A MAGA Platform - Under Construction

 

This is a list of the things most MAGA People support. These are realistic goals, and depend upon implementing them through the legal process, with the consent of the governed. Policies can be implemented through laws where needed, repeal or restructuring of regulations and executive action to reverse existing executive orders. Most of this applies to the Federal level, and has implications for the state and local levels of government. There are some caveats that are assumed, and I may need to add them in at some point. If I missed some items, let me know. 

We the People seek to:

1. reform government to limit the size and scope of the federal government; 

2. believe and promote the positive view of America and of its influence on the world;

3. hold bureaucrats accountable for performance;

4. promote equal treatment under the law;

5. allow free speech, especially political speech including speech that we don’t like or agree with (aside from libel, slander and other widely accepted and specified forms of speech); 

6. fully fund the police and allow them to enforce the law equally and fairly with accountability for their overreach and abuses; 

7. allow businesses to operate consistent with the religious beliefs and practices of the owners and employees; 

8. define what a woman is, what a man is, what a boy and a girl are, and what the differences are between them; 

9. support promote and protect the nuclear family with one man married to one woman and children under their care and responsibility; 

10. consider American interests first in all policy decisions, especially in foreign policy;  

11. build a border wall where necessary and effectively enforce our immigration laws;

12. require citizenship for voting and voter ID for each person to get and to cast a ballot;

13. restore confidence in our voting systems through open processes and responsiveness to the voting public; 

14. seek peace through strength in the foreign policy arena; 

15. avoid unnecessary wars or foreign intervention; 

16. allow all forms of energy including coal, natural gas, nuclear, wind, solar and hydroelectric power to be responsibly produced and used in our country to reestablish American energy independence;

17. lower business tax rates to be competitive with international business tax rates;

18. reduce burdensome federal regulations that drive business offshore; 

19. promote and teach the positive and complete history of America as a force for good in the world which has advanced from a slaveholding society to a society where all ethnicities have an equal opportunity to work, to learn, to accumulate wealth, to hold high office and to do whatever within the law that they want with whomever they want; 

20. allow businesses to operate without the fear of the federal government forcing political policies or agendas on them;

21. have agencies of the federal government depoliticized so that such agencies as the FBI investigate crimes in search of persons who committed those crimes rather than investigate persons in search of crimes, and agencies like the IRS apply the law equally and fairly to persons of all religions, political views, race and sex;

22. appoint judges who interpret laws consistent with the US Constitution, the text of the law and the original expressed intent of the lawmakers who wrote it;

23. recognize that the constitution limits government, and protects the rights of We the People and of the States;

24. restore budgetary and fiscal responsibility to Congress;

25. reduce spending to the point that we have a surplus and pay down the national debt; 

26. restore normal legislative order and make Congress write laws that are specific, rather than relying upon unelected bureaucrats to write regulations with the force of law in response to vague and sweeping laws;

27. add “sunset provisions” into most laws, especially spending laws, with an option to renew with a vote by Congress and signature by the President;

28. believe America was great and can be great again.

A Mature Conversation about Let's Go Brandon!

There is a phrase being chanted and posted that went viral in 2021, "Let's go Brandon!". This phrase has taken on a meaning that is totally disconnected from what the simple words put together mean.  More on the origins of the phrase later. The phrase gives me a platform to examine something that has long bothered me, about phrases we use regularly, and their true meanings. 

"Let's Go Brandon" came about quite by accident, during a recent post-race trackside TV interview of a driver named Brandon, who in fact won the race. There were remnants of the crowd who had just watched the race still present in the stands behind the race car driver and his network TV sports interviewer. As the interview progressed, fans in the stands started chanting "F___ Joe Biden!" loudly enough to be heard on TV. They were heartily chanting it, and many people noticed it, as it was being broadcast on live TV. The phrase carried the clear message that folks were unhappy with the current President of the United States. The chant was aimed at a specific person, and carried a general message, and it had nothing to do with the interview transpiring in front of them at the moment. But politics had bled into the minds of the crowd, and they took the opportunity of an open mic and camera to express their frustration at the direction their country was heading at the time. The reporter interviewing the race car driver Brandon tried to incorporate the chant of the crowd into the interview, either misunderstanding their enthusiasm to be for the race winner, Brandon, or trying to redirect the live audience into thinking they heard chants for the winning driver. She said something to the effect of "Hey, can you hear them chanting for you? Let's go Brandon!" Brandon briefly flashed a baffled facial expression, but in his exuberance over winning his first race at the professional level, he didn't really comment on the chant one way or the other. And so the phrase was overlaid on the chant, and live TV spread it to a mostly conservative crowd which was already disapproving of President Biden and his administration. I had heard the original "F--- Joe Biden!" chant before, but because I am a Christian, and avoid cussing, I never said it. But I wanted to express my disapproval and frustration, and I laughed out loud when she reinterpreted their familiar chant.  

Soon on social media, people started making signs and t-shirts, bumper stickers and of course, memes for posts of all sorts. The meaning was clear, and it was this: We are unhappy with the performance of our President, and want to express our frustration with the direction of our great country. That was the essence of the chant and phrase. It broke out at baseball games, in crowds at parks, at rallies - especially campaign rallies and was so ubiquitous that the Democrat Party had to find a way to reverse the damage it was causing. Once, during a TV interview, a caller asked President Biden a question, and waited on the phone as he answered. When he finished his answer, the reporter asked the caller if there was anything else he would like to say to the President, to which he replied "Let's go Brandon!" President Biden echoed back with a big smile on his face "Yes, let's go Brandon!". 

So what is the "real talk" or  "Mature conversation" about Let's go Brandon? There is a range of morality among people, and some are willing to use vulgar language in public, some are not. Those who have no internal limitation on their use of profane speech just come out and curse at President Biden, but those of us who do not want to curse do not use vulgar chants. So when an opportuinity to express our frustration without saying a curse word became popular and catchy, we took the opportunity to say that phrase without violating our consciences. Some still think the curse word in their minds, and thus are still unwilling to say "Let's go Brandon!", and that's understandable and ok too. What makes a curse word, like the F-word so vulgar? It is the literal meaning, which in the case of the F-word means doing a sexual act, which falls into the category of things that should only be done in private, which is why using the word in public is so vulgar. If you think about it, most "cuss words" have to do with actions normally reserved for private spaces and times. Then you get to the secondary meaning of the F-word, which is to basically express some combination of "Forget" plus "Curse" plus "insult" plus "reject" in a very negative way. When one says "F___ you!", they are not typically saying they want to perform a sex act on you, they are almost exclusively using the secondary meaning with their specific levels of the aspects of meaning against you. So replacing the "F___ Joe Biden!" with "Let's go Brandon!" still expresses the negative feeling for the target of the speaker's anger, without any connection to the vulgar primary meaning of the F-word, which they never intended to communicate anyway. 

The first defense that arose in response to the widespread use of the phrase "Let's go Brandon!" was to shame the speaker by saying they were actually still using the F-word, or they wanted to do the primary meaning of the F-word to Joe Biden (a gross and creepy thought for sure). And yet the phrase persists. Why? because people are truly angry at the direction of the country they love under the leadership and direction of President Joe Biden. It's not a transitory flash of rage, it's a simmering anger and discontentment brought on by widespread evidence of damage to our country, to our culture, and to our future. 

One last aspect of the Let's go Brandon! phenomenon to consider is this. Americans often like to boil their expressions down to short, pithy phrases, which are a summary or label for their thoughts and feelings on a matter. It seems to be some combination of laziness and efficiency, and it has manifest itself in many "loaded phrases", such as "Black Lives Matter", "Make America Great Again", "Back to School", "Like a Boss", "The GOAT", "Climate Change", and "American Exceptionalism". These short pithy phrases also fit well on t-shirts and bumper stickers.

So when someone says "Let's go Brandon!", they are really just expressing their frustration with President Biden, or President Brandon, as some have started calling him. That's really what it boils down to. 

20 Remarkable Things in 2020

 2020 has been a remarkable year, with many major events and a few interesting things. I wanted to summarize it during 2020, in hopes that not many more things will merit being added to the list. 

1. In January, Kobe Bryant died in a tragic helicopter crash. He, his daughter, coaches and more were flying in the LA area, through fog. It was a major loss to the sporting community, and to the Black community, because Kobe had been such an influential and positive figure. 

2. President Trump was impeached. 

3. The Novel Coronavirus spread from China to America and to the world. 

4. I got COVID-19 from the Coronavirus on March 11. Tested on 3/13, and confirmed it on 3/15. 

5. The economy was shut down to prevent the spread of Coronavirus, That shutdown is mostly ongoing. 

6. Joe Biden was selected as the Democratic Presidential candidate, winning the primary process with some influence from the DNC to dispatch Senator Bernie Sanders. Bernie was the people's choice of the Democrat base, and Kamala Harris was the first Democrat candidate to drop out of the race, even before the first primary vote was held. Senator Harris roasted VP Biden for his racist past and comments, but it did not endear her to Democrat primary voters or donors.

7. We got "Murder Hornets" which could sting humans to death. This creature was identified in Washington state, and its first victims were there. 

8. There were massive wildfires across California, Oregon and Washington, which burned millions of acres, and even were causing red sunsets as far east as Michigan. This was the result of poor forest management. 

9. My daughter graduated from GA Tech, but had a delayed ceremony in December due to COVID-19 shutdowns. 

10. We learned a new term: Social distancing. This is the process of staying more than 6 feet apart, to minimize or prevent the spread of Coronavirus. 

11. The Trump administration brokered a historic peace treaty between UAE and Israel. While the two were not at war, they now have normalized relations between the two states, opening up business, banking and travel between the two countries.

12. The Trump administration brokered a historic peace treaty between Bahrain and Israel.

13. The Trump administration brokered a historic economic treaty between Kosovo and Serbia. 

14. We have had more named Atlantic tropical storms than in any other year. 

15. President Trump garnered a higher percentage of Black voters, of Latino voters, and more votes than his first election, yet the election is marred with claims of fraud. 

16. In the third quarter of 2020, the American economy had a 33% GDP growth rate, equaling the past record for growth in America. 

17. As a result of Operation Warp Speed, two COVID-19 vaccines were developed and are in production as of November, and were distributed starting in December. Their effectiveness rates are both above 90%. 

18. Ammunition for guns has more than tripled in price since January, as of November, 2020. 

19. Kamala Harris was selected as the Democratic Party VP candidate. 

20. VP Joe Biden and Senator Kamala Harris prevailed in the 2020 general election. 

2020 GA Senate Runoff Post Mortem

This loss started a long time ago. First, Governor Kemp appointed Kelly Loeffler to the open seat without having the GA GOP team onboard. There were a few people hoping and waiting for that seat to open, especially Rep. Doug Collins. I suspect there was a financial benefit to Governor Kemp which helped him make her the choice to fill the seat. Second, the jungle Primary was a major problem, because it pitted Democrats and Republicans against each other for the seat, splitting the GOP vote. That lead to the runoff in the first place! Then, Rep. Doug Collins was not convinced not to get into the race for the rest of the unexpired Senate term, and his running against Senator Loeffler hurt them both in the general election. Third, the candidates ran as separate campaigns, rather than as a team, like Ossoff and Warnock did. The Democrat campaigns coordinated well together, with better results. Fourth, President Trump is also partly to blame, because his continual claims of election corruption dampened enthusiasm and trust in the election process. The lack of faith in the system may have been more damaging than the lack of enthusiasm, but who knows, and who would it matter? Fifth, President Trump trashed GA GOP folks including the Governor, the SoS, and others, on social media. That divided the party when it needed to be unified. It was a bad confluence of factors, and it took more than just one factor to cause this outcome. We have a lot of work to do to restore confidence, and rebuild the GA GOP.

Another Super bowl - ho hum

I should've been excited about the 2019 Super Bowl, but I just wasn't. I mean, I usually watch it, pick a team based on some tangible reasons or even based on some subjective reason like team colors, who they beat to get there, or the team's unique story. But this year was different. I just was not interested. 

The game is now over, but I'm neither happy Brady and company won, nor angry LA lost. This game also set the dubious record of being the lowest scoring Super bowl ever, which compounded my boredom with this game. 

Pre-Primary 2016 Ramblings

It's been a while.  I am trying to have a positive impact on the 2016 election, by resisting the polarization within the primary process.  Sure, I support my guy, and I am a member of a major party. But I am not saying that any other choice beside mine is fatal to the cause. Since it is before the first primary or caucus, things could change and I don't want to have to walk back any statements about other candidates.
What I am also bumping into is that on Facebook, when I post something, there is a lot of noisy feedback, and often the points get lost in the ensuing debate. This may be intentional, but this is not my intention. Another point is that I base my decisions on my Christian worldview, and sometimes this causes a lot of feedback. I need to stand firmly and confidently upon my choices, and to do so, they must be well thought out, and considered before being published. Perhaps I will use this blog as a point to launch and to test such positions first.

After the 2010 Budget Compromise

They say that Politics is the art of Compromise. Well, that may well be the problem! We in-artfully compromise, and get screwed by shrewd Democrats. We need to be tough, and get tough with those who would spend our country into oblivion. For example, what we need is better strategy. I like Mike Steele, but if he's helping craft the GOP messaging, we might need some young guns in the GOP HQ message-crafting office instead. The first thing we need to do is to NOT rule out a government shutdown. Even the threat of it helps negotiate a better deal. Second, we need to close all of our primaries, so only GOP can vote in them. No more outside influences on our primaries. Third, we need to pass a military funding bill that appropriates the defense budget separately, and for the rest of the year and pass it in both the House and Senate. Fourth, we need to reclaim the idea that we are cutting the PPACA (Obamacare) because it has been ruled unconstitutional twice. We didn't lose much in 1996 (2 house seats?! That's all!), and we held the House and Senate until 2006. Sounds like a fair trade to me. Finally, we just have to keep any shutdown focused on the issues, not on personalities; ours or theirs. The president would love to demagogue the shutdown, but if we stand confidently, firmly, cheerfully and refute their lies and distortions, the president will not get much credit. In fact, it will become obvious that the president is standing in the way of those working on serious spending reductions, and it will help any good GOP 2012 candidate who clearly articulates the responsible policies and reasons for them. There is enough alternate media out there to reach the moderates who truly love our country and its freedoms, and the seniors who will not be hurt by the Ryan Road-map to Prosperity spending reductions.