Tag: Republicans

Why Our Constitution is Worth Fighting For: The Supreme Court does its job, somewhat

Understanding and Defending our Constitution

When I first started this blog, I had in mind something like what formed this country, a healthy debate on the nature of our Republic in the form of what we know today as the Federalist Papers and the Anti-Federalist Papers. Back when we were trying to figure out how to have a proper government, some of the founding fathers would contribute essays to the local newspapers making the debate on what the federal government should look like. This process went on for quite a long time. What we know of today as those books is essentially a collection of those essays that formed the constitutional convention and would include our Constitution and, eventually, the Bill of Rights. I’ve never been a big fan of Alexander Hamilton, even though the town I live in is named after him. He’s too much of a big government guy for me. I associate much more with the Anti-Federalists. But to give Hamilton credit, we needed a reference point to settle the Articles of Confederation, which was not sufficient after the Revolutionary War to run a country. I think the debate to form our American Constitution is one of the most advanced processes ever to form a government in the history of the world, and the results paid off. I keep both of those books next to my reading chair and refer to them constantly, just for fun. 

Those books gave me the understanding to handle many complicated problems over the last year or so, everything from election fraud to this latest problem of the Biden vaccine mandates. It was more than just a little satisfying to see it all blow up in the Biden administration’s face this past week of mid-January 2022. With the filibuster intact in the Senate, the Democrats have no chance to change election laws to keep them in power in 2022, which they had to have. They can’t win without cheating, just as they did in the 2020 election to get rid of Trump. When all this started back during that election, remember what I said. Don’t freak out. Let the process run its course. Trust our constitutional system even though it is evident that the Biden administration and Democrats, in general, wanted to get rid of the Constitution. Evidently, the Davos crowd and the other globalists worldwide had no fundamental understanding of our Constitution, nor did they care to learn.   As Progressives, they fully intended to move beyond our Constitution and the great work that the Founding Fathers did to form the United States. Their game was to accelerate things so fast that the courts would never catch up to the aggressive actions to overthrow the country, which the Biden clan have been attempting to do. As things would get hot, I would refer to those books for the many thousands of times that I have before, and I could see how it would end up. Our Republic was designed to handle just these kinds of problems, and it was working to my eyes. The proof came on January 13th around 2:45 PM when our Supreme Court issued a strike down of the OSHA vaccine mandates Biden had attempted to pass through executive order. 

I think it has been a precious lesson to watch how everyone behaved during all this mess. In my own book, The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business, I feel relieved to see that my opinions were not isolated into some bubble of conservative thought born out of midwestern politics but were highly relevant in corporate America across the world. The Federalist and Anti-Federalist Papers could probably be applied to every small village in Africa or South America. All over Europe. Everywhere. It’s not just a set of laws that we have in America, but the foundation of a functioning republic that can function over vast distances that makes it an incredible work of philosophy surpassing in my mind any of the works done by Rome, Greece, the Indus Valley, Egypt, or any of the Dynasties of the Orient. Never in the history of the world was there such a proper set of laws and order to establish the best government possible to the minds of humanity than what is talked about in those books. I’ve read them all, and there isn’t anything better than the documents that formed our Republic. And so long as we had a Supreme Court following those ideas, much of this Biden tyranny would be eliminated. The originators of Covid never planned for our Constitution, and it shows. When it was announced that the Supreme Court had made a 6 to 3 decision against the Biden Executive Orders, the pride I felt made a lot of all this pain worth it. Because not only had it been horrifying at times, but we’ve never seen our system tested like this before, especially from domestic enemies, and it had held turning theory into reality. Thank goodness Trump had three picks for the Supreme Court during his one turbulent term. It’s probably the most important thing to come out of the Trump presidency. 

Because of my love of those books, I was more than familiar with the constitutional challenges that worked at all levels of politics and really rattled the cages of people with powerful positions. I can’t say that I was ever apprehensive that the rule of law would not hold. But at the rate of change coming from the Biden administration, his masters in the United Nations and China, and the donor class, which is different in many cases, the main weakness of the Constitution and our Republic in general is time. Things are meant to take a long time in our government, to keep the breaks on during hot human sentiment. China brags about how fast it can do something with centralized authority. Democrats drool at the power of the centralized state because that’s how they want things to be in America, more like China, where a mob of administrative tyrants can do and say whatever they want. In America, it takes a long time to sift through the legislative process, and if the idea survives, we would consider it a good thing. But it’s the rushes to judgment that we always want to put the brakes on, and that is what has been assaulted by our enemies recently, especially after Trump left office. The speed of our innovation comes from free people, which is the key to everything. Not the government, so bureaucrats have a tough time getting their minds around such a concept. When the Federalist Papers and Anti-Federalist Papers were written, and our Constitution was formed with the Bill of Rights to follow, all this was figured out, and now we have the results of the greatest nation on earth to prove it works. And now, even under great assault, it has operated under very tenuous conditions, and that is something we should all take pride in. Of course, the fights are far from over, but a big blow occurred in that Supreme Court decision that will reverberate historically for the next century. It was an easy case for them to decide on, can the Federal government compel health decisions, and the answer was always no. But the big-government types had more intrusions in mind to follow should they manage to make that Biden executive order stick. And now those big global plans are blown out of the water. There will not be a global takeover of America from the Davos crowd or anybody else without some form of physical assault. And in a country full of guns, that option isn’t a good one for them either. Our Republic is still standing, and now more people than ever are empowered to fight back, and it makes my love for those books even that much more powerful, fueled by a pride few in the world could understand. 

Rich Hoffman

Click to buy The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business

Republicans Need to Get Behind Renacci for Governor: President Jackson and President Trump’s constitutional success

Vote for Jim Renacci

Andrew Jackson was a Democrat, but to my mind, except for him and President Trump, they were the only two real Constitutional Presidents. Ronald Reagan was an actor who played a conservative well. Teddy Roosevelt was well-intentioned but became a leader of the Progressive Party. Abraham Lincoln was an enforcer of the Constitution, and it created a war. He held firm and did a great job, but he was cut down too short of making the country work the way it’s supposed to. In all of American history, there are only a few short years where constitutionally things worked how Ben Franklin’s Republic intended. Most of the rest of the time, it has been squabbles, character assassinations, and fiscal sell-outs at the international level that has driven most of our political activity, which then cascades itself into our lives with every new rule and regulation designed to make pin-heads into kings, and the hard-working into slaves. Our form of government is messy, and it should be. It’s a lot better than Chinese communism and our quality of life for all people, and our national GDP prove out the results. Saying all that, for the governor race in Ohio, the cowboy hat-wearing Joe Blystone is probably most aligned to my way of thinking. Other conservatives see the blood in the water and want to knock off Mike DeWine’s disaster in a primary where he is very vulnerable. Candace Keller is seeking signatures to run with Ron Hood. I like Candace even though she seems not to care for me so much. To her, I work with establishment politicians too often. I’d say that when you fight to get good candidates, you eventually become the establishment. Success can be tough to manage, but you will have to deal with it if you do your job. And it is in that spirit; I have absolutely no reservations in endorsing Jim Renacci for governor in Ohio. Once the smoke clears in the primary race, it will take a team effort to defeat the DeWine machine, so everyone needs to start thinking that way. Otherwise, they will be hiding their “purity” for political theater behind a mask that endorses more corruption and malice by re-electing Governor DeWine and allowing the bad guys to win again. 

I get the speeches, the search for the perfect candidate. The excellent specimen of political sentiment. The next “honest Abe.” I think all that is fine and healthy to have a robust debate. But before the primary election, around the April time frame, everyone needs to get behind Jim Renacci and make their platforms a part of his platform under one Republican umbrella because it will take that to beat the DeWine Machine. Out of all the candidates and their backing, only one person can beat DeWine in May of 2022, and that is Jim Renacci. The reason, well, he’s the only one with a chance to get a Trump endorsement before the primary, rather than after. If all the primary challengers support Trump, he can’t possibly pick one who might lose; it would have to be a unified sure thing before he would ever put his name behind a primary candidate for governor. If the effort came up short, the media would never let Trump live it down. Instead, Trump would be more likely to wait until the primary winner is announced to put his name behind the Republican governor for the fall election, but it would be too late by then. So keep all that in mind when giving speeches about political purity and seeking to elect some biblical figure into elected office. The first step in all that process is winning because without the win; you have nothing; it’s all talk. That’s why there were only a few times in American history where the Constitution somewhat was supported by the political class, and the nation ran well, Trump and Andrew Jackson. 

I don’t see these kinds of rationalizations as a compromise. I may be one of the most uncompromising people on planet earth. But in a group setting, I am one of the most compromising because everyone lets me down. I have no hope of finding the perfect person who represents me specifically. Instead, I work to find ways to align everyone’s best interests despite their personality traits. I never expect people to do the right thing just because they should. I always hope, but they seldom ever do, because that’s my experience with people. So when it comes to a public endeavor, I never expect purity, and dealing with anybody will require some compromise because none of the interests are ever aligned. Instead, I also look through force of will to align people to whatever is in their interest by whatever means. Presidents and governors of the past who were most effective in this kind of approach, like Jackson and Trump, approached the problem in this same way, and it was successful. I would say that such a mentality is the key to any prosperous republic, which is what we are in the United States, not some rat-infested “democracy” of mob rule and popular opinion. A contentious atmosphere where nobody is ever thrilled is how politics should look because honesty is forged in contention. It is better to get in there and fight than sit on the sidelines and chuck rocks to maintain a pure view of the world. The fight is what is needed, and you need to pick a side and fight there for what’s right. 

Even with DeWine wounded and very vulnerable, many people in both parties want chaos and mayhem to rule the day because there is great profit in it for them. That is one of the reasons that Ohio is the most corrupt state in America presently. DeWine has a machine, and it knows how to keep the right people in power to maintain this chaos, which they profit from. Now I can say I know Jim Renacci. Even though I said I understand Joe Blystone the best out of all the candidates, I know there is room for a Joe under the Renacci tent. But there isn’t room for the Renacci types or even DeWine fence-sitters the other way around. I certainly know where Candace Keller sits on the matter; she’s a no-compromise under any conditions kind of person. I admire that as a trait in people, but she won’t be effective when you must work with other people to make things happen. But there is room for a Candace under Renacci. Renacci doesn’t care if everyone agrees with everything he does. He wants to do a good job, and as a business guy, he understands how to align interests. That’s why he and President Trump are personal friends and why Trump would be most likely to throw his name into the race to help push the effort over the DeWine machine. The Trump children are also a part of the Renacci campaign, so there are many opportunities ripe for a significant political upheaval. But, it won’t happen unless all the conservatives align and work together. If the vote gets split, nobody will win, and all the forces that worked against each other will empower sheer evil to get a second term in Ohio. That is how people like Mike DeWine have stayed in power for so long; they know how to play this game, while all the other uncompromising characters out there fight each other over theories of right and wrong, evil then always prevails. 

Rich Hoffman

Click to buy The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business

The Show Business of Sheriff Jones: When it comes to H.B. 99, Thomas Hall offers a solution

Allowing Teachers to Carry Guns

At the heart of the problem, Sheriff Jones illustrated on his WLW November 18th diatribe against Representative Thomas Hall’s H.B. 99 was this long-established problem of whether or not more public sector employees are a solution to gun violence in schools or a hindrance. There are a lot of guns in Butler County, Ohio, so school shootings are pretty rare, and there is undoubtedly a direct correlation that liberal politics doesn’t want to admit to. Even Sheriff Jones himself is a supporter generally of concealed carry. He has told me that it’s great to have many first responders in the community to stop criminals at the point of a crime. But, Jones is also the head of a police union and symbolizes strength among all the public sector unions. And it is there that he politically turns left every time. He comes from a generation where they wanted to believe in the system of government that we have seen now has let us down time and time again. Yet, he is still a stubborn defender of labor unions even when they show themselves to be trouble. Saying all that, there haven’t been many school shootings in Butler County. There was one in Madison, Twp., not that long ago, and it was Thomas Hall’s father who was a school resource officer who ran the shooter off the scene only wounding four people, not getting a chance to kill them when the attacker fired into a cafeteria one day seemingly unprovoked. To say that Thomas Hall cares about school safety is an understatement. His bill H.B. 99 was meant to set basic training requirements for school boards to plan to so that they could allow teachers to be armed in the classroom, to be those critical first responders when and if a school shooter presented themselves as a menace to the public. For many mysterious reasons, Sheriff Jones was against the bill and made an absolute embarrassment on WLW attacking Thomas Hall for many reasons that no conservative would understand. But Jones has done that before. 

I was pretty disheartened to learn firsthand that Bill Cunningham was not a real conservative. My history with Cunningham goes back for several years, all the way back to 1996 when I had paid Cunningham to be the spokesman for our “Take An Axe to Our Tax” t-shirts that we were using to promote tax cuts during the Bob Dole campaign that year. I was supposed to come on WLW to talk about the promotion, but my segment got bumped because Willie decided to do a strip show that night, where he brought in live strippers to dance nude during the show. The producer offered me to do my segment during that mess, and I had to decline because it just wasn’t something I could be a part of. Later I learned that Bill Cunningham plays a conservative on his radio show, but he wasn’t very conservative. He was the Stephen Cobert of radio, playing a conservative in media, without really being one. I learned around this time that Sheriff Jones, who was frequently on with Cunningham, was much the same way. He played a conservative in public, but he has many big government ideas in private. He’s great if we are talking about law enforcement. But when it comes to social issues, he shows himself to be very liberal, which is why he and Bill Cunningham have always gotten along so well. I understood the show business aspect of the radio work, but I thought of these people as the real deal until I learned firsthand that they weren’t. 

Sheriff Jones Attacks Thomas Hall For Petty Reasons

In 2013 Sheriff Jones and Cunningham came out in favor of the Lakota Levy, which raised our taxes in monstrous ways. It caused so much trouble in our community that we haven’t had a levy since because we never needed it. We didn’t need it then, but Jones worked with the Democrat Kathy Wyenandt to pass the tax increase. We didn’t speak for about five years when finally we broke a little bread together in the middle of the Trump administration. I thought he had been doing an excellent job for Butler County and representing us to the Trump administration. But I wasn’t too shocked to hear him revert to the kind of liberalism that he uttered again with Bill Cunningham using Lakota as a kind of launching point for his resistance to arming teachers in the classroom and for disparaging the very conservative Thomas Hall personally for his position of empowering teachers to add another layer of protection. For Jones, he wants school resource officers or prohibitive training that would make it so difficult for anybody who wishes to even to carry a gun in a classroom that it might as well not even be a law. But Thomas’ bill empowered school boards to set the maximum limits themselves, depending on their need, and Jones felt he needed to sabotage the bill through the public airwaves and the political career of the young representative himself. 

My argument in favor of a more private-sector solution, as opposed to a unionized employee, is due to people like Jones himself. When it comes to the cosmetic stuff, Jones is a great Republican. But when it comes to legislation, he’s a big government guy that’s always talking about compromise with the other side that wants to bury us all. I think it’s an age thing, he and Cunningham are from the same generation, and they thought the big Democrat politics from the early 60s were going to work, and they never really changed their point of view. We have seen times where school resource officers like Thomas’ dad run off shooters while under fire. But we have also seen some who panic, as the resource officer in Florida did, never engaging the shooter and allowing lots of carnage in the meantime. People panic, and cops, even with their many hours of training, panic too. Sometimes they get so much training that they can’t adapt to a unique situation. Sometimes they lock up. They passed the test on paper but can’t apply it to reality. I like the idea of cops in schools. But I want a teacher armed with a gun to be the first responder. And I like the idea of a teacher being so comfortable with a gun that they accept it as part of their lifestyle, practicing every week for the rest of their lives. Not just some bureaucratic training period that may or may not be enough. 

I always wanted to believe in Bill Cunningham as a conservative, just as I always wanted to believe in Sheriff Jones. But with them, most of their public persona is a show. And that is the same with police in general. Having a cop in the hallways of our schools may look nice. It might scare away some potential shooters. But if a shooting actually happens, I don’t believe any public employees are full proof and will behave appropriately under pressure. I prefer mitigation to their service if they get scared or misstep themselves when danger presents itself. Sheriff Jones, the big government guy from Butler County, believes absolutely in public service. He has been a public servant all his life and always will be. I still think he’s generally good for our community so long as it’s mostly a show we are putting on, and things aren’t getting too real. Yet, after the way he treated Thomas Hall on WLW, where he turned to the show to attempt to destroy a person he endorsed just a year earlier, I would never trust an employee like him in a school without some extra measure of mitigation, a teacher comfortable with a gun, to protect kids when they are under an assault from bad people. That is, If we ever fully get back to school because all these lazy union employees don’t want to go to work using Covid as a cover for staying home.   And what will we do in the future when the school resource officer, unionized and terrified of Covid, calls off work the day there is a school shooting? If we rely too heavily on them, we are bound to get burnt by the general laziness of all government employees. 

Rich Hoffman

Click to buy The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business

Old Yeller: The fight between Thomas Hall and Sheriff Jones

Why Is Sheriff Jones Going After Thomas Hall

Sheriff Jones decided to go on 700 WLW and speak disparagingly about Thomas Hall, the current House Representative of the 53rd District. I like Sheriff Jones, I hope he runs and wins a few more terms, but nobody in their right mind could support the way he attacked Thomas Hall on those radio waves to hundreds of thousands of people. Long-time readers here know that I used to be a frequent contributor on WLW, like Jones. Over time, many of my people who used to work there moved away, were fired, or otherwise changed their point of view. We separated like some kind of divorce, and I have not had much of an idea of reconciliation. I have more freedom in media with this site, so I have not returned in several years. But Jones does go on WLW quite a lot, so because I don’t pay much attention to what goes on there these days, I did not hear the original airing where Sheriff Jones disparaged Thomas Hall in many negative ways calling him a 12-year old “goof,” not just once, but many times. Still, I have often heard from many Republicans who want to defend Hall but are scared of retaliation from Jones, and I think that’s a shame. Hall certainly isn’t 12-years old. I said in the video that he was in his early thirties, but actually, he’s in his mid-twenties and is the youngest member of the current Ohio House. However, the young man is an overachiever by all measures, and his age certainly isn’t a hindrance. He has had two terms as a Madison Trustee, and now he’s in his first term as a congressman seeking a second term. 

Sheriff Jones Goes After Thomas Hall over H.B. 99

Another thing I said about Thomas is a couple of times in the video, I referred to him as Thomas More, because for a lot of reasons, I think of the writer of Utopia whenever I think of Thomas Hall. It’s been that way for a while just because of my own reading habits. There are a lot of Thomas’ in English literature; another is the character of Thomas Becket from The Canterbury Tales, who was murdered in Canterbury Cathedral by his friend Henry the II. It’s one of my favorite books, and this story keeps coming to my mind when I think of Thomas Hall and his friend and mentor, Sheriff Jones. Jones had endorsed Thomas and was mentoring him until a few things happened. Apparently, Jones didn’t like Hall’s voting record. The Sheriff had a confirmed case of heartburn over H.B. 99, Hall’s bill in congress, which set definitions for minimal teacher training to carry firearms in public schools. Jones uncharacteristically turned on Thomas Hall and made quite an exhibition about it on WLW right before Thanksgiving in 2021. I hadn’t heard it until I did an endorsement video for Thomas Hall, and he mentioned it. I had heard from several very prominent Republicans, some very close to the Sheriff, that something had gone on really bad. As I said in the video, one of them was not Senator Lang. I never put people in positions where they get caught in crossfires with each other and given the mean streak that many fear in crossing Jones, many don’t want to be a part of it. Yet many more than ten contacted me to let me know what was going on between Hall and Jones, and they weren’t happy about it.

Thomas Hall Responds to Sheriff Jones

I listened to the Jones interview with Willie, included here; then I listened to the response from Thomas Hall the next day. I played them for my wife, who loves Sheriff Jones. We talked about the interviews and thought Thomas Hall did a fantastic job. He certainly won the argument. But Jones came across as petty and even childish. My wife offered that maybe he was hurting about something else, totally unrelated. Perhaps that’s true. Whatever it is, I would suggest a few thoughts regarding the excellent Sheriff. I’ve been sideways with him a few times over things, particularly school things and union business. I still blame him for the Lakota levy passing in 2013. He has a liberal streak in him that I can’t stand, but we have buried the hatchet since then. What he did for Butler County during the Trump years has been great. A person’s body of work can’t be defined by just a few years here and there or by the grumpy old dog that starts biting people who step on a porch to sell Girl Scout cookies. I hope that Jones runs and wins more terms for as long as possible. But perhaps my wife was right about him, that something else is bothering him. 

In my book The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business, I deal with this very issue of an older generation coping with the young people biting their heels. The chapter is called “The Skill of Developed Intuition” on pg. 181. You spend your whole life getting somewhere, making yourself into the person people put on T.V. Getting invited to the White House. Where you can’t go into public without people wanting to get a picture taken with you. And suddenly, here is some 25-year-old whiz kid who suddenly does more in one year than most state reps do in a lifetime. And he’s confident and won’t kiss the ring. Deep down inside, nobody would want to see such a young person broken, but consciously, the older person wants respect because he gave it when he was younger. The aging process isn’t fair. When you can start to see the end of the tunnel, and you know it’s going to be over soon, it is painful to see intelligent young people with their whole lives in front of them getting the attention it took you a lifetime to build. Sometimes, you might be tempted to crush the young competition, show them all they don’t know yet and teach them obedience. But I would caution you not to do that. Sometimes the hardest thing to do is encourage the young people, not tear them down, but build them up. 

Old Yeller

Listening to Thomas talk about the WLW incident, I was amazed he wasn’t more upset. I would be. I carry grudges for a long time, for decades. I would not have been able to say all the nice things that Thomas said about Sheriff Jones when I did my endorsement video with him. I would have been plotting revenge and embarrassment. But obviously, Thomas Hall has had a lot of good mentors in his life, his father being one. But several other politicians for another, including Sheriff Jones. So, there are a lot of lessons here that should be observed. I would hope that Sheriff Jones wouldn’t spend all the years of his excellent branding on petty nonsense that will overshadow all the good things he has done. There are people concerned about just that very thing by many of the calls I received. But Thomas isn’t that way; he understands that politics is a blood sport, and he plays to win without getting hung up on stupid stuff. And in his mind, he already defended himself on WLW the next day. But people were confused as to why the Sheriff went after Thomas, and I would suggest that it shouldn’t ruin the reputation of the Sheriff. I don’t think we are dealing with an Old Yeller situation here. Maybe just an old dog that would love to run around like the youth do but can’t anymore. There is still good to do, and from the point of view of Thomas, he’s willing to do good wherever possible.    

Rich Hoffman

Click to buy The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business

How To Make a Two-Party System Work: We are a Republic, not a flea-bitten “democracy”

We are a Republic

Every time I hear some political ignoramus say that we need to “save our democracy,” it is like someone scratching a chalkboard. All this “dagger into democracy” talk is as stupid as stupid gets. We are not a “democracy” in America; we are a “republic.” We are a government “of” the people, not “by” the people. But we are taught in every way of life imaginable that everything is a popularity contest, especially in our public schools. That majority rule, and if you are not in the majority, then you will never rule. Well, when we talk about the majority, we are talking about every drug addict, every sex-starved lunatic, every illiterate fool, ever degenerate imaginable. If we only consider popular elections by a majority, then always the dumbest will rule the smartest, and our society will indeed be equal, equally deficient. So it is no wonder that people get frustrated with politics when they see the system not working. They show up once every four years and vote for some people, and ultimately, those people let them down, then they get discouraged with the two-party system. At the same time, the media drives home the point they learned in their public educations, that democracy is all about the popular rule and that the only way to achieve fairness is to punt everything to a much more centralized government to sort out. This is especially true now where people can see that the party system isn’t working for them, Democrats are off doing the work of outright communism, and Republicans seem to be fighting Trump, a natural outgrowth of the Tea Party movement. People who don’t pay much attention to politics are obviously frustrated because, for some reason or another, they thought they could show up and vote every so often, and that would be the end of it. The world would just carry on and work.

But what I say to all those who want to disparage the two-party system, or who get upset when parts of their chosen party look bad and don’t represent a majority of the people associated with that party, is that the time to work out those elements is always in the off-year elections. For instance, right now, in the early months of a New Year, 2022 is the time for the philosophy of the Republican Party to be worked out in the trenches. The primary season is upon us, and that is when candidates battle each other for the general philosophy of the party. I would say that the system works great as a two-party system so long as people participate. You may not get everything you want in the candidates. I’m hardly ever happy with where things are, but if you don’t participate, then your point of view will never get a seat at the table.   After all, this is what’s going on in the Republican Party right now and what Democrats have continued to fail to match. The news analysts think that Trump is an extreme version of the Republican Party when he is a natural outgrowth of the Tea Party movement that has become more involved in party politics starting at the central committee levels, voting in primaries, and other off-year activities. The establishment types aren’t happy about it, but that representation grew over time from the Tea Party into MAGA and the American First Policy Institute. Democrats have incorrectly assumed that Trump was just an extreme right-winged version of the establishment, so they have tried to counter with their own version, where the Biden administration is now, representing the radical progressives, giving them a voice they have never had before. The progressives took this admission as a mandate, and as a result, they have over-extended themselves.    

To a political outsider not participating in these processes, and looking at presidential elections as the only ones that matter, they will see disfunction because the system is not working the way they were taught, through popular vote, only every so often. But in a republic, we are a nation of laws, not the mob. And those laws are created during off-year elections, not presidential elections every four years. Right now is the prime time to work out the general philosophy of a political party, and if you are not engaged in that debate, you should never be surprised when you are not represented in the final product. But even if you do participate, there are other people involved, and their minds have their inputs, so what you end up with will ultimately not be 100% you.   But at that point, you can’t just pick up all your game pieces and cry like a baby and leave. You have to continue to fight it out, to push for your ideas, and let come what may. That is what a republic looks like. Politics is not supposed to be nice. It is supposed to be contentious so that only the best ideas survive into law and policy. The whims of mankind are meant to be tempered with time and a lack of tenacity. If you want a friend, get a dog. If you’re going to be the master of your own universe, stay at home and never go outside. But if you want your republic to function, participate. When people disagree with you, strengthen your argument to win them over or have your ideas crushed under the weight of analysis. But don’t think for a second that your vote is a one-and-done kind of relationship at the ballot box. There is a lot more to it, and our republic requires people to participate all the time. Not just when it comes time to vote. 

China keeps talking about how efficient they are, and of course, big bureaucrats in Washington D.C. culture want to have the same kind of control that communism gives to those countries. They want to rule by administrative state, so they throw gas on the fires all the time about the follies of our current political process.   Of course, when the government can just tell people what to do, it’s a lot less messy for them. China’s present argument is that “American Democracy” is too messy, too slow, and does not serve the “people’s” needs. They would love to see an end to the two-party system. They love to say things like, “we’re putting daggers into our democracy.” They want to plant that seed and watch it grow into a change state from a capitalist nation into a communist one. If they can convince voters that the system doesn’t work, they may be willing to throw it all away for something that does. But it’s not our republic that is failing; it’s the people participating. Because of their lack of effort, the strength of the two-party system doesn’t get fulfilled the way it should, and the people who end up in charge are the worst because they were the only ones who showed up.   That is clearly the problem with Democrats. Republicans had the Tea Party, and the establishment is very unhappy about their continued presence, but Republicans have a much better party as a result. But punting to default and saying that none of it works is just a falsehood. The only thing not working are people who have been taught wrong from the beginning what their proper role in government always was. And how much influence they really have for the future of our “republic.”

Rich Hoffman

Click to buy The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business

Ocasio-Cortez and Republican Sex: What’s at the heart of all communist activity

Sex and Ocasio-Cortez

It’s not just because Ocasio-Cortez looks like the donkey from Hee Haw, but the suggestion that the socialist advocate had regarding her belief that Republicans were frustrated with her because they wanted to date her and ultimately wanted to have sex with her said a lot that was laughable. It goes well beyond the suggestions of sex lifestyles in general, but more to the mass psychosis that tends to follow liberalism ultimately. And it reminded me of the excellent book about communism from Ayn Rand called We the Living, which I’ve said for years, should be required reading for every school child as a fundamental background of education in America. Without meaning to, Ocasio-Cortez, otherwise known as AOC, put her finger on a significant problem in liberal politics, the assumption that Democrats have better sex than Republicans and that the value of that endeavor is far greater among socialists and communists than in capitalist building Republicans. As a young person in her early thirties, the former bartender and waitress have had plenty of people who wanted to pollinate her young body, ignoring the face, of course. Luckily for biology, men were built to engage in sex with a knothole in a fence if needed to procreate our species. Men can at times not be very discerning about where they plant themselves in sexual engagement. They are wired that way because not everyone can be pretty, and not everyone can get the best-looking mate to provide DNA to the next generation. And when a young woman like Ocasio-Cortez has spent time around men twice her age who have wives at home that are well past their prime and are withering away in front of their faces leaving beauty a distant memory, young women like the socialist from New York and her young body and smooth skin can seem appealing. AOC has obviously confused this condition with reality and tried to make it fit her worldview. It comes from being young, and the great apprehension women have at that age because they realize that their female gifts are going away, and a world without those things is scary. 

Democrats, by nature, are too focused on sex because they never really develop themselves emotionally beyond their teenage years. People like Ocasio-Cortez, who aren’t very smart, naturally turn to the biological observations as the center of their mentality, leaving them to think that a night out in pursuit of sex is worthwhile. Sex is a shared practice; it takes cooperation to engage in it. And as long as the rules of sex are understood and prioritized, it makes it easy to control mass populations. It was never an accident that the internet made it possible to have so much access to sex and that online dating was such a centralized feature. Liberals, and their communist roots, as articulated well in that Ayn Rand book, have always intended the destruction of the American family by removing the kids from their parents, promoting divorce among the adults so that the state could manage their affairs, and that a lifestyle of sex obsession would dominate the minds of the masses in every way possible. Communism loves sex because it’s the ultimate communal activity, and sex with more than one partner is the ultimate expression of abandonment of the concept of private property. When Ocasio-Cortez sees that Republicans are moving away from Democrats in a way that she can’t control as part of the progressive caucus, her instinct is suitable to attempt to reel them back in with sex talk. It has likely always worked for her as a young woman needing tips in the service business, and those same rules generally apply in politics where favors are a currency equally desired. 

But Republicans are different; they think about more than just sex. They find joy in starting businesses, building houses, families, acquiring new cars. They enjoy making things, not so much the wasted time ritual of pursuing sex for an evening. Sex, of course, can always be enjoyed, but so can other things, like building a business and providing jobs to lots of people. Many people who are Republicans or who become Republicans learn that there is much more to life than sex and they handle aging much better because life doesn’t end at 30 when everyone’s bodies start to rot away back into dust. In many ways, the trajectory of the Republicans is a natural order that is consistent with all life. Hopefully, before it’s too late, people realize what a waste of time sex is before they get too old to have the choice taken from them in an undesirable body, kind of where people like Ocasio-Cortez are now. Once women like her have wasted their lives sleeping with everyone they can out of some infantile need for a shared experience, they hit a wall they can never come back from. The crises won’t be so bad for them if they have other things going on in their minds because people won’t want to sleep with them once they lose their sex appeal. In the Ayn Rand book, it is there that I learned that the term “Let’s Party” came from way back in the 1920s. The intent was to empower the youth, out with the old, in with the new, so that communal politics could take hold and rule the day with Karl Marx’s philosophy. That same trait is in our current culture, where older people are cast aside, and everything is catered to young, new-bodied people craving sex at every moment. 

However, such small-minded pursuits are creepy, and when compared to the many other options that a person finds in a capitalist culture, sex is easily avoided. There are many other things besides sex, and Republicans figure that out, even if biologically they still feel the tug. In a capitalist culture where it’s much more fun to develop a mind and build something new is an option, then temptations like those suggested by Ocasio-Cortez are much easier to ignore. And for her, that is a significant crisis because she has built her entire political platform in selling communism and socialism to the world through her young, flowering body, which she took for granted would always serve her. But now the panic is the same with all feminists who waste their early lives running around topless and having reckless sex with every degenerate that suits their fancy. The government does not make a very good husband, and older people don’t want to waste their time with someone everyone in the world has had sex with. It becomes a gross reminder of young bad decisions when other things become more attractive to a developing mind. And that is a little secret that most progressives nurture at the most fundamental level. Sex is a very primal thing. It’s a big deal to teenagers for biological reasons, but as humans, we do best when we find other things to do with our time than spending it on such a wasted effort. But socialists have built their entire political philosophy around such wasted efforts, and when they see people not joining them, it is the scariest thing in the world to them. This is where Ocasio-Cortez finds herself early in 2022. There is no nice man to settle down with. There is no future. And her body is aging, and all she has is a history of socialism, of dedication to the parental state to offer to someone who might want to share a life with her. Which, of course, is unappealing to any sane person with a developed intellect. At that point, relationships become a private property argument; nobody will invest in something that everyone can have for free, whereas liberalism always fails. Conservatives prosper, and ultimately that significant gulf between them can never be brought together.

Rich Hoffman

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We’re Not Anti-Government, We’re Anti-Stupid: Government needs to be the refs, not the players in the game

We’re not Anti-Government, Just Anti-Stupid

I’ve heard what Steve Bannon has said about Elon Musk on the War Room podcast, and I understand it to a point. Yes, Elon Musk has made deals with China, and knowing what we do now, in hindsight, it was a terrible idea. It’s the same situation with other billionaires like Ray Dalio. He has invested heavily in the prospect of an expanding middle class in China, where corporations think all the new money in the world will come from. I would not say Steve is wrong. But he’s only partly correct. People evolve their beliefs over time depending on good and bad ideas that transpire through the course of events, and they do change their minds; and I see in Elon Musk a mind that is evolving in the correct direction. Our job as change agents is to allow changing minds into our tent for tactical reasons, but without losing ourselves in the process. For instance, during the ESPN2 Manning podcast of the Monday Night Football game, Aaron Rogers abruptly started talking about Ayn Rand’s book Atlas Shrugged. Here we have a sports jock speaking in popular culture about Ayn Rand, one of the most controversial writers in American history and world history. Many of the ideas discussed on the War Room and here on the Gunfighter’s Guide are percolating into popular culture, which is a great thing. But with new interest from people who may not have been thinking about such things in the past come all their past mistakes. So, I think it’s a good idea to bring them into the camp, allow them to get warm by the fire, and keep our eye on them as to misdeeds. But in the case of Elon Musk, he said something recently that is irrelevant to his patriotic status and is entirely accurate and worth talking about as a critical strategic need within the freedom movement.

I heard it in a couple of different interviews; one was with Musk and the satire website The Babylon Bee. I can understand the skepticism of Bannon in what Musk’s intentions are since he has been so profitable in relations with communist China. But I see other things going on with Elon Musk. He is a problem solver, and he’s looking at the potential for a Mars colony and thinking about what kind of government will allow it to thrive, based on what we all know now from history and what is working up-close here in the present. He has been told no on several permits to fly Starship into space on test flights due to environmental concerns, so he is seeing the negatives of a communist type of government up close and personal. He may have profited from those relationships, but he has also learned some valuable lessons that are worth listening to. These days Musk is saying that governments should be more like referees in society than players in the game. That, in essence, has been the goal of the Tea Party movement for years, and it is undoubtedly the intention of the MAGA movement. Musk said it nicely in a way that many have struggled to put words to for a long time when talking about limited government.   What is it, and why does it work better? 

People have always associated me with an anti-government movement. That is how they often see the freedom movement in general, whether we are talking about the Tea Party, MAGA, or the current America First Policy Institute. The people who make up the name-calling are usually significant government types who love Karl Marx so that less government would be detrimental from their point of view. And by default, whether it’s a sports jock like Aaron Rogers, a political strategist like Steve Bannon, or an eclectic engineer with vast financial resources to make what he wants, the name-calling by the left usually defines the political reality because all the names mentioned are too busy being productive to work together on a counter-punch. But Musk and his need to solve the problems of interplanetary sustainability must figure out the puzzle of good government, and it has taken him more toward the freedom movement than toward communism. For that, many should be grateful. Because once thought like that enters popular culture, to the point where Aaron Rogers is talking about Atlas Shrugged on a football broadcast, there are significant cultural shifts on the horizon that few are really prepared for. Arbitrary definitions of people are not as crucial as proper utilization of the sentiments.

I would never have called myself “anti-government.” Instead, I have always been “anti-stupid.” There are many stupid people in the world, and the bigger the government is, the more of a chance that stupid people will end up in government, causing all of us a headache. So, it’s quite natural not to want stupid people to be in charge of our lives, so in that way, we want the small government to weaken the impact that stupid people will have on our lives. But what Elon Musk said was more on target. Government is there to make sure that the rules of the games we play in managing our society occur to bring about the best outcomes.   As I say in the video above, we can look at an empty field and consider it without value until we decide to play a soccer game or football game on it with all the rules that have been created to allow the drama of such an event to transpire. Government should referee those games; they should not be the players themselves. Because many of them are stupid and valueless types of people, our current government wants to use the protection of the referee position to rig the games for wins instead of letting the games play out and evoking a winner and loser based on skill and persistence. 

And that is the real goal; we aren’t trying to get rid of the government; we need the government to make sure that things work right in society. But we must distinguish that government is not a player on the field but are just there to make sure the game is fair. In essence, the heart of all our problems is that too many in government presently want to be the players, not the referees, and they got into politics for all the wrong reasons. From Elon Musk’s point of view or Aaron Rogers, they have previously functioned quite well in the world with the political rules bent slightly toward corruption. Still, nobody cared as long as they got what they wanted out of the deal. But upon success, and continued frustration in dealing with the government, whether it’s over a permit to fly into space or Covid restrictions and vaccine mandates, the bug of awful play-calling has affected just about everyone these days, and they are looking for solutions. Our task within that movement is to find them a place around the campfire and expand the reach of our shared objectives, which is to see that our games in life are fair so that we can then concentrate on being the best we can be within those rules. And in any healthy society, whether on earth or Mars, that needs to be what we spend our time on, and not trying to fend off referees who want to be the players of the game, without the risk of being exposed as unskilled and stupid.

Rich Hoffman

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The Political Climate Change Hoax: Yes, the Great Lakes are draining and will soon be gone

Climate Change is Rediculous

Oh my gosh, Greta Thunberg, an 18-year-old girl from Europe, is challenging Joe Biden on climate change. And California realizes that with all their hack and slash economic policies; they think they will save the earth; they won’t reach their emission goals until the next century. Meanwhile, the socialists of the world are making climate change the centerpiece of all their concerns displaying to everyone how little any of them know about actual science. To the smart people out there, they have seen the shell game. It’s the same stupid game that the left has been playing with Covid, phony statistics, phony scientists who are no better than whores on K-Street, that will say and do anything for a federal grant. They’ll “love you a long time” for the right price, and they’ll put anything you need in an Excel spreadsheet. But it came to a point for me while I was doing some additional research into the origins of life across North America. Hint, the Indians were not indigenous people in America; that too is a made-up lie meant to despair the creation of America in the first place. As I have reported in many places, some of the best archaeology we have in North America points to the mound-building culture that looks like it dates to the periods of Stonehenge. As it so happened, I was reading some of the books I recently bought at my last trip to Stonehenge and comparing them to the investigations into what is called “The Giants of Ohio,” and America in general, and that drew my eye to some of the radical swings in sea levels over just the last 10-15 thousand years. Yes, advanced people could easily have come into North America during the Archaic Period, and it’s pretty clear that they did, bringing with them a world economy that nobody has been thinking about over the last hundred years of academic study. 

Since I live in Ohio, the Great Lakes are a real treasure to the state that I think about. Most people know what they are and think of them as a kind of inland sea. Also, people might think of them as very old, but the truth was that they formed during the Ice Age, really in geological terms, was just yesterday. Humanity was building advanced societies, such as Göbekli Tepe in modern-day Turkey. At that time in the world, the Great Lakes of Ohio and Michigan were former river valleys where massive glaciers were taking the path of least resistance, moving along slowly there. The weight of the glaciers was so great that they actually pushed down the earth’s crust in those locations displacing the curvature of the planet itself. As the ice melted, without the aid of global warming by manufactured contraptions, mind you, the water stayed in those low spots and formed the Great Lakes. The weight of the water and ice was negligible. However, when the mass changed, the water began to flow toward the St. Lawrence Seaway at an increased rate.

Fairly recently, scientists have discovered that the Great Lakes are actually draining at a rate faster than the rivers can supply them. Many in the region know that Niagara Falls is the point where all that water flows from Lake Erie into Lake Ontario. They also know that where the falls are currently will continue to move all the way down to Buffalo, New York, year by year by a few feet each time. It won’t take long before the falls are gone altogether. In fact, the whole of the Great Lakes, except for most of Lake Superior and Lake Huron, will be gone entirely in a few thousand years. Chicago will sit in the middle of nowhere with vast farmland to the east where people could walk over to Michigan. The same with Detroit and Cleveland. They, too, will be sitting on land that extends far into what used to be the lakes but will by then be vast expanses of farmland. The lakes are draining because the earth’s crust is trying to push up from under the weight of the water from where it was pushed down by the ice from the Ice Age. The more shallow the water gets from the lack of weight, the faster the landmass pushes up. In our lifetimes, we will see a significant loss of shoreline in those city areas because of this effect. Of course, none of this climate change results from a single human being. It’s just part of the lifecycles of the earth.

One thing that struck me when studying my books from Stonehenge and is something I learned about while visiting Dover on the east side of England facing France across the English Channel is that; just as the future of the Great Lakes, people used to be able to walk across the great body of water there. Back in the Ice Age, sea levels were several hundred feet below where they are now. Looking at the English Channel today, it seems impossible to consider such a thing. But that is what the latest science says. Ocean levels have constantly been changing, well before there were ever any people. My daughter and I had a wonderful time hiking Dover’s Cliffs, and I often think about it. We told my son-in-law and my wife that we were going to use the restroom and take a few pictures of the cliffs there and the massive English Channel. We’d be back in a few minutes, so they waited for us in the car. We came back seven hours later. It was an excellent adventure, but what made me lose track of so much time was in learning about these little details and how they have played out against the many changes the world has seen in geologic time. 

The point of the matter is that the climate change activists are phonies looking to convert capitalist cultures into communist ones and count on our ignorance to believe them. But reading a few books on the matter and just some casual investigation will prove that manmade climate change is a thing of politics. Climates have been changing on earth for millions of years. As humans, we have been lucky to have had our entire civilization spring up so quickly between these geological catastrophes, able to leave for space within a few thousand years. That is a miracle, and that is science. Trying to bend our economic system to some made-up whims of worshiping the earth is just downright stupid. And anybody who believes what these political hacks of climate science advocates say is ridiculous. Whether by accident or on purpose, the information to refute climate science activism is abundant. But like Covid, the government is seeking to exploit ignorance in favor of political power. And that is a game where the enemies of capitalism need to be defeated spectacularly. And just consider how pathetic their cause is, where they have an 18-year-old nobody as their spokesman. She’s not a scientist. She’s not the next Albert Einstein. She’s just a teenage girl. And that is the best thing that the climate change movement has going for it. Because the facts are not on their side, and anybody willing to look at them can see that quickly.

Rich Hoffman

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The Mythic Realm: Understanding Elon Musk, Bob Iger shortcomings at Disney, the Build Back Better disaster, and why communism always fails

The Mythic Realm

I could actually write a book just about this topic of the Mythic Realm. Still, recently, an opportunity came up professionally where I had to talk to many political people and business people in the same Christmas setting.  I was near a whiteboard so I could tell the story of what I put on the video here contained.  The subject was a bunch of things that flow together to my eyes.  But to the groups of people, they understood some of it, but not all of it, because of the bubble concept that I explained in the video.  Most people all their lives never leave their bubbles of understanding, and I don’t look down on them for it.  I see it as a natural condition of the human race.  But when the topic of Elon Musk came up and all that he was up to, and understanding why Build Back Better is such a bad idea, or the vaccine mandates for Covid are so destructive, the answers to all those questions are often outside of the bubbles that people live in.  So I put together this little video to explain it to people who want to begin understanding some of these kinds of things, such as where economic power comes from.  It’s not the Political Realm or even the Business Realm.  All economic activity comes from the Mythic Realm, and it is there that we should always focus on creating more!

I also put in this article the WSJ interview with Elon Musk in its entirety where he said that the Build Back Better concept should be “deleated.” As I explained, Elon Musk is more shaman than industrialist, even living in a state of depravity to stay authentic to himself.  To my mind, our American society should be producing hundreds of Elon Musk types instead of a few here and there.  When I think of Elon Musk, aside from his tamperings with the political and business realm, I think of people like Thomas Edison, Tesla, the actual man, and Albert Einstein.  What people call genius, they say such things because, from their point of view in one of their social bubbles, the ideas from the realm of myth seem so extraordinary.  But really, it’s all point of view.  What always matters is the Mythic Realm because it is there where all ideas that generate all economic activity are created, which then cascades into all the organized elements of society.

I provided in the video an example about the aviation industry.  Where Prometheus came from stories about building fire or Indian legends about Thunderbirds who could fly, the idea for flight came from the human imagination in thinking what could be.  Then along came the Wright Brothers, who converted their bicycle profession into the first functioning plane.  From there, the political realm instantly saw the benefits, decided to utilize the airplane during World War I, and created rules and regulations for constructing airports, parts suppliers, and general aviation functions.  Then, of course, the Business Realm figures out what companies need to form to meet the world’s growing political need for airplanes.  And from there comes the Cultural Bubbles of all the individual companies that started making airplane parts and the workers who inhabit those cultures.  The exact trajectory of thought could be said to emerge from the auto industry, smartphones, everything that we consider economic value.  When I talk about intellectual currency, this is what I’m talking about.  Financial currency is needed to flow in the political, business, and cultural realms.  But intellectual currency is required to feed the Mythic Realm, and without that position, nothing new in economic energy is produced.  Therefore, the goal of our society or any society should always be to make more Elon Musk types, or even George Lucas, who created Star Wars.

I always talk about Star Wars because, as a kids product, it does a great job of creating ideas in the Mythic Realm among people in our society.  There was an excellent interview with Bob Iger from Disney, who is stepping down now as CEO.  I think he did a pretty good job stabilizing Disney as a company, but his problem was that he spent his entire time as CEO in the border between the Political Realm and the Business Realm, where most CEOs and CFOs think all the real value is.  But when it came time to make more Star Wars movies, he was lost, and what he made was a bunch of corporate woke garbage.  The fans became angry at Disney because the new films and books were made by a guy who was obsessed with the titles he held.  He made a mistake almost all corporate people make, putting their imprint on something that flows out of the Mythic Realm, but that they never understand the ideas. They end up smashing them into the bubbles of business culture, assuming that everything will just work out.  But it never does.  That is why Elon Musk tends to disparage titles in these companies and offices.  In the Mythic Realm, he likes to have all the executives close to where the action is.  As a modern company, Disney does OK if it sells the fantastic work created by people like Walt Disney.  But because they live in their corporate bubble, people like Bob Iger are paralyzed to do anything new, much like the Chinese suffer from their centralized communism. 

This is essentially why socialism and communism never work because they insist on an old aristocratic European view of the world that never figured out these things.  I feel I can talk about it because, really, for the first time in mass culture, we have a time where we can look at all these elements as an entire whole.  I read so much and from so many different sources that it is evident to me.  I don’t know that such an understanding of social constructs would have been possible 100 years ago.  But with the benefit of hindsight and great modern examples of success in the Mythic Realm, we can see these things clearly now.  When I shared these insights with that large group, they all seemed to have an “oh my gosh” moment, so it seemed like a practical thing to discuss.  When we want to understand the world around us, whether it’s Build Back Better, Star Wars success under Disney, Elon Musk and his quest for Mars colonization, or the intricacies of why capitalism works better than communism at managing society, understanding the Mythic Realm is the key. I’ve said for years that despite all my interests, I appreciate nothing more than mythology because what humans do better than any other known form of life is generate imagination, and therefore a change in circumstances directly derived from the mind.  No matter what someone thinks about God, it cannot be questioned that the purpose of human existence is to use the imagination to continue expanding what goes on in the universe.  We are not so insignificant as a species to assume that nature rules over the minds of humankind.  But that humankind is part of nature and the ever-evolving process of creation which the universe craves.  And once you understand that, everything else makes a lot more sense.

Rich Hoffman

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The Best Thing I Received for Christmas: Todd Minniear in Liberty Township

I Got Todd Minniear for Christmas

Another question that comes up always after Christmas, mainly out of obligations of small talk, is what did you get for Christmas?  Was it all worth it?  Did you have a good Holiday?  Well, for me, this year, I did have a great Holiday.  But it wasn’t just family gift exchanges that I enjoyed.  Just a few days before Christmas, at the Liberty Township Building just down the road from my house, Todd Minniear was sworn in as my next trustee, one of three.  He is the product of a series of off-year elections where constitutional conservatives were targeted for election to either replace liberals or offer a more conservative candidate aside from the ones traditionally provided.  For me, it was quite a nice Christmas present to have Todd give me a call and invite me to his swearing-in, which I went to and was greeted there with a kind of class reunion from the various campaigns of 2021, and it was nice to see all that hard work come to some positive culmination.  I say it all the time, if you want a good government, then put good people in it. Don’t just sit on the couch and hope things work out alright.  Either run yourself for an office locally or support someone who wants to.  After the Trump presidency, that was certainly my story where obvious political shenanigans to remove him from office took place.   The audacious behavior of the national establishment is something I’ve seen plenty of times locally, over thirty years.  And the election of Todd Minniear, a constitutional and freedom-minded purist, was a significant achievement in my community and was a sign of things to come nationally. 

Another thing I say all the time to just about everyone I speak with is, “don’t be a victim.” Never allow yourself to be a victim in the story of your own life.  Those people we put into elected positions in our republic are never supposed to be our “betters” or some useless member of an aristocracy.  They are there to represent us.  But that’s not the way the political class views that relationship.  Often, they get into public office for the attention of it and the power that follows by having their hands on the levers of rules and regulations that govern our lives.  In the case of a local trustee, the question is often, “can I build a new pole barn on my property to hold my classic car.” The politicians usually will reply, “but think about the lowered property values of the community.  They don’t need to be penalized because you want to protect some gas-guzzling old car that should be on the junk heap, according to the United Nations.” They don’t say that they often work to protect the interests of those who give them campaign donations to keep them in power instead of representing all the community’s people all the time. I’ve been involved in politics in some way or another all of my adult life, and I have seen all the kinds of corruption that can come out of it, all the ugly stuff.  And I understand entirely how that corruption comes about and how to fix it.  The solution is to follow the Constitution of the nation and our state.  If everyone did that, things would work pretty well.  When politicians get away from the constitutions and bring their personal desires or biases to an issue, that’s where corruption starts.  

I don’t think any politician gets into a public office with the idea of becoming corrupt.  They get that way because they lose their way while solving problems.  Corruption starts to eat away from them once they get off the constitutional script.  For instance, I have several very close personal friends who are politicians.  People like George Lang. I’ve known George for a long time since he was a trustee in West Chester, well over a decade ago.  We bonded over Tea Party ideas of small government and the novel by Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged.  George has a habit of giving that novel out as a Christmas present at Christmas time.  He believes in the ideas in every aspect of his life.  Even though now he is an establishment figure, he is still the same person.

Because he is a big-time senator within the state, many people assume that politics has made him corrupt.  But I know personally, it hasn’t changed him at all. He’s still the same Atlas Shrugged-giving guy.  We might remember when Paul Ryan was also an Atlas Shrugged fan, but when Mitt Romney wanted him to be his VP, all that Atlas Shrugged Ayn Rand stuff was tossed away so that they could become the next power player in congress, eventually becoming Speaker of the House.  Some people can handle the pressure of public scrutiny, and some can’t.  George can; Paul Ryan couldn’t.  Power has a way of altering people into the most profound things in their hearts.  George, for instance, at this Todd Minniear event, was pressed about several projects that involved tax money distribution.  His answer was a classic George Lang line, and he didn’t just say it because I was there.  It’s what he says all the time to everyone, “don’t give the government or me any more tax money. We’ll just spend it.  Keep your money. Our job is to take the barriers out of your way to living a good life.” 

I’ve watched several good politicians like George Lang get elected into more and more positions over the years.  And at that Todd Minniear swearing-in, several of our Lakota school board members newly elected were there as well, more parts of a future solution.  Locally, I’ve always looked to West Chester to ensure more small-government ideas found their way to the trustees.  My friend Mark Welch and others there have done a great job of keeping the government’s small and business engagement very high.  It is the model of what should be happening all over Ohio.  And if we can primary Mike DeWine as governor of Ohio and replace him with Jim Renacci, we’ll be able to do great things in Ohio.  But Liberty Township is where I live, and the trustees there have always been Republican, but more of the Paul Ryan type, and not so much that of George Lang.  At the start of the election in 2021, I didn’t think a freedom candidate like Todd Minniear could find his way on a Republican Party that was still much more like the Republican Party nationally of 2012 and not so much like the Trump Republican Party of 2020.  But Todd won with a solid majority, and he had a tremendous amount of people show up to support him, which is unusual at these kinds of events.  And as I stood there watching Jennifer Gross, our member of the Ohio House, swear in Todd, I could see where our country was headed.  And it made me very happy to see.  All the hard work that goes into these kinds of things was certainly worth it.  For those wondering about it, I would say that doing such things is some of the best Christmas presents you could give yourself.  Often there isn’t much personal satisfaction in politics but putting the right people in the correct positions at the right time through a vote is one of the most rewarding things anybody can do in a healthy republic.  And in Liberty Township for Christmas of 2021, I can say that seeing Todd Minniear sworn in for public office was the highlight of my Holiday season. 

Rich Hoffman

Click to buy The Gunfighter’s Guide to Business