Monthly Archives: May 2019

Our Violent American Government

America’s mass shootings, of course, simply are not stopping. Places of worship, college campuses, it doesn’t matter: America remains a shooting gallery unprecedented in human history.

It’s not even really big news anymore: the place and victims are reported, thoughts and prayers are issued and that’s really it: our national conversation on the 2nd Amendment has turned into a murmur. Yeah, there are some calls for gun laws that criminals will never follow, but the cacophony that used to attend mass shootings has left the American landscape. Us Americans have come to accept the wholesale slaughter of our fellow citizens.

As we have said virtually every hour on the hour on the campaign trail for the United States Senate and House, we have a violent world and a violent country because we have a violent American government. America has been at war every day for the past 30 years and we are reaping that harvest with every mass killing because we have a generation-and-a-half of Americans who have never known their country at peace. Violence has long been America’s calling card and violence is now the calling card of America’s citizens.

It is not going to get any better until we have an American government at peace and we are not going to have a peaceful American government until you and me – we the people – start demanding it on Election Day. Reelecting the status quo will solve nothing because if the status quo wanted an America at peace we’d have an America at peace. You know it, I know it, and the status quo knows it, too.

We must do this soon, friends. No country has survived perpetual warfare and to think America will be the exception to that is as false as it is dangerous. Eventually, perpetual war – and our mindless spending – will destroy our country, with America eventually tossed aside the scrap heap of history, perhaps before this half-century is out.

The only dividend war provides is more war and we deserve better than that. We deserve a country with the prospect of a prosperous long-term future, not collapse.

Our planet and our country are entitled to see the dividends produced by an America at peace. Peace starts with you and it starts with me and it starts on Election Day.

Thank you for reading,
Gaylon

Beware Of Candidates Bearing Gifts

One thing that is fun to see as candidates for the Democratic presidential nomination jockey for position is how many ways they are trying to buy votes by offering, bribing, voters with stuff. Things like raises and free college and health care to student loan forgiveness, even a universal basic income. None of these things are the purpose of government. It’s an easy trap to fall into, however.

Consider this: It’s human nature to want to depend on someone. As kids, we depended on our parents. As a husband, Lord knows I depend on my good wife. But that’s where it ends: we cannot depend on our government to take care of us. That’s our responsibility. All we should require of our government is to provide for our liberty, to ensure that the 24-hours we have every day – the only commodity every human is issued in equal measure – our ours to do with as we choose.

None of these things are in the interest of a free people. You want a raise, find a job that pays what you want and put yourself in a position to go and get it. Don’t depend on a minimum wage increase because businesses will merely raise prices, meaning your spending power hasn’t changed at all. Free college? No, a college must be subject to the same free market demands as every other business. If you want to go to college, go and earn it. It’s the same with doctors and health insurers: the government must butt out: we depend on the free market to provide food, clothing, shelter, and video games, we should allow it to provide medical care, too.

If you find yourself chatting with a Democratic presidential hopeful and they start in on how many things they want to give you show them a palm and ask them what they are going to do about stopping our perpetual wars and getting our national spending under control. For added hilarity, mention that you feel these to issues will, if not attended to, will destroy our country, perhaps before this half-century is out and see what they say.

Thank you for reading,
Gaylon