Contract With Texas
This is one of the most important movements in Texas at present. It is effectively asking our Republican political candidates to pledge they will do their jobs. We all know they have not been doing their jobs. We can all feel the weight of their failure to perform. It is common sense they should be doing better, but they overwhelmingly do not pledge to do better.
A full list of signatories and abstainers can be found on the website. We can see why failing to sign would send a powerful, anti-liberty, anti-grassroots message upon inspection:
Only solicit support for Speakership from Republican members
End the practice of awarding Democrats with committee chairmanships
Ensure all GOP legislative priorities receive a floor vote before any Democrat bills
Replace the current liberal Parliamentarians with staff committed to only offering advice on adherence to House rules, not to advancing their personal ideology
Limit the Speaker to two terms to reduce their power over individual members
Ensure there are no longer any Democrat-majority committees
Stop parliamentary abuse by requiring only substantial adherence to House rules to keep hyper-technical points of order from killing good legislation
Allow audio/video recording of all House proceedings, including point of order debates
Start substantive work as soon as Session begins to end delays that kill priority legislation
Reform the Calendars Committee to increase transparency and accountability
Select a Republican as Speaker Pro Tempore
Decentralize power by prohibiting the distribution of political funds from the Speaker.
If you ran on the Republican ticket, you were, through Freedom of Association, endowed with the ability to do so by your Republican constituency. This implies you are accountable to the Republicans who put you in that position. you are not accountable to the Governor of TX; you are not accountable to the President of these United States. You are accountable to We, the People. Things do not work backward here; we are not Democrats. We do not worship Government. We do not wait for Government to fix our problems. We do not kow tow to the current order. This was made clear the last round of primaries where 15 incumbents lost their seats.
If you do not represent our values, we will remove you from the ticket. This is plain, simple, easy, and understandable.
Trying Job Market
The job market is really rough these days. I have done plenty of hiring in the past, and this is the worst I have seen. I am in tech so this may vary, but there are two salient threads from my perspective:
Experienced people are staying put a lot longer than usual
Inexperienced people are flooding recruiters and HR reps with resumes
Since the market is so weak, the experienced stay where they are. This means the firms who have the experienced people, are not hiring the way they used to. It was once that a person could use a mid tier position to get a good salary while awaiting a high-tier opening at another firm; now, if the job is “good enough” no one is willing to take the risk leaving for whatever grass might be on the other side of the fence. With this backup in employee churn comes significant headwinds for those looking to break into the industry.
The more difficult it is to break into an industry, the worse it feels to those at the bottom. We are seeing 100+ resumes per open position. One’s chances of success are marginal especially if there is nothing special about the applicant. The longer someone has on their resume between graduation and their first employment, the more questions it raises in the recruiters’ heads making things even worse. These difficult times call for new and varied approaches to get one’s foot in the door.
With 100+ applicants, HR needs some way of knowing how to pick the “1st one”. The easiest way is by referrals; they take the referrals first. Those searching and finding themselves at a dead end should show up to meetups and conferences. Some of these events are free of charge, and if you are not working, you should be able to find one to attend nearby. Talking to people and shaking hands is the fastest way into a job. The people you meet will likely know of an open position or know of someone who is searching for candidates. You don’t need to work for a fortune 500 company to earn a fortune; anywhere that pays enough should do just fine.
I also see a lot of people clout-chasing and title-choosing. None of this matters. No one cares if you are a Widget Designer I or a Widget Designer II; they only care that the widgets work and you only care that you are fairly compensated. Apply for everything, even if it looks out of reach. HR people often write the job descriptions, and as a result, you can usually get through an interview process successfully without everything on the list. Even if the job is not the one you want, once you work inside of an organization it is easier to transition to a different department if you play your cards right. The biggest drag on a candidate is a long period of non-employment; do not fall into this just because the words on your name tag might not be what you want. Take what you get and put a plan together to make your pivot.
While you are not working, do some community service. It will fill in the gap and get you in front of more people, shaking more hands, and potentially lead to a fruitful connection with a job at the end of the tunnel. There is no rule that you cannot socialize and network while volunteering; you might as well be getting something out of it.
The real point is, no matter what is going on, one cannot wait around for random happenstance or the Government to fix the job market. A successful person adapts and moves with the winds of change. Be your own hero.
Democratic Weakness
It is a sobering realization that the seeds of tyranny can be sown so easily. The birth of the United States was founded on the belief in every individual’s inalienable, natural rights, bestowed upon them by their Creator. These rights were considered self-evident. However, in the 1800s, a profound battle of ideologies unfolded, pitting pro and anti-slavery forces against each other. The anti-slavery advocates, aligning with the concept of inalienable rights, found themselves in a moral struggle against the pro-slavery forces who vehemently disagreed.
A man by the name of Calhoun was, perhaps, history’s greatest critic of this self-evidence. He argued, inter alia, that it was far from self-evident that all men were created equal - that Government’s job was to take these unequal births and align them to duties best suited by birthright. In Calhoun’s vision, some persons (whites) were born of better position than others (blacks). Freedom would, then, be a reward for good behaviour. The better a group behaved, the less governance would be imposed upon that group. The worse a group behaved, well, they could be relegated to outright chattel.
Once we have human chattel, we certainly have tyranny. All Calhoun needed to do was distract from self-evidence and change the focus from individual liberties to group behaviour, and we descend very quickly into an unequal society where rights are given by the Government according to group membership rather than power and sovereignty being the people’s to distribute.
Our nation’s founding is full of accidents of timing. Two great writers and speakers simultaneously fought for the cause of abolition: Frederick Douglass and President Abraham Lincoln. Although they had their differences, they were both instrumental in the eventual success and persistence of the founding’s principles. Douglass attacked the premise of slavery as a valid and natural order quite directly when he said:
“Natural and harmonious relations easily repose in their own rectitude, while all such as are false and unnatural are conscious of their own weakness, and must seek strength from without. Hence the explanation of the uneasy, restless, eager anxiety of slaveholders.” - Frederick Douglass, June 16, 1861
In more contemporary language, we mean to express that laying out a society within which black and white coexist on equal terms with equal opportunity takes far less work than laying out a society of the opposite kind. As nature exists without a human organizing hand, it must stand to reason that a society of master-slave dynamics is one far from and against the natural rites. This is why the slaveholders must fight so hard and violently to maintain their position. More of this was stated by President Lincoln one year prior:
“In all our platforms and speeches we have constantly protested our purpose to let them alone; but this has had no tendency to convince them. Alike unavailing to convince them, is the fact that they have never detected a man of us in any attempt to disturb them. These natural, and apparently adequate means all failing, what will convince them? This, and this only: cease to call slavery wrong, and join them in calling it right. And this must be done thoroughly – done in acts as well as in words. Silence will not be tolerated – we must place ourselves avowedly with them.” Abraham Lincoln, February 27, 1860
It was true that the anti-slave States meant to leave alone the slave states. They had left them for at least 3 generations. The slave States; however, pressed forward and attempted to grow their aristocratic society past their own boundaries. It was clear that the slave States would not bend to reason, and would never calm their fire. In fact, every argument the US had over the slavery question was lost by the North until 1850. Every single argument was given to the slaveowners. In the 1850s, a series of events gave strong Due Process rights to free blacks, and the South could not abide this.
You see, the South was fine to live harmoniously when it would get its way. It was fine to stand by the union of States as long as the union would kow tow to its order. It loses one argument and attempts to bail out of the entire arrangement. Democrats, it would appear, have always been this frail and childish. Lincoln argued that the Constitution so ratified by all States cannot be then broken by a single party. It is a contract, and no party can decide to leave a duly sworn to contract without the consent of the other parties. Lincoln then leads us to fight for the union as a whole:
"Let us have faith that right makes might, and in that faith, let us, to the end, dare to do our duty as we understand it." - Abraham Lincoln, February 27, 1860.
As we know, the Democrats lost then and the union was preserved. Our Creator-given natural rights were reaffirmed in that time. Now, we have a similar unnatural order attempting to subvert the founding. Again, this subversion is the work of Democrats.
Democrats would have the Federal Government take property from those who had earned it, and redistribute it among the lazy. They despise property rights.
Democrats would have the Federal Government impose measures upon the States that the State’s people would never elect for. They despise a pursuit of happiness.
Democrats would have the Federal Government run our elections when this is a duty clearly given to the States in the Constitution. They despise free, fair, and secure elections.
Democrats would have the Federal Government impose religious and ideological prescriptions upon the youth when this is a duty given to the Parents by our Creator. They despise families.
Democrats would have the Government decide what individual liberties a person, family, and community have rather than those individual liberties heretofore established. They despise freedom.
A great Democrat thinker by the name of Woodrow Wilson stated in an overt attempt to undermine the principles of the founding “If you want to understand the real Declaration of Independence, do not repeat the preface.” The preface of course being the part regarding inalienable rights. He and his contemporaries (typically referred to as the Progressives) argued that the world had moved on from what had given rise to the Constitution, and as such, the Constitution should be replaced by a new social order - that the Government should be able to control the individual’s liberties in the context of the whole society,
We see the same thread pulled through from prior Democrats. We see Democrats attempting to govern according to a group dynamic rather than according to an individual’s freedoms. All it takes is to disagree with or ignore the self-evidence of the inalienable natural rights. Once rights are no longer inalienable, they are subject to removal. This is the Democrats’ game. This continues to this very date.
The reason Democrats are so fragile was explained by Douglass. Their move toward tyranny is unnatural and thus cannot repose in its own rectitude. Instead, they are conscious of their own weakness and must use the Government as a tool to strike down those of us who live in our individuality. The Democrat seeks to crush those who disagree with them under the full weight and force of an outsized Government. We resist because it is right to resist. We will always remember what our first Republican President taught: that right makes might.
https://frederickdouglasspapersproject.com/s/digitaledition/item/9084
https://voicesofdemocracy.umd.edu/abraham-lincoln-cooper-union-speech-text/
More Civic Engagement
Civic Engagement is free or cheap. It is not expensive. Any social class can do this. We all need to be doing this. It is past the time for laziness and faith without works. This is our nation, and we need to take it back.
Here in Ellis County, it is free to become a volunteer voter registrar. It is super easy to register voters. You have voters fill out the form completely and give the completed forms back to the registrar in person. It is that simple. You do not need to purchase forms, the forms are provided to you. You do not need to purchase anything, the registrar’s office has the materials. You can do this while block walking. you can do this while shopping. You can do this while your children play in the parks. You can do this while at events around the community. Get it done.
It is extremely cheap to rent a pavilion at a park; at the time of writing it is under $100 for a full day here. I am sure the prices vary by location, but public facilities are generally very low cost. Schedule a day to go out, hang some signs, and register voters. Take some campaign materials of your supported candidates with you. Hell, if you don’t want to spend the money, wait for some other event to happen and register voters there. Get it done.
We need more callers, letter writers, and brief writers. The swamp creatures who serve in Austin and in DC only value their own time. They value nothing else. The Judges who populate our courts are similarly situated. We need to be calling these elected officials and writing to them. We need to be filing briefs in the cases that affect our rights. If you do not know how to write effective letters or briefs, I will help you. This is the most important work we can do. The voice of We, the People, is absent from our justice system, Austin, and DC; this needs to change. Get it done.
This is our nation. We need to start acting like it. There is work to do, and we will complete that work.
Why do we ask Race and Sex on Applications?
The short answer is that the EEOC and CEI ask for it. You are allowed to decline a response, so it seems meaningless. The guidelines state that one cannot use race, sex, religion, and myriad other meritless qualities to discriminate in employment. If one cannot use these qualities, why ask for them at all? The answer, as always, lies in a complicated history of well-meaning but terrible legislation.
(Note: There were Executive Orders dating back at least to President Roosevelt regarding employment and meritless qualities. We will focus only on Affirmative Action as enforced by the EEOC in this document.)
Affirmative Action was put into effect by Executive Order of President Kennedy. This measure was to ensure employers treated and employed people without regard to their meritless qualities. This is OK. this is not just a black thing or a woman thing. It allows people to sue for discrimination irrespective of the like and kind of discrimination: blacks, whites, women, and men have all taken advantage of this (white men have taken advantage of this as recently as April 2024 [judgment] [opinion]). This is a general policy for the general welfare and can be applied without reference to special interests. We begin to see the destruction of this policy in the very next Administration.
President Johnson made subtle changes to the doctrine here. This was also by Executive Order. Johnson tasked the Federal Government with ensuring equal opportunity in recruitment, hiring, training, and other employment practices. This, on the surface, sounds reasonable; equal opportunity is a hallmark trait of a great society. However, the equal opportunity of recruitment opens the door for abuse and discrimination. It is not the Government’s place to tell a society who should be applying for jobs, it is only the Government’s place to ensure that once applied for, the job is decided upon merit. this was part of President Johnson’s “Great Society”.
Due to the emphasis on recruitment, the Government and private industry struck many deals migrating thought leadership away from Kennedy’s goal of equal opportunity and toward the “Great Society” goal of equal outcome. this caused a flurry of over-regulation, over-adjudication, extreme Government expansion, and bad outcomes contrary to the stated goal. Any one of Dr. Tomas Sowell’s books can provide a rudimentary look at these bad outcomes; a reading of his entire catalog can constitute a masterclass.
This went on for quite some time and many class action lawsuits and other challenges to business and the Government persisted. President Reagan (with Clarence Thomas, Esq. then the head of the EEOC) changed this in good and bad ways. The unintended consequences of their actions are felt to this very date. First and foremost, President Reagan’s Administration diminished the size and ability of the Agencies responsible for Affirmative Action and, at the same time, altered the enforcement of these policies and deployed the Government to regulate the regulators. In hindsight, maybe the latter portion of this plan should have been foregone.
The Reagan Administration forced the proponents of Affirmative Action to find new and exciting ways to enforce the Equality of Outcome narrative while getting around the return to Equality of Opportunity. While Reagan was campaigning in 1980, it was fairly clear he would be victorious and have the opportunity to push his ideals. A PAC was formed, the Human Rights Campaign Fund, to promote Equality of Outcome. This later became the Human Rights Campaign Foundation (HRCF) and, in turn, created the Corporate Equality Index (CEI).
CEI is used to strong-arm corporations into performing DEI, meritless reporting, and other wasteful activities. They are backed by the largest funders on the planet including Black Rock, Vanguard, and State Street. What they do is push an unsanctioned government agenda by forcing that agenda onto corporations and marketing their CEI score as the end-all-be-all of corporate responsibility and equality. They have placed themselves as the sole authority regarding corporate merit.
Now, this private corporation requires organizations to provide demographic information in order to validate and certify the equality of each firm. The problem is this private organization makes the rules, and thus has the power to bend the rules. They often give low scores for companies that are largely male, and high scores for companies that are largely female. This same trend is apparent when you control for race and religion. If the goal is “Equality” shouldn’t a score drop be warranted irrespective of the direction of disparity? The goals are born out of the results, not the statements made; of this I am sure.
Further, the EEOC and similar groups use demographic information (if provided) as evidence against corporations when discrimination requests are filed. If a corporation shows it has too many whites and too many males, watch out; here comes big daddy Government to take care of our childish adults who cannot do for themselves. In this respect, Government has been weaponized to take from those who are hard-working and give to those who complain the most.
If you look around and see blacks getting ahead and women getting ahead, you have probably wondered why these questions are still asked of job applicants in the year 2024. Many of us have asked this, and the answer is not surprising in the least. This is done to divide We, the People. No further proof is required than the form of some of the questions. There is no such thing as “Black/African American”. I am an American - if you want to call me “black” that is on you; Elon Musk is an African American.
Missing and Exploited Children
Enough is enough. We have been trying to get a handle on this situation for years and have had no effect on the Biden Administration. Children are being harmed, and their attackers are being let go with little to no repercussions. Disgraceful.
The Honorable Senator Susan Talamantes for California addressed this issue directly in her district. She had the courage to stand up to the elites and make a difference. We all must show this level of courage because it is right.
Over 85,000 unaccompanied migrants have been entrusted to "sponsors" within the US. The Government has been unable to contact them. The "sponsors" all have the same story: "We woke up, and she had left." No facts, no solutions, only child suffering. Mysteriously, these "sponsors" live in areas without cameras. This was not happening under the Trump Administration. The sharp increases began AFTER January 20, 2021 in February and March.
Our State Department ranks the US in the top three nations of origin for trafficking victims. The UN ranks this nation also among the top 3; the UN statistics go further and break things down by trafficking purpose, age, sex, etc. We rank #1, and outside the margin of error, for child labor trafficking. We have the greatest police and military in the World. We can stop this if those at the top are willing to stop it; they are not.
We need to bring this topic to light and put pressure on our lawmakers and representatives to take action. Children do not have time to wait. This should be the leading topic when speaking on the border: children are being trafficked and distributed across our border and within our limits. It must stop.