My Thoughts

I had an amazing experience this afternoon which turned an otherwise tired, angry old man into a proud American Veteran. It feels these days as though we are riding on a shaky roller coaster, not quite sure whether the ride will end in disaster or reprieve. I love this country, I proudly served for nine years—almost went for twenty, but that is a story for another time—and I am thankful for all that America and the U.S. Army did to turn a boy into a man. The Service taught me a lot about duty, honor, country; trained me, sent me overseas where I learned how different and how similar we are no matter where we live or how divers our cultures; VA benefits paid for my college education. Though there were sacrifices, separations, and more than a few trials and tribulations, overall, it was the greatest experience of my young life. This country, my country has blessed me in countless ways.

So, first, that tired, angry old man. I am, admittedly, all three: tired, old, and angry. I would say I am sick and tired but I am not sick, just terribly tired of all this chaos and anarchy, the burning and the looting, the violence and lawlessness; this is not my America, not the country that I proudly served for nearly a decade. The gall of those who dare destroy what I and countless others who have served, died or wounded fought to defend: you sicken me, I do not care a damn bit for your lawlessness nor your insanity. You didn’t build this country, I did along with your forefathers and all those who came before. 

I am old, grew up in the fifties and sixties, during the height of the “Cold War,” was stationed in Germany for three years when border skirmishes were a daily fare between East and West, too often deadly, never “mostly peaceful.” Terrorism was ever present, with the Bader-Meinhof gang, the Red Army faction, and the Palestinian terrorist group Black September who murdered nine members of the Israeli Olympic team during the 1972 Munich Olympics. But then, you never heard of these because your history books no longer mention such unpleasant truths. These were European and Mideastern Marxist terrorist groups; they were socialist, communist, atheistic nihilists: anti-God, anti-democracy, anti-law, anti, anti, anti, hate, hate, hate. At the same time, back in the good old U.S. of A we had the Chicago Seven, the Black Panthers, the Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA), the Manson cult, among others rioting, kidnapping, robbing, bombing, and murdering; again “mostly peaceful” protests.

All the while there was the constant threat of a nuclear war with the Soviet Union. The Communist regimes in the Soviet Union, China, and elsewhere were brutal, killing machines, far outdoing the Nazi death camps. Those who believe in Socialism but have never experienced it always excuse the failed attempts: “This time it will be different,” has said every socialist for nearly two-centuries and countless attempts, none have succeeded in creating a new utopia, and never will. I lived next door to socialism, I lived through a time when those of us in the West saw evil for what it was, inhuman, anti-human, pure evil to its core and we would have none of it. So spare me your bromides and platitudes; you have no idea what you are talking about. I do. I lived it. You have not.

I am angry, so angry I could spit at all the hypocrites, the sycophants, the know-nothing elites, and the globalist technocrats, the oligarchs, and bureaucrats who have turned this beautiful and marvelous country into a cesspool, a gulag in drag, a police state on par with the KGB, a media identical to Pravda (the Soviet propaganda machine,) and governments run and ruled by tyrants and soviet-style dictators who believe they can “dictate” whatever and whenever they will. I am sorry, but no one, NO ONE granted you such powers, not in America. It is time you learned what you were never taught or, most likely, you have purposely and conveniently forgotten: Americans are a free and independent people; we are your masters, you are the servants.

This year, 2020, has been a disastrous year for every freedom-loving, law-abiding, flag-waving, patriotic American. The pandemic, made in China, has made us fearful. Those who would advantage themselves of this crisis, this opportunity too good to go to waste, have done so, big time. It is not the only crisis now upon us, but it is the root, the first cause of this near perfect storm.

Here, I must speak to my fellow Nevadans, though there are other states with similar situations. The threat we now face, is from one person, Governor Stickittous Sisolak, who, for reasons entirely of his own weak and infantile mind, now threatens us with punitive actions for not bowing down and kissing his caboose fast enough. A governor who at the stroke of midnight, behind closed doors, along with his cabal of sycophant democrat legislators changed the rules for the election process (to disastrous but expected results), who now, like a spoiled three-year-old child and bully to boot, dares throw a temper tantrum because we, his minions won’t give him his tootsie roll pop. Sorry, Guv, but that dog don’t hunt, I will not comply. Understand me, I WILL NOT COMPLY. Your job is not to lock us down, your job is not to tell us what to do or how to live our lives, your job is not to stop the virus, secure our health, annihilate the risk, play pity party politics, or play god. Your job, the job WE elected you to do is to administer and execute the law of the State of Nevada. PERIOD. So far you have shown us you are nothing but a tin foil petty tyrant. The living and the dying are not for you to decide, administrate, or control. Get over yourself. We have. We are fed up. Govern justly and rightly or sit down, shut up, and get out of the way.

Here I stand and I will not be cowed, I will not kneel, I will not bend, I will not yield. I ask not for your compassion, I ask not for your pity, I ask not for your permission to exercise my God-given and Constitutional rights.

Now, as for that amazing experience. This is what this country, what we as a people of this great and glorious land are truly all about. I went to the grocery store this afternoon, wearing my U.S. Army jacket with SSgt on the breast, my MAGA cap on my head and my TRUMP 2020 mask over my nose and mouth (totally useless device as it cannot seal against my beard. I also had to keep licking my fingers to open the darn cheap plastic bags, take that sissylak). As I was vegging in the veggie aisle, a young man working there asked if I was a veteran. When I said, “yes,” he stood tall, saluted, and said, “thank you for your service.” But, it was what he said then that truly amazed me. “I like your cap and your mask, I know, that may surprise you coming from someone my age, but I mean it.” Maybe there is still some hope for us after all. Thank you and God Bless America.

Just my thoughts for a Wednesday, for what it is worth.