I am sure my habits will change when we actually get closer to the November, 2020 election. But currently, I rarely, if ever, watch any national news on television. Why? Because it depresses me. I have to sell things to people to make a living, and I find it very difficult to do that if I have a “the world is going to hell in a hand basket” mentality. I have been reading and listening to Mike Rowe, author of the book “The Way I Heard It”, and his podcast episodes with the same title. He promotes all that is right with America. I much prefer that to the national news. We don’t hear this message enough. According to Rowe, if we simply removed some of the vast layers of federally-mandated safety-overkill and politically correct workplace harnesses that bind the American working ethic and spirit, our economy would soar to unprecedented new heights. Rowe has maintained and expanded his celebrity status while promoting traditional American values, which absolutely goes against the grain of the Hollywood make-believe actors, ultra far-left political whack-a-doodle elitists and national news pseudo-journalists who bombard us around the clock with their left-spin editorials passed off as fact-based news. I’m sick of it. So, I simply don’t watch or listen. I think I’m not in the minority on this. I strongly suspect that most Americans have the same mindset. We simply ignore it. Our co-worker Todd Hutchison brought up the interesting tidbit that most times when he turns on the television in the mornings, the first thing he sees is a man or woman greeting him with the words, “Good morning. Last night, Trump…”, then fill in the blank with some editorial-biased spin. Part of the deal is to never refer to him as “President” Trump. I must admit that Donald Trump has never been my favorite person. He’s no Ronald Reagan. He’s certainly brash and often times offensive. I never much cared for him before he became our president. However, when given the option of President Donald Trump, President Elizabeth Warren, President Joe Biden, President Bernie Sanders or President Hillary Clinton, my choice is vividly certain. Meanwhile, the vast majority of hard-working and faith-based Americans are not spewing non-stop daily political venom and class-warfare. We’re out here working together to make things happen. I’m also something of a history nut. I strongly believe that the best way we have to predict the future is to study the past. Technology and “things” change, but since recorded history, human nature has mostly stayed the same. According to the Pew Research Center, the differences between America and other nations have long been a subject of fascination and study for social scientists, dating back to Alexis de Tocqueville, the early 19th century French political thinker who described the United States as “exceptional”. Nearly 200 years later, Americans’ emphasis on individualism and work ethic stands out in surveys of people around the world. When Pew Research Center surveyed people in 44 countries recently, 57% of Americans disagreed with the statement “Success in life is pretty much determined by forces outside our control.” This is a higher percentage than almost all other nations, and far above the global median of 38%. Americans are also more upbeat than people in other wealthy nations when asked how their day is going. When the survey asked this question to help respondents get more comfortable with the interviewer, it provides a glimpse into peoples’ moods and outlook on their lives. 41% of Americans described their day as “a particularly good day”, compared to 21% for Germany, 27% for Great Britain and 8% for Japan. And, despite what the far-left folks would have you believe regarding religion in the U.S., well over 50% of Americans responded that religion plays a “very important” role in their lives. This bucks the trend of the wealthier European nations, which all had percentages well below 40%. And, no surprise, the bosses of still-Communist China made sure that their citizens had a 2% response to the question. What I get from all of this, is what I have always felt: Americans are the hardest working, most optimistic people on the globe. What does the majority of us do? Work hard, take care of our families, and help out where and when we can. No matter what others may say, I believe our U.S. Constitution is the only thing that keeps us from being just another third world country, (or worse), where only the elite few have all the wealth, and therefore the power. Do I believe our founding fathers were great men of vision and hope? Absolutely. Hillary Clinton, George Soros and others from America’s far-left would have us believe that our Constitution is a “dated document”. I personally consider it to be divinely inspired and to date, no entity or person has been able to scrap it to the junkyard. That’s not saying they aren’t trying. Evil lurks everywhere on this earth. Our history also confirms that. “The U.S. Constitution doesn’t guarantee happiness, only the pursuit of it. You have to catch up to it yourself.”

– Benjamin Franklin History tells us that it’s very easy to destroy. It takes a whole bunch of work, planning and cooperation to build, maintain and keep things running. Most of us in America believe there is a God. And if we are Christians, we also believe that Satan’s realm is on this earth, and that first and foremost, Satan is the great deceiver. We have politicians and high profile personalities telling us we are all victims of something, and someone has to pay for that. They create envy and hatred by telling us that we all should be outraged because we can’t just magically “have it all” without working for it. They tell us that our founding fathers were awful people, that America’s traditional values created an unfair advantage, and that all these “rich people” out there with inherited land, riches and “things” should have them stripped from them and redistributed to others. They tell us we deserve our fair share by simply existing in this nation. We don’t even have to be citizens. We just have to be here. And they tell us that in the utopian America they would be in charge of, the federal government will provide everything for everyone. Go back to that history thing, and reference all the suffering created by the utopian society redistribution of wealth in the Soviet Russia created in 1917 and Communist China in 1947. They had it all worked out then too. In both cases, within only a few years, millions were murdered and starved to death. Universal cruelty was the only constant, and in only a few more years, a supreme dictator had murdered his way to the top, and all the wealth of the nation rested within his hands alone. “Most people miss opportunity because it’s dressed in

overalls and looks like work.” – Thomas A. Edison As a nation, we’ve tried to throw our taxpayer dollars at our problems to the tune of $22-plus trillion in national debt… and growing…over the past 50 years. Approximaely 70% of our national annual budget goes to entitlement programs of some form or another. 8% goes to interest paid on the national debt. That leaves less than 22% to pay for all the rest. When I was younger I used to think that there were people in Washington D.C. much smarter than the rest of us in place to solve our problems. Now, I’m certain there are not. Edmund Burke said it best long ago: “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”