Election 2024: Restoration, Not Just Maintenance or Managed Decline

We are down to the wire. November 5^th, here it comes.

The polling is up and down and all around. Trump is ahead of Kamala Harris by one or two points in all the swing states, according to many polls. Yet the lingering fears of voter fraud and election tampering remain high among the MAGA faithful. Vigilance and voting early is important, but ensuring that the Democratic machines cannot manufacture ballots is also a must. Has anyone paid attention long enough to prevent that gross corruption? We shall see.

To the credit of the RNC and its new leadership, Republicans are proactively fending off voter fraud issues and election integrity problems. Still, I agree with Evan Power, Chairman of the Florida GOP: every state should adopt the Sunshine State’s flawless, effective, and smooth voting procedures. Once a state synonymous with crisis-level counting problem (Elections 1876, 2000, 2018), Florida has become the hallmark for sound election procedures—and across two time zones!

I have my fingers crossed for Donald Trump to win, whether by a little or a lot. But the fight will not be over, not by a long shot.

Our country is bitterly divided. The fact that Americans are so invested—nay, obsessed—with the Presidential election is contrary to everything that the Framers hoped for. The Presidency has become too oppressive and omnipresent in our life and times. Note that I wrote “The Presidency” and not “The President.” As Greg Greenwald has observed, the United States government has been functioning without a functional president for the last six months, the perfect evidence that the Deep State is real and needs to be eradicated root and branch.

The federal government spends too much, does too much, is too much.

I welcome Elon Musk and retired US Congressman Ron Paul’s cost-cutting proposals. Forget the Office of Government Efficiency. Just go “Javier Milei” on the federal government and start shutting down all the useless, unconstitutional executive departments. I would start with the Department of Education, but Housing, Transportation, the Interior, Commerce, and a few others should be on the chopping block ASAP.

But I want to make a greater plea from our next President and our remaining, resilient citizenry, regardless of who wins the Presidential election this November.

I am tired of managed decline, and I do not want the hastened, woke decline of Kamala Harris and Company. Aren’t we tired of the specter of Communism becoming a little more concrete with every passing year? Aren’t we tired of the next generation struggling with deeper mental issues and steeper financial problems?

Since the end of the Cold War, post 9-11, we have seen nothing but the casual then accelerated erosion of our constitutional Republic. Though I have a slight, cautious optimism that Trump will win the election, I fear that he will continue to lose the war: the war against culture Marxism, the fight against moral decline, and the battle against unconstitutional oversight and overreach.

It’s not only his failures from his previous four-year team. George W. Bush relished the surveillance state, and Barack Obama fed the Military-Industrial Complex as well as fomented government intrusion into one-sixth of the American economy (Obamacare).

We the People can no longer neglect nor ignore the burgeoning, ballooning national debt, either. From the erosion of the dollar to skyrocketing costs for food and fuel, unconstitutional indebtedness must be savagely savaged. No more excuses!

Will President Trump step up and change course from his previous four years? He cut the regulations; he allowed energy production to flow unhindered. There was generous economic improvements. But the spending, the immigration issues, the Swamp all remained stagnant or malignant. We can no longer tolerate Trump-like half-measures as a people or as a country. Four more years of managed decline and tapering the excesses of the political Left plus the Woke DC bureaucracy won’t cut it. And We the People should not tolerate it.

It saddens me that I must look to once-backward foreign countries like Argentina and El Salvador for hope and guidance. Nayib Bukele has cleaned up his country, locking up all the gangs, improving public safety to such a level that his Central American nation is safer than the United States! He is expanding business, investment, and international prestige for his once-pariah state. He turned a gang-invested hell-hole into a must-visit destination.

Then there’s libertarian President/Rock Star Javier Milei. This man has taken a chainsaw to every government program. He is privatizing at the fastest clip in modern history. He hasn’t just tapered but flattened inflation. And he embraces cultural restoration, as well. He educates the next generation about the Right to Life. He has lectured Globalist Cesspools like the WEF and the UN that their collectivist visions are myopic dystopias.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is not just winning another war on terror, but he wins with such assiduousness. No prolonged battles, and terrorists in Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, and Iran are on the run. He puts his people first. He stops illegal immigration and stands up for the rights of Christians, though they are a minority in his country.

Why can’t we have good things, too? Shouldn’t the President of the United States make these broad, bold moves? Trump should follow the example of his international peers. But will he?

Above all, the United States must be re-united around our constitutional republic, our Anglo-American legal traditions, our Judeo-Christian heritage, and most importantly our Revolutionary Legacy. Right now, these historic accolades are not just under attack, but in disrepute and disarray.

I welcome Governor Ron DeSantis’ reminder of the Vision of our Founders during his RNC 2024 Speech. The American People need to revive that vision, for where there is no vision, the people perish (Proverbs  29:18). It is time for us to cry out “Restore, Restore” (Isaiah 42:22) as opposed to settling for the maintenance of the status quo or managed decline.

President Trump, Restore America’s greatness, and make it stand the test time!

Revisiting Reaganism with George F. Will, Fifteen Years Later

Time to move on from Reagan,
wrote George F. Will as far back as 2007

Right before President George W. Bush's administration ended, George F. Will told conservatives that they needed to move on from Reagan.

Sadly, he didn't accept that the movement voters wanted meant Trump: a nationalist, populist, more isolationist foreign policy which focused on American citizens, stopped mass immigration (legal and illegal), and stopped with the reckless, globalist agenda-setting spending.

Will's call to move on from Ronald Reagan was published in 2007:

George F. Will:Conservatives must temper worship of Reaganism

WASHINGTON — In this winter of their discontents, nostalgia for Ronald Reagan has become for many conservatives a substitute for thinking. This mental paralysis — gratitude decaying into idolatry — is sterile: Neither the man nor his moment will recur. Conservatives should face the fact that Reaganism cannot define conservatism.

Reagan is dead, and Reaganism is dead. He met many of the challenges facing the country during the 1980s, and he scored a significant win in consigning international communism to the ash heap of history.

Today, the United State is looking at a harsher fate if We the People do not tackle the domestic marxism infecting our schools, universities, and other institutions.

That is one lesson of John Patrick Diggins' new book, "Ronald Reagan: Fate, Freedom and the Making of History." Diggins, a historian at the City University of New York, treats Reagan respectfully as an important subject in American intellectual history. The 1980s, he says, thoroughly joined politics to political theory. But he notes that Reagan's theory was radically unlike that of Edmund Burke, the founder of modern conservatism, and very like that of Burke's nemesis, Thomas Paine.

Burke believed that the past is prescriptive because tradition is a repository of moral wisdom. Reagan frequently quoted Paine's preposterous cry that "we have it in our power to begin the world over again."

This notion of "beginning the world again" would re-emerge with Barack Obama. Sadly, the change that he thought he would bring would be nothing more than corporate elitism spitting on the needs of everyday Americans. Reagan cared about America, he loved the American people, but the domestic issues we face today cannot be solved by the Reaganism of yesterday.

Diggins' thesis is that the 1980s were America's "Emersonian moment" because Reagan, a "political romantic" from the Midwest and West, echoed New England's Ralph Waldo Emerson. "Emerson was right," Reagan said several times of the man who wrote, "No law can be sacred to me but that of my nature." Hence Reagan's unique, and perhaps oxymoronic, doctrine — conservatism without anxieties. Reagan's preternatural serenity derived from his conception of the supernatural.

George Will depended way too much on quotes. What a distraction!

Putting aside the stylistic problems, Will does drill down a deeper issue: conservatism without anxieties. The truth is that every human being should be in tune with the Laws of Nature and Nature's God. This repository of natural law defines and embeds the Declaration of Independence and the United States Constitution. 

We want the Laws of Nature to be crystal clear to every American. Then would they be restored to the cultural and legal heritage of this country. So, for this part I find Will's criticism a little unfounded.

Diggins says Reagan imbibed his mother's form of Christianity, a strand of 19th-century Unitarianism from which Reagan took a foundational belief that he expressed in a 1951 letter: "God couldn't create evil so the desires he planted in us are good." This logic — God is good, therefore so are God-given desires — leads to the Emersonian faith that we please God by pleasing ourselves. Therefore there is no need for the people to discipline their desires. So, no leader needs to suggest that the public has shortcomings and should engage in critical self-examination.

I disagree with this take. The Scriptures could not be clearer regarding human direction and will in conjunction with God's will and desires:

"12Wherefore, my beloved, as ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. 13For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure." (Philippians 2:12-13)

Diggins thinks that Reagan's religion "enables us to forget religion" because it banishes the idea of "a God of judgment and punishment." Reagan's popularity was largely the result of "his blaming government for problems that are inherent in democracy itself." To Reagan, the idea of problems inherent in democracy was unintelligible because it implied that there were inherent problems with the demos — the people.

Human nature is flawed as well as fulsome, no doubt about that. Human nature does need to be limited, not expanded upon. This notion of human expansion and cheery optimism led to higher spending during his administration, with no real interest in tackling the massive debt that has only grown much, much worse over the last forty years.

There was nothing — nothing — in Reagan's thinking akin to Lincoln's melancholy fatalism, his belief (see his Second Inaugural) that the failings of the people on both sides of the Civil War were the reasons why "the war came."

It's essential for a president to rally and cheer up the citizenry, certainly, so I do not believe that a president should beat down on the national electorate exclusively. There is room, and much need, for course corrections among the people, no doubt. There is a fallen aspect to human nature which cannot be ignored, of course, for for that reason the United States Constitution instituted so many checks and balances on political power.

As Diggins says, Reagan's "theory of government has little reference to the principles of the American founding." To the founders, and especially to the wisest of them, James Madison, government's principal function is to resist, modulate and even frustrate the public's unruly passions, which arise from desires.

See above.

"The true conservatives, the founders," Diggins rightly says, constructed a government full of blocking mechanisms — separations of powers, a bicameral legislature and other checks and balances — in order "to check the demands of the people." Madison's constitution responds to the problem of human nature. "Reagan," says Diggins, "let human nature off the hook."

"An unmentionable irony," writes Diggins, is that big-government conservatism is an inevitable result of Reaganism. "Under Reagan, Americans could live off government and hate it at the same time. Americans blamed government for their dependence upon it." Unless people have a bad conscience about demanding big government — a dispenser of unending entitlements — they will get ever larger government.

There is a great deal of truth to this indictment. Reagan did not cut the spending, and he only slowed the growth of government. Today, forty years after the last inflation crises under President Jimmy Carter, the American public is enduring the long-term cost and consequences of printing money ad libitum.

But how can people have a bad conscience after being told (in Reagan's First Inaugural) that they are all heroes? And after being assured that all their desires, which inevitably include desires for government-supplied entitlements, are good?

Barack Obama would echo similar sentiments during his 2008 campaign and into this first and second inaugural. The cheery optimism that treats human beings as basically good, while the government and the environment are the truly flawed features, will create nothing but problems for true constitutional governance.

Similarly, Reagan said that the people never start wars, only governments do. But the Balkans reached a bloody boil because of the absence of effective government. Which describes Iraq today.

George Will was a vocal opponet of the War in Iraq, as was John McLaughlin and a number of other paleoconservatives. Strangely enough, George Will hated President Trump, who was the first President in thirty years to keep the United States out of war and scale back American military commitments around the world!

Because of Reagan's role in the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Diggins ranks him among the "three great liberators in American history" — the others being Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt — and among America's three or four greatest presidents. But, says Diggins, an Emersonian president who tells us our desires are necessarily good leaves much to be desired.

It depends on what the desires are, and it depends how individuals push to realize those desires. If people want to use the government to fulfill their desires, they will find and create nothing but frustration. After Reagan, we have yet to see a Republican President who has been committed to cutting the spending and shrinking the size and scope of the state.

Will Trump follow through, should he get re-elected in 2024?

If the defining doctrine of the Republican Party is limited government, the party must move up from nostalgia and leaven its reverence for Reagan with respect for Madison. As Diggins says, Reaganism tells people comforting and flattering things that they want to hear; the Madisonian persuasion tells them sobering truths that they need to know.

The American people have many sobering truths to face, like the fact that demographic demise, via births and mass immigration, is hurting the structure of the country. The excessive spending due to the reckless entitlement promises must come to an end. 

Reagan said that government is the problem, but he never stopped growing that problem. The next generation of leaders and representatives in Washington DC and around the world will have to get used to saying NO to lobbyists, grifters, and consultants, and say NO to growing government.

Human nature needs a heavey dose of NO at this time, now more than any other, and Reaganism cannot provided that needed check and balance.

Hawaii RINO Alert -- Spending Like Drunken Sailors with the Hawaii Dems

***** BACKSTABBING ALERT:  Gene Ward and the RINO's Embrace Runaway, Wasteful Spending in LOCKSTEP with the Democrat Machine's Puppet Politicians ***** All 5 "GOP" House Members and "GOP" Senator Kurt "Mufi" Fevella vote to fleece taxpayers $31 Billion to enrich Hawaii's Democrat political class   Aloha, Republicans: SURPRISE: Hawaii Republicans DON'T OPPOSE Runaway, Wasteful Spending at all - THEY VOTE IN FAVOR OF WASTEFUL SPENDING WHICH TAKES MONEY FROM YOUR POCKET AND ENRICHES THE DEMOCRAT POLITICAL CLASSES IN HAWAII -- in lockstep with the Democrat Machine's Puppet Politicians. That's right -- the Democrats' proposed two-year $31+ Billion budget which taxes the hell out of island residents and employers wasUNANIMOUSLY APPROVED by Republicans and Democrats alike so they canshower special interest groups and government employee unions with so many giveaways that local families have no reason not to keep moving away to the mainland in record numbers as the cost of living continues going sky-high.  Now, okole-kissing party phony-baloney insiders from Mililani like Ostrov, Herrera, and Kama-Kimura need to explain why getting RINO Val Okimoto elected was important if she's simply going to vote like a Democrat along with Ward, McDermott, Thielen and Cheape for tens of billions in wasteful spending and punishing taxes. Democrat House Finance Chairwoman Sylvia Luke told KITV that she believed this was the FASTEST budget bill ever passed by the Hawaii State Legislature. Sure, Sylvia, when the Hawaii GOP and the fake Republican politicians embrace the overtaxation and wasteful spending, lots of things can be done quickly -- like paving the road to hell. C'mon Gene Ward, if we don't like the direction Democrats are taking Hawaii, why the hell would you and the other GOP legislators vote unanimously to give Democrats everything they want?? And how are the people of Hawaii supposed to know anything is wrong with Democrat leadership when RINO's vote "yes" for Democrat legislation and budgets?? They can’t and they won’t. These self-dealing closet Democrats posing as Republicans actually believe everything Democrats do is just fine as long as they 'get theirs'. RINO's are directly helping Democrats to stay in power for another 65 years by refusing to make the case against the ruling party. Folks, you've been sold out by the Hawaii GOP and the closet Democrats who control our party. Auwe! LINK TO BUDGET BILL PASSED: https://www.capitol.hawaii.gov/measure_indiv.aspx?billtype=HB&billnumber=2&year=2019 SOME OF THE BUDGET NEWS STORIES: https://www.staradvertiser.com/2019/03/23/hawaii-news/state-lawmakers-announce-spending-agreement/ https://www.kitv.com/story/40182201/lawmakers-pass-a-nearly-8-billion-budget-for-the-coming-fiscal-year-starting-july https://www.civilbeat.org/2019/03/lawmakers-move-swiftly-on-spending-plan-but-thats-not-the-end-of-the-debate/   Stay tuned for more shocking information about what these RINO’s have been doing to destroy the Hawaii Republican Party from the inside, year after year after year.  They’ll say (e.g. lie) and do (e.g. steal) anything to retain that ability to sabotage the conservative agenda and keep the Democrat agenda moving forward with the help of the Hawaii GOP and the Republican caucus at the legislature.  ANYTHING AND EVERYTHING. Auwe!! -------------------------------------------------   Donate to HIRA Action SuperPAC

Public Choice Theory: Why Government Often Fails (Great Video)

               

This video outlines how choices and game theory play out among humans, whether they operate in the public sector or the private sector.

One finds in this comprehensive video why even the most well-intentioned reformers find that little good comes out of giving the government more control over key industries and services in a community.

Human beings are motivated by choices and incentives. The actions and decisions of lawmakers, elected officials, bureaucrats, and voters are many times motivated by a cost-benefits analysis.

Voting is a more costly exercise than most people realize. Working as a bureaucrat will deliver types of service compared to someone in the private sector. Find out what this matters, and what it matters specifically when it comes to politics and government.

Election 2018 Torrance Mayor's Race: Time to Get Real

People, I will not be nice or diplomatic about this.

The city of Torrance needs real leadership, not corruption, arrogance, and malfeasance.

Crook Pat Furey must go, but right now there are two other contenders and they are poised to cancel each other out and give Crooked Pat re-election.

Ron Riggs and Tom Brewer, it's time for you BOTH to put the best interests of the city ahead of anything and anyone else. Who cares if I don't get invited to the Christmas parties or the swearing-in ceremony next June.

We need a fighter, we need someone who will call out the wasteful spending, the street-sweeping racket, the planning commission shenanigans, and the ardent bigotry of the mayor, who somehow thinks that the expression of First Amendment Rights constitutes an embarrassment to the city of Torrance. Not to mention the fact that one dollar out of four from the general budget goes to a pension!

We also need someone who will say to the labor unions "No More!" and say to the small businesses "Here's your money back." How about LOWERING the sales tax?

If neither one of you wants to do any of this, then both of you should back off and let another candidate run.

#FireFurey #MakeTorranceGreatAgain