Podcast 442

God Isn’t Fixing This. In the wake of the San Bernardino shootings we’re left as confused as ever, and the media treats every single shooting as a one-off single story, rather than a series of shootings in an ongoing struggle. It makes talking about it difficult, yet this is what people are asking about, as 24 hour coverage drives home the media favorite story-line of the moment. Everyone followed the President as he climbed aboard the ‘workplace violence and guns kill people’ train, but surprise! That train derailed just outside the station when facts surfaced suggesting something more sinister and dangerous. We’re still being told, “avoid the rush to judgement”, and “it may still be a workplace violence issue”. Trouble is, like the Fort Hood shootings a few years ago, evidence shows the San Bernardino attack was premeditated, with detailed preparations including, legally obtained weapons, even with California’s ‘assault weapons ban’, stockpiles of ammunition, pipe bombs, communication with people on terror watch lists, destruction and cauterization of communication and social media links before the act with similarities to attacks in Paris and Boston. While the ‘thoughts and prayers of the nation’ are with the victims, guess what? God Helps Those Who Help Themselves. There is a war being waged for our minds and the minds of our attackers. It is waged though propaganda and media. The weak succumb to its charms, and the fears it generates. Only the strong will protect, persevere and prevail. Are you strong enough? Are we strong enough? Clearly our leaders aren’t that strong, because if they aren’t mealy mouthing thoughts and prayers, they’re trying to pass gun control legislation or spend more money on mental health research. What’s that you say? Strategy? Foreign Policy? Addressing the problem? Expecting real leadership is apparently too much to ask of the denizens of Washington. We depend too much on our leaders to show us how to be strong, but it seems as though we’re going to have to show them how to be strong, because apparently they can’t do it. These kinds of terror attacks are a cancer that is spreading, and it will get worse. Its causes took decades to develop. It can’t be solved with a campaign slogan or some rant on a talk show. Sponsored by Pride of Home and Luke Team Real Estate and Hydrus Performance. 

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Podcast 436

Death and Tyranny. How’s that for click bait? Another protest, more glimpses of the French Revolution as an assistant professor throws ‘the media’ out of a protest on public property at a University in Missouri. Meanwhile a new study says white americans 30 to 64 are dying from alcoholism, drug addiction and suicide at alarmingly higher rates than in the past. Frustration. Anger. Despair. Name calling. Blaming. The first few years of the 21st century seem to be calling out for a new defense of ‘Freedom’. What is Freedom? Are we free? Are we free when we can’t express feelings without checking first to see if they will ‘offend’ some group with ‘special’ protections? Are we free when we have to make sure what we express is in line with paradigms determined by social acceptance? Not according to most definitions. So, are we free? What holds the United States together? A common enemy? An idea? A leader? A culture? A religion? A government? How can we hold together as a country if we aren’t allowed to express ourselves, to be ourselves? Over 60 percent of working age people are out of the work force. People are getting tired of being nudged, pushed, shoved, forced, shamed and cudgeled into behaviors the government wants, or behaviors deemed ‘acceptable’ by unelected culture czars, crowned by their exposure in media. We don’t trust our government. We don’t trust our leaders. We don’t trust the media. We don’t trust each other. If studies that show people descending into alcoholism and drugs and depression are true, one could conclude, we don’t trust ourselves either. When you travel the country, it doesn’t look like its falling apart, but any examination of the day’s news suggests something different. Political candidates slinging mud, name calling, finger pointing and the ever present blaming and subsequent atonement. Our entertainment is blood and gore, and sex. In short, our entertainment is coarse to say the least. What future is our art seeing? What kind of frontier are we pioneering today? Where is our toughness and virtue, and grit? Sponsored by X Government Trucks and Hydrus. 

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Podcast 407

Killing The Golden Goose. We’ve all heard the parable; The greedy farmer and his wife with the goose that lays the golden egg. As ‘back to school’ looms, the beginning of reengaging in the political process begins with a look at what the real issue might be in our economy and by extension, our politics in the United States. The question is, which is the goose and greedy farmer? Think of the economy – the sum total of all we consume and produce —  as a force of nature, like a hurricane rather than as some kind of Rube Goldberg device with dials and switches and levers. Or, as a golden goose. If the government takes more and more to sustain its operations and debt, where does that money come from? It comes from the individual. Can the government spend too much, and so require too much from the proverbial golden goose? You don’t hear this question discussed too much in the political arena these days. What you hear is a lot of nonsense about individual tax plans for the middle class, or taxing the so called ‘rich’. The fact is, the government takes your income — your wealth if you will — and uses it for its own aims. We’re supposed to have a conversation with our politicians regarding what those aims are, but we usually don’t. If government spending now, without calculating perpetual obligations like social security and other entitlements including medicaid, medicare and the so called Affordable Care Act is almost 40 percent of the country’s total economy, maybe this is the reason why our economy isn’t growing fast enough. Is it possible the greedy farmer is in the process of killing the golden goose? And if so, what do the perfumed princes on the campaign trail intend to do about it? The grey area between what is a public good, and greedy government is the crossroads where we are stuck. If we don’t figure out how to talk about it and to solve the problem, our goose is cooked. Sponsored by X Government Cars and Ryan Plumbing and Heating of Saint Paul. 

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