State of Our Union: HOPE is fast becoming Concrete ....

I have not had time to write until now regarding the recent State of the Union address. I am happy to say that I heard a much needed message of reasons and opportunity for unity in the speech, regardless of the political lens through which you happened to be viewing the President’s address. Because at the end of the day, as President Trump pointed out in so many different places throughout his speech, it can’t always be about politics. Sometimes we can (and have) to put aside our politics in order to come together and get things done for the benefit of “We [ALL] the People.” In the ongoing absence of any national unity our nation, and more importantly its citizens, will suffer greatly and eventually our nation will simply cease to exist.  In the absence of unity we diminish the good we can do for others here in the United States as well as abroad.

I, personally, thought President Trump delivered a remarkable speech, one that will go down in History as one of the all-time great State of Union Addresses. I loved how Trump wove the fabric of where we have been as a nation --highlighting some of our darkest hours when we rose to the occasion, working together with our allies, to deliver an astounding victory despite the overwhelming odds working against us during WWII -- together with opportunities to work together to meet new and future challenges (e.g., reigning in high prescription drug costs, making medical costs transparent to the consumer up front and across the board, ending HIV within 10 years, finding a cure for childhood cancer, putting an American in space again on an American rocket). Then Trump really brought these messages of unity to life in a beautiful tapestry of well chosen and heartfelt personal stories of the Presidential guests.

It was good to hear the President lay out fact after fact, in the absence of the 24-hour biased media propaganda filter, about actions --moving beyond mere WORDS-- that he and his administration have actually taken in order to help improve the lives of “We the [average] People.” Jobs are way up --for women, African-Americans, Hispanics and Asians-- GDP is rising significantly for the first time in a decade, Businesses are coming back to the USA in record numbers, bad trade deals are being renegotiated, energy costs have come down and we are now an exporter of energy, no longer tied to the whims of Middle Eastern countries. ISIS has had its territorial caliphate reduced to rubble. North Korea has not fired a missile in over 15 months. Iran and Russia, other potential and nuclear powers respectively, have been put on notice. NATO allies are paying their fair share. Tax cuts have provided much needed relief to businesses and individuals alike. The unfair “Death Tax” has all but been eliminated for family owned ranches, farms and businesses. Accountability has been restored to the Veteran’s Administration and Veteran’s now have the tools they need to seek medical care outside of the VA system when necessary. Our military is the process of being upgraded for the first time in decades, which will save lives and improve readiness. First time drug offenders are being given a second chance at engaging in a meaningful life again with the implementation of the “First Step Act.” And for the first time in decades we have a President who is ready, willing and able to finally address meaningful and comprehensive immigration reform, including the possibility of extending a permanent status to the Dreamers.

I must say, this is quite an impressive resume for only a mere two years in office. At the same time, it’s kind of bewildering to ponder when you consider the incessant negativity and flat-out omission of any good news for “We the People” in the mainstream media’s news coverage of the President and his administration these past two years. It truly makes you wonder what planet the mainstream media types have been living on of late? These days omission is no longer a sin, instead it’s become the media’s stock and trade. Reading over the above list again, I would have to agree with President Trump’s assessment that “the state of our union is indeed strong.” And I think that a whopping 72% of the country also agree that the state of our union is indeed strong, given the post SOTU polling -- regardless of the mainstream medias attempts to frantically convince us otherwise.

Watching the speech, it seemed that the faces, smirks, head-shaking and eye-rolling on the part of some Democrats spoke almost as loudly as the President’s spoken words. What these Democrat faces and mannerisms were saying is that ‘we cannot stand behind any good news for the “We the People” if we were not the ones responsible for designing and delivering it.’  Moreover the smugness and condescending air of these Congress members suggested to me that most Democrats truly believe that “We the People” are basically stupid.  As such their mandate is not to govern “of, by and for the people”, but rather in ‘in spite of the people.’ The masks are coming off and people are finally beginning to see these Democrats and their Big Government policies for what they truly are, mainly a misguided effort to wield power and exert control over every single aspect of our daily lives.  Perhaps the people are even beginning to connect the dots as to the true agenda behind open borders and never really addressing true comprehensive immigration reform (i.e., importing a new and more easily managed class of voters, a radical transformation of the electorate ... just ask, the 95,000 illegally registered illegal immigrant voters in Texas, 58,000 of whom have been proven to have voted in at least one or more recent national elections.  And what about proportioning seats in the U.S. House of Representatives, which is based on populations in given Congressional districts?).

The above being said, I have a new-found respect for Debbie Waserman-Schultz, Nancy Pelosi, and even Chuck Shummer, who found the courage within themselves to stand up and applaud in response to President Trump’s resounding declaration that “America will never be a socialist country" because socialism runs so very counter to who were are as members of a free nation living with hard-won rights and freedoms obtained by the sacrifices of the many who came before us. This is what President Trump had to say on the subject of socialism ..“America was founded on liberty and independence and not government coercion, domination and control. We are born free and we will stay free ... Tonight we renew our resolve that America will never be a socialist country.” .. This affirmation and the courage of these Democratic Congress members was especially reassuring to me given the hard Left turn toward socialism the Democratic Party seems to be embracing these days. I find myself wondering how so many of our youth can so eagerly be embracing a well-known failed formed of government. I mean there are literally volumes of examples throughout history to demonstrate that socialism does not work, the most recent being events currently unfolding in Venezuela. The answer has to be that our education system has systemically failed to educate our youth honestly in this respect. Then again this failure may actually be by design? Hopefully the President’s plan to finally unleash “School Choice” --giving parents the right to choose where they want to send their children to be educated, which should raise the bar for education standards and improve the overall education product by introducing competition into the system-- will help to turn around this education ‘failure’ trend, especially where an honest account of our history is concerned.

Well, it’s late. I should close. Hope you’ve enjoyed my take on the SOTU. Bottom line, this Independent wholeheartedly approves of where we are heading as a nation, even though I did not vote for President Trump. The progress we have made thus far, in a mere two years, has restored HOPE for me. That’s HUGE from where I’m standing. Hope is fast becoming concrete.  I was rather tiring of only unicorns and rainbows, must be the engineer in me? Anyway, if you can take off your political lenses for just a moment, I think you will see that President Trump honestly called for unity in his speech and more importantly he laid out a path of opportunities as to how we can begin to come together for the benefit of our great nation, while always bearing in mind that to whom much is given much in turn is expected.  Despite Congressional grid-lock and what thus far seems to be inevitable partisan politics, things are getting done and President Trump is extending a hand to come together in order to tackle new challenges on the summit of what we as a nation, working together as in days long since past, are capable of achieving.  He/she/they who choose to sit on the sidelines and/or 'resist/ should be wary lest they become obsolete vessels of ‘resistance to nothing' within the volumes of our History. For the media's biased and often outright dishonest news coverage --which now provides the 'resistance' with the appearance of purpose-- will later become little more than dust blowing within the shifting sands of time.

2/11/2019  Thinking a bit more on the noble intentions of socialism.  And I came to the conclusion that man has huge spiritual evolution chasm to overcome before we would even be close having what it takes to actually bring these nobler intentions into the realm of the achievable.  What say you???