Remember That America Is Bigger Than Any One Person

When an election does not go your way, it can definitely create an aura of uneasiness and uncertainty. This can especially be the case with a presidential election, and more so when it is an election that will not only change the party of the sitting president, but place into power a new president with some pretty different views than the sitting president. As someone who tends to not be a fan of change, I can definitely understand how people on the losing side of this election are feeling right now.

What can be even scarier about the outcome of a presidential election is if the two-term president that is outgoing is the only president you have ever known or can remember. Such was the case for me when Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush’s three-term Republican presidency changed hands to Willy Jeff Clinton. Yes, I know that seems nothing like what the youth of today in America are facing now, but at the same time, hind-sight definitely eases in your mind today about what may have been perceived at the time as the potential for uncertain, drastic change.

But what has made this country the greatest democracy in the history of this planet is its ability to be pulled in different directions across the political spectrum and still bounce back, only to pulled the other way again, back and forth, back and forth, for generations, and still remain the most solid democracy in the history of our species.

With the exception of the War Between the States, following every presidential election, the fabric of our society has endured, and the framework of our democracy and the peaceful transition of power have remained. We may be a nation divided in principle, but our similarities still outweigh our differences, and with the exception of the most extreme on both ends of the political spectrum, to paraphrase our sitting president, we are all still on the same team.

Keep in mind that had this election gone the other way, the supporters on the opposite side of the fence from you would be feeling the same uncertainty that you are, which is also the same uncertainty that the losing side of the presidential elections in America have been feeling for 240 years. Yet, here we are, still the greatest democracy in the world. There will be another presidential election in four years, and then again, four years after that, and so on.

While you may not have experienced it personally, these presidential elections have occurred 60 times. 59 of those times, people on the losing side have been faced with uneasiness and uncertainty, yet the nation and society have prevailed, democracy has won out, and four years later, another election was held. Sometimes, the sitting president who caused all that uncertainty and uneasiness remained in power, and other times, that president was voted out of office.

The extreme fringes of society have been there over the course of those 240 years, and they will always be there, but remember all you have been taught about this country, its framework, its checks and balances, and its rule of law. This will mark the 27th two-year period since 1901 that the presidency and both houses of congress have been controlled by one party, yet, we’re still here. We got through two world wars, the Great Depression, the Great Recession, and the Cold War, and yet, we’re still here.

As Donald Trump takes office, just like every single president in the history of this country, he will be subject to a system of checks and balances that will keep him from unilaterally imposing his will on the people of this country. Now, I understand that a lot of you worry about things like gay marriage, legalized marijuana use, and immigration, but keep in mind that one thing the President of the United States cannot do, despite being the single most powerful person on the planet, is circumvent the law. He cannot wake up one morning and decide that a particular group of people, or activity is illegal. He must work within the legal system and our government’s framework to change the law if he wants to accomplish any single act on his agenda.

And that is exactly how it should be – as the constitution was designed – is it not?

Now, I know you are saying to yourself, what about all of those presidential orders that Obama signed that Trump can overturn? Well, that is the problem with a president acting unilaterally, isn’t it? That is the problem with a president deciding that something should be and then acting outside of the congress and the will of the people and just making something so. Because they are not laws passed by congress, they can be overturned. This is why you should have opposed presidential orders, even when the guy issuing them was someone you agreed with, because as we have now seen, maybe one day the guy issuing the presidential orders will NOT be someone you agree with.

But, as scary as this power Trump has to overturn Obama’s presidential orders might be, this is exactly how it should be. This is why laws need to be passed instead of presidential orders being signed. This is why Obama should not have taken the easy route and ruled by decree, but in fact, sought to work with members of congress from both parties to pass laws instead. This is also why we should, as a nation, come together to ban the presidential order. Maybe now that Trump’s the one issuing them, all of you more liberal leaning folks will join me in that feeling.

And while Trump can walk into office on that very first day and rip up each one of those presidential orders issued by presidents past, what he cannot do is walk into office and start ripping up laws that have been passed by congress.

With all of that being said, there is also another check and balance in place that you might not be thinking about, the career politician. Despite the presidency and both houses of congress being controlled by one party, as you saw in the Republican primary process, not everyone within the Republican Party is 100% in agreement with Trump on everything. Embedded, entrenched career politicians like McConnell are going to fight Trump on things like term limits because they want to remain career politicians. This will give them leverage to work against our incoming president and to keep him in check. People like Paul Ryan and John McCain, just to name a couple, will fight Trump when they know it is the right thing to do. I, for one, will do the same. And I know there are millions of conservatives out there who will also do the same.

Just because there are Republican majorities in both houses of congress, you will not see all of the members of both those houses of congress throw their hands up and not stick to the political process. This has never happened before, and it will not happen this time, either.

Everyone in office, every Republican, every Democrat, every Independent, is bound by the constitution, and that has not changed. Trump does not have the power to change that, either.

Also, Trump is going to be surrounded by cabinet members that, despite being chosen by him, still have a duty and an obligation to uphold the constitution. Trump will appoint people that will be the best suited to serve in these positions, and they will also serve as another check and balance.

And finally, while yes, there are some crazy extremists nut-jobs out there who voted for Trump because of their own agendas, most of the people who voted for Trump are extremely reasonable people, and while they were very supportive of Trump against Hillary Clinton, they will also be just as critical of President Trump. I count myself among those people.

And, I imagine that a lot of you who are die hard Hillary and Obama supporters, or are perhaps even further to the left than that, were raised by some really amazing people who are Trump supporters. Do you think that those people would allow things to get so far out of hand that the very fabric of our democracy and society would be threatened?

All I am saying is that while we are most definitely faced with uncertainty and uneasiness about our next president, it is no different than the uncertainty and uneasiness that the country faced 44 other times in our history. Stay aware, stay vigilant, and stick to your principles, but also, have faith in the 240 year history of the greatest democracy on the face of this planet which has proven time and time again that our system of government is far stronger than the person sitting at that big desk in the Oval Office.

Photo via Pixabay

It's Unwinding...Our Culture Of Entitlement

In March 2016, Rob Dreher reported the following in his article, “You Can See It All Over. It’s Unwinding”: “Honestly, I’ve had it with people. I’ve had it with Trump supporters who think their anger and their outrage gives them the right to punch people in the face. I’ve had it with Black Lives Matter and other Social Justice Warriors who think the so-called righteousness of their cause gives them the right to silence those who disagree with them. I’m sick and tired of people who think everything wrong in their lives is because somebody, somewhere, has wronged them. Guess what? You can’t screw whoever you like, have as many kids as you like, or as many partners as you like, walk away from your marriage (if you ever marry), and expect everything to be okay. You can’t drink, drug, party, “keep it real,” make excuses for your children, make excuses for yourself, allow our degraded popular culture to raise your kids, and expect good outcomes. You can’t throw money at problems and expect them to go away (e.g., pay to send your kids to a Christian school, and assume that your tuition fee contractually entitles you to opt out of the moral and spiritual formation of your children), or assume that being a Nice Middle-Class Person is sufficient. It’s not. I’m tired of the rich and the middle class who expect everything to be handed to them, and fall to pieces when it isn’t. I’m tired of the working class and the poor who live as if their relative material deprivation gives them a pass from having to live by basic standards of conduct that most everybody understood and affirmed within living memory, but which are all but forgotten today. Above all, I’m tired of a culture in which so many people have no idea how to tell themselves no, to anything, ever. A culture of entitlement.”

I know this is a lot to take in all at once. It’s a pretty epic rant about life here in America, but if you take a deep breath, keep an open mind, regardless of your political views, regardless of your views on religion, marriage, sexuality, race, and the many other very human things we are arguing about day in and day out, then go back and read this little rant again, I am sure there are at least a couple points with which you will agree. It definitely struck a chord with me.

We need to put aside our political bias and political agendas for a few minutes and address the items in this rant as facts about life in America today because sadly, no matter how you look at it, these are facts. This is an apt description of the America in which we live – an America that is far different from the America that was envisioned by the hard working idealists that founded her – an America that has lost her way because she has abandoned the core values upon which she was built. And I am not talking about religious values – I am talking about the very human-centric values of common sense, accountability and personal responsibility. If we were on a large ancient ship powered by one hundred rowing people, only sixty-six of us would be rowing. Thirty-three of us would rowing one way and the other thirty-three would be rowing the other way, each of us refusing to stop and agree on a direction, resulting in our large majestic ship no longer moving at all.

The only way to get our ship moving again is for us to pause and address the issues that are keeping it from moving forward. It’s time for us to start working together again. It’s time for each of us to expect more of every single one of us – time for each of us to expect each and every one of us to row, not just some of us, because in the end, there is absolutely no excuse for any able-minded and able-bodied American to not be rowing.

Honestly, I’ve had it with people. I’ve had it with Trump supporters who think their anger and their outrage gives them the right to punch people in the face. I’ve had it with Black Lives Matter and other Social Justice Warriors who think the so-called righteousness of their cause gives them the right to silence those who disagree with them.

While this article was written in March when the establishment media’s coverage was laser-focused on some very shitty deeds by a few people at Trump rallies, the point it makes about resorting to physical confrontations is quite spot on. I do, however, find it interesting that the establishment media’s microscope-like analysis of every sneeze made by Trump supporters seemed to fade into a blurred, high-level, spend a few seconds on it look at violence surrounding the primary elections once the tables turned and thugs and anarchists were pelting Trump supporters with eggs, rocks and bricks in the streets, hunting them down in mass, roving gangs.

No American, regardless of any trait, should be subjected to a physical confrontation due to their beliefs on a subject or no matter how contrary those views may be to a single person, or a mob of thugs who call themselves protestors. March peacefully all you want to, but as soon as the protest march you have organized spirals out of control, take responsibility and root out those factions. Work with authorities to stop your protest marches from having a negative impact on the community. Don’t turn and look the other way when vandals and criminals take over your march or your movement by simply throwing your hands up in the air and saying there was nothing you could do to stop it.

And most importantly, we have to realize that no single one of us has a right to silence the opposing views of another. We are human enough to have civil discourse on the issues, in peace, without being human enough to resort to violence and personal attacks, which accomplish absolutely nothing. Our civic and political leaders, especially our president, should never support groups or people who resort to these tactics of intimidation, fear and violence.

I’m sick and tired of people who think everything wrong in their lives is because somebody, somewhere, has wronged them.

America has become a nation of deflectors. For every ailment in life, all someone has to do is blame someone or something else for that ailment and they are instantly forgiven for not taking the personal responsibility necessary to correct or address it. In other words, nothing is ever anyone’s own fault – it is always someone else’s fault. No money for college? Not your family’s fault for not saving, not your fault for not being willing to work in the university cafeteria to pay your way because you are too far above a job like that. Clearly, the hard-working American taxpayer should have to foot the bill for your education instead. Not getting hired for a job? Must be because school didn’t prepare you enough, or the hiring managers must be racists, or it must be the fault of those fat cat Wall Street pigs, or someone or something else, right? And it’s not your fault you’re a smoker or a drinker. I am sure it is genetic, or perhaps the fault of the companies who produce cigs and booze for using their slick advertising to force you to buy them. It is amazing how people will ardently demand free will, but then once they have it, everything they do to harm themselves, those around them, or their livelihoods, is clearly a result of every other outside influence except their own free will.

Guess what? You can’t screw whoever you like, have as many kids as you like, or as many partners as you like, walk away from your marriage (if you ever marry), and expect everything to be okay.

But, with the social safety net that is forever increasing in cost and relying on a forever-decreasing percentage of the population who is burdened with paying for it, they really seem to think they can. The more kids you have, the more money they put on your gub’ment debit card. The more kids you have, the less society seems to expect you to pay for raising those kids. It’s not enough that you can keep them on your government-mandated health insurance until they are 26 years old, but apparently, they are soon going to have a civil right to a college education as well, of course, at someone else’s expense. Government is paying people to have more kids, not raise them, and then insists that society coddle them later and later in life. Remember when you were an adult at 18? Now, it’s 26. When will adulthood begin eight years form now? 35?

This misguided incentive to breed carelessly and coddle the resulting “young”, society’s newfound lack of necessity for the family unit, regardless of its makeup, and the acceptance and proliferation of the “baby-daddy” all have us on our way to the same ruin as every other prolific empire in the history of mankind that allowed itself to become too dependent on the productivity of an ever-decreasing amount of producers that eventually end up becoming a minority of the population, then, finally, one day, say, “Enough is enough!”

You can’t drink, drug, party, “keep it real,” make excuses for your children, make excuses for yourself, allow our degraded popular culture to raise your kids, and expect good outcomes.

Did our grandparents who told us that things used to be safer sell us a false narrative about that past? Did television, the movies and the history books all lie to us when they told us that things were simpler, less dangerous and less complicated in the past? Is there no relation between the break down of the family, again, regardless of its makeup, and increases in crime, poverty, drug use, etc.?

And at the same time, how is the rise of reality television and all of the horrible people that it turns into role models for the young not going to have an effect on the moral fiber of our society?

In our rush to be our children’s best friend and make sure they have the same material luxuries our neighbors are providing their kids, we’re forgetting to raise the little bastards! And not raising your little bastards properly is what is leading to the increase in crime, decrease in safety, and a good deal of the social tension we are experiencing as a society and as a nation.

You must get a license for just about everything you do in this country, but bringing a human being into this world that society must then clothe, feed, shelter, and keep from killing us one way or another is not one of them.

Yet, this never-may-care attitude and no-consequences-ever lifestyle that we are continually promoting to our youth and making completely acceptable for their parents and other adults in this country is a self-perpetuating monstrosity that doesn’t seem to have a cure. Until the people of this country who engage in and promote this lifestyle change their way, this train is only going to approach the cliff at a faster and faster rate. Good luck stopping it!

You can’t throw money at problems and expect them to go away (e.g., pay to send your kids to a Christian school, and assume that your tuition fee contractually entitles you to opt out of the moral and spiritual formation of your children), or assume that being a Nice Middle-Class Person is sufficient. It’s not. I’m tired of the rich and the middle class who expect everything to be handed to them, and fall to pieces when it isn’t.

And not only are the ills of this modern, devil-may-care society in which we find ourselves ruining this country, the people perpetrating it seem to feel they are playing no role in its existence. Parents are so concerned with being a slightly older version of their kids’ generation that they are forgetting what got them where they are in life, a strong upbringing by their parents, not a special friendship with “Joe” and “Suzy” as their kids call them because they are cooler than all the other kids’ parents.

Spend, spend, spend, buy, buy, buy, smile and wave at the neighbors, buy your kids every little material thing they whine for, and bam, you are a great parent and a productive member of society. Meanwhile, you’re not teaching these kids the true value of life, the true value of hard work, the true value of America. When did we all achieve the automatic entitlement to things that past generations had to work for?

I’m tired of the working class and the poor who live as if their relative material deprivation gives them a pass from having to live by basic standards of conduct that most everybody understood and affirmed within living memory, but which are all but forgotten today. Above all, I’m tired of a culture in which so many people have no idea how to tell themselves no, to anything, ever. A culture of entitlement.

While there is not rioting and looting in the streets everyday, some of us have definitely witnessed it firsthand at least a couple of times. And this behavior is a prime example of the mentality that is beginning to plague this nation more and more. The rioter and looter believe they have somehow been wronged by a society that has more than they do. They believe they have some inherent right to go out and obtain material items they will not pay for or work for by stealing them from someone who has. The worst part is that they believe they are not actually stealing those items, but, in fact, are owed those items by society. Other people can afford a big, flat screen TV, and even though I can’t, I deserve to have one, too, so when people are looting the Best Buy, I’m gonna go and get what’s mine.

Again, while the physical act of rioting and looting is rare, this same entitled mentality occurs each and every day in this country in a perfectly legal manner, silently, hidden behind the guise of social welfare. For those of us who produce, when we earn income, poof, there goes a portion of it to the government. After legally and quietly looting our income via electronic debit, the government then doles that money out to the people who apparently deserve it more than the people who actually worked for it.

People who, for whatever reason, cannot afford the same material luxuries as others feel they are entitled to the same as those who can. Why do they feel that way? Why should I be entitled to things that are not mine, things that I have not earned or worked for? It is because we, as a society, have made them feel that this entitlement is perfectly acceptable. Too many people are saying, “Yes, I agree, you deserve these things,” instead of, “If you want these things, get off your ass and get out there and earn them.” This message of entitlement is being relayed loud and clear to far too many.

All of these ills can be traced back to one simple thing: In America, we used to applaud and reward hard work and dedication and look down upon freeloading, laziness and entitlement. Today, we are continually scoffing more and more at those who work hard and embracing the so-called “plight” of those who do not. It is time for everyone to contribute – time for everyone to pay their “fair share”, not just some of us.

It is time for everyone to row. It is time for those of us who are rowing to no longer accept the excuses of those who are not rowing. It is time for us to stop rowing for them. It is time for us to work together to pick a direction and get this large majestic ship moving again.

Photo via Pixabay

My Translation Of Ben Franklin's The Way To Wealth

From 1732 to 1758, Benjamin Franklin published his Poor Richard’s Almanac that contained weather forecasts, practical household hits, puzzles, and other amusing writings. Franklin often filled the empty spaces in his almanac with wordplay and witty phrases, many of which are used to this day. Many of the most memorable phrases deal with being courteous, thrifty and self-sufficient.

In the 1757 version of the almanac, Franklin compiled his proverbs about industry, frugality and self-sufficiency into a prefix that took the form of a wise elderly man imparting the knowledge he gained from Poor Richard to a host of people waiting for an auction to start. This prefix was later published separately in a wildly popular essay called The Way to Wealth.

To this day, Franklin’s The Way to Wealth remains sage financial advice. The problem is that much like many of the old English texts, the essay is becoming less understandable to all of us slang-slingers with each passing day. Fortunately for you, I have taken some of my spare time over the past couple of months to piece together an updated translation that makes The Way to Wealth a much easier read.

Click here to read the eBook.

Photo by Maklay62 via Pixabay