If you have persevered and have made it this far, you will know that most of the decisions that I made were about me and were made with little regards to what the consequences would mean for the rest of my family. This is my story and I after all am the main character in it. While I am not a narcissist by nature, I do care what happens to me. While my life will certainly not earn me a sainthood. It is hoped that the good work I have done will balance out the bad things that I have done. I think when it comes time for me to enter the pearly gates of purgatory, my balance will tip me towards the yea side.

Ever since I was old enough to know better, I have treated people the way I wanted to be treated myself, and that is with respect and forbearance. I have also spent a major portion of my life caring for sickly people and even on occasion, have saved a few lives. For those destined to make their own trip to the pearly gates, I have made that outcome as comfortable and compassionate for not only the patient but the family as well.

However, what has changed in the last few years is that I am not so egocentric, the story doesn’t just revolve around me and mine. Since the advent of COVID-19, I have been posting on a dedicated blog of my own design, as well as a podcast. I have discussed the evolution of both of these in Chapter 10, so I will not discuss them in great depth here. I feel that these actions have helped me to become more altruistic. I have received no recompense for my sites. While I would be lying if most of the articles do not have a conservative lean to them, I do not try or do I confabulate any of my stories. I always allow the facts to guide the direction of the narrative and to decide how the article ends. This used to be what journalism was all about. I do my best to maintain these standards. While it is true that I do a lot of copying of referenced sources, I do, however, give credit where it is due. And as I also stated, I receive no financial compensation whatsoever. So, I think that my referencing of these sources in this manner is perfectly ethical, and it also helps to spread the word even further.

I have always loved this country for the freedom that it affords us, and while I like to leave our borders for travel, there has truly never been any serious consideration given to moving out of the US. The closest I even came was when I was dating my Thai girlfriend. During this time I did consider living in another country but only briefly. The reason for my strong nationalistic feelings is that while we are not perfect as a country and nation, we have come the closest to attaining it. The reason for this is our Constitution, Declaration of Independence and our Bill of Rights. No other country has spelled out the rights of its citizens in such a succinct way. The problem as I see it, is that our rights have been chipped and eroded away as the eons pass on by. We lost a fair number of our rights to privacy after 9/11 and the passage of the Patriot Act. Thank God, this had a time limit built into it. Most of our rights have been returned to us. However, one of the vestiges of this decade are still present even now, the inordinate number of cameras present in all of our urban areas. They have become so pervasive that they are considered innocuous. But who is to say if they are not insidious instead. We have simply grown used to them and have accepted them as the price it takes to maintain our freedom.

This erosion of our rights has worsened with COVID-19. There has now been a blatant assault on our rights. Our leaders and politicians have used fear to take away our rights. The scary thing is that our government has never truly provided any scientifically-based data showing us that these actions were even necessary or have been effective in the least. In my blog, I have devoted an entire category to the virus and healthcare in the US. I routinely update several of the articles there, to keep them as current as possible. The initial restrictions were supposedly for 15 days to flatten the curve. This goal post has since been moved too many times to count. While it is true that some states have been opened back up, many have only had a few restrictions removed. These states have been in a virtual lockdown state for over a year and a half. Literally, thousands of small businesses have closed never to be reopened. People’s entire life work and savings have been taken because decisions made arbitrarily with little data to support them. Thanks to the incredible bias by the press and big tech in controlling information, we have no idea what information to trust. Anything that argues against left-leaning views is simply blocked by Google, Facebook and Twitter. There has been bias even by our supposed top scientists in the field of virology. So if we can’t trust the experts, who can we trust? Good question.

We have under our Constitution the right to Life, Liberty, Property and the Pursuit of Happiness. These rights are considered to be unalienable, and can only be removed by due process of the law. What happened? Did any of our business owners get brought before a court and jury of their peers when they lost their property? I think not. We, as a people have had our property taken away from us without due process of the law. What is the government going to do about this? Our liberty has also been taken away from us, because millions of individuals have been in virtual lockdown for months on end. Did any of them go to court as well? No, I think not.

Most people are familiar to some extent with the cold war that we waged with Russia. We are also aware that Russia lost and the Berlin Wall was eventually torn down, and only exists in small sections as a memorial to the fall of Communism. What people fail to realize is the war never ended, our opponent just changed to China. The bad thing about China is that the Communist Party members are extremely patient, highly organized and very intelligent. They also do not play by any rule book that we currently use. Pretty much anything goes. They have found that it is cheaper and easier to steal research data than to acquire it by legitimate means. They also use the power and finances of the state to bolster large corporations. They learned this by following the lead of the Japanese. So while we as a country have been playing either the avenging angel or the rescuer of lost souls in the world, China has been watching and learning.

They soon realized that they could never beat us in a head to head military confrontation, but they found out that they didn’t need to do this. There have been many studies on how to destroy a country, and what it takes to convert one from Capitalism to either Socialism and eventually Communism. It turns out that it is quite easy and all it takes is patience and perseverance. If you read some of the more recent studies and you don’t have to go back very far to discover them, you will find that we are quite away along this pathway. Once it starts, it is very hard to stop it. Just think of a train going with a full head of steam, it takes quite a bit of effort to stop it, doesn’t it?

Since my job is considered an essential job, I was never without work. This meant that I had less free time than did many families. However, I still had way too much time on my hands. I soon started watching way too much TV. Of this, I already discussed in Chapter Ten. I have as you all know by now, have a love of history among other things. So my background is quite varied and this gives me a unique perspective on our country. I soon realized along with many other people that our country is in dire straights. We have to do something.

I still have a few years of work before I can retire, so hopefully things will improve some. Because my wife and I want to be able to travel and see more of our glorious world. While we have seen a few foreign lands, it has not quenched our thirst for further exploration…it has just served to increase the urge for more adventure. We need a free world to do this. A world controlled by China will not afford us the opportunity for such activities. I don’t know about you but I like my freedom. If it takes a little of sweat and yes, even blood, I am willing to stand up and be counted. How about YOU?