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.

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