Out of Many One: Republican Unity Project

The Republican Party in Oregon has been fractured. It has been that way as far back as my young memory goes. Just like everything else the fractures have only grown.

 

Some people are specifically aimed at this fracturing, they believe that if the GOP is split they can come in and unite the party under their banner. These people are not aimed at unity, they are aimed at dominion.

 

Broadly speaking the Republican Party is split into two camps, each made up of smaller groups and individuals. The first camp is the activist camp. This group has a lot of energy and passion, they organize well and get people to show up to events. They are good at making people feel like they are doing something but they lack focus and direction outside of vague ideas of ‘being heard’ or ‘fighting for liberty.’

 

The second party is the established camp. This camp lacks the energy of the activists and rarely holds big events, preferring regular meetings. They have experience and know how the system works and how to get things done over a long period of time.

 

Currently these two camps are at odds. On both sides you will have Trump supporters, patriots, liberty loving citizens, and people who love our country and state. But there has been calls from the activist wing to split off from the Republican Party.

 

The justification at the heart of this desire is legitimate criticisms of the GOP. Many feel they are more concerned with trying to win by abandoning Republican principles. That they have embraced the hateful labels foisted upon the party by their political opponents.

 

It is my belief that these two wings of the party need each other and if unified would become the party Oregon desperately needs. In order to do that we need to reach agreements on both sides. The word compromise is seen as a dirty word, but that is because its meaning has been corrupted through misuse.

 

Too often the word compromise is used to mean you need to compromise yourself in order to align with what one side wants to do. Instead the true meaning of compromise is both parties reaching a win-win agreement.

 

The changes that need to be made to the Republican Party can in fact be made by us, we just have to want those changes to be made. We elect our party chairs and we create the party platform.

 

It reflects us, to change it we need to change ourselves. While it is harder than it seems it is possible. The activist wing also needs to understand that sometimes change takes time, but if your cause is right and meaningful it will be worth the delayed gratification.

 

We need to stop listening to the people interested in dividing our party in the name of being more conservative or real than someone else. We also need to stop selecting people to lead us and create our platform who have been doing so for the last decade or more. We need to be willing to take risks, suffer the slings and arrows, and hit back when unjustly maligned.

 

It will be dirty, it will be painful, and it will carry real risks of failure, but we are the party of Lincoln, the party of Reagan, and the party of Trump. We have suffered before and produced something beautiful, and now our country has come knocking again. She needs our help, the question is are we simple mercenaries that demands payment for our service or are we patriots who will instead ask what we can do for our country.

Let us unite, because united we stand, divided we fall.

The Portland Police Should Go on Strike

Men and women of the Portland Police department I know a lot has been asked of you in the last year but I ask for one more act of courage on your part, it is time to go on strike.

 

You are beset on all sides by people who wish you harm. Politicians are willing to throw you under the bus to fuel their political careers and to grab national headlines.

 

International activist groups and lawyers prevent your arrests from resulting in justice rendering your valor and virtue wasted.

 

Gangs of violent anarchists attack you indiscriminately without repercussion.

 

Corporate media, only interested in a headline, provides cover for your enemies, cutting you off from the real public support that you need.

Patriots, back the blue, brothers and sisters who took the oath to protect the constitution with you, and peace loving Americans will stand with you. We are thankful for your service and respect the difficulty of the job you do, but we are now asking that you do one of the most difficult things a person with your type of character could do, stand down.

 

I am not asking you to stand down forever nor am I saying stand down so people can get hurt, I am saying stand down in order to help the communities for which you love and sacrifice for daily. To help restore the rule of law, to ensure that the law is applied equally to everyone, to serve justice and peace.

 

I know that you have families to feed, mortgages and rent to pay, and bills that are due and that a strike is asking a lot of you. I wish I could offer you security and promise that everything will be okay but I cannot make any such assurances and remain honest.

 

What I do know is that you can either make a stand for justice now and go on strike or continue to serve injustice and have to look into the face of the communities that once called you friend as they view you with anger and fear.

 

At the end the choice is yours, the future is uncertain and you stand at a crossroad. History is rarely made in a clap of thunder but through the individual decisions we all make every day. This decision is yours, what kind of future and life do you want? One where you survive simply by getting by or one where you struggle for something better? Will your children be better served by a check paid to you out of their future liberty or by your sacrifice now to secure the light of liberty?

It is Our Turn To Make America Great Again

Currently we are still in the middle of an election. Trump still has a chance to win this whole thing. I believe it is a slim chance but that is the exact same thing we all thought about him last time and several times before. If I have learned one thing it is to never count Trump out until he is out.

 

With that said I have always been someone who likes to have a plan, even if it is just in case. If Trump wins I will continue as I have for the last four years. What I want to be prepared for is in the case that he loses.

 

If Trump loses I want to first recognize the things that he has done. Peace deals in the Middle East, the greatest economy of all time and record employment for all Americans. One of the greatest things Trump has done was energize the Republican base and exposed corruption all throughout our institutions, namely the legacy media and the Democratic career politicians.

 

Trump has shown us that the legacy media is a part of the Democratic establishment and along with large social media, other corporations, universities, and members of the administrative (deep) state, have organized against the average working American family.

 

If Trump loses, the Republican Party has a choice before them. We are standing at two divergent roads. To one side is a light gently downward sloping hill with fresh green grass and a clear path of a long slow decline. The other path is dark, stormy, and full of rocks and steeply uphill that only offers a chance to further fulfill the ideals our Republic was founded on. Where each path leads for each of us is not known for sure, but the choice is ours to make.

 

Trump chose the hard path because he loved this country. He gave up the life of security, wealth and inclusion in order to do what he thought was right and the establishment (both Republicans and Democrats) threw rocks at him daily. Yet he made the way up the hill as we all watched, shocked that anyone would actually chose the difficult path.

 

Now we have seen it can be done and we understand a bit more about what we are up against. We have a choice, do we select the easy path, live our lives in peaceful obscurity and withdraw from the world or do we embrace the challenge fully with the knowledge that we all won’t make it to the top, if any of us make it at all, for a chance at that liberty that we as Americans once held sacred and dear?

 

It is easy to say I choose the hard path and boast about it on Facebook and social media but it is a totally different thing to actually walk the path. Words are important but without actions they amount to a lot of hot air.

 

We hear this all the time, get active, do something but rarely do actually do anything. I know I suffer from this for a variety of reasons. One I don’t know what to do and two I have so much to do already I can’t imagine doing more. I have a family, dogs, a home that requires upkeep, a fulltime job, community activities, and I have to sleep sometime. I understand many of us are in the same position, but how long do you think you’ll have any of those things if you do not do something to take care of them?

Trump showed us that we have a chance if you remain strong and refuse to back down. I am reminded of a meme that went around during the impeachment attempt. It was a black and white photo of Trump pointing at the observer and the caption said ‘in reality they’re not after me, they’re after you, I’m just in the way.’

 

If he loses this election he will no longer be in the way and they will marshal the force of the legacy media, the university and government school system, the administrative (or deep) state, social media and big tech, international corporations, and massive social pressure to make sure that the American way of life, the American experiment in individual self-governance comes to an end.

Enough is Enough: What Are You Going to Do?

The police are being told to stand down so that people the mainstream media call mostly peaceful protesters can riot and loot.

The mostly peaceful people cheer on the minority, actively encouraging, condoning, and providing cover for their actions. The mob has taken away your right to have a say. They boldly claim they are speaking for you, the people, as they set fire to the court house or pull down a statue.

They do not speak for me.

But what do we do? Normally I would say elect new people, go out and vote, get involved in your local party. While those things are still important, this is not a normal time.

The police we have entrusted to keep the peace have been handcuffed and are now being beaten savagely as we look on. We now have a choice, do we stand by and watch as these guardians of peace who have stood between us and the most depraved manifestations of our nature are systematically taken apart or do we pick up the responsibility abandoned by those elected officials entrusted with authority and restore peace and order?

It seems like an easy choice, but it is not as easy as you’d think. You will not be cheered for picking up responsibility, in fact by lifting this cross you will be attacked. You will suffer.

You will be called violent when someone punches you in the face. You will be called an extremist as you call for unity. You will be branded racist for loving your country. You will also be tempted.

Tempted to claim the power being used against you and wield it for good. But good fruit cannot grow from a poison tree. Both the suffering and the temptation seek one thing, to strip away your responsibility, because it is in this responsibility that you find meaning.

It is in this responsibility that you make yourself worthy of the suffering of life.

The streets have never been so crowded yet so empty. People shouting empty phrases into the air, conjuring demons out of brothers and making saints out of lies.

Calling people out does not reach their heart, it only causes them to utter false apologies in a misguided attempt to please a monster that feeds on outrage and misery. The apology, instead of satisfying the monster, only sends it into a frenzy as it justifies the outrage (inherent in any apology is an admission of guilt) and means the fruit of misery is ripe.

Our elected officials drop everything to meet the demands of the rioters but you peacefully gather at the capital in the thousands only to be shooed away with a pat on the head. I am just as guilty of this as anyone else. I post things online, I write my blog, I talk with friends and coworkers and we are all full of ideas of what ‘they’ should do. Then we go back to work, go home, and carry on with our lives.

We say things like, oh it’s Portland, if they would ever come to my town they would never get away with that. Then they come to your town, destroy your statues and loot your businesses. 

You then say, yeah but if they tried that at my house they would never get away with it. Then they show up at your house and burn the American flag on your front porch. You weakly say, well if they break into my house they would never get away with it. 

But it’s too late, they have already gotten away with it. Your house is on fire, the police are not coming, the fire department is not coming, and your neighbors are not coming. You are alone in your burning house and you wonder, why didn’t someone do something? 

All the while you never realized that you were someone, that you could have done something, but each time you were called you hesitated. As your community, your state, and your country burned, you turned on Call of Duty and ignored Duty’s Call. Each hesitation, each ignored call, etched onto your very being until hesitation became habit and inaction became your virtue. 

So what can you do? I’ll admit honestly I have no clear answer for that question because I do not know you. I am not going to lie to you like a politician and say I have all the answers for you and if you support me all your worries will go away. That is a question you are going to have to answer for yourself.

First recognize four things. 

One, work within your circle of influence. This means understanding what you are actually capable of doing. You probably can’t get elected governor, but you can vote. You can always extend your circle of influence and work up to getting elected governor, but chances are for the majority of us, that is outside of our current abilities.

Two, understand there is not going to be one magic solution. Simply changing the school system or the tax code will not fix everything. Lots of things need to be done, do not focus too heavily on any one thing or believe that if only X would happen then everything would be better.

Three we are currently in a culture war not a political disagreement or violent revolution. You cannot win the battle if your army is on the wrong field.

Four, you as an individual are needed right now. Not you as a member of a group (gun owner, male or female, or Trump supporter) but you as the unique individual with your own talents, interests and abilities.

Lastly if you know of any of these events, statue destruction, flooding of a school board meeting to read scripted ‘comments’ trying to cancel someone, or occupations, please bring it to the attention of the rest of the community. Then get up and go use your voice. Don’t get into shouting matches, physical fights or call people names but stand up tall with courage and honor.

PS. I am starting to organize people in my local community here in Oregon to do something I think is pretty cool. Looking to organize mostly young people to become the leaders we need but also looking to build a community. If you are interested, everyone is welcome, reach out to me on Facebook or in the comments of this blog, thanks!

The Truth About Statue Destruction

It’s not about ending racism (a utopian idea that will end up murderous if I ever heard one) it is about far more than that.

It is about an exercise of power. These mobs can do whatever they want and those we’ve entrusted and empowered to maintain law and order will do nothing to stop them.

It is about destroying the fundamental ideals America was founded on. Life, Liberty, property, representative government of the people, and the pursuit of happiness. These mobs have killed people, beaten, bullied, and intimidated people into silence. They have destroyed property and stolen the ability for the people to have a voice in what happens in their community. They have extinguished the pursuit of happiness with every business they burn, every car they destroy and every life they mangle or destroy.

It is about division and chaos. Those directing the mobs want people divided and they know the media WILL cover for them. They will never be held to account by either elected officials, law enforcement, mainstream media, or social media. In fact elected officials, mainstream media and the heads of social media will actively silence, bully, blame, attack and arrest those who speak up.

After all these riots are mostly peaceful anyway, right? They are just ‘protesters’ who tore down that statue. But it is extremists who stand in front of their business with a gun to protect it when the cops have been ordered to allow looting to happen. The extremists are the ones who want to go back to work or church.

Normally I am not for government intervention but I do believe there is a proper role and place for government. This proper role is outlined in the Declaration of Independence “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. – That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed…”

It is not the duty of our government to solve our problems for us, it is not the duty of government to care for us, and government is not our Mother nor Father nor God. The chief duty of government is to protect the rights of the people.

A mob pulling down whatever statue offends them at the time is not a right that is protected. It is not a protest, it is not free speech.

It is vandalism.

It is the destruction of peace.

It is a rejection of the idea that you or I get to be part of making the decisions within our communities.

The mob simply decides for you.

If this statue, this house, this institution, this person, this group of people are bad in the eyes of the mob, then the mob will come and destroy it and if the elected official is sympathetic to them they simply refuse to apply the law.

It is illegal for elected officials to decide which laws to enforce and which to ignore, it is immoral for elected officials to decide who the laws apply to and whom they do not.

That is not the rule of law. That is a return to aristocracy. A return to legislation without representation. There was no law passed that said the statue of Thomas Jefferson in Portland was to be removed. Did the people in that community want the statue removed? Maybe they did, but that choice was stolen from them.

Even if you agree with the removal of that statue you must disagree with the method in which it was done. The ends do not justify the means, because once they do anything becomes acceptable. As the Roman historian Tacitus once said “Once killing starts, it is difficult to draw the line.”

If you allow the mob to decide for you this time, simply because you agree with their objective or are sympathetic to their cause, they will begin to make decisions for you all the time. You might be able to buy off the mob for a time, after all you have the right sign in your yard and you say all the things they tell you to say.

You hate all the right things and all the right people in order to signal your virtue as a ‘good person.’ But a moment will come when you slip. Maybe you misspeak, a total slip of the tongue. You figure, I’m a good person, people will understand it was an accident.

 

They don’t.

You apologize.

It is only taken as an admission of your guilt.

Next thing you know you have been fired from your job. The mob you once cheered shows up at your front door. They yell at and shove your children as they try to come home after school. The windows of your car are smashed in. Maybe a fire starts, who set it, after all the mob is mostly peaceful as they cheer the flames.

Where are the police you think, the fire department? I’m a good person, why are they doing this to me? Why won’t anyone help me?

It is then you realize those same questions must have gone through the mind of the good police officers who wanted to protect and serve their community with honor. You turn and see the person who set the fire only to recognize a second later that you are looking in a mirror.

These people taking over entire city blocks in Seattle are not there for a summer of love. The mob pulling down statues are not seeking to heal a divided country or help a hurt community. The media is not seeking the truth but providing cover.

They are not all part of some grand conspiracy. They are simply followers of an ideology of division. An ideology bent on pitting one group against another in their unrelenting quest for the only thing they believe that matters in the world.

Power.

Courage in the Face of Coronavirus

 To say this virus and lock downs have created a lot of uncertainty would be an understatement. Daily through media, mainstream and social, we see video after video and article after article of how bad things are, how bad things could get, and how bad it has gotten in other places in the world.

On top of that we have governments releasing PSA’s accusing us of being murderers if we dare to leave our homes. All this generates a large amount of fear. Frankly if you are not afraid on some level I would think you were not human.

Yet in the presence of all this fear and uncertainty it is not how we feel that matters but how we act. Do you give in to your passions and allow the fear to dictate to you how you should behave? Or do you pick up your reason and struggle with those passions in order to live virtuously with courage?

Locked Down

To many of us the thought of being locked in our homes screams as a violation to our fundamental natural rights. No one can force us to stay home in a free country. This understandably could be seen simply as the excuse for petty tyrants to finally come out of the woodwork.

We also worry about once this is over and this line has been crossed, what is to stop something else simply being called an emergency and forcing us to stay home, say on an election day? In the face of these lock downs we must act with courage.

We need to understand that most Americans will not tolerate this for a long period of time. That our elected representatives will always have to run for reelection and that the true power of our Republic rests with the people. We will comply with these stay home orders but must courageously voice our opposition to them and demonstrate our dedication to that opposition once this pandemic winds down.

Reopening

We will reopen at some point and when we do it is understandable that people will be afraid to leave their homes and return to their lives. This is a natural feeling because we have been told that there is an invisible enemy lurking behind every tree, living on every surface that can not only infect and kill you but will infect and kill everyone you ever loved as well.

We need to understand that even for something as serious as the Coronavirus this feeling has been blown out of proportion by media outlets trying to sell ads and get click, by politicians trying to push pet projects through attached to relief bills, and by social media personalities trying to gain fame and attention.

Once we do start to open again we must act with courage, especially those of us who are young and relatively healthy. Go out to eat, go to the beach, and go out to our parks. While we should learn from this virus, we must not fundamentally alter our way of life. Once we do that we have made the choice to live out of fear and not from a place of courage.

Courage Itself

Courage is a virtue, one that in our modern risk adverse world we are rapidly losing. Too often do we allow mobs of people on Twitter to dictate to us what we should think or how we should behave.

But courage is not a virtue without limits. An excess of courage is foolhardiness and a deficiency of courage is cowardice. Yet to the cowardly the courageous seem foolhardy and to the foolhardy the courageous seem cowardly. So how do we judge if our actions are courageous, cowardly or foolhardy?

Our courage must serve our happiness. This is not the modern version of happiness, which is more closely related to pleasure than happiness. Instead happiness here means the positive feeling you get from doing something meaningful and good.

An example of this is as things open up and grocery stores get crowded again, you go grocery shopping for your grandparents and deliver the food to their house. The virtue of courage is a fine line and one that moves constantly. Something that is courageous one day could be foolhardy or cowardly the next day.

Practicing courage every day will etch that habit into your character and allow you to act with courage when called upon to do so in stressful situations. So I urge everyone to act with courage in the face of this terror known as Coronavirus. They do not call America the home of the brave for nothing, now is our chance to earn that title.

Coronavirus MUST be Temporary

We are all dealing with our lives being turned upside down by Coronavirus. Some of us are staying home unable to see our friends and family or engage in our regular activities. Others are still working but have altered our routine to try and prevent the spread of this virus while we carry out our essential duties.

I am extremely proud of the sacrifices we as Americans are making so that we can buy as much time as possible to get a handle on this pandemic. Most of us are staying home, practicing social distancing, wearing masks and washing our hands to the point they become cracked and dry. Not to mention the loss of jobs and financial burden.

We do this so that we do not overwhelm healthcare workers and facilities and give people who are severely impacted by this virus the best chances at survival. Yet how long can we be expected to make these sacrifices?

Cure Worse Than Disease

President Trump was attacked by the media for asking the question, at what point does the cure become worse than the disease? This lead prominent members of the mainstream media to call for a ban on the President’s daily updates under the justification that they were dangerous.

He was also accused of not caring about people dying and it was even suggested that Trump should be brought up on crimes against humanity. None of these accusations answered his question but simply served to deflect it and to score a political hit against the President as he grapples to deal with the chaos of this pandemic.

The hard fact is that death is part of life, be it from Coronavirus, a car crash, a flood, or old age. The idea that we are willing to do anything to save one life is not based in reality. Are we willing to put everything to the torch to save one life? And even if we do how long will that life be saved for? Does that one person’s one year of life outweigh the suffering of another person for a decade? Does it outweigh the suffering of 100 people for a decade? What about 1000 people?

Businesses have been destroyed, they will never come back from this shutdown. People who have given years of their lives to build their dream have had it snatched away from them. They will not be able to just turn their business back on.

The longer we remain shut down the more common this story will become. This crisis does not only threaten our economic future, it threatens to put our liberties on life support.

A Bad Apple a Day Keeps our Liberties Away

Most of us can understand that we must be willing to give up some of our liberties in order to allow the rest of our liberties to flourish. In times of crisis we also accept that short term sacrifice of our liberty may be needed in order to preserve those liberties in the long term and to allow us to pass those liberties on to future generations.

There are some people in positions of power who are more than happy sacrificing your liberties in order to protect you from yourself. These people operate under the delusion that because they are smart that they know how to run your life better than you do and they will grab any instant to prove this point and strengthen their position.

I ask that people do their best to comply with stay at home orders and social distancing not out of a benevolent spirit but out of self-interest and love of liberty. The formula for legislating by fear goes something like this.

Find one person doing something that on the surface appears dangerous or damaging. Call that person out and draw attention to them for what they are doing. Get people afraid and asking for something to be done. Then propose whatever legislation you desire on the grounds that if you oppose it you are a morally bad person who does not care of people are hurt or die.

Legislators of fear seek to punish people for the bad actions of one individual. They justify this punishment under the guise of working to protect you. Only they want to protect you from yourself. Subtext being, you are too stupid to run your own life and need someone smart, like a legislator of fear, to help you along.

For those of you up to date on your history, yes, this is the same reasoning slave holders used to argue why they needed to maintain slavery as a legal and moral institution. Making a small temporary sacrifice of your liberty is painful, frightening and dangerous but in the long term it will be less painful then having to defend those liberties against tyranny from the weak fortress of negative social opinion.

The State as Helicopter Mom

While we all must do our part the calls about the state getting further and further involved in our daily lives are not without merit. New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio threatened to shut down religious facilities permanently if they did not comply with his stay at home mandate.

LA Mayor Eric Garcetti encouraged people to snitch on their fellow citizens if they see them violating his “safer at home” order. Nancy Pelosi held up the Coronavirus relief bill because she wanted to add in money for things that had nothing to do with Coronavirus, such as stricter emission standards for airplanes and funding for PBS.

Those calling Donald Trump the next incarnation of Hitler and saying he will stop at nothing to gain power are now the same people calling him incompetent for not seizing broad powers in this time of crisis. They are essentially saying government can solve all these problems and more if only it had greater power and they were the ones in charge instead of Trump.

While we all are working hard and making tough sacrifices we also must be on guard against making what is understandable during a crisis the norm of everyday life. We must also protect ourselves against a constant state of crisis.

After seeing what can be done in the name of protecting you from a crisis, what is to stop those same people from declaring a crisis every election season? Or what is to stop them from simply declaring something a crisis in perpetuity?

Climate change could be called a crisis so under that heading shouldn’t government officials be able to assume broad powers in order to solve it? Except what is the end of climate change, isn’t the climate always changing? Would the end of the ‘crisis’ of climate change be a climate that does not ever change?

Yes humanity does have an impact on the climate, but to think that we have the power to ultimately control it or to even know what the best climate is supposed to be is a bit hubristic.

We should be willing to make sacrifices to be able to rise to the challenge of a crisis, but only if those sacrifices are made to preserve our liberty and way of life, not to fundamentally alter it.