Do my children have privilege? You bet your ass they do. They have the privilege of having two loving parents, who are willing to sacrifice whatever is necessary to protect them, and who have made it their mission in life to prepare them for the rigors and challenges of this world.
They actually have three loving parents. I’m divorced and remarried. My wife has no children of her own, and loves my children as her own.
A parent is a conduit between the past and the present. We take what we are given from the past, discard what is no longer needed, add what we need, and then use what we have, to give our children every advantage we possibly can. We are a bridge between generations – and nothing more.
We do not decide what happens to our children. Our children decide that. We provide no more than a starting point, and being imperfect, we don’t always do a good job of that.
Sometimes we give too much and raise brats. Brats live off the earnings of previous generations and contribute little or nothing to society. Brats in turn generally raise brats, except that by the time these new brats are grown, the wealth is gone. This phenomenon among the wealthy is so common that leads to its own saying, “Shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves in three generations.”
Some parents abuse their children, raising either people who will also abuse their children, or parents who over-compensate and don’t discipline their children enough (and whose children then abuse their children). These parents are not a conduit of help, setting their children up for success, but are, rather, a conduit of harm, setting their children up for failure.
Some parents constantly tell their children how terrible the world is, and how everything is constantly stacked against them. These parents too are setting their children up for failure.
I’m setting my children up for success, and I am proud of that fact. I encourage you to do the same for your children.
A saying is not the same as a study, but studies of immigrants have proven the phenomenon of ‘shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves in three generations.’ New immigrants either do better or worse than people born in America based on where they come from (speaking in per capita terms – each person is of course an individual). New immigrants from most of Africa, or from Central and South America, tend to have lower economic outcomes than do those born in America. Those from most of Asia (including India) tend to do better than do those born in America.
When we look at immigrants, we see another interesting phenomenon in terms of language. The children of immigrants are usually fluent in their parent’s native tongue. My grandfather on my father’s side was born in Cadillac, MI, to Quebecois parents, and he grew up speaking French at home.
My grandfather married a girl who had German parents. My grandparents spoke English at home. My father, as a result, did not learn French.
That’s an anecdotal example, but I’m married to a Polish immigrant, and I can tell you from other examples with friends and family that the same thing holds true. The children of immigrants are taught their parents’ language and culture, but they grow up as Americans and do not pass that language and culture down to their children.
Culture, like wealth, tends to break down in three generations.
Differences in economic outcomes too tend to follow this pattern. The children of immigrants generally earn more or less than the average American, depending on where their parents immigrated from, but the third generation is average.
This phenomenon is independent of race. Thomas Sowell studied African immigrants and Caribbean immigrants to see if being black precludes economic advancement – to see if ‘systemic racism’ holds people down. He found that the third generation of black families coming from Africa or the Caribbean had the same average economic outcomes as do other Americans.
It’s not just economic outcomes. Even such things as IQ tend to regress to the mean in three generations. Thomas Sowell has written entire books on this subject, such as Race and Economics.
Culture – not race – is the determining factor. And it works in both directions. People immigrating from Asia generally come from countries like China and India, that emphasize science, mathmatics, discipline, hard work, and memorization skills. These learned traits are the reason immigrants from these countries generally outperform other Americans, but within a few generations those cultural advantages are lost, and the economic outcomes are the same as that of other Americans.
There is one group that does not fit this model: African Americans whose ancestry goes through the Antebellum South. This one group has been systemically oppressed for the entire duration of our nation’s existence, first through slavery, then through Jim Crow, and finally through the so-called ‘War on Poverty.’
A good parent gives their children as much forward momentum as they can, be that in the form of wealth, culture, family connections, an education, or whatever. When people say, “you did not earn that,” they are correct. Your parents earned that, with assistance from their parents.
As a society, we act as collective parents, taking from the previous generation, keeping what is valuable, adding what is needed, and giving what we can to the future.
Unfortunately, we do not do this alone. We live in a global economy where everything is connected, and we have a media that voluntarily submits itself to Chinese censorship (in return they are allowed to make media houses for – and to profit in – the Chinese market). As a consequence, we hear what the Chinese Communist Party wants us to hear, and we do not hear what they do not want us to hear.
The Chinese Communist Party wants China to become more powerful than the United States.
China can’t catch us on their own. Our economy is too free, and theirs is too centrally planned. One of the ironies of control, politically speaking, is that control stunts growth. Some control is needed, but like salt, too much ruins the meal.
Governments like control, and the Chinese Communist Party is not going to give control up. Because of this they will never catch the United States without our help.
We can help by tearing ourselves apart.
China uses our media to encourage us to tear ourselves apart.
What happened to George Floyd was a terrible, terrible thing. That does not make George Floyd a hero. George Floyd had a very checkered past, and was not a good person. He was also on cocaine and fentanyl when he died.
Police brutality is real, and ugly. If anything good comes from the current crisis, it will be a reduction in police brutality.
But police brutality occurs without regard for race.
There were a total of 56 unarmed people killed by the police in 2019, according to the Washington Post’s database on police killings. Fifteen of them were black. Twenty five of them were white. The Washington Post revised these numbers up on June 1st from nine and nineteen, respectively, by playing with the definition of ‘unarmed’.
Which set of numbers is more accurate, I do not know. What I do know is that both sets of numbers are very low when you consider that the police interact with civilians more than 275 million times a year.
We do not have a pandemic of police brutality in our country. What we have are isolated incidents of police brutality, that have nothing to do with race. The ‘thin blue line’ is real. Police do not like to turn each other in – that is real. But this notion that police brutality is systemic, or that there is a pandemic of it – that’s a lie being perpetuated by our media based on the CCP’s desire to encourage us to tear ourselves apart.
And then you have Coronavirus. Did we overreact? If I say we did, someone will immediately challenge my qualifications to make such a statement. I’m not a doctor – and that is true. I am not qualified to say whether or not we overreacted. Do you know what I am qualified to say, though? Our reaction to Coronavirus was initially called ‘flatten the curve’, but then as the curve flattened, our focus immediately changed to ‘flatten the economy.’ A colleague of mine, Patricia Anthone, coined the phrase, “The Great Suppression” for the economic downturn Covid-19 caused, and this is a very fitting phrase. Covid-19 did not kill our economy. Our reaction to it did.
Covid-19 originated in China, and China ran a misinformation campaign that helped Covid-19 leave China – all while at the same time trying to limit Covid-19’s spread within China. As crazy as it sounds, China shut the Wuhan region off from the rest of China, while leaving international travel to and from Wuhan open. That, my friends, is what you call a ‘smoking gun.’ China also refused to admit (as did the World Health Organization) that Covid-19 could spread between humans until AFTER the first documented case of Covid-19 in the United States was confirmed.
Our media is controlled by the Chinese Communist Party, which means that our knowledge of Covid-19, as well as the narrative about what our reaction to it should have been, was controlled by the CCP.
China wants us to tear ourselves apart, and we shut our economy down over a virus China spread to our country – based on the advice of a media China controls.
It’s not just our media. China has used the same techniques to get control in other countries that have a free press. Because of this, the killing of Georgy Floyd is causing massive protests around the world. Our police are being denounced everywhere, in spite of the fact that we have the most professional police in the world.
It is not hard for the CCP to use our press to spin the United States as a terrible place. All the CCP has to do is to compare the United States to a mythical utopia, instead of comparing the United States to other countries. Do we have police brutality? Yes we do. So do all other countries. Do we have more police brutality than do other countries, on a per capita basis? It’s hard to say, as each country measures ‘police brutality’ differently. When I was stationed in Germany, I knew a soldier who, while off duty, saw a pair of German police with a police dog. While walking past, for whatever reason, he decided to give the dog a slight kick. I’m guessing alcohol was involved… At any rate, in America, such an act would have gotten this soldier arrested, but instead of taking this American soldier to the police department and risking an international incident, the German police sent him to the hospital, taking him to the ground and systematically breaking every finger on both hands.
The crime rate in Germany, when I was stationed there, was remarkably low, but part of that was based on a rational fear of the German police.
I, for one, do not believe the United States has a higher rate of police brutality than do other countries. I think what we have is a lower tolerance for police brutality. And that’s a good thing. We should all be against police brutality.
But, as with everything else, the truth regarding the rate of police brutality in the United States does not fit China’s agenda, and as a consequence, the truth is not what our media reports. We are, instead, sold whatever narrative is most apt to get us to tear ourselves apart, and because of this most of our public believes the opposite of the truth.
I want to be very clear that 56 cases of unarmed people being killed by the police is 56 cases too many, but it is not in any way a pandemic.
I would also encourage anyone who thinks the police should never shoot someone without first verifying that the person being shot has a gun, to watch this video. It does a brilliant job of demonstrating exactly how quickly the police have to react to a potentially deadly encounter. It’s a six minute video, and well worth the time it takes to watch it.
We are also being told that our nation’s generals, such as James ‘Mad Dog’ Mattis, are turning their backs on President Trump. The truth is that Donald Trump threatened to use federal troops to quell the riots that have been rocking the country, and a number of generals have spoken out against doing so. I too have spoken out against doing so, and I am very glad Trump did not use federal troops in that capacity. Our National Guard is designed for that kind of duty, but federal troops are not. Be that as it may, understand that speaking out against something Trump said he might do (and then did not do) is not the same as speaking out against the President. The CCP wants us to believe that Trump is completely unhinged (Trump’s mouth gives them plenty of ammo), and as with everything else, stories are spun into whatever narrative the CCP wants us to hear.
I know a lot of conservatives who think the Democratic Party is in league with the Chinese Communist Party. I think that’s a simplistic view. I think, rather, that Donald Trump’s presidency has been very hard on China. Trump not only started a trade war with China, but the more China did to try and win the trade war, the stronger our economy got. Under Trump, our economy continuously got stronger, and China’s economy continuously got weaker, much to the chagrin of the CCP. I’m not sure the CCP can survive another four years of Donald Trump.
Certainly, China would rather negotiate with Joe Biden.
Six months ago, Trump’s reelection looked sewn up – in spite of a media that has been more openly hostile to Donald Trump than to any other President in American history. Enter Covid-19. Enter the false narrative surrounding the George Floyd killing. Enter worldwide protests. Enter the story of America’s generals being hostile to Trump.
If the election were tomorrow, does anyone doubt that Joe Biden would win? That’s a win for China, and it’s a win that would keep on giving. Joe Biden has announced, for example, that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez would be put in charge of America’s response to Climate Change. She’s said she’ll end all fossil fuel use, which won’t help the environment (natural gas being a tremendously clean source of energy), but it will help weaken our economy – just as China wants.
I think the Democratic Party has a lot of opportunists in it, and that the Democratic Party smells blood in the water, thanks to the media’s handling of Covid-19 and the narrative surrounding the killing of George Floyd (which, again, was a terrible act of police brutality – but not enigmatic of a systemic problem). Since the DNC’s interests align with those of the CCP, the DNC is riding China’s preferred narrative into the November elections. That does not make the DNC allies of the CCP – it just makes them opportunistic, and it shows that they hate Republicans more than they love our country.
The truth is that Chinese propaganda in our media does drive public opinion, and it is natural for at least one political party to pander to that opinion. As such, of course the Democratic Party is becoming closer and closer to the CCP. This does not show allegiance so much as it shows just how effective China’s control over our media has been.
The DNC is also doing everything it can, with the media’s help, to sell us on electoral changes that would make voter fraud much, much easier. How ironic is it that the party with “Democratic” in the name wants to end our democracy?
Am I tying a lot of things together into one post? Perhaps, but it does not take a rocket scientist to see that these things are all interconnected. The bottom line is that a vote for a Democrat in this next election is a vote for the CCP’s interests, and a vote against our own interests.
I do not believe the CCP can survive another four years of Donald Trump. I also do not believe the United States, as we know it, can survive four years with today’s Democratic Party in power.
We are a bridge to the future, and our parents have given us the richest, most powerful nation in human history. What future will we give our children? Will we succumb to Chinese influence, and give them a world dominated by a hostile, foreign power, or will we preserve the United States as a bastion of freedom, and a symbol of hope for the rest of the world?
If we vote Republican, we will be voting to end the CCP, and with it, to end it’s censorship of media houses around the world. Ending the CCP’s censorship of the press will not solve all of the world’s other problems, but it’s a good start. ‘Free Hong Kong’ is too narrow a scope. A Republican vote is a vote to help free all of China from the clutches of the CCP.
A vote for today’s Democrats is a vote to recreate Mao’s Cultural Revolution within the United States.
Do my children have privilege? Of course they do. It is a privilege to be born in this great nation of ours, and my children are incredibly fortunate in that regard – as are all American children. Should we end that privilege, or should we work to spread such privilege to the rest of the world? The coming election will decide.
Thanks from one who has had a similar life experience.