Cue the Violins - Rome is Burning

Back from a week's vacation and nothing much seems to have improved. Some observations during this last week of de facto summer before Labor Day:

• The Republican Convention was well done. I loved the statements from Americans from all backgrounds and colors. Many of their stories were truly moving and it came through loud and clear that these were people who loved freedom after experiencing a horrendous lack of it in their countries of birth. I also loved the stories of people coming slavery, severe handicaps, and other extremely difficult situations, who persevered and ultimately triumphed. I want all of them on my team!
• And the corollary - Why do so many people in this country crave living in a dictatorship? I propose that we simply cut to the chase and have Congress pass the "Don't let the Door Hit You in the Butt" Act that buys these folks a one way airfare to whatever s#@thole country they want to go and a $2,500 stipend. They have to renounce their American citizenship on the way out and their passports will be automatically void upon entry into the other country. Go live in a communist "paradise" and enjoy every minute of it. Please. 
• I keep reading this statement from mayors and police chiefs of cities where rioters are running amok, "We did not order our police officers to engage the situation for fear of aggravating it." Hell's bells - Rome has been burning for 90 days and you don't think the fire department should be called? Are all officials in these cities stoners? 
• People are starting to get killed. This is not a surprise. It is not an accident that gun and ammunition sales have been setting records these last few months. The word "vigilante" will come back into vogue and pretty soon, everyone will be walking around with a .45 on their hip. As H.P. Lovecraft said, "An armed society is a polite society." We'll see if we get to test the accuracy of his observation. 
• Am I the only one noticing what a colossal failure Gov. Kate Brown is as a manager of the state? The governor is the CEO of the executive branch of government and in one agency after another, it's one failure after another. The largest, of course, is the inability of the state to pay unemployment compensation to those qualified. Allegedly this is due to a computer failure. The Feds, however, gave Oregon $300M in 2013 to fix this and it still sits undone. Then there is DMV. Tried to get you Real ID driver's license yet? Good luck. My wife tried to, as hers had expired in April and the offices haven't been open much since then. She dutifully went in and despite the website saying you didn't need an appointment, and despite the fact that there were 4 people total in line, and despite the fact that she had all the requisite documents in hand, she was sent home to - wait for it - make an appointment. Of course, Do you know who I am Mr. Vidal?! When are Oregonians going to demand even a mediocre level of competence from government? 
• The CDC has quietly announced that only 9,700 of the deaths attributed to Covid-19 were solely the result of the virus. This is 6% of all U.S. Covid-19 deaths; the other 94% had an average of 2.6 other underlying conditions. We have shut down pretty much everything for 9,700 deaths, While these deaths are sad, of course, they need to be seen in perspective. For example, 38,800 lost their lives in auto accidents last year, 17,000 from slips and falls, and an estimated 606,880 deaths from cancer for 2019. The NY Times also dropped this weekend that as many as 90% of all supposedly positive Covid-19 tests were false positives. Arrggh!

It's a strange, strange world we live in Gunga Din. 

The Bigger Picture

Americans have taken a series of gut punches this year between Covid-19, the resulting shutdowns, and now the rioting. We aren't talking protests any longer, we are talking insurrection. 

Rioters in Chicago who trashed the highland Miracle Mile stores like Coach, Gucci, Apple, etc., said their booty was "reparations." For what - living in Chicago? Then we have Portland. Remember how the riots were going to go away after the Feds"provoking it" went away? Yeah, right. People have already been shot in Seattle and stabbed in Portland and it is likely this will be happening with more frequency. Right now it's ball bearings, frozen water bottles, and lasers, but the guns will come out and there will be blood.

These are not rioters, they are terrorists, and terrorists always have a political goal in mind. Dennis Prager looks at this bigger picture in a column today that lays it out well. Essentially, you have competing religions based on antithetical worldviews. 

The West was founded on a Judeo-Christian worldview: there is a God, man is made in His image and that is the basis for "unalienable rights" for all, regardless of race, creed  or color. Government is necessary to restrain evil since man has fallen, but it should be limited to allow free men to flourish.

Leftism denies there is a God. We are free to shape a perfect society of utopian goodness and government is seen as the agent to accomplish this. No existing society lives up to this perfect utopia and therefore must be demolished by any means necessary to usher in the Age of the Perfection. It is this religious faith that somewhere out there, the perfect society is possible, despite all the failed attempts like the USSR, Red China, Nazi Germany. It explains why the stock retort to people pointing out this inconvenient fact is always, "It has never really been tried." It must exist or my life is meaningless. 

Europe lost its faith in God in WWI and WWII finished off any residue. Prager points out that they had seen the dangers of fanaticism and became, "... more preoccupied with working less, traveling more and being taken care of than with ideological movements." He says that, "One might say that Europe was inoculated against fanaticism." Not so this country, although the secular Left was already hard at work undermining the the intellectual underpinnings of the American heritage. Like locusts swarming across the African continent destroying everything in their path, the Left has nearly completed its long march through American institutions toward a universal secularist understanding of man and the only objective left is the destruction of the current order and the rise of the Perfect State. To make it worse, unlike Europe, we have not been inoculated against fanaticism by the experience of two world wars that shattered them, and that fanaticism is what we are seeing in American cities right now. 

Benjamin Franklin was asked what kind of a government the founders had created in Philadelphia.He replied, "A republic, if you can keep it." Unless Americans wake up and act to keep it, I am afraid that the republic is going to be tossed on the ash heap of history and we will join all those serfs in fear of the State that have gone before us and exist in much of the world today. 

townhall.com/columnists/dennisprager/2020/08/11/why-america-is-in-real-danger-n2574078

Antidote for All the Garbage

This is an article that you should read. It's written by Ryan Bomberger, a black man, adopted into and raised in a racially diverse family of 15, and it is a ringing endorsement of what makes America the greatest place on earth. Problems - sure. But have they been tackled and resolved before. Can we do it again? Absolutely! It starts with throwing paralyzing fear over the side and beginning to move with confidence again that we are one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. And making it happen. Do yourself a favor at the end of a long week (year?) of crap, read the article, roll up your sleeves, and together let's get back in the game and make this country an even better place. Divided we fall; united we stand.

townhall.com/columnists/ryanbomberger/2020/08/07/stop-apologizing-for-america-