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?

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!

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.

Corona Time

Corona Virus is the only topic on people’s mind right now. My wife, who just had a baby and is stuck at home, has to ask people who call her to talk about something else because she just cannot stand having the same conversation over and over again.

Luckily for me not much has changed. I am thankful my workplace is still open (for now) and that I am able to work. I can still take my dogs for walks or go play fetch with them and I can still go to the grocery store.

To be honest my life has not changed a whole lot outside of not being able to take my wife to dinner occasionally. As I make my way through this pandemic I have noticed a few things.

Muh Rights

First issue I’d like to address is the people complaining that the government has no authority to make them stay in their home. To some extent I would agree with these people. But in times of crisis we can make the choice to temporarily give up parts of our liberty in order to mitigate some of the damage.

These people will say, “You should never give up any of your liberty!” To which I would say, you already give up parts of your liberty every day in order to make not only your life better but to make the lives of those in your community better. The sacrifice you are making of certain liberties in a time of crisis will go a long way in preventing damage and permanent loss of those liberties in the future.

It is this sacrifice, even a temporary one, that will be rewarded with trust within a society. Trust in a free society is the most important commodity we can possess. The more we trust our fellow citizens the less likely we will demand laws to regulate each other.

Do not squander your individual trust or the trust of your country in a misguided understanding of freedom and liberty.

The Blame Game

This is starting to creep into the conversation and will likely ramp up as this crisis continues. This crisis is not the fault of Donald Trump or the Deep State or Democrats or Republicans. With the rare exception no one really understood the magnitude of Coronavirus. We are in the middle of this crisis and still do not fully understand it.

 

This could not have been prevented with nationalized healthcare. This is obviously clear if you look at how counties like Italy (who have nationalized healthcare) are handling this pandemic. Have things been handled poorly, of course, the people handling them are human after all and hindsight is 20/20.

It is easy to blame someone else for the problems in the world. Doing so safely moves the responsibility for dealing with them (or creating the problem in the first place) off your shoulders and onto someone else.

If there is blame to be placed it should be placed on the government of China. They have lied about this virus since the beginning, suppressed information, and allowed it to spread once they became aware of how bad it could be.

It did not help that the World Health Organization (WHO), or as they have become known now the Chinese Health Organization, bought and spread those lies. We also did not help because we wanted to believe them because we did not want to face the reality of how bad things could get.

For right now we must put those criticisms off as they fall outside the time horizon in which we are dealing with. Right now the bulk of our focus should be around two things. Producing medical supplies to help deal with people who have contracted the virus and finding a way to end the lock down to get everyone back to work.

Never Let a Crisis Go to Waste

One thing we need to watch out for is opportunistic people who are attempting to exploit fear and uncertainty to do things that under normal circumstances would not be done. I am not talking about the guy who bought all the toilet paper at Costco and is now trying to sell it on ebay for a profit (though if you are that guy, knock it off, what you are doing is still wrong).

I am talking about our representatives pushing through legislative items that have zero to do with solving the problem the legislation is trying to help with. About using the cover of crisis and media malfeasance to funnel money to pet projects or unrelated functions.

We do not need an increase in airplane fuel emission standards as part of our Coronavirus relief bill. We do not need to nationalize industries. Industry simply needs to be asked and they will step up. The number of companies shifting production from consumer goods to medical supplies increases daily.

If you think they could do it faster and better if they had to report to a bureaucrat before they made each choice then you seriously do not understand how business works. These companies are stepping up because they love this country and know it is in their best interest to do so. These business owners who are constantly vilified as greedy capitalist villains are the ones producing the sorely needed masks and gowns and ventilators that the government (over 3 different administrations) did not replenish.

At the end of the day we will get through this. The quarantine will be lifted, the virus will be defeated, and we can all move on. Yes we will have lots of work to do to repair the damage done by essentially halting the world economy, but in times like these patriotic Americans roll up their sleeves, clean up the mess, and press on.

It is tough and will get tougher but we have the strength, the courage and the determination to make it through this. We just have to take it one day at a time, help where we can, and avoid giving into the demons of our fouler nature. Each of us can make a difference in how this crisis turns out, we should try to do our best to mitigate as much suffering as possible.

Blog and Life Update

It has been awhile since I have posted or updated my blog so I thought an update was in order.

I have had a lot going on in my life in the last couple of month and because of that I have neglected my blog more than usual. I was trying to post one post a month and about a year ago I was actually pretty successful at doing so.

The more I worked on the blog the better it got and the better I became as a blogger. Yet I started to get burned out. I mostly focused on writing about political topics, both national and local. At some point the political stuff just became boring.

It was the same old fighting and bickering, within and amongst parties, and I found myself thinking that there was something better I could be doing. I am not saying that politics is unimportant, only that I was less and less interested in it.

I had also started a YouTube channel where we did a weekly show talking about politics and news stories. I really enjoyed this and really loved working with and interacting with some really cool people who I would call friends today.

We gave the YouTube channel a go and did not grow very much. We understood it was a saturated market but we wanted to try. When we realized that the future of the YouTube channel was not bright and that we all did not have time to devote to it that believed we should have we decided to call it quits.

While that was going on my beautiful wife and I decided that we wanted to have a baby. It was not a choice we made lightly but one we reached whole-heartedly with as much clarity as you can have on such a choice.

February 8^th 2020 my daughter was born. Adjusting to a new sleep schedule and life with a third human in the house has been a challenge, but a very rewarding challenge. Needless to say it has left little time to blog between making dinner, working, walking dogs, and giving my wife the much needed break she deserves after a long day doing all that by herself.

And now Corona Virus. Thankfully I am still at work, my workplace has been deemed essential, and am able to earn a paycheck to support my family, for now. I am also thankful that my wife and I are relatively young and in good health. I am still able to get to the grocery store and to head out into the world and acquire essential items (formula for baby, medications for pets, etc).

While I have been on Facebook and social media recently, it is nowhere near the level that I used to be. I am thankful for this as it has allowed me to keep a level head about this pandemic and not to worry too much. Yes I am being cautious, I want to keep those I love safe and healthy, but I also understand that living life as a prisoner in our own homes and of our own fear is no life at all.

These stay at home measures are fine in a time of great crisis but they can never become a regular facet of American life. No, I don’t want people to die, but am I ready to give up my chance to live a life of freedom and liberty in order to buy a notion of security?

Between working, a new baby, and an unprecedented amount of hand washing I have found little time for blogging, or much of anything else. I am happy to report my baby is healthy, has shown a gift for smiling recently, and has already out grown her newborn clothes. As far as the blog goes, I will try to make more of an effort to update the blog on topics that I hope you and I both find interesting.

Hope you are all staying healthy and know that no matter how bad things might seem now, we will get through this and we will bounce back.

Cody Benson

What happened to consent of the governed?

I am thankful that throughout my life my interaction with the administrative state has been confined to the routine. Obtaining a driver’s license, filing taxes, and filing my marriage license.

Recently I have had a friend get caught up in the administrative state. I won’t go into details but essentially it boils down to an administrator acting as judge and jury for the rules and regulations their administration created and executing those decisions.

These decisions impacted my friend’s personal life on a level to which the government was never meant to interfere. This administrative agency combines the powers of the judiciary, the legislature, and an executive, yet remains un-elected and largely unaccountable to the people.

Consent of the Governed

 

In the American system of government the consent of the governed is obtained through voting for representatives. These representatives are imbued with a part of the power of each individual person through an election.

These representatives, imbued with this power, create laws and administer various functions of the government. If the people believe their representative is doing a bad job, lacks sufficient character, or they generally do not like the person they are free to select a new representative when their term is up.

These representatives must repeatedly return to the people to renew this consent to represent them. This means that representatives are accountable to the people they represent and only have power in so far as it has been granted to them by the consent of the people.

The Loss of Consent

The administrative state does not operate with the consent of the governed. Instead they claim their authority from expertise. This allows administrators to remain insulated from the ‘dirty business’ of politics. This insulation from the consent of the governed was not produced by accident, but rather a key feature of the Progressive system of politics and administration.

 

The Progressives believed that if they could empower experts and remove them from having to deal with running for elections, then those experts would be able to make the right decisions and could use the power of the government to solve the problems of their time.

In order to achieve this, Progressives needed to reject the ideas of the Founders. Chiefly the ideas of the consent of the governed and the separation of powers. By ‘freeing’ experts from politics to focus on administration, they dispensed with the consent of the governed.

Unification of Powers

The Progressives believed that the separation of powers was both inefficient and irresponsible. They thought it was inefficient because it would take a long time to get anything done. They considered it irresponsible because it made it difficult for popular will to be translated into government action.

The solution was to combine the powers of government (legislative, judicial, and executive) into administrations headed up by experts (rational educated progressive people) who could use the power of government filtered through their expertise to solve the problems of a modern world.

We see this today in the various administrative agencies, who can make rules and regulations that have the power of laws, often are able to act as judges for disputes that arise due to those rules and regulations, and can take action to enforce rules and regulations or impose punishments on those who violate them.

At the same time the Progressives did away with the separation of powers, they focused on increasing democratization of politics. This was to amplify the power of public opinion (majority faction) in politics.

The paradox of this Progressive model of politics and administration is that while it increases the volume of public opinion in politics, it removes the power of that opinion from almost any influence it would have on administration.

Meaning the power of the administrative state is separated from the consent of the governed. Yes we get to vote for President and for Congress and for Governors but we do not get to vote for the head of the EPA. The people we vote for do not debate each other and create laws, the EPA simply produces them out of thin air.

We can voice our opinions louder and we have some impact on the administrative state but if the expert in charge of an administrative agency decides to ignore the will of the people, there is very little to almost zero recourse for the people. They do not require our consent to exercise all the powers of government, instead they claim their authority from their expertise.

Human Nature

This near worship of expertise denies something the founders understood clearly. That no matter how much of an expert any individual was, in the end they are still a human being. A human with all the same flaws, faults, interests, emotions, and capacity for good and evil as any other person.

This is why the separation of powers and the consent of the governed are so important. The consent of the governed allows the people to invest their power into another human being. They can take into account the nature of the person and decide if they are the right person to entrust with their representation. 

The separation of powers is important because it helps protect the rights of the individual (the greatest minority) and provides a tempering for the passions of the people as well as a restraint on the power of those who are entrusted with governing.

In order to have a representative government, meaning a government by the consent of the people, you must have a limited government. If the government is larger than the people than it is no longer representative of the people but represents those in government. It is not merely the size of the government that poses a problem but also the manner and structure of that government.

Our government by the consent of the governed is slipping away and instead of working to restore that limited form of government we have been more interested in fighting over who controls an ever increasingly powerful administrative state. Now is the time to make the choice, do we want the liberty to pick up the responsibility to solve the problems of our times ourselves or do we want to entrust our life, liberty and happiness into the hands of administrative experts?

Wearing a MAGA Hat: Foolhardy or Courageous

I was doing a YouTube live stream when a thought came to me. What would happen if a bunch of people wore Make America Great Again (MAGA) hats without going to a protest or march but just in their everyday lives?

Often times a story will make the rounds in the media that someone in a MAGA hat did something bad. Sometimes these stories are pure fabrication, such as the instance of the Covington kids, drummed up by big media companies desperate to stay relevant. Other times they are legitimate people doing bad things while wearing a MAGA hat.

On the other side you will also see stories of people being harassed, assaulted, or discriminated against for simply wearing a MAGA hat. It is these stories, about the fringe people in our society, that forms most people’s opinions of someone wearing a MAGA hat.

This realization led me to ask the question, what if regular people wear MAGA hats and go about their lives as normal? What if people have regular everyday interaction with someone in a MAGA hat that is not only calm and peaceful but pleasant?

What would happen if regular people wore MAGA hats for a whole month?

The Idea

I first pitched the idea to a group engaged in spreading the ideas of liberty. It was received well but ultimately turned down due to requirements around their non-profit status. Next I spoke with individuals within that group who would be interested in working on this project on the side.

My idea was to promote the idea of getting people to wear MAGA hats for a whole month and just go about their daily lives. After some discussion we thought it would be a good idea to include an activity that each individual could do to Make America Great Again. This could be anything from improving your own personal life (stop smoking, clean your room) to volunteering at or organizing a charitable event.

The reasoning behind this idea was that if you want America to be Great than you need to adopt the responsibility of making it so. These acts could be shared (but don’t have to be) under the #makingamericagreatagain.

The Problem

The problem with this idea was that my friends and I had no real way of promoting it to a wide audience nor did we have the time necessary to get everything rolling. I wrote a blog post outlining the general rules and ideas and encouraged engagement but it got lost in the internet shuffle.

I created a few memes but they did not take off. We came up with the name March MAGAness (a play on March Madness) but decided that we needed more time to generate interest in the idea and participation. We moved it to May and came up with the name MayAGA.

Again we all had full time jobs as well as other obligations (family, non-profits, and live streams) that we had to attend to. The idea did not catch on. People thought it was either an interesting idea or a crazy idea. I was told that it was stupid because it opens you up to being assaulted or that it put you in danger.

I took those criticisms to heart and almost gave up the idea at that time. It was then that I made a choice. I admitted to myself that I did not have a big reach and that I might not be able to promote this idea well but there was one thing that I could do.

I could do it myself.

My Experiment

I have made the choice that I will wear my MAGA hat for the month of May. I will wear it around the house, when I go around town, and while at work. Part of me is worried about what will happen but I did not come to this choice improperly.

I asked myself hard questions and gave myself honest answers. Am I just wearing the MAGA hat to trigger people? No, while the hat may upset some people that is not my reasoning behind wearing it. I am wearing it because I want to say that I will not be intimidated into keeping silent. I will not be told what I can and cannot wear or what I have to say.

Will I take the hat off? No. I will not be hostile about it but I will refuse to take it off unless I make the choice to do so. I will not allow the government nor the mob to intimidate me into doing something that I don’t want to do.

I asked myself these and other questions but ultimately I made the choice to wear my MAGA hat for the month of May. I live in Oregon, near ‘Progressive Portland’ and I know that I will face challenges for doing this. I also have confronted the idea that this might either be foolhardy or courageous.

But I have determined to try and walk that line.

Happy MayAGA everyone, I’ll let you know how it goes.

What is MayAGA and will you stand with us?

What is MayAGA? It is a month where liberty loving Americans say they will not be silent anymore, don a MAGA hat, and do what they can to Make America Great.

While the MAGA hat is linked to President Trump I ask that you consider looking deeper at the meaning of wearing a MAGA hat. I am not asking people to wear it in support of President Trump, rather wear it as a symbol that you will not be afraid anymore. Afraid that if you dare to speak the truth as you see it you will be attacked and ostracized.

Participation

The basic level of participation is to wear a MAGA hat during the month of May and go about your life as normal. Wear it to the grocery store, to the movie theater, or out to a restaurant. Do not make a scene or big deal about wearing the hat, just wear it and act normally.

The next level is to do something during the month to Make America Great. Organize a food drive, accomplish a personal goal, pick up trash in your local community, or help an elderly person carry their groceries to the car. We are not asking you to change the world only do something that makes something slightly better for yourself or someone else.

Anything more beyond that is up to each individual to decide.

The Rules

I.          You must remain 100% non-violent. Meaning even if you are attacked physically you do not fight back. You protect yourself, take the attack, stand up, dust yourself off and refuse to back down.

II.        You must be 100% non-racist. MAGA does not know skin color, everyone is welcome.

III.       Speak carefully. Tell the truth as best you can and if you wouldn’t say it to or in front of your mother don’t say it. Remember the media is hungry to take you out of context to sell their narrative.

IV.       Do not wear a MAGA hat if you WANT TO piss people off or trigger others. Rather wear it as a sign that you will not be told what to say or believe.

V.        Ignore the haters. Some people might call you names, shout or yell at you. Do not engage them, they are not interested in a conversation and not worth the time or risk.

VI.       Always remain calm and never back down or apologize for your MAGA hat.

VII.     Treat everyone as an individual not as a representative of their group. One man does not speak for all men simply because he is a man.

VIII.    If someone is afraid of you or your hat offer to have a conversation with them. If they refuse do not push the issue or mock them.

IX.       Do not chastise, name call, or play the shouting game with people who spew hate at you. Most of them simply do not understand or are enslaved by their ideology.

X.        If someone takes your MAGA hat, demand it back but do not attack them. They can take or destroy the hat but they cannot take or destroy your liberty.

XI.       Do at least one thing during the month to Make America Great Again. Personal and local community betterment make bigger impacts than you think.

Concerns

I understand people have concerns about participating in MayAGA. The main concern is that people are afraid they are going to be attacked and hurt. While this is something to worry about I do not believe it is as common as we all believe.

The truth is that liberty is not safe and that this is a legitimate concern. The real question is what do you do about it? Do you allow yourself to be silent out of fear, enjoying the temporary security of obscurity and bondage? Or do you face it directly and ultimately become stronger for the struggle?

Participating is going to take a certain amount of courage and risk. If someone comes to hurt you remain calm but do not back down. Ultimately they want to silence you and make you afraid to be you. Do not give them the satisfaction.

If this happens you need to understand that the many eyed media monster will be watching you. How you act in this situation can determine how this whole project will be viewed. Remember most of the media wants to make you out to be a villain for standing on your own.

It is not just the media who will be watching your actions. Other liberty centered Americans will be watching too. They will be watching and waiting to see if they want to stand with you or if you are just another provocateur looking for self-aggrandizement. Act in such a way to inspire others to stand with you and join the cause of liberty.

The other side of this concern is if people who claim they are participating do something unsavory. This is always a possibility with any movement, but some safe guards have been built into this project to protect against this.

The chief among these are the clearly stated rules. Violating these rules breaks the association and the person or persons violating them will be barred from official participation.

The media will not care about this, they have a narrative they want to sell at any cost. The truth is we are not doing this for them or their praise or approval. We are participating for our own individual reasons and to answer the call to do something courageous. You are not guilty for the actions of others and if someone does something you do not like you can disagree with them.

We are not a collective, we are an association of individuals capable of making up our own minds and making our own choices and living with the consequences of doing so.

If you have other concerns feel free to contact me and we can address them together.

The Meaning of Make America Great Again

I was recently asked a question about one of my blog posts. The question essentially was ‘what does Make America Great Again mean to me?’ This is a question I have been thinking about for some time but have never really articulated it in any meaningful way.

This slogan has many different meanings for many different people, but also multiple meanings for each individual. This makes it difficult to clearly determine what it really means as it is subject to each individual’s opinion and experience.

The Critics

First I am going to address some of the critics of this slogan. The people who say or believe that America was never great or apply the worst parts of America’s past to this slogan.

To me it seems the biggest problem people have with the statement Make America Great Again is the last word. Again. When these people look back at the history of America all they see is the horrors.

They see things like slavery, mistreatment of Native Americans, and the examples of racism. To them that is the history of America, so when they hear Make America Great AGAIN, they believe people want to go back to those horrific practices. It is an understandable criticism because of the vague nature of the statement.

But it does not take into context the other half of the history of America. The part where America was founded on the ideals of freedom and liberty, the same ideals that gave voice to end the horrible institution of slavery, not only in America but across the world. The same ideals that gave voice to extend the vote to women. The same ideals that allowed individuals to make advancements in medicine, civil liberties, technology, and industry.

It is easy to look back at the past through our modern morality and point out how horrible things were. These moments need to be viewed in the context of their time. Imagine a group of Americans attacking a tribe of Native Americans. On the surface this seems like a horrific event caused by ‘greedy racist white men’ who only want the land the Natives are living on.

Yet if you seek out context you might find that these Americans lived on the frontier, surviving by farming the land. There are no police, no national guard, and these farmers have experienced raids carried out by the Native Americans. Livestock stolen, children killed before their eyes, wives and daughters raped and taken as slaves.

If taken in this context, while you might not condone the raid and the violence it makes it a bit more understandable. If you have children you might understand their anger and desire for revenge a bit more as you too would probably move heaven and earth in order to get to someone who has willingly hurt your children.

History is never as clear cut as we all would like it to be. With that said I am going to move on to what Make America Great Again means to me.

Individual Self-Reliance

President JFK once said “Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.” The American people took pride in being able to provide for themselves. They knew that was part of the price to pay for the precious gift of freedom.

Lately we find people who are more eager to point out a problem and demand something be done, but will not do anything to take on the responsibility of fixing it themselves.

America is a society where you take responsibility for yourself instead of demanding the government take responsibility for you and provide you with the things you want. Food, healthcare, school. I am not opposed to providing a safety net, but it needs to be a temporary status not a method of sustaining oneself.

We need to move away from incentivizing people, through welfare, to remain in a state of compliant dependence that keeps them at the bottom of society.

Those who are proponents of increased welfare say they want freedom from want, but the truth is that want is a part of life. Your body will always want food and shelter and those who want to increase welfare say you should be free from that want in your life. That if you did not have to worry about those wants you would be freer to pursuit your interests.

In reality you still have those wants but you have them fulfilled by someone other than yourself, in this case the government. I would argue that this is a reduction in freedom as opposed to an increase in freedom. This sort of freedom from want is really just dependence. When you are dependent on someone for your wants and needs you are not truly free but rather at the mercy of those on whom you depend.

When you ask for government healthcare and school you are saying your friends and neighbors all owe these things to you. I am not saying we can be 100% independent and do everything ourselves, because there are just somethings individuals cannot do as effectively by themselves.

I am not saying that people cannot ask for assistance or that asking for help is bad, rather I am saying that instead of seeking help from those in positions of authority instead we should turn to ourselves first and our fellow Americans second. When I say our fellow American I am not saying the government but instead I mean our friends and family, our neighbors and local communities. This would increase the effectiveness of the type of help as well as the accountability of those who are seeking help.

For example if you see a homeless person and think, ‘if only they had more money their life would be better’ you might actually be making the problem worse. If that homeless person is addicted to drugs and is not serious about getting clean, more money could actually make their life worse.

They would spend all the money on their drug of choice, increasing the likelihood of an increase in drug traffic to the area. The homeless person could overdose and do serious damage to their body or someone else they came across while under the influence of the drug. For the homeless person it might be more beneficial, in part, to be poor because they are unable to feed their destructive drug habit.

A large federal system set up to help give money to this poor person is not going to be able to understand their individual needs. A local community would know it will only make it worse to give the person money but might understand that when they are ready, rehab would be a more effective method of assistance to that person.

Ending Identity Politics

I think it would be beneficial to describe what I mean when I use the term identity politics. Identity politics is advocating for a group of people based on an immutable characteristic.

There is a differences between advocating for the rights of a particular group as opposed to advocating for human rights which include a particular group. For example it is different to advocate for black rights as opposed to human rights for black people.

Black rights imply that there are specific rights that only apply to black people, while human rights for black people means to include them in the same rights as everyone else. A clear example of this sort of identity politics can be seen in the SAT.

As reported in the LA Times people get additional points depending upon race. Black individuals get an additional 230 points simply for skin color, meanwhile Asians are penalized 50 points for their skin color.

This is the truth about the racism of identity politics. It creates a stereotype box to place people in based on immutable characteristics, assuming everyone with that characteristic is exactly the same.

America was founded on the idea that you are more than your skin color, national identity, or national origin. You are an individual and as an individual you have the sovereignty to make choices for yourself and to run your own life. Instead of being an Irish-American or African-American we are all just Americans.

I am talking about the end of identity politics on both the left and the right. An individual’s identity is more than just a single characteristic. People are not simply black or white, male or female, gay or straight, but rather an uncountable number of identities that come together to form an individual.

Identity politics on both the left and right is simply the reemergence of Marxist collectivism. At its core this collectivism has a built in philosophy of hatred. Originally Marx proposed that the proletariat were justified in hating, and subsequently morally justified in destroying, the bourgeoisie because they were being oppressed.

Identity politics changed this by generalizing the concept. Instead of classes of people such as proletariat and bourgeoisie identity politics used oppressor and oppressed. They then set about to separate people into stereotypical groups and identifying one group as oppressed and another group as oppressor.

Under this type of thinking men oppress women, straight people oppress LGBTQ people, cis people oppress trans people, white people oppress people of color and abled people oppress disabled people.

The reason identity politics needs to divide people up in this way is because the entire worldview is based on power. To an identitarian there is nothing but power and the world is just these groups at war for more power for their group.

As more people start to play the game of identity politics on the left, in the name of compassion no less, they start to force people to the Alt-Right. Independent journalist Tim Pool does an excellent job describing this in his video The Danger of Anti-White Identitarianism in Mainstream News.

He explains how the growth and power of identity politics on the left is fueling the growth of identity politics on the right. Which in turn fuels the growth of identity politics on the left. Both sides see this as a good thing because ultimately they are both identitarians who seek a racial consciousness awakening in all people.

Make America Great Again opposes this sort of collectivism in favor of the foundational idea that the individual is what matters most. If the group is what matters most then you, the individual, only matter insofar as you are part of the group and follow the stereotype of that group. Meaning you do not matter very much when it comes to the group.

Make Men Masculine Again

I know how this sort of statement will be twisted by those who are either ideologues or under ideological possession. They will say that what it really means is that I want women to go back into the kitchen and to be subservient to men. That I seek to go back to a time when women were oppressed. Nothing could be farther from the truth.

I am not talking about women but rather talking about men and boys. There is a general sense that masculinity is toxic, that it is nothing but violence, patriarchy and rape culture and that men and boys are nothing but the embodiment this toxicity.

Toxic masculinity is a real thing but it is not the result of too much masculinity, rather it is the result of too little masculinity and the suppression of masculine behaviors. This starts with absent fathers and the rise of single motherhood. This is in part due to men not accepting responsibility for themselves and their own actions and in glorifying the single mother.

I understand why single mothers are glorified. They work, they care for children and balance everything on their own. It is a journey filled with suffering, difficulty, and tribulation that is worthy of respect. We also need to look at the outcome of that journey, what did you produce with all your suffering and sacrifice?

Boys with little respect for authority, with no real example of a masculine ideal or role model, and men who are simply boys in adult bodies. These boys grow into the adults that will marry and form relationships with our daughters. Men who do not understand what it means to be a man, to take responsibility for themselves and those around them.

This suppression continues as boys enter into public school. Boyish behavior is looked down upon as disruptive and bad. Girls are seen as the gold standard, while boys are seen as simply defective girls. Recess is rapidly vanishing across the country, competitive games like tag and dodgeball are being banned, and boys are more likely to become suspended for simply acting like boys.

These difficulties lead to fewer men going to college and even fewer men graduating college. Instead they seek any form of masculine behavior they can find. They get into video games, they get taken in by a gang, or they simply never leave mom’s basement.

Men and boys need to be encouraged and to willingly accept responsibility for the need the world has of them. We need to stop alienating young men as nothing more than oppressive tyrants in waiting. Instead men need to know that the world needs them, not as a collective but as individuals.

We need to get back to a time when men were providers. Not because women are incapable of providing but because by taking responsibility for providing you decrease the amount of suffering not only for yourself but for those around you.

Take the single mother example from before and look at the suffering she has to go through to attempt to balance work, family, and home. Would it not be great to ease that suffering with the help of a responsible man who can help with the kids, bring in additional income, and help take care of the house?

The history of couples is not the history of men dominating women, but men and women working together to increase the chances of survival not only of themselves but of their offspring.

We as a society need to stop demonizing masculinity. At the same time men need to accept the responsibility that they are needed in society.

The Family

The family used to be celebrated as the building block of our social structure. Over time this foundation has been eroded by both incentives in the form of welfare and social stigma in the form of discouraging women who want to be mothers.

Our welfare system was designed to help those we saw as the most vulnerable, namely single mothers. While the intention was good the unintended consequence of these programs is that we are providing incentives to people to remain in their current situation.

This is understandable because while you might not have much on welfare at least it is better than having nothing. Why risk what little you have in an attempt to gain a little more when you could end up losing it all and being worse off?

This same system incentivizes women to have more children and no husband. It is this incentive that in part results in the rise in single motherhood. Imagine you go into the welfare office because you are struggling. When you sit down with the social worker they ask you a bunch of questions but they will also tell you how to get additional welfare.

They will say things such as If you were single you could get more EBT benefits or if you dropout of college we could also pay your rent and get you a cell phone. It is these financial benefits that cause people who would normally consider getting married to hold off in order to get more benefits, especially if they have children together.

To some people getting married is just signing a piece of paper at the courthouse. In reality it is far more than that, it is a promise you make in front of all your friends, family and community to another person to spend the rest of your life together. To love and support each other and to share in both the joys and suffering of life. It is much harder, morally, socially and legally to end a marriage then it is to end a dating relationship.

So if you incentivize people to remain single by giving them more welfare benefits you erode the institution of marriage. With the corruption of this institution you start to see the breakdown of the family.

Another part of this is the social stigma around wanting to become a mother and a stay at home wife. Instead women are told that in order to be happy and successful you must go out and have a career. If that is what a woman wants to do, great more power to her, but if she wants to be a stay at home mom, raise her children and take care of her family she is questioned.

This is probably best embodied in the evolution of the feminist movement. Feminism originally wanted women to be able to have equal choice and opportunity on the same footing as men. Yet lately it has evolved into a Marxian movement that seeks to frame men as oppressors and women as oppressed who are locked in a struggle for power.

This is because some feminists believed that once you gave women the opportunity to seek a career instead of having a family that women would pursue the career. They believed that they would see more women in positions of power and in part they were correct, just not at the level they had hoped.

This reality failed to materialize as expected, so instead of accepting reality and working with it they looked around for a reason why their predictions failed to manifest. This is where you get politicians shaming women for voting for Trump and saying that they only did so because their husbands pressured them into doing so.

This is the same sentiment used to shame women away from being mothers. It is the idea that you can only be a strong, good, woman if you do exactly what I want you to do. It is as if they are saying you can only be an independent woman if you live your life the way I say you should or vote how I think you should vote.

This is an attitude of condescension toward women who might have a different opinion on how to best live their own life. It is as if they believe you are weak if you make a different choice and that the only way you would have made a different choice is if you were forced or pressured into it by a man.

I can think of nothing more noble then to make the choice to become a mother and raise a family. It is willfully accepting a responsibility that will be around for the rest of your life. A responsibility that, if taken seriously and done properly, will be a lot of work but will yield a lot of love and happiness.

Family is important, a strong family will make strong individuals. Society is made up of individuals and if you want a strong healthy society you must start with the family.

Love of Country

You do not love something because it is perfect, rather you love something in spite of its flaws. America is not perfect but compared too many other places on earth throughout time it is an exceptional place. A shining light of freedom and liberty in a dark brutal world full of violence and oppression.

Make America Great Again means that it is okay to be a proud American. To love your country and what it stands for. The principles of freedom and liberty and the understanding that we as individuals and as a country do not always live up to those principles but those principles are good and important.

It was this mutual understanding of the value of these principles that united the country. They allowed us to disagree on topics while at the same time accept that was okay because we all shared these basic principles.

Lately we have seen a rise in anti-American sentiment. I have personally been called a Nazi and a fascist in Portland Oregon for carrying the American flag. Another person, who came out to protest Patriot Prayer, a pro-American right wing group, was assaulted because he was flying the American flag.

This was not done by the people he came to protest but by people who call themselves Anti-fascists. And what did the other ‘peaceful’ protesters around this man do when he was brutally attacked for carrying the American flag? They watched and left him lying on the ground bleeding. His only crime was that he was carrying the American flag. A flag that is a symbol of freedom and liberty.

There are people who seek to shame you into not loving America. They see America as an evil oppressor across the world and in this country but they fail to accept or recognize that the American people are living in the most prosperous time in human history.

They have no gratitude for the sacrifices of previous generations that helped lead us to this point in world history. They take for granted the peace and plenty that we have as if this is the norm. In reality what we have here is rare.

Most of human history is the story of war and suffering. Of countries that are run by people who are more than happy to kick down your door in the middle of the night and kill you if they believe you are a threat or have expressed opposition.

You have protesters in the street chanting things like ‘No Trump, no wall, no USA at all.’ You have politicians telling crowds that America was never really great. You have politicians openly calling for the harassment of cabinet members of a sitting president and who are cheered by a crowd for doing so.

You can disagree with the president, you can protest, you can vote for who you think will run the country best, and you can oppose policy. All of that is part of what makes America great. There is a difference between doing those things out of a love for your country and out of a hatred for your country.

The American author Mark Twain said it best when he said “Patriotism is supporting your country all the time, and your government when it deserves it.” The ideals and principles of individual liberty and freedom, ideals such as free speech, the right to peaceably assemble, and freedom of religion, are the ideals that America was founded on. It is these principles that people refer to when they say they are proud to be an American and that they love America.

The Rule of Law

Some people try to conflate the meaning of the phrase rule of law with the meaning of systemic oppression. Rule of law simply means that you enforce the law as it was written regardless of the emotional outburst it creates in a vocal minority or the damage it may do to your chances of reelection.

We elect people to make and enforce the law, not pick and choose which sections of the law they would like to enforce and which they would like to ignore. That is something a king or a tyrant would do.

If the president or a police officer or an enforcement agency does not enforce the law they are essentially sweeping it under the rug for someone else to deal with. If the law is not enforced how are we the people supposed to know if the law is good or bad, effective or ineffective? How would we know if it needs to be altered or abolished?

If a law is not enforced and then enforced by someone who is following the law then it comes across as selective enforcement. If you are selectively enforcing the laws then you are circumventing the will of the people whose government created those laws. When you selectively enforce the law you are placing the authority of the individual invested with the power to enforce the law over the rule of law.

The rule of law is important because it sets up a system of impartial rules that apply to everyone equally. It should not take into account the wealth, status, race, religion or any factor other than the law itself and the actions of those accused of violating the law. It is the idea that the law should rule the country not an authority.

Freedom of Speech

A few years ago it would have been unthinkable to attack freedom of speech. Hate speech legislation is just that, an attack on freedom of speech. What am I trying to say here? Basically I want to say that with the rise of PC culture and the idea of hate speech we are seeing attacks on one of the important foundational principles of our society.

People who defend the idea of hate speech typically try to explain that all they are trying to do is make people more polite or that they are just trying to protect marginalized people. The only problem with hate speech is that what is and is not hate needs to be defined.

That is the rub, who gets to define what is hate speech? Should we allow the president to do it? That would mean Donald Trump gets to decide what is and is not hate speech, is that a power you want to invest into that office?

The truth is that the people who will get to define what is and is not hate speech are the people you least want to do that job. The idea of hate speech, or that free speech is just a cover for hate, is another form of appealing to authority to enforce your beliefs.

Along with the right of freedom of speech comes the responsibility to speak truthfully, honestly, and clearly. Failure to do so results in the erosion of freedom of speech by violating the trust between individuals.

Making America Great Again

For me this is what Make America Great Again means. It means getting back to the first principles of our country. The ideas and ideals it was founded on and stop chastising people for the sins of the past and taking credit for accomplishments of the past.

What matters is what you do as an individual. Become self-reliant so that you do not need to be dependent on the state. End the tribal cycle of identity politics that only serves to pit groups of people against each other.

Recognize the positive aspects of masculinity and end the attack on men and boys. The family unit has done well to serve humanity for thousands of years and we mess with that institution at our own peril.

You should love your country, not blindly but honestly accepting the flaws but understanding the value of the principles on which it was founded. Understand the importance of the rule of law and of freedom of speech. Getting back to this first principles is what it means to me when I hear the phrase Make America Great Again.