Tag: intelligence

The Great Public School Meltdown: Cleveland’s Teacher Layoffs, the Property Tax Revolt, and Why the Socialist Education Model Is Predictably Collapsing

Everybody who’s been paying attention to Ohio politics—and especially those of us in Butler County—knew this day was coming. The headlines out of Cleveland this month hit like a ton of bricks: the Cleveland Metropolitan School District just laid off 410 full-time employees, including 146 teachers, as part of a brutal budget reckoning. The board voted unanimously on April 14, 2026, amid protests and tears, to slash staff and close or merge another 29 schools as part of its “Building Brighter Futures” plan. CEO Warren Morgan called it necessary—declining enrollment (down about 50% over the last 20 years, while staffing only dropped 31%), massive deficits projected to hit $49 million by 2029, even after these cuts, and the need to avoid state fiscal oversight. They’re saving around $50 million a year for now, but the writing’s on the wall. This isn’t some isolated crisis in a struggling big-city district. It’s the tip of the spear for what’s happening across Ohio and the country. Public education as we’ve known it—the endless money pit funded by confiscatory property taxes, union contracts, and the fantasy of government-as-parent—is hitting the wall hard. 

I’ve been saying it for years, and now the reality is playing out in living color. Listen to the young mom who spoke up during one of those emotional video conferences and parent meetings that went viral after the layoffs. She’s exactly the kind of parent I’ve described a thousand times—the insecure 30-something or early-40s mom who grew up in the system herself, outsourcing her kid’s upbringing to the school as a free babysitting service. “It breaks my heart,” she said, voice cracking, “for her and her family and our own life… she was such a staple… I can’t believe they can just come in here and take these people’s jobs away because we are lacking money.” She talked about how the teacher had become a fixture in her son’s life, how it hurt knowing the frontline people doing the real work were the ones getting cut while “people in the office making six figures” stayed fat and happy. Classic. She represents millions of parents who fell in love with their kids’ teachers because they can’t—or won’t—invest that time and energy themselves. They treat educators like extensions of their own fragile egos, demanding the community throw infinite cash at the system so they can live their lives guilt-free. It’s heartbreaking on a human level, sure. But it’s also the predictable outcome of a model built on bad incentives from the start. 

Here in Butler County, where I live, the property tax debates are raging right now. Reappraisals are driving values up 13-25% in some spots, especially in those “20-mill floor” school districts where taxes spike automatically with home values. The county commissioners rolled back some inside millage and boosted homestead exemptions for seniors, but the pressure is enormous. Statewide, there’s this citizen-led push for the “Ohio Eliminate and Prohibit Taxes on Real Property Initiative”—a constitutional amendment to outright ban property taxes on land, buildings, crops, the works. The group Ax Ohio Tax has been gathering signatures like crazy, claiming they’re on pace with around 305,000 so far toward the 413,000 needed from 44 counties by July 1 to make the November 2026 ballot. Experts say it’s a long shot—it might not quite get there, and even if it does, it probably won’t pass. But the fact that it’s this close tells you everything. Young families in their 20s and 30s, looking at home prices inflated by years of easy money and government distortion, aren’t signing up to pay sky-high taxes on overvalued properties to fund a system that’s failing their kids anyway. The pyramid scheme is cracking. Property taxes have been the golden goose for schools—funding billions locally across Ohio—but people are burnt out. They see the results: kids who graduate (or don’t) are barely able to read, think critically, or function without government crutches. And they’re done. 

This isn’t new. I’ve been hammering on it in Butler County levies and school board fights for years. Public schools were never really about education in the classical sense. They were a Progressive Era invention—part of the same 1913 income tax and New Deal fantasies that sold socialism as compassionate central planning. “Bring your kids to us,” the pitch went. “We’ll teach them while you go live your life.” It was always an attack on the family unit, a way to weaken parental influence and reprogram children en masse to worship government. Look at the outcomes: by every measure, it’s been a disaster. National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) scores—the Nation’s Report Card—paint a grim picture. In 2024, only about 30% of fourth-graders were proficient in reading nationally, down from previous years. In big urban districts like Cleveland, it’s even worse—single-digit proficiency in some subjects for certain grades. High school seniors? Just 35% proficient in reading, 22% in math—the lowest in decades. About 64% of fourth-graders overall can’t read proficiently. Literacy stats are brutal: over half of U.S. adults read below a sixth-grade level. We’re spending $15,000–$18,000 per pupil in Ohio (higher in some districts), yet we’re churning out young adults who can’t think for themselves, who lean Democrat for the first decade of their lives until reality smacks them, and who struggle with basic life skills. Thomas Edison didn’t come out of public school. Innovators and independent thinkers rarely do. The system produces dependents. 

And the parents are demanding more money? Many of them are products of that same system—taught that wages should be universal, that showing up and playing on the computer while gossiping about TV shows counts as “work,” that teachers deserve disproportionate pay, time off, and security because… reasons. Unions have locked it in: collective bargaining on the backs of property taxpayers, no real differentiation between good and bad teachers, and ideological capture that skews heavily Democrat. Progressive politics in the staff lounge becomes progressive indoctrination in the classroom—how to “legally steal” or view success as oppression. If you last in that environment into your 30s and 40s, you probably absorb it. The peer pressure and government paycheck mentality do the rest.

The Cleveland story is playing out everywhere. Northeast Ohio districts are warning of more cuts. Enrollment declines, lost state funding, failed levies, and pressure for property tax reform are squeezing budgets. Akron, Columbus—same issues. The Trump administration is accelerating the national rollback. They’re shrinking the Department of Education, moving programs to states and other agencies, pushing school choice hard, and returning power where it belongs: to parents and local control. No more federal bureaucracy pretending one size fits all. It’s happening fast—executive orders, budget shifts, Workforce Pell Grants for real skills instead of four-year indoctrination factories. The fantasies of 1913 and the New Deal are over. People are waking up. The new generation sees that home values aren’t what they’re cracked up to be when the tax bill arrives. They don’t want to subsidize a failing babysitting service forever. 

Here’s the psychological angle I’ve talked about before: a lot of these Levy supporters and heartbroken parents are insecure about their own upbringing. They project that insecurity onto the system, demanding the community parent their kids so they don’t have to confront their own shortcomings. Teachers become emotional surrogates. “Don’t cut her—she’s family!” But it’s not sustainable. No amount of money fixes a model built on coercion and low expectations. Good teachers exist, sure. But the structure rewards mediocrity and ideology over results. Competition is the only answer. The future is school choice: money follows the child—private models, charters, homeschooling, vouchers—parents pay or direct funds to what works. Schools will have to compete for enrollment the way businesses compete for customers. Zip-code monopolies are dying. That drives down per-pupil costs, raises quality, and forces adaptation. Districts clinging to the old union-heavy, top-heavy model (Cleveland’s audit called out administrative bloat) will shrink or reform.

I feel for the laid-off teachers on a human level. Many went into it with good intentions. But the system they defended—endless funding via property taxes, no accountability—created this cliff. Parents like that young mom in Cleveland thought the money was perpetual, that socialism’s promises would hold. They weren’t taught basic economics: you can’t confiscate wealth forever without consequences. When homeowners top out, when young buyers say “no more,” when results don’t match the rhetoric, the house of cards falls. Cleveland isn’t the end—it’s the beginning. More districts across Ohio will face the same. The state legislature has been trying to get ahead of it with reforms, easing the addiction. Republicans see the writing on the wall; many Democrats are still in denial.

The broader truth? Public education hasn’t served America well. It was never designed to create strong, independent people. It was designed to create compliant citizens who mimic government worship. We’ve got generations now waking up damaged—barely literate, debt-laden if they went further, dependent on the very system that failed them. Strong countries need strong individuals who can read, reason, innovate, and stand on their own. Public schools haven’t delivered that at scale. The game is over for perpetual funding. It’s rolling back, and the adjustment will be painful. There will be tears—lots of them—from parents, teachers, unions. But reality doesn’t care about feelings. You can’t say you weren’t warned. I’ve been saying it for years in these pages, in Butler County fights, in every levy debate. People lashed out, called names, and wouldn’t hear it. Now the grim reality is on their doorstep.

The solution isn’t more money. It’s choice, competition, and parental responsibility. Venture your own child—don’t outsource to a stranger in a failing system. The private model works because it has skin in the game. Parents pay or direct funds; schools earn trust or lose students. That’s how excellence returns. Ohio is at the precipice. The property tax scheme is falling apart nationwide as valuations outpace wages and young families revolt. Cleveland’s 410 layoffs are a preview. Multiply that mom’s heartbreak by millions, and you see the emotional wave coming. But on the other side? Better education, stronger families, real opportunity.

I know a lot of the players in these fights. I’ve seen the good families fighting corruption, the dedicated teachers swimming upstream, the parents waking up. The Rooster-style projectionists in media will spin this as “cruelty” or “underfunding,” but the numbers don’t lie: high spending, terrible results. Democrats assume everyone shares their weaknesses—endless government dependence. They don’t get that many of us built lives without it. Vivek Ramaswamy types—successful, disciplined, family-first—represent what’s possible when you reject the excuses.

Footnotes

1.  Cleveland19.com, “Cleveland Metropolitan School District to cut 410 full-time jobs,” April 15, 2026.

2.  Signal Cleveland reporting on CMSD board meeting protests and parent reactions, April 2026.

3.  Ballotpedia, “Ohio Eliminate and Prohibit Taxes on Real Property Initiative (2026).”

4.  NAEP/Nation’s Report Card data releases, 2024-2025 (reading/math proficiency trends).

5.  Butler County Auditor reports on property tax billings and reappraisals, 2026.

6.  U.S. Department of Education announcements on returning authority to states, 2025-2026.

7.  Ohio Capital Journal and related coverage on property tax abolition efforts, March-April 2026.

Bibliography

•  Cleveland19.com and Signal Cleveland articles on CMSD layoffs and consolidations (April 2026).

•  Ballotpedia entry on Ohio property tax abolition initiative (2026).

•  National Center for Education Statistics, NAEP Reading and Math reports (2024-2025).

•  Butler County Auditor’s Office, property tax reform guides and billings data (2025-2026).

•  U.S. Department of Education press releases and budget summaries on Department restructuring (2025-2026).

•  Ohio Capital Journal, Columbus Dispatch coverage of tax reform and education funding debates (2026).

•  Hoffman, Rich. The Politics of Heaven (forthcoming 2027).

•  Additional sources: State audit of CMSD administration; NWEA and EdWeek analyses of post-pandemic scores.

Rich Hoffman

More about me

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

About the Author: Rich Hoffman

Rich Hoffman is an aerospace executive, political strategist, systems thinker, and independent researcher of ancient history, the paranormal, and the Dead Sea Scrolls tradition. His life in high‑stakes manufacturing, high‑level politics, and cross‑functional crisis management gives him a field‑tested understanding of power — both human and unseen.

He has advised candidates, executives, and public leaders, while conducting deep, hands‑on exploration of archaeological and supernatural hotspots across the world.

Hoffman writes with the credibility of a problem-solver, the curiosity of an archaeologist, and the courage of a frontline witness who has gone to very scary places and reported what lurked there. Hoffman has authored books including The Symposium of Justice, The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business, and Tail of the Dragon, often exploring themes of freedom, individual will, and societal structures through a lens influenced by philosophy (e.g., Nietzschean overman concepts) and current events.

Learning to Waste Time: Why public education doesn’t make smart people

As I always say, I wouldn’t send my kids to a public school for any amount of money.  If you have an option, you should always use it rather than send your child to such a horrible place.  I’m a big fan of homeschooling for many reasons, but one was most obvious due to several recent events involving one of my grandchildren.  My daughter always updates my wife and me on what she is teaching him, and they take frequent trips down to the Cincinnati Museum Center for education trips, so he’s what I would consider way out in front of other kids his age, which is almost 8.  In many ways, he is way ahead of many 25-year-olds.  He is brilliant, and I don’t just say that because he’s my grandchild.  But his interests are well above and beyond other kids his age.  For instance, this incident of notice was that he one day just painted a map of the known solar system, the inner and outer, and he had details in it regarding planet placement and other celestial bodies that people at NASA would struggle with.  It was very advanced and was a clear sign of a vastly deep interest in the subject of astronomy, and other sciences.  I reminded my daughter that Thomas Edison was homeschooled and if his mom had not taught him independently, he likely would have never developed the genius that he was known for.  I also told my daughter that if her son had painted a picture like that in public school, he would have gotten in trouble for it.  They wouldn’t want the other kids to feel bad for not knowing the same things, so they would have penalized my grandson for showing extraordinary ambition above and beyond. 

Public schools are not designed to create the next Albert Einsteins and Thomas Edisons; they are prone to make the next Karen fight with a welfare recipient over a shopping cart in a Walmart parking lot.  Public schools are not designed to produce intellect.  They are designed to make stupid, compliant people, and I see this all the time in dealing with people of all kinds of educational backgrounds.  The number one thing that public schools teach children is to waste time.  They certainly aren’t trying to get kids to become the next Thomas Edison, which is what my grandson reminds me of, and because he is being homeschooled, we can see the development in him without restriction.  I think most kids are intelligent, but we teach them as a civilization to be stupid.  Our government wants them to be stupid so they cannot challenge their power.  The globalists want stupid people because smart people would never put up with their nonsense.  But the most devastating attribute of government-run schools, and education in general, is that we teach people to waste time.  That wasting time is the priority, not learning.  Being compliant and waiting for someone to give you something, rather than waking up every morning, taking life by the horns, and using it to your advantage.  My grandson gets asked a lot when he goes shopping with my daughter, “Why isn’t he in school?”  Of course, the answer from my daughter is that he finished school at 11 AM.  He started around eight and finished around 11.  Now, he has the rest of the day to do other things, like draw pictures of the solar system, including the contents of the Kuiper Belt.  They do more learning in that four-hour span than most kids get all week, or all month in public school.  And that is sad to realize.

The typical kid wakes up and waits for the bus to pick them up or their parents to drop them off at school.  They then wait for the first class to begin.  They wait for the teacher to give instructions.  They wait for the next class.  They wait in line for lunch.  They wait to go to the bathroom and recess; they wait in line for the drinking fountain.  The primary thing that our education system teaches is for people to wait for things.  So, it should be no surprise that they grow into adults waiting for their tax returns and a pizza to be delivered. They were waiting for a text from a correspondence.  Waiting, waiting, waiting.  They were not taught to do things but to wait for things, so it goes for the rest of their adult lives.  And should we be surprised that we have a society of fools who don’t understand that the election in 2020 was stolen and that our current president is completely illegally inserted?  Or that COVID was a bioweapon built in a lab in Wuhan, China, and released to allow the governments of the world to cheat in elections and knock off rival powers like the United States, not with military weapons, which they don’t have but through the Administrative State.  They exploit their natural inclination to do what the teacher tells them to because they were raised to follow orders and wait for someone to tell them what to do next.  What else does anybody think will happen when society is taught to be compliant, not to think?  And that’s why we have a lot of the problems that we do have socially.  Our education systems have massively failed our society, and almost everyone is a victim of it somehow. 

I’m proud that my kids and their kids are learning not to operate on that ridiculous hamster wheel.  I grew up with most of my friends being honor students, so I’ve always known knowledgeable people.  One guy was so intelligent that he sold his honors robes at his graduation for a small fee to someone who wasn’t very smart, but their family expected to take pictures of them in those robes at graduation.  He sold the robes, and you know what we did with the money? We went to Perkins to have a couple of hamburgers and spend the rest of the day to ourselves while everyone else ran the rat race of wasting time created for them by public education.  I feel pretty strongly about this issue, but when I see a mind alive with excitement and genuine passion for learning, it just reminds me how many other young kids are being disabled for life because the dumb adults in their lives are teaching them to be compliant to the many fools who have acquired power, and they are learning the critical lesson of wasting time.  And they will grow into future employees who waste time.  Taxpayers that waste time.  And gullible fools who believe everything a corrupt government tells them because they are too lazy to ask the obvious questions.  And more concerned with wasting time than learning something new and doing something with that knowledge.  If you trace back many of our modern problems, the source goes back to our education system and its many failures.  Homeschooled kids, at least, aren’t typically taught to accept these failures.  So even if their parents aren’t brilliant, the child isn’t learning to accept such restrictions, making them far better off than their peers for critical thinking.  But unfortunately, this is rare in the world.  I’m happy to see explosive intelligence from my grandchildren because my kids teach them not to accept silly social restrictions to advanced intellectual concepts.  What are we trying to do if we aren’t trying to make the next genius in the world?   I don’t think it’s a mass conspiracy to make the world dumb.  But I think it’s what you get when you let dumb people make up the education system.  You don’t get intelligent people.  But you get people used to wasting time and doing whatever authority figures tell them.  Which, in almost every case, cripples them for life.

Rich Hoffman

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

The Biden Classified Document Dump: A purposeful diversion from the real problems they’d love to hide

Once you know the tricks these people use to conceal the truth or mislead the public in a direction you don’t want to go, you will find they use the same playbook for everything. Even if the truth is that President Eisenhower met with aliens on the runway of Holloman AFB in 1955 and sold-out American sovereignty into a corporate conglomerate of globalists, ultimately losing World War II and everything we thought we fought for, the diversions that are used to conceal the information from the public are all the same. And that is what I think about the sudden classified documents coming out from the Biden administration initially. Joe Biden knows he’s not a legitimate president; he was elected by China essentially through a rigged system by globalists who wanted a friendly face to implement their Great Reset. If you’ve been watching the coverage at Davos, you’d see just how crazy they all are, and that ties into the Eisenhower deal that I’ll talk about a lot more later. None of these aggressors think they can beat the United States directly, so they have methods of deception that they use to undercut us all by way of war, but by methods of dishonesty, they have become quite overconfident. They put Biden in place and thought people would be gullible enough to accept it, but it hasn’t been working. Biden has serious economic problems. He is allegiant to a phony war in Ukraine, and his boy Hunter is in all kinds of trouble with that laptop. We know that President Biden even showered with his daughter, and the FBI tried to cover that up. Biden is a disaster in every way a president could be, and the anger toward him is much worse than the mainstream polling cares to indicate. 

The Biden classified documents that we have been hearing about over the last week were a purposeful leak meant to soak up people’s minds over a couple of issues. First, it’s safe for Biden to look for a diversion to defer to classified document leaks to get people talking about what is preferable to all the disasters that Biden is enduring presently. There is a lot of really bad stuff we could be talking about in the news, especially concerning the deaths that are directly connected to the government-mandated vaccines and the people who lost their jobs because they defied Biden’s illegal executive order from September 2021. Covid was an attack, a bioweapon from China that many of the World Economic Forum people were directly involved in, and it’s one of the most embarrassing things that have ever happened to the United States. Much of it happened during Biden’s watch. Once he realized the situation, Trump tried to walk back out of the mess, but liberals would not allow it, and they made a mess of the economy and health policy that was embarrassing at the time. But now we see that it’s been killing people. The vaccine didn’t save lives; it has been taking them, and for those who have lived, it’s resulting in lower birth rates and all kinds of side effects that people are just now realizing. If you have to pick a catastrophe, a leaked classified document is much preferred to all the other news that would otherwise be discussed. 

Biden’s people know that people don’t care much about classified documents. Even though Hillary Clinton should have been disqualified from running for president because of her destroying 30,000 emails on her server, the way the FBI handled the story, people became numb to the whole issue. Then when the political left tried to use the classified document issue in revenge against President Trump by raiding his home and taking items he clearly had a right to possess because, as president, he could. People didn’t care. Anybody with half a mind can relate to a president wanting to take home some memories of their time in office. That’s how President Nixon got into so much trouble, tape recording himself for his memoirs later when he was out of office. There was no official need for him to have any recordings; he did them to remember his time in office. So this classified document game has been going on for a long time; people are numb to it and generally don’t care. When they can’t buy eggs at the grocery store, they are thinking about a lot more than what President Biden has in his garage sitting next to his corvette. So what they did, was the Biden people and lawyers purposely leaked this information to soak up the news cycle so nobody would talk about the serious problems because they know from history that Americans are forgiving about such things and really don’t care. In the end, they could throw a bone to the DOJ and let Trump off the hook just as they’ll let Biden off the hook, and much of that controversy will go away. They are admitting to these documents because it gives them cover for the other very serious things that are going on in the news that people won’t be so forgiving about. 

Now there is no question, now that the news is out, that there are people within Biden’s own party who would like to replace him with Michelle Obama or Gavin Newsom for the 2024 presidential race. They would like to use this classified document dump story as a way to convince Joe to step away from the race. Of course, because the Biden presidency has been such a disaster, Democrats are looking for someone who might actually do better in an actual vote since the next election will be more difficult to cheat in. Statistically, I have my doubts that Biden obtained 60 million votes and that the election fraud was so out of control because of all the loose Covid rules that he may not have had 40 million people voting for him. Most Democrats know that or at least suspect it heavily, and they know if they are going to run against Trump, yet again, they’ll need some way to break 70 million votes, which will be hard for anybody in the Democrat Party to do. So they are hoping to do to Joe Biden what many wanted to see happen to Hillary Clinton. But it won’t work in the end because people generally don’t care about classified documents. But they do care about a whole lot of other things. I would say to everyone distracted by the classified document story they keep finding around Biden that it’s a preferred story that everyone prefers to talk about so that nobody talks about the things that really matter. The problems of the Biden crime family are much worse than having some moments from his years in politics sitting in a garage. Yet, predictably, that’s all anybody has talked about for a good part of January 2023. And that tactic is common where truly bad people conceal their actions behind a narrative that soaks up attention away from much more serious topics. And it is used heavily in our media culture to disguise many horrible things. They have been doing it for many decades, since mass media’s invention, anything more complicated than newspapers. And the human race has never entirely caught up because they are too trusting. Which is why the tactics are used the way they are. 

Rich Hoffman

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Saving America: We’ve become stupid, its time to change that

We have to become Smarter as a Nation

For my own anger management, the travel I’ve done around America so far in 2021 has been very redeeming; I’d recommend it to anybody who has found themselves stressed out over the election of 2020 to put things in perspective.  My travel certainly did it for me, especially after spending one of my travel days at Mt. Rushmore and Deadwood on the same day.  All of my kids have been significantly harmed by Covid.  I have personally been hurt by it, just as everyone has.  I took Covid very personally.  The government was anti-Constitutional, and I see nothing in life that is worth violating those laws.  Then when you add the election fraud and the reality of having the most progressive administration in the history of America inserted in our government, ruining all our lives even further, I was either ready to blow up and become the character from the movie, Falling Down.  Or I was going to figure out something that has eluded civilization so far and bring back the boons of it for the benefit of all.  So I picked the latter and hit the road with my entire family in our RV, and we had a marvelous time discovering America and seeing many things that I had only read about.  To say that any of the places were my favorite places would be disingenuous.  Everything was wonderful.  But I found at Mt. Rushmore an itch I had been trying to scratch for years, and I can only tell you that it eased my mind considerably.   A combination of that travel day, reading all the books I bought along the way, and reading them nightly at our campsites in my favorite chair set up next to my portable traveling office gave me a fresh perspective that I did not think possible.  But it was possible, and I would like to share the results with others out there, such as you, dear reader who might find comfort in those results. 

After our last trip to Europe, my wife and I decided that we didn’t want to visit overseas anywhere again until we saw almost everything in our own country.  It took us a few years to build up to it, but we bought an RV and committed ourselves to the task.  At the time, we didn’t know the world would be turned upside down, but that it did only elevated the urgency to travel more.  After the massive letdown of our government with Covid and the obvious disappointment on Election Day 2020, where people went to bed thinking Trump won, then waking up seeing that Biden had, we accelerated our plans. We hit the road so I could think things through.  I needed to go out into the deserts of our country away from everyone and think.  To stop by gas stations and not use their dirty bathrooms, but those in our RV.  To get our drinks out of the refrigerator and climb off the grid for a while.  Also, to read lots of books without hotel staff bothering me or even bothering to go out to dinner.  I wanted everything to be with me and to have my home with me at all times, even as the scenery outside that home changed by the hour.  I think a culmination of all those elements made Mt. Rushmore much more potent for me.

As we visited Mt. Rushmore, I was thinking of the British Museum in London, and the Louvre in Paris, even some of the temples and monuments I had visited in Japan and I have to say, it was my favorite place of all, so far in my life.  I’ve been to many exotic locations worldwide, even most exquisitely, the temples and pyramids of the Mayan culture, and Mt. Rushmore was the best.  It far exceeded my expectations.  It was not because of the fine stonework and the viewing platforms they had erected but because the entire place was dedicated to intelligence and philosophy.  It was the perfect place for me at the ideal time for my thoughts, and I came away with some authentically fresh perspective.  It was that itch I had always been trying to scratch, and I felt a tremendous amount of relief after visiting there.  At that same time as I was at that monument, my publisher was putting the final touches of my Gunfighter’s Guide to Business out for my last review, which I had been structuring as a strategy guide for making businesses successful, but countries as well.  So, I was in the perfect place, and this is a feeling that will stay with me for a long time. 

We often take it for granted that our country can handle anything.  We’ve allowed our people to become corrupt, sexually obsessed, drug-influenced, and, through our public education system, turned into absolute idiots.  We weren’t born that way, but we have allowed many jealous outside influences to harm our intellects as a country, and we have now seen the result.  We have seen the attacks on our culture culminate into the mass calamity of our times.  But still, I saw in people during that trip, all day there at Mt. Rushmore, then up in Deadwood, Americans are so resilient.  Even with all the devastation, these were not conquered people.  The system of American freedom had proven that even with all the pitfalls we have experienced, our nation could withstand it all.  But to indeed have a great country, we needed places of intelligence to raise our intellects to where a great country should expect to be.  If we wanted to save America from the attackers worldwide who wanted to bring it down, many of who are now acting as domestic enemies, we would have to get smarter as a culture. 

As usual for me, books and time to read them helped my anxieties tremendously, and they would do the same for you.  For anybody.  And to truly save this country, that is the key to not just saving it but keeping it that way.  Mt. Rushmore was built to remind people, such as in times like these, why we tried to create a country in the first place.  It worked so well, we have taken it for granted, and many people have allowed themselves to be seduced by the antics of the world.  They have been seduced by stupidity and told that it was a virtue.   Well, stupidity is not a virtue.  We were told that we should lower our defenses and allow insurgents to raid us through our schools, through our businesses, and corrupt our politics so that there would be no sign of a republic for which we could hope to stand.   If we want to keep our country great, we must get more intelligent as a culture; we have to return to the times of readers like Lincoln and Roosevelt.  Of Jefferson, who started the Library of Congress with his collection of books.  America was built on philosophy and intelligence.  It was a divorce from the stupidity of the world, not in adoration of it.  And even in our own family, my wife and I have traveled the world only to realize that the best things were always around us.  Yet we did not see those places because the world was saying that everything else was great.  Well, I’ve been to those places, and nothing was better than Mt. Rushmore.  And there has been no more satisfying experience than in reading the books I brought from there.  If I seem content in my thoughts these days, it’s because of this minor boon, which I think has the power to change the world. 

Rich Hoffman

Click to buy The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business