During the 1960’s, grade school teachers throughout the country herded classrooms full of students under their desks.  We were warned to close our eyes and not look towards the windows.  Several times each semester, we practiced for the long anticipated nuclear blast that was sure to come from those dreaded communists on the other side of the world.  Back then that evil menace was called the USSR, (today’s Russia.)

For the adults, there were fallout shelters.  They were seemingly everywhere there was a space to hide below ground.  If you grew up in that era, the signs identifying those spaces might still elicit a deep emotional response.

My father had a friend that had built his own fallout shelter behind his garage.  I remember visiting it as a twelve-year-old and the place both scared and fascinated me.

Even after seeing those grainy black-and-white videos of a nuclear blast incinerating and then almost simultaneously blowing away rows of trees and atomizing buildings, the power of our shared fear prevailed over reality.  We stuck with hiding under our desks.  By cloaking the entire herd with a collective, communal terror, skepticism was extinguished because the prospect of bucking that premise was unthinkable.  Being blinded by the light didn’t mean much if one second later you were pulverized.  Coming out of a fallout shelter only to encounter a radioactive dessert wasn’t a great solution, yet we ignored what was real and blindly trusted those who were lying to us.

This is what fear does.  Today, the Silent Generation and the Baby-Boomers, those who should know better, are self-exiling in their own homes, prisoners of their own making.  Maybe too old to get under a desk today, but still stuck with the dread, fed to them continually, over a lifetime of political indoctrination.

Over time, each drill made it easier and easier to get under that little desk.  Most kids instinctively turned from the windows without instruction.  Maybe it’s time now to crawl out from under that desk of despair for the last time and agree to never go back.  If the last thing I’m ever going to see is a nuclear blast, I want to view it with eyes wide open.  And if the blast never comes, I’ll keep my eyes open for the scoundrel that tried to scare me out of my mind, if not with a nuke, then with a virus.

Democrats stalled legislation for freeing up nearly $2 trillion in liquidity for Americans affected by this crisis.  James Clyburn, Democrat house majority whip told Democrats to see this situation as a, “tremendous opportunity to restructure things to fit our vision.”  The bill failed because the Democrats attached to it a laundry list of crap that has nothing to do with the virus.  Clyburn’s pronouncement demonstrates to anyone willing to listen all they need to know about the lack of virtue, character and honor that only a strategy like that can explain.

It nicely frames the entirety of the new Democrat Party today.  The Left-Wing of what used to be thinking and thoughtful people has replaced reason with fantasy, fact with fiction and logic with lunacy.

The ideologic “isle” all were busy figuring out how to cross has become a freeway with no speed limits, too dangerous to cross, too likely to result in being run over.  In the past, conviviality and comity might yield results.  Today, stop sticks and the pit maneuver are the tools required to not meet half way, but to stomp the life out of not only the Corona virus, but the more dangerous and infective plague of liberalism.

This is a letter to my gun club in Binghamton that was quick to shut down in the face of this emergency. Even those of us in the firearms community seem to be getting soft on oppressive government…

I’ve been a member of this club for nearly two decades and have never had an issue with our leadership until now.  I am asking that the Executive Committee rescind their decision made earlier today and align club policy with what I believe is a closer representation of the will of the members and the spirit of the firearms community.

Our club ought to be leading by example and not be cowed so quickly by unilateral government decree.  The club is a large enough building as to afford members sufficient “social distancing” while still remaining open.  If convenience stores, gas stations and  Hum-Dinger Ice Cream Store can remain in operation, there is no good reason that our club should voluntarily close.  We could easily self-police our activity to 3-5 members at a time while remaining safe and responsible.

This is what the Governor’s directive says in part:

11. Essential Services Necessary to Maintain the Safety, Sanitation and Essential Operations of Residences or Other Essential Businesses, Including:  (partial listing)

law enforcement

fire prevention and response

building code enforcement

security

emergency management and response

As responsible and well-trained firearms owners, aren’t we best suited to assist in maintaining the safety… and security of residents and other essential businesses?  I believe that our club and its members qualify as ESSENTIAL SERVICES as defined by the Governor’s own decree as outlined above.

If there ever was a time to demonstrate leadership by example, while endangering no one, the Executive Committee ought to recognize that the members of the club, individually, should determine, for themselves, if they CHOOSE to use the club during this time.  If you’re uncomfortable using the club for now, stay home.

This rapid decision to simply shut down seems to me antithetical to what I always thought firearms owners stood for.  It certainly flies in the face of my beliefs and I don’t believe I’m alone.  Was the purpose of our firearms and all of the training only to produce tools for punching tiny holes in paper targets?

I think we have a moral obligation to push-back on an oppressive government. We can and should remain open while simultaneously practicing the distancing protocols. We need to lead by example.  We are proud and patriotic citizens not subjects to be lorded over.  If I’m a lone voice in the dark on this, maybe I’m in the wrong club.

The word “Frozen” pops up the imaginary characters of Elsa, Anna and Olaf for our children.  Today, all Americans face a new kind of frozen, that of being frozen in place.

For the next untold weeks or even months, the country is putting herself into a protective hibernation.  The big difference between natures induced slowdown and the one we are entering is the fact that we control this.  While we collectively volunteer to remain frozen in place, what we do not subscribe to is being frozen by fear.  Let our actions be driven by reason and thought and not hysteria.

During the worst days of World War II, people practiced blacking out their windows, for fear of enemy forces focusing in on any slight sliver of light leaking from their homes at night.  A 1941 New York Times headline captions reads;

1. Keep Cool
2. Stay Home
3. Put out lights

It has been nearly 19 years since the terror attacks of 9-11.  The Cuban missile crisis had the entire world poised on the brink of a world-war some 58 years ago, taking the collective breath away from all Americans.  During the 60’s teachers herded kids under school desks or into fallout shelters for fear of nuclear annihilation.  Tuberculosis killed 34,000 in 1950 and 62,000 died from the flu in 1957.  All of these events shared the common thread of fear.  The key to that is how we reacted.  We converted fear into action.  And once you act, fear dissipates.

Ironically, reaction to fear is commonly expressed as running from the source of that threat.  Today, we do the counter-intuitive and we are asked to stand-down, shelter in place, and deny by social distancing a place for the virus to host.  By collectively agreeing to distance ourselves from one another, the virus has no way of spreading.

The situation we find ourselves in is the colossal version of the common phrase, “Take a Deep Breath.”  While we hunker down, this is a good time to do some of the things we claim that we never have time for.  Like exploring our relationship with God.  How about practicing our prayerful life?  Why not write a few letters to people you love and tell them so.  Maybe go a full day without TV or internet, or radio, or cell phone, and instead listen to the sounds around you, or simply enjoy the quiet and peace.

American’s aren’t about small ideas or weak responses.  While we are likely to argue, insult, engage and enrage on occasion, we also know when to stop and when to unite.  Our disagreements don’t define us, our commonality as fellow Americans does.

We can decide to make of this time something productive.  We can take stock of who we are and why we do the things that we do.  There has never been a better time for genuine self-reflection, or a time when we have needed it more.

Former Clinton aid and Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel famously stated that, “You never let a serious crisis go to waste.”  This is how you can apply that logic to the current situation concerning the Corona virus scare.

Remember, regardless of who holds what office at whatever level in the world of politics, the government screws up almost everything it tries or touches.  Because this strain of virus is new, no one really knows how this will unfold.  Because politicians are loath to admit they don’t know everything, they will tell us almost anything to convince us that they are leading effectively and in control.  They do this under the rationale that they are simply avoiding panic and managing an otherwise unmanageable situation.  What is really happening is that these people never want to seem as vulnerable or as unsure as they need us to stay, a requirement, in order for us to be led.  The minute a politician loses his seeming superior knowledge, his power is gone and with it his influence.  This situation is to be avoided at all costs, including doing or saying anything necessary to remain in power and control.  We need to remember that in order to keep in perspective what we are being told, by whom, and then determining for ourselves what really is the truth.

Remember a few short months ago, many in our country were basically arguing for open borders?  When we see the world through the prism of a global pandemic, all of a sudden borders are really important.  West Virginia stands out on the map when it is the only state in the union free of the virus.  Quite naturally, I’m sure West Virginians take great comfort in that fact.  Those of us who live here in Broome County wait nervously to hear of the first case here locally.  This demonstrates just how territorial people actually are.  Politicians are busy drawing hypothetical lines around the City of New Rochelle, NY.  Why?  Because the Governor has declared this region a “containment zone” after a large number of people came down with the virus.  Interesting how one situation can be traded for another, (virus versus borders), and quickly, the arguments go completely away.

Borders are to the adult population what rules are to children, they comfort us to know where the boundaries are.  We quantify and qualify ourselves by border identification; superior if we live there, less so if we don’t.

Today is National Prayer Day.  Our greatest hope and our most earnest source of comfort are to be found not from government or the media, but in prayer, our faith, and in our individual relationships with Jesus Christ.

In comforting a terrified nation in 1933, President Roosevelt took to the radio and told the millions of United State citizens listening that, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”  He was right eighty-seven years ago, and he is right again today.  This is what the Bible tells us:   “For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory; While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal.”

Those in power tell us that the largest single threat to the US is China.  By exploiting cheap labor, low-cost energy and a lack of regulation, developed nations, led by the United States, have made possible the Chinese production of goods at low cost.  By turning a blind eye towards the exploitation of the Chinese people and ignoring the environmental impact of Chinese industrial production, the western world proudly boasts of defeated slavery in one hemisphere by condoning it and tapping its benefit in another.

That doesn’t sound like much of a threat, right?  Sounds more like we’re complicit in the human rights violations we accuse them of.  Except that this over-reliance on what amounts to slave-labor and our own greed, has put China in the enviable position of controlling much of our means of production.

Might the outbreak of the Corona virus provided China with the excuse to brake-check their national industrial output in order to test the impact on the US economy?  Once the Chinese verified that shutting down their production caused markets to shed billions in value almost overnight, this created incentives to game the stock market in magnitudes that would dwarf their standard strategy of simple currency manipulation.

Unlike the western world of three and five year plans, China calculates long-term national planning over decades, even centuries.  The Chinese eye sees far over the western horizon and ironically what got us here was the converging willingness of one nation to sacrifice millions of her citizens into the role of indentured slaves to the service of another nation, seduced by the dream of cheap consumption with the plausible deniability of the reality of that human cost.

This unholy alliance has created moral dynamics that are as warped as the concepts that created them.  The Chinese feel justified in stealing any and all intellectual property they can get their hands on.  Any why wouldn’t they, when compared with the West’s eagerness to effectively enslave their people?  And then the US pretends to condemn the Chinese for human rights violations, but apparently only those offenses that have to do with re-education camps, and not the assembly of iPhones or televisions.

More than half a million Chinese nationals are enrolled in US universities and colleges.  Arguably, our most valuable national resource is academia.  Just as the US stockpiles a range of commodities known collectively as the strategic reserve, higher education in the US should be guarded and reserved for the education of our own citizens, not those who openly plot against US interests and end up using our own knowledge against us.  Foreign nationals pay twice the tuition as US citizens and again, greed is the motivator.

While we accuse the Chinese of all sorts of misdeeds, our appetite for consumer consumption fuels the very evils we pretend to abhor.  Until we are honest with ourselves and base our decisions on Godly moral values, both nations will foster evil practices and blame each other for the deeds they have both embraced.