THE ROOT OF THE PROBLEM.

LET’S GET TO THE ROOT OF THE PROBLEM!

If there is anything everybody can agree upon, (in America) it is the truth that the world is in a toxic disarray.  One would have to be delusional to argue that the current trajectory of the United States is a good trend.  We are faced with precarious economies, high inflation, open borders, surges of crime in our cities, looting, sky-rocketing murder rates in our cities, a loss of faith in our institutions, an incredible media, a weakened military as opposed to strengthening militaries in China and Russia, and on and on and on.  Houston, we have a problem, right?

Now, being a conservative libertarian, I could play the blame game, but we are past that point.  It doesn’t matter who’s fault it is.  We need to fix the problem.  But I digress for a bit (or maybe back-track).  I actually can’t play the blame game because it’s not in my make-up.  On a personal note, every one of my great failures can be traced directly back to me as the cause of the great failure.  At least I know the enemy and it is me.  Anyway, sure, I think politicians have, to use the technical term, screwed the dog, but I also think the responsibility lies in both parties.  The democrats have bad intentions and good policies to obtain the bad intentions.  The pseudo republicans claim to have good intentions, but have the same bad intentions as the democrats, they just lie and hide the truth of their intentions. (see John McCain, Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan, et.al).  I reread the last two sentences and have determined that they require some further explanation.  Here goes:  There is a class of people in Washington and beyond who do not believe in the very essence or foundation of the United States of America.  They just don’t get it, meaning they are stupid (and because the circle jerk of enabling they want to join, their stupidity is not revealed), or they are genuinely evil, or, and lastly, they are so pathetic that they have no principles or moral guiding light other than being accepted into the elite class of folks who lack any substantive morality and are motivated by status, fame, power and superiority – who happen to be running our nation right now.

Anybody who is political, meaning fond of a political debate, will tell you that the days of a neighborly discussion with “the other side” are over.  Just go on Facebook if you think critical thinking and actual debate can occur?  It doesn’t anymore.  It is all about name calling, changing the subject, two wrongs make a right, shallow memes, outright personal attacks having nothing to do with the substance of the dispute and if none of that works, a simple refusal to debate with somebody so stupid as to have a different opinion.  I recently listened to two liberal professors, a husband and wife, who left their university because the university in, I believe, Oregon, because the university was having a non-white day.  White people were not allowed on campus.  These two libs were principled enough to say, “that’s enough! We’re out.”  Good for them.  But they also said something that was genuinely inciteful.  They said that the problem in dialogue was the underlying premise that if you didn’t agree with “my solution,” you denied that there was a problem.  For example, climate change.  Now, just about everybody wants a clean and enduring environment, for sure, as the beautiful waitress said in Red Lake, Ontario on my last fishing trip when I chose my entre.  Gosh, hearing her say that, for sure, when I ordered my breakfast, it almost put a sexuality into ordering food.  But, back to my point.  Today, if you don’t embrace the solutions proposed by the climate change activists, you’re not allowed to speak, you are denying that there is a problem if you don’t embrace their solution.  See my point?  It’s not a debate about solutions, it’s a debate about agendas.  And to be redundant, if you don’t agree with my solution, then you’re a denier and there is no need for further discussion.  This is the reality of debate today, basically non-existent.  We have discarded rational objective analytical discussion, which is problematic when trying to solve any problem – or debate whether there is a problem.                                                                                                                      

          So, can we agree that there are big problems?  Can we also agree that solving problems requires legitimate debate and discussion?  If not, you need not read any further.

          If you are still reading, I am asserting that our differences and views have matriculated into raging counter-contempt, even hate.  I confess, I have said more than once that I hate liberals.  I’ve justified the use of the word hate by the Bible, which allows hate for evil.  Apparently, I’ve been polarized.  And likely, so have you.  But, and this is a big “but,” most people are similar.  The vast majority, me included, do not want people to starve or go for want of a decent education or decent health care or housing.  And objectively, we have enough wealth to provide for those that need and are incapable.  We should do that.  We should not enable though.  Sometimes needs are self-inflicted and in the extreme cases, where a person’s woes are the province of a couple of decades of sloth, bad decisions, and short-term thinking, maybe we should let those people suffer it out?  They might learn something.  They might become self-sufficient.  By the way, this paragraph applies to both the bum in the alley and the business entities (mainly automobile and wall street) that require enabling for their survival. 

          So, this is getting long and I want to get back to the point; the root of the problem.  Here it is:  We’ve lost our morality.  The United States of America was founded upon principles which our founding fathers correctly declared to be from God, inalienable if that makes you feel more secular.  And as long as we honored those principles, we got better, we looked in the mirror and dealt with our realities, we fought a major ass war to correct them when we couldn’t reconcile.  And we did it all because fundamentally, most importantly, we acknowledged the beauty and power of the American’ principles.  We, at a gut level, understood the virtue of American principles.  This is what is missing.  Our nation, our culture, has been corrupted by an insidious insurgency that has infected who we are.  My gosh, claiming to be a socialist doesn’t’ even raise eyebrows anymore, despite the in-our- face truth that socialism and it’s kissing cousin, communism, are destructive and rotting, every time every place.  We, as a nation, are ill.  We need to get better.  Mind you, despite all of the criticisms of our nation, our poor are richer than most. Our income inequality pales in comparison to European nations and all other nations.  The opportunity for one to aspire and move up on the ladder is better than anywhere in the world.  We legitimately are a shining city on the hill, no matter what folks claim.  We are a great nation, the greatest in world history, period.

          We need to get back to that.  We need to be proud, hopeful, faithful and American.  Because when we’re not, like now, things don’t go well.  And we need our individual Americans to be Americans.  You can’t be an American when you’re advocating for socialism.  You can’t be an American when you’re advocating for universal health care.  You can’t be an American when you’re not disgusted by open borders, for punitive tax rates, justify chaos and crime in the streets and you can’t be an American when you don’t love that which made America. 

America is not a place.  America is a set of principles and virtues that have created a playing field where more success has occurred than anywhere else in the world.  And it has created a place where the poorest of the relative poor do better than other folks with less in other places, where they don’t even consider themselves to be poor.  Our poor are rich by world standards.  Sure, we can do better and we should, and the simple answer as to how to do better is to reinvigorate the fundamental principles that made our nation and our people so great.

          It worked before. It will work again.  We don’t need to look forward for the solution.  We need to look back.  The facts and the evidence are all there, screaming for recognition.  America is the greatest place on earth, not because of its geological beauty, not because of its place in time, not because of its sins, but because of its virtues.  The virtues of American principles are the only vaccine to the pandemic of anti-Americanism being inflicted upon us.  We are in a place in time where the fight between good and evil has heated up and ready to explode.  We, all of us, need to humble ourselves and kneel to the principles that made this great nation, because it is the only solution.  If we don’t have a principled people with adoration of Americanism, we will fail.  And I am afraid that too many people, deep down, want exactly that, failure.  Hell, if every one fails, on a relative basis, I’m doing pretty good, maybe even moved up a notch or two on the relative wealth scale, right?  But and again, that’s not American.  It’s cowardly and despicable. 

          Please all, park your egos, greed, jealousy and envy, and look up into the sky and thank God for America.  Recognize the vast opportunity the American principles offer you, beg you to take.  If you do that, we will have addressed the root of the problem.

          Thanks for the read. That’s my Reetzality for the night.

          God Bless,

          Brett Reetz