Tag Archives: history

Individual Freedom

In this new world of LEFT versus RIGHT, Liberal versus Conservative and Republican versus Democrat, I believe we need to take a step back, a pause, and consider not what makes us disagree, but what we share in common.  In many ways, I think many of us have forgotten the fundamentals of what we sometimes argue about.   In order to understand this, I think it is important to identify what ideas and concepts this country was founded upon, with a focus on the Constitution as the codification of those ideals continually refined over time by law.  It seems we can all agree that we are a nation of laws, as we have heard this slogan touted as foundational truth by both sides of the philosophical divide.

Our founders were passionate about defining and preserving those ideals and rights, so much so that they put in all in writing, addressing to the King of England their grievances, ending by pledging to each other their, ” lives, fortunes and sacred honor.”  That was no cliqued rhetoric.  Many lost their lives, fortunes, homes and farms as well as their sons in battle.

After battling the British for our freedom and then fighting each other in preserving the union, well over 1.5 million US casualties resulted, all within one-hundred years of her founding.  Based on the population then, the same percentages today would mean losing almost 25-million soldiers to war.

This was the price of freedom and this is what our forefathers thought was worth dying for:

The rejection of monarchial rule and the sanctity of Individual Liberty via a government controlled by and limited by the consent of her citizens.

The three-branches of our government check and balance each other in order to stay true to this concept.  Clearly, the importance of individual liberty underpins the entirety of the sentiment of our founders and therefore deserves our utmost diligence in preservation.  This is what Thomas Jefferson told us in his first inaugural speech.  He defined good government as, “… wise and frugal, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, which shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits”, the definition of individual liberty.

So I think it is safe to say that the preservation of individual liberty is worth dying for which also means it is worth killing for when challenged.  Jefferson reminded us of the stark reality of our collective responsibilities in this regard when he said,

“The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.”

Without the preservation of individual liberty, the foundation of our governance ceases to exist.  Remember, the founders recognized that our freedom was a natural right granted to us by God not man, but guaranteed in its preservation by government.  In other words, government doesn’t create the right to freedom, it only protects that right.  This is an extremely importance concept because if you buy into the notion that government creates liberty, then obviously government could take it away.  God given rights are eternal and no government can usurp them.  To that end, common with our founders was the reality that “when injustice becomes law, resistance becomes duty”.

So, how does this close our philosophical divide?  I believe that if we acid-test every notion, every law, requirement, edict, directive, speech or philosophy against the concept of whether or not this action violates or infringes upon our shared belief in the non-negotiable principle of our individual liberty, our debates, or decisions as a nation and our governance will rebalance itself in alignment with what formed us as a nation to begin with.

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Tough Love

While this is an expose’ about a town here in NY, it is a repeating theme in many areas ruled over by liberals.  If where you live is experiencing this kind of nonsense, feel free to cut-and-paste anything you see here and pepper your local newspapers and media sites with your opinion.

The radical liberals representing constituents here in Binghamton, NY are openly hostile to property owners while grossly indulgent to that faction of renters that are irresponsible deadbeats.

Instead of coddling those that are lazy, game the system, abuse drugs and live in a criminal-centric mindset, we should be encouraging property development that forces this element out of the community.

When these socialist legislators talk about “ultra-affordable” housing, they are fleecing the self-sufficient, tax-paying, honest and hard-working in order to support those who aren’t willing to be responsible, productive citizens. 

This path eventually makes Binghamton unlivable.

In the short term, the goal should be to gentrify Binghamton as quickly as possible.

In the long-term, we should be encouraging intact, traditional family structures based on a religious foundation of belief in almighty God, self-reliance, accountability, education and upward mobility.

Affecting and addressing this generational change will break the bonds of the failed liberal social-science experiment that has been proven to actually foster and promote that which it was originally thought to prevent.

This long-range objective is certainly more forward-thinking than simply indulging and furthering failure that fosters learned-helplessness and offers no solutions.

Liberals exploit those they pretend to help in order to virtue-signal and pose as their saviors.

Conservatives believe in helping people move up and out of hopelessness while liberals feel they aren’t capable.  The tough love of doing that which is hard builds people up.  The pity of liberals, cloaked as help, holds them down, cementing for them a dim future

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We will Trump your DEI and raise you a WFA

Reality:  A world reinvented via a Trump victory where DEI, (Diversity/Equity/Inclusion) came to D.I.E, call it a mercy-killing or assisted-suicide, either way, this fever-dream was morally terminal and intellectually dead from the onset:  a man-made plague like Covid, both eager to infect as many human hosts as possible. 

The fog lifted as the truth slowly emerged and with it, a great but gradual awakening took place.  The scuffed outlines of the shoe-shaped decals, faded images six-feet apart on the grocery store floor.  What happened to our nation during Covid set the table for accepting all of what happened next.

Relying heavily on the notion that if a segment of a nation could be cowed and hobbled by the repeated lies about the China Virus, those same lemmings might just be suffering with enough brain-fog to sell them on DEI.  However, the bright light of reason exposed DEI for what it is:  a philosophy that demands accepting the premise that we are all racists, apologetically self-loathing and unworthy.  The self-immolation of reality was a requirement.

Just as DEI found the doors of fear and tolerance slightly ajar, simultaneously in slithered the mental illness variety-pack of men in women’s sports/bathrooms/showers, the gender-bending and high-minded board game of choosing ones pronouns and the sickening child-abuse of subjecting kindergartners to drag-queen shows, all of which depended upon the same madness of acceptance legitimizing them all; morality, reason and logic all smothered by emotional illness and a disdain for God. 

And even as the truth was getting harder and harder to hide, our leaders total lack of humility, reflective self-analysis, confession or apology was completely missing, not because it wasn’t warranted, but because what had happened was purposeful.  Some in positions of power and influence were attempting to replace the model of our historical governance with the much easier understood concept of simply herding us, no different than a flock of sheep.

Turns out they were partially successful.  A significant segment of society sighed up for the rodeo and happily ran into the corral to form the flock more commonly known as liberal Democrats.  What those “sheeple” didn’t realize was that their “leaders” weren’t in that corral with them, they were and are, outside of that fence, literally on their high-horses looking down.

The attempted hostile takeover of our minds was underway.

And then came the Trump/Biden debate and the scales fell quickly from the eyes of even the most ardent of the presidents supporters.  It confirmed for some and reaffirmed for many the reality of a modern-day replay of Hans Christian Anderson’s famous folktale declaring, “The Emperor Has No Clothes” as the beleaguered and bewildered Biden proclaimed that we had, “finally beaten Medicare.”  “Yes”, declared Trump, “You beat it to death” and along with it any hope of continuing the 2-plus year cover-up of an incapacitated President. 

And so the final “Hail-Mary play was the last-minute substitute of Harris, a proven loser at the highest levels of politics, having peaked years ago on her knees in California, ushered in a Trump second-term with a landslide.  The spell had finally been broken.

And as this truth continues unfolding, a collision of cultures, liars, patriots, despots, heroes and their clashing philosophies are in a showdown and Donald J Trump is proving to be the right man and the right moment in time, a reoccurring historical theme in American Exceptionalism.  Executive order after Executive order will rain down on all of the silly, profane, extreme and ridiculous, signaling the era of the adults back in charge.

Addressing the real issues of WFA, (Waste/Fraud/Abuse) i.e. ($55B and counting, how about $1.5M for teaching DEI in the Serbian workplace??)  As we begin to see the incredible scope and expense of these outrageous programs, Americans sense that they have been had.

Exposing and stopping such nonsense charts the beginning of a new American course of our modern Manifest Destiny2.0.  Addressing the real issues of today by honest assessments along with modernizing and re-thinking our problems and challenges with the smartest people will ensure our system of governance for the next 250-years.  The swamp had cancer.

Where the Greek and Romans failed by resting on their laurels, the United States of American will flourish into the future by first looking inward and re-consulting with our founders, embracing our core values and making a re-commitment to  the concepts of true individual freedom.  Individuals are paramount not the state and we need to re-commit to our founding principles by rooting out the filth and treachery that has accumulated in our institutions, along with those who traffic in those evils.

We do well to remind ourselves of the words of James Madison who told us, “If men were angels, no government would be necessary.  If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary.  In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this:  you must first enable the government to control the governed; and the next place, oblige it to control itself.”

While none of us can claim angelic status, we can aspire to the highest ideals and at least point ourselves towards the heavens, even if we cannot reach them.  God Almighty formed and blessed this nation and if we are to endure the next 250-years as the “Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave, it is freedom that will bolster of bravery, thought the Grace of God.

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And Then, the Line Went Dead

I have seventeen entries in my cell phone directory of people who are dead.  Sixteen men and one woman.  My oldest and best friend Mike, gone too soon and in the midst of a dispute we never quite settled, then his wife Nancy, just a few years later, succumbing to breast cancer after deciding to forgo chemo for fear of losing her hair.

Two guys I met playing squash, one a complete crazy person, but in a good way, Paul and I traveled, quite literally around the world together, from NY west, bouncing off countries and continents until arriving back where we started.  His last words to me were that he would kick my ass in squash, days later dying of complications from prostate cancer.

The other gentleman, Joe, was one of my favorite mentors, a masterful attorney and finally a judge, falling too early to the ravages of Parkinson disease and the pleasant indignities of our final lunch together where I had to wipe food from his mouth as he somehow smiled.  I helped to carry him to his grave.

Then Sal, my favorite attorney and one of the brightest men I ever met, he came out of retirement in his mid-70’s because the stock market had crashed, ruining his savings.  This man slept in his office during the week and retreated to his home in the Pocono Mountains on the weekends.  He once kicked a young man-potential client out of his office because he was being rude to his mother.  His wife called me with the sad news of his passing.

Poor Rodney, the black handyman, he did lots of work on my house and my office over the years and we argued mightily about the prospects of an Obama presidency but always respectfully.  Rodney had a young son he would bring along sometimes to the job, a respectful and very polite boy that lost his dad way too early.

Dick, an older man, never married, a modest, middle-class bon vivant and regular visitor to all of the local and popular bars, yet did not himself partake of intoxicants, he rather more enjoyed the camaraderie and socializing.  If you got him going on a historical topic, he would laugh and remember it with fondness and if saddened he was quick to shed a tear, he was a very nice and humble man.  Cause of death unknown to me, he was in his 80’s and reportedly an excellent baseball infielder in his day.

My good friend Patrick, dead in his mid-40’s, reportedly falling down the stairs at home.  “Bones” as he was known, struck and killed a police officer with his car and spend 4-years in prison where he helped to teach young men how to tell time and how to play a higher level of softball.  A rabid Met’s fan and a chronic gambler, he could tell you more baseball stats that a Google search.  A great guy that everyone loved, but tragically failed to launch.

Joe, a man of a bygone era; a husky, handsome Italian real estate man with plenty of friends in all sorts of places, his collection of finely crafted Italian suits was impressive.  Every time I had an article published in the local newspaper, Joe would be the first call I got and every time he would begin by telling me that whatever it was I had written about was, “outstanding”  He never missed an afternoon at the YMCA.

Steve, the little guy who was always tagging along until that time when he went into the Navy and came back the man we all looked up to, literally, as he was 6’5” and 240 pounds of military muscle.  At 40-something he was diagnosed with a rare lung disorder that ended up taking his life on the operating table as they tried a risky procedure that ultimately failed.  I’ll never forget the look in his eyes on our last meeting as he described what he was about to undergo.  I brought my 15-year old son along for that visit in the effort to show him what the difficulties in life look like close up.  It was to be our last meeting.

Another Steve, this one the younger brother of my childhood sweetheart, a brilliant boy that never quite accepted the realities of adulthood, this guy was a magnificent painter, a writer and a musician that embraced the drug culture and all of the illness that came with it, he left behind two children and a sorrowful family that witnessed the sadness of a brothers failure to thrive into his potential.

Then there was Tom, retired early from a state job, loved bragging about sloughing off at work then spent his time drinking beer and smoking pot, heart-attack killed him in his early 60’s before he could figure out how to be a grandpa.

The latest death, my Uncle Tom happened only a few months ago.  We were pretty close, he used to beat me at chess pretty regularly until one day I got lucky and beat him.  Funny thing about it, he realized it before I did because he was such a better player and saw the game far ahead of me.  His death was a real unusual event as he went into the hospital short of breath and at first the docs thought he was headed home after a few medicine adjustments and then all of a sudden he was instead headed to hospice care.  He didn’t even seem that sick and was just basically waiting to die.  Before he did, we talked a lot and he shared with me the book that unlocked his drawing talent.  About a week before he passed, I asked him to draw me and he did.  He was a great guy, a true man of God and a really deep and critical thinker.  When I slow down a bit, I’ll examine that book.

Two of my buddy’s dads are in there, a former limo driver I used to hire for trips to New York, and finally, the brother of an acquaintice that I ended up liking more than I did his brother.

I don’t have the heart to take any of them out of my phone.  Not doing so somehow lessens the finality of what death really is and I’m always happy, and then a little sad, to see their names pop up.

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