What I believe

 

I think that we are too cynical and we put too much emphasis on what we are against (I am guilty of this), so here is my statement of what I believe -

I believe that Jesus Christ is my redeemer and died a cruel and horrific death as salvation for my sins.

I believe that all lives matter; therefore, abortion as a form of birth control is inhuman and wrong.

I believe that the United States, even with all our warts, is an anchor for the world and has kept humankind from self-destruction.

I believe in the wisdom of our Constitution and its intent to limit government, not individuals.

I believe in science, the rigor of the scientific method, and open scrutiny of scientific results.

I believe in open dialogue on any subject free from any form of censorship.

I believe that education (free from political bias) and skilled trades are the great equalizers of socioeconomic disparities.

I believe in the power of individuals; therefore, I believe in equal opportunities, not equal outcomes.

I believe that our planet is precious and should be protected from harm but based on reasonable (non-political) and evidence-based solutions.

I believe that humans are explorers by nature and we should always endeavor to reach for the stars (both in space and here on Earth).

The Growing Undeserved Arrogance and the Facts

 

I have always stated that getting the COVID vaccine is a personal choice as are ALL medical decisions. That said, I have also shared evidence-based information with regard to several aspects of the pandemic. This does not make me “anti-vax” or a conspiracy theorist, it makes me a critical thinker trained in science who questions a forced narrative and the suppression of facts that are contrary to that forced narrative – I do this with the intent of helping others make informed decisions, something they are not getting from “official” sources and the media.

It is becoming apparent that there is a segment of those who have chosen to be vaccinated that are taking a misguided, uninformed, and sometimes arrogant position against those of us who choose not to participate. I have seen comments that are completely reprehensible – “I will avoid those who are not vaccinated like the carriers of the plague that they are”, “people who are not vaccinated should not receive treatment for COVID if they become ill”, and “then you will die if you contract the virus” among others. The last example is from a former friend of mine directed at me. This former friend actually called data that I cited from The Lancet, a highly respected, peer-reviewed medical journal, “inane” and “obtuse.” That’s where we are – evidence-based clinical research being called inane and obtuse. For that reason, I give up on people like him.

I am tested for COVID every week at work, I have an optimal serum vitamin D level, and my immune system has always been robust (I rarely get the flu, once every 5 or 6 years, so I opt out of that vaccine also). The bottom of my left ventricle is dead and I have moderate kidney damage, both due to my heart attack four years ago. There is no data on the long-term safety of the vaccines and the true efficacy based on absolute risk reduction is quite low (less than 2%). Too many people are having bad reactions to the vaccine, which IS NOT normal. For those reasons, I choose not to participate. I have been out and about since the initial lockdown and have not contracted COVID. Does that mean that I will not contract it sometime in the future? Not by any means, but I choose to live my life free of fear and free from government and societal intrusions into my personal liberty.

The Collective Lie

 

I have a unique approach to interviewing job candidates that gets to the meat of the process immediately.  But more than that, my process gets to the truth which allows me to trust the remainder of the interview.  Prior to the interview, I will pick out a small part of their stated experience in their resume, most often something obscure and long ago.  I will ask the candidate to expand on that experience.  As they speak, I ask them to go further.  If they can keep going down the rabbit hole with me, I now know that I can trust the rest of the resume as being true.  This allows me to shelf the resume and spend the rest of the interview actually discussing the job and their thoughts on what they bring to it.  It has been a highly successful process for me and the quality of my hires has been top tier. I have successfully applied this approach to other areas of my life. 

An article was published in the January 2021 issue of the American Journal of Medicine, a respected peer-reviewed journal, that indicates hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) is a very effective component of an early intervention protocol for COVID-19 patients (https://www.amjmed.com/article/S0002-9343(20)30673-2/fulltext).  The article details a treatment algorithm for ambulatory patients (the vast majority of COVID-19 patients are ambulatory) where HCQ is a core component of the protocol.  Early on during the pandemic thousands of doctors worldwide were discussing the success of HCQ as an early intervention treatment, but those voices were shut down by a concerted effort between the mainstream media, big tech, governments, the CDC, and the WHO.  This suppression and censorship continued until this article was published.  Uneducated and uninformed citizens across the globe took to social media in droves to denounce those who touted HCQ as a treatment for COVID patients.  President Trump was derided for mentioning the treatment.  By July 2020 there were at least 65 studies worldwide indicating the efficacy of HCQ as an early intervention treatment, yet the suppression and censorship continued.

Now, apply my approach to discerning the truth to the COVID-19 situation and tell me what is believable when it comes to information coming from the mainstream media, big tech, governments, the CDC, and the WHO?  If what we were told about HCQ was a concerted lie, what else is a lie?  Can we trust anything else being told to us about COVID, the lockdowns, the masking, the numbers of cases and deaths, the cause of deaths, the origin of the virus, and biggest of all, the vaccines?  What about the riots, the election, the events of January 6^th?  We are living through a collective lie that millions, and maybe billions, have bought into in a big Orwellian way. 

 

Epilogue – The initial lie was the most open and outrageous.  Early last year we were shown videos from China of people collapsing in the streets and being treated by emergency workers in hazmat suits, and dead bodies lying on the sidewalks of Wuhan.  We now know these videos to be false and out of context.  The collapsing people and emergency workers were from training films having nothing to do with COVID-19.  The dead bodies were actually people sleeping in a city 600 miles from Wuhan.  The purpose of this deception was to scare you into submission.  It was a purposeful and willful lie meant to ensure that the masses would comply with the oppressive policies fueled by the lies to come. 

Image copyright rishikajain.com

A Brave New World?

2020 represents the beginning of the world’s spiral into a dystopian abyss, the death of a republic, and the creation of a purgatory where truth is dead.  Leftists, globalists, and technocrats may believe that this is the beginning of a brave new world but, in reality, it is a world of cowards and snakes who will prosper in agreed upon lies.  SARS-CoV-2 is but an excuse to create a world run by deep state fundamentalists whose only goal is self-aggrandizement at the expense of yours and my freedom and labor – we are serfs to be used and lied to.

Big tech giants and the mainstream media seek to silence the truth in alliance with these technocrats; they seek to create a world of social control where freedom is mocked and the voices of reason are silenced.  The newspeak of 1984 is not only here, it’s far more pervasive and dangerous than George Orwell could ever imagine.    

What do true patriots who believe in the innate freedom of the individual over the body politic do to combat this slide into horror?  We continue to believe in the truth, we keep speaking the truth, we keep living the truth.  Unlike the cowards who vainly ridicule us, we have the strength of faith – faith in our Lord, faith in individuals, and faith in the incredibly prescient ideals of our Founding Fathers. 

More to come…

The Trades, Talent, and High Value Work

 

I returned to the office in June as part of a "Return to Office" pilot program because I am, in no way, set up to work from home. During this time, my employer has been doing renovations to prepare for the workforce to return after the pandemic. As part of the renovations, there is work being done on the escalator banks that require scaffolding. All of the escalator banks are 4 floors in height with the exception of one which is five floors in height. I am completely awestruck by the work it takes to build the scaffolding and the talent and skill that goes into it. There are several other trades in the building doing renovation work and I admire and value them all.

The skilled trades have not become irrelevant as society grows in technical sophistication, nor will they, but there is going to be a shortage of skilled trades workers if we don't do something about it.  High school curricula and guidance counselors push college as the future of choice for students; however, it is not the only route to professional success.  I had two fathers involved in racing (both were mechanics) and so was my brother, but I never got involved...and I wish that I had.  I wish that I had learned to build racecars, engines, transmissions, rear-ends, etc., but I was too involved with football and other not so healthy endeavors.  I took shop classes, but I sucked at them, thus never tried to become proficient (FYI - you always suck when you first try something).  

Getting back to the trades, we need to start following the lead of Mike Rowe and re-emphasize the skilled trades in schools and trade schools and apprenticeships after high school. I am a proponent of having degree programs that integrate professional programs with trades.  For example, combine a computer-aided machining trade with mechanical engineering or combine carpentry with architecture. I want to partner with the states' boards of higher education and colleges and universities to make this a reality.        

I beg to differ Joe Rogan

 

I am a huge fan of Joe Rogan; however, he has repeatedly stated something in which I have a differing opinion.  Joe Rogan, and I am paraphrasing here, says that the difference between a cult and a religion is that in a cult the leader is alive and in a religion the leader is dead. I would like to offer my apologetics for Christianity to the discussion. 

My indefatigable truth - nobody would ever willingly die for a lie. Most people's argument against that statement has been that Muslim terrorists die for their religion.  That's fallacious reasoning and here's why.  Muslim extremists have no idea if their beliefs are a lie or not.  For that matter, neither do modern-day Christians, we have faith in the truth; we will not actually know until we die, which is the same for any other faith.  

In the case of Jesus, there are several differences.  There is no arguing that the physical man existed and that there was a crucifixion. Two historians, both of which were alive in the natural lifetime of Jesus, wrote about Jesus and the crucifixion (a natural lifetime being a period in which Jesus would have lived had he not been executed).  Josephus, a Jewish historian, refers to the execution of Jesus by Pontius Pilate.  Tacitus, a Roman historian, referred to the same as well as referring to the early Christians in Rome. The natural lifetime context is important because people who actually knew Jesus were still alive during Josephus' and Tacitus' time.  There is no argument that the man Jesus existed during the timeframe that the Bible references and that he was executed (crucified).  The argument is over Jesus' divinity.  

Now, let's get to the point of nobody willing to die for a lie.  Of the twelve Apostles who actually knew Jesus, all but one were martyred for their faith, some with more historical clarity than others. Other prominent disciples outside of the twelve who also knew Jesus were martyred.  Here is my argument - all of these men knew the truth, they knew whether or not Jesus was actually who he said he was, they were there during Jesus' life and resurrection.  Can you honestly say that these men would willingly be tortured and executed in very cruel ways if they knew that who they claimed Jesus to be was, in fact, a lie?  I have a hard time believing that, personally and intellectually.  Would you die for what you know to be a lie?  No, you wouldn't. The early Christian martyrs died because they knew the truth.  And that is my truth.   

EPILOGUE

There has been no credible anthropological or archaeological research that has disputed or dispelled the Bible, only confirmational findings.  To Joe's point that the early Christian bible was a product of the Church three centuries after the fact (the fact being Jesus, though the bible refers back many more centuries before Christ, mostly through the Jewish Old Testament), the church actually studied the documentation to determine authenticity and veracity just like scholars do today.  There were points of disagreement within the church; however, they came to a general agreement regarding what should be scripture and what shouldn't. And yes, they knew how to deal with the multiple translations (Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek, and Latin).

What I Believe.

  In this cynical world, it is easy to expound on the things that bother us, what we're against, what we'll fight (and I am guilty of this).  However, here is my statement of what I believe:

I believe that Jesus Christ is my redeemer and died a cruel and horrific death as salvation for my sins.

I believe that all lives matter; therefore, abortion as a form of birth control is inhuman and wrong.

I believe that the United States, even with all our warts, is an anchor for the world and has kept humankind from self-destruction.

I believe in the wisdom of our Constitution and its intent to limit government, not individuals.

I believe in science, the rigor of the scientific method, and open scrutiny of scientific results.

I believe in open dialogue on any subject free from any form of censorship.

I believe that education (free from political bias) and skilled trades are the great equalizers of socioeconomic disparities.

I believe in the power of individuals; therefore, I believe in equal opportunities, not equal outcomes.

I believe that our planet is precious and should be protected from harm but based on reasonable (non-political) and evidence-based solutions.

I believe that humans are explorers by nature and we should always endeavor to reach for the stars (both in space and here on Earth).