Lazy
I have been lazy; contented; involuntarily compliant. This is unacceptable. Last week, We, the People, took a tremendous loss. Charlie Kirk was an inspiration, and for that, we shall remain eternally grateful. He was never lazy; never contented; never involuntarily compliant. He lived his faith each and every day. More of us need to do so; for, our time might be short.
I am pledging an oath here and now to stay engaged, involved, and working for my children’s future and their children’s thereafter. My discipline shall be turned toward the work. Last night, I was welcomed to the YGOP of Ellis County. The energy in the room was palpable. We were thick with faith and constitution. They allowed me a few minutes of their time to speak.
Many folks have asked me privately what I think about the assassination. The upshot is that I do not want to leave a world for our posterity where folks take lives when a microphone is available for discussion instead. That world sounds treacherous; it sounds like hell.
Why does this one feel different?
Mr. Kirk’s death hits different from the others. I have heard this many times from independent people. I think this is simple. He was not President. He was not a Legislator. He was not a Judge. He was not a billionaire CEO, the director of a Super PAC, or some other position of power. He was just a person with a microphone. If he was a target, so are you. If you speak, if you write, if you podcast, you are a target.
This is no longer a battle of flesh; this is a battle of spirit. No longer is death the punishment for a physical violation. Now, to our enemies, death is punishment for thought and faith. This is why this one feels different. It is different - fundamentally, radically, and spiritually different.
How did we get here?
I have no idea how we got here - I can surmise, I can speculate, I can hypothesize - I can only offer a limited view of our socio-political ills. Worship and Sacrament have declined, and so with them have morality, values, comfort, and stability.
Atheists consistently give credence to Judeo-Chrstian values. Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, and Kurt Vonnnegut (all self-proclaimed atheists) have expressed admiration for the value and belief system presented by the Judeo-Christian line of faiths. The latter even stating, “If what Jesus said was good, and so much of it was beautiful, what does it matter if he was God or not? If Christ hadn’t delivered the Sermon on the Mount, with its message of mercy and pity, I wouldn’t want to be a human being. I would just as soon be a rattlesnake.”
The only people who find no use in the faiths of our founders are those who want a life of kingship, dominion, and powerlust. If one has nothing to worship, one begins to worship oneself. Humans will eventually have a crisis of morality, and if one worships oneself and makes the wrong choice, one will surely make a subsequent wrong choice. Down the line of wrong moral choices lies a demon. Without a solid moral foundation outside oneself, in adulthood, one becomes the very demon every child fears.
Without Worship and Sacrament, we are a nation without an absolute morality. We come a nation of self-worshippers - a nation of demons.
What can be done?
We speak. We carry the message. We inspire the next person. Even atheists understand the moral and societal supremacy of the Judeo-Christian line of faiths when followed. Jesus walked the land, met people where they were, and taught them. He was not a preacher, but a teacher. We need to teach; we need to provide adequate support and opportunities for the lessons of our forebearers to permeate the culture and restore this nation and its citizenry to moral clarity. There is no time like the present, and there is no people like our people. It is incumbent upon us to get to WORK.
Questioning Science is How Science is Done
This is true but most folks engaging in the discussion don't understand how to question science. Hypothesis is the first step. No hypothesis, no science. Conclusion is the last part. If you start with a conclusion then cherry pick articles that support that conclusion, you are not "doing science" - you are doing propaganda.
"I don't believe in {thing}" is not a hypothesis; it is an antithesis. Although hypothesis and antithesis have the same root, the latter is a literary tool while the former is a scientific tool. Propaganda is a literary skill, not a scientific skill. You are doing propaganda, not science.
An example: Saying "I don't believe in climate change" then finding record temperatures in the past or moderate temperatures in the present is an antithesis followed by cherry picking: this is propaganda.
Saying "I believe climate has always changed by not less than 1°C but not more than 3°C per century, barring celestial extinction events" then performing back breaking archaeology and painstaking historical analysis to find evidence of temperature changes over the past 40 million years and reporting the findings would be a hypothesis followed by evidence gathering. This is science.
A thesis is a statement set forth that can be explained and developed through conversation, reading, and argument. An antithesis is the opposite of a particular stated thesis and can be likewise explained and developed. A hypothesis, on the other hand, is something that can be rigorously tested and experimented upon. As a whole, I find that the American political class is able to develop theses but wholly ill-equipped to deal with hypotheses. This is how we get stuck in an endless cycle of back-and-forth election, after election, after election.
I believe it would be up to the conservative class - real conservatives, not neo-con nonsense artists - to correct this national malady. When a liberal says, “all white people are racist,” an unhelpful response would be the antithesis: “not all white people are racist”. This gets us nowhere. A better response (there are a seemingly limitless bounty thereof) would be a hypothesis such as: “There have been anti-racist whites throughout our Nation’s history, and this tradition continues today.” Then it is a small matter to complete the work to test the hypothesis, gather results, and form the proper conclusions. We need to do better, and this is how we do better.
The onslaught of nonsense pouring from the Democrat party is only to be resisted by an equal and opposite onslaught of reason. Devolving into “they state ‘X’ so I state ‘not X’” would help no one. We need to be measured and reasonable in our approach that we may lift the nation from its current place and onto a road toward a more prosperous future.
Black History with Patriot’s Revival
A few weeks ago, I was a part of a panel discussion on Black History. I am not a fan of dividing history by race; however, if that is the current state of the matter, we must work within it to dismantle it and move to a better, more race-neutral future. The episode can be found in many places:
Vaccines are Corporate Products
The Left is of two minds when it comes to healthcare. They, one one hand, cheer and laud a broken kid who capped a CEO. On the other hand, they push sweeping vaccine mandates and attempt to destroy anyone (and that person’s entire family) if he decides to go a different path.
I recently came across this message:
This is an overbroad generalization. There are conditions (such as hemoglobinopathies) that make certain people susceptible to problems that are risks of vaccines. A quick read of the effects and post clinical results sections of an FDA insert can be illuminating. Those so-called "anti vaxxers" - as the Left calls them - do not "vax" as a result of the risks involved. Risks that were discovered strictly under doctor's orders.
I have a hemoglobinopathy and the threat is real. Further, I have a heart murmur that puts me at extreme risk of syncopic episodes. When a vaccine insert describes contraindications to hemoglobinopathies or it states syncope as a risk; I should not take that vaccine. It isn’t an ignorance of medicine, it is a deep and abiding respect therefor!!!
Vaccines are products sold by corporations. There are risks with any product and no sweeping judgment could possibly account for the efficacy of any product for all persons. It is interesting that when a CEO gets popped by a broken kid the Left celebrates, but when kids die of vaccine reactions the Left remains steadfast on the corporation's side. The assumption, "anti vax implies ignores doctors," is an ill-informed one at best and at worst a clickbaiting grift for social media self-aggrandizement.
WISD $170K Bid for Summerbridge
The Waxahachie Independent School District has a bid properly before it requesting $170K for a product called Summerbridge. This is a product that is supposed to help children retain what they had learned in school between grades. My letter to the school board and superintendent detail my feelings on the matter. This is all part of a $2M honeypot for “products.” My feelings are deeply negative for several reasons.
First and foremost, the bureaucrats are always complaining that teachers cannot be paid a sufficient wage. This is poppycock; if we have money for useless products, we have money for teachers. Secondly, the administration’s wages are bloated. Again, and again, and again, no bureaucrat in the State of TX should make more than the Governor. One cannot convince me otherwise. The Governor’s salary is about $173K; WISD has loads of folks making more than that!
The most important and striking reason for my negativity is that the products always push to parents what we pay the school district to do. They give students take home, over the summer work rather than providing the supports necessary to provide adequate instruction for students. Most people either have no degree or a useless degree - most parents are unequipped to teach their children chemistry, physics, calculus, and music.
Currently, we have the RINO, Greg Abbott, asking us if we want out money back so we can leave the public education system. That is EXACTLY what his version of school choice is asking. My issue is I have no counterargument. When our public schools would rather tell parents “here is a backpack full of shit you cannot understand, teach it to your child over the summer”, Abbott’s plan to give us our money back seems like a ray of sunshine in comparison.
WISD needs to do better than this if it wants to prove that public education and those who work within the system have our children’s best interests at heart.
Apple’s $95M Settlement
This Apple Settlement illustrates the reason why big tech keeps steamrolling through the proletariat. $95M for a privacy dispute affecting nearly every Apple user?! That's a joke, especially given the affected must make a claim to collect. History shows that, on average, about 8% of claims for such lawsuits are filed.
Even if, by some miracle, 100% of claims are filed, $95M is less than the rounding error on Apple's taxes. Apple's market cap is something over $3T. They don't care about $95M; it's a drop in the bucket. This settlement is nonsense and lacks any punitive touch. Plaintiffs contended that Apple could be liable for $1.5B if the matter went to trial. I believe even $1.5B is marginal compared to what the ad damnum should be.
When an impoverished man steals a loaf of bread to feed his family, he can face up to 25 years in prison, while Tim Cook can go into your home and invade your privacy for over a decade with impunity. There need to be real penalties for misuse of data and abuse of access. These data and access are given freely under the auspices of reasonable custodianship. When a breach of that trust occurs, the penalties should be severe.
If you read the End User License Agreement (EULA) for any software-based tech product, you will see page-after-page of legalese protecting the developer and distributor. You will see little-to-nothing protecting the user. The fix is simple: add a clause saying something substantially of the form “In the event of a data or privacy breach, the collective users of the software will be entitled to 5% of the average of the vendor’s last 3 years of revenue”. That’s real skin in the game.
For Apple, we would have ‘22, ‘23, ‘24 revenues of $394B, $383B, $391B. This would give us a payout of about $19.4B for a breach of trust such as this. I think this is acceptable, and if it is contractually obligated through EULA, the Court proceedings after a breach would be simplified. If there are no real consequences, the behaviour does not end. By putting a de facto price tag (such as $95M) on such a breach, we are letting companies of sufficient size know they can do whatever they want with limited issue.
We are smarter and stronger than this, America. Stand up and fight.