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THE ATTEMPT TO INSTALL A ONE-PARTY OLIGARCHY IS PREDESTINED TO FAIL
By Steve McCann, January 26, 2021

Scattered throughout the length and breadth of the United States are those who have experienced first-hand the tyranny of despotic rulers and repressive one-party oligarchies.  Today, many of us that came here as refugees are watching with bemusement and a mild sense of trepidation as the oblivious, self-absorbed, puerile wannabe autocrats in the Ruling Class are hell-bent on imposing their dysfunctional version of one-party dictatorial rule on a nation they apparently neither know nor understand. 

The vast bulk of this cadre of self-styled intellectuals and societal elites are little different from those in various European nations. They are not only beset with a severe case of narcissism but are among the most gullible and easily manipulated due to their overweening need to feel superior to those they perceive to be lesser fellow citizens. This sense of superiority eventually manifests itself in an immutable belief that they are preordained to rule the unwashed masses. Thus, they easily fall sway to a charismatic leader or are willing to accept any inane philosophical theory or deviancy that helps embed their status among the nation’s elites.

George Orwell in a letter written in 1944 (5 years prior to the publication of his seminal work 1984) wrote the following:

There is this fact that the intellectuals are more totalitarian in outlook than the common people. On the whole the English intelligentsia have opposed Hitler, but at the price of accepting Stalin. Most of them are perfectly ready for dictatorial methods, secret police, systemic falsification of history etc. as long as they feel it is on ‘our’ side.

The current iteration of the American Ruling Class has not only embraced dictatorial methods as a means to their ends but are astonishingly ill-educated thanks to decades of indoctrination rather than education at America’s universities.   This ill-education encompasses not only an inability by the vast majority to reason and generate an original thought but also a breathtaking ignorance of the history of mankind, and a profound inability to comprehend the American experience and citizenry.

The history of the 20th Century is replete with examples of nations that have succumbed to one-party tyrannical rule. In all cases these countries share at least one of two common threads. First, due to global or regional wars, they suffered overwhelming destruction to their societies and economies, opening the door for those espousing Marxism/socialism as a cure for the nation’s ills. Second, none of these nations had a centuries long history of freedom and self-determination. 

The most notable examples of totalitarian one-party rule were Germany and Italy, and currently Russia and China.  The devastating physical and financial destruction of World War I precipitated chaos throughout these European nations. World War II opened the door in China for Mao Zedong to solidify his party’s supremacy as he had been unable to do so in previous internal conflicts.  These hostilities were the catalyst for the rise to power of one-party rule in all these nations under either the banner of Fascism, Nazism or Communism.  Further, none of these nations (and others with dysfunctional impoverished societies that succumbed to one-party rule, such as Cuba) had any meaningful history of a being a successful multi-cultural society steeped in freedom and unfettered capitalism.  

The United States is not reeling from the aftermath of a devastating war on its soil. Its citizenry is not suffering the effects of a massive depression. This nation for 245 years has promoted and reveled in individual freedom and free enterprise. As a result, its economy, particularly over the past century is the most successful and dominant in world history. America is the only country in the annals of mankind that has sanctioned the unrestricted right of the populace to own and bear arms as a bulwark against an oppressive central government. This is not now, nor has it ever been, a nation ripe for the ascension of one-party totalitarian rule. 

Thus, the current infatuation with themselves by this nation’s elites is about to run headfirst into a brick wall. Their attempt to transform the United States into their hybrid version of a one-party oligarchy under the banner of a new hybrid of socialism is doomed to failure. 

Their psychotic obsession to rid themselves of the threat that Donald Trump posed to their hegemonic plans has prompted unforced and fatal errors. The blatant hijacking of the 2020 election using the Chinese Coronavirus as cover.  Unabashedly, and with malice, defaming half of the voting citizenry as irredeemable domestic terrorists that must be vanquished.  Accusing nearly 70% of the population of being racists solely because of their skin color. Unable to control themselves and within hours of having assumed control of Congress and the White House, plunging headfirst into uncharted political overreach through an avalanche of Executive Orders. 

These actions reveal a mindless faction in the process of emulating the final scenes in The Wizard of Oz drawing back the green curtain exposing their true colors, character and incompetence. 

The vast majority of the denizens of the Ruling Class are not the best and brightest. They are mere hangers-on who have an insatiable need to be considered part of the in-crowd. While many have framed elite university diplomas hanging on their walls, they are nearly devoid of what used to be generically known as common sense. Their most prominent personal characteristics are self-aggrandizement and cupidity. Their espousal of Marxism/socialism is self-serving as this philosophy empowers an omnipotent ruling class or oligarchy. Yet, they could not survive a week in those repressive societies they glorify and wish to foist on the rest of the country. When confronted with their failures they invariably blame others and are, for the most part, moral and physical cowards. They will not stand up to an organized and determined citizenry. 

Therefore, Americans must now mobilize to not just win skirmishes but to permanently dispatch these fatuous megalomaniacs who have declared their determination to transform America and create a one-party oligarchy. The time has come for unfettered and peaceful civil disobedience as espoused by Gandhi and Martin Luther King. Marches and demonstrations must become commonplace. Additionally, the vast majority of Americans need to stop watching and reading the mainstream and social media and instead search out and support alternative news sources. 

The citizens of each state must mobilize and demand that unlawful or illegal edicts and Executive Orders emanating from Washington must be ignored by the individual state governors and not just challenged in the courts. The citizenry needs to forcefully and immediately concentrate on changing and codifying election laws in all the state legislatures. Further, the focus in future elections should not be on Congress but rather governorships and state legislatures throughout the country.  

It is imperative that the people vote in the congressional primaries as if they were the general election in order to dispatch to the ash heap elected officials that aided and abetted the election fraud of 2020, the second impeachment of Donald Trump and any legislation advancing the tyrannical agenda of the Ruling Class. 

Lastly, various elements of the populace need to stop falling prey to the not-so-subtle message put forth by various elements of the mainstream and social media monopoly that all is lost, and the left has won the war to transform the nation. They have not and will not. Pessimism and defeatism are what the ruling elites are counting on. Confidence and a willingness to fight for this country is a trait all of us who were rescued by the American people from either the cauldron of unconditional war or the tyranny of oppression experienced first-hand and continue to see in many of our fellow citizens to this day. 

The above actions are rooted in the freedoms Americans have enjoyed since 1776 and thus cannot be eliminated by any faction or party without precipitating a violent civil war they will lose. That is why the current attempt to foist a one-party oligarchy on the United States will never succeed.

Reprinted with permission from the American Thinker: https://www.americanthinker.com

NOTABLE QUOTES

-- Thomas Paine, The Crisis I, December 19, 1776 --

GUEST COLUMN
The War On Conservatives 
By Lewis C Rudel

The War On Conservatives

The Left (with the complicity of “Big Tech”, and the “Main Stream Media”) in this country has started a war on anyone who doesn’t agree with their political agenda. Amazon, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube are now censoring or deleting the accounts of anyone who disagrees with their politics.

Not only is the Left censoring people, they are attempting to destroy companies that don’t agree with them. The latest example is Mike Lindell of My Pillow. The Left has arranged to exclude sales of My Pillow from the following stores: Dollar General, ShopHQ, Mattress Firm, Kohl’s, Kroger, BJ’s, Wayfair, Bed, Bath, and Beyond, TSC/The Shopping Channel, H-E-B, Affirm, Fingerhut, Kinney Drugs, Colony Brands, Bluestream, Coburn’s, Chewey, and JCP. They are doing this because Mike is a supporter of President Trump and believes that there was fraud in the election.

There are ways to counter this attack on conservative values. Stop shopping at companies who practice this type of discrimination. Try seeking alternatives to Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. Some Facebook alternatives are MeWe, Diaspora, Mastadon, and Minds. Twitter alternatives are Gab, Peeks, Amino, and Mastadon. Vimeo is a good alternative for YouTube. Walmart.com and E-Bay are alternatives for Amazon. For your Internet Browser, consider Brave, which provides Ad Blocker and Anti Tracking features. For a search engine, try DuckDuckGo (which doesn’t track you) rather than Google (which does).

I have begun to use Gab as a Twitter alternative as they believe in free speech and will not censor anyone (unless they advocate violence). I am using MeWe and Gab for my Facebook alternative because they also don’t censor people who don’t agree with their politics. I am using Vimeo as a YouTube alternative and I am using Walmart.com and E-Bay as my Amazon alternative.

If we adopt some of these things, perhaps we will be able to stop the slide of this Country toward Socialism. Our current system of government has resulted in the one of the best place in the world to live. It would be a shame to go down the same path as Venezuela where Socialism has taken one of the richest and most successful South American countries and created the current disaster.

RETHINKING AMERICAN EDUCATION
By Dennis L. Weisman, February 12, 2021

Public K-12 education in this country suffers from a lack of effective competition that prevents market forces from working the way they should. What would happen if there was school choice in America today? Parents who are dissatisfied with the educational product their public schools provide could vote with their feet and take their tax dollars and their children to schools that offer better value. Opposition to school choice is highly regressive because the wealthiest families have the ability to pay twice for their children’s education, first through taxes and second through private school tuition. This is not an option for lower-income households.

The benefits of school choice are substantial. First, the public schools in most of the country would have to reopen to compete with the private schools that never closed or did so only briefly. Second, the salaries of exceptional teachers would rise, while those of underperforming teachers would fall and the least proficient among those would be driven from teaching altogether. Most importantly, the quality of instruction would increase while expenditures decrease as a direct result of competition between schools. The teachers’ unions oppose school choice precisely because it would force public schools across the country to actually compete on the merits or perish the way any underperforming enterprise should.

Public K-12 education suffers as a result of high barriers to entry that prevent competition from instilling the requisite discipline in public education. The aforementioned absence of school choice is one problem and an unduly cumbersome teacher certification/licensing process is another. Lower these barriers to entry and competition will flourish. Our children will receive a higher-quality education at lower prices which will improve productivity and America’s competitiveness. Unfortunately, the institutional constraints that sustain these barriers to entry and impede effective competition are firmly entrenched with support at the highest levels of government. The teachers’ unions are a strong Democrat political lobby.

Where to Begin?

A significant number of dedicated and highly intelligent college students major in education. Nonetheless, on average, education majors do not rank in the highest percentiles on college aptitude tests. This is consistent with my university teaching experience wherein education majors were overrepresented in the lower half of the grade distribution. If we want to improve educational outputs, we need to improve educational inputs and that begins with higher teacher proficiency.

The problem with the teachers’ unions is primarily twofold. First, they prop up the salaries of average and below-average teachers. Exceptional teachers are paid too little, while poor teachers are paid too much. Second, tenure makes it all but impossible to terminate underperforming teachers who, in many cases, are recycled from one school to the next before their ineptitude poses an insurmountable problem for administrators. Exceptional teachers do not require tenure. A competitive market for teachers will reward them with job security through long-term contracts at salary premia that duly reflect their superior performance. It is the average and below-average teachers that are the true beneficiaries of tenure, because they enjoy the protection of job security that a competitive market would never provide.

In its present form, teacher certification/licensing is a counterproductive barrier to entry that should be lowered for the well-being of our children. It serves largely to artificially inflate teacher salaries by preventing the entry of those that may be able to perform at a more proficient level. A four-year degree in education is not required to be an effective teacher. This is evident from the fact that university professors have little or no formal training in teaching and yet many exhibit considerable prowess in the classroom. Unfortunately, the market is not self-correcting because the teachers’ unions and school administrators are shielded from the discipline of the competitive process. No matter how poor the instruction, or indifferent the teacher, the tax dollars continue to flow to support their salaries and pensions.

Dramatically reforming the education major and lowering the barriers to entry in the form of teacher certification/licensing would clear the way for those in a multitude of different fields, including engineering, mathematics, medicine, law, and business to enter the ranks of K-12 teaching. Many of these professionals are willing to trade off higher remuneration for more personal satisfaction because they desire a career change or simply want to give back to society. Rudimentary training in teaching methods will be necessary to ensure the requisite teaching competence, but this does not require four years of training. It never did.

Creative Destruction

Creative destruction is the idea that dynamic forces work incessantly to destroy existing business models and institutions over time and replace them with superior alternatives. It is necessary to fuel the process of creative destruction to reinvigorate the nation’s public schools.

The scientific evidence is mounting that schools are safer than homes in terms of the spread of the virus and yet the teachers’ unions refuse to allow their members to return to the classroom. Where is the concern for students from low-income households that are denied instruction altogether because they lack access to computers and broadband? I am not suggesting that teachers lives should be valued less than those of their students, but they should certainly not be valued more. Drug abuse and domestic abuse have increased along with student depression during the pandemic while teenage suicides have surged.

To address the problem du jour, teachers that are willing to assume the minimal risk of COVID transmission should be allowed to return to the classroom and be paid a premium for doing so as a form of combat pay. Teachers unwilling to assume that risk should be tasked with providing virtual instruction or accept an administrative position at reduced compensation.

The pandemic has highlighted a serious problem with K-12 education that we ignore at our own peril. The public K-12 educational system has no real incentive to be responsive to the communities it serves. This explains why private schools are open and public schools are closed. The former must meet a payroll by offering a high-quality, competitive product, while the latter meets its ever-increasing payrolls by raising taxes on customers held captive by the absence of school choice.

The educational system in this country is broken, perhaps irreparably. The system can be reclaimed only by breaking down barriers to entry: eliminate tenure, reduce the complexity of teacher certification/licensing and promote school choice. It is only then that we can unleash the power of competition and creative destruction to improve our nation’s schools.

Dr. Weisman is Professor of Economics Emeritus at Kansas State University and a former Director of Strategic Marketing at SBC (now AT&T). He has published more than 140 articles, books, and book chapters, principally in the fields of economic regulation, antitrust and public policy. He is the author of An Essay on the Art and Science of Teaching and How to Integrate Economic Analysis into Classroom Discussions of Diversity? His research has been cited by the U.S. Supreme Court and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.

Reprinted with permission from the American Thinker: https://www.americanthinker.com

SUNRISE SIDE REPUBLICAN WOMEN'S CLUB

The Sunrise Side Republican Club holds monthly meetings on the 4th Monday of the month.  The location and speaker will be announced for each meeting.  Unless otherwise stated, the lunch will be at 11:30 a.m.

The officers are: Linda Glomski, President, 739-7170, Jane Hayward, Vice President, 739-3126, Sonia Glass, Secretary, 739-9731, and Rachel McCready Treasurer, 362-2337.

 You can correspondence to SSRWC P.O. Box 234 Tawas City, MI 48764.  

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