Category: Covid-19

‘Oppenheimer’ was a Horrible Movie about Communist Propaganda: Regarding blacklisting, few people have been as blacklisted as me

I usually say nice things about Christopher Nolan movies.  But his latest film, Oppenheimer, was horrendously terrible.  I was hoping it would be good; I saw that it won many Academy Awards and has been associated with great success, along with the man-hating Barbie movie that came out during the summer of 2023 around the same time.  I have not seen Barbie even though my daughters liked it, and my granddaughter loves that kind of thing.  The politics turned me off from watching it, so I haven’t.  But I might give Oppenheimer a chance because I felt a movie about The Manhattan Project, building a nuclear bomb with Albert Einstein involved, would be pretty good.  It was the bomb that ended World War II, so what could be political about that? It was a movie about another time set on agreed-upon historical understandings.  But as it turned out, it was a massively political film, and it was undoubtedly Christopher Nolan throwing red meat to the radical leftists of Hollywood, which I happen to know quite a bit about from personal experience.  And the theme of the movie was a subject that deserves some ridicule because the whole point of the movie had nothing to do with the actual story, which was about the Manhattan Project, but was all about blacklisting communists and how unfair the practice was.  Something that Hollywood has never gotten over from the McCarthy Hearings, which, looking back on, were essential.  In Oppenheimer, we have the main character, Robert Oppenheimer, who hangs out with radical, crazy communists going well back into the 1930s after he builds the bomb, World War II ended, and America turns on him and wants to throw him out of the limelight as a communist. 

I was on a flight back from Japan when Oppenheimer was offered on the plane.  I looked around at the seats, and quite a few people watched it.  I could only see the images without sound, but it didn’t look like the kind of movie I expected it to be.  And it had, for some reason, sex scenes in it that didn’t make sense regarding the nature of a film like this.  I knew my wife wanted to watch a movie like that with me, so I held off on watching it on that long plane ride.  But once we had an opportunity at home one night, we watched it.  And about halfway through, we looked at each other and admitted that it was a garbage movie with an overt radical leftist message.  No wonder it won so many Academy Awards.  Going back a few years, I have some experience with the Academy of Arts and Sciences in Los Angeles and the L. Ron Hubbard Writers of the Future program.  So, I fully understand how Hollywood has been radical left for many years.  And I think the Joesph McCarthy hearings weren’t communist seeking enough, to run them not just out of our film industry but our country.  Because communists are a severe problem now, in 2024 America.  I almost turned the movie off, but we agreed to finish the stupid film because we had already invested so much time into its three-hour run time.  As it turned out, the entire movie was not about the atomic bomb that killed so many people and ended World War II; it was about how America turned on Oppenheimer because of his communist connections, which led directly to the McCarthy hearings and how unfair it all was. 

Let me say very few people in the world have been as blacklisted as me, especially in Hollywood.  For many years, working in Hollywood was all I wanted to do.  There was no second occupation for me; I wanted to be a film director and producer, and that was it.  Nothing else for about 20 years.  I worked at many different jobs in many industries to pay the bills.  I ended up learning a tremendous amount of just about everything else.  But a few times, especially a specific time in 2008, I was told that if I wanted to work in Hollywood, I would have to drop the cowboy hat, be much less of a Cincinnati conservative, and get with the leftist program.   That’s just how it was, and if I didn’t like it, I could do something else.  So, I did something else and dropped working for Hollywood like a rock.  I was so angry about it all, that I have written every day since then to some dedication to this blog, radio programs, and other forms of media to protest against communists and their infiltration into our country.  I was blacklisted by communists from working in an industry that I loved, so if anybody should be upset about blocklisting, it should be me.  Out of revenge for how I was treated, I used my many other talents to do something else and succeed.  Most of the people working in Hollywood are one-trick ponies.  I can do lots of things, so I did.  But it never occurred to me to cry about it like the communists behind Oppenheimer, which is a movie about communists being mistreated.  That was the entire point of the film. 

As the communists have taken over almost every industry in America, especially every boardroom controlled by BlackRock and the other money managers directly connected to the corrupted Federal Reserve toward communist policies, they infiltrated our country by crying about how unfair we treated them, then they turned around and blacklisted conservatives in every industry.  We’re not supposed to point out that radical leftists, who are all communists under the philosophy of Karl Marx, have complete control of our colleges and education system.  But we’re not supposed to be critical of them as they continue to blacklist all conservatives from everything, and we’re supposed to put up with it.  It is an insane premise.  But what a bunch of wimps.  I have been blacklisted by communists and told to change my lifestyle if I wanted to work in the film industry.  I went in completely the opposite direction, and when people want to know what motivates me, it is this hatred of communists for the blocklisting they directed at me.  I found other things to do; they weren’t going to decide if I was successful or not.  But I have no sympathy for the characters in Oppenheimer or the ridiculous premise proposed by Christopher Nolan.  His movie, and most movies, are completely political, crybaby movies about the unfairness of a practice they openly engage in.  And to be successful in that industry takes more than talent; it takes sucking up to the communists, especially on the finance side.  And that is clearly what Christopher Nolan was doing with this dumb movie Oppenheimer.  We have so many communists in our society because we have been too nice to them; we got pulled into a debate about fairness with them when our attitudes about communism were correct from the start.  And we should have policies against them even now, for which I have dedicated a significant portion of my life fighting against.  And I will continue to.  And if anybody doubted just how deep the communist infiltration of our country truly is, watch the stupid movie Oppenheimer, and you’ll see for yourself. 

Rich Hoffman

Click Here to Protect Yourself with Second Call Defense https://www.secondcalldefense.org/?affiliate=20707

The Fall of the Credentialed Class: People are tired of worthless losers running their lives

I know it’s scary, but I have been telling this story for over four decades. It’s just that people didn’t want to hear it—not that it wasn’t a problem all along.  Communism and Marxism, along with all varieties of socialism, have been running in the background of all institutional society for more than 100 years, so what is happening now is nothing surprising.  It’s new because people assume everyone plays according to the same rules.  But they never were, and that will put us all in a modern form of the American Revolution, which will be fought in our present time.  Which for many people is scary.  But if you love war and conflict, which I happen to, this is the best time to be alive that anybody could imagine.  And the direction in which everything is heading, aside from the usual chicken little conversations about the end of the world, is obvious.  You can see it clearly in the massive failures happening all across society, but it is never more apparent than in the failures of the ”credentialed class.”  Those who could equally purchase social status by participating in progressive society protocols, such as attending college, joining a fraternity, and following the directions of our education system left behind by such socialist pioneers as John Dewey.  While the path to Hell is always paved with good intentions, and yes, the intentions were good, “fairness for all” and all those ridiculous assumptions, Hell is what the path toward a credentialed society has given us.  And now people want their money back.  All the things the communists of the world told us to do, we have found out, do not give us a perfect society.  And people are turning away from it, which is the violent rejection we are seeing now and the hurt feelings of those who have invested their entire lives toward that credentialed society.  There are a lot of regrets, which was inevitable. 

Communism was everywhere leading up to World War II.  Socialists and Marxists from Europe were haughtily flowing their European viewpoints through high society, and our political class, fresh off their years of Western expansion and criticism over how the Indians were treated, were soaking in guilt and wanting to show the rest of the world they could name wines at wine tastings and eat fancy dinners with the best of them, so they came up with this plan for all of American life, to show the world that the United States deserved respect too.  And that we could go to college and function like civilized people all over the earth have been doing.  So we endeavored to adopt many of their methods, which was to create a credentialed society and create classes of people based on that tiered system, and there are still plenty of people who still think this way.  The communist belief was that skills were an unequal way to elevate in society because some people might be better at things than other people, so to correct that situation, they came up with this credentialed system where people could take a class, get a piece of paper, hang it on their wall, then get jobs based on that effort.  That way, people who were losers but paid the money to get a credential in the education system could have access to a job and climb their way into “elite” society.  So, people who weren’t very good at things in life or who didn’t want to work very hard to acquire a skill loved this system.  All they had to do was pay money and get their piece of paper; then, they could live the rest of their days as a respected member of society because they attended some college or another method of achieving credentials. 

There is a lot of talk about corporations being part of so much evil in this New World Order, which is a shame because I like capitalism and all manner of making money.  Unfortunately, corporations are usually run by lazy people with walls full of credentials but not much skill in performing a job.  So their entire lives are filled with trying to hide that embarrassing fact from the world.  So, they have plunged themselves into more and more socialism and communism in their corporate structure and have taken their companies more toward a Chinese model of authoritarian control by default.  I call these types of people bottom feeders, even when they hold high office in an essential position, because fundamentally, everything they are was built on this premise of a credentialed society.  As long as everyone played by the same rules, nobody would find out what phonies these people were.  They can maintain the illusion as long as a credentialed society protects them from actual results.  So this is how it has been for many years, certainly coming out of World War II and the push to adopt a Middle Class and a tiered education class, which is talked about all the time now, because the belief is that if only more people had gone to college, they wouldn’t be voting for President Trump, as uttered by Katie Couric recently in frustration that nothing seems to be stopping the former President and billionaire from returning to office.  The belief all along from the communist left was that their “credentialed society” would protect them from market expectations. 

But people have now admitted that they don’t like this world created by “credentialed society,” and market forces of need are finally catching up.  Kids coming out of high school now are watching what their dumb parents did, and they don’t want any part of that mess. They certainly don’t want the debt that comes with the buy-in to credentialed society.  And they don’t like the kind of people that credentialed society makes.  The world is starving for the good old-fashioned merit-based society where the best and brightest work hard to climb to success, and the results benefit everyone.  However, the key is to unlock hard work through merit to true innovation, which credentialed society is not inspired to utilize.  For them, it was about equality and the ability to buy your way into advanced society and respect.  For the merit-based capitalist system, it was hard work and perseverance.  The equalization model has left everyone but the lazy starving for better options.  So, as we speak, that credentialed society is falling apart.  They are making a lot of noise about it, but in essence, the trend of the world is moving toward skills and hard work, perseverance, and competency.  Much to the anxiety of the communists and lazy losers of the world who thought they could buy their way into social respect.  As that trend falls apart, the screams are loud.  But it doesn’t change the fact that people want quality and effort in their social interactions, not losers who live in a higher social class just because they attended a school and received a “receipt” in the form of a diploma.  As it has turned out, that paper has shown itself worthless.  And the people hanging it on their walls who paid fortunes to get it weren’t any better off than if they hadn’t done anything.  They still didn’t have the skills to be professional because they didn’t have the guts to do the work.  They tried to cheat it by hiding in the credentialed class.  And the world is tired of it. 

Rich Hoffman

Click Here to Protect Yourself with Second Call Defense https://www.secondcalldefense.org/?affiliate=20707

When You Build Something, There Are Always Lazy Losers Who Want to Take It: Lessons from Yellowstone and What it Means for America

I haven’t changed my mind on Yellowstone being run by a bunch of liberal Democrats.  But as I have said, until a few weeks ago, I had never seen a single episode.  However, everywhere I go, including in the park, everyone asks me if I dress as I do as part of the “Yellowstone” look inspired by the show.  Of course, the answer is no.  I have dressed the way I do my entire life, well before Yellowstone came along.  But as I said, I always hear references to that popular Paramount Network show thrown in my direction, so I thought I’d finally check it out with my wife.  We enjoy watching shows on various streaming services, but usually, there isn’t much time for that kind of thing.  We travel a lot, and I’m involved with a lot, so there hasn’t been a window to sit down and watch a show like Yellowstone, which is now in its fifth season.  But now we’re all caught up over the last three weeks, and I can say it’s a good show.  I get what they are trying to say, and a couple of themes crucial to the consciousness of America are emerging here that are certainly worth discussing.  The show itself, as written and produced by the actor, Taylor Sheridan is quite a commentary on the role and value of American life.  One of my big hang-ups was Kevin Costner, who starred in the show.  He has been in many good westerns, but he also supported Liz Chenay over Trump, so he kept my interest away from the show until I knew more about how his role would play out.  But Yellowstone, in every way, is good stuff, excellent entertainment.  And I’m not surprised that America has fallen in love with the show as the best entertainment that is currently available, anywhere. 

A few years ago, as the Biden administration was put in place by corrupt globalists intent on the destruction of America, I went out west with my entire family to get away from it for a while.  We traveled to Yellowstone specifically in our convoy of RVs, which was the trip of a lifetime.  Along those lines, we found ourselves in Cody, Wyoming, on a hot night in the summer of rodeo season.  So we all went out to dinner from our very excellent campsite and went into town to experience an authentic rodeo, and it was one of the best nights I had ever had.  My whole family was there with me to experience it, kids, grandkids, and others and I hated Joe Biden and his kind of people so much that a night in Cody, Wyoming, was just the right thing for me, which was a very American flag waving sort of MAGA patriotism.  Leading up to that rodeo, we had all traveled through South Dakota, to Mt. Rushmore and Deadwood, around the areas where the Sturgis Bike Rally always occurs, so we were having a wonderful time rooted deep in the heart of America and the kind of people who most make sense to me.  Additionally, we spent a few days in Yellowstone Park, seeing all the famous sites worldwide.  We were in the exact areas where the show Yellowstone took place.  So much so that everywhere I went, people asked me if I liked the show because it reminded them of John Dutton, the way I dressed and walked.  I didn’t know who that was.  It turned out to be the Kevin Costner character, which wasn’t something I took as a compliment.  I’ve also had many local people refer to me as Rip because of my role in the community.  I didn’t know what that meant.  But I do now, and I get it.  I understand all the references.  But the whole time we were at Yellowstone, the actual place, and people were deep in the show then; I hadn’t yet watched a single episode.  But now that I have, and having been there for an extended period, I think I have had a unique perspective on the whole movement in America that is going on behind the scenes, starting with that region of the world and this television show that has managed to capture that spirit in a bottle for all to enjoy.

There are a couple of significant takeaways from the Yellowstone shows that are specific to our times as America struggles to define itself in the wake of an apparent communist invasion that has taken over our government and financial system.  The first is that hard work is the way to bring morality to any good culture.  That is the constant theme of the show, where characters faltering on their moral compass find redemption through challenging work, which always tends to fix anything.  That is very much a message I support, and I am dazzled to see that a television show meant for mass audiences has been willing to tackle this critical issue.  They used to make television shows like this; Little House on the Prairie comes to mind.  And that this show is being made now says more than what might be assumed from a popular entertainment option.  It has the same values as that night at the rodeo I talked about in Cody, Wyoming.  Good stuff!

But the second thing, which is the whole background of the entire show, is the nature of human beings themselves.  It also centers around the premise of evil and what causes it, which is that when you work hard to build something, there is always some lazy loser nearby who wants to take it from you.  When you work hard, parasites always want to steal your hard work so they can have the benefits of what you have built, because they are too lazy to obtain it for themselves.  That something could be land, a woman, a new cowboy hat.  It could be anything.  But the core of the discussion is that there will always be those who want to take value from those who do create it.  And that if you really want to have a civil society, you must protect those with government who produce value.  Not to use government to protect and empower the parasites, and that is the essence of everything the Yellowstone show is all about.  If I hadn’t been there myself and thought hard about these things, I don’t know if it would be so clear.  I don’t know that the creators of Yellowstone were conscious of those traits.  I think Taylor Sheridon left Hollywood to learn ranching out in the flyover states and fell in love with the lifestyle I talked about in places like Cody, Wyoming, during rodeo season, which goes on every night during the summer.  He and the cast and crew were talented enough to capture some of that magic into a magnificent show.  But more than that, likely not to their liking, it is the essential political platform for the MAGA movement with Trump at its head.  The anti-communist political party doesn’t want takers with government alliances to steal what we worked hard to build: our families, homes, and lives in every way.  Because that is the essence of life in the West, what made Western expansion necessary and even justified?  And why do the progressives of our day, the renamed communists from the global Marxist movement, want so badly to destroy our view of Western life?  I dress the way I do to spit in the face of those Marxist ideas.  And seeing the rest of the world catching up is enjoyable, which I’m very happy to see. 

One of my daughters is a professional photographer, and she was with me when I bought a new hat at Jackson Hole.  And I was doing a bit of a photoshoot at the west end of the square, a spot sacred to me because it’s where Clint Eastwood finished the fight in one of his movies, Any Which Way You Can.  People watching assumed I was part of some entertainment company the way people were gathered around me, and people kept asking me if I was a stunt double for Kevin Costner’s character in Yellowstone, which, of course, I said no.  I had never seen the show.  However, for the people in Jackson that day, it was more about the spirit of the show they were thinking about, what it meant to America, and why they were even in Jackson Hole.  They saw me with my big cowboy hat purchased right there on the square with its giant 4” brim, and they wanted to meet the characters they saw on that show in real life.  Because they wanted to see an America that wasn’t fiction but something they could believe in.  Based on my experiences in that actual region, and now watching that show with an eye toward its cultural significance, I think we are in for a promising future in America, where the communists are going to be beaten back from their European roots in ways they can’t even imagine, currently.  And Yellowstone, the show, is part of that process by way of art and entertainment, followed by actual social expectations.

Rich Hoffman

Click Here to Protect Yourself with Second Call Defense https://www.secondcalldefense.org/?affiliate=20707

The Top 1% Are Broken People, Not Elite: What many think is a virtue is really a social dysfunction

There is a kind of permeating fault wired into the human race that necessitates a need for the aristocracy to have meaning and importance over their peers in the destructive pursuit of self-importance.  To my mind, the need for it is like potty training a puppy; the rebellion of defiance of pooping on the floor and then jumping around happily once being scolded that comes from the behavior.  They are undeveloped minds broken toward advanced concepts.  Unfortunately, human beings have not yet developed a proper understanding of the value of such people because we are still struggling with that emotional development, where praise from our parents and peers in society is all important to us.  So, until it’s usually too late, do we come to a proper understanding of the all too tempting notion of measures of importance as understood culturally?  When in reality, the opinions of the masses are rooted in an undeveloped brain functioning from elements of insanity.  We’re talking about the top 1%, as they are often called, or the “elite,” as the media calls them.  They are usually the people most successful in some measurements, but they all have social dysfunction in common.  A switch in their minds that never fully develops gives them the appearance of social maturity, but in practice, they are still unrestricted with critical thinking, which might otherwise guide them toward other decisions.  And because we have never come to grips with this fundamental insecurity that most people have, the social illusion that is the byproduct is that these people are more critical in a social hierarchy, which then promotes these same people to obtain an aristocratic status with ruthlessness and destructive utterances.  In my experience, people who are in the top 1% in our society economically or politically tend to have severe problems in emotional development where the parts of their brains that tell them their problems shouldn’t do something, is undeveloped making them a liability, not a true asset to all social discourse. 

Because we mistake those traits for power and control as virtues, we have not dealt with the core problem of these people other than modes of philosophy that are just as destructive toward a prosperous society, such as Marxism.  The struggle for personal power and its impact on the rest of the world is a long struggle that has always been with us.  But to my mind, our present time is turning the corner toward those assumptions, which is the real merit behind all populism occurring worldwide.  The old idea that a few ruling elites, whether it be a king, a CEO, a politician, a business tycoon, or some other single-point personality, would rule over the masses of society like a shepherd over a flock of sheep is finally dying in our present time, and that has led to mass confusion about the merits of leadership.  What is it, and how does society function with it or without it?  For all this time, the traits that built an aristocracy were valued as special and unique when, in fact, they were essentially broken people who had not yet entirely developed the aspect of their emotional development where such peer acceptance and yearning were not part of a functioning intellect.  As in the example of the puppy, they are not yet potty trained in the world, and their minds are not yet ready to guide anybody toward anything.  That was one of the most important developments of the American system of government, to decentralize authority so that the ill effects of that broken 1% would have less impact on mass society than in other places in the world at different times throughout history. 

Generally, as a culture, Americans resent being told what to do by a centralized figure, more so than other places in the world that have not yet tasted full autonomy of thought.  So they have not yet realized how much better a society is when aristocratic fools are not guiding it from a monastery or corporate influence where the desire for power over many people corrupts the minds of the few in rule over the masses and the perceived power that comes with it.  A truly developed mind with a healthy intellect doesn’t crave that kind of power, so a lack of aristocracy is far more beneficial than having one.  It has taken a long time to arrive at this place, and it took America to give birth to it, but finally, in the world, populism has grown into this expansion beyond the control of the few over the many that have always previously persisted.  So now it is fashionable to question authority and the “elite” who have been running things as long as humans have attempted to organize mass society.  When you get a human being that does not crave power over others, you can be said to be a culture that is being born into a healthy intellect, and its evolution is quite natural and inevitable.  But it’s devastating to those who thought it was acceptable, even those who desired to be those undeveloped few who craved power to fill the vast vacancies of their emotional learning in society.  What is happening now is truly terrifying to them.  But then again so are little puppies terrified when they are scolded for pissing on the carpet.  Just because the puppies are cute doesn’t mean they don’t get hit with the newspaper for leaving their bodily discharge in the walking path of the true owners of a home. 

So, most of the crying that is going on now comes from those little dogs of our society who are whimpering from being scolded.  They thought they were in charge, just like all undeveloped minds assume until they learn the truth.  And for those broken adults who never quite develop, this behavior is more of a retardation, rather than a value.  Still at wine tastings and other social gatherings usually assembled by Democrat types of personalities, the old aristocracy is still a valued commodity, and they crave the leadership of a shepherd in their daily affairs because they, too, lack the confidence to approach life on their own merits.  They prefer to have someone to think for them, and there are always these undeveloped 1% types, “this elite,” who step forward to take on the role.  But most people grow out of such needs to be led and rule over others because their minds no longer value such things once they fully mature.  Yet, such a distinction would have never been made if not for America to provide such an example, where aristocracy and rule over others was not a value system but a rejected premise.  It continues to be the guiding light for populism worldwide, where more people crave to be wolves in their own right, not sheep looking for a shepherd.  Those craving to be our shepherds are often let down by personal failures, which then prevent a healthy society from reaching its true potential.  It was always the perceived “elite” who were the broken minds who got in the way.  And now, in the long evolution of the human race, we are finally growing away from such immature desires.  And our society is improving, even if it is scary to those who thought they were in charge all along.  They are finding out that they never were and never will be. 

Rich Hoffman

Click Here to Protect Yourself with Second Call Defense https://www.secondcalldefense.org/?affiliate=20707

The Danger of Cost Plus Contractor Mentality: Elon Musk and his fantastic views on work ethic

I discovered things I liked about Elon Musk in the recent book Elon Musk by Walter Isaacson, which transcends politics and other sentiments and strikes at the core of all human concerns.  As I read many books, I do not often get to read one like the Isaacson book, where we talk about a character who is essentially a real-life Thomas Edison.  But we’re not talking about him 100 years after his death, but in time, up to the moment.  And as is usual in books like that, there was a lot that I didn’t like.  I have a much different outlook on personal interactions than Elon Musk, and I would say that has caused him many problems, many things that cause him great turmoil. However, regarding manufacturing and productivity measures, I found that Elon Musk is a refreshing and essential character that reflects my core values.  And he’s great for American business.  There are things Americans have adopted from around the world that absolutely disgust me, especially regarding work ethic.  And if there is one reason that I hate, even despise globalism, it is because of its fundamental nature toward Marxism, which I want absolutely nothing to do with.  Elon Musk hates it with equal disdain, even if it took him most of his life to figure it out.  His work ethic was defined while building Tesla, and he has transitioned to SpaceX.  But after reading of his many toils in building those companies and confronting what I would call the vast evil of globalism, I have a lot of respect for him as a person I didn’t have before reading the book.  And it’s something that our government has committed great sins to promote and attach themselves to, and that is the concept of Cost Plus Contracts. 

Cost plus contractors have had it all wrong, all along

The stigma was most noticeable for Elon Musk when President Biden invited EV car makers to a White House event but did not mention Tesla because Musk does not use unionized labor.  And everything about the government points companies they associate with toward cost-plus contracts, which is essentially the anti-business model that has been destroying the world.  The government has no care for reducing costs in anything they do because there is too much power in brokering access to more money for them to apply, which they then transfer to private businesses for the exact control mechanisms.  And that concept has rotted out the core of American capitalism in dangerous and horrendous ways, infecting every aspect of modern American business.  The shell game they play is that costs are always going to overrun, and when they do, you go back to Congress and get more money, or you print more money with Modern Monetary Theory and then apply the extra cash to labor contracts, inflated budgets, and lack of performance.  If something isn’t getting done, Cost-plus Contract entities always throw more money at the problem rather than actually solving the problem.  This is a common issue in most aviation companies, such as Boeing, which has been cultured into accepting a Cost Plus Contract existence for many decades, where essentially, they get paid not to innovate.  But they find themselves in the modern world under the pressures of great competition where Cost Plus Contracts are not the mode of operation for their competition.  And they are drowning in that level of competition presently, to disastrous effect, because they weren’t built for that level of global competition. 

That is essentially what Elon Musk has been facing with his largest companies, Tesla, SpaceX, and now Twitter.  For any company to work right, the first thing they must get under control is the concept employees have been taught by modern Marxists that costs must be managed, and that process never happens if the game is played to turn to government for perpetually more money. This is why I have always been against school levies for public schools; they are all Cost Plus Contracts by their very nature and purposely by those intending to game the system, such as labor unions.  Marxists wanting to crush the American way of life and productivity have advocated this nonsense to the detriment of our economy, and I take it very personally.  I have very strong opinions about this problem, and until I read that Elon Musk feels essentially the same way I do about it, I didn’t know many people who did.  This game of government subsidy, such as we see applied to farmers, is horrible, and it has undoubtedly destroyed the American work ethic.  In companies that are Cost Plus Contractors, there is never an incentive to do anything because they are paid to be failures, to work only to always ask for more money perpetually.  This is why NASA could essentially never get back to the moon.  And more innovations in aviation have not occurred over the last three or four decades.  All the great innovators are snuffed out of the system to make way for more Cost Plus Contract bureaucrats who are as worthless to payroll as a dirty toilet bowl in the local bathroom.  But because of the government’s attachment to perpetual funding, nobody does anything about it, no matter what work is performed, because they get paid to be failures. 

I would say that Tesla and SpaceX are successful because they fought the temptation to become Cost Plus Contract employers.  They are profitable in the old-fashioned way through productive output, cost controls, and delivery expectations.  But they are very much alone in the world of manufacturing these days.  However, it is good to see someone keeping the American spirit of productivity alive on a scale such as what Musk is functioning from.  People can say a lot about the many mistakes in his past and the downfalls of his lifestyle.  I have always liked Howard Hughes for the same reasons that I like Elon Musk.  I can deal with personality traits that many people find uncomfortable.  However, when a person has the kind of work ethic and productive output sensibilities that Musk has, forgiveness is deserved.  And I am thrilled to know to what extent Musk has fought against the connection of Cost Plus Contractors.  That may well be his most significant contribution to the human race.  To stand up against it and win.  Most companies in the world could be successful if they did as Musk has done at his companies and rejected the Cost Plus Contract model.  Of course, the government doesn’t want the manufacturing world to do such a thing because it takes control away from them.  All the colleges teach such a relationship, so most people are lost in dealing with such assumptions.  It’s undoubtedly one of my biggest concerns in the world and has been for a long time.  However, Musk, gaining the ability to bring his work ethic to mass manufacturing on a large scale, has done more to challenge the concept of Cost Plus Contractors than anybody else has currently.  I am thrilled, and my opinions about Elon Musk are much more respectful than I had previously expressed.  His political evolution may have been a moving target, but I like him more now than I would have ten years ago.  But his work ethic is something I greatly admire.  And it transcends political sentiment in every case for me. Additionally, I would say that anybody with a work ethic like Elon Musk was bound to share political opinions eventually.  As most logical people do once they step away from a Cost Plus Contractor’s view of the world. 

Rich Hoffman

Click Here to Protect Yourself with Second Call Defense https://www.secondcalldefense.org/?affiliate=20707

The Secret to Elon Musk’s Success: An obsession with risk and the management of its destructive elements

It’s certainly worth a discussion, although I had been avoiding reading the book Elon Musk by Walter Isaacson, mainly because it was a Time Magazine view of the world, and I tend not to enjoy books like that very much.  I’ve read other books by Isaacson and enjoyed them enough to learn new things.  In this case, Isaacson was given access to Elon Musk for the last few years to study him and learn all he could.  So, it was worth reading about the daily life and details of a person who is often the wealthiest in the world and runs some of the most successful companies.  But politically, I think of Elon Musk as a Barack Obama fanboy and a global greenie weenie.  But I do admire how he built Tesla.  I’m certainly not a EV fan of electric cars, but Tesla has carved out a nice little niche for themselves that I think is valuable.  SpaceX is an incredible company that is doing wonderful things.  I’m a tremendous fan of the Starship program and what has been done with Falcon 9 and the Dragon program.  I appreciate them for what they are, and I think Musk is just a unique personality to continue healthily pushing society places it needs to go.  I think of him as a great case of “dynamic intellectualism” that I talk about with the Metaphysics of Quality and the philosophy of Robert Persig.  But Elon Musk smoked pot on the Joe Rogan Show and wanted to put fart apps into his very expensive Tesla cars, so he’s not my kind of guy and people like Isaacson tend to get the surface qualities of his subjects, but not the real intellectual gist of their value.  However, after reading Elon Musk by Isaacson, the unavoidable trait of the secret to success did emerge without question, which is why I kept hearing about the book from friends and respected business leaders. 

Since the book came out in the fall of 2023, I have had at least someone once a week asking me if I had read the book since I usually read everything that comes out.  But I typically avoid the trendy stuff and lean more toward big-picture things.  I wasn’t interested in another get-rich book by people fascinated with wealth creation viewed through a popular cultural lens.  But so many people were getting the book and passing it out to their management teams, looking for some secret sauce that Musk obviously has.  So when I was at dinner with some very important people at Son of the Butcher at Liberty Center in Ohio, and under great encouragement from those people indicated that I would love the book, I left that dinner, stopped by the bookstore, and bought it just before Barnes and Noble closed for the night, and I promised them the next time I would see them, I would have read the book and told them what I thought of it.  That was on a Thursday night, so by Monday, when I would see some of them again, I had read the book, it’s a pretty big book with a lot of details in it.  Many people had bought the book, but they hadn’t made it very far through, and they wanted to know my opinion on whether to continue slugging through it.  In truth, it was a good book; Walter did a good job for a Simon and Schuster publication intended for static society audiences.  And I would say it’s one of the most important books of our time, for a lot of reasons, which I’ll spend separate articles covering.  But the secret sauce, yes, it was there and in all its glory.  I understood it, and it’s something I relate to. 

Throughout the book, I couldn’t help but think of President Trump when I think of Elon Musk and how wealth has been projected over time.  Trump’s Art of the Comeback from 1997 was about knowing influential people, supermodels, wives, exotic cars, and tall skyscrapers.  And in the part of the book where Elon Musk went through his period of wealth acquisition, Walter Isaacson seemed to be on comfortable ground.  However, in the cover inserts were exciting value changes for Elon Musk.  The things that Musk thinks are successful and what Trump thought was successful have changed a lot over time.  Musk had exhibitions of massive engineering feats displayed in his book, where Trump featured the building of skyscrapers and the New York skyline.  But while the things that wealth could buy as a value may have changed, getting there had not.  Most wealthy people have some prevalent traits they share in common, which is the concern of Walter’s books, especially with Steve Jobs.  What makes successful people successful?  And everyone talking to me about the book wanted to know this.  “If I read this book, will it make me successful?  Can we pass this book on to our super managers and sales teams and learn something from Elon Musk to help us be more successful?”  The answer is yes.  However, knowing how to be successful doesn’t mean most people have the guts to do so.  You can’t cheat that, even though that is what causes most of the corruption in the world—the desire to take the easy way to wealth to have the benefits without the downside. 

The downside with Musk and Trump, along with many others who have done similar things, even Jeff Bezos, is that they are addicted to risk and obsessed with it.   Elon Musk is a classic riverboat gambler who loves risk.  But has the unique personality to be very intelligent enough to know when and how to mitigate risk.  But yes, he is an obsessive gambler who would play Texas Hold ’em’ by pushing all in for every pot, blowing a lot of money in the process.  But in so doing, he would also get the biggest jackpots.  And that’s clearly how he achieved success at the level he did.  Anybody wanting to succeed would have to learn to bring more risk to their lives to have the success that comes from winning big.  A gambler like that might spend a fortune on betting.  But mathematically speaking, people like Musk and Trump know that eventually, things will swing in your direction.  What separates them from everyone else is how much you can take until you fold up on yourself, broke and destitute.  Musk certainly has a personality that could be homeless and poor beyond any reasonable scale because he is a person obsessed with risk.  I get it; I have many of those same traits.  It’s not the money someone like him is interested in.  But its success in risking and surviving, that is.  And without that risk, there would be no success.  Elon Musk would be just another person with Asperger’s and too much brain power, applying it to a static society that is not interested in risk.  They wanted everything safe and predictable and would push themselves by nature as far from the Elon Musk types as they could, to maintain their safe lives.  That’s what makes Walter’s book so good because it indeed chronicles this risky behavior in ways that the public usually doesn’t get to see in people.  But just buying the book wouldn’t make people successful by itself.  What it could do, though, was let people understand that risk is critical to business and how risk is managed is the key to all successful enterprises, which is my general opinion of the book.  Yes, people should read it.  However, they should learn from it how to put more risk into their lives without becoming destructive.  Because there is no way to cheat risk, you either develop a healthy relationship with risk or get standard, predictable results that stagnate and rot you and your culture from the inside out.  Luckily for us, there are people like Elon Musk out there who are making things exciting.  But, there should be a lot more, and maybe yet, there will be.

Rich Hoffman

Click Here to Protect Yourself with Second Call Defense https://www.secondcalldefense.org/?affiliate=20707

Ding Dongs in Columbus: A Review of Governor DeWine’s State of the State speech

Before I get into the obvious homeless guy on 3rd Street in Columbus who was standing on the corner a block south of the Statehouse, completely nude, with his ding dong and buttocks clear for all the world to see, as if he were getting ready to shower at a YMCA, I have to talk about the fantastic book I bought from the Statehouse gift shop that I have had my eye on for several years now, The Art and Artistry of the Ohio Statehouse by Dayna Jalkanen.  Every time I go to the Statehouse, I think about getting it, but time is always short, so I never do.  I love the Statehouse and the intentions of the work that is supposed to be done there, of republic-style representative government, and I had just told a story to similar people about my thoughts on Governor DeWine’s speech where I stood in the rotunda with DeWine giving out pictures with a lunch buffet set up in the middle of the room where senators, representatives, lawyers, lobbyists, cutthroats and even media personalities were at work saving the world from their perspective.  Even the “Rooster” was there dressed in his backpack and poorly attired shorts, deliberately showing disrespect for the process as he runs a government blog checking the antics of the powerful with a kind of Marxist mentality of “bringing them all down.  During this visit, I had a little more time to make it to the bookstore, where I was there with Jennifer Gross, the Ohio Representative from the 47th District, and her son, a brilliant young man.  I explained to many people that DeWine’s speech this year was horrible, worse than usual, and uninspiring.  And there was a thick blanket over the whole State of the State address as Columbus conspiracies were awash in speculation and scandal.  But as I have said before, the Statehouse is there, grand and has deep roots in history.  It intends to inspire people to greatness even if they fall short, as was apparent under this current flock of politicians.  So, I wanted to get the book to remind myself of the worth of it all.

As I checked out the book at the counter and spoke to Jennifer about all the perils of progress during legislative proceedings, I reflected on what I had just said about DeWine’s speech and why it was so bad.  Governor DeWine was clearly in a lame-duck stage of his term.  He was on the outs with the Trump campaign over several controversies.  But the biggest one is that DeWine isn’t a Republican, especially not a Trump Republican.  He’s a product of FDR’s New Deal and some Johnson version of a Great Society where the government was there to do what parents couldn’t or wouldn’t.  And that was the entirety of DeWine’s speech on the State of the State on 4.10.24.  The whole thing was about how the state of Ohio could take care of children in ways their parents would fall short of, and everything he mentioned required more legislation and tax money spent without scrutiny on the next generation without any real expectation of success.  As I had just said in the rotunda, everyone in that room thought they were doing the right things, including DeWine.  They all had the best of intentions.  Nobody thought of themselves as evil.  Yet there was evil everywhere, and why?  It’s a challenging game where you must go to Columbus to work with others to make things happen.  You have to build relationships and get things done.  But in compromising with other people to get things passed, most people find themselves changed forever in the process, and they aren’t the same people who were elected, and they don’t survive the meat grinder of politics intact. 

Whenever I attend a State of the State speech, I always like to sit in the gallery where all the lawyers, aides, and lobbyists sit because I want to hear how they talk to each other.  They all have some specific thing that concerns them most about the government.  It might be renewable energy, social programs, or even Rob Portman’s retirement status, and how many boards he is sitting on for advice.  I was sitting next to one of his former aides who went on and on about how much influence the former senator still had in the business world, which I had to snicker about.  I’ve known Rob Portman for a long time, especially at the beginning of his political career when he was in his 20s.  Rob Portman shouldn’t be advising businesses about anything; he doesn’t have the horsepower to understand the field or how it works.  But in that gallery, I heard many stories about things those people wanted to impress upon each other as they were caught up in the moment.  All dressed up to listen to the Governor give a speech about saving children from their parents.  I explained it later by identifying the problem for what it is: all those people at the speech had the power of government at their fingertips, and they had to decide how to use it to help people.  And that’s where the evil comes in: when people don’t have the right thoughts about things, how can they decide to use government the way it’s supposed to, not how their feeble minds interpret it?  DeWine intended his speech well, as everyone listening did.  But where can they apply government power to the right purposes?  That’s what I wanted to think about as I bought that book and why I took a little extra time talking with Jennifer about those kinds of challenges this time. 

But the answer to that question was at the corner of 3rd Street, just one block south of the Statehouse as I was leaving.  There was security everywhere around the Statehouse because of the governor.  I was leaving the Senate, and there were plenty of police.  But then there was this 6’ 6 man of color standing there with his pants pulled down around his ankles, underwear, and all oblivious to the world around him.  I don’t think he knew his ding dong was hanging out in full view to all the cars and pedestrians moving by him.  I’ve seen homeless people all over the world, and they are caused by too much government destroying the personal initiative of individual people.  And here was this guy, an apparent creation of a nanny state government rotting away in full view of everyone just a block from where all the rules of Ohio were made.  And nobody was doing anything about it.  He was violating public decency standards.  He was probably violating many drug laws.  But he was a person of color, and nobody wanted to be called a racist for pointing out his bad behavior.  So, everyone just ignored him and went about their way.   No doubt, several children that day had their lives ruined by seeing that naked guy on the street corner on a sunny April day in 2024.  With all the grand ideas proposed by many governors over the years, the reality is that the quality of life for people only gets worse the more that the government tries to replace good personal conduct with more laws, which aren’t even enforced a block from where DeWine gave his speech.  And all the people talking about big, fancy ideas in the gallery were already in their cars on their way home, driving past all the problems none had the guts to deal with.  Which is how evil works in those kinds of gatherings.  Well-intended people who use the power of government to do what they lack as people, and it migrated into society to show itself in that homeless guy so disconnected from reality he was nude on a street corner in the capital of Ohio, which should be a showpiece of excellence.  The Statehouse certainly lives up to the lofty expectations.  But the people in it, inhabiting it, don’t.  And they hide their lack of courage behind procedures and fancy speeches.  Yet they always fall short because their minds aren’t up to the task, and they don’t have the guts to increase their intellect where they can help people like that guy instead of making more of them by default. 

Rich Hoffman

Click Here to Protect Yourself with Second Call Defense https://www.secondcalldefense.org/?affiliate=20707

The Eclipse of 2024 in Ohio: When immortality is observed in all its magnificance

I’ve seen eclipses before, but this one in 2024 was different, especially since it was close to where I live in Liberty Township, Ohio.  The totality band was going to be very nearby, so once we received a decent weather report and had the exact path agreed upon by analysis, we found a good RV campsite in Rossburg, Ohio, to set up a base and make a real thing of it.  My crew is very interested in those things, and it certainly made a difference that all three of my grandchildren are inclined toward intelligent things. Even at age seven, one of them is showing a Thomas Edison level of genius, so we wanted to make this a unique experience for them.  Plus, getting out the campers after a hard winter was a chance to stretch our legs a bit.  For an eclipse, the event was scheduled to occur between 1 and 5 PM on April 8th, with the totality of darkness happening around 3:07 PM.  So rather than wait in some parking lot for that specific event, we took our homes on the road and were very relaxed.  So relaxed that we stayed at that campsite for a good part of the week.  It was also my birthday on the 9th so we made quite a thing of it.  We got up on the morning of the 8th, ready for a front-row seat of a great celestial anomaly.  We didn’t have to get up and go anywhere to observe it, so already that was a good thing.  We had a nice breakfast at our campsite, the kids played fervently, and the adults had some raw downtime to talk in ways there was never time for, so we had a very nice experience. 

It was worth it; by the time the moon had blocked the sun 100%, there was a nice halo ring around the celestial bodies that blocked out most of the light from the sun, and the stars came out.  On all horizons, it looked like a sunset for about 50 miles in every direction.  But directly over our heads, it was essentially night.  I put a video up with speed advanced to see that narrow 4-minute period where day became night, and we had two sunsets on the same day.  That particular part of the world is indeed in God’s country. Our campsite was in a flat open area with no trees close, and our campers were essentially pointed in the direction of the whole event as if it were a giant IMAX screen put there for our entertainment.  For a last-minute campsite, the one in Rossburg was fantastic.  It had a couple of lakes with fish and a beach for the kids to play in, which was quite nice.  And for four minutes of totality, everyone could geek out on science and optimally enjoy the eclipse.  All my kids would be lucky to ever see an eclipse like that again in their lives, and we were happy to have the chance to share it together.  Life has so many moving pieces, and getting so many people together to do something like this is hard.  And the celestial show did not let us down.  Even I found the whole thing to be a bit of a miracle and a sensational opportunity to study science in the field and contemplate larger concepts.  The little kids, my grandchildren, were overwhelmed with the spectacle, which is what we wanted for them, and it was obvious that interests were sparked in them at that moment that would last a lifetime.

During the totality, I couldn’t help but think of Tecumseh when he famously predicted an eclipse and an earthquake along the New Madrid Faultline by St. Lewis.  I also thought of all the conspiracy theories that had led up to the eclipse as people tried to make sense of such a meaningful event to human minds.  For instance, why were their ten towns named after the Biblical Nineveh along the path of the totality in North America?  Did many of the Masons who organized these towns initially know this eclipse would happen mathematically, and they set fate to play host to some celestial significance rooted in ancient astrological belief systems?  What role did this particular eclipse play in Jewish rituals, and how planned were they for this event in 2024?  And what results were produced by the particle collider at CERN, which was supposed to have gone off at that exact moment of the totality band in America?  All that was playing in my mind as we watched the eclipse unfold.  Yet, for me, it looked purely like a regional thing.  We had gone to that location because at home, even though home wasn’t very far away compared to other places that we’ve gone, the whole experience was a regional one.  Obviously, celestial observers witnessing events discussed in the Bible would only be important to those experiencing even the most dramatic events.  Most people in the world wouldn’t even notice that there was an eclipse at all.  The sun would dim a bit, and if you didn’t have special glasses to look at it, you would not see the moon passing in front of it.  And wouldn’t even know what was happening, if anything at all. 

The world did not end, and after that event, I continued to think about how humans bring meaning to natural occurrences to attempt to understand the cosmic significance.  As creatures of nature, we tend to do that, where nature happens, and people may observe it, but the importance may not have any significance other than three celestial bodies interacting with each other, the sun, the moon, and the earth relative to their positions.  Suppose anybody hung around long enough over billions of years. In that case, our Milky Way galaxy will collide with a neighboring galaxy, and there will be all kinds of disruptive, likely destructive, celestial events on a grand, epic scale.  This eclipse was a regional thing that had harmless consequences and reminded all the humans watching it, that there was a lot more to existence that they needed to understand.  And that they attempted to bring meaning to the passage of the moon in front of the sun in very specific places in North America was an interesting observation of relativity, but not much else.  But humans have minds, and they think and observe. So many stories came to their minds saying that they were doing what nature intended them to do, to take nature and make meaningful the occurrences in a way that shapes necessity in interesting ways.  The ability to think was the most miraculous event that day, to see a celestial event and to bring human meaning to it as a greater cosmic significance.  We certainly enjoyed it; we wanted all the kids to have something important to think about and see as gloriously as possible.  And to create memories that would last for years, even longer.  There would be more eclipses, not in that part of the world, but they would happen.  But they would never occur under that collection of circumstances ever again, where meaning was created by the minds observing it.  And what is born of that meaning is better than nature for its own sake and is the stuff that makes immortality such a grand word.

Rich Hoffman

Click Here to Protect Yourself with Second Call Defense https://www.secondcalldefense.org/?affiliate=20707

Democrats Have a Major Engagement Problem: It’s all catching up to them

How sure am I about President Trump’s strength in this upcoming election?  Well, it’s a simple math problem.  The traditional way of looking at things is in a panic because they know.  And for all those people I have been telling for four years that there was massive election fraud in 2020 and that Biden was illegally put into office, making everything he has touched all this time completely illegal, the proof they have been looking for is about to take place.  Because they know, they know what they did.  And so do many others.  But you don’t have to take it from me.  The facts are the facts, and everyone knows it.  Democrats have an engagement problem, which is one of the many reasons they are scrambling for voters now at the last minute with illegal immigration.  They have lost the inner city vote.  They have lost the panicky suburbanite moms.  They have lost the immigrant vote.  Biden has been so bad. Obama was also horrible during his third term behind Biden that the Democrat brand is now associated with outright communism.  And people don’t want it or like it.  And they aren’t excited about voting for it.  So without massive election fraud, like they had when they took power in 2020 under the ruse of Covid, Democrats know they have significant problems.  The media has been trying to keep it close because they desperately want the ad revenue.  We don’t want everyone getting cocky and not participating in this 2024 election, assuming that everything will be alright.  But if voter engagement stays high, and Trump gets another 75 million votes, which he can easily do, the Democrats won’t be able to keep up in this one.  They are in for a very sharp punch in the stomach, much deserved.

But Trump is only up by 4 to 6 in the Battlegrounds?  You might say.  In some polls, Biden wins by a few.  No, that’s all smoke and mirrors designed to sell political ads and keep the race close so people pump their billions of dollars into the Fox News life stream, the horse race of politics.  If you go out and poll 1500 likely voters, you are expected to get close results.  But we aren’t dealing with potential voters in this presidential race.  This is all about those who usually don’t vote, who are willing to crawl through broken glass naked to vote for President Trump, which I think will be a number closer to 80 million people.  And the Democrats will be hard-pressed to break into the 60 million range.  It’s just math; they don’t have it on their side, even with isolated cheating.  And they won’t be able to duplicate the level of cheating that has kept it close for them this time because of how outrageous it was during the last.  When Obama was running during both terms, he could not break out of the 60 million range, and many of those voters now find themselves to blame for many things in the world.  So, they are not exactly excited to vote.  Biden has been so horrible even The Rock is pulling back his endorsement because this current monstrosity has been horrible for business, the Democrat platform.  Oh, how about those gas prices and those EV mandates?  People are still sick of COVID-19 vaccine mandates imposed by a Biden executive order.  The embarrassment on the world stage.  The projection of weakness.  The corruption of the Biden family in general.  Biden has been horrendous, but that’s what happens when someone cheats to win, gets put on the stage, and nobody remembers voting for him, so they are already critical.  Then, it all starts to add up. 

There are a lot of people who can’t wait to vote for President Trump again, especially after all these court cases.  Democrats have made it personal, and people want to punch them back.  And all these criminals in government should consider themselves very lucky that most Americans are so fair, willing to live within the confines of the Constitution and punch back with a vote rather than violence.  These news shows claim the opposite who are in a total meltdown know better.  They all have it coming because of what they did and conspired to do.  When they get paid back, they deserve it, and then some.  However, many people are ready to vote for Trump to get that vote.  Biden has many people hiding because of their guilt in a string of crimes they assume would never catch up to them.  But it has.  All these years, we have assumed that there was a 50/50 split in America, where both sides were happy about their person running for office and that they would equally show up and vote on election day, making polling somewhat relevant if you could get a statistical sampling of “likely” voters.  But not this time.  This election is all about engagement and which side has more of it.  And because of the way that Democrats have been caught lying, stealing, and cheating in every way that they could, they don’t have much support except for the toxic communists who know this is their chance at revolution.  Everyone else, the idealists, the college kids, the perpetually scared suburbanite housewives who won’t let their kid leave the driveway without a Band-Aid for every scratch, nick, and bruise, are not excited about putting their name next to Joe Biden.  Some might vote anyway, but they aren’t motivated to do so.

That’s usually how it is at sporting events, where all fans enter a stadium excited about how their team might play.  But at the end of the game, when the score is 35 to nothing, people either leave to go back to their cars, happy or sad.  And when your team loses, and you have blown $500 on snacks and souvenirs, you feel terrible.  That is how Democrats are feeling right now, deep in their gut.  They studied these communist revolutions worldwide and saw how they did it, and they have tried it here in the United States.  But too many people were free.  Too many people have guns.  Too many people run their own businesses.  Too many people have access to too much information.  And there has never been someone as self-made as President Trump willing to pledge his fame and fortune to the cause of freedom.  So, the whole house of cards that the Democrats have built for global communism has fallen apart.  And people can’t wait to see it.  They can’t wait to vote against Joe Biden and the third term of the domestic terrorist, Barack Obama.  If the polling does not favor Biden, then it will not get better when actual people vote.  Because there are a lot of elements that polling doesn’t capture that will come into play.  And that is essential engagement; for Republicans, it will be very high.  For Democrats, it is low because they are the losing team, and people are not excited about the brand.  All they have is fear; most people aren’t afraid of them.  So they don’t even have that to drive people to vote.  So, Democrats have a big, massive problem.  And they deserve all the punishment coming to them, and then some.

Rich Hoffman

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Kimonos in Japan: If America wants to be Great Again, perhaps we should dress for that greatness

You might have heard about Jimmy Kimmel’s recent trip to Japan, a topic of its own.  But he is right about several things: Japan is clean, and crime is low.  He didn’t understand why, which I’ll break down in a separate article.  However, one thing that is quite clear that I admire about the Japanese people quite a lot is their embrace of their traditional culture and their kimono dress.  I, too, was recently in Japan. I’ve been there a few times during this year, so I am very familiar with some of the unique customs that they have there.  However, during this most recent trip, I saw quite a lot of Kyoto on a Thursday afternoon and for an extended period, and I was surprised by how they dressed.  Most of the people I encountered there were walking around the streets, the temples, and the bamboo forest in full kimonos, both men and women.  And there were rental shops everywhere that kimonos could be rented to wear around town.  It wasn’t a samurai cosplay convention, which was what I thought was going on.  This was how people dressed all the time, and it was very refreshing to see.  It reminded me of something I have been saying all the time, that in America, we need to embrace more of our traditions.  While in Japan, I fully expressed American culture, which they appreciated.  In America, I tend to wear a poncho to my gun competitions and other Second Amendment activities, the kind of Western wear that is very traditional to Western expansion and hard, cold nights on the open ranges next to campfires.   I have several of them, and when I wear them, I always get a lot of strange looks.  But I don’t think they should be considered strange at all.  And when I dressed that way to go out to the store in the middle of the night outside my hotel in Kobe, nobody in Japan thought it was strange at all. 

I had a few ponchos in Japan which I like to put on instead of a jacket, especially in inclement weather.  It’s like having a wrap-around blanket without worrying about it falling off your shoulders, so it frees up your arms underneath.  It’s suitable for short-term warmth without messing around with a cumbersome jacket.  And I like that a poncho hides a lot of what you might not want people to see, such as the many knives and guns that I carry all the time.  With concealed carry across multiple states, it is better to hide the big stuff with very baggy clothing instead of trying to contain the weapons in modern-day America’s conventional dress.  In Japan, their reverence for history, especially in their samurai culture, is unmistakable, and they openly embrace it, which I thought was very classy.  It was nice to see the women dressing up in these classic robes to go shopping and be seen around town.  And the men dressed similarly to accompany them.  Instead of being repealed by the display of my own dress, a few times on this latest trip, as I wore my poncho down to the local store to pick up supplies, people wanted to take a picture next to me in my boots, poncho, and Stetson cowboy hat to show they had met a “real American.”  And they were pleased about it.  As they snapped their pictures with me, I couldn’t help but think of one of my favorite quotes from the Dune books: “How else do humans invent the traps that betray us into mediocrity?” 

Mediocrity is what we have adopted in our modern Western cultures, with our associations with communism introduced through our education system.  They have rejected this mediocrity primarily in Japan due to their reverence for traditional values.  But in America, these days, we have associated fashion with an alliance with sportswear.  Nike, Adidas, and other brands seen from college sports programs have largely inspired our public presentation of ourselves.  These days, the idea of proper dress on casual Fridays is a golf shirt that shows we are interested in sports programs.  That is something that they don’t do as much in Japan.  They love sports, especially baseball, but they don’t go out of their way to show reverence for it out of disrespecting their traditional cultures.  But in America, we want to look like the coaches and players of our sports teams, which behind them have all kinds of corporate communism attached to them.  So, our American dress has shifted from individual expressions of a rugged outdoorsman to billboards for corporate influence over our sporting markets.  And the not-so-subtle message there is to accept that individuals are less important than the team’s greater good.  And, of course, behind that is that communism defines the greater good.  So, wearing a cowboy hat in America is quite a statement.  More people are doing it now than they used to, mainly because of the popular Yellowstone television show and the failed politics of the communist left.  People want to make America great again, and like the Japanese, they are turning to traditional dress to convey that trait.  But in America, our dress directly influences our society’s condition. 

I have always worn a cowboy hat.  But over the years, I have been less inclined toward sporting goods fashion trends in favor of my traditional gunslinger apparel.  I’ve been that way for many years.  I remember many late-night encounters in my twenties where I would wear my ponchos everywhere, including the Kenwood Mall in Cincinnati.  It’s one thing to do when you are in your 50s, as I am now.  But when you are in your 20s, many people look at you weird because you are so out of step with mainstream culture.  But it’s always been a visual hedge against mediocrity, which is how I view modern dress codes, and I largely reject the premise.  A culture should strive to stand out from the crowd in everything, individually.  Not to retreat into submission to the mob.  In Japan, particularly Kyoto and even Tokyo, even though the kimonos are uniformly similar in their loose-fitting robes, they are colorful and full of individualized expression.  I thought that seeing that expression was wonderful and was a major contributor to the quality of their society.  I had a chance to eat at a very nice restaurant in Kyoto with some friends.  It was a classic place; most people wore kimonos, and you had to take off your shoes while eating.  It had a spectacular garden to walk in while you waited for your food, and they provided you with slippers to do so.  I stepped into that place, mostly having to duck because the ceiling was low, and the whole place was primarily made of paper and wood.  They gave me a very large locker for my big cowboy boots, which is what they do when you enter to put your shoes in while you eat, but I still wore my cowboy hat.  And they took notice of it.  But it wasn’t in a “you’re not like us” way.  But rather, a respect for the culture that I came from.  And they were proud of their culture.  And what we all shared was a disrespect for sameness as defined by communism and an embrace of versatility as defined by capitalist markets.  They brought us mostly raw fish and vegetables, certainly not chicken nuggets as I might otherwise be used to in the States.  But it was a good look into a culture that embraced their uniqueness and certainly wasn’t shying away from their projection to the rest of the world.  And if America wants to be Great Again.  Perhaps we should start dressing for that greatness instead of playing everything down to some corporate version of casual and accepting sameness as a value rather than uniqueness. 

Rich Hoffman

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