You might have heard the show live, but if you didn’t, you can catch it again by clicking the video below–Matt Clark had me on his WAAM radio show in Ann Arbor, Michigan essentially to defend Donald Trump’s statements about the three functions of government. As far as I’m concerned, Milton Friedman was the advocate who last did the best work of clarifying such things for our Constitutional Republic and he defined it like this; “Government has three primary functions. It should provide for military defense of the nation. It should enforce contracts between individuals. And it should protect citizens from crimes against themselves or their property. When government– in pursuit of good intentions tries to rearrange the economy, legislate morality, or help special interests, the cost come in inefficiency, lack of motivation, and loss of freedom. Government should be a referee, not an active player.” I explained to Matt that I thought Donald Trump was trying to get to this definition under pressure, but could only manage to say “security, security, security.” He went on to say that health care and housing were functions of government which of course erupted a controversy from the #NEVERTRUMP people. Of course those #NEVERTRUMPs think they are the gatekeepers of conservatism, so they lashed out against Trump. After the radio show a listener sent Matt and I a tweet reminding us that the three responsibilities of government are the duty of the Fed Gov and its officers to “preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the USA.” So obviously there was no answer Trump could have uttered which would have pleased everyone. Listen to that broadcast here:https://soundcloud.com/clarkcast/trumps-top-three-functions-of-the-federal-government-4-2-2016-podcast
I personally don’t care if Trump understands Milton Friedman’s philosophy on the role of government. As I have said previously, I don’t look for a leader in a president. I don’t need anybody to lead me around; I just need someone to manage things in the government. Trump I know will hire someone like Friedman to guide him once he’s in office—that’s how Trump is able to do all the things he does. He doesn’t sit around studying constitutional law and all the details of number crunching—he hires that stuff out in his companies. Trump relies on gut instinct after others present him with information to navigate through tribulations and his potential presidency will be unlike any other in American history—and I’m fine with that. I see Trump as the anti-Teddy Roosevelt—as a means to undo all the trouble that the original “Rough Rider” unleashed so many years ago from the White House.
Roosevelt and his descendent Franklin brought the emerging stages of communism to America through progressivism, a movement that ironically started in Wisconsin through the labor unions. Roosevelt didn’t understand how money was made as he was born into a wealthy family and was a second-hander who was a sickly kid. He fought through his limits and empowered himself to be a larger than life personality who ended up on Mt. Rushmore. His achievements were unparalleled and he turned out to be one of the great presidents. His contributions didn’t fall neatly into conservative and liberal, but he managed to get a lot done that was both good and bad for our nation. Teddy really started the whole trampling all over the Constitution thing showing all future presidents how to by-pass congress and do whatever they wanted without the natural checks and balances that are present for a reason. Of course Barack Obama is the latest rendition of that original corruption over 100 years later—it’s the kind of stuff that has made the Netflix show House of Cards so compelling—because it provides insight into the kind of thinking our modern presidents utilize when dealing with Capitol Hill. Frank Underwood is a combination of Bill Clinton, Barack Obama and even George W. Bush—but all this precedent was essentially started by Teddy Roosevelt—the path to hell is always paved with good intentions—from the point of view of whoever is doing the paving.
Watching Trump over the years he has been very successful at taking failed government projects and returning them to private sector influence—cutting costs, and shortening delivery times in the process. He has done this kind of thing many times actually, and it is obvious to me when hearing him speak, such as the night of the CNN Town Hall talked about in the WAAM discussion, that Trump intends to return many of the tasks of government currently to the private sector. When talking about health care—which is out of control—our national debt, our jobs, our infrastructure—just about everything really, it started with Teddy Roosevelt and his war against monopolies. Government has stuck its nose into virtually everything since dramatically paralyzing our economic growth and overall national effectiveness. For instance, I have said many times that the executive order that Kennedy signed making public sector jobs able to unionize is one of the largest drivers of cost that is out there consuming our national resources. A simple recantation of that one executive order would save billions of dollars in potential financial loses and performance effectiveness. Of course Trump can’t talk about anything like that on the campaign trail and when people try to extract specifics out of him, he certainly can’t say things like “I’d like to rescind Executive Order 11491.” Right now, some labor unions are actually backing Trump, and they really need to—for their own good. But when it comes time to make the hard cuts and do the job the correct way—undoing over a century of mistakes effectively by the executive branch and the congress which has eaten out of its hand like royalty, there will be a lot of angry people.
Whoever the president is in 2016 will have to make major cuts to the way business is done in Washington while hoping that a crack team of Carl Icahn types can renegotiate trade deals around the world to keep programs like Social Security floating into a new America growth period—where the United States has GDP growth between 7% to 15%. That is what Trump has in mind, but he certainly can’t say it to anybody—because somebody in the world will be severely pissed off at him. There is no way to make everyone happy. So it’s best to be obscure and to let the chips fall where they fall. Whoever is president will face criticism that is unparalleled and I’ve only ever seen a personality like Donald Trump who could endure the pain of it. That’s why I think only he can do the job.
But it will take a leap of faith from the American electorate to get there. Trump is a unique opportunity that we should not pass up. He requires us to think differently about what the POTUS means to us. Trump I don’t think cares one bit about the pomp and circumstance of White House life. He’s been there and done it. I really don’t think he’ll waste time entertaining European and Canadian socialists posing for pictures to maintain an executive branch image. Trump has all that now, he doesn’t need the White House to give it to him—and that makes me trust him even more. I think a Trump White House will be the hardest working in history. Everyone can say what they want about Trump’s conservatism, but prior to Wisconsin, being down ten points to Ted Cruz, Trump did seven rallies over three days there trying to win. The guy works his ass off, and I’m certain that he will put in 12 to 15 hour days in the Oval Office seven days a week. I really don’t think we’ve ever seen anybody like Trump even trying to get into the White House. He will work hard and he’ll hire the best people that’s out there to fill the details of what he needs. So as I said on Matt’s show, I don’t care if Trump knew by definition the three functions of government. He was close enough—it’s all about security of individuals and their property—from either foreign or domestic enemies. He passes my test—everything else is a formality. I’m ready for a Trump White House because I don’t think we can afford anything less. The next POTUS has to have the courage and personality to undo all these progressive mistakes and it has to happen now. We are beyond second chances. Really, it’s already too late. Trump is the only hope we have. Argue with me now—that’s fine. But I really don’t want everyone to tell me twenty years from now that they should have listened to me. Because by then it will be too late—and I will have been right—of course. Listen now, save your nation, tell me later that I was right—cry at your country’s funeral. Watch the videos above for full context.
This might seem strange to some, but I love the concept of Pee Wee Herman. It was quite a lot of fun for me to watch the first Pee Wee film in over twenty years on Netflix called Pee Wee’s Big Holiday. It’s an exclusive for Netflix but has shown in a few theaters across the nation. Pee Wee to me is such a wonderful character. I get a lot of joy out of watching Paul Reuben play an adult who essentially never entered puberty. His Pee Wee character is a fantasy look into what we all might look like if we never stopped being children—which most of the time I think is a shame—that we all do grow up. I can say that my first daughter was literally born while watching Pee Wee’s Playhouse at the hospital in 1989, which my wife and I never missed together. We looked forward to every Saturday so we could watch it together. During that particular episode she laughed really hard. There were no doctors in the room at the time as they were waiting for her to dilate, and my daughter was born. I actually had to hold my daughter’s head to keep her from falling out into that little bag that is supposed to capture all the afterbirth. Ironically it was that same daughter who was doing a photo shoot of me and we were finished for the day and had a rare afternoon together with only me, my daughter and my wife all in the same place when I noticed a Hollywood Reporter article about the new Pee Wee movie. So we sat down and literally watched it the moment that Netflix put it on their site. It was one of the rare joys I have had in a number of years, I simply loved it!
I suppose this little proclamation requires a back story. It has become a consistent observation that when a major social character who has the public eye out-lives the requirements of whatever system they are a part of, strange stories emerge to destroy their careers. For instance, when Brett Favre was having a hard time retiring from professional football, stories about him sending pictures of his penis to females emerged to force him into retirement following a scandal to knock him off his pedestal. Payton Manning was going through something similar; he was on the fence as to whether or not to retire when a story emerged from his college days attacking his squeaky clean image with sexual imposition. The clear message to Payton was, “get out while you are on top so we don’t have to tear you down.” The college story which had been kept under wraps for over two decades was a warning shot, and Payton wisely listened. Paul Reuben had dominated 1980s comedy during a vibrant Reagan era and had outlived his shelf life. This will just let you examine how much things have changed in just a few decades dear reader.
After the movie that essentially got Tim Burton his big directorial break, Pee Wee’s Big Adventure came out in 1985 both Paul Reuben and Tim Burton launched themselves into successful careers that were wildly imaginative—and boyishly playful. Reuben from 1986 to 1990 did a children’s show on Saturday mornings called Pee Wee’s Playhouse which featured Laurence Fishburne and many others on the smash hit—which was the show that my first daughter was born to. In 1991 Paul Reuben was noticed by a sting officer masturbating at an adult movie theater and was arrested. Paul Reuben offered to do a charity spot for the local police to make the whole incident “go away” but the press got a hold of the story and it essentially destroyed the career of Reuben and his Pee Wee character thereafter.
Toys “R” Us dropped the Pee Wee Herman toy line and CBS stopped airing immediately Pee Wee’s Play House and the character was effectively wiped off the map. Within months Paul Reuben was forced into hiding disgraced. Of course over the next ten years as the Clinton’s moved into the White House that same media effectively destroyed the office of president by letting out all the sexually charged secrets of Bill and Hillary Clinton. By the end of the 1990s masturbation in a movie theater was the least of our worries and with the advent of the Internet and home video markets, pornography exploded into virtually every home. Masturbation was normalized and no longer taboo—in fact it was encouraged by teachers of progressive society. If Paul Reuben had been arrested just five years later, his story would have died before it ever got started, but forever after Pee Wee Herman had been established as a pervert dangerous to children.
Boldly Reuben appeared in Batman Returns which of course was one of the original superhero films that launched this modern era we see today from Warner Bros and Disney. Tim Burton loyal to Reuben because of their friendship from the set of Pee Wee’s Big Adventure cast the actor to play the father of the villain “The Penguin.” Ironically on the modern television show Gothem, Reuben reprised his role from that 1992 film playing the father of the modern Penguin. One thing that I greatly admire about Reuben is that he has been very tenacious—he has stuck around and fought his way through obvious discrimination to make a living for himself—even though the parts offered to him were greatly limited ever since that original arrest. Reuben tried for years to get his Pee Wee character up off the mat and back out into the media world and he just couldn’t get any takers. Nobody would touch it.
However, in 2015 because of the wild success of video streaming to give Hollywood a run for its money in production values, Netflix announced that they would take on the Pee Wee character once again giving Reuben a second chance. They shot the short picture which I’d call essentially a remake of Pee Wee’s Big Adventure—only without all the special effects—and it was released in 2016 as an exclusive on Netflix. So I was quite proud to be one of the first to sit down and watch it. I have not laughed that hard in a long time. Even at 63 years old Reuben played the eternally youthful Pee Wee perfectly. It was a wonderfully innocent film full of fun and laughs.
There is nothing wrong with looking at the human species and criticizing its evolution—we have minds and were meant to think and question the nature of things. Saying that, I think it’s a mistake to surrender our innocence as children to the barrage of hormonal ineptitude that we find after puberty—where biology takes over and we become a sexually based species. I can’t help but think that this world would be so much better if we just took sex out of it and could interact with each other the way children do—innocently and full of inquisitive playfulness. For context, I approach everything I do in life with playful optimism. I just steered a multimillion dollar project to completion using a playful approach that kept everyone’s creative juices flowing without pretension through a very hard project with lots of technical complications. So I clearly understand the benefit of Pee Wee Herman as a cultural character in our complex society and there is something very important about him—which was an invention of Paul Reuben. We should all thank him for his philosophic contributions to the essence of our very foundations as human beings.
If you get a chance to watch Pee Wee’s Big Holiday, you should do it! Its great fun, wildly original—and innocent. I don’t think there was one sexually provocative innuendo within the entire story. It was very much the kind of movie a 6-year-old child would have made, and I mean that as a compliment. I wish more youthful innocence would find its way into the adult consciousness because when I look around at my contemporaries I see defeated people—people who gave up their childhoods and retreated into biological entities of procreation and easy marketing for product placement. What Reuben has done with his Pee Wee character is very hard—he has maintained a youthful playfulness that most people lose at age 11 and kept touch with it well into his 60s. And I admire him for it. Now, if you don’t mind “I’m going to let you let me leave.”
It was just a few years ago that the Chicago Teacher’s Union had a strike that lasted for quite a while and now those radical, socialist, ungrateful, overly paid baby sitters are at it again walking off the job completely for one day to protest state funding—which does not exist—and giving 400,000 students no place to go but libraries, churches and other “contingency sites,” while their parents slaved away at a job to pay for college which is often the intellectual final nail in their youthful coffins. Sadly, as much as teachers—especially those protesting in the streets of Chicago stopping traffic and being an extreme nuisance and burden on society—the kids were let down by every adult in their lives. Their teachers were socialist activists, their parents too busy to stay home and care for them, and the media missed the entire point of the whole matter. People wonder why kids grow up so stupid, why they become activists themselves for Bernie Sanders socialism—well, they learned it in their public schools—socialist brothels of intellectual destruction and left-winged propaganda. The March 2016 one day strike by the teacher’s union in Chicago was one of the most disgusting things I’ve seen this year—and it should be a lesson to all what we’ve allowed to happen.
I say it quite a lot and have for quite a number of years—children would be far better off if parents just left them alone at home playing Playstation or Xbox all day instead of going to the socialist oriented public schools that our nation has given us. It’s a hard reality most people can’t get their minds around—because it’s such an inconvenient truth—but we should have always known what was coming, as the whole operation was ran by a giant public sector labor union. The only real goal of the teacher’s union has been to make students into left-winged radicals. Luckily, not everyone grows up to become a socialist, and not all teachers individually are bad people. There are many in that Chicago protest crowd who likely have no idea what socialism is, or understand what their role in this whole debacle has been—but history defines it for us and shows the direction we are all headed.
As this protest raged there were some startling statistics about the demographic nature of a future America by 2050 which came out. Leftists are absolutely addicted to diversity implementation—mixing different cultures together to change the nature of constitutional law within the United States which is how labor unions and other progressive groups always intended to overthrow America without firing a single shot in a second, un-named revolution. So their emphasis has been on skin color, sex, sexual preference and lots of other superficial aspects not even encompassing the essence of what makes a human being human. They see public schools as melting pots of diversity raising children to have no barriers to sexual attitudes, acceptance of those who “look” different than they are, and completely ignoring actual behavioral characteristics because they have misidentified the key ingredients of a successful society.
Even though I have said many good things about the filmmaker George Lucas he obviously has lost his way over the years—probably because he attended too many democratic fundraisers and the politics of San Francisco liberalized him over time—but the “bearded one” has called Chicago his adopted second home. He loves the progressive nature of the city which he considers doing important work toward achieving a more “fair” society. This is one of the main reasons I no longer like Star Wars. When Lucas made the first films—back in the 80s, they were quite good and had characters that would have been most at home in an Ayn Rand novel. This is partly because Lucas believed much about the world at the time that I do now—best exemplified by his truly great film, THX-1138. But after a divorce that he never really got over, hanging around democratic socialists within the Hollywood community that finally embraced him after many years of trying, then biologically changing in his later years becoming increasingly liberal as his testosterone levels dropped off—he is unrecognizable now and his films reflect his mental status. Now Star Wars is about “diversity” more than it is about throwing off a tyrannical regime hell-bent on destroying individualism. As great as Lucas was as a businessman and filmmaker, he now fails to identify attributes that have contributed to the complete failure of Chicago to operate as a responsible city. As a city it is unofficially bankrupt, living off tremendous debt. When the current mayor finally leaves—who has been extremely progressive all along—the next person will have a huge mess to clean up and that will likely lead to a similar fate as has been witnessed in Detroit. The lines between a capitalist society and a socialist one have been blurred to the point that nobody any longer understands—even our most “educated” and most artistic—like Lucas.
What’s the point of teaching children anything if what they are learning in public school is socialism? The argument is from the left that compassion for others is the most important thing in a human society. They believe as many of those Chicago protesting teachers do, that social equality is more important than individual gains—which is why the teachers are protesting the state to bestow upon them more tax money extracted from private property and thrown in their direction. They have become happy little socialists in the same way that Bernie Sanders has gained in popularity. Kids supporting the socialist presidential candidate will tell you that their reasons are to gain access or debt relief from their college tuitions—which they have been told will be free. Yet the teachers and professors within those professions often push up and over the six figure salary territory after obtaining tenure. The left-leaning advocates for public schools, including college, have signed up their lives to the cause of socialism because the pay was so extraordinarily good. Average people like these teachers couldn’t hope to make so much money anywhere else than they do in the teaching profession. Yet the debate against my position has always been that teachers are valuable people giving wisdom to the next generation and that without them society crumbles. Well, I’d say with them society is guaranteed to fail—without teachers—strictly on their own—kids have a better chance of succeeding in life. That is how destructive socialism is to individual minds.
The belief in public schools is that individual achievement is vile and that group associations are vastly more important because equality between all parties is utilized—and taught. The position of the “left” is that individual conquest is only for the physically, and intellectually strong and that it is a “caveman” mentality which society should overcome. What they forget is that advancements in society are not induced by “fairness” but by hunger. For instance, with as much money as our American civilization has poured into public schools and colleges, kids have not statistically become more intelligent. If you talk to anybody under 30 years old today—you’ll see quickly what I’m talking about. Most young people have been deliberately intellectually handicapped by the public school system to make the best and brightest no better than the sluggish and stupid. When you build your society around the weakest links, you obviously will get a weak society—which is why socialism is so detrimental to any civilization. Teachers have been unable to increase their effectiveness around the world no matter how much money has been spent on them essentially because their emphasis is on “equality and group assimilation” as opposed to individual achievement. In a capitalist society, not everyone can be rich, smart, and powerful—but everyone has a chance to if they work at it. The net result of that effort and success then benefits all of society. There is no way to blend the two together. George Lucas tried with his Jedi concept in the Star Wars films—but had to rely on mythical superpowers to blur the lines of what any human could possibly achieve. Essentially Lucas like most on the political left turned toward Plato’s Republic as justification for their philosophic society—in the case of Star Wars, the Jedi are the council of wisdom that governs society without any individual desire. If a Jedi does let personal desires drive their needs, then their superpower attributes become dangerous to society at large and the organized mass of collective consciousness will desire to have a rebellious overthrow of the renegade individual—that is essentially the message of the movies without the Han Solo element added to the plot. I always liked Han Solo because he was an Ayn Rand conservative that functioned so well to keep saving everyone and advancing the Star Wars story. But without Han Solo, Star Wars is just another examination into Plato’s Republic—which is the opposite side of the coin of Aristotelian logic for which Ayn Rand associated and evolved her thoughts on the matter.
All this contemplation about how we arrived at National Socialism without realizing it is good for understanding how a bunch of overpaid and ungrateful teachers from Chicago ended up in the streets demanding even more money than they are already being paid to essentially destroy the lives of the students they were supposed to be teaching. Politicians looked at that protest and shuddered at all the voters who had nowhere to take their children because nobody does the job of parenting anymore—leaving the task of raising children to the state. So when the teachers wanted to protest to show the world how much power they had through “collective bargaining” they had a monopoly on the children and used them as extortion pieces. That is the “compassionate” side of George Lucas’ ideal society, and the ultimate failure of the entire political left—especially those who have bankrupted the once great city of Chicago. I’d encourage you dear reader to watch all the videos shown above for more information and proof. It’s not an easy admission, but it’s one that we all need to grapple with. Public schools are not good for our children. They might someday become that way if the right market forces were applied, but in the state they are now, they are detrimental to our children. Kids would be safer and their minds kept more intact if we left them alone at home with just a T.V. and a video game system. They’d learn more about capitalism there than in school, and in American society—that is what they should have always been striving towards. These problems will continue until our society recognizes the source of the problem—that it is socialism that drives these large teacher unions and they do not have our national sovereignty or our American economy in high regard. By contrast they wish to continue to extract wealth from the haves, and redistribute them to the have-nots as if the mechanisms of productivity were a finite resource not driven by capitalist invention.
To prove it, each one of those teachers should have been fired from their jobs and replaced. Children would not notice, and the parents would see no drop in scholastic performance, and that is the big secret that the teacher unions are terrified of. It’s only a matter of time before we have to call their bluff—because the money isn’t there for them. Chicago isn’t alone in their debts—most of America is going through the same crises. Only when we finally do—and break the back of the teacher’s union and get their left-leaning political influence out of our schools and the Department of Education can we hope to reverse the trends we are seeing today—a nation slipping into socialism at an alarming rate. Personally, I’m not willing to fund our own destruction. How about you?
This has never been more evident than in the city of Detroit—utterly destroyed by socialism. Chicago is not far behind and is currently propped up exclusively by debt incurrence. Chicago doesn’t have the wealth building ability to pay their debts at the rate that they are acquiring them. But they are small potatoes compared to California—which was once one of the great economies of the world. Now it’s quickly on its way to becoming an empty husk of what it once was and now they have delivered to themselves one of the final nails into their coffin—they approved an increase in the minimum wage with a plan to get to $15 dollars per hour within a few years. Without question, based on the strength of the Bernie Sanders campaign in the West, the entire coastline has been destroyed by progressive politics greatly crippling the American economy. Now with the minimum wage hike they have fully committed to socialism which of course will deplete their once great state of its wealth quickly.
As I’ve said before, I have worked in fast food for a number of years as a second job. I understand the nature of it—and how hard it can be—and at no time did I ever consider that those positions should be paid any kind of “living wage.” Nobody should seek to make a long career out of a fast food job. They are entry-level jobs that should encourage people to improve their skills and value to the capitalist marketplace. For instance—when I worked in fast food, while other people goofed off on their breaks, I read books so that I could become smarter for better things to come. I worked many odd jobs for essentially the first 15 years of my adult life—up until about 35 years of age. Some of those odd jobs were at fast food places—like Wendy’s, McDonald’s, Frisch’s and so on. During that entire period I never wasted one single break on needless exercises. I was always reading books and trying to improve myself—and there isn’t one person from my past who could step forward and say otherwise. I learned a lot of things in these jobs which obviously helped me later on in life. No, I didn’t get paid much, but the wealth I took away from those jobs was invaluable. But always there was a hunger to do better for my family which pushed me to continuously improve.
Without that motivation to step away from fast food, a lot of talent in America is sure to be wasted. Getting paid so much money for the entry-level workforce weakens all the market mechanisms which make capitalism so successful, which of course is the point of progressives who have been advocating the $15 dollar an hour minimum wage. Of course if the minimum wage is set at $15 then all the jobs upstream from fast food will have to increase which is how the socialists have always planned to attack the American economy—by striking at the profit of corporations for the good of the “people” as if they had equal ownership of the means of labor.
The unintended consequence is that companies like McDonald’s will either downsize and further automate their operations lessening their reliance on labor, or they will relocate to some other area of the country that does not have such hefty financial burdens toward their profit margins. Every video game player should understand this concept. Without some measure of profit—whether its points gained, or trophies won in competition with others—there is little incentive to play a game or open a business—if there is no profit. Human beings are driven by profit. As an example—I am a big fan of the Assassin’s Creed video games. There are lots of ways to “profit” in those games—as you succeed you get to open up new areas to explore, you get achievement trophies to share online with the friends in your network, and of course you earn upgrades to your playable character. Every Silicone Valley geek understands how this works—yet they have a hard time applying these lessons to real life—such as in politics. The same young people who will play an online game for 24 straight hours trying to grind it out to earn bonuses—will stand on a street corner protesting McDonald’s for a minimum wage hike without understanding that they are weakening the game of life for which we all live by. In their minds the two worlds are separated by fantasy and reality—but in the human mind—they are one in the same.
No video gamer wants their achievements and hard work penalized so some newbie can just come into a game like Assassin’s Creed and instantly be as good as everyone else. They are expected to work hard to earn the right and respect of everyone else. Well, the same holds true in a capitalist society. No top executive wants to see some snot nosed kid step directly into a corner glass office in a high-rise firm who hasn’t fought and earned the right to be there. And no straight out of college kid should earn $6 figure salaries unless they’ve done the work to be the top of their field of endeavor. By giving fast food workers an instantly high minimum wage—they are penalizing all those in life who play the game of capitalism hard and create all the jobs for which socialists are so eager to give away for free.
The net result will be fewer jobs in California, higher prices because of the lack of competition, and a general gradual lessening of their global economic prowess. The benefits that so many Californians take for granted today, such as having a McDonald’s down the road for a quick coffee and a breakfast will evaporate the higher that the minimum wage increases rise. McDonald’s will automate and implement those new devices into their stores to protect their margins—which is the lifeblood of their company—it’s not to serve society—it’s to make money—to earn points in the capitalist system. Then what California will end up doing along with socialist Seattle is force McDonald’s to reduce their staffing levels all across the country minimizing job opportunities—not increasing them. For the guy like me who just wanted to earn a little extra money and experience—those jobs may not be available if McDonald’s has to drop their minimum staffing levels from 6 or 7 employees to 3 or 4 to maintain their current margins. Once they develop a formula in California for dealing with the increased costs—they’ll implement that strategy to every store they have around the world.
So it is very sad to see that California took the plunge further into socialism. But I did tell everyone a long time ago that all this was coming—and we know what it looks like—and what impact it has—yet they did it anyway. It further prevents our national GDP from ever having a chance to overtake our massive debt with increased productivity. It certainly puts us all further in the hole—which was always the strategy. How does that make you feel America? It should make you VERY angry.
It is surprising that this video hasn’t had more airtime. Obviously the #NEVERTRUMP people are salivating at an opportunity to pounce on Donald Trump after he effectively took off for a week to rest and welcome the birth of his latest grandchild. Cruz moved up on him in Wisconsin and the media thinks they have him cornered finally and can knock him out of the race with a gauntlet of criticism that has been unheard of in American politics. Meanwhile, this Cruz story is pretty important. There is obviously something very diabolical going on. If the guy cheats on his wife and is claiming to be a “Christian” this is a big deal. Carly jumped in entirely too fast, and Cruz is giving off the entirely wrong body language to be innocent. He never answered the question which is pretty bad.
Look dear reader, Donald Trump even if he doesn’t win states like Wisconsin, Colorado, Indiana, Oregon and several other places still wins easily with 1237 delegates by June. He may not even need to win California to get those delegates. I’ve done the math. Donald Trump would have to have a major meltdown to lose. Granted, the questions at this stage get harder and he has a lot against him—literally at every turn. But even if he only does “OK”, he still wins the nomination without a brokered convention pretty easily. If Trump keeps his swagger, the nomination is his.
The media wants people to believe that the whole presidential race is closer and more dramatic than it really is. They want Trump to keep working hard to win the nomination because it makes them all a lot of money having him on the news every night. So if they can delay it, they’ll do what they can to keep him in the news until the general election against Hillary begins. They would like a solid eight months of Trump ratings to generate several years worth of cable news projections. The Cruz story is going nowhere because there is no money in it. But for voters, they should be asking hard questions about Ted Cruz. He doesn’t have a chance to win as president, but he is a sitting senator and a Tea Party favorite. If he’s a cheater we need to know. Watching that video of Cruz and Carly indicates that something is very, very wrong.
Up until really the National Enquirer article I was not adamant that Ted Cruz should not be the presidential nominee. But after hearing him get the endorsements of people like Lindsey Graham, Jeb Bush, and after Cruz actually hired a Bush to work in his campaign, then witnessing all the dirty tricks that Ted played before Donald Trump hit back—like the hit piece on Melania—I have decided that under no circumstances am I going to support any sitting politicians for President. If someone holds a political position now or ever—I will not vote for them in the upcoming election. The political establishment is doing everything it can to protect itself from a rebellion they created because of their mass incompetence and dysfunction—and watching their behavior has made me sick of the process. I don’t believe any of them. It is obvious to me, and I’m hardly one who falls for disillusion and fantasy. Yet I have many friends, several who make livings thinking about this kind of stuff—some who actually work for Glenn Beck—who say they won’t vote for Donald Trump because he’s not a conservative. Well, I think Trump is a conservative in a very liberal part of the country. He may not be Montana conservative, but he is certainly bold enough to call himself a Republican in the very blue state of New York. People can argue and debate all they want, but Trump has a wealth building track record that you can see and touch. Cruz does not. Instead you get conspiratorial information about Ted Cruz when you do a little digging—and it’s not good—like the following videos. Watch them all then decide if you really believe that Ted Cruz is what he says he is.
If there was anything I liked about Ted Cruz it was during his filibuster speech in front of the Senate where he mentioned Ayn Rand. Like Paul Ryan he claims to be a fan—which gave me hope for both of them really. But then again, so was Glenn Beck—and all those people have missed the point she was trying to make. Ted Cruz is no closer to living in the world of Galt’s Gulch than Jessie Jackson and now that he is being pressed as one of two front runners—his story is breaking down. This is why we have a long primary season and why running for president is so difficult. Everyone has to be vetted and we need to see how these people act when they start sweating. Cruz has not done well. Even if he didn’t cheat on his wife with five women—he didn’t do a very good job of stepping out in front of the story. His body language was obviously implicating him behind the tough talk. He came across to me like the kid seen in the below video who blamed Donald Trump for putting teeth marks in a chair. Trump because he is the political outsider—is a convenient punching bag—and Cruz’s team uses dirty tricks too much against him in a passive aggressive manner. They played dirty with Ben Carson, and several others as well. Then when they tried to appeal to Mormons in Utah with Holy-roller ads using a naked Melania to smear Trump, it was obvious to me that when pressed as a possible president, Cruz would behave in the same fashion.
Of course Cruz wants to debate Trump one on one—it is his strongest aptitude. Trump would be crazy to fall for the invite—to give a competitor a chance by playing to his strength. That is not how you win competitions conservatives—you must exploit the weaknesses of your rival—you don’t prop them up. Cruz is a great debater on policy and all the things that politicians talk about. But what has he done in his life that says he could do anything but talk? We’ve heard the talk before and look where it’s gotten us. No, we need now a man of action and I don’t think there is a single one in public office these days within the Washington D.C. culture who can do the job of president. There are a few here and there around the country that gives me hope for the republic, but not enough to matter at the federal level yet. We are in a gunless rebellion right now. Instead of casualties and collateral damage we are seeing people lose or gain their careers. That you could say is a more humane way of dealing with insurgents who have failed at their jobs of running the country—and they neurotically respond as if they’d rather die than just lose a social status. But this rebellion has to happen. We either take back our country through an election or we do it with some militia organized force—but things cannot continue as they have. And what I’ve seen out of Ted Cruz is that he’s part of the system—not fighting against it. Even if Cruz did love the novel Atlas Shrugged—being married to the spouse that he has now would prevent him from acting philosophically from it—which makes him no more effective in government than one of the Bush presidents or the worthless senators like Graham.
Then there was Cruz’s little speech about strong women as he defended his wife Heidi from the wrath of Donald Trump after Ted threw the first punch. Not that women have to be barefoot and pregnant, and must spend all their time in the kitchen caring for their families to have value, but Cruz did not sound very conservative to me. There is this whole metrosexual revolution of men who do cooking for their wives and share in the domestic tasks like doing laundry that are derived from the whole progressive push to make everyone equal, and Cruz like a lot of men are a part of it. In human society the only real differences between men and women are those regarding the sexual roles—that really is it. If we all placed our brains on a table and took away all the physicality, only then would we truly be equal. But with physical bodies, we have roles on earth that point straight into the bedroom. For instance, most women like to take the submissive role in sex, and therefore, they like to pamper their men with domestic obligations—but only if that man has went out into the world and conquered it in some fashion—with either a big paycheck, or in protecting the family from some disturbance. Men and women must respect each other, but the roles they play in their family life are like foreplay to what happens in the bedroom. In the most biologically primal fashion that directly leads to a happy sex life, women like to know that a man is changing the tire on the family car and the man likes to see his woman cooking the dinner he worked so hard to put on the table. That respect leads to a healthy sex life of mutual fulfillment. In this modern age of high divorce rates and mousey men who share all the cooking and laundry duties with their wives—they don’t understand why the women in their lives don’t want to plop up on the hood of their car in their garage and have spontaneous sex. It is because the women don’t respect men who endorse all those beta male attributes. Of course there are exceptions—and some people make it work through sheer will—but biologically we are all wired the same way through our physical bodies—and so long as we live on earth together—those rules apply to everything we do. Trump understands those rules—Cruz certainly doesn’t and you can see it on Heidi’s face—she is suffering. Most women in Heidi’s position use career to substitute the closeness they lack with their husbands. These days’ women have been taught from little girls that this progressive method is the way they must conduct their lives—so they usually enter marriage confused as to their roles within the family. But just a note to men in general, if you have to get your wife drunk to want to have sex, you are screwing up your romantic life with her. Men in that situation need to change things for the benefit of the woman. Society won’t acknowledge this problem, but it’s quite obvious—and it is destroying an entire generation of relationships. Ted Cruz came out in his chastisement of Donald Trump sounding like a silly soccer dad justifying his own personal failures—and it was certainly pathetic. It wasn’t presidential, and it certainly wasn’t “conservative.”
That of course brings us back to Donald Trump and the Cruz supporters who declare that the New York billionaire isn’t a conservative. Trump is rich and he didn’t get that way giving away money. He has a happy housewife at home taking care of his family. Trump is pro gun, pro border security, against Common Core, and favors lowering taxes with an aggressive plan that might actually work. He is decisive and a natural leader and never backs down from a fight. What’s not to like? And he has a track record of accomplishment both good and bad–we can see what we are buying with him. With Cruz, who says he’s the ultimate conservative—what do we really know? Because when you peek under the hood there is a lot not to like—he’s underpowered, feminized, and all talk. The holes in Cruz are showing. If he’s a true conservative then we are in a lot of trouble. Because he does a lot of things and holds positions that are quite contrary to true conservatism—and you can see that in his campaign. And now that too much has been said, there is no going back for me. If the Republican Party does not embrace Donald Trump I’m done with them. If there is anybody but a pure independent from the political establishment in the White House—then I’m done with the process and will turn from elections into Sam Adams. Look people, I’m not a Constitutionalist—I think the Hamilton version of the founding documents was entirely too liberal. I’m an Anti-Federalist by that old definition and if there is movement in the Constitution—it won’t be more toward a socialist state like Obama presents as an option—it will be further to the right—the way that Thomas Jefferson always intended. Because only in that manner can we get to what we were supposed to always be in America—and Trump is the means to get there. Cruz is just more of the same. We don’t need another scandalous preacher from the White House. We need someone who knows how to manage others—something no politician has shown me they are able to do—because they just don’t have the skill set to accomplish the task. Ted Cruz has been nothing but a public servant his whole life. He’s hardly an outsider. He’s simply sold himself that way—and I’m not buying—under any condition. The Glenn Beck types are wrong. They need to go back and re-read Atlas Shrugged. Cruz isn’t any of the characters in Atlantis. He’s at the table with Wesley Mouch. Actually, Ted’s wife is—while the presidential candidate is doing the dishes.
They are lucky in a lot of ways that in America, we have the 1st Amendment. Because the outrage is protecting them from those of us who are fully awake. We are shooting words in an open marketplace instead of bullets. It is obvious that many on the political left and establishment right don’t like the rebellion that is currently occurring, because not enough people are complying to sustain their formulaic plans. But, too bad. I will never submit to their way of thinking. It’s just not going to happen. If given opportunities to compete in the marketplace of ideas, I’m happy to use that method to fight them with debate. But if that goes away, I’m happy to do it in other ways—and I can assure everyone, that compliance with the current conditions is not an option. To understand what I’m talking about, do yourself a favor, listen and watch this Alex Jones broadcast from Friday March, 25th. While you are working in the garage on this nice spring day, or around the house, listen to this very good report—its three hours long. I don’t agree with all of it, but it is quite good at detailing the fight we are all facing. Don’t be asleep, it’s time to get up and go to work. Join me on the battlefield.
And do a friend a favor and send this to them to help them wake up as well. If you want the evidence of what Jones is saying, I have written millions and millions of words providing the proof. Just look up any topic in the search bar on the left and you’ll find the evidence to substantiate what you are hearing. If you doubt any of this remember that last night, the same day as this Alex Jones broadcast, Bernie Sanders–a socialist–filled up a 15,000 seat baseball stadium in Seattle. The communists are rising, and the only defense there is against them–are us.
I say it a lot; I would never in a million years if given a chance go back in time to a period where I was younger. I love every year of my life and I regret nothing along the way. Yet with that said, I consider every new year to be like a graduation. You earn a reputation with age and wisdom that gives a guy like me the ability to do more. Donald Trump, because of a supportive father was able to jump into life with his natural gifts very early, so he didn’t have to suffer through much of what I’m about to say. But it has also positioned him uniquely to run for president with an amassed wealth that nobody could have understood which he has acquire during a lifetime. Now, I’ve also explained this too, because there is a very scientific reason that Donald Trump is wired the way he is, and why he’s successful. CLICK HERE FOR THAT FORMAL UNDERSTANDING. But for the purpose of this article, let’s just say that most people are stupid and they need certain things to navigate through life—from raising children to running a business. They are intellectually handicapped—likely by no fault of their own. People like Trump are a rarity—and when you meet one, you have to make special accommodations to utilize their very special talents. This is precisely why Donald Trump does not get into specifics when he identifies a problem. Below is a fascinating news story from Sky News which explores the Donald Trump phenomena from all fair sides which will help everyone understand along with this text why Trump is the perfect job applicant to run our American Republican—and also why nobody can outmaneuver him.
It has only been very recently—within the last six or seven years that the people who work with me have stopped asking for a “plan.” I am the kind of person who can’t stand being held down to the limits of a plan. Stupid people need plans—for me, they greatly encumber my thinking. I can walk out in front of any number of people and give a speech with no notes and speak for hours. I’m a person who can multitask at many levels with a wide array of people to accomplish a strategic objective. I take only random notes—usually only one or two word entries to remind me of things—but in general notes slow me down too much. I enjoy thinking on my feet quickly and dynamically—and increasingly it’s the only way that I will endeavor into something. Prior to these last few years I didn’t yet have a reputation that allowed me to say to very important people, “trust me,” and they would just do it. Investors, employers, politicians even family members want to know what the “plan” is. But I could never give it to them because I learned very early, that plans were not dynamic enough for reality. What is better is to understand the objective then trust your skills as a person to achieve the end result in spite of whatever obstacles present themselves as barriers to achievement. A banker certainly doesn’t understand that type of thinking—without a plan, they’d have a heart attack.
When I was a kid I got into a lot of fights. I was always the type who resisted the established authority of the masses, because to me, the people who formed that authority were not as smart as me. So why would I listen to them? I have a very long history of breaking the rules of collectivism with a complete disregard—and of course that has caused me to be in a lot of combative situations. For instance, when someone who is committed to collective enterprise is challenged in such a way they have no other recourse but violence to pull people into their way of thinking. As an example, way back in my early twenties my wife and I went to visit a friend of ours at his college fraternity. I didn’t recognize all the “brotherhood” rules of this “frat” house, I simply walked in—stepped across a seal they had on their sidewalk that supposedly meant war to anybody who did, and asked to see my friend who then took me around his fraternity house with my wife for a tour—which infuriated these structured little bastards. They were so angry with me being there with no regard for their rule driven little fraternity that they couldn’t contain themselves with anger after I left. But while I was there, they didn’t say or do anything. The reason was that I had been in many conflicts and people can read confidence in a person—and there was nothing for me to worry about, and it scared them. I showed no fear of them in the least and they didn’t understand how to “manage” me and it scared them.
The worst thing a fighter can do is go into a fight with a plan. If you think I’m going to do this, and he’s gonna’ do that, then the moment those things don’t happen—you’ll be lost and you’ll hold your feet into position too long and you’ll get pummeled by the other guy. You have to know and trust through your training that you can counter anything that anybody throws at you. Better yet, your only plan needs to be in beating the other guy—and like the great Bruce Lee, you have to be like water—to take any form to achieve the task. So you step into the ring, you watch what the other guy offers, then you take all your vast skills and utilize them anyway you can to come out on top and win the match. Early in my life, like 7 through 10 years of age if I had to fight someone after school—I worried about it all day—it made me absolutely miserable. But after you win a few times and get your confidence under your feet you begin to trust yourself and you realize that the other guy is often thinking in a very rigid way—which makes him easy to beat. He has in his mind how the fight is going to go and the moment you take that away from him—he is on a path to losing. By the time I was around 13 to 16 I had mastered the confidence to trust myself in any situation and could think quickly on the balls of my feet. I’d get into these fights with a formlessness that gave me great liberty in achieving victory, and it worked great. By then, if I had a fight after school I was actually able to enjoy myself free of worry. For instance, even though the result was very tragic, CLICK HERE TO REVIEW, leading up to it should have been very scary. Before a big fight, I was supposed to fight three guys at once at a very menacing location. These boys had spread the rumor that they were going to literally kill me and it was all over school. Before the fight, I went to see a girl I liked and spent time at her house before picking up some friends and going to see Nightmare on Elm Street at the theater and having a really good time—for some it might have been the best time of their lives—even still. For me it was just another day in my life—but for them it was the stuff of the best movie they had ever seen. I was very loose and happy–sincerely enjoying my life. I was 16-years old at the time and had reached my peak for that kind of thing, and the results were tragic for the other people—which was regretful. But the point of the matter was that I knew what the objective was going to be and I had a very loose plan on how to achieve it. Reality presented a whole host of variables that I had to work around—but in the end I achieved my objectives in spite of the obstacles.
I’ve had the same approach in just about everything in my life. I’ve had some really stupid people that have worked over me try to intimidate my style into falling in compliance with the way they understand things—and I have never complied. After watching me for years they are no closer today to understanding how or why I do things and why those things turn out so well than they were in the beginning. I don’t take many notes, I don’t seek the counsel of other people—I don’t ask advice about anything—because why would I? I trust myself in every situation. I don’t need to be guided or steered in any way. Now that I’m older people have learned to just shut up and do what I tell them to, and things always work out for them. If they don’t listen—then I just drop them and go do something else. But working in collaboration, or in shared partnerships—forget about it. It doesn’t work and I don’t have any interest in those types of things unless I’m 100% free to do it my way exclusively. Of course I have great communication skills so I give people the same respect that I expect and they can thrive as well—but it takes time for people to understand how to trust me. Without a reputation to go on—which no young person has—it’s hard for people who don’t think in these fashions to understand how to deal with a guy like me.
I see in Donald Trump many of the same traits—reading The Art of the Deal he introduces himself as a multitasker who doesn’t take notes and is quick on his feet. He is certainly a fighter in his own right that is similar to me in the way that he thinks. Trump was fortunate to have a father who didn’t try to crush that spirit out of him. Basically Trump was given a good million dollar loan after proving himself early in life to make his way in the Big Apple. Of course things worked out for him and he exploded into the kind of person that he is now. But essentially, he is a street fighter who squeezed the most out of the opportunities that were presented to him. Most people are not as smart as he is—they are functionally stupid because they don’t understand how he works—so they ridicule his talents for a lack of understanding. It is odd for me to watch him go through this campaign process because he is a person at the top of his game who is now being scrutinized by a very static political system with the dynamism that infuriates virtually everyone—from voters all the way down to the staunchest supporter of the political establishment. I would not want to do what he’s doing because it would be infuriating to deal with so many stupid people. Even getting into his nice 757 airplane you really can’t forget the dumb people around you who just don’t get it. Donald Trump knows how to make America great again—but he also knows that it will be a fight and the path to get there isn’t known. What he does understand is that no matter what anybody throws at him—that he can counteract it, and that he will be successful in his objectives—whether it’s building a border wall, or improving the economy. Unfortunately, most people need a rigid plan to understand how to get there and in politics—the system has been designed as a collective enterprise—which by nature is functionally deficient. I trust Trump because I trust myself. Politics will never be the same after his run—that is for sure—but it pains me to watch him be scrutinized by people who clearly aren’t of the same caliber as he is. I know how painful it is and he is doing it on such a large scale that it has to be difficult. But I’m glad that he’s willing to do it—because it will take someone like him to pull off the job. Things are so messed up globally that it will take such a mind with the kind of resources he has to have a chance of fixing things. But a rigid plan will never get us there—and thankfully, Trump supporters have a good instinct to know that something special is going on even if they don’t quite understand it. That is the clear message in the news report above—and is the key to understanding Donald Trump and his vision for America which will actually benefit everyone in some way or another toward a destiny only he and a few others can see. But he can’t put it down on paper for stupid people to see—because they’ll never understand.
Made in the Fall of the year 1800, and the Winter and Spring of 1801;
WITH
A DESCRIPTION
Of the Soil, Productions, Rivers, Natural Curiosities, Etc.
Of that
Eden of America.
To which is added,
A CONCISE ACCOUNT
Of the
Present State of Kentucky.
∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞
By Zophar Roberts
∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞
“By Travel crown the Arts, and learn abroad
The general Virtues, which the Wise applaud
Whatever worthy thy Remark thou seest
With care remember, and forget the Rest.”
∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞
ALBANY:
Printed for the Author, at Request of many of his
Friends – MDCCCI
1801
Many things occurred to my mind that made me determine not to say anything in my journal respecting Kentucky. I have, however, been persuaded to the contrary by my friends. But, as I have never traveled through that State and only made excursions to different parts of it, during my stay at Cincinnati, the reader is to expect nothing more than a partial (though just) description. It has also been requested, and I have consented, to annex hereto, a further and more particular account of the present State of Kentucky.
Lake George, State of New York, October 15th, 1801.
JOURNAL
I have not begun my daily Journal until I came to Strasburg, 63 miles west from Philadelphia. I shall only say, that I started from Lake George on the 10th of November, 1800, on the 15th of December arrived at Strasburg, PA and crossed what is called North Mountain. Lodged at night at Mr. Skinners’ Inn, in Horse Valley.
Tuesday 16 – In travelling seven miles this morning, we crossed two mountains, viz. Middle Mountain and Tuscarora. We then had a broken uneven country, yet we saw many rich fertile valleys. Lodged at night at Mr. George Wild’s Inn.
Wednesday 17 – After travelling about six miles we took breakfast, travelled two miles further, crossed the Juniata, a noble branch of the Susquehanna, this river, taking its whole course, is perhaps the crookedest river in the whole world; after riding five or six miles we have the Juniata on the right and left, at the distance of not more than ten rods. This river forms many noble bottoms; and notwithstanding its serpentine course there are some excellent masts taken down even to Chesapeake Bay. We crossed the Juniata again about two miles from Bedford; here the river is much pent by the mountains on each side; previous to crossing we had the river to the left and the mountain to the right, for several miles. Here it was, at the time when General Washington was sending an army across the mountains in 1793, to quell the whiskey boys, about Fort Pitt, that the insurgents placed a grave old man in the highway to blast some rocks; the old man had some rocks bored and matches prepared; and at the very instant the light horse came in sight the matches were fired, which were about fifty in number, the report so frightened those brave men, that they immediately turned to the main army, reporting that the insurgents had raised an army of at least one thousand men. We rode one mile further, lodged with Mr. John Emich; here the mountains open and present a beautiful flat.
Thursday 18 – About sunrise this morning, we rode through Bedford, crossed the Juniata several times, and saw some excellent bottom; on leaving the Juniata, we rode ten miles on what is called Dry Ridge. The upland is broken, poor, and very stony, but produces excellent wheat. Lodged at night at William Dorsey’s Inn, two miles from the foot of the Allegany.
Friday 19 – Early this morning we ascended the Allegany, it being very rainy we travelled but about nine miles, put up at a private house with one Mr. Black, a very hospitable gentleman, who charged us nothing for three meals and horse keeping. I wish him an example for others to imitate. He has a large plantation, cuts about 90 or 100 tons of hay, and raises about one thousand bushels of wheat and as much rye. Here is what is commonly called the Glades.
Saturday 20 – It being very bad travelling, this day we proceeded but about fourteen miles; put again at a private house with one Jack Knave, who was really so more than fool.
Sunday 21 – We rode about twenty miles and dined at John Stackdar’s Inn, here we found no good in the people only that they deviated from the custom of the road in charging a higher price. Here too, we leave the Fort Pitt road to the right; proceeded five miles further to Lovengire’s Inn, here we were well used.
Monday 22 – We rode through the hilly rich fertile country, fifteen miles, crossed the Yohogany, and proceeded seven miles further to the banks of the Monongahela, put up at Joseph Beckett’s Esquire, a private house. Squire Beckett is a gentleman.
Perhaps the reader will be disappointed if I do not give a more full description of that mountain, distinguished from others by the name of Allegany. Foreigners are much mistaken concerning this mountain, for it is commonly thought we ascend from one part to near the middle when we reach the summit, and from thence descend to the foot – whereas in ascending we are near as high in going four miles, as in any part of it. This mountain is truly worth notice, great part of which abounds with excellent timber; in general, either oak, chestnut, or white pine, variegated according to the nature of the soil. That part of it called Savage Mountain is beautifully covered with stately white pines, which promise great advantage to the western country in process of time. In passing this mountain we cross many crystal streams, their junction forms the Yohogany, which again falls into the Monongahela, south of the place where General Braddock was defeated. The Laurel Hill is about ten miles wide, and is only the western part of the same mountain; but one reason why it is spoken of as a distinct place may be, the level land lying eastward, called the Glades, in breadth about 25 miles. In this are situated the great meadows where Washington was defeated; the entrenchments used on that occasion yet appear.
This mountain runs a southwesterly course, and is at present generally inhabited. Though part of the soil is so cold and subject to frosts, that little grain can be expected; yet it is said that grain of all sorts are produced on this mountain. In most places, the soil is good for grass and meadows.
It is very probable also, that it abounds with various mines, and if so, it will be of great utility to the adjacent states. It is said to be sixty miles across as you travel to Redstone. Through the whole as you travel, may lodge every night in very good houses. When we descend the Laurel Hill, which is both steep and stony, we come into that country which is known in distant places by the name of Redstone. This name cannot properly be applied to the greater part of this land, for Redstone is a creek, and the land adjacent makes a very small part of the country. This settlement abounds with more creeks that can properly be mentioned here. These all empty into the river commonly called Monongahela, the proper name of which, according to the Indian pronunciation, is Mehmanowangehelak, which signifies Falling in Bank River. From the richness of the soil, the banks of this river frequently break, and fall into the steam; hence, it takes its name. This river comes from the south, and sixty miles before it arrives at Fort Pitt, it is two hundred yards wide. Several ferries are kept on it, though it may frequently be rode in the summer season. On each side of this river, along the creeks, are settlements amounting to many thousand inhabitants in the whole. In this new settlement, several houses for worship are already erected. It is truly pleasing to see the worship of God here, in a land so lately overspread with heathenish darkness and universal ignorance of God. Who could have expected such a change? But all things are possible with God. There is also a furnace, and iron-works, and glass house. The country along the Monongahela is very fertile, exceeding most to be met with in the eastern states. It is certain that part of it is too rich for wheat, though other parts produce it in profuse abundance. Corn and potatoes are raised to admiration. A gentleman of respectability at Muddy Creek said, that one large potato cut in several pieces, produced the first year, one bushel and a half; the second year the return was sixty-four bushels; neither was any manure used, for the earth is sufficiently strong without it. The timber, which consists of black and white oak, walnut, butternut, and wild cherry; indicates the fertility of the soil.
Tuesday 23 – Very early this morning we started, were detained about two hours before we could cross the Monongahela. Here I should mention an imposition on us by Mr. Scott a tavern keeper, if I thought him a man worthy so much notice. We travelled within three miles of Washington, put up at a private house, name unknown.
Wednesday 24 – Proceeded through Washington, which lies about 20 miles south of Fort-Pitt, still travelled through a country of rich uneven land, yet not stony nor mountainous; till we came within six miles of Charlestown in Virginia; here we lodged at the house of Francis McGuire, Esq. He is a member of the legislature of Virginia. We were entertained in the highest taste, made very welcome, and invitations to make that house our home whilst we tarried in the neighborhood.
Thursday 25 – It being on Christmas morning, we concluded not to travel father than Charlestown this day and look for our passage by water to Cincinnati; accordingly, after taking breakfast at Esq. McGuire’s, we started for Charlestown at about 10 o’clock A.M. We had not travelled to exceed three miles when we were called to by one Alex. Crawford to stop and help him drink some peach brandy, he repeating the words that “Christmas comes but once as year.” Here, he with true Yankee freedom interrogated us of our nativity, and our business; we with as much freedom informed him. His brother Mr. Edward Crawford said he knew of an opportunity of our getting in an Orleans boat, which he believed would start sometime the next day, and that he himself was going down in it about 30 miles to the Wegee Bottom. He said, if we would not think him too officious, he would at any rate, take his horse and ride with us to Charlestown, and help us get our passage; we all went and agreed for our passage, to start on Saturday. Charlestown is a beautiful little town on the south-east bank of the Ohio. It contains a courthouse, a house of worship and an academy. Mr. Edward Crawford insisted on our returning to his brother’s and taking a Christmas dinner; we returned, partook of a fine repast; accompanied Mr. E. Crawford to his own house and was not a little surprised to see the generosity of the two brothers; could only say “Christmas comes but once a year.”
Friday 26 – This morning we agreed with Mr. Crawford to keep our horse until our return. Spent the day in assisting the owners of the boat, and the day following. Nothing remarkable happened.
Sunday 28 – About 3 o’clock A.M. we took water for Cincinnati, Mr. Crawford along with us, landed at the Wegee Bottom. This was the first time in my life that I ever set foot on the Indian shore, and to do it justice I must say it is a very beautiful place. We partook of a fine repast at Mr. Crawford’s son-in-law. Mr. Crawford accompanied us no further.
Here it may not be amiss to describe our situation aboard the boat; The owners were Joseph Snodgrass and John Potts; Snodgrass appeared to be man of good sense and much inclined to argumentation; He held with myself, that the sun is not fire nor even a body of heat; but that the heat we received was only occasioned by the force of its rays; but contrary to my belief, he held, that by means of its rays, it diminished every day.
The owners had each of them a blanket, but as we had none, we had nothing to lie on but the wet bottom of the boat or barrels. Our furniture for cooking consisted of one tin quart measure, one bake kettle and three spoons. Our provisions were half a dozen fresh hams, a quarter of fresh beef, some hominy and some potatoes. This was owing to there being no necessary articles in Charlestown for sale.
Monday 29 – Had a pleasant warm day for sailing; saw much very good land on each side Ohio, especially about the mouth of the Muskingum.
Tuesday 30 – About two o’clock A.M. we were alarmed by the watch crying “all hands to the oars,” we immediately manned the oars, and experienced such a storm of wind as would make the heart of the stoutest sailor tremble. We were obliged to land and for safety we chose the Indian shore; this was the second time of my setting foot in the Northwestern Territory. As soon as daylight appeared I took a walk for some considerable distance, to view the country; nothing can exceed the richness of the soil: the timber chiefly black and white oak, black walnut, butternut, hickory, hard maple and sycamore. The wind continued to blow from the S.W. which made the river so rough, that most part of the day it was impossible to travel. Traders say, that the wind almost universally blows up [the] Ohio, especially in winter, nor do I remember it otherwise whilst on the river. This must be of great advantage to trade on this river. Perhaps it would puzzle the greatest philosopher to assign a natural cause for this; but it is plain, Providence has ordered it so. About 10 o’clock we made shift to get into the river again, but was` obliged to land again at about 1 o’clock P.M. four miles below the mouth of the Hockhocking. This is very beautiful country; perhaps no place on the Ohio exceeds it for goodness on all accounts. At about 3 o’clock the wind abated and we again proceeded on our way.
Wednesday 31 – We had a very pleasant day for sailing; viewed much good land on each side Ohio. This day too I saw Kentucky’s banks for the first time.
Thursday January 1, 1801 – This morning, as soon as the dawn ushered in, I was called on by the Captain to drink a toast for all aboard, which I did viz. “May liberty and equality, according to merit, universally prevail throughout the whole world,” which met the highest approbation of the Captain. This day the snow fell about two inches deep. We had a prospect of much good land; Kentucky side somewhat hilly. This night was very cold and tedious.
Friday 2 – Continued cold, yet the weather was not colder than our most moderate weather at Lake George. This day very early we passed the mouth of Scioto; no hill scarcely could be seen; this appeared to be as beautiful a country as anywhere in the world. We measured a grape vine that was twelve inches in diameter. This day also, we landed at Columbia, called on Judge Goforth, a gentleman from New York, and a man of good information: he treated us very politely; here we heard of our old acquaintance Mr. John Ferris; we returned to the boat and agreed to leave her; lodged this night at the widow Messer’s.
Saturday 3 – This morning, after a sweet night’s repose, we rose and took breakfast at Judge Goforth’s; after taking our leave we sat out to go and see our old friend before mentioned. The sun shone with unusual effulgence, the benignity which sat visible in the countenances of all with whom I conversed still heightened my imaginations, my heart expanded with joy at the beauty of this new world; when (but how it happened I cannot tell) I stopped at Major Still’s; Mrs. Still informed me my acquaintance Mr. Ferris was dead. Alas! How soon were my feelings changed, nature itself seemed to change her aspect! But why should I lament his death? His death was truly Christian! His death was magnanimous! His death was without fear! He died without remorse of conscience! He died with full assurance of a blest immortality!
The powers of his mind were strong from nature, but much improved by a judicious education and study. He relished with more than common satisfaction the writings of the ingenious. He was an entertaining companion; possessed with uncommon calmness of temper. He was an early advocate for liberty, and felt with keenest sensibility for the oppressed! Adieu.
January 27 and 28 – The weather was so warm that I taught school without a coat or fire in the schoolhouse.
February 12 – The snow fell about two inches deep and for several days the weather was cold and frosty. This was the first snow that fell after the first of January. No more snow fell this winter.
As a particular description of this north-western territory would be long and tedious, and swell this journal beyond its intended size, I shall content myself with giving the reader a general description, which I have obtained from gentlemen of veracity and information.
The country is in general level, nowhere mountainous, but gentle rises and descents, interspersed with innumerable rivulets and brooks, as if by art, that there be no deficiency in nature. In some places the winters are so mild that cattle need no fodder, and no where do they need much; It is said at Chillicothe, the present seat of government, that 5 cwt. of hay is more than sufficient to winter a cow.
The land is in general, of a rich black loam, producing all kinds of grain in the greatest plenty. Corn is raised to the admiration of all our eastern travelers; it is said to yield from 70 to 100 bushels per acre, and some say more. It produces wheat and rye, (when a little worn) beyond what is to be found in any of our New England States. Cotton is the natural production of the country. There is as great a variety of timber here, perhaps , as in any part of the world; it consists of white, black, yellow and Spanish oak, shagbark, and black walnut, hickory, butternut, black, white, and blue ash, hard and soft maple, cotton-tree, elm, Linn, cucumber tree, hackberry, sycamore, coffee-tree, etc. The coffee tree is the same as our imported mahogany, and bears a nut in taste much resembling our imported coffee. There are a few red cedars and pines in some places. Salt licks are to be found interspersed through the country: This must be considered by all as a peculiar blessing of Providence. The salt made from them is excellent, some of which I saw myself. Silver, copper, and lead mines are likewise found in plenty in many places. It is said that there is the richest and best copper mine on the Wabash that there is in the known world; and it is certain that there is silver and lead mines on the Scioto.
In some places a great plenty of coal pits are to be found; this will be in a short time of great advantage in making iron, as ore can easily be brought from the Allegheny Mountain. No country ever known exceeds this for game, and wild turkeys, it is universally allowed, are more plenty than the tame are in any of our eastern states; buffalo and deer are very plenty: the former of which are generally supposed to be the cattle made use of by the ancient inhabitants; there are likewise a great plenty of bears, wolves, foxes, raccoons, etc., etc. Excellent blue, red and white free stone and lime stone abound in many places. Prairies or natural meadows are numerous and some of them extensive; these yield grass spontaneously to the height of a man’s head, and some much higher; this land when tilled, produces wheat, rye, corn, oats, peas, barley, hemp, and flax in the most luxuriant plenty. Fruit trees of all kinds bear incredibly. The greatest curiosities of this country are old Forts and Mounds. I have seen the ruins of some of these Forts (the walls of which are 4 or 5 feet high) that contain ———————–. When or by whom they were built, tradition nor history gives any account; the trees on them are of equal size with the other timber. I have seen white oak trees on and within the walls of these Forts that were at least three feet in diameter. It is judges by the common way of computation, that these trees are 500 years old. The mounds or pyramids are in general about 20 feet base and about 15 feet high; yet there are some not so large, and some that are 20 feet base and 30 feet high. These mounds are filled with human bones, the size of which are very uncommon, such as was never known among Indians of our acquaintance: here are skull bones that will fill the largest crowned hat I ever saw; jaw bones that will completely set on over the largest visage, and from other bones in these mounds that are not entirely demolished, it is judged that there must have been men from 10 to 12 feet high, some say more. In these likewise are to be found, jugs, bottles, breast-plates, etc. Tradition gives no account of what race of beings these must have been, or when, or how, or in what manner they have been extinguished. It is however judged by some that they must have been of a giant race, and that some pestilence or war has swept them entirely off. However, it will forever remain a matter of wonder and admiration.
These mounds are all adjacent to the forts and nowhere else found.
The principal rivers, beginning at the eastern part of this territory, are the Muskingum, Hockhocking, Scioto, Miami, Wabash, and Illinois; the latter of which empties into the Mississippi, the other all empty into the Ohio. These universally abound with a great plenty of excellent fish: cat, carp, perch, and bass are the most numerous; the cat and bass it is said, often weigh from 30 to 80 lb. Besides these there are a great many more of less note.
By an ordinance of Congress this territory has been divided into two distinct governments; the line of division begins at the mouth of the big Miami, from thence follows the river to the head, thence to the mouth of the Miami of the Lakes. When either of these shall have 60,000 inhabitants, they are to be allowed to form their own constitution, provided it to be republican, and nothing in it repugnant to the federal constitution: they shall then be allowed to choose their own members of Congress, and have all the privileges of the other states. They are at present governed by a General Assembly and Legislative Council, without any guide to go by except a Governor appointed by Congress, who has the sole power of appointing judges during good behavior. By another act of Congress the land owned by the United States was exposed to public sale in April and May 1801: it could not be sold for less than two dollars per acre the one fourth in hand. What was not sold at public sale may now be had at private sale at two dollars per acre by paying the one-fourth down, the remainder in annual quarterly payments as before. This country is worthy of notice and justly admired and esteemed by all. Here the farmer will be more independent than in any other country, here he can raise all the necessaries of life and much more, here he can raise as good flax and hemp as are raised in any parts of Europe. The mulberry tree grows spontaneously and certainly the silk worm will flourish and do well; hence he may have plenty of silk. The industrious house wife by overseeing her domestics will cause the same to be manufactured. Here the fair sex will only be educated in the necessary accomplishments of life, science and arts will be the height of their ambition; each one will be emulous to excel in the polite art of making silks, linens, cambric, lawns, gauzes, etc. Here the industry of the fair will give elegancy at home, and fashions to the rest of the world.
April 12, 1801 – This day I left Mrs. Ferris and sat out for home; but to give the reader a particular description of the country through which I came, would swell this journal even to a volume. I shall only take notice of things which I think mostly merit our attention.
To observe the country I chose to go up the big Miami to Mad River, from thence to the forks of Scioto, etc. This day I rode through Hamilton on the big Miami containing about 40 elegant houses, and bids fair to be a place of great business; proceeded across the big Prairie, which is about 27 miles in length, and is divided near the middle by the Miami. Lodged at Mr. John Steele’s, a private house.
Monday 13 – I proceeded through Franklin, Dayton, followed Mad River to its source, struck across to Darby Rover, and on the 16th we came to Franklin, on the forks of Scioto. This town contains about 150 elegant houses, which have been all built within the space of two years.
Monday 20 – I arrived on the Muskingum, 60 miles N. of Ohio; this country is rather uneven yet not mountainous nor stony. The water here is equal to any in the world. The inhabitants are chiefly from the New England states. Here I tarried two days.
Tuesday 28 – This day early I crossed the Ohio, came to Mr. Edward Crawford’s in Charlestown, where I had left my horse when going down. Being unwell I tarried until Thursday.
Friday, May 1 – I arrived at Fort Pitt, now called Pittsburgh; this is a beautiful little town and a place of considerable business. It stands on the head of the Ohio, made by the junction of the rivers Monongahela which comes from the south, and the Allegheny which comes from the north.
Monday 4 – I arrived at Fort Franklin on the Allegheny and at the mouth of the French Creek, 68 miles north from Pittsburgh. The country in general is well adapted to the raising of wheat.
Thursday 7 – This morning I arrived at Fort Le Boeuf on French Creek. Le Boeuf is French and signifies fat cattle or moose; hence it takes its name. Here too are some excellent prairies. This day came to Colt’s station, a pretty little town called Greenfield, 13 miles S. of Lake Erie.
Friday 8 – I stored myself with provisions for three days, travelled to the S. bank of Lake Erie, lodged at Squire Robinson’s, about a mile west of New York line.
Saturday 9 – I had this morning to set out alone to travel 96 miles through the wilderness on the S. bank of the Lake. This, my reader, was a dreary journey.
Sunday 10 – Early this morning I met 170 cattle and 5 men bound for Presque Isle and New Connecticut. At about 10:00 o’clock I arrived at Cattaraugus, a large Indian settlement. The land on this river is much like that in the N.W Territory, and the land previous to this was, in general, very good for wheat. From this I had 36 miles to ride on the beach; in some places the high rocky banks were such that I was obliged to ride where the water was 4 or 5 feet deep. Lodged this night at an Indian camp – the Indians appeared very friendly.
Monday 11 – This morning I arrived at Buffalo Creek, near the mouth of the lake. This day I left my horse, crossed the lake to Fort Erie, spent the day with some British officers, returned at night.
Tuesday 14 – I arrived at Capt. Lawrence Townsend’s in New Jerusalem, commonly called Jemima Wilkinson’s settlement. Jemima Wilkerson is held by her adherents, 152 families, as a priestess and prophetess; they, in imitation of the Apostles and primitive Christians, hold all things in common, and in their conversation use the simple and undisguised style of the Quakers. Strange it is indeed, that this woman should have so many followers, who believe her sent from God, and capable of holding converse with celestial spirits!
Saturday, May 23 – This evening returned to Lake George, in good health, and found my family all enjoying the same blessing.
KENTUCKY is bounded N.W. by the Ohio, W. by Cumberland River and the State of Tennessee, S. by North Carolina, and E. by Sandy River, and a line drawn due S. from its source, which separates it from Virginia. This country was formed for opulence, for ease and for social happiness. From the richness of the soil, and the temperature of the climate, which exceeds any other of the United Sates, all the various grains and vegetables of the Atlantic States are raised here in profuse abundance; in many instances even to exceed credibility; wheat, rye, corn, oats, peas, barley, hemp, flax, and even cotton are raised to astonishment. It is asserted by gentlemen of veracity, that corn often exceeds one hundred bushels per acre. From the shortness of the winters, which are seldom more than two months, and never exceed three, and the soil being naturally inclined to grass, cattle are raised with greater ease and less expense than in the Northern States; and from the great plenty of corn, the farmer can and does keep his cattle, horses, sheep and hogs, continually fat throughout the whole year, which has enlarged their breed of domestic animals, and made them superior to those of most of the other states. It has been long thought the Silk Worm would flourish here, and experience for a few years past, proves the conjecture not to be ill-founded. The timber which appears to be the most natural to this state is the sugar tree, black and honey locust, white and black mulberry, and the paupaw; besides these, there are great quantities of other timber, which consists of wild cherry of a large size. “The buck-eye, an exceeding soft wood, is the horse chestnut of Europe. The magnolia bears a beautiful blossom, of a rich and exquisite fragrance. Such is the variety and beauty of the flowering shrubs and plants which grow spontaneously in this country that in the proper season the wilderness appears in blossom.”
As far as yet been discovered, the eastern part of the state lies upon a bed of solid limestone rock, in general about ten feet below the surface of the earth, except in valleys where the earth is not so deep. The northern part of this state, along the banks of the Ohio, in breadth from ten to 15 miles, is somewhat hilly; the other parts are agreeably uneven, gentle rises and descents at no great distance. The principal rivers are the Sandy, Licking, Kentucky, Salt, Green, and Cumberland. “These again branch in various directions, into rivulets of different magnitudes, fertilizing the country in all its parts.”
Springs of the greatest note are “the higher and lower blue-springs, on Licking River — the big-bone-lick, Drenson’s lick, and Bullet’s lick, at Saltsburg.” The last of these licks has supplied this country with salt at a low price. Besides these, there are three others of the bitumen kind, they form no stream but empty into one common reservoir: The oil gathered from them answers all the purposes of the best train oil; and it is thought to be efficacious for the rheumatism, sprains, bruises, and the asthma or shortness of breath, scald-heads and burns. The common way of gathering this oil is by sinking a blanket or piece of flannel, and ringing it over a tub or kettle.
Nature has been very bountiful in furnishing Kentucky with some of the greatest curiosities ever known. The high perpendicular banks of Kentucky and Dick’s river certainly claim a superior rank among the natural curiosities of the world: Here the eye of the traveler beholds, with astonishment, a rock of 3 or 400 feet perpendicular, appearing like an artificial canal, in some parts of the limestone kind, and in others of fine marble and curious strata.
The banks of the rivers are covered with large red-cedar groves.
The caves of Kentucky are considered by all as the most remarkable phenomena; no one as I have ever heard has yet attempted to say whether they are the work of art or of nature. These caves are between two and three miles in length in solid limestone rock, and about 12 or 15 feet high, supported by curious pillars and arches; they have in all cases perpendicular sides for about 4 feet with a platform, then that widens to about 5 feet, then perpendicular to the top, and as smooth as if polished by the most curious artificer. They are three in number, and have all wells or springs and subterraneous brooks that pass through them. They are made use of, in the summer season, by the inhabitants living near, as storehouses for butter, meat, etc. The next thing which claims our attention is the sink or deep spring a little west of Big Licking.
This is 75 fathom deep, and about 18 inches diameter at the top. It was found in the year 1798, by a gentleman looking hogs after a light snow; he tracked one that accidentally fell into it. He immediately made a platform, and erected a curb, and from this spring drew, perhaps, the coldest water that ever came from the bowels of the earth.
But as to social happiness nature has here been counteracted: Here are inhabitants boasting Christianity, boasting independence, boasting Liberty and Equality, boasting republicanism, whilst, at the same time, they are, themselves, tyrants and despots; degrading one part of the human species below that of brutes, and denying that they have human feelings, whilst they themselves live in affluence and ease. Oh! How I do blush, whilst I relate facts that are incredible to all, who have not been eye witness of them. Here it is common to see those pretended patriots, all frantic with rage, drag from among their affrighted slaves, one of them trembling and naked, bind both his hands with a cord, stretch him up, until his feet will but just touch the ground, bind both his feet in like manner, crowd a heavy rail between his legs, to prevent his wreathing; then with oaths, that one would think would frighten even the infernal spirits, begin by applying the hickory or cow skin, until there is not a piece of skin, even the width of your finger, from his shoulders to his hips; all the while the poor wretch cries, “for lord Jesus sake, pray don’t master, pray don’t master.” But this imp of the furies, as if hell was not satisfied with pain, without exquisite torment, prepares a cup of fine salt and applies it to the wounds, this makes the poor victim of his rage lament in the most piteous tone of voice, as if ready to expire; but his hard hearted master, callous to pity, again applies the whip; this is called pickling. O poor wretches! How often have I shed tears of compassion for your sakes without being able to relieve you. O ye inhabitants of the southern states! How can you hope for mercy, when you yourselves do not show it? “He that admits no right but force, no justice but superior violence, arms every man against himself, and justifies all excesses. If it be lawful to enjoy because we can; if we may seize the property of another, insult his person, or force him to labor for our luxuries or caprice, merely because he is weaker; this principle will be equally fatal to ourselves.” It justifies your slaves, the instant they become the stronger, in taking you, your wives and children, and separate you from each other, force you to labor to the music of whips and chains, from 4 o’clock in the morning till 8 at night, without refreshment but a little Indian meal and water, half naked (yes on some plantations quite naked) half-starved and cooped up together at night in a cold, dirty hovel, covered with “wounds, bruises, and purifying sores:” robbed of everything that is dear; flogged for praying, and tortured for preaching consolation to your fellow sufferers; and after having exhausted your youth in servitude, you are abandoned in old age, to wretchedness and disease. This is not an exaggerated statement of the case, but a real and true representation of things as they are in Kentucky and some of the other southern states of America, in the year 1801. O shame! Where hast thou fled!
“Oh most degrading of all ills that waits
On man, a mourner in his best estate,
All other sorrows virtue may endure,
And find submission more than half a cure.
Grief is itself a medicine, and bestowed
To improve the fortitude that bears a load;
To teach the wanderer, as his woes increase,
The paths of wisdom – all whose paths are peace.
But Slavery, virtue dreads it as her grave,
Patience itself is meanness in a slave,
Nature imprints upon whatever we see
That has a heart and life in it — BE FREE!”
The author would not be understood to represent that there are no sincere Christians in Kentucky – he believes there are many who sincerely worship God – who in their hearts disdain tyranny and oppression, and disapprove of Slavery, yet they are the minority. Slavery is chiefly carried on among the Virginia and Carolina Settlers.
Of course it was a spectacular day in West Chester when Donald Trump came to speak at the glorious Savannah Center. The whole event was born while I was getting yard signs down at the Cincinnati office and happened to meet Robert Scott who is the Ohio State Director for Trump’s campaign. It should be noted to those who were there how the elements came together the way I suggested they would many months ago—even down to a local Sheriff Jones endorsement and opening speech. CLICK HERE TO REVIEW. But it wasn’t so smooth to get it started—there was a lot of looseness of feet needed to make it all happen and I can only say that I was very proud of all the people it took to pull the event off, starting with Robert Scott. I don’t normally get very excited about these kinds of events, and I hate the security, and formality—but for this occasion I was willing to put that all aside so that Donald Trump could make one last big impression in Ohio prior to the March 15th vote where he is poised to beat Governor Kasich..
It was surreal all day on Saturday, just 24 hours ahead of the big town hall with Trump. John Boehner had come out with an endorsement of Governor Kaisch, which was understandable. After all, that was John’s golf buddy who famously lost to Barack Obama and Joe Biden in that now illustrious golf game in 2011 where the four played each other in the way that the game is really played. It wasn’t so much about who hit the ball in the hole with the fewest strokes—it was who gained leverage over all future deals between Obama’s desires and Speaker Boehner’s. Obama clearly won. Boehner became a lapdog for the president while Kasich betrayed us all, including the Ohio legislature and chained our state to Obamacare ignoring the Health Care Freedom Amendment that was passed just a few years prior by the same people who put the governor in power in 2010. The day was surreal because area republicans were obviously not supportive of the arrival of Trump to their bastion of conservativism—Butler County. Area GOP leaders would have rolled in the mud like pigs at the trough if Mitt Romney were coming, but Donald Trump represents all the things that they fear. For instance, when Trump plays golf with whomever in the future as President, you can bet that the GOP won’t be losing on the deal the way Boehner and Kasich did. That is precisely why with only 24 hours of advanced notice the venue at the Savannah Center filled to a bulging crowd without any official backing by area GOP members. I get emails from the GOP about every time some politician sneezes–looking for money or time—but there was nothing about Donald Trump put out by the party ahead of the Savannah Center Town Hall. If I had not been close to the situation—I wouldn’t have known until after it happened. Even so there were lines over a mile long in the drizzling rain and most people couldn’t get in–and those people showed up three hours early–and still couldn’t get inside.
That is not to say that Trump didn’t have GOP support from winners within the party. Sheriff Jones endorsed Trump, which wasn’t a surprise. But so did George Lang, the area hero who has managed to create a wonderful business environment in West Chester making it one of the finest communities in the nation with such a large demographic population. Lang did it with all the means that any defender of capitalism should, and it shows. The Savannah Center is a representation in many ways of Lang’s rise within the Republican Party. It is a practical place built during his tenure as an area trustee—yet it’s opulent to best represent the community it is in the center of. It has a feeling of hope within it—and in many ways Donald Trump and the Savannah Center were made for each other. After a series of hard rallies where communist insurgents sought to derail Donald Trump ahead of securing the presidential nomination, the Savannah Center and the crowd was an obvious relief for him—and a chance to really put a period at the end of the sentence as to why he should win Ohio ahead of Kasich. It looked great on television and represented our community to the nation in a really spectacular way, and the GOP leaders who normally run everything didn’t play a part in its fruition at all. Which is why they win a lot of elections but do absolutely nothing once they obtain the seats—and is why such a large venue was able to fill up just by word of mouth in favor of Trump.
The crowd which gathered up to well over a thousand inside for a “small” town hall experience was poised with so much pent-up energy that I hadn’t seen such a thing since I was at the football game where the Cincinnati Bengals beat the Seattle Seahawks in OT during the regular season. In Cincinnati with regard to the Reds baseball team and the Bengals football team, we have become all too accustomed to losing in critical moments. The GOP in southern Ohio reflects that trend unfortunately. People get excited about things, but often get let down at the end—just like the quadruple overtime game that the UC basketball team played against UConn on Friday—where the Bearcats just ran out of gas.
Cincinnati fans of politics and sports have witnessed so many near misses that they get rapturously excited when they begin to taste victory—but are always a bit reserved expecting to be let down at the end. For them, seeing Donald Trump in person was just too much to handle—and they were obviously emotional about it. Trump is a winner and that in itself is something to behold. He may not win every single time he does something but what’s different about him is that he “expects” to win. That presence was even more intense in person than it was on television. Trump loves to win, and gives off an impression that he expects it in everything he does—which is very unique for any person over 60 years of age. Trump at nearly 70 has the energy of a teenage kid—and the swagger of one who has never yet lost and learned to accept it. Trump is obviously an unconquered soul who has not yielded in life to defeat—and the crowd knew it. They went way out of their way to be near such energy—and that enthusiasm was certainly on full display at the Savannah Center.
It was a good day for West Chester not only because a presidential candidate came to our town to solicit votes—but because Trump is a massive celebrity who is on the front of a movement against traditional politics for the preservation of our country. For a community and Cincinnati in general, it was a chance for our friends and neighbors to actually be near a person who expects to win in everything he does—and that was exciting. I remember the Kasich rally that was conducted at the Ronald Reagan building just a few miles to the north from where Trump spoke. That was a fairly small room and Kasich couldn’t even fill that—and he is the current governor. I was at another event with Kasich in 2011 and the fields of Carriage Hill in Liberty Township were filled with cars eager to hear him speak. But Kasich lost a series of important issues starting with that golf game with Obama—and the writing was on the wall. Governor Kasich was just another do nothing politician who talked a good game, but couldn’t deliver in the end. Kasich in the same area couldn’t fill up a McDonald’s let alone the Savannah Center—and that is precisely why Donald Trump coming to West Chester was such a big deal.
Because even with a skeptical crowd used to hearing a lot of tough talk but always being let down at the very end—Trump is different. People were able to be near him—which they needed. And by the look on his face—I think he needed it too. For a few short hours during an emerging spring a battered warrior candidate for President of the United States and a skeptical public fed off each other for the better. And a new dawn for America broke just above the horizon—and we all had a sense that soon that bright sun would be high in the sky with a scorching heat and that America would be great again—because Donald Trump for a change would be at the front to inspire victory where nobody previously thought it was even remotely possible.
