Friends, Happy 4th of July!!! Our country is 249 years old, and doesn't look a day over 227, if you ask me. Next year we'll be celebrating 250 years of liberty and awesomeness, and in many ways the festivities are already underway, led by YOU KNOW WHO, El Presidente, Donald J. Trump. Almost half the country believes implicitly that Trump's America is about to implode, and yet, to you and me, things are looking up! The economy is strong, our border is secure, the judiciary has been reined in, the legacy media and higher ed are cowed, at least to a point, and most men and women seem to know (roughly) what gender they are. Are these the best of times? Well, let's not jump to that conclusion, but there's reason to believe that 'Merica has a bit of life left in her, and that's something. President Trump will, of course, sign the Big, Beautiful Bill into law today. There are countless upsides, and we must hope that these positive reforms produce a massive surge in economic growth. Frankly, technological advancements, like A.I., may do that anyway, but a pro-growth federal government that actively protects American jobs and insists on American access to foreign markets doesn't hurt any. So God Bless America, and God Bless YOU!!!
RAY TO DR. WADDY
ReplyDeleteHappy 4th of July to YOU! God Bless YOU!
Dr. Waddy from Jack: I think that in a very real way, to be born in America is to have won the lottery. I've seen what third world life can be like : in Hong Kong I saw a man wearing newspapers; in Manila I saw a homeless approximately 4 year old who wore only a tee shirt; in Tijuana I saw cardboard houses; even in prosperous Singapore I saw people sleeping outside directly on concrete to escape the stifling heat of their housing. History tells us that this has been the norm for perhaps the majority of people. Two of our Founding Fathers ( I think Franklin was one of them) were immeasurably appalled by the poverty they saw even in a brief journey outside of 1770's London.
ReplyDeleteOur standard of living deserves the term miraculous even though it is the result of objective factors like our spacious land, our relatively comfortable climate, our prolific agriculture , our magnificent industry, our moral strengths derived from our tried and true religions and our English political and legal heritage with its emphasis on freedom and property. Our good fortune in living this way is incalculable. Most of us have enough food, liveable housing , access to education which enhances the luck we have simply in being born here, abundant sources of entertainment and enjoyment of avocation and retirement in older yet still enjoyable age. Most fortunate is our ability to keep our homeland free of the comprehensive ravages of war and conquest by technologically enabled barbarians.
July 4th is not a day to dwell on our country's human faults, which I saw being lamented by a tasteless demonstrative faction in our town today. Most fair-minded people are aware of our human injustices but also of the very supportable fact that, ON BALANCE, our country has done this hard old world much benefit. We have gone to lengths perhaps no other country ever has to establish justice both in our country and in countries over which we have exercised control for a time (usually after defeating their efforts to destroy us).
We were founded by an elite devoted to the precepts of the early Enlightenment ( not, emphatically, to the Enlightenment's 19th century aberrations )which generated the written framework for the most durable and beneficent government of modern humanity. Yes, it had to be affirmed by civil war but it prevailed in that calamity. How very, very fortunate that it preserved our unity because we were consequently fit to save all the world from the theretofore unimaginablely evil technologically enabled dictatorships of the 20th century. No other country could have done it and the world might well now be in a new Dark Age but for it.
Having attended college in the '60s I experienced the marxist induced hatred for our country embraced by a young generatiion which had grown up with well being largely unexperienced even in the U.S., even 20 years previously. . One acquaintance in particular was always eager to express his scorn for our country. But he returned in haste from a brief sojourne in a civilized but not nearly as prosperous land fairly mewing for the creature comforts to which he was accustomed in this land he so disdained. I would bid anyone who thinks our well being (which is obvious simply by entering any U.S., aptly named,supermarket) is dismissable: TRY LIVING WITHOUT IT. My family did, with 8 years without electricity and with other "shortcomings ". It was much harder than we ever anticipated; it did get easier but it never got easy.
No matter what misgivings we might have about some aspects of our history or our present state of affairs we would do well to have the humility to be grateful for the great fortune we have to live here. Its well worth and worthy of ,celebrating once a year at least.
Dr. Waddy from Jack: I was wrong to say" . . . embraced by a generation. . . ". It was a faction of our boomer crowd but we were such a huge generation that that was enough to do grievous injustice to our civilization. We were the product of our parents' joy at having survived the Depression and WWII; how ironic that so many of us excoriated them for their "irrelevance" and "complacency" . They had more than earned their relief from travails!
ReplyDeleteDr. Waddy from Jack: I heard a Dem commentator today express her confidence that the GOP would pay for GB3 in the midterms. After all, she pointed out, Obama lost many House seats after he passed Obamacare. Ehhh, not !!
ReplyDeleteObamacare was worked by a President who had affirmed his intention to "fundamentally transform" a U.S. which knew it did not need such comprehensive, perhaps badly thought out change. It was of course reasonable to assume that Obamacare was a key part of this effort, led by a man whose far leftist inclinations were obvious. America did not wish to be so "transformed". So it sent many of his supporters in Congress packing.
President Trump's "great big beautiful bill" is the product of his remarkable confidence in America as it is, not as it appears in smoky far left dreams in which America is duly punished and forcefully remade to pay for its fundamental evil.
It encodes, much beyond the temporary effects of Executive Orders , such welcome reforms as tax relief and the elimination of frivolous expenditures fostered by misplaced deference to America haters in government. It specifically addresses measures such as the elimination of taxes on tips and overtime which President Trump promised in his 2024 campaign, on the strength of which, and much else of redemptive promise to America, he was returned to office.
The GB3 bill is not a tool for forcing "fundamental transformation" of America; rather it heralds a return to a common sense which is viciously resisted by a fanatic "American" far left. We have seen first hand the good will and almost incredible devotion of this President to delivering America from the 50+ year curse of neomarxism. It is the antithesis of the radical intentions plainly signaled by Obama and deservedly resisted by American Congressional voters. There is little reason to think it will redound to the credit of those who bear President Trump such intense and mindless antipathy.