One Single Change Would Wipe Out 90% Congressional Corruption

 

If you spend any time on social media you can only come to one conclusion, graft is everywhere except with the less that powerful. The wealthy get away with everything up to and even including murder, though murder is the toughest one to escape. Congress has far too many members who spend three terms, or even two, and if one is astute, one term and walk away as multimillionaires. Many people ask as to how this can be. Many understand and know why this can be and often is. Senators and Representatives are covered by laws which exempt them from insider trading. So if there is a defense bill coming to a vote and the members of Congress know that in six weeks it will pass, it will easily give company XYZ a multi-billion dollar contract which is hundreds of times more than their budget for the previous five years combined. XYZ stock is selling at $1.23 a share six weeks out, so many, but not all as they take turns according to seniority, buy a thousand shares. The bill passes and Wall Street lights up and within two days that stock now sells for $327.77 a share. The Congress members sell their stock at this point making over $325,000.00 for a six week and two day investment in a stock because they cannot be charged with insider trading. This simple trick goes for much more than defense legislation and at every level of government. In the little township, county, city or borough where you live they repair roads, bridges and build parking garages and hire companies to manage all kinds of government projects. Going into such contracts these are often small family businesses with under twenty-five employees and just initially making stock options. That places their stock initially on the volatile IPO (Initial Public Offering) market which is usually the home for high risk, high reward investors and not for the faint of heart. But when you know that a small operation is about to receive a multi-million dollar, multi-year contract that market becomes far less risky and investing becomes a sure bet. This is the sleight of hand, crooked investing which can be found throughout government at all levels. Often those who would prosecute such criminal acts are also clued in on investments when the opportunity is great enough to allow a broad group to make huge benefits without actually raising too much attention. This is why you find so much money going into governmental elections and influencing because the returns are far beyond the pittance invested. Giving a number of city electors a hundred thousand dollars into their election funding and then after they defeat their opponent who received one fifth the amount they will receive multi-million dollar contracts and the city electors investing wisely become millionaires within a few years and move to Tahiti if they are smart, or buy their own newly charted island and refuse extradition to the United States.

 

This is nothing new as it has been how the Senators in Rome maintained their wealth and how the Caesars ruled over these Senators distributing government monies to those who supported them and not the others. The first Caesar, Julius Caesar made a single mistake, he kept the money with the people and refused to feed the graft machine which was the Senate and the commanders of the legions. This resulted in his big day on the Senate steps where he was made into a pincushion using tens of knives as the pins with the final pin, some claim the fifty-first knife, plunged into Caesar’s back by Brutus, “Et tu Brutus?” Wars were fought throughout antiquity to steal the wealth and enrich the King and their closest advisors and generals who commanded the troops protecting the King and winning their wars. Eventually rulers figured out they could simply tax their subjects and by taking a small to modest amount from each subject reap great wealth. Some rulers made the fatal mistake of figuring that if a modest amount granted great wealth, then doubling the tax would double their wealth. That failed as once you cross a critical point draining from the economy the economy becomes unstable and the gravy train dries up and the people revolt. So many greedy kings found their people to be revolting right before they met the guillotine, the sword or other form of execution, some far less noble at the hands of the rabble. Governmental systems have changed, governing has not. Governing is still how to provide the people with sufficient services and comfort while stealing as much as the market will bear enriching the governing. Can this poisoning of government be rooted out and extinguished? Probably not for as Campaign Finance Reform should have taught the people of the United States is that no matter how you rig the game and what you do to take the money from the hands and supporting structures of the elected public servants, they will simply invent some way around the laws, appear not to actually control what they are forbidden, have an indirect but close knot control of these funds and will make away with the wealth in the end. What is more diabolical and evil are those high government employees who are just below the appointed position who are civil servants, thus presumably untouchable by those in power, gaining wealth through careful investing and manipulation of portfolios to take advantage of information which comes across their desks as part of enacting the particulars of legislations. This has gotten far more prevalent as the legislation leaves the entirety of the building and enacting the structures to fulfill the demands of vague legislations thus allowing much of the distribution of contracts and such to these civil servants. There is little chance that these civil servants are all so clean as to not make investments or find other means of enriching themselves. There are far too many very wealthy government employees whose salaries are less than twenty-five thousand dollars a year, how did they become wealthy? Little problem in figuring that out, is there.

 

Shine a Light on Corruption

 

Money is the grease which oils the wheels of government. That remains true to this day and will likely remain true far into the future. The opportunities to become wealthy from being in the right place to hear the next outlay of millions of dollars by government cannot be eliminated until the government is trusted to machines, and then the question will be who monitors and runs the machines. All we can do is alter where the weakest links are placed and thus who gains from inside information. The history of mankind has in part been the history of seeking perfect governance and the failure at virtually every juncture. There was once a governance which was as close to that perfection people seek but is unwieldy as the people must have the faith to trust their safety and protection from other nations and their invasions or other entreaties to an entity they cannot know and claim daily their inability to understand their ruling entity trusting the messengers who claim to be the sole recipients of that wisdom. This was the ruling by Hashem over the initial Israelite Tribes through the prophets and judges. There was not government largess to benefit from its wealth and how it was distributed as all was in the hands of Hashem and there were no government programs. Roads were made by people traveling between locations using the same route which eventually packs the ground making a clear and obvious path, not what you would desire to drive your brand new Lexus across but perfectly fine for your donkey. Even the advances far, far back around 1100 BCE forced the Israelites to demand to have a King like the neighboring nations to lead their army and protect them from the threats emerging around them and Torah records that Hashem told the Judges and Prophets that should the Israelites demand some form of governance to provide them security, then they should be permitted such governance. This resulted in their taking a king asking the leading prophet to anoint their king leading to King Saul. Saul was not the worst of kings or the best, but his reign led directly through some odd circumstance to King David and then King Solomon which was the shining period where the tribes of Israel were united into a singular nation which conquered lands up to the Euphrates River (see maps below showing Twelve Tribes, King David and Solomon conquest and the promised lands for Israel according to treaties from World War I). Following Kings were less successful with the eventual downfall which coincided with a king who was an idolater and placed idols inside Solomon’s Temple, a low point for the Tribes of Israel. Over the next centuries the Israelites managed to throw off tyrants or be granted autonomy under the sovereignty of a greater power. The Israelites were even permitted to build the Second Temple which included Herod building what is today the Western Wall, built over six hundred years before the founding of Islam and about a century before the birth of Jesus. Herod made himself great amounts of wealth, sufficient to build himself a mountain with a castle and burial crypt in the Northern Negev and live a lavish life of opulence simply by giving the people what they demanded, the Temple Complex, and collect taxes in order to provide the people their desires while fulfilling his own. This has been the formula of effective governance for centuries both before and since, especially since. Many of the iconic public works projects, if investigated and audited meticulously would reveal that many within the government and closely tied to people in the governance and especially with the planning of public works gained great wealth. Be the works be a huge clock in the middle of London, a great dock providing thousands of new jobs in Amsterdam or almost any public work one could mention.

 

 

So, how can the vast majority of this corruption, this theft of the public treasure be prevented? The quickest would be to subject politicians and public servants (government workers) to the same laws as the public and demand an accounting of their incomes and investments as well as careful auditing of all contracts. Make all government bids by law be the final price charged with no cost overruns, no additional surprises, and no adjustments or new demands during production that allow for fudging numbers and hiding payouts. Adding that whatever the estimated date of delivery be set such that any time overrun resulting in a percentage of the initial payments budgeted being returned to government as a means of compensating the public for these delays. This would force defense contractors to make realistic and exacting bids instead of making a lowball bid knowing they can increase the cost through delays and cost overrun demands after the initial bid is accepted. The F-35 JSF is a prime example with it coming to delivery a good part of a decade late with cost overruns and technical problems resulting in the price of each fighter costing a good deal closer to double the expected and quoted price. Had these costs been included in the initial bid it is quite possible that the bid might have gone to a competitor. The current development and bidding system used by government contractors, especially in the defense industry, is to guess at what it might cost and to make a bid at three-quarters of that estimate completely confident that the remainder and more sufficient to make the profit desired as well as cover any difficulties along the way. This is a legalized form for guaranteeing theft. If, on the other hand, contractors were made to provide what they promised for the price they bid, and not a plug nickel over, then the bids would be far more realistic and shades higher to cover the expected of the unexpected, or should we simply call it the unplanned snags and other complications. This would allow the government and the voting public, should they be interested, to understand, and know ahead of time, exactly what projects will cost. Currently the public knows that the quoted bids are a ruse and perhaps if they were guaranteed these bids would be the exact delivery price the public might take a real interest. As things are, why bother with the bidding when one really need wait as long as a decade to find out the actual delivery price because there is little or no actual oversight.

 

Government needs to become a business, not a joke, a poke in the dark where truth is a rare commodity and concealed misappropriation the rule of thumb. If a butcher ran his store as governments are run his scale would be off by 10% and he would often have his thumb on the scale as well. Nothing would be as it appears and the rule of buyer be wary would be most necessary. Governments, when designed in democratic based nations, are presumed to be open and to be overseen by the people who by being informed can make solid and reasoned votes for their representatives. Oh, if only this were true. The reality is we elect our candidates or parties, pending on whether we have a representative democracy or a parliamentary system, according to elaborate shows designed to thrill and titillate the public with elaborate deceptions designed to sell the product making it appear more responsible than the governance’s results. The entire production is very Hollywood and just as much a fantasy. This all results in a governance just as deceptive as are the campaigns and the people depicted therein. There is an easy way which we can attest from our experience in running a campaign for the United States House of Representatives where we spent at most $10,000 and received more voted per dollar than either of our high priced opponents despite not quite garnering 3% of the vote (still the record for third party candidates where we ran). Now we feel it is important to point out that this was a campaign for a job which pays $174,000 per year (current salary) for two years for a total of $348,000 total before having to run again. Our two opponents each spent very close to the same amount on their campaigns which was estimated to have been that one spent $1,200,000 and the other spent $2,200,000. These figures for our opponents do not include PAC and Party funds and advertising. Please explain how that explains spending for a job paying $348,000 which only one of us had even a dream of showing a profit unless something else was going on. And Americans complain they cannot figure out what is wrong with their governance. Of course this is not something peculiar to the United States but exists in every government across the world. Democratic nations probably suffer the least from such deception as they do kind of have to answer to the people and when the people get upset, that distress trumps all else. In dictatorial regimes the difference is far more marked as the ruling elite get the best of what is available, that is when there is a best of available to be had. In those places suffering the worst governances imaginable, such as North Korea and Venezuela, eating and having even the necessities can be considered an extravagance. Until we return to Hashem ruling the people or machines keeping humans as their pets, there will be those people using the government for self-enrichment. Always has been and always will be, or so it appears.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

America the Destructible

 

America still has her fruited plains, purple mountains majesty, amber waves of grain all from sea to shining sea. None of that has actually changed and America can still feed herself even if that would mean no morning coffee, or just for the few who could afford Hawaiian coffee. America has grand rivers and a highway system and trains and everything that made her great yet she stands about to fall. America has been missing one set of elements which had kept her great, justice, equality before the law, religion, unique sense of morality, seeking goodness over wealth, doing that which is right, foregoing expediency and a government under control. All these things which all of America had in great abundance such that it ruled even in the highest levels of business and governance are now no longer prevalent. Sure, these are still the watchwords ruling many an American household in the area the political elite call flyover country. Sure many, but insufficient, numbers of political representatives have these qualities and hold them dear initially but the coasts of America hold an allure that is all but irresistible which will wear-down all but the most stalwart of men and Washington D.C. is the epicenter of this corruption. This is where the force which tempts and eventually shoves forcefully to press all political souls into compromise on their principles, and almost all fall in the end tiring of making the good fight. That is the truth which should frighten all.

 

Fruited Plains – Purple Mountains Majesty – Amber Waves of Grain

 

Today America selects their next President and determines the make-up of the government with which said President will be made to work with. Many have claimed that this is by far the worst of all possible outcomes which placed Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump as the top candidates who won the primary selection process of the two main parties, the Democrat and Republican Parties respectively. Many a person has been baffled that these two were who were chosen from amongst the three-hundred-thousand potential Americans where at least two-thirds, a whopping two-hundred-thousand, were eligible to take the nomination. What we additionally learned was that Hillary Clinton was as much anointed by the Democrat Party as she was chosen; and that, contrary to the recent coverage, the media played a huge role in making Donald Trump the eventual victor for the Republican Party. Since selecting these two less than perfect and potentially unacceptable candidates the American electorate have come to a dazzling set of potential solutions, each more viable in the long run than the one before, and these are;

1) Just boycott the election altogether,
2) Write in any name from Daffy Duck to John McCain to Bernie Sanders,
3) Vote for a third party such as the Green Party, Constitution Party, Libertarian Party or other such party recognized by the Federal Election Commission (FEC),
4) Vote against the less desirable candidate by supporting the other party’s less than perfect but probably less problematic than the certainty of their opponent.
5) Brainwash oneself into honestly believing one major candidate is exactly what the party ordered and the party knows best.

After today comes the first of four years of tomorrows where the nation will live with whatever result is voted into the Presidency this today, be it through honest representation, voter fraud, illegal immigrants utilizing drivers’ licenses to vote using National Voter Registration Act of 1993 (Motor Voter Act), foreign interference or any other acts which affect the Electoral College outcome. This is where the proverbial rubber meets the road. Should America and the world be fortunate, then we should have a tabulated and verified result and the Electoral College delegates be set and promised to perform their duties honestly and as required by law; thus setting in stone the winner and next President of the United States and Leader of the Free World by default and by definition. This Leader of the Free World position was left largely vacant for the past eight years just as planned by President Barack Hussein Obama from the outset as he worked tirelessly to, in his own words at a campaign stop on October 30, 2008, in Columbia, Missouri where he stated, “Fundamentally Transforming the United States of America” as if the nation suffered from some debilitating disease from which the world need be protected from contracting through any form of American contact (see actual excerpt video below). At this point one can extrapolate from campaign statements, past actions, candid statements allowed to slip out either as an intentional plan or one of those rare moments where a politician or person of perceived importance actually says something they honestly feel deeply within themselves and is a defining principle, we have heard that most actually do have such guiding limitations and are often items the politician does all in their power to keep suppressed in case it might adversely affect voters, especially potential supporters. No matter how successful a politician may be, their actions, deeds and votes on the little or seemingly items of lesser importance are where their true and hidden side is often revealed. These telling moments will be either concealed by the mainstream media for their favored darlings or exploited and maximized in importance for those they desire to depose come Election Day. This is just one more deceit from which America currently suffers, a bent and twisted media which acts more as if they were the propaganda arm of the one party and an attacking beast for all others.

 

 

How long America survives as the spine and supporting strength of the free world is difficult to ascertain. One need remember that despite the fall of Rome as the ultimate power for much of Europe, Roman laws, currency, ethics and attributes remained as the guiding path down which the surviving states which had vanquished Rome would adopt as their own. Roman roads remained in use until approximately fifty to one-hundred years ago and their water systems are still in use, especially for some vineyards across Europe. To this day some of the concepts which were the basics of Rome, the ideas expounded by the Greeks and Torah and the words of the Prophets of the Temple Periods all remain as valid and necessary to Western civilization as one could imagine. These are the precepts, philosophies, tenets and arguments which form the framework of the modern state and are set in stone in the Ten Commandments and in Torah plus understood and lived through such historic documents which brought about the freedoms, independence and liberties enjoyed by many across the planet today. Such documents as the Magna Carta, The Declaration of Independence and numerous treatises, essays, journals and various other political and even some science fiction writings expound the necessary state for humankind is exercising their incontrovertible and indisputable rights which were defined in the Declaration of Independence as “endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” The insurance and unassailability of said rights was to be the first and foremost demand of government. It was to buttress, protect and preserve these rights, freedoms and liberties that government was to be tolerated. Government was intended to be weak and solely in support of the people and it was with the people that the bulk of the power was to be vested. This is the opposite as is had today and this concept and its principles are exactly what will save America for our grandchildren and their children and grandchildren but only if we and our children make the ultimate sacrifices today that such can be assured of preservation.

 

As American election results roll in tonight and over into Wednesday we should each take some time and research our Representative and two Senators our votes have placed in Washington D.C. and evaluate how they measure up to a high standard of cutting the power out of Washington D.C. and returning it to the most local governance if not simply empowering the family and the individual trusting that those closest to the problem, dilemma, opportunity, selection and actual activities are the ones best capable of making things work and work well. Such representation would be working on all but eliminating the Department of Education limiting it to evaluating school systems or simply abolishing it altogether. That would be but a start. They would probably assist in writing legislation which would freeze if not decrease spending by 10% per year computed annually until such time that a sizeable surplus permitted paying the debt down to zero and then setting up a savings institute where the excess would be deposited such that there would never be a catastrophic event for which borrowing would otherwise be required. The cuts should be strived for every year and cuts in taxes should always be the first and prime effort of business in Congress. Further the congress should look into all regulations and determine if they serve a purpose of the people’s or serve granting government more power. If the regulation simply serves the government in any manner other than assisting the military, it should then be repealed; while otherwise it would still need review to improve the efficiency and assure it will not place an undue strain or demands on the people. A final review should be committed on all laws, regulations and requirements and test them to ascertain if they run afoul of Amendment X. Amendment X reads:

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

 

Amendment X is a simple, short, concise spelling out of what has become the most trampled and hollowed out and ignored of the Bill of Rights. Reinstating and reinforcing this one short Amendment from the Bill of Rights could and would honestly rid the nation of America of so much red tape, so many regulations and minimize the Federal Government so honestly and completely that its application alone might save the nation. There should be one last little alteration to the means in which Washington D.C. need change, every regulation must be reviewed and spelled out before the Congress every five years and be validated to continue being enforced. All legislation too would receive the same treatment of a full review every ten years in order to remain enforceable. Such requirements would tie up the Congress thoroughly setting a strong limitation on the amount of regulation they could review thus limiting the damage and interference they could enact and retain in use. Forcing items to be constantly reviewed guarantees the laws remain arguably necessary. An example might be:

CFR › Title 27 › Chapter I › Subchapter A › Part 4 › Subpart D › Section 4.39
(a) Statements on labels. Containers of wine, or any label on such containers, or any individual covering, carton, or other wrapper of such container, or any written, printed, graphic, or other matter accompanying such container to the consumer shall not contain:
9) Any word in the brand name or class and type designation which is the name of a distilled spirits product or which simulates, imitates, or created the impression that the wine so labeled is, or is similar to, any product customarily made with a distilled spirits base. Examples of such words are: “Manhattan,” “Martini,” and “Daquiri” in a class and type designation or brand name of a wine cocktail; “Cuba Libre,” “Zombie,” and “Collins” in a class and type designation or brand name of a wine specialty or wine highball; “creme,” “cream,” “de,” or “of” when used in conjunction with “menthe,” “mint,” or “cacao” in a class and type designation or a brand name of a mint or chocolate flavored wine specialty.

All right, we can understand how many of these forbidden words could be used as misleading but why “Zombie”? Sure there is a drink called a Zombie which most certainly would never be confused with any wine. The standard manner to mix a Zombie is as follows:

Zombie Recipe

Blend all ingredients with ice except Bacardi 151 proof rum. Pour into a Collins glass. Float Bacardi 151 proof rum on top. Garnish with a fruit slice, sprig of mint and a cherry.

 

Because of this drink we cannot use the word Zombie in the name of a wine, and I hoped someday to ferment grapes with their skins included in the wine and call it “Zombie Blood,” Well, guess that how to get rich quick scheme is dead as research showed New Orleans, Los Angeles and San Francisco as the best places to market such a brew. Bummer, guess this proves that almost, if not, everything is illegal somewhere in the regulations just to stop everyone from committing an unapproved action. We think we best stop here and check the regulations and see if words being forbidden as we would not desire to be askance and standing in offense of the laws and regulations now, would we. Remember to vote unless in Chicago, then we advise as the old city bosses back in the day said, “Vote early and vote often.”

Beyond the Cusp

Republican Disarray After Trump, Only if They Blow It

 

There have been numerous articles attempting to discern exactly what the Republican Party will be like after its foray with the Donald. They try to figure what effects he is going to have on the candidates for the House of Representatives and the Senate as well as State races for legislatures and governorships. There are all different levels of panic to excitement. Some are excited thinking that the increased voters may mean a stronger voter turnout which will raise all candidates as these voters are most likely to vote for the party ticket rather than only voting for Donald Trump as that is the easiest path and these are lower information voters who are more likely to just pull the single lever for the Trump party rather than voting for each office individually, an occurrence the Democrat Party is more familiar with than are the Republicans. This is a new and untested ground for the Republican Party and more so than most will ever know. Has anybody actually bothered to ask the Donald if he is really willing to surrender control of all his companies and real estate interests for four or possibly eight years placing them in a trust where he will not be managing his holdings? I mean seriously now folks, can anybody see Donald Trump walking away from his wheeling dealing which is really what he lives for. Does he in the end really want to be President, or are we watching the dog caught the car by the rear wheel and now is stuck driving the car? He will be the center of attention between now and the end of his term should he actually prevail, something looking more certain as the clock ticks down to Tuesday. There is where the drama will peak and Trump will do the unthinkable and still hold the future of the Republican Party in his hands and he will play it for maximum exposure of the Donald before he makes the final fateful step which will astound most of the pundits, the media and the entirety of the Republican Party, win the day carrying the House of Representatives comfortably and give the Republicans a minimum of fifty-seven and possibly as high as 62 in the Senate. Yes, Donald Trump could be sitting in the catbird seat with a filibuster-proof Congress if the Republicans can find their way to work with him. Not to worry, they won’t.

 

Of course all this is pure conjecture but in one manner it would be wonderful to see a true and total Republican Congress with the same theoretical license to do whatever they can agree upon just as was the case for the Democrats for the initial two years under President Obama. Thankfully the wheels came off of that cart fairly quickly and before the world ended and the destructiveness was mostly repairable with Obamacare needing the largest repair, removal and replaced with a completely open system countrywide for all insurers with take and carry benefit for all plans. There could be options for tax breaks for companies paying percentages of employee chosen plans giving everybody total control. Returning to major medical plans with a basic plan required for any insurance that would cover Emergency Room, Trauma Center and major surgeries with rate of coverage set by a board of major hospital directors chosen every five years by the top five-hundred hospitals by some pre-set formula which would include their accepting Medicare and Medicaid pricing as set by the board and approved by Health and Human Services and the Senate also voting as if this were an actual treaty requiring a super-majority. This would guarantee bipartisan agreement. This base pricing could be used for a national defined plan which all insurers could use as their guideline for a general basic coverage plan.

 

The one part of such unilateral Republican control is there would no longer be the excuse by the Republican leadership of, we did not have the complete control of the House, the Senate, power to end filibusters or, their favorite, we did not have the White House. No more excuses and just let the Congress show the world what plan the Republicans really got! Turn them loose and let the legislation fly. Not to worry folks, they will hit a log jam within weeks, more likely days and even within hours or minutes. They would, in a word, choke. The main problem the Republicans suffer is the one thing Trump offers to teach them, bravado. The Republicans are afraid to lead, timid and only comfortable pointing out what is broken in their opinion and then lamenting their inability to do anything about the problems. Given total control they would continue to shuffle their feet, looking at the ground, mumbling senselessly, wandering around lost in the wilderness of their own making. They have no dynamic leadership. They did once under Newt Gingrich and the Contract with America, a plan. Imagine that, an actual plan laid out, defined and actually almost followed. Eventually the Republicans did what they do best and shot down their leader because the media picked him apart while they watched on playing the helpless damsel in distress sobbing over her miseries as their presumed White Knight was pounded into the mud by professional muckrakers. What leadership has the Republican leadership or the rank and file shown with their control of Congress as they have handed President Obama victory after victory with budgets including every item with every dollar as requested? One would have at the very least thought they might have, at the very least, demanded more money spent investing in improved care through privatization of the Veterans’ Administration’s healthcare system changing it to an insurance plan open to any and all insurers with guaranteed rates equal to Medicare system rates. This would have freed the veterans to receive care locally, virtually anywhere other than living in a log cabin in Nowhere, Montana. They might have fought to end the downward spiral in defense spending when compared with all the increases in Welfare, Food Stamps and Unemployment costs or demanded that $15.00/hr. minimum wage for military personnel and their pay scale to be based on a forty hour week plus ten hours overtime pay (trust this infantry veteran, most soldiers, especially the privates, work at least an average of well over fifty hour weeks with extra duties such as guard duty, going to the field, weapon training plus yearly qualifying, physical training plus annual testing and a myriad other additional often busy work). These would have been easy initiatives and would have placed a spotlight on some actual problem situations and not on men who claim to be women using any bathroom that fits their life-choices.

 

A complete Republican victory with Donald Trump as President would not necessarily be the disaster the media has painted. Remember, this is a media which has gone step-for-step with every single idea the Democrats have suggested and even initially carried the water for Obamacare and are now backing the Democrat plan of government run healthcare exactly the same that the following countries found to be impossible to afford; Britain, France, Canada, Germany, Russia and any other where the tax rate is under 80% of income with allowances for food, housing, clothing and transportation. When the government allows refunds for food, housing, clothing and transportation; they are dictating how you live and all but defining what you are permitted to spend on food, housing, clothing and transportation. Does such a system sound good to any regular-work-hard American? That is the European Plan that President Obama and a President Hillary Clinton are targeting for America and with a European level military unable to afford ammunition to train with. When we read articles reporting that NATO national military personnel are required to run around in training exercises yelling, “Bang, I shot you, you’re dead,” and that passes for training, we worry what is wrong with these countries. What is wrong is they are not responsible for their defense, the United States is responsible because as NATO defines itself it goes something like this; from each nation as they can provide, from the United States whatever is required to complete the task any NATO nation leaves hanging in the wind. Force the United States to train yelling, “bang bang, you’re dead,” will leave the Western World vulnerable to conquest using swords as swords are a superior weapon to a rifle without bullets, and any invader will have real rifles with real bullets and will not react by claiming, “you got me,” after a NATO soldier screams, “bang bang, you’re dead.” Trust us on this one, really.

 

The choice comes Tuesday, the counting will take the rest of the week unless the victory is definitive, the lawsuits another month or two and the appeals even longer. There is a possibility that the inauguration just might take place on the perfect Saturday, April 1, 2017, April Fool’s Day, and it will be the biggest joke, bet nobody will be laughing, they will be too darned sick and tired. Sick and tired of the wasted time, money and credibility. Sick and tired as the American Representative Constitutional Republic will have been assassinated and lying next to death’s door in desperate need of some serious reckoning. So sick and tired that it is doubtful she will receive the necessary attentions and restoration of faith in the system, the leaders, the nation any time soon. That is the saddest thing about this fiasco disguised as an election. The disgust may be made more palpable by the apparent lack of decency, competence, qualifications and general revulsion one or both candidates elicit from each member of the electorate, but they are not the source of the revulsion, just one more product of the end of America.

 

This was not the original target for the end of this piece, but we rarely end where we started. The disarray coming after this election will encompass both parties. They have each been laid bare for all to see the rotted core filled with the diseases of hatred for the other, distrust of all, the required demand for the lowest expectations, the lowest denominator as the norm and the lack of desire, nay, even ability to repair that which has been left to fall into disrepair. People will ask how things got here and the answer is an easy one. Just open your eyes and look around you and for all that is holy take off the rose colored glasses, the beer goggles, the fractured lensed party glasses and put down the weed, booze, drugs, sexting, or whatever consumes you that is in that little box you so feverishly share everything that amounts to the nothing that is your current life. Too many of us are lost and are too busy becoming even further lost to notice. We started down this road when our materialism surpassed our reason and replaced our faith, well, became our religion. Hashem, The Big Guy who made all of it, or so we used to believe, was put aside for just a short while as we worked harder for that new car. After the car we moved for a bigger house, then that little vacation cottage, those new computers, stood all night in the rain for that next must have gadget, the newest i-Phone, and on and on endlessly until we forgot completely about Hashem.

 

I was right there with many and got lost in living for the now and for the me. Sure, we all peeked up every so often, glanced around, did the traditionally right thing and then dove back in. We lost religion because we had science and a new religion, human rights, animal rights, right to anything and everything while forbidding others from deviating from our chosen things because we, our group knew better than any other group. We pressed for laws which made our cause the right, moral and now legally enforceable right. There were a few hiccups as differing views clashed. The big issues were such as but not limited to abortion, guns, marijuana, free healthcare, free college, minimum wage, military size, military weapons systems, war and peace. The eventuality due to high demand lives and higher taxes both parents worked and in some families one parent worked two jobs, had to keep up the old image, you know. Flat screen television, fifty-two inch display, 3-D, 7.1 surround sound, build on a theater room for the next party, it was never going to end and then we wondered why we had a coronary.

 

Meanwhile, who had time to assist with homework, providing we ever made time for having a family? Time and interest in the children’s schooling also fell by the wayside and the PTA became the teacher’s union more so than a shared parent-teacher relationship. The schools gave us what we wanted, good grades though often so inflated as to be meaningless. They left real schooling somewhere back a ways and replaced it with social programming of our youth who now knew of the evils of capitalism but were unable to define it, global climate change, racial inequality, gender inequality, LGBT life choices, and the new relativity, not Einstein’s but moral, gender and ethnic amongst others. Multiculturalism became the watchword where no single culture was preferable to any other and that included the tribes of cannibals and headhunters, communists and socialists, anything but that one dreadful, awful, despicable culture, Judeo-Christian culture, the old ways that built Western Civilization. No, we had to move beyond our little corner and our petty ways and go and try those other cultures which were all equal while all were preferable to the old way, that demanded far too much civility and culture need not be civil in order to have a civilization.

 

The Narrow Path

 

The new multicultural civilization would embrace everything different than our past, that civilization was built on faith and decency, or so it claimed. Faith was long dead; humiliated from the town square and who was it that got to define decency. Assuredly we could each define decency for ourselves, provided it was not defined in the morality based on that old book we had presumably discarded long ago. The children were prepared to forge that new world whose foundation was firmly planted in shifting sands which were so undefined and meaningless that everything was near collapse. We were approaching the cusp and beyond the cusp was a great and bottomless void. The edge had watched many a great civilization fall beyond the cusp to fall into the darkness never to return. This was how greatness of civilizations died, not from withering attacks but from withering within. They first hollowed out the principles upon which they were built and then with the inner structure destroyed, they simply collapsed from their own weight. They all died from their internal injuries, one after the other marching straight into the abyss awaiting their eventual arrival as they passed beyond the cusp. They all had lost their way and strayed from the narrow path turning right or left, it matters not as the cliffs of ruin line both sides and one can pass beyond the cusp going either way, right with dictatorial systems controlled by a single lunatic or left where a horde of self-proclaimed wise men act just as need of an asylum as the single loon and who rush beyond the cusp into the void with equal abandon. The path is as pictured above, narrow and perilous for any who lose their compass and stray from the good path, the narrow way.

 

Beyond the Cusp