While Donald Trump famously does not drink, alcohol has
always played a role in American life, usually ancillary but occasionally central.
He could take a lesson from an early instance where it played a central role
and how it was handled by our greatest president.
During and after the Revolutionary War the economy of America
was a wreck as prices of products it exported, fish, lumber, tobacco, and
cotton, collapsed with the removal of the British market.It’s estimated that between 1774 and 1790 the
economy declined
by 41 per cent.
The country ended the war heavily in debt.The federal government owed $54 million and
the states together owed an additional $21 million. During the war both tried to
print their way out of their difficulties. It didn’t work.
Even after the war under the Articles of Confederation there
was no relief as the federal government was weak and the states saw themselves
as competitors in many economic matters.
In 1787 the Founding Fathers met in Philadelphia and
hammered out the Constitution that we still use today.It created a stronger central government, but
one that still had difficulties with finances.And that’s where the alcohol comes in. In 1791 Congress passed the
“Whiskey Tax” which was an attempt to raise funds to pay off the debt run up
during and after the war.This per
gallon excise tax was levied on domestic whiskey, a product many farmers,
particularly western farmers, produced from their excess grain.
The western farmers were unhappy because most were small
producers and, unlike the large eastern producers, they couldn’t use
efficiencies of size to minimize the impact, therefore making their offerings
relatively less competitive. At the same time, the tax had to be paid in specie
(gold and silver coins) something that was rare in the entire nation and in
particularly so in the west. Finally, due to the lack of a viable currency,
many workers in the west took whiskey as their pay, which was now taxed!
All of this combined to create a storm we call the Whiskey
Rebellion.By 1794 tempers were flaring
in the west and outbreaks of violence began, involving a few thousand people
across the west. Finally, that July when a west Pennsylvania tax collector’s
home was set fire by 500 armed men, George Washington decided it was time to
act. He sent negotiators to see if they could negotiate a solution. But he
didn’t dither to see if negotiations would work.Simultaneously he requested militia from the
states and then personally led the 13,000 strong man army to face the
troublemakers. The negotiations failed but with the prospect of facing an overwhelming
force led by the Commander in Chief, the “rebels” faded away before Washington
even arrived. There was no confrontation and when all was said and done four
rebels died and there were two casualties among civilians.
Some of the leaders were roused from their beds in the
middle of the night, marched barefoot through the mud and the rain and held in
animal pens on their way back to Philadelphia. Then “The captured rebels were
paraded down Broad Street being 'humiliated, bedraggled, [and] half-starved...”Eventually 150 men were arrested, 20 were
tried and two were convicted and sentenced to death, but given that one was
charged with simple battery and the other with theft, Washington eventually
pardoned both.
The newly formed federal government had shown that it had
both the means and the will to enforce federal law and hold those responsible
accountable.Washington’s focus on
assuring a robust response on issues involving a clearly defined federal power set
a precedent that survives to this day.In principle, that is.In
practice, at least as it comes to immigration, not so much.
Donald Trump should look to the precedent that George
Washington set and act accordingly.Washington utilized state militias to quell the violence.He not only had the people directly involved
in the violence arrested, but he had others who facilitated it arrested as
well.Although Washington did not have
to use his 13,000 troops in actual combat, the fact that he had them and
demonstrated his willingness to use them was sufficient to end the
insurrection.
Trump should do exactly the same thing. When local
authorities won’t or can’t stop the violence, Trump should immediately harness
the National Guard. In addition, he should put rioters on notice that the
soldiers are not there to exchange pleasantries.For this he could and should use the words of
Sheriff Wayne Ivey of
Brevard County, Florida: “If you throw a brick, firebomb or point a gun
at one of our deputies, we will be notifying your family where to collect your
remains at, because we will kill you, graveyard dead.” Trump should be
unambiguously clear that violence towards law enforcement, citizens and
property will not be tolerated.
At the same time, like Washington, Trump should identify the
people who are behind the violence. The people paying for the signs. The people
paying anarchists to go out and riot. The people paying for bricks and rocks to
be conveniently located near hot spots. The people paying for the masks and
other riot gear.
And most of this will not be individuals. As dataRepublican
(small r) has demonstrated American taxpayers are inadvertently funding
much of this via NGOs facilitated by Democrats and the rest of the swamp. These
leftist, Communist, anti-American organizations, are, under the guise of
“charity” fueling a real insurrection and invasion of the United States.
And Trump should be ruthless. These people, particularly the
people behind the scenes, are far more dangerous to America than any external
enemy.They have academia, the media and
half the ruling class on their side. This is where the tire hits the road. They
should spend decades in prison and emerge penniless, with whatever assets they
have seized to pay for the damage they inflicted on the country.
Instead of dialing things back as he quizzically
just announced, Trump needs to turbo charge his response and let it be
known that the federal government will not tolerate a violent insurrection.
Washington harnessed an army of 13,000 to demonstrate his
intent on restoring order when the population was under 4 million. With 350
million I’m sure Trump can find the men to demonstrate his point.
He should be prepared for a Kent State like
episode, or many of them, and be prepared to stand his ground. The reality
is, if he does not quell this, we will have another Summer of Love like 2020
with its consequent aftermath.
And what is that aftermath? A
bloodbath. Take the murders in the three years following the BLM rioting of
2014. After declining for a decade, in three years murders would climb 26%
nationwide, resulting in at least 8,000 more murders than would have otherwise
been seen.Then after the “Summer of
Love” in 2020, the year ended up with a 32% jump in murders in a single year, adding
another 5,000 murders than would have been expected.That’s a lot more blood than Kent State.
So, Donald Trump’s job as president is not to placate the
leftist, anti-American Communists and anarchists who seek to abet this
invasion, sow discord and delegitimize, destabilize, and ultimately derail his presidency.
But this is not about Donald Trump. It’ about America and the American citizens
who voted to take back their country.It
is they to whom he needs to answer, not those who oppose him simply because he
seeks to make America America again.
After the Rodney King riots in LA in the early 1990s news
organizations told us endlessly that citizens were angry about the food deserts
in minority communities. I remember thinking there might be another reason why
there were no stores in the neighborhoods besides the implied racism. Maybe the burned husks of buildings might
have something to do with it…
At the time I was living in Washington, DC and understood
all too well what I was seeing.DC had
endured extraordinary riots in 1968 and wide swaths of it still resembled a war
zone. Riots have a way of destroying more than just the buildings that go up in
flames. They rip the hearts out of a community, something that often takes
years or decades to repair.
Riots, however, are just one way a community can be
destroyed.Another, far more insidious,
is common crime. While with riots everyone can point to the damage and clamor
for rebuilding, with common crime, once the window is replaced or the body
chalk is washed away the neighborhood looks exactly the same as it did before.
But of course, it’s not the same. From citizens being scared
to walk down the street to kids having to dodge junkies as they walk to school
to upstanding members of the community not visiting certain neighborhoods – and
not spending money there – the fear of violence has devastating consequences on
any community.
Food deserts are one of those consequences.Retailers are typically not charities.They exist to make money. When violence,
security costs and shoplifting make it so they can’t make money they usually
close.Hence, when all the food stores
close you have said “food deserts”.
The funny thing is, however, that the people who create the
conditions that lead to food deserts never take responsibility for them. Democrats
have unleashed an unprecedented amount of street violence and crime on Americans,
from coast to coast.In California,
which made shoplifting under $950 a misdemeanor a decade ago, shoplifting
is de facto legal. That basically means that you can steal $949 worth of
merchandise every single day and likely never go to jail. So, if you steal that
$949 worth of goods every day, sell them for 25 cents on the dollar, you can
generate an income $86,000 a year tax free!Not bad.
Both Illinois
and New York
enacted bail reform that makes it far more likely that offenders will end up
back on the streets and we’ve seen exactly that whether it be for shoplifting
or assaulting
cops or citizens.
Why all of this matters is because the chickens are coming
home to roost.Across the country, from San
Francisco to Seattle
to New
York to Boston
stores are closing because of crime.Some, in an effort to reduce shoplifting put
literally every single item behind lock and key in an effort to remain
open. (Surprise, it
didn’t work.) But, rather than recognize that stores are closing because
they can’t make a profit due to the extraordinary amounts of crime, Democrats
are blaming… you guessed it:Racism.Communist, racist,
Democrat (pardon the redundancy) Massachusetts Representative Ayanna Pressley
assails the fact that CVS is closing another store in a minority community, not
because of shoplifting or security or losing money, but “racial and economic
discrimination”.
But of course she’s not alone in her unhinged take on stores
closing. In the hellhole that has become San Francisco city supervisors have
proposed a bill that
would allow citizens to sue retailers if they close without giving the city six
months’ notice.That means,
basically, that after struggling to make a profit, when a store finally decides
to bite the bullet and close its doors, according to Democrats running the
city, they must remain open for another six months, regardless of how much
money they lose. And, as if that was not enough, “Supermarket operators
would also have to make "good faith" efforts to ensure the continued
availability of groceries at their shuttered location, either through finding a
successor store, helping residents form a grocery co-op, or any other plan they
might work out by meeting with city and neighborhood residents.” So the
store that once operated at a profit providing desired services to a community,
when it can no longer do so must become the caretaker of the community because regardless
of what they might do the Communists in charge of the city will claim they
didn’t act in “good faith” and invite citizens to sue them.
But of course there’s more.In St. Louis the Democrat mayor wants to hold stores and gas stations
liable for the violence happening close to their stores.Last month at a mayor’s conference she said:
“We have a lot of violence around
convenience stores and gas stations… So how can we hold those business owners
accountable and also bring down crime?” So businesses not only have to
face the myriad challenges that go along with running a profitable store in the
best of circumstances and endure staggering levels of crime and shoplifting,
but now they’re somehow looking at being held responsible for the crime near
their establishments that is driven by Democrat’s defunding of the police and
soft on crime policies…
And if all of that wasn’t enough, now, Democrats are
claiming that companies who seek to protect themselves and customers by
not hiring criminals are racist because more black and minority applicants are
passed over than white applicants. So, companies that seek to protect themselves,
their employees, and customers by declining to hire criminals are now going to
be sued by the government.But if they
do hire a criminal and said criminal harms or kills a customer or employee the
company can surely argue the government forced their hand, right?Don’t count on it.
If there was ever a moment of clarity about what America
faces in 2024, it’s this.Democrats pass
laws that make it almost impossible for the system to hold criminals
accountable for their crimes and unsurprisingly, crime soars.When citizens resist such crime, Democrats arrest
and charge them. Then Democrats try to make businesses responsible for the
crimes that occur in the very neighborhoods where said Democrat policies spiked
crime. Finally, if a business has had enough, can’t afford to continue to lose
money and decides to close, Democrats tell them they either continue losing
money for a further six months or they’ll have to open up their checkbooks in
court as slimy lawyers are invited to sue them.
Soon it won’t be just food deserts that are ailing American
cities. It will be deserts of every kind from medicines to clothing to gasoline
to hardware, and everything in between.While it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to recognize that the
combination of unleashing violence and penalizing businesses for simply
operating is a recipe that won’t produce prosperity, it does take a semblance
of common sense, a basic understanding of human nature and at least an idea of
how businesses operate. Democrats lack all three.So too do their similarly obtuse and gullible
voters.It’s no wonder they live in deserts.
This past summer there were a lot of American flags ripped,
walked on and set on fire around the country.Protesters pulled down statues, looted stores and set buildings on fire
across the country.They claim that
America is racist.They claim Donald
Trump is a fascist.They suggest
Capitalism is a cancer and must be replaced.And the Constitution, as it has been a tool of oppression since its
writing, must be eliminated.
To listen to protesters speak, the United States is a
cesspool of racism and oppression where only the rich thrive.
Maybe they’re right.Maybe America is nothing but one large work camp where citizens are
oppressed by their overlords where they have no freedoms and experience a
quality of life that is something out of Dickens. Maybe…
If that’s true, it should be easy to spot.Below are a variety of tables listing measures
of life ranked by country.The sources
for each set of data is different but most evaluate between 180 & 210
countries, depending on how that term is defined.
So what do the data say about this fascist, oppressive American
country? Well, as a journalist might say... lets's go to the data.
How about we start off with the basics… Life
Expectancy.Below is a table of selected
countries for life expectancy.The world
average is 72.6 and the United States comes in at 78.9, putting it solidly in
the top 25%.That’s not terrible.
Then of course there’s earning a living.Below is a table with the average incomes
around the world and the United States comes in at #5, with not a single
country above the United States having more people than the city of New York. That
matters of course because like herding cat, having a country where people are
spread out over vast areas, have extraordinarily different backgrounds and
heritages it’s far more difficult to get everyone on the same page in terms of
what works to achieve prosperity.America has done that.
And of course everyone talks about GDP, the sum of all of
the goods and services a nation produces. Below is a table of the 15 nations
with the largest GDPs in the world.The
United States, with 5% of the planet’s population produces 24% of the world’s
economic output:
Another way of looking at this is GDP on a per capita
basis.Here too none of the nations
above the United States has a population above that of New York.Again, none of the other countries on this
list comes close to being similar to the United States in terms of size and
diversity of our population, and with only Australia being similar when
compared to geographic footprint.
Of course it’s not all about income, it’s about what you can
do with that income.Below is a table showing
the top 20 countries (out of 101) based on the cost of living which measures
what one can actually purchase with the money they earn.And the United States comes in at 4.
Most of us work for a living and sometimes things work out
well and we accumulate significant assets, making us millionaires!Sadly, I’m not one of them, but there are a
LOT of millionaires in the United States.As a matter of fact, the United States, which again is 5% of the world’s
population, is the home of fully 40% of the world’s millionaires:
Millionaires: (in thousands)
1
United
States
18,614
2
China
4,447
3
Japan
3,025
4
United
Kingdom
2,460
5
Germany
2,187
6
France
2,071
7
Italy
1,496
8
Canada
1,322
9
Australia
1,180
10
Spain
979
11
Netherlands
832
12
Switzerland
810
13
India
759
14
South
Korea
741
15
Taiwan
528
And not only that, the number of millionaires as a
percentage of the population is higher in the United States than any nation on
the planet other than Switzerland… but in our defense, Switzerland has really
good chocolate.
Particularly important in this discussion is who those
millionaires are.The makeup of American
millionaires is below.Minorities,
making up 40% of the nation’s population, make up 24% of the millionaires.
And what’s equally important about achieving economic success is mobility into
America’s economic elite.Forbes, which
publishes its annual Forbes 400 chronicling the 400 richest Americans reports
that fully 70% of America’s richest individuals are self made while only 30%
inherited their fortunes.
American Millionaires By Race (and Population Race
Breakdown):
But of course not everyone will end up millionaires, but
opportunities exist nonetheless.Below
is a table that chronicles social mobility, which is roughly characterized as
the ability to move from one economic level to another.Of the approximately 180 countries in the
world this table looks at the 82 with the most measurable opportunities.The average of these 82 countries is 62.2,
and the United States comes in position of 27 with a mobility score of 70.4,
while Denmark is first with a score of 85.2 and Côte d’Ivoire is last with a
score of 34.5.A significant element of
this measure is education and healthcare, both of which drag down the United
States significantly thanks to excessive government intervention.
The reality of the fact that government intervention in
healthcare and education handicap the country is be demonstrated by the
following table that looks at the ease of doing business.This metric includes starting a business as
one of its measures, along with things like regulations, taxes, rule of law and
others.Starting a business is one of
the most effective ways in which one might improve their family’s economic
situation.To the degree that the United
States is ranked sixth out of 180 nations in terms of the ease of doing
business yet 27th in terms of social mobility suggests that that economic
opportunity is very real, while other measures hold the country back.
How about getting to work to run that business or make that
money – and hopefully have some fun too!Americans love to drive.As such,
the price of gas is a big deal.Below is
what people pay in different countries for gas.The world average is $3.80 and the US comes in at $2.15 per gallon while
in France they pay $5.94 and in Hong Kong they pay $8.49!
But it’s not just gas, but there’s buying a car and
maintaining it.Below is a table that
shows the percentage of annual salary it would take to buy a family car and
operate it for one year.These costs
include not only the car and its gas, but insurance and maintenance as well.
And where might an American drive?How about home!Below is a table showing the size of homes
for various countries around the world.The only nation where homes are bigger on average than in the United
States is Australia, but that should be expected as apparently all Australians
keep pet crocodiles!
It’s not just the freedom to drive around that American’s
like.For a nation that was founded on
the pursuit of freedom, freedom of all sorts is still important.Below are two tables, one measuring Economic
Freedom and the other Personal Freedom.
The freedoms in the following two tables in this analysis encompass
a variety of measures including these: Rule of Law / Security and Safety /
Movement / Religion / Association, Assembly, and Civil Society / Expression and
Information / Identity and Relationships / Size of Government / Legal System
and Property Rights.The numbers below
are the top nations of the total pool of 162 nations measured.
And of course the number one freedom someone can have is the
freedom of speech. Without the freedom to say what’s on your mind without fear
of retribution from the government is the strongest tool available for keeping
a government honest.Below is a table
demonstrating something that anyone paying attention this summer would
recognize, Americans have a level of free speech unfettered by government
authorities that is unprecedented in the world.
Another part of freedom is access to information, which is
increasingly delivered via the Internet.Below is a table that looks at the percent of the population with
Internet access for 214 countries.
While the United States may lag far behind on academic
success in primary education, our university system is the best in the world by
far.Below are the 15 best universities
in the world and the only two on the list that are not from the United States
are Oxford and Cambridge in the UK.
Then there is charity.The United States spends more money on charity than any other nation by
far.That is a function of both the
largest GDP as well as the percentage of giving.That is reflected in the table on the left
below.The table on the right measures a
more holistic giving approach that combines donations, volunteering and helping
strangers.Here the United States sits
at number two.
But it’s not just charity that demonstrates America’s
willingness to help, it’s the total social welfare spending.For whatever one’s views on such endeavors,
the United States is behind only France in social welfare spending.This measure includes things such as public
and private social expenditure, the effect of direct taxes (income tax and
social security contributions), indirect taxation of consumption on cash
benefits, as well as tax breaks for social purposes.
We are slight slackers however when it comes to spending on
video games.Americans come in number 3
behind Japan and South Korea on this important measure.
There is one last measure that must be looked at.That is Defense.The United States spends more on defense than
the next 10 countries combined.For some
that might sound problematic, but the reality is that American spending on
defense has allowed the world, particularly Europe to thrive.The second table below shows defense spending
as a percent of GDP.One of the reasons
that European nations are able to generate such extensive welfare spending programs
is that they have kept their defense spending low for decades while the United
States defense expenditures brought about the longest period of overall peace
in Europe in history.That spending may
not show up in happiness measures or salary measures, but it most certainly
shows up in the fact that both Europe and the United States remain bastions of
freedom, democracy and peace, and the carnage of a world war is a distant
memory we read about rather than something we all experienced firsthand. The
first table shows absolute defense spending and the second shows spending as a percentage
of GDP.
At the end of the day, this is piece is a chronicle of the
reality of America. America is indeed imperfect, no doubt for every table here
someone can find their own tables that paint a far darker picture using their
own sources.America does have
inequality, dysfunctional education and healthcare systems and too much
government regulation, but at the same time, Americans have done more with what
they have than any nation on earth.America offers economic opportunities on a wider scale (both geographic
and occupational) than any nation on earth. From Florida to New York to
California to Wyoming the opportunities are simply staggering from doctor to
scientist to graphic designer to business consultant to startup founder to
mechanic to plumber to Instagram model…
What many of the protesters don’t care about is the fact
that the United States Constitution guarantees Americans freedoms that people
in most of the world can only dream of and to the degree that others share some
of them, those freedoms are often at the mercy of political majorities.That includes minority opinions because
things that the majority agree with don’t generally need protection.
At the same time, the United States regularly receives more
immigrants from more places than any nation on earth and gives them opportunities
and freedoms most would or could not dream of at home.And it integrates immigrants at a pace that
no nation has in history.
While there are racial tensions in the United States as
there have been since its founding, in the last half century the country has
made extraordinary leaps which can be seen in both culture and economics, the
former can be seen on televisions, on sports shows and regularly on the radio
while the latter is demonstrated by the fact that 8% of American millionaires
are black, 8% are Asian and 7% are Hispanic.I’ve not found a source thus far, but one can imagine that those numbers
were far smaller during the 1950’s and 1960’s. But I can say that the story the Democrats and the media try and foist on us that America is indeed a bastion of racism is fiction. (https://imperfectamerica.blogspot.com/2020/06/data-shows-driving-while-black-meme-is.html)
For those who want to tear apart American culture because it’s
not what they like, denigrate American values because we’ve not achieved them
on their timetable, want to overthrow America’s capitalist system because they’d
prefer the “equality” promised by socialism or Communism, I’d ask, what place
in the world today, or in world history has a nation done a better job than
America of giving opportunity to its citizens, generating prosperity for its
citizens, protecting its citizens’ freedoms and at the same time helping drive
prosperity and peace around the world?If such a nation exists perhaps I’d certainly be interested in reading
about it.
Tomorrow there are two choices on the ballot.One candidate, a very flawed but passionate man,
understands that the United States is the greatest nation to ever grace the
face of this earth and sees his role as protecting that legacy and rolling back
government intervention to allow Americans of all stripes to address the
country’s shortcomings and achieve even greater success in the future.
The other also an imperfect man, but he sees the United
States as a highly flawed nation, he sees Americans of various identities as
victims and the Constitution as a roadblock to change rather than a guarantee of
freedom and a limit on government intervention on behalf of the majority.
If you like what you’ve seen in the streets of America over
the last six months and would like to see more of it, Joe Biden is your man and
the Democrats are your party.If however
you believe like Ronald Reagan that America’s best days are ahead of her and
that freedom and opportunity are the solutions to most of the problems we face,
Donald Trump is your man and the Republicans are your party.
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