never true. If there is an American myth, that’s it. We have functioned fairly well as a “salad bowl,” but never as a melting pot. Americans of every origin and kind learned to live and thrive together, yet they were never forced to change who they were, beyond learning and following our constitution and laws. But there were very distinct differences about when America “worked” and how things are, now, when so many consider our country and institutions to be “broken.” The key is a grand misunderstanding of what is “The American Dream.”

The real and enduring “American Dream” can be stated only thus: That all kinds of people can come together in FREEDOM, respective of one another, respective of law and reason, free to follow God as each sees fit, and responsible to themselves and others for the consequences of their actions. This sentence summarizes the U. S. Constitution’s connection to individuals. Not connection to groups, cliques, whether religious, emotional or political, but to individuals, much the way that Jesus described individual responsibility to the laws of God. “America” represents the boundless opportunity offered to every individual to perfect him or her self: the pursuit of happiness. And no less, or more.

This is not how many view the “American Dream” or “America,” itself, today. Socialist thought perceives control of individuals as the high point of governance, the exact opposite of the teachings of Christ or of the values and purpose behind the founding of the United States. To accomplish complete control – and different kinds of socialists have tried many ways to do so – it is essential to place people into groups, or “identities” for whom certain laws will apply, whether to control that group or apply to another group or to all others(!) in order to control THEM. There is no clearer example than brown-skinned people as an over-group, and African-Americans, as the driving sub-group, and descendants of slaves, the most exalted of the “drivers.” Barring descent from slaves, having marched in Selma or having stood near Martin Luther King, Jr., suffices.

As with the growth of federal welfare programs, the epithet of “racist” has become almost standard within the belief structure of many black or brown-skinned residents of the U. S. The charge of “racist” works to control the “other group” of essentially all “Whites,” including modifying their language and actions. This has yielded political power to the modern kind of socialists: American liberals. This, in part, explains the immediate descent to charges of racism emanating from one participant of the immigration meeting during which the president spoke so crudely. But, it doesn’t make it true.

Welfare, itself, is a gigantic difference, since the 1960’s, from when earlier waves of immigrants reached our shores. Those from Ireland, for example, came to take care of themselves and their families, as did Italians, Poles, Portugese, Norwegians, Swedes, Finns and Germans, Russians, Albanians, Greeks, Turks, Syrians, Lebanese and Egyptians and many others. Did they come perfectly? No. We didn’t send ships or planes to bring them here more quickly, either. They were strong and self-selected to endure the sacrifice of leaving everything behind to start anew. This is no longer so.

Immigrants in recent decades have been encouraged and assisted for purposes of “diversity,” the opposite of e pluribus unum. Immigrants , today, receive fundamental – and generously comforting – public support, benefits, even cash, yet are not required to meet ANY tests applied to earlier generations. They need not learn English, they need not become citizens (refugees, asylees) they need not assimilate. Indeed, they need not even follow laws, often being released for offenses that citizens pay dearly for committing. One might observe that their beliefs are not those of the “American Dream,” but of taking advantage of our official guilts and sympathies… or of selling drugs, or worse.

We are stretching our capacities to accommodate immigrants, including illegal entrants, even to the point of breaking our own laws, local and federal, to make them comfortable. Yes, we are an “immigrant” nation, by past definition – most assuredly not by the current one. I am glad someone with authority and sensibility is asking, “Why should we welcome immigrants from the (backward) countries of the world?” What we have been doing of late is certainly not in the national interest, which is the primary business of a president, one hopes, although it may fulfill the interests of political partisans and of those who wish America to not exist as we know it. Ask that question again, Mr. President, louder.

A second observation instructs that the president cannot, ever, trust in the confidence or even honesty of anyone from Congress or the “press” and damned few from the executive branch. Trump failed to take note of the many lessons of the past year and more, when he posed the question everyone in the room, except Mr. Durbin possibly, a mendacious Democrat of proven, documented unreliability, was thinking and should be thinking: Why should we welcome immigrants who are unlikely to contribute to our economy or standards of living, and whose beliefs are antithetical to the fundaments of the U. S. Constitution or of the “American Dream.”

The ridiculous process of “hating” the president (and others) for so many things of which most of us are also guilty, and so readily accusing him of racism, transphobia, Islamophobia or a dozen other awful constructs, is corrosive and intensely destructive of our “unum” for which millions have bled and died, sacrificed and struggled. If we are seeking perfection in or from our elected leaders we are fools. They need, like John Kennedy, only to be pure enough to set a course that is pro-American. The conversations never disclosed, that the Kennedys had then, or that brother Ted ever had, or by ANY other president, would curl our earlobes. The profanity and privately voiced prejudices of EVERY president, have been, until recently, kept out of the news because their disclosure would have been so destructively irresponsible. What we didn’t know didn’t hurt us; had we known all of it we’d have been damaged and history made far different.

News outlets of every kind hope to make history by ripping away confidentiality, no matter the damage. Their hatreds justify the damage… for shame. Do we think – do I think – that Trump will become perfect in order to avoid that damage? Hardly. When I pray about him it is to cause some intercession that will abridge the worst of his impulsive communication. It is not that he will disappear, leaving leadership to others. I have no love for him, but no hatred. I grasp his attitudes, and even share some, not, I hope, the worst of them. But then, I try to live on purpose and not in comparison, as does he, I suspect.

The Lord works in mysterious ways. For all of his flaws I believe Trump is on stage exactly when needed by this country. I want him to succeed where his direction and intention is right and best – or at least better – than where we were heading prior, God willing.

The Civil Right