Drunk as a Skunk...

This has been an interesting year for not only our country, but the world as a whole. Not so many years ago, we were enjoying a relative time of peace and stability, particularly in America. Even when war broke out, we experienced a kind of national pride and respect that made one proud to be American... But something changed. There has been a paradigm shift in the country in the last 10-12 years. I'd like to put it all on Obama, but the truth is, it began before that. Maybe it was the sustained war that seemed to drag on and on, with no clear end in sight. Maybe it was seeing our kids come home changed. Maybe it was a tanking economy and shrinking wages. Heck, maybe it was all of it. I don't quite know. What I do know is that things have changed in this country and around the world. Global liberalism has taken root. open borders, bankrupt nations and politicians with immeasurable power, not derived from the people, but from within their own organizations. It has resulted in an ever growing corruption in government, and politicians are drunk.

This election in America has been an interesting one. Why? Because we now have a president who has never been in politics before and he is in a giant swamp filled with power hungry politicians. Except something has begun to change yet again across this globe. I've said it before, the people are tired of business as usual. What has come to light as a result is this: Politicians are drunk with power, and the recent elections and votes not only in America, but worldwide have left them experiencing withdrawal. We (the people) are fed up with open borders and globalism. Brexit in Britain is proof of it, as is the election of President Trump. Denmark's Anti-immigration party is now the 2nd largest in Denmark. We want borders. Why? Let me put it to you in this way: Why do you lock your car in the parking lot, or lock your front door? Is it because everyone in the neighborhood is a criminal, or everyone coming out of Target want to steal your car? No, it's the realization that there *MAY* be someone like that out there. So we do it as a a precaution. This is why so many of us are in favor of a travel ban, in favor of a wall (it will only keep the honest people out, right? But just the thought of a crackdown has already reduced illegal immigration by 40%), in favor of a national identity.

Here's the truth of the national identity thing too. Those who are most drunk on their power are trying to destroy that. To reform it into something foreign to us. Identity is important. I identify as many things... Irish, Italian, American (most of all), a Marine, Father, Husband. To remove identity is to remove something that sits at the very heart of what we are as humans. Labels are important, it is not enough to just say we are all human. We were made to name things, to classify them. We are Americans for a reason. We left other places to come here for a reason. If you remove our identity as a nation, you strip the nation of who and what it is. We are a nation of legal immigrants and real refugees. Our laws are in place to help, not hurt.

And here's the rub. Those power drunk folks who are trying to make laws for us and legislate are trying to remove those laws. For some reason they forgot that boundaries are not only in place to keep things out, but also keep things in. Let me give an example: When my kids were little, they were allowed to play in the backyard without me sitting there all the time. Why? Because the fence kept them in. The border provided a measure of safety for them. Sure, it wouldn't stop someone hell-bent on breaking in, but there was a measure of protection there. Walls do that. So do laws. Even many of the seemingly stupid ones. Ones like the travel ban that say "if your country is unstable, if it is producing large amounts of terrorists, you need to stay home and not come here". Our laws are for us and not everyone else in the world. That is why we are unique.

This is what heartens me now... Those who are drunk with power and going through their withdrawal are showing their true selves. These leopards can't really hide their spots anymore. Their children are protesting in colleges across the nation, they are funding them, because they don't work. They are holding up laws and orders that are put in place to protect them, but they are more concerned with currying favors and winning demographics that they are willing to sacrifice everything for more power. They pedal the soft bigotry of low expectations for minority groups by providing them with special treatment instead of equal treatment. They do more disservice to them in the long run by this than help. They are handing out fish without teaching them how to catch a fish.  They encourage poverty to fund their coffers of social justice, they fuel a quiet racial hatred by creating special categories for people instead of putting them on equal footing. They encourage entitlement by giving things away without requiring anything in return.

And here's the interesting thing. America has had enough. The world has had enough. We want pride in our countries. We want people to earn what they have. We want our laws to be obeyed and to be safe, without fear of some refugee bringing terror to our soil (remember that the Boston bombers were refugees as were the 9-11 terrorists). We want to know that those we have elected have stopped drinking in their power and are now sober, serving the people instead of themselves.