Boots & Sabers

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Category: Culture

Don’t let politics ruin your holiday gathering

by | 0711, 17 Dec 21 | , , | 1 Comment

Here is my full column that ran earlier this week in the Washington County Daily News

I have read several opinion pieces over the last few weeks about how people are telling their family that they will not celebrate the holidays with them because of politics or COVID or both, since COVID has become inexplicably intertwined with one’s political views. In order to help keep the peace, allow me to suggest some conversation topics that will not ruin a good family Christmas gathering.

 

First, let it be said that if you are forgoing a traditional family gathering because you disapprove of some of your family’s political views, then you should really reevaluate your priorities. Politics are important, but there is a lot of life to be lived outside of them. If your politics are more important than your family to the point that you cannot even spend a few hours in their presence, then your priorities are wrong.

 

Second, if you feel the need to scold a family member about their politics or COVID protocols when you decline an invitation to attend their holiday party, you are a jerk. There are plenty of polite ways to decline a party without insulting the person who invited you. Consider who the intolerant one is in this situation.

 

If you are going to be a grown-up and attend a family gathering with people of different political and social stripes, here are a few handy topics to make the time enjoyable.

 

Sports are always a safe refuge of conversation. A lively conversation about the Packers, Brewers, or Bucks can fill hours. If you are not a fan of sports, just take a few minutes and learn a few things about your family member’s favorite team before going. Just bringing up the topic will bring out the discussion from the sports fans in the room.

 

Speaking of learning something, take a little time to read up on some of your family members’ favorite hobbies. If they like to bake, fish, hunt, ski, travel, etc., taking a few minutes to learn something about it and ask a few questions is a courtesy that shows respect while also making for a fun conversation. People love to share the things about which they are passionate.

 

One of the greatest parts of family holiday gatherings is the food. People bring a dish to pass or the kitchen is full of old family recipes. Talk about the food. Who wrote those old family recipes? Any cooking tips? Cooking shows and competitions are enormously popular because people love to talk and learn about food.

 

It is increasingly difficult to talk about television shows in the age of microbroadcasting. We do not have as many of those widely watched shows to discuss. There are, however, more television shows and movies available through dozens of streaming services. Talk about your favorite shows and jot down the shows that others are watching. Not only is it a good conversation, but it provides good tips for shows to watch later.

 

Family gatherings provide the opportunity to talk about family. Everyone is busy and family gatherings are a great way to catch up on the latest news. Talk about how the kids are doing in school, how work has been going, the latest vacation, the new roof on the house, and all of the other events small and large that we spend most of our time doing.

 

Since you are gathered for the holidays, talk about that. Why are you together? In my case, it is to celebrate the birth of my lord and savior, Jesus Christ. For others, they may be celebrating a different faith or just a secular holiday. Whatever the case, talk about the reason for the season.

 

Finally, if you are unable to or unwilling to carry on a conversation without launching into a political diatribe, just listen. Ask questions, and listen. Even if you disagree with something your family member said, just listen. Smile. Nod. Move on. There is nothing to be gained from venting your spleen onto a family member during a family gathering. Be mature enough to recognize that fact even if your family member is not.

 

The holiday season is a magical time to stop, reconnect, repair, and recharge. For just a few hours or days, set aside your rabid political passions and build relationships with your family on a more meaningful level. Faith. Family. Football. A great Packers coach would agree.

Oklahoma Bill to Teach Wholistic View of Slavery

by | 1415, 16 Dec 21 | , , | 5 Comments

Context matters. America was not the only nation to engage in slavery. Slavery existed long before the United States and persists today in other countries. It is a humanitarian abomination wherever and whenever it is practiced. But it is interesting to see how aggressively some folks only want to teach about America’s sins.

A Sequoyah County lawmaker has filed a bill that would outlaw the teaching that America was unique in its use of slavery and takes aim at a New York Times’ project that sought to highlight the role slavery played in America’s founding.

 

House Bill 2988, authored by Rep. Jim Olsen, R-Roland, would prevent the teaching that one race is the unique oppressor in the institution of slavery, that another race is the unique victim in the institution of slavery, or that America had slavery more extensively and for a later period of time than other nations.

 

“It is important that it be taught that we had slavery as a nation and it was evil, but it would not be proper to teach it that we were the only ones that had it,” Olsen said during a Wednesday interview. “It is the agenda of the far left, they want our young people to hate America.”

 

The bill also would outlaw the use of the 1619 Project, which is a series produced by The New York Times Magazine that argued there is not enough understanding on how slavery shaped the nation and how it continues to impact society today. Spearheaded by journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones, the series drew scorn from some conservatives who believed it detracted from American exceptionalism, the belief that the United States is better than other nations.

Mandates Fuel Distrust in Government

by | 0715, 14 Dec 21 | , | 37 Comments

One could argue, and I would, that distrust of government is a fundamental characteristic of a free people. Our entire American system of government was designed to diffuse power and assumes that all people are corruptible.

Only 19% of Europeans include their government among their most trusted sources of reliable information on Covid-19 vaccines, according to a survey conducted in May 2021 by the European Barometer, a collection of cross-country public opinion surveys conducted regularly on behalf of the EU’s institutions.

[…]

Essentially, people who trust institutions need no convincing in the face of a pandemic; people who don’t are unlikely to be influenced at all.
[…]
Sophie Tissier, who organizes protests against Covid-19 restrictions and vaccines in France, says that these protests have created a new political force that is radical but goes beyond party political lines.
She says her group seeks to “create a citizens’ opposition which is beyond electoral considerations and much more like a watchdog that sits outside the world of politics to be able to tell it: ‘Look here, you are no longer protecting our rights, you are no longer protecting our rights under the law.'”
[…]
In other words, forced vaccination might push people into vaccination centers but it will also drive some of them to the streets, confirming and further fueling their deeply held suspicion of “the system.”

Don’t let politics ruin your holiday gathering

by | 0633, 14 Dec 21 | , | 2 Comments

My column for the Washington County Daily News is online and in print. Here’s the start:

I have read several opinion pieces over the last few weeks about how people are telling their family that they will not celebrate the holidays with them because of politics or COVID or both, since COVID has become inexplicably intertwined with one’s political views. In order to help keep the peace, allow me to suggest some conversation topics that will not ruin a good family Christmas gathering.

 

First, let it be said that if you are forgoing a traditional family gathering because you disapprove of some of your family’s political views, then you should really reevaluate your priorities. Politics are important, but there is a lot of life to be lived outside of them. If your politics are more important than your family to the point that you cannot even spend a few hours in their presence, then your priorities are wrong.

 

Second, if you feel the need to scold a family member about their politics or COVID protocols when you decline an invitation to attend their holiday party, you are a jerk. There are plenty of polite ways to decline a party without insulting the person who invited you. Consider who the intolerant one is in this situation.

 

If you are going to be a grown-up and attend a family gathering with people of different political and social stripes, here are a few handy topics to make the time enjoyable.

France Won’t go Woke

by | 1701, 13 Dec 21 | | 3 Comments

Good for them. It is enlightening to me that I read foreign news sources more often than American ones to get a view of what is actually happening in my own country. Yes, they are still left wing rags, but they retain an independence that American media has lost.

Six months ago, if asked what they understood by “woke”, most French people would have assumed it had something to do with Chinese cooking. And yet today in Paris, the notion of “le wokisme” is suddenly all the rage.

The government warns of a new cultural totalitarianism creeping in from the “Anglosphere”. The education minister has set up a Laboratory of the Republic, dubbed an “anti-woke think tank”, to co-ordinate the fightback.

 

And everywhere the precursors of what might be to come are being reported in the media: a new gender-neutral pronoun, a threatened statue of a dead statesman or a meeting on campus only for black students.

 

For the French, these signifiers of what critics in the UK and US have termed “woke” are all very new and unfamiliar.

For good or bad, France has so far resisted what is seen here as a left-wing cultural movement dedicated to the promotion of minorities that originated in American universities and now exerts considerable influence in the public sphere in the English-speaking world.

 

[…]

 

“Personally I find it liberating to teach here. I don’t have to mind my every word, like I did with American students. Here, there is still a presumption that universities are a place to learn, and the staff is not there to cushion the subject matter.”

 

[…]

 

That is indeed precisely what the anti-woke movement in France believes: that via universities, pressure groups and social media, the US is exporting a cultural virus into France that poses an existential threat to French society.

 

For the writer Brice Couturier, a member of the Laboratory for the Republic think tank, “wokeism puts people into tribes in order to control them. It says you belong in my tribe, and the leaders of my tribe will tell you how to behave. This is foreign to French mentality”.

“France has fought many civil wars in the past, and I fear we could come close to civil war again if this goes too far. Just as [former US President] Trump was a reaction to wokeism in the US, here we have crazies like [far-right presidential candidate] Eric Zemmour. People are taking sides.”

Shepard Blasts Into Space

by | 1748, 11 Dec 21 | | 1 Comment

This is very cool.

The daughter of the first US astronaut, Alan Shepard, has blasted into space – 60 years after her father’s flight.

Laura Shepard Churchley, 74, was one of six people to make the trip onboard a commercial spacecraft launched by Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin space company.

The passengers were briefly able to experience zero gravity on the sub-orbital flight.

“moving beyond living in self-imposed exile to a strategy of risk assessment and mitigation”

by | 1746, 11 Dec 21 | , | 4 Comments

Fact check: true.

Amid the battles breaking out over vaccine mandates and the impact on those who have chosen not to be inoculated against COVID, there’s strong evidence to suggest that people are “over it,” as the kids say these days.

 

None of this is meant to dismiss the toll the virus continues to take on the globe, where the death toll has spiraled inexorably higher (over 5 million worldwide and counting), even with the presence of vaccines. To be sure, there are many with underlying conditions, or loved ones considered high risk, who are still cautious or outright paranoid, and with good reason.

 

Yet evidence everywhere suggests that vast numbers of people — and not just the mostly maskless hordes gathered to watch Phil Collins and Company at the Garden — are moving beyond living in self-imposed exile to a strategy of risk assessment and mitigation. Holiday gatherings, including office parties, are starting to look a lot like they did pre-COVID.

Rules for Thee

by | 1706, 10 Dec 21 | , , | 5 Comments

The real social divide is between the rulers and the ruled. But it also reveals the fact that our rulers don’t really believe in the rules they are passing. So if they don’t sincerely think that the restrictions will stem the virus, then why, ask yourself, are they enacting them?

There’s often outcry when a public figure eschews covid rules – but even more so when those breaking the rules are the same ones who set them.

 

How can the government expect the public to follow its restrictions when its top officials fail to do so, is the often-repeated question. In 2020, guideline-flouting officials faced backlash across the world – from New Zealand to Ireland to Canada to the United States.

 

[…]

 

On Saturday, Finnish Prime Minister Sanna Marin went clubbing – until 4 a.m., according to one report – only hours after a cabinet colleague and close contact tested positive for the coronavirus.

 

Photos of the maskless 36-year-old prime minister at a Helsinki nightclub went viral, prompting some disapproval from critics who deemed her actions irresponsible. Others on social media, however, just voiced their amazement and admiration at the leader’s stamina.

 

After her foreign minister tested positive, Marin was advised that she would not have to quarantine because she was fully vaccinated. But afterward, she was given notice via text that she should quarantine after all. She had left her work phone home during her night out, however, and missed the text.

Abortion extremism in Madison

by | 1450, 9 Dec 21 | , | 2 Comments

Here is my full column that ran earlier in the week in the Washington County Daily News:

In the same week that the United States Supreme Court heard arguments about a challenge to the Mississippi ban on abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy, Gov. Tony Evers wielded his veto pen to demonstrate just how radical abortion supporters have become. We have come a long way from the time when abortion supporters advocated that they be safe, legal, and rare.

One cannot rationally support human rights and also support abortion. While there was a time when the period between conception and birth was filled with mystery and myth, modern medical science has opened the womb for all to see. We know that from the time of conception, the child is a unique human with unique DNA.

 

Eventually, the child will develop a heart, lungs, skin, eyes, bones, and become ready for birth, but it all starts with a blueprint in a single cell. To assign the origin of life to any point after conception is to do so based on arbitrary distinctions that are designed more to assuage the consciences of older humans than on science or logic. Once a human exists, they are, “endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” That being the case, we who are able are responsible to defend the rights of those who cannot defend themselves.

 

But the Supreme Court is not deciding if unborn humans have a right to life or whether abortion should be outlawed. They are potentially deciding which level of government gets to decide. The court could uphold Roe v. Wade, thus making it a federal court decision; the court could completely overturn Roe, thus making abortion a state issue; or the court could find a narrow middle road.

 

Should the Supreme Court overturn Roe and return the power to regulate abortion to the states, Wisconsin has an existing statute that makes it a felony for doctors to perform abortions. Time will tell if Wisconsin’s Legislature would rescind that law to replace it with a statutory infrastructure that permits and regulates abortions.

 

As we await the Supreme Court’s decision, the Republican Legislature passed several bills to enhance regulation of abortions and Governor Evers vetoed them all. In doing so, he demonstrated how extreme Democrats have become in their support for abortion and how difficult it will be to create a new abortion regulatory structure should Roe be overturned.

 

One of the bills would have made it a crime for a doctor to withhold medical care from a baby who survived an abortion and was born alive. While very rare, it happens. It is more common than an infant dying of COVID. As I wrote above, to assign the beginning of a life at any point after conception is arbitrary, but as a society, we at least once agreed that children who were born were considered human and worthy of protection. There is no logical distinction in the rights of a baby born during a failed abortion and a baby born in other circumstances. It is a living, breathing, feeling baby. And there is no logical distinction between a doctor letting a baby die for lack of care and a parent doing the same thing. In vetoing this bill, Evers has sanctioned infanticide.

 

Another bill would have banned women from aborting their baby based on the baby’s sex, race, or national origin. It would have given the same protections against discrimination that our laws extend to the born. It is a logical extension of the recognition that unborn people have human rights too. In a logical extension of his unscientific opinion that unborn humans are not humans at all, Evers vetoed this bill too. In Evers’ Wisconsin, a woman may abort her child if she doesn’t want a girl or a brown son at her discretion. In-utero discrimination is the law of the land.

 

While I strongly advocate for the end of all abortions, at the very least, we should not be using abortion as a way to curate the population for favored races and sexes. We should also all be able to agree that once a baby is born, it deserves protection from being killed through intentional neglect. Unfortunately, there is no such agreement anymore.

Abortion extremism in Madison

by | 0651, 7 Dec 21 | , , , | 5 Comments

My column for the Washington County Daily News is online and in print. Here’s a part:

In the same week that the United States Supreme Court heard arguments about a challenge to the Mississippi ban on abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy, Gov. Tony Evers wielded his veto pen to demonstrate just how radical abortion supporters have become. We have come a long way from the time when abortion supporters advocated that they be safe, legal, and rare.

 

[…]

 

One of the bills would have made it a crime for a doctor to withhold medical care from a baby who survived an abortion and was born alive. While very rare, it happens. It is more common than an infant dying of COVID. As I wrote above, to assign the beginning of a life at any point after conception is arbitrary, but as a society, we at least once agreed that children who were born were considered human and worthy of protection. There is no logical distinction in the rights of a baby born during a failed abortion and a baby born in other circumstances. It is a living, breathing, feeling baby. And there is no logical distinction between a doctor letting a baby die for lack of care and a parent doing the same thing. In vetoing this bill, Evers has sanctioned infanticide.

 

Another bill would have banned women from aborting their baby based on the baby’s sex, race, or national origin. It would have given the same protections against discrimination that our laws extend to the born. It is a logical extension of the recognition that unborn people have human rights too. In a logical extension of his unscientific opinion that unborn humans are not humans at all, Evers vetoed this bill too. In Evers’ Wisconsin, a woman may abort her child if she doesn’t want a girl or a brown son at her discretion. In-utero discrimination is the law of the land.

 

While I strongly advocate for the end of all abortions, at the very least, we should not be using abortion as a way to curate the population for favored races and sexes. We should also all be able to agree that once a baby is born, it deserves protection from being killed through intentional neglect. Unfortunately, there is no such agreement anymore.

We must not be ruled by fear

by | 1941, 4 Dec 21 | , , | 7 Comments

Here is my full column that ran earlier this week in the Washington County Daily News.

As Americans returned to the festive Thanksgiving celebrations that many forewent last year for fear of the dreaded virus, a new threat rose across the Atlantic. The newly dubbed omicron variant of COVID19 has aggressively swept through southern Africa and has made beachheads in Asia, Europe, and North America. It will only be a matter of time before we find it in America.

 

While we are still learning about the omicron variant, we have learned that the short- and long-term consequences of overreacting to a virus are incredibly damaging. The stock market, as a leading economic indicator, has already begun factoring in more destructive public policy responses to omicron. We must do all we can to prevent more reactionary and damaging public policies.

 

What we know about omicron is developing quickly. It seems to spread much faster than the original virus — similar to the delta variant. It does not appear to be more deadly than the original version of the virus out of China. We do not yet know if the current vaccines will do much good against it, but natural immunity seems to be as strong as ever. We also know that attempts to keep it out of America are futile. It is a highly transmissible virus and will find a way to burn through available hosts.

 

What we absolutely know for certain is that shutting down our economy, shuttering schools, and abandoning normalcy has been devastating to our society. We are still reeling from disastrous public policy decisions and the willingness of people to subserviate everything to the cause of virus mitigation.

 

With the thought that we must prevent people from being close to other people to prevent the spread of the virus, we allowed our government to close businesses. This act forced many people out of work and businesses into bankruptcy. We also allowed our government to force people to stay in their homes and in the futile hope that the virus would pass us by.

 

In hindsight, such actions did very little to stem the spread of the virus. The spread of the virus in states and cities that had draconian lockdowns differs little from those that were more liberal with their policies. The economic statistics and personal toll from the places with more aggressive lockdowns are heart-rending. We must not be ruled by fear and allow our government to force us to lock down again.

 

In response to the fact that the government forced people out of work and businesses into insolvency, our federal and state governments overreacted with poorly thought-out welfare schemes. This, coupled with the nation’s socialists seizing the opportunity to advance their unpopular agenda under the cover of pandemic relief, has launched a bevy of destructive programs and unleashed the scourge of high inflation that we have not seen in a generation. We must not be ruled by fear and allow our politicians to “fix” the problems they created.

 

The shutdown of our government schools will harm our children and our society for a generation. The evidence from private schools that remained mostly open versus schools that shut their doors shows that denying children education had little to no impact on stemming the virus. It did, however, have a cataclysmic impact on the children’s education. Recent school report card data in Wisconsin shows a dramatic decline in educational performance even after they lowered the standards. Those are months and years of education that our children will never get back. We must not be ruled by fear and shut down our schools.

 

For both adults and children, the negative impact of shutdowns and lock-outs on mental health has been horrendous. Suicides, drug addiction, depression, anxiety, and other mental health issues have increased dramatically since our government began overreacting to COVID-19. We must not be ruled by fear and force people into isolation.

 

In conjunction with the societal deconstructing pro-crime insurgency of antifa and others, our public policy responses to COVID-19 have precipitated an explosion in crime — particularly violent crime. With less employment, more addiction, and defunded police departments, criminals have more freedom to wreak havoc than they have in decades. One could argue that the lengthy court delays in Milwaukee due to closing courts contributed to keeping the alleged Waukesha Christmas Parade killer on the streets well after he should have been imprisoned for previous crimes. We must not be ruled by fear and prevent speedy and judicial enforcement of the law. Finally, last year we allowed our government officials to completely abandon our electoral system for fear of the virus. We spent centuries crafting an electoral framework to allow free and fair elections where laws were made in the light of day by elected officials. We threw all of that in the garbage last November and allowed government officials to make up the rules as they went along. We must not be ruled by fear and abandon self-governance.

 

COVID-19, of any variant, is something to take seriously. Please take the time to wash your hands, avoid unnecessary contact, stay home if you are sick, get vaccinated if you choose, and take other reasonable steps to keep yourself and your loved ones from getting ill. But we must not be ruled by fear and give up our way of life. The virus is here to stay in one form or another. We must get on with living.

Man Attempts to Use Fake Arm to Thwart COVID Jab

by | 1309, 3 Dec 21 | , | 18 Comments

None of this is normal. The fact that people feel the need to go to such ridiculous lengths to avoid a government mandate is not normal behavior in a free society. But people do abnormal things when the boot of government narrows their windpipes.

The man, in his 50s, arrived for his shot with a silicone mould covering his real arm, hoping it would go unnoticed.

But a nurse was not fooled and the man has now been reported to the police.

 

The nurse told local media that when she had rolled up his sleeve, she found the skin “rubbery and cold” and the pigment “too light”.

 

After being discovered, the man tried to persuade the nurse to turn a blind eye, la Repubblica reported. But instead she reported him to the police for fraud.

Local police are now investigating the incident in Biella, north-west Italy, and local officials have criticised the man’s actions.

Deer Kill Way Down

by | 2032, 30 Nov 21 | | 13 Comments

Why?

The DNR offers multiple deer hunting seasons each fall but the nine-day season remains the pinnacle for hunters. It began at dawn on Nov. 20 and ran until nightfall Sunday. Hunters killed 175,667 deer, down 8% from the 190,646 animals killed during the 2020 nine-day stretch. The number of bucks killed was down 1.3% from last year. The antlerless take was down 13%.

 

Hunters killed 9.3% more deer in the northern forest management zone this year than last, the only one of the state’s four management zones that saw an increase. The southern farmland zone, which includes most of the southern third of the state, saw a 17% drop in kills.

 

The number of hunters who could have ventured into the woods remained virtually unchanged from 2020. The DNR reported it had sold 564,440 hunting licenses that would allow someone to kill a deer using a gun during any of the state’s multiple gun seasons as of the Sunday close. That’s down about 0.8% from the 564,440 licenses sold at the same point last year.

Ammo shortage?

 

We must not be ruled by fear

by | 0739, 30 Nov 21 | , , , , | 14 Comments

My column for the Washington County Daily News is online and in print. Here’s a taste:

While we are still learning about the omicron variant, we have learned that the short- and long-term consequences of overreacting to a virus are incredibly damaging. The stock market, as a leading economic indicator, has already begun factoring in more destructive public policy responses to omicron. We must do all we can to prevent more reactionary and damaging public policies.

 

[…]

 

In conjunction with the societal deconstructing pro-crime insurgency of antifa and others, our public policy responses to COVID-19 have precipitated an explosion in crime — particularly violent crime. With less employment, more addiction, and defunded police departments, criminals have more freedom to wreak havoc than they have in decades. One could argue that the lengthy court delays in Milwaukee due to closing courts contributed to keeping the alleged Waukesha Christmas Parade killer on the streets well after he should have been imprisoned for previous crimes. We must not be ruled by fear and prevent speedy and judicial enforcement of the law. Finally, last year we allowed our government officials to completely abandon our electoral system for fear of the virus. We spent centuries crafting an electoral framework to allow free and fair elections where laws were made in the light of day by elected officials. We threw all of that in the garbage last November and allowed government officials to make up the rules as they went along. We must not be ruled by fear and abandon self-governance.

 

COVID-19, of any variant, is something to take seriously. Please take the time to wash your hands, avoid unnecessary contact, stay home if you are sick, get vaccinated if you choose, and take other reasonable steps to keep yourself and your loved ones from getting ill. But we must not be ruled by fear and give up our way of life. The virus is here to stay in one form or another. We must get on with living.

What the Rittenhouse verdict reminds us about government power

by | 0907, 26 Nov 21 | , , | 2 Comments

Here is my full column that ran in the Washington County Daily News this week.

The trial of Kyle Rittenhouse has aggravated several of America’s seeping cultural sores. In the swirl of public debate about race, Second Amendment rights, First Amendment rights, crime, policing, and myriad other issues, 12 brave jurors did the right thing and justice was done.

 

The case was very simple. Irrespective of why Rittenhouse was where he was at the time he was and for what reason, all the jurors had to decide was whether he was reasonably acting in self-defense when he killed two men and maimed a third. Thanks to the continuous live coverage of several news outlets, all of us could watch the trial in real time and see all the evidence presented. If you think that the jury should have returned anything other than an acquittal, you are objectively, demonstrably, and categorically wrong.

 

The greatest crime perpetrated was that Rittenhouse was ever tried at all. Given the overwhelming evidence from multiple videos and witness testimonies, there was never any doubt that Rittenhouse acted in self-defense. Yet, despite that overwhelming evidence, the district attorney and his deputies decided to prosecute Rittenhouse anyway for reasons that can only be explained by their political and personal biases.

 

For the people who distrust the police and prosecutors to act fairly and responsibly, you are right. They should not be trusted. In fact, our entire system of government is replete with strong protections for individual rights, diffused power, checks, and balances was designed that way precisely because we should not trust our government and the people who are in it.

 

Any student of history should know that government can never be trusted, but one does not have to look very far in our modern America to find examples of abuse of governmental power. Less than a decade ago, a team of rogue prosecutors sought to criminalize protected political speech by launching multiple John Doe investigations against conservatives in Wisconsin. Their black-booted raids and secret proceedings were designed to silence political opponents.

 

For five years the corrupted FBI has been using lies, raids, and thuggish tactics to undermine former President Donald Trump and his allies based on a Russian dossier that they knew was fake all along. They knowingly used lies from Trump’s political opponents to attempt to topple or undermine an elected president. The same corrupted FBI has now been turned against parents who are voicing concerns about how government schools are performing.

 

The vast majority of police, prosecutors, and judges are good people who are doing hard jobs to uphold the rule of law. They deserve our support and respect. But do I believe that a prosecutor might unjustly railroad a person because of their political biases or racial bigotry? Absolutely. Do I believe that a police officer might let their personal prejudices guide their decisions? I would be a nutter not to. The vast majority do not, but it only takes one rotten government agent to unjustly ruin someone’s life.

 

For this reason, we have erected an entire infrastructure of jurisprudence that is rightfully designed to make it very difficult for the government to punish a person for a crime. Resting on the principle voiced by the great English jurist William Blackstone that, “it is better that ten guilty persons escape than one innocent suffer,” our American system leans heavily to protecting the accused from the potential abuses of government.

 

If you have a healthy distrust, with respect, for our government law enforcement agencies, that is good. You are in the right frame of mind to be an engaged citizen of a self-governing society. Now you must extend that distrust to all of the other government agencies. While a corrupt or abusive police officer or prosecutor can negatively impact your life, so, too, can a corrupt or abusive Department of Revenue agent, game warden, school superintendent, or mayor. We give these people extraordinary power over our lives as the price paid for a civil society, but we must do so grudgingly and with extraordinary oversight. We have been blessed with more than our fair share of superb elected and unelected government officials, but we have also had our fair share of the corrupt and the stupid.

 

At its best, Thomas Paine tells us, “government is a necessary evil.” Nobody in their right mind would trust evil, which is why we must be skeptical about our government and the people in it. We should also not allow that evil to grow too large as to become uncontrollable. I fear that we have already crossed that Rubicon.

Happy Thanksgiving

by | 0834, 25 Nov 21 | | 2 Comments

May you all have a warm and fulfilling Thanksgiving surrounded by the ones you love (and hopefully love you).

And just so as to not leave the day without some controversial topic to discuss… the correct pronunciation is THANKSgiving – not thanksGIVING. The emphasis is on THANKS. Prove me wrong.

What the Rittenhouse verdict reminds us about government power

by | 0748, 23 Nov 21 | , , | 4 Comments

My column for the Washington County Daily News is online and in print. Here’s a part:

The greatest crime perpetrated was that Rittenhouse was ever tried at all. Given the overwhelming evidence from multiple videos and witness testimonies, there was never any doubt that Rittenhouse acted in self-defense. Yet, despite that overwhelming evidence, the district attorney and his deputies decided to prosecute Rittenhouse anyway for reasons that can only be explained by their political and personal biases.

 

[…]

 

If you have a healthy distrust, with respect, for our government law enforcement agencies, that is good. You are in the right frame of mind to be an engaged citizen of a self-governing society. Now you must extend that distrust to all of the other government agencies. While a corrupt or abusive police officer or prosecutor can negatively impact your life, so, too, can a corrupt or abusive Department of Revenue agent, game warden, school superintendent, or mayor. We give these people extraordinary power over our lives as the price paid for a civil society, but we must do so grudgingly and with extraordinary oversight. We have been blessed with more than our fair share of superb elected and unelected government officials, but we have also had our fair share of the corrupt and the stupid.

Americans Are Over COVID

by | 2015, 22 Nov 21 | , | 7 Comments

I have traveled extensively throughout America in cities large and small since last summer by plane, car, and other means. This is true and has been true for a while. The vast majority of Americans are taking reasonable precautions in accordance with their perceived level of risk and going about their lives as normal. The latest spike or scare or scary headline have very little impact on most people. And it’s not a Red vs. Blue, North vs. South, or Urban vs. Rural issue. It’s pretty universal. The only people perpetuating the fear are government officials – especially schools – and the industries that profit from perpetual fear.

Even though the COVID-19 pandemic continues to rage on, nearly three-quarters of Americans (74 percent) now say their lives have returned to “normal,” according to a new Yahoo News/YouGov poll.

 

It’s a number that underscores both the progress made possible by safe and effective vaccines and the challenges ahead as the holidays approach and yet another winter wave gets underway in the United States.

 

The survey of 1,696 adults, which was conducted from Nov. 17 to 19, found that only 15 percent say that things “never stopped being normal” for them — a reminder of just how profoundly the virus has disrupted American life.

 

Yet as the U.S. pandemic enters its 21st month, most Americans now characterize their own lives as either “very normal” (21 percent) or “somewhat normal” (53 percent), considering “the impact of COVID-19.”

FBI Unleashed on Parents for Petitioning Government

by | 1905, 16 Nov 21 | , , | 4 Comments

The Left really has weaponized every federal agency against their political opponents. This is a travesty. The liberty to petition your government with your grievances is a fundamental component of a self-governing society. Sometimes those petitions are passionate, rude, or even belligerent. That’s always been part of a free society. Specific threats against public officials have always been punished just like threats against anyone else. What the FBI has been doing here is trying to intimidate and criminalize a speech based on its content – based on the fact that is goes against a particular political ideology. This is totalitarian stuff.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has created a tag for threats against teachers and school administrators and is tracking such investigations on a national level.

 

An FBI whistleblower provided an email dated Oct. 20 to House Republicans sent on behalf of the counter-terrorism division and the criminal division. The email referenced Attorney General Merrick Garland’s Oct. 4 directive to the FBI to ramp up its involvement in school board threats, and notified agents of a new tag, ‘EDUOFFICIALS,’ to assign to any threats against school administrators, board members, staff or teachers to determine the scope of the problem on a national level and to provide a ‘comprehensive analysis of the threat picture.’

 

‘This disclosure provides specific evidence that federal law enforcement operationalized counterterrorism tools at the behest of a left-wing special interest group against concerned parents,’ House Republicans claimed in a letter to Garland.

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