I’ve been asked quite a bit what I currently believe in light of some of my writings here. It’s a fair question. Have I changed or have I woke up to what’s going on around me? I leave to others to judge. I write mostly about what I observe and what I experience so I thought I might take a break and show you what I believe at this moment in time.
Inspired by my favorite authors — Heinlein and Steinbeck who wrote good variants and to which I am mostly in agreement— I thought I might take a stab at it.
“I like to be counted on.” — Jeff Bezos.
This I believe.
I’m a competence conservative. I delight in excellence. I believe in and defend standards. I oppose superstition, obscurantism, and religious influence over public, and the abuses of state power. I seek to put an end to the machinations of the purveyors of injustice, to control without dominating them.
The role of government is to protect our rights but those rights mean nothing if we can’t afford medicine, a home, or an education. Your material condition matters for your freedom. This the ancients knew well. There is no autistic libertarian state of nature — only human beings, coming together in community, and doing the best they can with the conditions they find themselves in. I am for the real against the faker.
A free people need a government which looks out for that material condition. I believe in limited government not small government. A government which knows its place and on whose side it sits. That means for the people. I am against survival of the fittest; I believe in sacrifice of the fittest in the name of the commonwealth.
I know that all governments are run by elites but they ought not be for elites alone.
Yes, I believe in public servants. The greatest of public servants was Christ, who gave up His life for his people. We may never be Christ-like but at least we can try. We labor constantly for standards we can never quite attain. This is what it means to be human.
I know all political lives end in failure and that leadership requires sacrifice — of time, of body, and spirit — and I am prepared to pay that price, come what may.
I want my people — the American people — to have more, so much more, for themselves, for their kids. This is why I believe in technology. You can have more with less. That is technology’s very essence. From the American mind and soul, much good has come.
I look upon politicians or bureaucrats who would lock down my fellow citizens with the disgust they deserve. We are a bustling, hustling nation. Everyone fights and no one quits. We work as a nation because we work — in the board room, and in the factories, and in the fields, and in the home. All work done well is ennobling.
That last bit — the home — is sacrosanct. It around the kitchen table that we make Americans. All schooling begins first at home. All work starts there too. I favor policies to increase homeschooling and work from home because I believe in the home. Having been denied it throughout my childhood I know there’s nothing more important. Any policy that would seek to make having, tending, and protecting the home unaffordable, I am against.
I am a progressive in the sense that I believe in progress. Men are not angels but neither are we demons. At least most of us aren’t. I trust my neighbors and I love them. We are risen apes, not fallen angels. I believe that this nation which started at Plymouth Rock has endured, will endure, and must endure — that along with moon rocks, we will fly Old Glory on Martian rocks. That the nation which has stars on its flag belongs among them. My America adds stars.
I will go into battle so that my countrymen might have more even it costs me everything. I am against the Mob which steals from them. By slum lording. By people smuggling. By charging too much and by giving too little. I am against shakedowns as I am against lockdowns. I am against rioters who tear down—and for the quiet men and women who toil, who build up, often alone and unseen, ignored. I see them because I am one of them. This civilization of ours is worth building up.
I am against the State that grows and crowds out their dreams, which spends by autopilot and without a thought to our future or even its own efficacy. A state which rules over them rather than in favor of them. I hate a state that grifts as it grinds.
The focus in Washington DC is often on how much money is spent but it ought to be about what that money is spent on. I am not against spending money; I am not cheap in the defense of my nation. Nor am I profligate. Prudence requires attention. There is no magic formula for statesmanship. You must live a life of equipoise.
There is nothing progressive about enslavement. There is nothing progressive about taking away someone’s job when they won’t submit to a jab.
I believe in the flag — standing for it, fighting for it, and, yes, if necessary, dying for it. Many of my kin have been buried with it.
I believe in the Union and in the Republic. No, I do not support a national divorce. Having been through a personal divorce I can tell you that there’s nothing amicable about even the friendly ones. Our kids deserve a growing, capable country. You can’t have a more Perfect Union with fewer members in it. Lincoln knew this and gave his life for it.
I believe in succession not secession. I believe in retiring the boomers so that their kids — the millennials—might take their rightful place. I believe that the elderly always have something to contribute but it is time for grandpa to hand over the keys.
We all know well that there’s always a moment when you have to take away grandpa’s keys. It isn’t because you hate grandpa but because you love everyone else on the road, grandpa included.
We have a rudderless, directionless, leaderless country. You had your day. You will always have your place. But it’s time to sit in the passenger seat. You can still backseat drive. We expected you to. That is what it means to be behind the wheel. To accept that the passengers get to criticize the route or the speed or the temperature. We love our elders but loving our elders does not mean allowing them to drive us off the cliff.
On our international institutions:
Our institutions have greyed too.
So many things are on life support. And we desperately need a blood transfusion.
Elections are about the future. And the future is not made by old men.
We stand with our allies, our oldest allies first of all. In the 20th century we came to the rescue of the British. In the 21st century the British came to our rescue. The investments that they made in genetics ended the Chinese lie that the Wuhan virus came from a wet market. I consider them brothers in arms.
We spent the last twenty years wandering in the desert, trying to buy friends in the worst places, for the worst reasons. But money can’t buy you love. I don’t even know that it can rent it.
It’s time to reengage the friends we’ve had who didn’t need to be bought.
On vaccines:
Are we to get jabbed for forever? And who ought to pay for that inconvenience?
On crime:
We can solve every murder and rape in this country. It’s just a question of the will. And it can be done so cheaply! The real crime is how few crimes get solved.
Majorities of Americans believe that facial recognition should be an essential tool of law enforcement. I believe it will one day be in the hands of every responsible citizen. You have a right to know who is at your door. I believe in David Brin’s Transparent Society.
On contracting:
I favor using the 1994 contracting law to beat up the cost plus contractors who charge so much and deliver so little. That’s what build SpaceX and Palantir’s business — when they sued the government.
Forcing the government to have objective standards for their contracts and not no bid contracts. This is the way.
Everything should be put out to bid and those bids should be the best technology at the cheapest price. We should have our entrepreneurs compete with each other to give us the best technology possible. This is Gov Tech done well.
On housing:
I favor Biden’s policy on making it impossible to buy homes for cash. We are the only OECD country that doesn’t have anti-money laundering laws when it comes to housing. We ought to. Cash attracts problems, however well meaning its uses.
Access to America’s property markets is a privilege not a right for foreign governments. So too is access to America’s venture capital and higher education. These entities must be defended. Or abolished.
On health care:
I favor significantly reforming the FDA. We need a moratorium on pharmaceutical executives being considered for these roles. A free people is not caged liked lab rats.
I believe in sequencing every single American. I believe that injecting this information into the health care marketplace will see a market correction, will prolong American life, and power. Information is power and DNA is information.
I am against Big Pharma and a medical dictatorship for the same reason I get second opinions. If you are in a world where no doctor will give you a second opinion you are not in a free society. I demand the right to get the best information possible for myself and my family and to pay any price to get it.
On immigration:
I favor a moratorium. It is not out of any dislike of immigrants but in recognition of how difficult it has been to make so many from so many different places into Americans.
We are not a white supremacist nation nor have we ever been. Last year 86 percent of the immigrants to our country were nonwhite. What sort of white supremacist nation is this?
Those jobs which are shitty, well, many of them ought to go. I believe in helping farmers and workers automate away the jobs. Yes, there are jobs Americans won’t do but there is no job a robot can’t do. Technology is always at war with labor.
Finally I am for America and for her people, among them my ancestors, who crossed an ocean and settled a continent. I hope to make them proud and to prepare my children to follow in their noble tradition.
And now Christmas Eve message of a personal sort.
On Christmas Eve I will mark a year’s sobriety. I am so very grateful.
The physical changes are good and all but the mental and spiritual changes saved my life. Like a lot of Americans I didn’t take the pandemic particularly well and found myself separated from loved ones for a prolonged time. It got dark but I found the light.
No, I am not an alcoholic but I was terribly lonely and depressed being locked down with no way out last year.
But at some point though I made a choice not to be afraid of the virus, of my own demons, and to go on living. We all must go on living.
Yes, I confess I almost didn’t make 2020 but thankfully I did. 2021 looks to be one of my best years.
I am particularly grateful to all who helped me through a difficult time. Thank you, thank you, thank you. There is hope and the birth of our Savior is as good a time as any to make that change you always wanted to. Yes, you can do it. Yes, I and so may others will be cheering you on.
I’ve decided I’m going to work on some other aspect of my life I’d like to change for the better this Christmas Eve. What will it be? Stay tuned.
To many anniversaries to come…
Merry Christmas!