We have a great country. That was proved on November 8 when millions of us - more than twelve million - went to the polls and, by a goodly majority of electoral votes, we effected a bloodless revolution. Now we have to deal with the future.
What can we do to truly Make America Great Again for all of us? From where I sit, there are a few things that would go a long way to not only making America stronger than it was, but keep it stronger for our future generations.
One YUGE thing popped into my awareness yesterday - our Constitution. It's been assaulted, again, by our own government, by someone who took an oath of office that declares, in part: "to uphold and defend the Constitution".
Secretary Kerry and President Obama signed a treaty with the United Nations that could, realistically, undermine our Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms. This treaty is intended to prevent the trade of arms "across state lines". The UN, at least publicly, says those lines belong to nation states. However, it is not at all difficult to extrapolate that "state line" component into individual American state lines.
This angers me. It angers me a lot because I happen to understand the brilliance of our Constitution.
It's a guideline, not a rule book, and it can be - if decided upon by the majority of American citizens and American states - be modified. However, and it's a big HOWEVER, it is not supposed to be something that can be undermined or weakened by a simple swipe of the pen by one person or a small group. Changes to the Constitution, such as gutting the Second Amendment, require ratification by thirty-eight of our fifty states.
Therefore, from where I sit, one challenge is how to guarantee that our Constitution and our sovereignty are protected from any such treaty in future? Simple, but not so easy:
Amendment Thirty-Four: No Administration, Department or Agency shall enter into any treaty that weakens or directly affects, negates or offsets any of the Amendments to this Constitution without achieving a two-thirds majority vote of the legal American electorate.
That wording is not as elegant as the preceding thirty-three amendments, but it covers the bases. It makes it harder for any Secretary of State or President, to sign away our sovereign rights to another entity - like the UN.
We've already had our First Amendment threatened. Earlier this year, the US gave up its control of the internet DNS - Domain Naming System - to the UN via the ICANN treaty. We haven't seen the change, yet. However, if the UN decides that internet "things" are getting out of control, what prevents them from shutting it down, or modifying the DNS access we currently enjoy to something unusable?
As it is now, if you type in a domain name, the DNS recognizes the link between the name and the IP address and directs you there, without you having to remember the TCP/IP string of ###.##.##.## which is convenient. However, let's say the UN's group that oversees the internet decides it doesn't like me and others like me who say what we think. Not all members of the UN like free speech. If they're in power, or heading up the internet group, what's to prevent them from meddling? This is something that should not have been turned over to another entity.
Going farther, because of the changes in society over the past two-hundred fifty years, we need to think hard about our approach to things. We need to look back and take measure of the best parts of the character and ethics of the men who wrote this document. We need to weigh their morals and values against ours (which, in my view are weak, at best). When it was written, they approached governance of America from the standpoints of:
The greater good - what is good for ALL of the citizens, not just for them and their cronies? There weren't lobbyists and the buying of access and power then as there is now.
Justice for all had meaning. It meant that the laws that affected the people would apply equally to them. There would be no different strokes for different folks as there is now - think of Hillary Clinton and her cabal. Do you really believe that if any one of us did one-one-millionth of what they've done we would get a pass? Hell no! We'd be tried and convicted in half-a-heartbeat and the key would be thrown away for good.
The Founders asked themselves under what guidelines and laws will ALL of us live? They expected to live by the same rules and regulations imposed on everyone else. They never envisioned a state of affairs with one set of rules for We the People and an entirely different set for the rich, the powerful and the politically connected. Congress, for instance, doesn't fall under the sway of Obamacare. Some unions and states were given a pass on it - they didn't have to buy into the exchanges and weren't subjected to the rules.
Service to America - not dictatorship. When the Constitution was written, the people who would serve in Washington expected, and were expected, to serve for short periods. They would be elected, go to Washington, do the work, get the job done, and go home again. They never expected to be career politicians as we have now. These career politicians are the people (vermin) who have done so much damage to our country. Donald Trump's term limits proposal is exactly what's needed.
I also think that it's crucial that we re-institute American History courses in our schools. Not just one year, or two, but year after year. Teaching needs to go back into the decades that preceded our withdrawal from British rule, without revision or parsing. It must be true to what happened.
What made us want to leave? How did the Constitution and Bill of Rights come into being? (It wasn't just a bunch of guys sitting around the dinner table one night.) What were the effects of those documents on the men who formulated and signed them? How high a price did they pay for demanding to be free? How did the Revolutionary War start, and how was it fought?
None of our kids - none of the #Snowflakes running around, screaming their heads off - know these things. They do not know the brilliance and the beauty of our Constitutional form of government. THAT, among all the rest of it, is the biggest crime of all.
So, those are a few of my visions of what will Make America Great Again. There's a lot more, but if these things get started, I'd sleep better at night.
Best~
Philippa
Follow me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/PhilippaStories
Sunday, November 13, 2016
Friday, November 11, 2016
Mirror, Mirror
In the past months, the drumbeat of hatred has ramped up. Words are being thrown around with abandon, and the vast majority of the pejorative nouns coming from the Left side of the political spectrum are being grossly misapplied. Most often by those who consider themselves to be "tolerant."
Yesterday, GrubHub's CEO issued a broadcast email to all of his employees:
Based on what's here, if you happen to think Donald Trump might be a good president, you're supposed to tender your resignation - there is no room for you at GrubHub. He explicitly states: "We do not tolerate hateful attitudes on our team." But isn't the jist of his message hateful toward those who happen to have a view that's different than his?
There are hundreds of examples of this kind of bigotry and intolerance throughout the media, across the internet and through anecdotal reporting of individual victims.
People are being threatened or beaten until they're bloody because they don't agree with those who support Hillary Clinton.
Yesterday, in Woodside, California, a high school student was viciously beaten and ended up in the local hospital emergency room because, as shown in the video below, she tried to explain why she supports Trump to another student. The other student wouldn't listen or just walk away. Instead, she tore into this young girl who just happened to have a different point of view.
On the radio this morning, I heard a caller from Williams, California tell about his experience with the "loving" "tolerant" Left.
He picked his step-daughter up from school the other day. He noted that she was upset but, when he asked what the problem was, she wouldn't tell him. Half-an-hour after getting home, the man's wife, who's Hispanic, took him aside and told him that because he's white, their daughter is being bullied by her classmates.
There are thousands of other, similar stories. They're popping up in our news feeds time after time after time.
Given the hatred streaming from the Left - the shrieking intolerance, bigotry, fascism and, at times, blatant racism - I think these "inclusive" "loving" and "tolerant" people would do well to stop for five minutes. They should be encouraged to find a mirror, to look deep into the glass and think: Just who is it who best fits all of the pejorative terms being thrown around?
And, for clarity, here are those definitions I promised:
Hater - a person who greatly dislikes a specified person or thing.
Bigot - a person who is intolerant toward those holding different opinions.
Fascist (fascism) - an advocate or follower of fascism (facism - an authoritarian and nationalistic system of government and social organization. [In general use - extreme authoritarian, or intolerant views or practice.])
Based on what's unfolding across America these days, the protests, riots, destruction of private property and the rest of it, I can tell you who are none of these things: Donald Trump and his supporters.
Best~
Philippa
Follow me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/PhilippaStories
Wednesday, November 9, 2016
"White Guilt" - What Is That?
On Tuesday, Americans went to the polls. We cast our votes. One side won, the other didn't. Now there are protests. People waving signs a nine-year old might write, screaming unimaginative slurs and swearing because the vocabulary just isn't big enough to encompass emotion.
Virtually all of it is organized and promoted by Moveon or other Soros fronts. This is a job for most of these people. They get word there's something on. They get dressed. They go out and make a bunch of noise and create problems for law enforcement and fellow citizens. At the end of it, they get a check. It's not a true movement. It's pretend.
That's the overarching theme. Underlying that, mixed in with the overt "we hate the guy who got elected" childishness, are "Black Lives Matter" and other outright racist signs.
Oops. I'm not supposed to say that. I'm white, and a woman, and over a certain age (39) so I can't call anyone "racist" - even if it fits.
On the other side, they can say I'm racist, a bigot, and all the rest, even though they don't know me. They don't know what I think, what I believe or what's in my heart. Just because I don't hold exactly the same view about things they do, I'm a... something.
What these people don't realize is: This country, because of generations of discriminatory laws, attitudes and behaviors, has deep wounds. The problem with deep wounds is that if you dig at a them, pick at the edges and rip at the scab, the wound can't heal. And that's what these people are doing.
By putting black lives above other lives, saying they're more important than brown lives or red lives or white lives, they're diminishing - discriminating against - those other lives.
By demanding that I, and other Caucasian people feel guilty because of a chance of birth, is plain stupid. I didn't choose to be white. It just happened.
In the place where I grew up, I'll admit it wasn't diverse, but is that my fault? Should I feel guilt because my parents bought their house in a town that was predominately white?
As it happened, my family wasn't much different than the families of my peers - except for the family of my Chinese friend who lived in one of the nicer neighborhoods in town, and Wilt Chamberlain who lived in a house that looked down on the small, three bedroom, one bathroom house my family lived in. We were middle class / borderline poor - one car, lots of casseroles and cheap meat, tent camping trips were the vacation of our dreams and, among that, I was raised to believe that I have to make and take opportunities that present themselves.
When I was fifteen, I tried to talk to my dad about planning for college. He looked me in the eye and said, "We can't afford it. If you want to go to college, you have to work through it." The door was closed because I was fifteen. I wasn't driven, so I looked for other options. I took typing classes. Then I went to junior college and took bookkeeping classes. I didn't get a leg up or special treatment. I wasn't admitted to the typing class because I was white. In fact, two of my classmates were black. I certainly didn't look around and pin the blame on someone else, not even of a different race. It was my situation, my problem, and it was up to me to figure it out, so I did. Should I feel guilty for that?
This is what I don't understand. Why are these people out there, marching, blocking traffic and sidewalks, interrupting the lives of other people just trying to go about their own business?
Why do they demand that I and other people who don't happen to be black, feel guilty for a chance of genetics?
If these people really want equality, as they say they do, why do they keep picking at the wound of differences? Why don't they stop pointing out that not everyone is the same? At the end of the day, what difference does it make? Who cares what color skin someone happens to have?
Martin Luther King said it best:
"I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character"
Why can't these people strive for that ideal and just go home?
Can someone enlighten me, please?
Best~
Philippa
Follow me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/PhilippaStories
Virtually all of it is organized and promoted by Moveon or other Soros fronts. This is a job for most of these people. They get word there's something on. They get dressed. They go out and make a bunch of noise and create problems for law enforcement and fellow citizens. At the end of it, they get a check. It's not a true movement. It's pretend.
That's the overarching theme. Underlying that, mixed in with the overt "we hate the guy who got elected" childishness, are "Black Lives Matter" and other outright racist signs.
Oops. I'm not supposed to say that. I'm white, and a woman, and over a certain age (39) so I can't call anyone "racist" - even if it fits.
On the other side, they can say I'm racist, a bigot, and all the rest, even though they don't know me. They don't know what I think, what I believe or what's in my heart. Just because I don't hold exactly the same view about things they do, I'm a... something.
What these people don't realize is: This country, because of generations of discriminatory laws, attitudes and behaviors, has deep wounds. The problem with deep wounds is that if you dig at a them, pick at the edges and rip at the scab, the wound can't heal. And that's what these people are doing.
By putting black lives above other lives, saying they're more important than brown lives or red lives or white lives, they're diminishing - discriminating against - those other lives.
By demanding that I, and other Caucasian people feel guilty because of a chance of birth, is plain stupid. I didn't choose to be white. It just happened.
In the place where I grew up, I'll admit it wasn't diverse, but is that my fault? Should I feel guilt because my parents bought their house in a town that was predominately white?
As it happened, my family wasn't much different than the families of my peers - except for the family of my Chinese friend who lived in one of the nicer neighborhoods in town, and Wilt Chamberlain who lived in a house that looked down on the small, three bedroom, one bathroom house my family lived in. We were middle class / borderline poor - one car, lots of casseroles and cheap meat, tent camping trips were the vacation of our dreams and, among that, I was raised to believe that I have to make and take opportunities that present themselves.
When I was fifteen, I tried to talk to my dad about planning for college. He looked me in the eye and said, "We can't afford it. If you want to go to college, you have to work through it." The door was closed because I was fifteen. I wasn't driven, so I looked for other options. I took typing classes. Then I went to junior college and took bookkeeping classes. I didn't get a leg up or special treatment. I wasn't admitted to the typing class because I was white. In fact, two of my classmates were black. I certainly didn't look around and pin the blame on someone else, not even of a different race. It was my situation, my problem, and it was up to me to figure it out, so I did. Should I feel guilty for that?
This is what I don't understand. Why are these people out there, marching, blocking traffic and sidewalks, interrupting the lives of other people just trying to go about their own business?
Why do they demand that I and other people who don't happen to be black, feel guilty for a chance of genetics?
If these people really want equality, as they say they do, why do they keep picking at the wound of differences? Why don't they stop pointing out that not everyone is the same? At the end of the day, what difference does it make? Who cares what color skin someone happens to have?
Martin Luther King said it best:
"I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character"
Why can't these people strive for that ideal and just go home?
Can someone enlighten me, please?
Best~
Philippa
Follow me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/PhilippaStories
The Sun Came Up After All
How about that? The election is over and we're still upright and breathing. The sun rose and things are moving along just as they did yesterday.
From where I sit, and where I think a lot of my fellow countrymen sit, there is a profound sense of relief. Relief and a looking-forward feeling that we're not about to fall off the edge into a downward spiral of more regulation, higher taxes and greater government control over our lives. It IS hopeful in America because, after months and months of struggle, door knocking, phone calls, hard work and hoping, we have a man with a positive, hopeful, uplifting message for America.
Donald Trump has said repeatedly, in front of hundreds of thousands of witnesses, that he will be OUR president. That he will work for US. That he loves America. That he will do all he can to protect our country and our best interests on the world stage.
I look forward to that. I look forward to looking up instead of down. I look forward to having a chance for a better quality of life, a thriving economy with higher employment. This is, truly, a new day and it is full of hope and the prospect of change we were promised more than eight years ago.
No matter what the BLS (Bureau of Labor Statistics) says, there are tens of millions of people who are and who have been sitting on the sidelines, sometimes for years, who haven't been able to find work. They are the truly disenfranchised, the hopeless. Now, because of the programs and ideas Donald Trump has publicized, they can hope again. They, too, can look forward to getting back to work, to digging in and feeling that sense of well-being that comes from contributing to the greater good through the effort of their own labor.
It won't happen immediately, but you can already see the sense of relief, of looking-forward in the stock market.
Companies that engage in construction and infrastructure, the equipment manufacturers, the material suppliers, are seeing a bounce in their stock prices. There is anticipation that those will be needed - and those companies will again be offering employment opportunities. In a matter of months, I think a lot of the un-employed, the given-up, the under employed will begin to see the budding of a new economic boom.
The coal industry, the broader energy industry, the lifeblood of our country will start to resurge. Jobs will open - the high paying jobs that have been promised for years and years - will start to open up and that will benefit the workers, their families and their communities. People will have money in their pocket, not because of government largesse or theft from others in the form of taxes, but because of their own labor. For the honest, the willing, there is no greater sense of satisfaction than going to work, working hard and, when the day is done looking back and saying, "I did a lot today" or "I had a good day."
It has been a long time, too long, since America has had an opportunity like this. I am glad we finally do. I am glad the sun rose over America this morning and there is change in the air.
And, in the spirit of the day, the hope and the expectation, I'll leave it there.
Best~
Philippa
Follow me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/PhilippaStories
From where I sit, and where I think a lot of my fellow countrymen sit, there is a profound sense of relief. Relief and a looking-forward feeling that we're not about to fall off the edge into a downward spiral of more regulation, higher taxes and greater government control over our lives. It IS hopeful in America because, after months and months of struggle, door knocking, phone calls, hard work and hoping, we have a man with a positive, hopeful, uplifting message for America.
Donald Trump has said repeatedly, in front of hundreds of thousands of witnesses, that he will be OUR president. That he will work for US. That he loves America. That he will do all he can to protect our country and our best interests on the world stage.
I look forward to that. I look forward to looking up instead of down. I look forward to having a chance for a better quality of life, a thriving economy with higher employment. This is, truly, a new day and it is full of hope and the prospect of change we were promised more than eight years ago.
No matter what the BLS (Bureau of Labor Statistics) says, there are tens of millions of people who are and who have been sitting on the sidelines, sometimes for years, who haven't been able to find work. They are the truly disenfranchised, the hopeless. Now, because of the programs and ideas Donald Trump has publicized, they can hope again. They, too, can look forward to getting back to work, to digging in and feeling that sense of well-being that comes from contributing to the greater good through the effort of their own labor.
It won't happen immediately, but you can already see the sense of relief, of looking-forward in the stock market.
Companies that engage in construction and infrastructure, the equipment manufacturers, the material suppliers, are seeing a bounce in their stock prices. There is anticipation that those will be needed - and those companies will again be offering employment opportunities. In a matter of months, I think a lot of the un-employed, the given-up, the under employed will begin to see the budding of a new economic boom.
The coal industry, the broader energy industry, the lifeblood of our country will start to resurge. Jobs will open - the high paying jobs that have been promised for years and years - will start to open up and that will benefit the workers, their families and their communities. People will have money in their pocket, not because of government largesse or theft from others in the form of taxes, but because of their own labor. For the honest, the willing, there is no greater sense of satisfaction than going to work, working hard and, when the day is done looking back and saying, "I did a lot today" or "I had a good day."
It has been a long time, too long, since America has had an opportunity like this. I am glad we finally do. I am glad the sun rose over America this morning and there is change in the air.
And, in the spirit of the day, the hope and the expectation, I'll leave it there.
Best~
Philippa
Follow me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/PhilippaStories
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