Richard Moss, M.D. Articles/Blog

No Different than the Democrats: A Review of The Empire of Eunuchs

Mon, 24 Jun 2024 19:26:12 GMT

Richard Moss, M.D., Ear Nose and Throat Surgeon, pulls no punches in his latest book titled The Empire of Eunuchs: How the Republican Party Betrayed America as he accuses the Republican Party as being “no different than the very same Democrat Party it claims to oppose.”

Calling the daily assault on our country “a destructive jihad against the [American] economy,” Moss clearly elucidates how both parties have threatened the republic and its founding principles as they attack the federal and constitutional systems. Coupled with the failure of both parties to protect American interests, are the globalists, which if they get their way will usher in a world where “we cease to be human.”

Moss highlights the Republican Party “never truly addressing the annual deficits, mounting debt, increasing dependency, and expanding unfunded liabilities.”

As far as Moss is concerned, the Republican Party is “a weak, limp, rudderless organization that has achieved little or none of its stated goals and purposes.”

He asserts that it is only by a “rebranded, committed, conservative, economic, Christian nationalist party (which as a Jew, [he] fully embraces) supportive and dedicated to American sovereignty, can the great American experiment survive.”

His is a clarion call for an America Reborn party that is willing to “fight and die on cultural issues,” which he believes, are even more important than budgets and tax policy if the nation is to survive.

He argues that “those who believe in the American enterprise desperately need to reform the Republican Party from within or create a new one.”

If Republicans continue to fall sway to the “woke, identarian, intersectional, racialized, feminized, transgendered, and anti-American Democrat party” which is ultimately laying the ground for “future gulags and reeducation camps like the Leninist and Maoist forebears of the 20th century,” America will continue its downward trajectory.

Having discarded the founders, liberty, and the rule of law, the Republican and Democrat parties -- which he now calls the Uniparty, are both going in the same direction. Both want to “expand the government, erode liberty, spend and borrow the nation into oblivion, destroy the middle class” and eviscerate free market capitalism. This is being done concurrently with the “destruction of our culture, norms, religion and two-parent married families.” While the Democrats may get there quicker, the Republicans will just “slow boil” into communism.

Moss’ book challenges his readers into understanding that the Uniparty is “busy destroying culture and civilization, [as] they move like termites from one foundational beam to the next, eroding the structure and tenets of society.” Hence, transgenderism is endorsed and never refuted by the Republican establishment.

The cry of systemic racism is never exposed for the actual racism of its proponents and the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion mantra is never revealed for the inherent evil where equity “means equal outcomes, achieved if necessary by unequal treatment , biased competition and preferential judging” -- hardly the genuine aim of equality that is so deeply rooted in U.S.A. history.

Moss courageously rips off the curtain of the Marxist manipulation of language so that social justice is revealed for the base injustice that it is.

Moss maintains that it should not be that difficult to challenge these bankrupt and destructive ideas. They have been repeatedly used in other communist countries and have a “proven track record of poverty, unemployment, scarcity, misery, prison camps, torture, slavery, mass executions, and, not infrequently, genocide.”

Is Moss exaggerating? Is he a bit hyperbolic in his assertions?

Despite mounds of evidence , people still do not comprehend that “socialism and central planning never fail to fail.”

One need only see the assault on law and order that is wreaking havoc at the southern border and in Democrat-controlled cities to realize that Moss is right on target.

Because of their failure to offer an alternative vision, Republicans are allowing the country to morph into a lawless, bankrupt banana republic.

Clearly a student of history, Moss fights against the oft-repeated but incorrect “three-fifths clause” and explains that it was “actually an anti-slavery provision made by anti-slavery delegates not to diminish blacks but to reduce Congressional representation of pro-slave states.”

Moss spares nothing when he describes how Franklin Delano Roosevelt, long revered by Americans, actually ushered in the ever-enlarging role of central government, which ultimately became “legal government sponsored theft.”

Moss writes of his own evolution as a political thinker and candidate when he ran for office in October 2015, 2018, and 2024.

But in 2010 as a friend who challenged him asked “for once in your endless rants, tell what you would do specifically, not what should not be done.”

Moss’ response:

Repeal Obamacare.

Return government spending to 2008 levels or even earlier.
Limit government spending to 20% of GDP or less.
Sunset resolution on all mandates, programs, agencies every two years.
Cut federal bureaucracy across the board by 20%
End public sector unions
Must find constitutional basis to any new legislation
End autopilot programs where multitude of programs are automatically increased and no vote or debate has occurred
No further bailouts or takeovers
End various subsidies and corporate welfare
End illegal immigration

Part autobiography, part political tract, The Empire of Eunuchs also encompasses articles that Moss has written over the years concerning the political morass America finds itself.

Moss’ angst is just.

He takes on Mike Pence’s decision concerning Trump’s election and maintains that Pence should have allowed the ten-day moratorium since there was a precedent for that. In fact, Pence had the “right -- and duty to allow that investigative process to unfold.”

The Empire of Eunuchs is a righteous clarion call for true action. It is a fitting description for a party who has capitulated so much that one cannot tell the difference between them and the insufferable Democrat Party. Repeatedly, Moss makes the point that if we lose the culture, the politics are lost as well. Dependence on the government is the surest path to the end of the country. Yet, “pathetic Republicans refuse to make the case. More than the stupid party, they [are] the party of Eunuchs, of cowards, the new castrati.”

In reality, America must die in order for the Left to succeed. The Left is all about “power and its permanent acquisition.” While conservatives live for other things, like... families, homes, churches, jobs, careers, businesses, and hobbies, the Left is singularly focused. Their family is the Democrat Party. Their church is the Left. They live for politics and power. Their dogma, Marxism. Centralized government power is their highest goal.

With laser focus, Moss asks if the Republican Party is ready for the” mythic and cataclysmic battle that is occurring under our noses.”

Up to now, it would appear that the Republican Party is a group of ineffectual people, eunuchs who would rather bow to the radical left than stand up for the values of America.

Moss calls out the constant Republican urge of “reaching across the aisle” which only results in yet another furthering of the leftist cause.

Moss is not afraid to voice his thoughts and ideas . In a recent piece , he proposes what solidly red states can do to defend the rule of law and our G-d given, inalienable rights.

Is Richard Moss a maverick who will help usher in a renewal of America? Time will tell. Other Americans can read his impassioned book and spread his message.

Eileen can be reached at middlemarch18@gmail.com

Image: GGV Publishing

See this publication in American Thinke r .

E-REP, or the Evansville Regional Economic Partnership, Embraces “DEI” Over Merit

Tue, 14 May 2024 19:11:40 GMT

E-REP, or Evansville Regional Economic Partnership, is an organization that “promotes regional economic development and vitality.” It encompasses four counties, including Vanderburgh, Posey, Warrick, and Gibson, and seeks to “drive the region’s economic growth, attract a high-wage and high-skilled workforce and elevate quality of life.” Encompassing the “Evansville Region,” it “thinks regionally – and acts regionally.” Its essential missions include “business growth and retention, attraction of a highly skilled workforce, community development, and regional planning.”

All of this is commendable – a welcome benefit to the area. Until, that is, we turn to their section on “advocacy.” It is here where we learn of E-REP’s commitment to “Embrace Diversity and Inclusion” and to “keep the value of diversity, inclusion, and equity at the core of all our efforts…”

Why would an organization that ostensibly purports to promote economic growth and a skilled work force add to its otherwise praiseworthy goals something so divisive and exclusionary as DEI?

DEI, as the world knows, refers to “Diversity Equity and Inclusion.” E-REP, chose to change the order of the words but the meaning is the same. Like many seemingly innocuous-sounding slogans or acronyms, it carries with it aspects quite sinister. It is a phrase that has swept the nation and all our major institutions, including our universities and schools. DEI has become the new mantra, indeed, a booming industry and ethos, dominating our culture. But contained within it are concepts that are alien and antithetical to the founding principles of the nation.

DEI is a hyperaggressive and politicized quota system, an aggressive version of affirmative action for certain so-called “marginalized” people. It divides society into “groups” based on race, sex, sexual orientation, ethnicity, religion, and so on. It gives preference to certain favored groups and discriminates against groups currently out of favor, chiefly whites, Asians, men, heterosexuals, Jews, and Christians.

Apart from being intensely divisive, DEI reflects a world view that is not compatible with our biblical tradition. That belief holds that each person is an individual uniquely made in the image of God. This concept is peculiar to the West and accounts for its extraordinary success, particularly here in the US, the greatest embodiment of Western thought and accomplishment. Our emphasis on the individual, protecting individual rights and liberties, has made Western nations, in general, and America, in particular, so desirable. This is why all the world seeks to come here.

DEI rejects that because it is considered an identitarian ideology, a “caste” system, so to speak, that divides society into intersectional groups founded on perceived wrongs committed by alleged dominant power centers in society. Within the DEI calculus, there are oppressors and oppressed, victimizers and victims, and, as noted above, so-called “marginalized people.”

This divisive, hierarchical worldview emerges from standard collectivist ideology, except it is centered on culture or race rather than class, as originally conceived, hence the term “cultural Marxism.” DEI is an extension of cultural Marxism, part of the “intersectional” hierarchy of “oppression” that divides society into odd categories. Rejecting the individual, DEI reduces American society into a collection of groups or tribes, hence the “ tribalization “ of society. Further, this tribalization (racialization) is based on certain immutable, physical traits such as skin color and sex. This, by the way, has been the norm for all of human history and throughout the world. America was unique in that it rejected tribalization, group characteristics , and superficial appearance, and elevated the individual, which accounted for its historic success.

DEI, furthermore, has no place in any institution that values standards and color-blind meritocracy. If diversity becomes the driving force behind hiring and promotion, or even a small part of it, rather than skill, accomplishment, and merit, then it necessarily compromises standards. If the goal is diversity, and to have proportional representation based on race, sex, sexual orientation, and other such trivialities, even in part, and E-REP, and other organizations that embrace DEI, do not contemplate the individual and his unique abilities and contributions over all else, then the system collapses and becomes simply one of groups or tribes competing with one another. Meritocracy necessarily dies in such a system. You can have DEI or meritocracy, but not both.

Should employers now have hiring quotas based on DEI principles of proportional allocations for certain favored minorities over more qualified individuals perceived to have the wrong color, sex, or sexual orientation? Such a practice is antithetical to E-REPs primary mission of promoting “regional economic development,” in pursuit of current fashionable and destructive Marxist goals that have no place anywhere in this country. Further, why is “diversity” a goal? Diversity is actually a challenge to overcome in the pursuit of “unity,” which is a far more important aspiration.

In short, E-REP has discredited itself and its alleged mission. It chose politics and division over talent and competence. The choice is clear. Embrace standards and merit over superficial characteristics.

I hold that we treat each person as an individual and judge him, as a famous black preacher once said, “not by the color of their skin but the content of their character.” Yes, that is a “dream” we should all aspire to. Including E-REP.

Richard Moss, M.D., a surgeon practicing in Jasper, IN, is a candidate for Congress for Indiana’s 8 ^th district. He has written “A Surgeon’s Odyssey” and “Matilda’s Triumph,” available on amazon.com . Contact him at richardmoss4congress.com , Richard Moss for Congress on Facebook, Richard Moss, M.D. on Twitter, and Instagram.

Note: Portions of this report were taken from a previous column I had written on the subject of DEI ¹ ^, ² .

Why I Am Running For Congress For Indiana’s 8th District: My Positions and Beliefs

Thu, 09 May 2024 19:58:22 GMT

My name is Richard Moss. I am a board-certified cancer surgeon, seasoned businessman, and America-First conservative running for Congress. I have been in private practice for 35 years in Jasper, Indiana. I am married with four children. I am committed to limited government, defending our Constitution, and preserving Judeo-Christian values.

I support sealing our southern border, avoiding forever wars, and returning jobs and factories back to the heartland, particularly here in Indiana. This, after 50 years of “America Last,” when we shipped industries, vital supply-chains, and jobs overseas for “cheap labor.” “Cheap Labor,” it turns out, was not cheap.

I favor a strong military but not a “woke” military. I follow President Ronald Reagan’s adage of “peace through strength.” If we must go to war, it should be a war of necessity not a war of “choice,” with a well-defined mission and purpose. Victory should be achieved as swiftly as possible. In our two wars of choice this century, we did not have a clear mission and paid dearly in blood and treasure. We also damaged our national interests rather than improved them.

I favor a balanced budget and paying down the debt and will work to move the GOP to become the party of fiscal discipline and prudence. I support cutting spending and eliminating deficits, which result in the “printing” of money, causing inflation and higher interest rates. This harms consumers and homeowners.

I support full spectrum energy dominance including coal, natural gas, oil, and nuclear. I do not accept the myth of so-called “man-made climate change” or “global warming.” Carbon dioxide (CO2), along with H2O and oxygen (O2), is critical to life, our atmosphere, and all living things. It is an essential compound. I will oppose spending one dime of federal money on windmills and solar panels, which are themselves environmentally unsound, costly, and undependable. They do not generate the inexpensive, reliable energy that our modern economy and large population requires.

I oppose DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) and embrace color blind meritocracy, the key to American progress and greatness – and a fair and just society.

Election integrity is critical. Photo ID must be mandatory, with signature verification and proof of citizenship. I oppose same-day or motor-voter registration, “ballot curing,” “harvesting,” or “drop boxes.” Illegal aliens should not vote; the right-to-vote belongs to US citizens alone. We must eliminate unsolicited mail-in ballots and return to paper ballots counted the same day, on “election day.”

We must reign in our out-of-control federal bureaucracy (the “Swamp”), with emphasis on the DOJ and FBI. We must return power to the states and local communities and away from unelected bureaucrats, and purge the partisans that have infiltrated these institutions and turned them against regular Americans – and President Trump.

I am deeply opposed to the weaponization of the legal system. It is appalling that corrupt, activist courts in deep-blue jurisdictions are prosecuting President Trump, forcing him to spend precious time and resources in court. These are “political” prosecutions that seek to bankrupt and incarcerate him, and prevent him from running. This is unprecedented in our nation and reflects the behavior of Third World dictatorships and the former Soviet Union.

The Covid lockdowns, school closures, and mask and vaccine mandates were a disaster. I opposed them then and would oppose them again.

I support the state of Israel and its right to defend itself and oppose the antisemitic, Nazi-like campus protests, encampments, and riots against Israel, the Jewish people, and the United States. Those who hate Israel also hate the US. Their long-term target is not Israel but this nation and the West in general, which they seek to overthrow and enslave. There is surging antisemitism in our universities, the Democrat Party, the country and the world at large that I would vigorously confront.

Regarding the student riots, they must be ended immediately, students expelled, visas revoked for foreign students that support Hamas and sent back to their native countries, such as so-called Palestinian students, among others. The universities that support such attitudes and behavior should also be defunded - and taxed. I would recommend rescinding loans for students supporting terrorist groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah.

I embrace the Constitution and the Bill of Rights with emphasis on the first and second amendments - but all of them. Our founding documents, including the Declaration of Independence, are unprecedented in their brilliance and clarity, an inspiring and historic foundation for a newly formed nation - and model for the world.

I support traditional values, the Judeo-Christian tradition, and hold to the definition of marriage as the union of a man and woman. We must encourage and support strong intact married families as the cornerstone of the civil society and the nation at large. I am pro-life and believe that life begins at conception, a gift from God and God alone, and that the unborn must be protected.

I have been endorsed by Congressman Bob Good, of Virginia, the chairman of the House Freedom Caucus in Congress, Indiana State Representative Betty Cash, and the Bull Moose Project, an organization devoted to America Firstprinciples.

I am running for Congress because of my profound concern over the direction of our country as a result of the destructive policies of President Biden and the radical Democrats: in particular, the invasion of our southern border, the massive government deficits and ensuing inflation, the release of criminals onto our streets, the assault on fossil fuels, and the appeasement of our worst enemies globally that have resulted in wars around the world.

The primary is May 7. Early voting is taking place as we speak. A vote for me in the primary and subsequent election victory in November will send a strong conservative Hoosier voice representing Southwestern Indiana, the eighth district, to our nation’s capital. I humbly ask for your vote.

See this publication in T he City-County Observer.

The Tragic Death of Laken Riley Should Not Be in Vain

Mon, 18 Mar 2024 14:08:39 GMT

At the recent State of the Union Address by President Joe Biden, President Biden was challenged by Congressman Margorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) from Georgia to “say her name.” She meant, of course, the name of Laken Hope Riley, the 22-year-old nursing student allegedly murdered in broad daylight by Jose Antonio Ibarra, an illegal alien from Venezuela. Laken was at the University of Georgia campus in Athens, Georgia, and was jogging when she encountered Ibarra, who crushed her skull with a large rock. The police report indicates that her head and face were “disfigured.”

Ibarra should have never been in the country. He was initially encountered by US Border Patrol in El Paso, Texas, when he was released because of the Biden Administration’s open border policies. Ibarra, like millions of others over the last three years, entered the country unlawfully, and, under Biden’s “catch and release” policies, wandered the nation freely, including in Texas, New York, and ultimately Athens, Georgia.

Ibarra was arrested by the NYPD in September of 2023 for acting “in a manner to injure a child,” a felony, and a motor vehicle infraction. Did the NYPD detain him and contact the DHS for committing a felony as an illegal alien to be deported? No, New York City, like many “blue” jurisdictions operates under “sanctuary city” policies, in defiance of federal immigration law. They released him. New York, under Soros-funded DA and reprobate, Alvin Bragg, does not arrest many individuals, criminal or otherwise, in “no bail” New York, unless named Donald J. Trump. The radical Democrat Mayor of New York, Eric Adams, in a rare moment of candor and common sense, upon hearing of the death of Laken Riley, had an epiphany and reflected aloud before an unbelieving press that perhaps he should rethink his city’s sanctuary policies; perhaps he should have contacted the DHS since such lawful and moral conduct would have prevented the slaughter of the innocent 22-year-old Laken Riley. Yes, Mayor, the blood drips from many hands.

It should be noted that the concept of “sanctuary city” or “state” is lawless. It represents the nullification of federal law no different than the behavior of southern states before the civil war. Such jurisdictions, therefore, should be seen as part of a “neo-confederacy” engaged in actual insurrection (not the phony “insurrection” of J6) and dealt with as such by the federal government. That will have to wait for Donald Trump to assume the Presidency, but firm action should be taken including defunding the insurrectionists, sanctioning them, and unleashing upon them the Department of Justice and FBI, among other such resolute measures.

During Biden’s SOTU he mispronounced Riley’s name as “Lincoln Riley,” further infuriating Republicans and her family. But this had little effect on Democrats. What did exercise them was his reference to the murderer as an “illegal.” Yes, friends, Democrats have far more sympathy for “illegals” than US citizens, even an American with the misfortune of having been slaughtered by one.

For decades Democrats and the Left have declared war on the term “illegal alien ,” preferring instead the more palliative “undocumented Immigrant .” But “illegal alien” is the legally precise and correct term. Unlawful entry into the country is a crime. The term is not intended to disparage. It accurately describes an individual who resides in the country in defiance of our immigration laws. “Undocumented” suggests that one merely lacks the proper documents for being here ( a problem of the government) and ignores the crime of unlawful entry and presence in the land.

What is to be done? Build the wall, reinstate “remain in Mexico” and “expedited removal,” and end “catch and release,” all of which were successful policies from the Trump presidency and recklessly rescinded by the Biden administration.

We must also revamp our “refugee/asylum” policies to better reflect reality. Virtually none of those claiming refugee status even remotely merit such a designation. They are not persecuted minorities or refugees escaping war or famine. Perhaps, one can say, they are escaping poverty or seeking a better life and hence are more aptly described as “economic migrants.” But such a broad definition of a “refugee” would open our doors to countless billions around the world who could readily make the same claim.

There is also the principle of “first safe nation.” If one is truly escaping persecution or war or famine than one must reside in the first “safe” nation not pick and choose the one with, say, the most generous welfare benefits.

(Red) States and the federal government can defund or sanction municipalities that ignore immigration law. They can implement “E-verify” and employer sanctions against businesses that hire illegals in defiance of our laws. Similarly, unleash the Department of Justice to challenge the myriad NGOs (Catholic Charities , Adventists, Baptist Services, Lutheran World Relief, Hebrew Immigrant Aid Services, and hundreds more) who are rewarded handsomely for taking advantage of the country, promoting illegal immigration, and burdening taxpayers and our stressed public programs.

Deploy the national guard on our border. Place tariffs on all goods coming from Mexico unless it cooperates in sealing the border. Cut off all benefits for illegals and dependents, including healthcare (other than emergencies), education, and access to our public programs.

Tax remittances. End the fraud known as birthright citizenship and family reunification. No in-state tuition or driver’s licenses.

And then, finally, mass deportation with emphasis on those who arrived during President Biden’s reign, others who are incarcerated, known criminals (beyond the original crime of entering the country illegally), and all who partake in our overly generous public programs (Medicaid, food stamps, AFDC, rent and heating subsidies, and so on).

In this way, the tragic and preventable murder of Laken Riley at the hands of a known criminal and illegal alien, and so many other victims like her, will not have been in vain.

See this publication in American Thinker .

Richard Moss, M.D., a surgeon practicing in Jasper, IN, is a candidate for Congress in Indiana’s 8 ^th district. He has written “A Surgeon’s Odyssey” and “Matilda’s Triumph,” available on amazon.com . Contact him at richardmossmd.com or Richard Moss, M.D. on Facebook, Twitter, TruthSocial, GAB, PopTalk, and Instagram. Check out his campaign website at richardmoss4congress.com ..

DEI Comes to Jasper, Indiana

Wed, 27 Dec 2023 21:19:56 GMT

The medical staff at our community hospital in Jasper, Indiana, a small, generally conservative burg in the middle of fields of corn and soy, received an email from hospital administration indicating that they would begin implementing DEI training. I couldn’t remain silent and, instead, pushed back.

As the world knows, DEI refers to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. This concept, like many seemingly innocuous-sounding slogans or acronyms, carries with it aspects quite sinister. It is a phrase that has swept the nation and all our major institutions, including our universities and schools. DEI has become the new mantra, indeed, a booming industry and ethos, dominating our culture. But contained within it are concepts that are alien and antithetical to the Christian mission of our hospital, which is “being for others.” It is also hostile to the founding principles of the nation.

DEI is a hyperaggressive and politicized quota system, a radicalized version of affirmative action for certain so-called “marginalized” people. It divides society into “groups” based on race, sex, sexual orientation, ethnicity, religion, and so on. It gives preference to certain favored groups, which include, in descending order: Muslims, transgenders, gays, blacks, Hispanics, and women. It discriminates against other groups currently out of favor, chiefly whites, Asians, men, heterosexuals, and Christians. Alas, of late, another group has joined the list of the despised, and is now, perhaps, the chief target of DEI hatred: The Jews.

Apart from being intensely divisive, DEI reflects a world view that is not compatible with our biblical tradition. That tradition holds that each person is an individual uniquely made in the image of God. This transcendent concept is peculiar to the West and accounts for its extraordinary success, chiefly here in the US, the greatest embodiment of Western thought and accomplishment. (Although today, certain alien ideologies, of which DEI is one, threaten it.)

Our emphasis on the individual, protecting individual rights and liberties, has made Western nations, in general, and America, in particular, so desirable and this is why all the world seeks to come here. Our concept of individual worth explains our economic growth, standard of living, and extraordinary cultural and technological achievements. It is based ultimately on the freedoms and protections of the individual, precisely because of our belief in the sanctity of each person.

DEI rejects that. It is an identarian ideology, a “caste” system, so to speak, that divides society into intersectional groups based on perceived wrongs committed by alleged dominant power centers in society, which it perceives as intrinsically racist or sexist or homophobic, and so on. Within the DEI calculus, there are oppressors and oppressed, victimizers and victims, and, as noted above, so-called “marginalized people.” This divisive, hierarchical worldview emerges from standard Marxist ideology, except its centered on culture or race rather than class, as originally conceived, hence the term “cultural Marxism.” DEI is an extension of cultural Marxism, part of the “intersectional” hierarchy of “oppression” that divides society into odd categories. Thus, it places the groups allegedly most “oppressed” at the pinnacle of the pyramid (e.g., blacks, women, or transgenders) and those designated most guilty of “oppression” at the bottom (e.g., whites, males, Christians, Jews).

Bari Weiss sums it up this way :

[The new ideology] replaced basic ideas of good and evil with a new rubric: the powerless (good) and the powerful (bad). It replaced lots of things. Colorblindness with race-obsession. Ideas with identity. Debate with denunciation. Persuasion with public shaming. The rule of law with the fury of the mob.

Rejecting the individual, DEI reduces American society into a collection of groups or tribes, hence the “ tribalization “ of society. This tribalization (racialization) is based on certain immutable, physical traits such as skin color and sex. This, by the way, has been the norm for all of human history and throughout the world. America was unique in that it rejected tribalization, group characteristics , and superficial appearance, and elevated the individual, which accounted for its historic success, and the reason so many sought to live here.

DEI, furthermore, has no place in any institution that values standards and color-blind meritocracy. If diversity becomes the driving force behind hiring and promotion, or even a small part of it, rather than skill, accomplishment, and merit, then it necessarily compromises standards. If the goal is diversity, and to have proportional representation in Memorial Hospital’s work force, based on race, sex, sexual orientation, and other such trivialities, even in part, and the hospital does not contemplate the individual and his unique abilities and contributions over all else, then the system collapses and becomes simply one of groups or tribes competing with one another. Meritocracy necessarily dies in such a system. You can have DEI or meritocracy, but not both.

Should hospitals now have quotas for their doctors, nurses, technicians, and janitors based on DEI principles of proportional allocations for blacks, Hispanics, gays, lesbians, Muslims, and transgenders over more qualified individuals of the wrong color, sex, or sexual orientation? Shall they treat patients based on such considerations?

Such a concept is antithetical to a hospital’s mission. It betrays these institutions’ purpose and, if they are faith-driven hospitals (as mine is), their religious and biblical basis for current fashionable, destructive, and divisive Marxist goals that have no place here and should be unequivocally rejected. Further, why is “diversity” a goal? Diversity is actually a challenge to overcome in the pursuit of “unity,” which is a far more important aspiration.

I made these same objections known in writing and verbally to the entire medical staff, hospital administration, and the board at my hospital, including the CEO. I have heard nothing back and do not know if they plan to proceed with their disastrous plans. I will continue to oppose it vigorously and must imagine that it is a small minority of leftist activists on the medical staff that pushed for it. I will do all that I can to ensure that it does not stand.

Richard Moss, M.D., a surgeon practicing in Jasper, IN, was a candidate for Congress in 2016 and 2018. He has written “A Surgeon’s Odyssey” and “Matilda’s Triumph,” available on amazon.com . Contact him at richardmossmd.com or Richard Moss, M.D. on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

References:

Samuel Abrams, October 27, 2023, Hardly Inclusive, Diversity Mandates Have Politicized Campus Life, AEI,
https://www.aei.org/op-eds/hardly-inclusive-diversity-mandates-have-politicized-campus-life/?mkt_tok=NDc1LVBCUS05NzEAAAGPHwAcOhfxTKjA0ry-TyQlV8LbSY3A54s8IRtlCvVMotCsvmKbsk1nba_7GKoR4pMUiYsdg9llJ2cazMv1JyzjfYGWqfMGHUPkrTXJkZXMABrt9Q

Jeffrey Blehar, September 10, 2023, The Crushing Costs of DEI on University Campuses, National Review
https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/the-crushing-costs-of-dei-on-university-campuses/

George Leef, July 17, 2023, Squandering Time and Money on DEI “Training,” National Review, https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/squandering-time-and-money-on-dei-training/

Nate Hochman, February 23, 2023, The Left Already Knows DEI Is A Lie, National Review, https://www.nationalreview.com/2023/02/the-left-already-knows-that-dei-is-a-lie/

Scott Sturman, Joe Arbuckle, November 10, 2023, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Reign Supreme At The Airforce Academy, AMAC, https://amac.us/blog/society/diversity-equity-and-inclusion-reign-supreme-at-the-air-force-academy/

Catherine Salgado, October 23, 2023, Former DEI Director: DEI ‘Deliberately Stokes’ Anti-Semitism at Colleges, PJ Media, https://pjmedia.com/catherinesalgado/2023/10/23/former-dei-director-dei-deliberately-stokes-anti-semitism-at-colleges-n1737309

Robert Spencer, February 28, 2023, The Day Your Doctor Won’t Treat You If You Aren’t the Right Kind of Patient Is Closer Than You Might Think, PJ Media, https://pjmedia.com/robert-spencer/2023/02/28/the-day-your-doctor-wont-treat-you-if-you-arent-the-right-kind-of-patient-is-closer-than-you-might-think-n1674476

Bari Weiss, November 7, 2023, End DEI, Tablet https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/end-dei-bari-weiss-jews

See this publication in American Thinker

Savages, Civilization, Israel, and the West

asomossmd@gmail.com (Richard Moss) — Fri, 20 Oct 2023 15:49:35 GMT

One should resist the temptation of separating Hamas from the Palestinian people. There is broad popular support for Hamas in Gaza; they were elected overwhelmingly in the one election held. Palestinians embrace acts of terror by Hamas and other Muslim terrorist groups. They celebrate them. If Hamas had the wherewithal to do to all of Israel what they did in the southern part recently, there would be ecstatic merrymaking for months.

The Palestinian terrorists chose the timing of their massacre of the Jews strategically. It was the fiftieth anniversary of the beginning of the Yom Kippur War, in 1973. It was also a Jewish holiday that comes at the end of Sukkot known as Shemini Atzeret/Simchat Torah, a celebration of the renewal of the Torah reading cycle. They knew the Israelis would be resting or in prayer, cell phones off, and not prepared for an attack. And so, they celebrated by slaughtering some 1400 innocent Jews, men, women, children, and babies.

There is a sociopathology amongst Palestinians, particularly those living in Gaza, but elsewhere as well. Embracing victimhood, they are also ready to strike out with extreme violence, as the world has seen. They are among the most subsidized people in the world, pampered and indulged by the “international community,” receiving billions of dollars in aid every year, a form of protection money. They are also the darlings of the media, NGOs, aid organizations, the EU, and the UN. With all this attention and coddling for so unworthy a cause and people, their violent tendencies well known, and especially with so many other conflicted and underserved areas of the world, is there any wonder they act as they do? They are the terrorist equivalent of spoiled children and know the world will support them, regardless of how heinous their crimes.

Israel left Gaza in 2005, thus ending the “occupation.” In 2006, Palestinians voted Hamas in over the Palestinian Authority. In June of 2007, Hamas launched a brutal takeover of Gaza and massacred their Muslim compatriots in the Palestinian Authority by hurling them off roofs, shooting them in the head in front of loved ones, or dragging them through the streets chained to cars. They are a recognized terrorist organization that calls openly for the destruction of the state of Israel and do not recognize Israel’s right to exist. An offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood, they seek not just the death of Israel but all of Christendom and the West and to create a global caliphate.

But Hamas is merely a reflection of its people. It is not, as it is often portrayed, of poor Palestinians dominated by the kleptocrat terrorists that form Hamas. Not at all. The people are Hamas. They embrace and support Hamas.

Gaza and the Palestinians should be a wild success story. They receive tremendous amounts of aid, are beloved by the West and the liberal establishment, and doted on by the media and the UN. They enjoy a favorable climate, pitched on the Mediterranean Sea as they are, with gorgeous beaches and neighbors to a highly intelligent, dynamic people that can readily employ them. They themselves are known to be an industrious, innovative people. So, why do they not flourish? Because like Hamas, the Palestinians are obsessed with death and killing, and not building a lawful, thriving, civil society. Combine that with equal measures of self-pity and hatred, and you wind up not with Miami on the Mediterranean, but Mogadishu.

It is also odd, that Israel is portrayed in the media as a villainous oppressor over the pathetic, helpless, long-suffering, poor Palestinians. One would think that the Jewish people have some claim to victimhood, not that they want or need it. But isn’t it the case that the Jews are the most victimized people on earth and through history? And not the poor Palestinians? For the last 2000 years, since the calamitous Roman war of annihilation against the Jews and the destruction of the Temple in 70 AD, Jews have largely been a stateless, ghettoized people subject to the will and whim of the surrounding Christian or Muslim majority. They have endured expulsions, pogroms, massacres, ghettoes, second class status, and a minor item known as the Holocaust. But just the raw numbers alone should suggest the absurdity of the fantasy of Jewish oppressors. There are half a billion Arabs and nearly 2 billion Muslims. And 16 million Jews. There are 22 Arab nations and some 50 Muslim nations. And one Jewish state, barely a pinprick on the world map. How could a single tiny Jewish nation, Israel, scarcely the size of the state of New Jersey, a mere 6 miles wide at its waist, in a sea of Arab and Muslim nations, dominate the Middle East – or come to abuse the Palestinians? Well, it doesn’t. But the world is obsessed with Israel, its every miscue and misstep, its very existence, the leftist media having long ago abandoned the one nation and people most in need of some commiseration. Indeed, Israel is the David against the Arab/Muslim Goliath and the Palestinians are the political football used to attack it.

There are common terms adopted by the Left to condemn Israel and to define the Arab-Israeli conflict with such nomenclature as “colonialism,” “expropriation,” “apartheid,” or “occupiers,” as if the Jews had no claim to the Holy Land and did not have a presence there for nearly 4000 years. This is the language used against our own nation and others such as Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, but particularly America, based on their European or Western or, let us say, “white” origins. It is a farcical attempt to racialize Israel and portray it not as Jewish but white, to better align with neo-Marxist theories. It is bogus for any number of reasons wherever deployed but in particular in regards to Israel. Israelis may be white, although many Sephardim (“Spanish” or “Arab” Jews) are “swarthy,” and some are actually black (the “Falasha” or Ethiopian Jews). But Israelis are first and foremost Jews and they are the indigenous people of the land.

As we observe the raucous support for Hamas occurring on our streets, college campuses, and capitols, what are we to make of our own policies, in particular our wars in the Middle East, and then immigration? How many Gazas have we imported into our own country because of misguided policies? How many Jihadis have we allowed into our nation, our college campuses, and into the very halls of Congress? How many 9/11s await us, how many slaughters of the innocent will we have to mourn, here, and the West in general, before we awaken to the self-inflicted wounds we have committed? Will we recognize the damage done, begin deportations, end student visas from various Muslim nations, and reconsider our reckless immigration policies?

There is such a thing as Just War, which includes the defense of one’s people, especially after repeated attacks. Few question the wisdom and morality of Dresden or Hiroshima and Nagasaki despite the enormous civilian casualties. Israel has every right to defend itself, destroy its enemies, despite significant civilian casualties. If Hamas and the world are concerned about civilian casualties, they can unconditionally surrender and leave Gaza, or otherwise accept the responsibility for the death and destruction that is coming. Israel must abandon the absurd “Two State Solution” and “peace process,” and embrace instead a “One State Solution,” not to commit genocide as Israel’s enemies would, but to control and administer its territories. This will include Israel proper, Gaza, and the West Bank (Judea and Samaria), allowing “Palestinians” some autonomy and self-governance but under Israeli control.

Israel is the canary in the coal mine. What has happened there has and will come to us again. The West, including the US and Europe, and then Israel, must awaken to the threat of Islam and take appropriate measures. Do we have the will to live? To do what is necessary to survive? Or are we too decadent and corrupt? We shall find out. Out of the ashes of Auschwitz and the Holocaust, the modern state of Israel was born. So must it and we be reborn again.

Dr. Moss is a practicing Ear Nose and Throat Surgeon, candidate for Congress in 2016 and 2018, author, columnist, local investor, and small businessman, residing in Jasper, IN. He has written A Surgeon’s Odyssey and Matilda’s Triumph, available on amazon.com . Find more of his essays at richardmossmd.com . Visit Richard Moss, M.D. on Facebook, Twitter, Parler, Gettr, GAB, TruthSocial, and Instagram.

Triggering Left Wing Rednecks

Mon, 11 Sep 2023 14:29:40 GMT

It is a good thing when left wing rednecks are triggered. You know, the wokesters and rainbow worshippers. They were beside themselves when the music world erupted over the popularity of Jason Aldean’s song and video, “Try That in a Small Town.” Lefty bloggers, commentators, the Legacy Media, liberal establishment, sundry elites, the entire ruling class, in its massive, Gordian complexity, reacted with righteous indignation and chest-thumping - and so soon after their favorite holiday season, Pride Month. There were “dog whistles” aplenty, they claimed, but heard apparently only by them. We were told however that Aldean’s mild homily about small town values, was emitting secret code to white Christian nationalists, gun-toting vigilantes, QAnon conspirators, nativists, racists, and other future members of the forthcoming Fourth Reich. It is understandably upsetting to long-suffering elites when they control 99% of the culture, yet small vestiges of rural, patriotic, country-music, church-going, MAGA America slips through.

Sucker punch somebody on a sidewalk
Carjack an old lady at a red light
Pull a gun on the owner of a liquor store
Ya think it's cool, well, act a fool if ya like

What’s all the fuss about? Aldean is merely pointing out mainstream Democrat policy. Democrats want criminals running free in their cities. They voted in the Soros funded, catch-and-release DAs. The criminal, street thug, and shoplifter are heroes of the Left. They, like BLM and Antifa, are their shock troops. What they reject, however, are emissaries of white rural, small-town America standing athwart their revolution.

Cuss out a cop, spit in his face
Stomp on the flag and light it up
Yeah, ya think you're tough

Well, try that in a small town

It wasn’t too long ago when the white working class, the farmers, miners, factory workers, and gunowners, were the base of the Democrat Party, the party of the “working class.” Not now, no sir. That switched with Barack Obama, the Manchurian “stealth” candidate, who took his party – and the nation – into full blown, neo-Marxist, identarian politics, the tribalization of American society along racial and other lines. They promptly ditched the white working class for the new demographic known as “BIPOC,” “black indigenous people of color.” And, while at it, became the party of illegal aliens, criminals, terrorists, the lap-top class, elites, and super-rich in our cites and universities. But no dirt under the fingernails for today’s Democrats.

Around here, we take care of our own
You cross that line, it won't take long
For you to find out, I recommend you don't
Try that in a small town

The last thing the bicoastal, urban elites, want to be reminded of is that they live in a country where some 50% of the nation like this song. The Left despises small town, rural America. They want to reverse Khmer Rouge them into the cities where they can control them, and have them swear allegiance to LGBTQIA++, open borders, and globalism. Oh, and the war in Ukraine. Then mask and vaxx them. No more nationalism, national culture, or, God forbid, a common language. Gone. Along with the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. And the Bible.

Jason Aldean lit a fuse in the minds of the Left. They are unhappy that they must share a nation with a population that embraces such primitive notions. Cloistered as they are in urban hot houses where only leftist flowers prevail, they despair that their grip on the nation is still tenuous and that everyone is not woke – like them.

Try that in a small town

Full of good ol' boys, raised up right
If you're looking for a fight
Try that in a small town

The lefties complained bitterly about the images of the BLM riots in their summer of destruction when they burned down the country post George Floyd, the criminal drug addict who died of a fentanyl overdose. What’s wrong with that? Are there still defenders of BLM, an utterly corrupt organization? Why shouldn’t they be exposed as the violent, grifting, cop-killing, Marxist hoodlums that they are?

They also complained about the backdrop of the video outside the Maury County Courthouse in Columbia Tennessee, the site of a lynching in 1927. They suggested that it may be … wait for it… “racist.”

Can a liberal go more than a sentence without their favorite libel?

It reminds us, however, that it is time to dispel the myth that the Left/Democrats are the voice and defenders of blacks. The Democrat party has been the worst thing that ever happened to blacks, an unmitigated, ongoing disaster. Apart from being the party of slavery, the confederacy, Jim Crow, and “separate but equal,” in the sixties, they unleashed “Great Society” upon the nation. This now massive welfare system with its perverse incentives has devastated blacks. It destroyed the black family, along with much of the conservative, church-going culture that prevailed among many blacks. It led to soaring illegitimate childbirth, criminality, drug addiction, incarceration, and intergenerational poverty and dependency that plagues them to this day. Thank the Democrats.

As a side note, it is also curious (but not surprising) that liberals, black or white, never live in black neighborhoods amongst the people they claim to represent. No, no, noooo. Only the lily whitest neighborhoods for our earnest liberals. Just ask the Obamas as they enjoy a glass of Chardonnay overlooking the ocean at their estate in Martha’s Vineyard.

Got a gun that my granddad gave me
They say one day they're gonna round up
Well, that shit might fly in the city, good luck

Try that in a small town

No better way to trigger a left-wing redneck than to speak nostalgically about guns. Liberal city dwellers prefer that only criminals have them. The critics also conveniently ignore the decades of “rap” music, of which they said nothing or spoke admiringly of, that outrightly glorifies gun violence, denigrates women, and espouses anti-cop hostility. Such music has had a negative impact on young black males, prompting often aggressive, violent behavior. Dozens of well-known rappers have themselves been victims of the gun violence their lyrics often extolled. But a mild, veiled throwdown from a country boy - now that’s a threat to the republic.

Then there is the matter of that dastardly pre-civilizational 2 ^nd amendment. And the rest of the Bill of Rights, for that matter. An 18 ^th century construct. All so retro and quite problematic for today’s urban progressive. Traditional families, the Bible, Church, small town values, the 2 ^nd amendment, no, it’s all got to go.

The elites now loathe the working class, the former darlings and base of the Democrat Party, most of whom, but not all, are white. Today’s Left, our urban elites, now worship the super-rich, the subsidized poor, and, of course - BIPOCS.

But beyond that they despise whites, because they, after all, founded this country, the worst country in the world, racist to the core, and itself a product of colonialist, imperialist, and racist (white) Europe. You know, the continent that gave us science, technology, democracy, human rights, and an incomparable corpus of art, music, and literature dating back to Greece and Rome. And the likes of Mozart, Bach, Beethoven, Da Vinci, Michelangelo, Shakespeare, Milton, and Goethe. Then Copernicus, Galileo, Newton, Volta, Boyle, Einstein, yes, all those problematic scientific geniuses that just happened to come from Europe - and to be white - such a petty annoyance for today’s leftist sophisticates.

The Left has declared Jihad on whites and the middle class, especially as found in rural America, because a few too many of them are reflected in Aldean’s song - and by Obama’s famous “guns and bibles.” And they, indirectly, represent the hated European, Judeo-Christian, Western (“white”) civilization, of which America is its finest exemplar, the one that gave birth to the greatest thinkers, composers, artists, writers, scientists, inventors the world has ever seen, responsible for the modern world - our air conditioning, antibiotics, cars, light bulbs, TVs, iPhones, the internet along with liberty and representative governance.

Coincidentally, it is the very same racist (white) nations that everyone from around the world, black, brown, yellow, is flocking to – by the millions.

Sorry, no brag just facts. And facts are the best way to trigger left wing rednecks.

But don’t try that in a small town.

Against the New Sodom and Gomorrah

asomossmd@gmail.com (Richard Moss) — Thu, 10 Aug 2023 18:50:11 GMT

The entire month, each June, is a low point for the country. The unrestrained debauchery, the flaunting of pathologic deviancy, the celebration of perversion - does it get any worse than “Pride Month?” Our ruling elites in all sectors are positively swept away by it, consumed as they are with promoting it – and virtue signaling their fealty to it. It has become our most important holiday season.

Compare it with other notable celebrations. Consider Mother’s Day or Father’s Day. Mothers give birth to us, nurse, and raise us. Fathers take care of us, protect and provide for us. Moms and Dads are responsible for creating new life, preparing the next generation, and transmitting the values and wisdom of our culture and civilization. They perpetuate the species. Without them life would cease. Moms endure the pain of pregnancy, labor and delivery. Dads risk their lives and endure much hardship to ensure our survival. But that, of course, is as nothing compared with the contributions of the LGBTQIA++ community. That’s why mothers and fathers get a single day. Homosexuals and transgenders get a month.

Consider the men who lost their lives in military service defending the nation? They get a single day, Memorial Day. Veterans also get a day, Veterans’ Day. Our country? We get Independence Day, the Fourth of July, celebrating the signing of the Declaration of Independence and the birth of our nation. But just a day. How about the birth of Jesus, the founder of Christianity, and, for Christians – God incarnate? Sorry, just a day. But the LGBT “community” – well, they get a month. Nothing, after all, is more sacred than the lesbian/gay/bisexual/transgender community. Forget about Christianity or the Judeo-Christian tradition. The Rainbow is our new religion. We shall know a nation by its celebrations. And ours is truly satanic.

Major corporations promote the LGBT agenda: Target, Anheuser-Busch, the LA Dodgers (and all of Major League Baseball, for that matter), PepsiCo, Starbucks, GM, Walmart, Pfizer, Apple, Disney, BMW, and so on. Our schools and colleges, the media, banks, major equity firms, Big Tech, and our government at all levels collude in celebrating Pride Month while often denigrating traditional Christian culture and values. We are in the midst of a late-stage cultural collapse, a once great nation in moral free-fall. It is Sodom and Gomorrah – only worse.

Pride month is the epicenter of the cult-Marxist soul. It is the beating heart of the Left. Its obscenity and debauchery are precisely the point. Its purpose is to offend, upend, reject, smash, and destroy all icons and symbols, all conceptions of morality, tradition, wisdom, objective reality, and biology. It seeks to put an end to “norms” in general. To degrade our institutions, which they perceive as corrupt, a “social construct,” and part of the “power structure” - or take them over, which they have largely succeeded in doing. Most important, they seek to undermine the nuclear family and the recognition of the sexually dimorphic, “binary,” nature of humanity – of man and woman (in the Bible that would be Adam and Eve).

Watch the politicians, government at all levels, stars, starlets, those transitioning and those already transitioned, bureaucracies, and corporations prostrate themselves before the new gods and celebrate sodomy and the Rainbow Jihad. Next, they seek to normalize pedophilia. Have you heard the acronym, “MAP,” for Minor Attracted Persons? Or, their rallying cry, “We’re here, we’re queer, and we’re coming for your children,” proudly proclaimed at parades. I believe them. You should too.

Remember that pride is the deadliest of the seven deadly sins, the sin that conquered Lucifer (Satan) himself. It is the mother of all vices. Pride cometh before the fall. Hubris (pride) is followed by Nemesis (downfall). It is fitting that the Left and LGBT activists should embrace “pride,” dedicating a month to it, feeling, as they seem to, that they may redefine nature and reality, as if they themselves were as “Gods.” Pride, indeed.

Ultimately, they are setting the stage for a final push to destroy all “norms” and “normalcy.” And create new ones based on the new deviancy. And then to control us and to determine what we hear – and think. It is, ultimately, a prelude for totalitarianism – yes, including the death camps. They are building up to it, consolidating power, dehumanizing and indicting us, the “normies,” as they did the unvaxxed during Covid, jailing us, condemning us in their state media, establishing two standards of justice, controlling the levers of power, commandeering and weaponizing our institutions including the government and the deep state, and then the final surge and takeover with the cattle cars, gulags… and death camps. They loathe and despise the 50% that, in turn, reject them and their agenda - patriots that work hard, take care of their families, go to church, and love God and America.

Do our enemies celebrate pride month? Do China, Russia, Iran, Turkey, or North Korea worship the Rainbow? Do the Arab and Muslim world? I don’t think so. Rather they observe in wonderment our depravity, the self-inflicted wounds, and the willful crack up of the most powerful nation in the world – as they plot to take advantage of our pathetic weakness and decadence.

Pride month must be broken – and replaced or countered by God Month, Faith Month or Prayer Month – take your pick - but a month dedicated to prayer, faith, and good works – and the reverential celebration of our biblical tradition. Pressure campaigns against “Pride” should also be undertaken (see Budweiser, Target, Disney, and so on). The following month, the month of July, we should celebrate Independence Month or, perhaps, Liberty Month, to commemorate the founding, the founding fathers, the signing of the Declaration of Independence – and the greatness of American history and its accomplishments - absent the usual apologies.

We must preserve this nation, its traditions, and way of life, for our sake and the sake of the world. Each of us must do what he can to salvage some remnant of the founding – athwart the demonic forces arrayed against it.

See this publication in Indiana Policy Review

Richard Moss, M.D., a board-certified surgeon, was a candidate for Congress in 2016 and 2018. He has written “A Surgeon’s Odyssey” and “Matilda’s Triumph,” available on amazon.com . Contact him at richardmossmd.com or Richard Moss, M.D. on Facebook, YouTube, Rumble, Twitter, Parler, Gab, Gettr, and Instagram.

Jasper High School Baseball: A Way Forward for the Nation?

Tue, 27 Jun 2023 13:58:31 GMT

I joined Jasper nation on the long voyage up to Victory Field in Indianapolis, the epicenter of Indiana and of Indiana baseball, to support and applaud our young stalwarts, the Jasper Wildcats, at State, a great team from a great town with a great tradition and legacy. My family and I were among the more than one thousand fans that made the three-hour journey so that our team, the best of their year, the pride of their families, the glory of their school and community would know they were not alone. Twenty years ago, when I first settled in our little hamlet, the notion of making such an excursion to watch a high school baseball game would have been unthinkable. But no longer, for I have seen the light. Wildcat baseball is simply the best-damn baseball around.

I have had a lifelong allegiance to baseball, a function of the neighborhood, or should I say, the borough in which I grew up, for this was no ordinary place. Indeed, there, in the Bronx, giants and titans walked among us, and immortals battled, for in that place was Asgard, the center of the universe, the home of the greatest sports franchise of all time, the New York Yankees. I had emerged over many years in the thrall of Yankee fandom, watched in awe the legends of the game, the great heroes of my youth, adorned in regal pinstripes, wielding bats as imperial scepters, punishing and dispatching would-be challengers to their throne, collecting their triumphs and trophies as predictably as the passing of the seasons and the rising of the sun. Indeed, to be a Yankee fan, it seemed, was to live in eternal light. I tracked the box scores and standings religiously, papered my walls and ceiling with images of Yankee greats, most especially, my boyhood idol, Mickey Mantle, and made regular pilgrimages on the No. 4 train to their hallowed temple, the Vatican of baseball, Yankee Stadium...

But over time, my attraction to the sport, especially the Major League version, waned, the devotion of yesterday, that majestic river of affection and reverence reduced to a trickle, barely noticeable in the stream of life’s drives and obsessions. I no longer cared much about the game, paying heed only, perhaps, in the odd chance the Yankees found themselves at play in October. No, the old pieties had withered and gone.

The reasons were, perhaps, obvious. What with the scandals, the free agentry, the galactic salaries, the steroids and strikes, the body piercings, tattoos, grills, braids, pony tails, and facial hair, the massive egos, the arrogance, fist pumping, and showboating, the questionable conduct on and off the field –why patronize a throng of tattooed, body pierced, pampered and whiney multimillionaires playing half-heartedly?

But I had found something far better: crisp, accomplished, and exhilarating baseball played by clean cut, fresh-faced, well-behaved athletes with egos in check, competing for the love of it, representing their families and communities, their school and town, and in a magnificent ball field – right here at Ruxer Field in Jasper.

It was here where the fundamentals of the game were taught and practiced, with often flawless execution: fielding, pitching, hitting, and base running, pressuring opponents, wearing down pitchers, forcing errors, taking advantage of mistakes, eking out victories or winning lopsided contests - and in all the ways available to them: on the mound, in the field, at the plate and on the base paths, bunting, stealing, moving runners over, hit and runs, walks, squeeze plays, sacrifices, base hits, and, yes, the towering drive or extra base hit. Year in, year out, our team was there: competitive, determined, bristling with talent and well-honed skill, and intent on winning. Drilled by their coach of 36 years, a throwback from a tougher (and better) era; he demanded excellence and got it, teaching his young wards, as they referred to it, the “Jasper Way.”

Our players carried themselves with dignity and grace on the field and off like they used to in the majors. They wore their pinstriped uniforms proudly, exuding confidence but not cockiness, which they kept under wraps. They were a disciplined, well-trained lot, their inspired play, their positive values and devotion to team and town, plainly evident – and all in a beautiful and grand ball field.

Now this was baseball...

It is, perhaps, in our small towns, tossed and scattered across the heartland, where we have our greatest opportunity to salvage the American republic. Here, we hold fast to the formerly mainstream verities of hearth and home, faith and family, God and country. Here, we cling to the customs and mores of a commercial republic, based on the principles of liberty, limited government, and private property rights. We uphold such quaint notions as sacrifice, dedication, and the pursuit of one’s dreams, all nurtured in an ambience steeped in the Judeo-Christian ethos, family, church, civic associations, and community.

We recoil from the sixty-year assault on our culture and civilization by the Left, and its noxious ideologies such as critical race theory, radical feminism, and transgenderism. We shudder at the horrendous damage and moral anarchy that has culminated in widespread illegitimacy, dysfunctional families, welfare dependency, drug addiction, and criminality. We are aghast at the relentless indoctrination of our youth in our entertainment, films, social media, and, especially, our schools and woke churches. Yet, there remains an appetite to stand athwart the cult-Marxist wave and preserve our way of life.

At the national level, it appears we are broken, hopelessly divided between two competing visions, but we may succeed on a local level, and, perhaps, at a state level, in certain red states. It is locally, though, where we can attend school board meetings, petition our county commissioners, and lobby our city councils. Locally, we are best positioned to defend our beliefs, and preserve the sanctities and traditions that bind a community and a society, and allow a people to thrive and flourish. Here, we can best defend American values and Western civilization, and begin the long march through our institutions – to retake them – or create new ones. The spiritual rot is deep, the chaos profound, and surely it begins at the head, but there remain shoots of life, sprigs and seedlings of truth, beauty, and goodness across the vast expanses of the continent, and, yes, they flourish in small towns like Jasper, Indiana.

So, this New York transplant became a devoted Wildcat baseball fan. And their loss at State was as painful to me as anyone. But I know our boys will be back. They are, after all, the Jasper Wildcats, the New York Yankees of Indiana high school baseball.

See this publication in American Thinker

June 25, 2023

America in Crisis: A Red State Manifesto to Defend Our Rights

asomossmd@gmail.com (Richard Moss) — Thu, 01 Jun 2023 14:07:13 GMT

As the Left grows ever more flagrant, radical, and tyrannical, the Republican Party at the federal level remains as feckless as ever. It will fall to red states, therefore, to push back against the emerging socialist tyranny. The absurd hair on fire roll-out of leftist outrage regarding the modest election integrity law passed in Georgia in 2021 was, at the time, an example of leftist ascendancy and dominance over the nation and our institutions. Not only does the Left control the media, academia, Hollywood, professional sports, and Big Tech, but add to the list, the federal bureaucracy, Wall Street, the banks, and corporate America, all of whom now worship at the church of “wokeness.” As dysfunctional and corrupt as they may be, it is the Left that governs our institutions, culture, and nation.

This came alongside the Covid fascism that paralyzed the nation, destroyed jobs and the economy, and attacked basic rights and civil liberties. They robbed us of the right to walk and breathe without physical encumbrances such as a mask, send our children to school, maintain our businesses and jobs, or attend church: all of it, mind you, for a lie, for none of the Covid measures had any impact on the trajectory of the virus. Covid, indeed, gave the Left the excuse it needed to clamp down on a passive people that has forgotten its legacy of liberty and independence.

We recall the destruction of our cities by the Black Lives Matter movement and Antifa, in the summer of 2020 post George Floyd, against which the federal government did nothing. We note the weaponization of our federal bureaucracy, including the FBI, DOJ, IRS, ATF, and others. Our borders are open, criminals are set free, and “transgenderism” dominates the public discourse. At the national level, we are hopelessly fractured, and the federal government will neither protect us nor deliver us. Rather, it is the federal government that most threatens us.

There are, however, 28 states where republicans control both houses of the legislature, or nearly 60% of the states, some overwhelmingly so. Twenty-two of those states enjoy the “trifecta” that includes the governors. Given the failure of the Republican party nationally, and the domination of our institutions by the Left, it falls to these solidly red states to defend the rule of law, our constitutional system, and our pre-political God-given, inalienable rights. Herewith, a list of measures that red states should undertake to reclaim lost ground against the relentless power of the Left, Covid-fascism, and useless RINOs that we may preserve the nation, or some part of it, our values, and our way of life.

I would propose the following:

State legislatures shall call themselves into session at will, particularly when confronted with a tyrannical governor. Many state legislatures are part time, which befits the principle of limited government, something conservatives would generally approve of. In the context of unrelenting Covid fascism, and other manifestations of tyranny, including in red states by Republican governors, and encroachments by the federal government, it is paramount that this be amended.
The state shall limit executive orders for emergency powers by governors to a single event and for not more than ten days. Extensions or further such orders shall require legislative approval.
The state shall declare and uphold the right of its citizens to freely assemble, worship (including in churches and homes), engage in free speech, to walk and breathe freely without encumbrance such as the wearing of masks, and to buy and sell and otherwise engage in commerce.
The state shall limit school closures to ten days. Further extensions shall require legislative approval.
The state shall end all mask and vaccine mandates. It shall declare vaccination passports illegal including when imposed by the federal government, corporations, local governments or boards, or other entities. When the state ends mask mandates, it shall render illegal for individual counties, cities, and towns to continue such mandates or pass their own mandates.
The state shall abolish all sweeping, universal powers of health departments at the state and county level. It shall be illegal for state or county health departments and directors to issue sweeping or universal mandates, force schools or businesses to close, or require the wearing of masks or other physical encumbrances, or impose quarantines. They may provide standard immunizations, public education, and guidelines, but shall have no authority to issue mandates, impose quarantines, or force universal closures of schools, businesses, houses of worship, including churches, temples, or homes, any private or public enterprise, or any category of business such as restaurants, bars, salons, movie theaters, gyms, or other. They shall have no authority to ban gatherings at social, cultural, religious, or sporting events, or to force schools, houses of worship, or other gathering places to close or impose mask or other mandates. Health departments may carry out standard inspections of restaurants and other facilities as prescribed by law, and target a specific business entity if negligent based on established protocols, but no authority beyond that. Health directors are not mini-dictators. They are paid employees of the county and state, serve at the pleasure of the public and its elected representatives, and readily terminated at the discretion of the state and county and their elected officers.
The state shall scrutinize all federal executive orders, regulations, and laws. Any or some of them deemed unlawful and unconstitutional shall be nullified and declared null and void.
The state shall declare itself a sanctuary state for the Constitution, particularly the 1st and 2nd amendments, but its entirety. The citizens of the state and its government embrace freedom of assembly, worship, speech, and the press, freedom to petition the government, and to buy and sell, freedom from executive orders and sweeping mandates, federal, or otherwise, including: mask mandates, vaccine mandates and passports, quarantines, and school and business closures, and general shutdowns. The state shall defend the right to bear arms, and freedom from unwarranted search and seizure.
The state shall refuse all so called “asylum” or “refugee” cases, shall refuse all such resettlement efforts in the state, as virtually none of so-called “refugees” are refugees by any definition but rather economic migrants that entered the nation illegally. They, rather, abuse the refugee/asylum system, as do many so-called charity/religious based organizations, law firms, and open-borders or other politicized advocacy groups. Refugee/asylum is intended for truly persecuted minorities, not those laboring under generalized poverty or crime in a particular country or area, which affects much of the world. They are not refugees and should not be accorded refugee status or resettled here.
The state shall refuse the resettlement of illegal aliens, in general, to support or educate them in anyway, provide health care, other than emergency interventions, whether they declare themselves refugees or not. They will have no access to education, jobs, or any public programs. They will be prosecuted for trespassing, identity theft, human, sex, and drug trafficking, illegal entry, driving under the influence, theft, assault and battery, rape, murder, and other crimes they may commit. They will be incentivized to return to their countries or, when possible, or necessary, deported. The state may send them to Democrat states that covet them. Red states on our southern border shall prevent such individuals from entering, or, failing that, deport them back to Mexico. Given the lawless behavior of the federal government in failing to enforce federal immigration law, defend our sovereignty, secure our border, and protect Americans, the individual states shall themselves enforce the law and protect their borders, territory, and citizens.
The state shall end the teaching of racist theories including critical race theory, and the “1619 Project,” (among others), which is a baseless, ahistorical, and polemical attack on the nation and its history, deliberately demeaning of the founding of the nation and its founding principles, and rejected as partisan, racist, militant, considered inaccurate by respected historians and intellectuals on both sides of the political spectrum, and other anti-American propaganda, of any kind, in any publicly funded schools, universities, or colleges.
The state shall defund schools, colleges, and universities, libraries, and school and college boards, that indoctrinate students in leftist/Marxist/critical theories, race, legal, gender, queer, or otherwise, or encourage hatred of a particular race, religion, sex or sexual orientation, and hatred of America, the American founding, and our founding principles. The state shall end all programming, bureaucracies, departments, clubs, and funding for so-called “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion,” “Social Justice,” “Critical Race Theory,” radical feminism, “intersectionality,” the “LGBTQIA+” agenda (including “Pride Month,” and other such programs), the transgender agenda, “transitioning care,” including all medical and surgical treatments for “transitioning,” including grooming or sexualizing children in any way, including “Drag Queen Story Hour,” and any other such programs that are damaging to children. This will include all initiatives that seek to undermine the foundational knowledge of the biological reality of the two sexes, man and woman, the sexual binary, the traditional roles, values, and qualities of the two sexes, the traditional understanding of marriage as the union of a man and woman or that degrade a particular sex or disparage traditional marriage, and including all related programs, departments, and bureaucracies. The state shall outlaw all gender-transitioning treatment for children.
The state shall promote a voucher program that provides families with the resources to select the best schools for their children and to depart the public-school system, if they so choose. The state will support the right of parents to involve themselves in the education of their children, the curricula, books, videos, films, programs, clubs, and methods that are used at schools, by teachers, and other officials. Parents and guardians shall have the right to interact with teachers and other school administrators, and at school board and other meetings, including the right to challenge any such didactic items or tools when appropriate. The state shall encourage and actively support schools, colleges, universities, faculty, educational boards, curriculum advisors, superintendents, libraries, and educational departments, public or private, to educate, foster, and cultivate patriotism, assimilation, civics, nationalism, love of country, knowledge and appreciation of our unique history, loyalty to America and the glories of the founders, the founding, and our founding principles. It shall encourage and promote the transmission of knowledge of the wonders of Western and European civilization, it’s long and complex history and its remarkable achievements, including the most advanced science, technology, medicine, music, art, literature, among many other areas, its emphasis on human freedom and flourishing, human rights, and democracy, culminating in the formation of our own nation, founded as it is on liberty and the Western tradition. In that vein, the state will support reinstituting school prayer, faith, the teaching of the Bible, and biblical values, and to promote and incentivize in varying ways traditional marriage, two-parent nuclear families, and proper, wholesome, classical education of children, and the pursuit of truth, goodness, and beauty. This is encouraged with an appreciation and understanding that it is upon this foundation of traditional marriage, the nuclear family, faith, religion, and civic virtue that American and Western Civilization are based.
The state shall treat each citizen as an individual, equal before the law, regardless of race, color, creed, national origin, religion, sex, or sexual orientation. There shall be no consideration of race, color, creed, national origin, religion, sex, or sexual orientation in matters of law enforcement, criminal or civil justice, government benefits, admissions, hiring, contracts, or set asides. There shall be no quotas or preferential treatment based on race, color, creed, national origin, religion, sex, or sexual orientation. The state shall support, promote, and maintain high standards and a “color blind” meritocracy with no regard to race, color, creed, national origin, religion, sex, or sexual orientation, nor “diversity, equity, and inclusion,” nor “social justice,” nor “racial justice,” nor “intersectionality,” nor any program or ideology that divides the people by race, color, creed, national origin, religion, sex, or sexual orientation.
The state shall restore the integrity of election laws so we may never again see electoral fraud as occurred in battleground states on November 3, 2020. Such measures shall include the following: Eliminate mail in ballots. Absentee ballots, applied for in advance, with explanation and proof of identity for disabled, military, and those living overseas are acceptable. End same day registration and motor-voter registration. Ban computer systems. Return to paper ballots, hand counted. Require proof of citizenship. Limit early voting to two weeks or abolish it all together, in which case there would be a single election “day,” not “season,” with the day off. Update voter rolls regularly. Eliminate from the rolls all who have left the state, live elsewhere, or who have died. Abolish “drop boxes.” Require photo ID.
The state shall pass anti-bullying legislation directed against any company, advocacy group, sports entity, league, or otherwise, professional or otherwise, and individual athletes or celebrities that disrespect our nation and flag or threaten to boycott a red state for passing a legitimate law regarding, for example, religious freedom, protecting children, students, and the general public against depredations by the Left with civilization-destroying ideas and policies such as transgenderism or critical race theory, and other intrusions on a lawful, open polity, and, of course, ensuring the integrity of our elections. The state shall ban such entities from future and existing state contracts, tax breaks, set asides, anti-trust, or other protections, and further work, business, funding, investments, or other dealings with and by the state.
The state shall consider banning companies, athletes, sports leagues and entities, professional or otherwise, that maintain commercial or other relations with the slave empire of China from future and existing state contracts, tax breaks, set asides, anti-trust or other protections, and further work, business, investment, funding, investments, or other dealings with and by the state.
Attorneys General of red states, state and district attorneys shall aggressively litigate against leftist, globalist, anti-American corporations including “Big Tech” companies, and other corporations that infringe on the rights of their state’s citizens such as the enforcement of speech codes, censorship of conservatives, “canceling” individuals who espouse conservative or traditional beliefs, and otherwise prohibiting normal, free, and open exchange. Big Tech companies that deplatform, silence, cancel, ban, shadow-ban, filter, or demonetize individuals, websites, groups or organizations for expressing opinions they disapprove of, such as conservative or traditionalist positions, shall be fined, penalized, litigated against, including anti-trust litigation. States shall regulate such entities as utilities, no different than phone companies, or radio and TV networks, for the right given them to use the public “space” and public “airwaves,” and pursue punitive actions and litigation when they deny access to their platforms or curate content for political reasons. Similarly, they shall pursue litigation or other measures against any and all corporations that engage in boycotts and other threats or intimidation against the state. The state will not support, provide contracts or engage in business with, give favorable tax treatment or invest state funds in corporations that are “woke,” promote leftist, racialist, identarian, transgender, and other, divisive, anti-family, anti-Christian, anti-American ideologies, or that promote or invest based on “ESG” (“Environment Social and Governance) parameters.
The state shall pass “Right to Try” Legislation that allows eligible patients to have access to investigational drugs or medicines that are safe and therapeutic particularly for life threatening conditions but not necessarily approved by the FDA or other regulatory agencies or boards, often for political or economic reasons.
The state shall pass legislation protecting the right of doctors to prescribe and patients to use medicines for “off label” purposes, a very common practice for many years until recently. In the Covid era, despite much experience and data demonstrating efficacy of various medicines and supplements, this became highly politicized and prohibited. This included safe, inexpensive, commonly used therapeutics found effective in the treatment of Covid, such as Hydroxychloroquine, Ivermectin, Zithromax, Doxycycline, aspirin, steroids, nebulizers, Vitamin D3, Zinc, Quercetin, Elderberry, among others. State medical boards shall have no authority to discipline or threaten in anyway physicians who engage in such efforts, respecting the primacy of informed consent and the patient-doctor relationship over dictates from politicized boards or other agencies. Pharmaceutical companies, pharmacies and pharmacists shall similarly honor such prescriptions and recommendations by healthcare providers. The state in consultation with appropriate medical advisors, shall consider declaring many such medicines with proven, long-term records of safety and efficacy as “over the counter” and available without a doctor’s prescription, particularly during emergency or pandemic conditions.
The state and the various counties, cities, and towns, through its law enforcement officials and criminal justice system shall enforce the law. Criminals, particularly violent criminals, those engaging in murder, rape, violence of any kind, harassment, intimidation, abuse, extortion, assault and battery, robbery, armed or otherwise, those engaged in unlawful violent protest, looting, and destruction of private or state property, interference with normal commerce and traffic, pedestrian or vehicular, incitement of violence and insurrection, terrorism, the use and sale of illicit drugs, those unlawfully encamped on public streets, thoroughfares, and places, shall be prosecuted, held, tried, treated medically as needed, and jailed for their crimes. Law enforcement officials, district attorneys, courts, and judges shall be supported in their efforts to maintain law and order and preserve the peace. The state shall vigorously support the rights of victims of crime and to protect them from criminals.
Red states and counties shall interpose against federal tyranny of all kinds, including a politicized, weaponized FBI, Department of Justice, IRS, ATF, and all other federal bureaucracies and their officers that engage in lawless, unwarranted, unconstitutional, political behavior, against legitimate, lawful citizens exercising their constitutional rights. Such actions shall include unlawful intrusions, home invasions, raids, search and seizures, confiscations of private property, intimidation, threats, arrests, and imprisonment of the free citizens of our state for manifestly political purposes. The state and county shall use the state police, state guard, local law enforcement, and Sheriff’s departments to protect the rights and liberties of its citizens. The state attorney general, state and local magistrates and attorneys, and state and local law enforcement shall likewise protect citizens from lawless, unconstitutional federal behavior including nullifying such orders, laws, policies, actions as well as preventing, interceding, disrupting, and, when necessary, arresting, jailing, and prosecuting federal agents that attempt to execute said unlawful, unconstitutional, malign political interventions, through legal, forceful, invasive, investigative, or threatening measures, or otherwise. Red states shall refuse extradition of politically targeted individuals. They shall arrange a legal defense fund for those citizens unfairly prosecuted and provide pro-bono defense where possible. They shall aggressively prosecute agitators and protesters who violate the law especially when violent, intrusive, intimidating, threatening, or destructive. Attorneys General, state prosecutors and magistrates shall consider indicting Democrats/Leftists, and others, throughout the nation who have broken state law.
As conservatives cannot receive a fair trial in “blue” jurisdictions, red states, where possible, shall require that cases involving conservatives be tried outside blue jurisdictions (within their states) to ensure the VI amendment guarantee of a trial by a jury of one’s “peers” is protected. Red states shall require trials be held outside major cities within their state(s) to provide a more evenhanded jury pool of independent-minded individuals for criminal (political) cases. The state and counties shall defend the Bill of Rights for its citizens in its entirety, with particular emphasis regarding such matters onthe 4 ^th , 5 ^th , and 6 ^th amendments, but each and every one of them, and the Constitution.
Red States shall defund, oppose, legislate against the so-called “Green,” “Global Warming,” or “Climate Change” agenda, which is a fraudulent, anti-human, anti-science, Marxist enterprise intended to destroy the American way of life, imposed by government/corporate entities, elites, radical environmentalists, NGOs (non-governmental organizations), and international/globalist bodies. The State shall support the exploration and development of proven, reliable, inexpensive, environmentally sound energy sources and technologies including fossil fuels (coal, natural gas, oil), fracking, and nuclear energy. The state shall oppose subsidies and mandates for electric vehicles, solar panels, windmills, “carbon capture,” “net zero,” greenhouse emissions standards, “carbon neutrality,” and other radical, bogus, and unscientific policies, programs, and ineffective technologies. The state shall support the combustion engine, and gasoline driven vehicles, stoves, as well as the incandescent lightbulb, and other such useful, as well as emerging, innovative products that free citizens may choose.
Make Red States Red Again.

Each Red State shall coordinate its efforts with other Red States that pro-America forces may

present a united front against the Marxist Left. But each Red State shall begin protecting its own citizens first against the encroachments of the federal government, local government and boards, and the tyrannical Left, and its appendages in the media, private sector, other “blue” states and jurisdictions, NGOs, and in the private sector. We must fight against the autocracy of the Left, the biomedical pharmaceutical complex, the federal bureaucracy and state and local bureaucracies, the globalist American empire and its emerging “gulag” system, the “regime,” the technocracy, the globalist-military, security and surveillance apparatus (in particular, the weaponized FBI, DOJ, EPA, ATF, IRS, and other federal agencies that have become politicized), and their various appendages in governments, media, the private sector, local, regional, national, and international leftist organizations, and sundry international bodies and NGOs who have abused the country and employed Covid fascism and other related forms of tyranny and censorship, to pursue political goals. We will oppose conditions and policies that render the US less free and place us on a trajectory to a form of government more akin to North Korea, Cuba, or Communist China, or worse, rather than a free Constitutional Republic. We are well passed the time of reclaiming lost ground and demanding our God-given rights as free Americans. It is essential that conservatives wield political power, help friends and allies, and defeat and penalize our enemies, as the Left does, countering their aggressive and malign behavior.

Herewith is our Red-State manifesto, a rallying cry to Red States and their citizens to galvanize each, according to his station, to preserve what is left of the nation, in parts of the nation where the founding and founding principles still hold sway. This we so declare.

“He has erected a multitude of new Offices and sent hither Swarms of Officers to harass our People, and eat out their Substance.”

See this publication in Western Journal Part 1 , Part 2 , Part 3

April 19, 2021 Updated: April 19, 2023

A Tale of Four Crimes: And The Legacy of Liberalism

asomossmd@gmail.com (Richard Moss) — Mon, 01 May 2023 20:15:13 GMT

Link to the article on Western Journal: https://www.westernjournal.com/op-ed-media-blames-black-problems-racism-deflect-actual-culprit-legacy-liberalism/

Tyre Nichols was a 29-year-old black man who died three days after five black police officers beat him brutally for suspected reckless driving in the city of Memphis. Ben Crump , a high-profile attorney , who has represented the families of Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, George Floyd, and others, was also representing the family of Tyre Nichols. In his comments, Crump implied that race was a factor. But how could that be? Blacks attacked a black.

It is worth comparing how cops treated George Floyd, in Minneapolis. Here, there were four officers, two white, one Asian, one black. Floyd resisted arrest. The officers struggled to get him in the back of the car. He did not cooperate. He then left the vehicle on the other side. Because he had difficulty breathing, he asked the cops if he could get on the ground. The cops did not throw him to the ground. None of them used racial slurs or abused him in anyway. He died because he had overdosed on fentanyl. His blood fentanyl level was 11ng/ml, nearly four times the lethal dose . It was not the knee on the back of the neck. The cops used standard protocols in subduing Floyd. They called the ambulance and helped Floyd after the medical team arrived.

The five black officers approached Tyre Nichols very differently. They screamed at him and shoved him. When he ran away that infuriated the officers. But he may have had good reasons. It was not so much that he was resisting arrest, but that he feared the cops, which turned out to be correct.

The Tyre Nichol’s case did not create anywhere near the national outrage that you had with George Floyd even though in this case the police behaved far worse than the officers in the Floyd case. The reason is that the police on the case were the wrong race. They were not white and so did not fit the desired narrative. And that’s where the racism comes in. It is not in the police departments; it is in the media and in our dominant institutions. Not only is the media biased against whites, they are also biased against police.

There was another case of bigoted media coverage of the police. This was an incident that occurred in California. The individual who died was Anthony Lowe Houston, a 36-year-old black man. The Houston story was unique in that he’s a double amputee. He was in a wheelchair and the police shot him to death. He lost both of his legs from the knee down because of a previous altercation with police in Texas. The news stories , all say the police shot him while he was running away. The implication was that the police had no reason to shoot him, and that he wasn’t a threat. But when you look at the circumstances , it’s not that straight forward.

First, the police were arresting him because earlier he stabbed somebody in the chest with a 12-inch butcher knife. The person he stabbed was Hispanic. It was difficult to find this information because it disturbed the approved narrative of white racism and instead demonstrated black violence against another “protected” minority. The man has been identified as Ramiro . He is a warehouse worker and a father of four and didn’t know Anthony Lowe. He reported that Lowe pushed himself out of his wheelchair and came running up on his knees and shoved a knife into his side just below the armpit, puncturing his lungs . He almost died and was in surgery for four hours. A police officer saved his life by applying pressure to the wound and reassuring him while they were waiting for an ambulance.

So, a police officer saved a man’s life, and no one in the media mentioned that. They were more concerned about those officers who took somebody else’s life. Again, the life they took was an individual who attempted to murder Ramiro. His motivation for killing a complete stranger was unknown. That doesn’t justify the police shooting him, but other things may have.

First, the police received a call that a man in a wheelchair just stabbed somebody. They saw the wheelchair and the man. Furthermore, he runs away, while brandishing a 12-inch butcher knife, which he’s already stabbed one person with. His action and words at the time were threatening to the police. The police ordered him to stop and drop the knife. He continued to run. He threatened to throw the knife at the police. So, they shot him. All the coverage, however, is of the mistakes the police made. But Lowe resisted arrest, stabbed someone he never met, and did not drop a deadly weapon when ordered to do so.

Another story also illustrates the hypocrisy of the media and the racialist crowd. It involved a cyclist, in California, who was hit by a car and died. He didn’t die as a result of being hit by the car however. He died because the man driving the car got out of it after he ran into him and stabbed him to death. He was a 58-year-old doctor named Michael Mammone, a married father of two. He worked in the trauma department in an emergency room. Mammone was white; the one who violently murdered him was black, a 39-year-old man named Vanroy Evan Smith. There had been no prior contact between them. The final twist in this matter is that while Smith was stabbing Manning to death, a bystander reported that he was shouting about “white privilege.”

This story was not covered at all in the national news. But what if the doctor riding the bicycle happened to be black and the man driving the car was white; and if witnesses reported that as this white man was violently murdering the black cyclist, he was screaming racial slurs. It would have been a national story. But because the race of the murderer and the victim do not fit the narrative, there was silence. It was not a story the media wanted to tell. They are looking for examples that prove the narrative they want, of whites killing blacks or police killing blacks and whenever they find one it becomes a major story.

There are many news stories of racist policemen and non-policemen killing blacks because those are the stories the media want to tell. But there are many examples of blacks killing whites or Hispanics or blacks killing blacks that do not make the news. When the only killing appearing on the news are whites killing blacks, or police killing blacks, it creates the perception that it is open season on blacks. This is what the media want people to think. They want to create the impression that we have a problem with systemic racism in America and with racist police.

The reason they want to blame “racism” for the many problems afflicting the black community is to deflect from the actual reason. It’s not racism, it’s government. It is the welfare state. It is the Democrat party and its failed liberal policies, which have ruined the lives of many blacks. The Left fears that if blacks discover the reason for their problems, they might become independent and vote Republican. Sixty years of “Great Society” have inflicted enormous damage on blacks. It is not “systemic racism,” “racist police,” or the “legacy” of slavery, as is so often stated, but the legacy of liberalism.

Barack Obama Presided Over the Greatest Missed Opportunity in American History

Wed, 08 Mar 2023 19:12:36 GMT

The rhetoric and uproar over the beating death of Trye Nichols by five Black police officers in Memphis, Tennessee, demonstrates how badly the “conversation” over race has deteriorated. One would think that a crime involving Blacks killing another Black would lack a racial angle to exploit. Alas, in today’s race-obsessed universe that is never the case. Unable to help themselves, our nation’s top racialists, beginning with President Joe Biden, weighed in on the controversy hurling the standard epithets of “systemic racism” and “White supremacy.” The media, and others, were happy to join in.

With the Brown v. Board of Education decision in 1954 ending “separate but equal,” the Civil Rights legislation of the sixties, affirmative action, and “Great Society,” with its trillions of dollars of wealth transfers to Blacks, one might have considered that, nearly sixty years later, the nation would mend and race relations improve.

Indeed, the emergence of Barack Obama and his ascension to the Presidency in 2008 suggested that that moment had arrived. The event should have been an inflection point in America’s racial history. Many thought it was. How else to explain a White majority nation electing a Black President, other than that America had turned the corner? Alas, Obama was not one to placate the nation. Rather than use the opportunity of his rise to the White House as the crowning achievement of a long treacherous journey to racial reconciliation, he chose instead to agitate and polarize the nation further. His presidency should have represented the fulfillment of the great dream of Lincoln, King, and of our Declaration of Independence, but became instead the basis of an ever-widening racial gap that may never be bridged.

Of his many racial stunts, perhaps the worst moment occurred during the Trayvon Martin affair. After the shooting death of the young Black, Obama famously stated that “If I had a son, he’d look like Trayvon.” The statement was provocative. Rather than pacify the nation, he inflamed it. He seemed to dismiss his White mother and the White grandparents who raised him. He, thus, injected his own biases into the controversy. As in so many other instances, rather than seek a peaceful resolution, he roiled the nation further.

The Trayvon Martin episode (like so many others) had, indeed, unleashed the furies emanating from the dark underside of racial politics and grievance in America; and it was not a pretty sight. It revolved around a simple narrative that had become the essence of a vast and elaborate racial industry that had grown and metastasized through the decades.

The narrative was as plain as it was destructive: it was that America was racist to the core, institutionally and categorically, and no matter what progress the nation made, no matter the multitude of unparalleled triumphs Blacks enjoyed, the stain and moral culpability would never be erased.

It did not matter that Blacks occupied the highest echelons of American wealth, power, and influence in the country, even the Presidency, the attorney general's office, the halls of Congress, governors' mansions, city halls, in the media, the academy, Hollywood, the music and entertainment world, sports, business, fashion, medicine, and law.

Nor did it matter that a vast complex of diversity programs, appointments, set asides, quotas, contracts, gerrymandered districts, anti-discrimination laws, voting rights, and wealth transfers have been instituted on behalf of Blacks, or that extensive bureaucracies and organizations have been brought into existence to protect and cater to the needs of Blacks.

Nor did it matter that Blacks, Black achievement, and Black culture were embraced, that Blacks received extensive preferential treatment and subsidies, or that a substantial political/media broadside was triggered for virtually any perceived racial slight or slur to defend Black sensitivities.

Nor did it matter that the United States was bar none the single greatest place in the world for a young Black to live and grow.

The narrative would not go away, for Obama and the race industry would not allow it; they had too much to lose, too much lucre and power to forfeit; it existed to ensure that the race catechism was never forgotten, and brandished as a sharp sword at a moment's notice.

George Zimmerman was only the latest foil at the time (and many since). The episodes of prior racial industry clampdowns were well known. Bernie Goetz, Crown Heights, Tawana Brawley, Jena 6, Henry Louis Gates, Duke-Lacrosse, and then Zimmerman, all saw the race industry in full attack mode, unleashing the power of its divisions, the integrated machinery of media, politicians, unions, activists, hucksters, protesters, administrators, academicians, lawyers, civil rights groups, bureaucracies and organizations unwinding themselves on the national stage, targeting victims, wrecking lives, and reinforcing the crucial race narrative upon which their careers and livelihoods depended.

The guilt or innocence of the protagonists hardly mattered. No one knew if Zimmerman committed a crime. But that was immaterial. Zimmerman’s offense was not legal but political.

If the man who pulled the trigger had been named Sanchez or had been a Black, it would have been a non-story, having failed the race template, no different than the thousands of Blacks killed every year by other Blacks that go unreported.

That he was Hispanic disturbed the tidy narrative of White racism and placed dueling liberal pieties at odds; and so a new ethnicity was discovered: the “White Hispanic.”

But the Hispanic dimension is troubling for the race crowd. It needs to look hard into the future for the demographics are not favorable. Hispanic Americans, when their numbers are great enough, will discard the temporary alliance they may have with Blacks and will not be patient with Black demands and Black victimhood. Having had nothing to do with slavery and being members of an “oppressed minority” themselves, there will be no pool of White guilt from which to extract wealth transfers or preferential treatment of any kind.

Indeed, the window for Blacks is closing quickly and the future is grim. Instead of seeking liberty, accomplishment, and full integration into American society, they have followed the admonitions of the race industry into a ghetto of cultural breakdown, unemployment, criminality, and poverty, to their own deepening detriment. They have accepted liberalism's nostrums for Black dysfunction, embraced liberalism's assumptions of their inability to compete and requirement for ever-expanding government largesse; they have been mined by the race industry for votes and money; furthermore, they have learned to resent bitterly their country, the “White patriarchy,” and to believe that the cards were stacked against them. They have been led into a house of poverty and despair.

One would be hard pressed to devise a more disabling ideology than this.

And the man who did more to perpetuate and exacerbate their dysfunction and misery while deepening the division of the nation, was none other than the one who could have actually ended it -- had the first Black President been a different man. Had he been a Thomas Sowell, an Allen West, or Ben Carson, or even the liberal Colin Powell, a patriot who loved his country and recognized the significance of a Black man winning the American Presidency. But, no, that man was not a patriot. He was instead a community organizing, race-baiting, anti-American, cult-Marxist agitator. He was Barack Hussein Obama, who presided over the greatest lost opportunity in American history.

See this publication in Western Journal and American Thinker

Winter, Desolation, and Faith

Thu, 02 Mar 2023 21:16:14 GMT

T he depths of winter are the bleakest of times, gray and fallow, the trees emptied of life, the wildlife desperate and sullen, the earth a crystalline tomb. The winter mires us and spreads its desolation before us. It sinks its fingers into our flesh, immobilizing us as it does the world. The winter is a metaphor for death, but it is also death itself. It captures us like beasts and encircles us.

But within the wretchedness there is a thread. Winter bears a bitter irony — that with its pitiless encroachment new meaning can come. But like nature we must turn inward. In winter we self-examine and prune our excesses. As nature labors inwardly after the leaves have fallen, so must we.

In winter we glimpse the approaching spring: even as we drift pointlessly, lost in our labyrinths, gazing at mirrors, combing the ruins of our lives and the evolving expanse of our illusions. In that emptiness, we may reach for some tenuous slip of life.

We may recover our souls in winter even as we are grounded in its bleak soil, our roots frayed and broken, the knowledge of death upon us, its odor wafting about us. Our faces are withered, our bones bowed and arthritic, our souls failing; we commune with the elders who know the prophecies. But in the midst of winter and its letter of death, we glean the signs of faltering life. We do not hide from mortality and its numbing portent; we embrace it, and so unshackle ourselves.

The lakes and rivers will thaw, new leaves will form, flowers will turn over in the copper earth, gardens will decorate the land as ornaments, the insects and forest life will multiply, the birds will repopulate the heavens, the cobalt seas will warm and seethe, the rains will return, the farmers will plow the mahogany fields, and a new harvest will come.

Turn inward in winter, as nature does, and repair yourself. Recall the past and discern its wisdom. As the winter consumes us, so too does it scatter the seeds of the next generation: the earth will ply its orbit and hold its tilt, the sun will cast its broad filigree of light, and the eternal cadences will release us and bestow God’s benediction. Through the specter of death we may live again. Within the winter of the mind we glimpse the spring of the mind. New life will come.

The spring will sanctify us with its budding fruit. It will ripen in summer. In fall, we shall have our bounty. And then shall come the winter as the earth dies again and prepares for the coming seasons of grace. We rediscover the Almighty in the cycles he has created; he renews us, and we are reborn.

See this publication in Covenant

Overturn Obergefell, Repeal Respect for Marriage Act, Restore DOMA

Fri, 17 Feb 2023 19:30:32 GMT

The Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) was signed into law by President Clinton in 1996. It had broad support from both parties including then Senator Joe Biden. DOMA prevented the federal government from recognizing same-sex marriage for the purpose of federal laws or programs. More recently President Joe Biden signed into law the Respect for Marriage Act, which overturned DOMA. Specifically, it holds that states must recognize same-sex marriage across state lines and that federal laws and programs apply equally to same sex couples. This followed the Obergefell decision of 2015, which legalized homosexual marriage throughout the land. Obergefell v. Hodges, decided June 26, 2015, in a split 5-4 decision (Anthony Kennedy joined with the four liberal justices), determined that same sex couples had a fundamental right to marry based on the Due Process Clause and the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution.

With the overturning of Roe v. Wade in the recent Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization opinion, the Supreme Court ended the recognition of a constitutional right to abortion and returned the matter to the states, where it has always belonged. After Dobbs, it became reasonable to reconsider the Obergefell decision, as Justice Clarence Thomas alluded in his concurring opinion in the Dobbs decision. The passage of the Respect for Marriage Act complicates matters but both will have to be addressed if we are ever to restore a proper definition of marriage.

In Obergefell, as in Roe V. Wade, unelected lawyers in black robes, functioning as a supreme legislature, acting against our nation’s history, culture, and traditions, imposed upon the land, the fifty states and their democratically elected legislatures, and more than 300 million people, a mandate to redefine the most fundamental institution in society. What was at issue here, however, was not due process or equal protection, which our constitution guarantees, but redefining an institution that in five thousand years of human history, has always required sexual complementarity. The decision undermined all notions of federalism, states’ rights, the Constitutional order, and basic democratic practice. The nature of marriage is not mentioned in the Constitution. Deciding its definition is not a power of the federal government. It is left to the states and the people. This is not government by law or democratic process but by judicial decree.

“Gay marriage” is not a “right” but a distortion of a sacred and critical institution, that of marriage. Beyond that, the notion of “gay marriage” is irrational, an oxymoron. Gays cannot marry because they are sexually the same. Whether they love one another and plan to spend the rest of their lives together does not matter. Marriage cannot be twisted, bent, or folded to suit personal preferences. A proper understanding of marriage falls outside the realm of “rights,” for it is a descriptive term, a matter of logic, natural law, and biology.

Marriage, by definition, is between opposite sexes and must be as such. Sexual complementarity has always been a requirement of marriage, and the reasons are not difficult to fathom. They are rooted in biology.

All of our organ systems, digestive, cardiovascular, pulmonary, and so on, are complete within each of us, save one: our reproductive system. This one system requires a mate of the opposite sex to complete. The marital act, indeed, is defined as coitus. Marriage is consummated by coitus, the union of reproductive organs, between a man and woman. That this must be is self-evident. Members of the same sex cannot perform the marital act. They cannot marry.

From marriage and the marital act comes the world and all that is within it: civilization, history, culture, science, and so on. Without the marital act, there are no children, and the universe of relationships that arise from it: parents, children, aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews, grandparents, and grandchildren; it is through the institution of marriage that total strangers are joined to form new families and relations. It is how the two houses of humanity, male and female, unite to bring children into the world.

The traditional, married family is the domestic unit upon which society depends; without it society cannot function and will eventually collapse. New life cannot issue from the “union” of individuals of the same sex; it is for this reason that traditional marriage is sanctified and given special legal and moral status.

To recognize gay marriage (and all other “models” that would follow) blurs the significance of traditional marriage, desanctify and weaken it, and render it just another life style choice. Already a battered and weakened institution, marriage should be bolstered and upheld, privileged and elevated. While gays enjoy the right to free speech, due process, and equal treatment before the law, there is no “right” to transform fundamental institutions to suit elite tastes or enhance gay self-esteem. Society must tolerate gays but is not obligated to endorse their activities or goals.

But leftists support gay marriage. They see society as an oppressive, patriarchal, “heteronormative” oligarchy and seek to tear it down. Traditional married families, furthermore, are autonomous islands that generally perform well enough without government assistance; as such, they thwart the leftist agenda. Furthermore, they seek to reduce the population for various “environmental” reasons such as “Climate Change,” and weakening the institution of marriage serves this goal.

Liberalism thrives on social failure and collapse. It feeds on broken families and dysfunction. The destruction of the family has been a long-standing project of the left: the sexual revolution, feminism, gay marriage, and now, of course, transgenderism, are tools to overturn the traditional family and the civil society in general.

But with the Left and its media appendage, it is always about narratives, long-term goals, and the seizing of power. Beneath the smiling patina of the charming news host or glib politician, the façade of tolerance and broad mindedness, leftists pursue their radical agenda with grim single-mindedness, censoriousness, and, when necessary, violence. Indeed, the homosexual agenda (along with its counterpart, “feminism,” and, more recently, transgenderism) is but another arrow in its quiver by which to undermine society, to fracture and uproot its time-honored institutions, and, particularly, to chip away at that great bulwark against collectivism, the traditional family.

Obergefell and now the Respect for Marriage Act are assaults not just on Christianity but all faiths, our culture, and on American civilization, which is based on the Judeo-Christian tradition. They are attacks on common sense, federalism, separation of powers, and the constitutional order. We live in a post-constitutional age, under attack by the progressive (regressive) Left that seeks to flip our culture on its head, and to undermine the two great impediments to centralized government, the traditional married family and the church. These are the twin pillars of the civil society, which stand between the individual and the central government.

Obergefell and the Respect for Marriage Act are additional salvoes of the sexual revolution and its war on the family and Christianity. Abortion, radical feminism, gay marriage and now transgenderism are all of piece.

But five leftist judges and the federal government cannot redefine marriage. It remains a union between a man and a woman, an organic institution based on nature and biology that precedes the political order. Its purpose is to civilize the mating process and to provide the best environment for children to grow in. It is about creating new life. It is not about validating the adult relationship of your choice or satisfying elite opinion.

We must defend traditional marriage. It is time to overturn Obergefell, repeal the Respect for Marriage Act, and reinstate DOMA.

See this publication in American Thinker

Reparations Or Liberty

Mon, 16 Jan 2023 17:32:19 GMT

Among many tell-tale signs of the tectonic fissures dividing the nation, perhaps the most telling is the call by prominent Democrats and others for reparations. A recent proposal by California governor Gavin Newsom calling for reparation payments of some $223,000 per black resident pushes the matter once again to the fore. Reparations refers to a compensatory payment made to the descendants of African slaves brought to America through the Atlantic Slave Trade. It is unworkable, but speaks loudly of the state of our politics and culture.

Proponents of reparations argue passionately of the stain of slavery, the long, dark shadow cast by this cruel institution across the American soul. They say this great evil, the original sin of slavery, has cursed the nation at its inception, at the founding, and in our founding documents. The country is thus irredeemably marred and defective, and the blot of that dark inheritance is fixed in our moral DNA. Reparations proponents claim this insidious legacy lives on in America, in the systemic racism that pervades the nation, and the disparate outcomes of blacks and whites in all sectors of society today.

But there are counter-arguments. We begin with the obvious. Slavery ended in America more than 150 years ago by something known as the Civil War; roughly 750,000 soldiers died in that cataclysm, a great and bloody cleansing of the nation over that mortal sin. Furthermore, slavery is illegal in America and has been since the 13 ^th amendment was passed and then ratified by the states on December 6, 1865, thus abolishing slavery. No one alive today in America is a slave or slaveholder, and sons and daughters are not responsible for the sins of their parents - let alone distant ancestors of more than a century ago.

At America’s inception, many of the Founders and newly formed states deeply opposed slavery. But some southern states demanded that the slave trade be protected. To obtain broad support to ratify the Constitution, the framers made concessions to pro-slavery factions. Had they attempted to eliminate slavery at the time, a political impossibility, there would have been no nation or Constitution. The Founders were painfully aware that the existence of slavery clashed with the belief that “all men are created equal,” but they also understood that they could not resolve the terrible inconsistency at the time. But they had planted the seeds for ending slavery in the founding documents and the principles of the American Revolution, and they established states and a central government robust enough to ultimately eradicate the institution in a later generation.

There are other complexities to the matter of reparations as well. There were 3,000 “free black” slave holders who owned some 20,000 slaves . American Indians were also slaveholders and held them well after the end of the Civil War. Most Americans, even in the antebellum south, did not own slaves.

Black Africans , too, enslaved (other) blacks and sold them. The Atlantic slave trade began there. Without this there would have been no slaves brought to America or the Americas. Perhaps, sub-Saharan Africa should pay reparations?

Most Americans today, including blacks that came later, have no relationship to slavery in America as they or their ancestors came after the Civil War (with the two great waves of immigration that began in the late 1800s and 1900s). It would be improper to link them to slavery in this country.

Further, the reparations claim is not based on specific injury (such as Jewish victims of the Holocaust or Japanese-American victims of “internment” under FDR) but on race. It perpetrates a new injustice against those who committed no crime for the benefit of those who are not victims.

There is also little evidence that individuals living today are disadvantaged by a slave system that ended over 150 years ago. There are many successful black people in America today including black entrepreneurs, black millionaires, billionaires , and a black President, among many black success stories - even as the black middle class is prosperous and growing.

Furthermore, poverty, unemployment, and incarceration rates for black Americans were shrinking in the decades preceding the expansion of the liberal welfare state in the ‘60s, in some cases bettering their white counterparts. Blacks were coming out of poverty and entering the middle class despite actual institutionalized racism at the time. Most black children then were raised in two parent families.

That earlier progress halted and retreated dramatically since the onset of the federal welfare system and its associated social and cultural pathologies. These policies and behavioral factors explain racial disparities today far more then “systemic racism” or the “legacy of slavery.”

Many Americans are mixed race, with complex ancestries that would be challenging to sort out for reparations claims.

The Civil Rights Act and Great Society Programs that began in the ’60s already represents trillions of dollars in wealth transfers to blacks through welfare payments, subsidies, and preferential treatment based on race (Affirmative Action).

Slavery, furthermore, was not unique to the United States. Bondage in North America was a small percentage of slavery in the Americas. Brazil, for example, had 4 million African slaves compared with 400,000 in America. Cuba had 800,000. In total, about 12 million African slaves were brought to the Americas, through the Atlantic Slave Trade, 95% of which went to South and Central America and the Caribbean, while less than 5% went to America . Would reparations account for this other over 95% as well, and if so, how?

Then there was the Arab Muslim slave trade, which had existed since the 8 ^th century when it began enslaving Africans; it persists to this day. It enslaved as many as 17 million people from the coast of the Indian Ocean, the Middle East, and North Africa. Muslim slave traders between 1500 and 1900 transported approximately 5 million African slaves. Arab Muslims also enslaved more than 1 million Europeans (whites or “Slavs,” hence the word “slave”) between the 16 ^th and 19 ^th centuries, more than double the number of black Africans brought to America.

Western (white Christian) nations ended slavery, beginning with Great Britain in 1833 , a universal phenomenon involving all races and cultures that dates back more than 5,000 years to ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, and beyond. But slavery persisted in other parts of the world , particularly the Muslim World. Indeed, only a handful of Muslim nations have officially ended slavery and then not until the late 20 ^th century.

Further, there are some 40 million slaves worldwide today including nearly 10 million in Africa, many of them black Christians enslaved by Muslims. In fact, there are more slaves today than during the peak of the Atlantic slave trade, those in forced labor, being trafficked, or otherwise owned, exploited, or enslaved. Yet those clamoring for reparations, so concerned with American slavery that ended over 150 years ago, have little to say about slavery today.

No, reparations are not likely to bind the nation’s racial wounds, rather it will rip them apart; but perhaps that is the point. Peddling “race” in this way has been a major growth industry in America and many who traffic in “racism” have benefitted from it. But they have also done great damage to American blacks, race relations, and the nation as a whole.

See this publication in Intellectual Takeout and Western Journal

Chanukah, Christmas, and Western Civilization

Wed, 28 Dec 2022 17:39:21 GMT

The Two Holidays Are Central to Understanding America

Chanukah, the festival of lights, is a Jewish holiday that commemorates the victory of the Maccabees (or Hasmoneans) over the powerful armies of the Seleucid (Greek) Empire under King Antiochus IV. King Antiochus, in 167 BC, in a show of force, forbade important Jewish observances such as keeping the Sabbath and circumcision and dedicated the ancient temple in Jerusalem to Zeus. In the town of Modi’in, Antiochus’ soldiers forced a village elder named Matityahu to sacrifice a pig before a pagan altar. Matityahu refused. When another Jew complied, he killed him and another Greek official. This sparked a three-year rebellion against the Greeks and their Jewish allies, some of whom accepted Greek or Hellenic culture. Matityahu and his sons, the Maccabees, fought to maintain the ancient ways of the covenant. At first, the Maccabees and their motley fighters employed guerilla tactics but eventually formed regular forces and routed the Greeks. In 164 BC, the Maccabees entered Jerusalem and rededicated the temple, removing pagan influences, thus the name “Chanukah” or rededication.

It was a most unlikely victory. But because of it Judaism survived. Without this victory, history would have been profoundly altered. In the absence of Judaism, Christianity, which followed more than a century later, would never have emerged.

Chanukah is a victory of religious liberty, of the weak over the strong, of righteousness over tyranny, of light over darkness, a miracle. But there was another miracle. Jewish tradition holds that when it was time to light the Menorah in the Temple, there was only enough pure oil for a single day, but it lasted eight days after which it was replenished. And the men that had been soldiers and were now priests and scribes knew that their victory over the mighty Greek army was not just by force of arms but through divine providence. That God walked among the defenders of Judaism.

After the Greeks fell away, there was a brief interlude of Jewish independence in Israel but then the Romans conquered the Holy Land in 63 BC (Pompey). Life under Roman rule was difficult and there was another rebellion in 70 AD. General Vespasian destroyed the Jewish kingdom and King David’s ancient capitol fell for a second time. Many Jews died or were enslaved. There rose again a savior in 135 AD, Bar Kochba, but in the end his rebellion too crumbled before Rome’s might (Emperor Hadrian). Jerusalem and the Temple were ploughed under with salt and hundreds of thousands of Jews were slaughtered. Jerusalem was resettled. Rome renamed Israel, Palestina, reaching back to Israel’s ancient foes the Philistines to conceal its Jewish past. The exiles went forth as slaves and rootless wanderers. And the long night began.

But the Chanukah flame continued to burn in the hearts of the Jewish people who dreamed of returning to Israel and Jerusalem. For 2,000 years it burned in villages and cities across the seas and the continents. And the exiles returned to reclaim their patrimony. In 1948, out of the ashes of the Holocaust, the modern state of Israel was born, its fledgling forces defeating the five Arab armies that attacked it at the moment of its birth with the intent of annihilation, another miracle. And so the Chanukah lights continued to burn in Israel, sometimes flickering but still illuminating, more than 70 years later.

With Christmas upon us, there is also a light that burns for Christians, under assault in the West by the secular left and around the globe especially within the Muslim world but in Communist China and North Korea as well. It is symbolic that in the darkest time of the year, Christian teaching tells that the logos or the word was made flesh in the form of a newborn baby, the baby Jesus, a Jew, under a star, a light for the world to drive away the darkness and bring redemption and hope.

That Chanukah and Christmas are closely linked in the calendar is fitting for the message they each bring. The two faiths, Judaism and Christianity, taken together as the Judeo-Christian tradition, is the foundation of Western and American civilization. Western nations are the greatest in the world because they are informed by Judeo-Christian principles. It is in the West where human rights, liberty, the rule of law, democracy, music and the arts, science and technology have flourished and where slavery was ended. These are the nations that inhabitants from the rest of the world seek to live. It is in Western nations where citizens are most free and enjoy the greatest prosperity. It is not an accident.

We must dedicate ourselves to preserving America, the West, and Western civilization, by preserving its Judeo-Christian tradition. The light of Chanukah and Christmas must continue to burn, and illumine the night, pushing away the darkness that is always present, the norm for most of history. They should guide us and our nation and the West for all time. It distinguishes us from the rest: our values, our devotion to truth, knowledge, goodness, beauty, and reason, the belief in the sanctity of the individual made in the image of God, while rejecting the moral and cultural relativism of the post-modern Left and the totalitarian threat of unreformed Islam. We must rededicate ourselves in our current battle as the Maccabees did against the Greeks and as Israel did against the Arab armies that sought its destruction in 1948 and has done ever since against its many enemies.

The spirit of Chanukah and Christmas should inspire us. Happy Chanukah and Merry Christmas to all.

See this publication in Western Journal

Anti-Semitism And The Left

Fri, 09 Dec 2022 17:18:32 GMT

After the tragic killing of 11 elderly Jews at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh in 2018 the American Jewish left, along with allies in the Democrat party, and the media had been unrelenting in their efforts to pin this on President Donald Trump, accusing him of creating an atmosphere of “hatred” which led to violence – and the recent unplanned and unfortunate visit of anti-Semites Kanye West and Nick Fuentes with Trump at Mara Lago threw kindling on the fire.

But even a cursory exam of the record will demonstrate that Trump is the most pro-Israel, pro-Jewish president we have ever had. Given the rhetoric however it would be useful to compare the records of Trump, President Barack Hussein Obama (and Joe Biden), the Democrat Party, and the Jewish left regarding their treatment of the Jewish people and the state of Israel and to determine the true epicenter of anti-Semitism in America and around the world today.

To begin, Trump has a high-profile Jewish daughter, Ivanka, who converted to Orthodox Judaism. His Jewish son-in-law, Jared Kushner, is a trusted envoy and advisor. Trump has Jewish grandchildren that he adores. Jews have been influential consultants and advisors throughout his long career in business and now in his administration. While the broad American Jewish community did not support Trump in 2016, he was very popular among observant Orthodox Jews and nearly 75% of Israelis approve of Trump.

Acting on his promise, Trump moved the American Embassy to Jerusalem, recognizing it as the eternal capital of the Jewish people. Obama refused.

Trump ended the Iran nuclear deal forged by Obama. This deal paved the way for a nuclear-armed Iran within 10 years, a nation that is pledged to the annihilation of Israel. Iran is the leading state sponsor of terror and funds terrorist proxies Hamas and Hezbollah, which, like their Iranian patrons, espouse genocidal ambitions towards Israel. But the Jewish left, the Democratic Party, and the media defended the Iran nuclear deal even as it represented an existential threat to the Jewish state.

The Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) is a terrorist entity stained with Jewish and American blood. It pays stipends to families of terrorists responsible for killing Jews and is the most successful Jew-killing operation since World War II. Trump closed its diplomatic mission in Washington DC. Obama upgraded it. Obama also increased US funding to the PLO while Trump cut it. Biden, too, has reinstated it.

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) is an anti-Semitic body that supports Hamas and indoctrinates young Palestinians to hate Jews. Trump stopped funding the organization while Obama expanded it. Trump pulled the United States out of the anti-Semitic UN Human Rights Council. Obama joined it as did Biden.

Obama spent 20 years in the Trinity Church of Jeremiah Wright, an anti-Semite and bigot. Wright and Obama were associates of black nationalist, racist, and anti-Semite, Louis Farrakhan, the leader of the nation of Islam, who recently referred to Jews as “termites.” Farrakhan has spoken of his admiration of Hitler for killing millions of Jews (as has Hamas).

The first two Muslim women elected to Congress, Ilhan Omar, a Somali from Minnesota, and Rashid Tlaib a Palestinian from Michigan, are both Democrats and support the anti-Semitic Boycott Divest and Sanction (BDS) movement, which promotes economic and legal warfare against Israel.

The deputy chairman of the Democratic National Committee, Keith Ellison, former Congressman for Minnesota’s 5 ^th district and Attorney General for Minnesota was a member of the anti-Semitic Nation of Islam and defender of Louis Farrakhan and has himself attacked Israel and the Jews.

Al Sharpton, a black supremacist and anti-Semite, has referred to Jews as “blood sucking Jews,” “Jew bastards,” and “white interlopers.” His demagoguery incited violence, riots, and the murder of a 29-year-old Yeshiva student and two others in the Crown Heights Section of Brooklyn in 1991, referred to as the “Crown Heights Pogrom.” This pogromist hosts a news show on MSNBC, spoke at the Democratic National Convention, and was a frequent guest at Obama’s White House.

Franklin Foer, Julia Ioffe, Dana Milbank, Roger Cohen, Peter Beinart, and others represent a coterie of powerful left-wing Jewish commentators and columnists who attack Israel routinely and condemn Trump for his defense of Israel. Some support Hamas and the BDS movement.

George Soros is a wealthy Jewish financier originally from Hungary, a former Nazi collaborator, who dedicates himself to undermining Israel by funding anti-Semitic left wing Jewish groups (J Street, Jewish Voice for Peace, New Israel Fund, If Not Now, Breaking The Silence, B’Tselem) engaged in anti-Israel projects including on college campuses. He is a leading contributor to the Democrat Party.

Leftism has infected non-orthodox synagogues. In the last year, the leaders of the reform and conservative movements have delivered their flagship institutions into the hands of Jewish anti-Semites. The Reform movement invited novelist Michael Chabon, the outspoken hater of Israel, as their keynote speaker at the Hebrew Union College annual convention. Conservative movement leadership invited the radical Jewish anti-Zionist group “If Not Now” to train counselors at one of its largest summer camps.

We would be remiss to ignore one of history’s greatest Jewish anti-Semites, cherished by the left even today despite the misery and death his philosophy has spawned: in his anti-Semitic treatise, “On The Jewish Question,” Karl Marx wrote, in 1844, that “Money is the jealous God of Israel” and that “the emancipation of Jews is the emancipation of mankind from Judaism.”

In the wake of the Tree of Life massacre, Trump said, “the scourge of anti-Semitism cannot be ignored, cannot be tolerated and cannot be allowed to continue.” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stated that no non-Israeli leader has ever made such a strong commitment to combating Jew-hatred.

So are leftist Jews, the media, the Democrat Party, and other haters of Trump serving American Jews by condemning the most supportive President the state of Israel and the Jewish people have ever had? Of course not. Their hateful rhetoric and policies are divisive and expose Jews to increasing levels of anti-Semitism. They reveal themselves as partisans that will stop at nothing to advance their political interests despite the damage they inflict on the nation, American Jews, and Israel. Their record demonstrates that the core of anti-Semitism in America and around the world is on the Left and in particular amongst high-profile left wing Jews, in many of our non-orthodox synagogues, college campuses, Hollywood, and the Democrat Party. While anti-Semites exist on the right, Republicans and conservatives reject them unequivocally. That is not the case for the leftist establishment, which embraces its anti-Semites - to its lasting shame.

See this publication in American Thinker

Op-Ed: The Facts of the George Floyd Case - Lies, Myths and Fraud

Thu, 08 Dec 2022 15:32:12 GMT

Yes, you’ve heard of George Floyd, the holy, blessed martyr, peace be upon him, newly beatified by the pagan church of anti-racism. He rests on his misty perch in atheist heaven on God’s right side, gazing benevolently upon us.

Yes, that George Floyd, the one with the rap sheet down to his ankles. He had eight jail sentences for a variety of charges, including drug possession, theft, criminal trespass and armed robbery during a home invasion. That latter charge involved holding a loaded firearm against the belly of a pregnant woman while five compatriots pillaged her home. Nice, George.

We live in a post-George Floyd universe. The violent riots that swept our cities that summer changed the nation. It may serve to review the facts of the case.

Floyd met his fate, as the entire world knows, on May 25, 2020, in Minneapolis, when police were called because he attempted to pass a counterfeit bill. The disturbing video of the encounter with law enforcement showed officer Derek Chauvin holding his knee against the back of Floyd’s neck for nearly nine minutes. He was face-down on the ground and handcuffed as he called for his “momma” and said that he could not breathe.

Floyd, indeed, stopped breathing and subsequently died. There was nonstop mayhem and violence in our cities for the remainder of the year leading to the election in November.

The final autopsy report issued by the Hennepin County medical examiner indicated that the cause of death was “cardiopulmonary arrest complicating law enforcement subdual restraint, and neck compression.” Under enormous political pressure, it also stated that the manner of death was homicide.

The media, Democrats, and their leftist militias, Black Lives Matter and antifa, hold that the Floyd episode was another example of police racism and brutality targeting blacks. But the contradictions in the story suggest otherwise.

Two of the four officers who responded are not white. The chief of the Minneapolis police, Medaria Arradondo, is black. Minneapolis is a Democrat-run city. Its mayor, Jacob Frey, is a Democrat, as is Minnesota’s governor, Tim Walz. Minnesota has voted Democrat in every national election since 1932, including the Reagan landslide of 1984, making it the only state Reagan lost. Are the critics saying that the Democrats who run the police department, city and state are racists?

Then came suppressed videos and court documents that mysteriously went missing as the outrage festered and our cities burned.

The body cam videos of the other three officers present during the arrest, Tou Thao, Thomas Lane and Alexander Kueng, showed Floyd was highly agitated and erratic. He resisted arrest before the officers placed him on the ground. He appeared to have lost all self-awareness, complained of stomach and neck pain, and foamed at the mouth. The officers struggled to get him in the back of the squad car. Once there, he complained that he couldn’t breathe. He then left the vehicle on the opposite side. In another video, Floyd is seen in his car before the arrest swallowing a white pill.

None of the four officers involved in the incident used racial slurs or even referred to his race. There was no evidence that race motivated them at all. Furthermore, why would Chauvin deliberately murder Floyd in broad daylight with multiple witnesses present and cellphones and body cameras recording? If the cops intended to murder Floyd, why did they call an ambulance and help Floyd after the medical team arrived?

Previously suppressed court documents showed that the chief medical examiner, Dr. Andrew Baker, stated that the fentanyl level in Floyd’s blood was “pretty high” and could be a “fatal level of fentanyl under normal circumstances.” Baker also said that “if Mr. Floyd had been found dead in his home … and there were no other contributing factors he would conclude that it was an overdose death.” Floyd’s fentanyl level was 11 ng/mL. Baker told investigators that “deaths have been certified with levels of 3.”

Other forms also noted that Floyd had a “heavy heart” and “at least one artery was 75% blocked.” The armed forces medical examiner agreed with Baker’s findings, writing that Floyd’s death was “caused by the police subdual and restraint in the setting of severe hypertensive atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease, and methamphetamine and fentanyl intoxication.”

So if the knee on the neck didn’t kill him, what did? Why, drugs did.

Floyd overdosed on fentanyl, which stopped his breathing and his heart in what is known as cardiopulmonary arrest, resulting in death — whether the officers encountered him or not. The stress of the arrest and positioning did not help, but with the amount of fentanyl he had ingested, he would have died anyway. He also had morphine, amphetamine, alcohol and marijuana in his system. He died of cardiopulmonary arrest caused by a fatal fentanyl overdose and underlying cardiac disease. He sealed his own fate.

Chauvin was convicted of second- and third-degree murder and manslaughter and sentenced to 22 years in prison. All four officers were convicted of violating Floyd’s civil rights. Lane and Keung pleaded guilty to aiding and abetting second-degree murder and manslaughter. Thao is awaiting trial. The other three officers are serving prison terms of some three years. Their careers are over.

Yet none of the officers sought to murder Floyd. There was no intent to do so. Although they have since been changed, at the time, Minneapolis police training materials show pictures of a suspect, face-down, handcuffed, with knee on neck. Chauvin was simply following police protocol. The autopsy and videos demonstrate it was not racially motivated and was not murder. These officers are innocent. They should have never gone to trial. It was a fraud, a manufactured lie.

Why didn’t authorities release the exculpatory evidence earlier to prevent the riots, looting, destruction and death? Cops did not kill Floyd. Why did they let cities burn? Because the left wanted the lie to go out. Authorities deliberately withheld evidence that could have cleared the police, undermined the narrative, and stopped the mob violence.

Black lives don’t matter to the left, the media, the Democrats, or their brown-shirt militias. Blacks are simply pawns in their game. They use them, reckless charges of police brutality and “systemic racism,” and the consequent civil unrest to agitate their base, get out the vote and win elections. It is naked will to power, nothing more, whatever the cost.

The family of George Floyd received a $27 million settlement from the city of Minneapolis. This is the legacy of the George Floyd case: mob rule and two-tiered justice.

See this publication in Western Journal

Useful Idiots on the Right: The Never Trumpers

Thu, 10 Nov 2022 14:32:03 GMT

One could perhaps have excused them their earlier indiscretions of November 2016. He was, after all, an unknown quantity, an outsider of questionable conservative pedigree. Indeed, Donald Trump had been a fairly typical New York liberal Democrat for much of his life. And he had led a less than stellar moral life. And so the pile-on at the time by National Review and others could perhaps have been forgiven, although not really, when one considered the alternative. As I had written at the time:

"Do we not grow weary of the sanctimonious ones? The Never Trumpers that endlessly hector and scold, and hold themselves up as paragons of moral virtue? They display their good taste by showing contempt for Trump and his supporters. Some of them claim they will vote down ballot, skipping the Presidential slot, or vote for Evan what’s his name (McMullin). Some will write in a candidate or go Libertarian, neither of who will have any chance of winning. Other pious Republicans will even cast their vote for Hillary."

But how much more compelling is the argument today, three years later, in light of the horrendous behavior of the Left, their naked will-to-power and demonic “rule or ruin” ethos? And what of Trump, his incredible and unexpected victory in 2016, and then his very favorable performance as president and conservative standard-bearer? What accounts for the odd and self-immolating behavior of the Never Trump crowd, most if not all of them former card-carrying members of the right?

Never Trumpers go under many labels including Globalists, neo-Cons, “moderate” Republicans, RINOs, Democrat-lites, and the “GOP establishment.” Some of its better-known members include William Kristol, Mona Charen, the Koch brothers, John Podhoretz, Jeff Flake, Steve Schmidt, the Bushes, George Will, Bret Stephens, Mitt Romney, John Kasich, Gabriel Schoenfeld, Rick Wilson, David French, Max Boot, and others.

Many Never Trumpers, furthermore, are of Jewish persuasion, as I am, and supporters of Israel, as I also am. One would have thought that actions taken by the president, our modern day Cyrus and defender of the Jews, would have persuaded them.

Perhaps, it is that many of them, along with liberal associates, are part of what Angelo Codevilla describes as the “ruling class.” These are individuals in higher-level positions in government, academia, the media, think tanks, non-government organizations (NGOs), unions, non-profits, corporations, and the courts. They compose an extra-constitutional elite system, operating outside of the usual democratic mechanisms, that, in effect, run the country.

The ruling class believe themselves of superior cultural, moral and intellectual temperament; they view with disdain the unwashed living in the vast swaths between the coasts over whom they feel entitled to rule. Although superficially embracing democracy, they prefer government by experts, or, as it may occur, judges, but reject the elected branches unless, of course, they deliver the proper outcome. They are, in other words, “progressives.”

They place great faith in the “New World Order,” “globalism,” and “world government.” International bodies such as the European Union, the United Nations, and NATO are highly favored and critical to their vision of the world. They abhor primitive “tribal” notions of nationhood such as love of country, its culture and heritage, and national sovereignty. Appalled by “Brexit” and efforts by Trump to “build a wall,” they embrace open immigration and amnesty while spurning borders. Some advocate policies that can loosely be described as “invade the world, invite the world.” Some support “criminal justice reform,” single-payer healthcare, and the Paris Climate Accord and maintain that Europe is better than America. Many are not particularly fond of religion or biblical values, in particular, Christianity. Many are socially “liberal” or “libertarian” even when fiscally conservative. The Second Amendment repulses them.

It is a single class that includes Democrats and Republicans but not exactly. The Democrats are the ranking members and Republicans are subordinate. Democrats enjoy prestige and power; their media organs are dominant; they have cultural gravitas. Republicans do not. They seek acceptance and recognition, but know that they serve at the pleasure of liberal superiors.

Republican ruling class members seek to preserve their lucrative media presence, affirmative pats on the head from leftist betters, and, of course, dinner invitations from liberal friends. They do this by promoting certain foundational policies beloved by the left (particularly on immigration). In this particular era, however, they have found a far better meal ticket to ensure continued membership in this exclusive club: denouncing Trump and everything he stands for including those who voted for him. Republican country clubbers recognize that Trump is, in effect, a giant middle finger from the “deplorables” to them and their liberal cocktail lounge comrades. Indeed, it is the failure of Republicans to enact policies that they fund raise and campaign on every election cycle (defending our borders, ending Obamacare, law and order) only to abandon them once ensconced in power that drove voters to the outsider, anti-establishment Trump in the first place. It is from the ranks of the second tier of the “ruling class,” of the cowering, pseudo-right aristocracy, that many if not most Never Trumpers arise.

"The so-called conservative, Holier than thou Never Trump crowd cannot abide supporting Trump, or even keep from insulting him and his many followers in the most vicious ways. They must then recognize that they are complicit in a possible Hillary presidency that will bring the nation to its knees. Although an imperfect candidate, Trump is the only one that can prevent a likely 16-year Obama-Clinton continuum that will alter the nation irreversibly. The moral and principled choice is to stop Clinton by embracing Trump. By failing to do so, Republican Never Trumpers betray the nation and the conservative cause they claim to be a part of, and place themselves alongside the vile Left who actively seek to destroy the country."

We have long been burdened by what Lenin described as “useful idiots,” referring to leftist intellectuals in the West sympathetic to Marxist socialism despite its abysmal failures and atrocities. Now we have our “useful idiots” on the pseudo-right in the form of the Never Trumpers. These pearl-clutchers and malcontents, closet socialists and soft-progressives, are every bit as despicable as the leftist followers they once decried. They cover themselves in shame.

Dr. Richard Moss is a board certified head and neck cancer surgeon and was a candidate for Congress in 2016 and 2018. He has been in practice in Jasper and Washington, IN for over 20 years. He has written A Surgeon’s Odyssey and Matilda’s Triumph available on amazon.com. Find more of his essays at richardmossmd.com. Visit Richard Moss, M.D. on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

See this publication in: Intellectual Takeout and Western Journal

The Battle and Glory of Tennis

Mon, 29 Aug 2022 13:53:19 GMT

It was not a sport I grew up with, being, as it was, well beyond the financial ken of my struggling family back in the Bronx. And there were not many tennis courts anyway in those crowded, teeming neighborhoods. I accommodated myself early to the three working class sports that we could afford: baseball, basketball, and football, and so knew nothing of tennis.

The first inkling of my abiding ignorance occurred watching my son on the Junior Varsity at the Jasper High School. The system and language of keeping score and determining winners was, I thought, inscrutable, and I spent the first couple of years catching up with the vast chasms in my grasp of the sport. I soon learned of singles, doubles, ones, twos, and, of course, the very bizarre scoring method, such as “love” (for “zero”), fifteen, thirty, and forty (points one through three), “deuce,” “set point,” tie breaker, and so on, all quite alien to someone who grew up knowing only of the New York Yankees and the peculiar traditions of our national pastime.

There were also tennis lessons, which seemed interminable. In baseball, football, or basketball, one didn’t have “lessons,” rather one just played. Not so tennis. In this sport, lessons apparently were required if one wanted to be “good.” Between the year-round lessons and tournaments, the time requirements were not insubstantial. My weekends no longer belonged to me, nor my summers. And, if one’s children were also involved in marching band, well then there was no such thing as a free weekend or summer - ever.

There was the “tennis family:” the other boys, the coaches, parents, and their families. This, too, was novel. Overnight, I grew a much larger family. And we saw each other regularly, especially during the season. And this became the family of my son too. He swore fealty and allegiance to them.

The physical training requirements of tennis were not insignificant. Cardiovascular fitness was a must if one were to endure those long, grueling matches. Especially singles. Tennis was demanding not just in terms of skill, nuance, and artistry, but equally so in endurance, quickness, and power. And so, I observed a pudgy kid become lean, swift, and very strong.

There was also the crucial element of will. In all of sports, there was, I thought, nothing as punishing as singles tennis; facing one another across that vast, green expanse, the two gladiators thrashed one another remorselessly, each swing a titanic effort, pouring one’s full measure into the return, struggling savagely even for a single point, a form of brutal, hand to hand combat, only across a court and using a ball and racket instead of a lance or sword. And here too I watched an often distracted child become focused, intense, and able to muster great force of will and determination.

The early morning matches in late summer and early fall were spectacular. There were the warm ups, announcements, introductions, and anthem, which were stirring; before us, then, appeared the broad savannahs of sparkling, emerald courts, marked off in white, the braided nets rimmed in ivory, the black and red score cards, which we watched breathlessly to determine who was ahead; so splendid a meadow, as I had never beheld, all residing beneath a canopy of blue and an ascending sun, radiant like a medallion; here, young men battled, with honor and mastery, they, the pride of their families and schools, the best of their year; yes, these were sublime moments.

Then came the sectionals, regionals, semi-state, and state in Indianapolis. There was a separate track for One Singles and One Doubles, and my young ward and his neighbor represented our school and community with passion and flair, falling in the end only to mighty Carmel, a large school, finishing at number two in the state. Yes, a disappointment for them, but for me an accomplishment that ranks amongst my most cherished memories as a parent.

Tennis is an elite sport, a bracing, yet gentlemanly form of competition that, perhaps more than any other, is won or lost as much in the minds of the players as on the field; it requires fanatical focus, intensity, and drive; and on the court, particularly for singles, it is based squarely on the individual. It is competition at its most elevated, sport at its most ideal, both transcendent and exacting, equally athletic and cerebral.

Like any endeavor, it stands on a platform of strong families, personal responsibility, discipline, and initiative. It is a microcosm of what is good in our fair city, and in many such communities around the country; it is here also wherein lies the hope for the future; for this is the story of a vibrant and robust civil society, of intact and healthy families, good schools and churches, this, even as the nation spirals into insolvency and decay. It is from such positive values and strong local institutions that the country will be saved, if it is to be saved at all.

I salute our school, its students, coaches, and faculty, its traditions and history, and the many opportunities it provides for our sons and daughters to mature, succeed, and become leaders.

See this publication in: American Thinker

Dr. Richard Moss is a board-certified head and neck cancer surgeon practicing in Jasper, Indiana for more than 30 years. He was a candidate for Congress in 2016 and 2018. He has written A Surgeons's Odyssey and Matilda's Triumph available at amazon.com. Find more of his essays at richardmossmd.com. Visit Richard Moss, M.D. on Facebook, Twitter, Parler, GAB, Gettr, Truth Social, and Instagram.

Why Country Bumpkins Will Win the Day

Mon, 18 Jul 2022 18:26:11 GMT

My neighbors hunt. These so-called “country bumpkins” can survive in the forest, hills, lakes, and rivers here in Indiana. They understand the world of nature, its vicissitudes and barbarism. Appreciating its transcendent beauty and cadences, they also accept its fierce cruelties.

These country bumpkins do not worship nature. Rather, they seek reconciliation with it, desiring that their loved ones may endure and be protected. They admire the natural world, its towering majesty and microscopic complexity, but their admiration is a realistic appraisal of nature and its vagaries.

It is these country bumpkins, these hicks and rubes, that society refers to as “deplorables,” the ones clinging to their Bibles and guns. But what many don’t realize is that when push comes to shove, it is these deplorables that will win the day as society declines.

Coming from the Bronx, I was acquainted with riding the subway or bus or navigating the busy and often treacherous streets of New York. I learned to survive in the city, but I knew nothing of hunting, fishing, or surviving in nature, for coastal elites have disdain for those schooled in such things.

Coastal elites assume that food, water, and other necessities and amenities just appear. They lack awareness of the complex grids, structures, and platforms that maintain their comforts. They don’t understand the sources of electricity which power their computers and air-conditioning, nor the gasoline that fuels their cars. Furthermore, they do not appreciate those who make these daily, secular miracles of electronic civilization possible. The country bumpkins, however, do understand these things.

Many Hoosiers preserve food. Some steam or pressure can, dehydrate, pickle, freeze-dry, smoke, or salt items. Because they’re farming experts, they know how to cope with caterpillars, aphids, and cutworms, while also guarding against hedgehogs, fungi, and lack of rain.

Some of these country bumpkins have gas tanks and generators. They have water filters, propane stoves, purifying tablets, first-aid kits, pickup trucks, drills, hammers, and wrenches. They can repair a car, a machine, or a leaking pipe. And yes, they also know how to install Wi-Fi, use computers, navigate the internet, and operate smartphones.

These country bumpkin neighbors of mine have guns and ammunition. Defenders of the Second Amendment, many are veterans, well-trained individuals who serve in the national guard or law enforcement. They have shotguns, bolt action rifles, AR-10s, and other semi-automatics. They own handguns and an array of ammunition, including expanding, home defense rounds.

These country bumpkins use their knowledge of firearms to hunt duck, quail, and deer. They have night vision devices, tree stands, bows, arrows, camouflage, trail cameras, scents, GPS devices, and two-way radios. Floating down a river or walking the fields, they recognize the rhythms of the animals they track and pursue, their migration and trail patterns, driven by the weather, mating seasons, and food sources.

Some love to fish. Equipped with bait, rods, reels, nets, and spears, they cast for bluegill, catfish, and carp.

In essence, these country bumpkins know and can navigate a completely different world from the city dwellers who look down on them.

City dwellers only know how to get their food from a grocery store or online ordering service. They are ignorant of nature, although some worship it in a paganistic way, but would abhor it if they actually had to live in it.

Global warming concerns these city dwellers, though none would change their lifestyle to reduce their carbon footprint. They are uninformed of historical climate patterns: the solar cycles that drive the weather, the ice ages and interglacial periods that occurred well before the industrial age. They blindly accept the panicked predictions of global climate models, not bothering to investigate whether they are flawed.

Hunters, fishermen, food preservers, and preppers do not idolize the environment. They just respect it. Such people, often blue-collar workers—the farmers, oil workers, mechanics, and coal miners—make the lives of the urbanites possible. They provide them with power, goods, food, and water that they may live and sneer.

These metropolitans, gentry liberals, and globalists dwell in leftist coastal ecosystems, having their opinions confirmed daily by everyone around them. Predictable and conformist, they hilariously imagine themselves wild and free, and look down at those who know so much of nature and can live and flourish in the wild.

But if the power grid went down from a solar event or an EMP (electromagnetic pulse) device, or if the economy collapsed, the denizens of flyover country would survive. The sophisticated urbanites? Not so much.

They would soon realize that their clever turns of phrase, condescending smirks, allegiance to “diversity,” abortion, and rejection of God would mean nothing before the fury of nature and nature’s God. Their fatal conceits would vanish in terrified moments as nature delivered its cruel blows. Their high-minded rhetoric, progressive orthodoxy, navel-gazing, and self-absorption would dissolve before the acid rain of Gaia’s indifferent wrath. The financiers, media types, and hip Marxist professors would not do well. The anointed ones, the ruling class, and other pompous visionaries would descend to savagery in a war of all against all.

But the country bumpkins would get by. Some may not even blink an eye, for they already anticipated this and spent their lives preparing.

In the COVID age, with the economy and other societal fixtures crumbling, the rootless cosmopolitans may want to reconsider their contempt for country bumpkins. What is certain is that our elites, cloistered in liberal ghettoes amongst fellow members of the chattering class, would not survive without the welders, assembly line workers, and equipment operators. They should thank those whom they refer to as hicks, rubes, and deplorables.

But don’t hold your breath.

See this publication in: Intellectual Takeout

richardmossmd.com or Richard Moss, M.D. on Facebook, YouTube, Rumble, Twitter, Parler, Gab, Gettr, TruthSocial, and Instagram.

It Is Time to Overturn Obergefell

Mon, 18 Jul 2022 15:38:51 GMT

With the overturning of Roe v. Wade in the recent Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization opinion, the Supreme Court ended the recognition of a constitutional right to abortion and returned the matter to the states, where it has always belonged. With this, it is reasonable to reconsider the Obergefell decision of 2015, which legalized homosexual marriage throughout the land. Obergefell v. Hodges, decided June 26, 2015, in a split 5-4 decision (Anthony Kennedy joined with the four liberal justices), determined that same sex couples had a fundamental right to marry based on the Due Process Clause and the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution.

Here too, as in Roe V. Wade, unelected lawyers in black robes, functioning as a supreme legislature, acting against our nation’s history, culture, and traditions, imposed upon the land, the fifty states and their democratically elected legislatures, and more than 300 million people, a mandate to redefine the most fundamental institution in society. What was at issue here, however, was not due process or equal protection, which our constitution guarantees, but redefining an institution that in five thousand years of human history, has always required sexual complementarity. The decision undermined all notions of federalism, states’ rights, the Constitutional order, and basic democratic practice. Determining the nature of marriage is not mentioned in the Constitution. Deciding its definition is not a power of the federal government. It is left to the states and the people. This is not government by law or democratic process but by judicial decree.

No body of five unelected lawyers, regardless of the status of that body, even the Supreme Court of the United States, should have the power to decide and redefine for a nation the nature and definition of an institution, especially one so unalterably crucial to that society. In Loving v. Virginia, in 1967, the court properly decided that anti-miscegenation laws were unconstitutional based on the equal protection clause, thus allowing interracial marriage. In that decision, there was no attempt to redefine marriage. It simply removed an unconstitutional impediment to interracial marriage, a violation of the 14th amendment; but it did not alter the nature of marriage nor the requirement for sexual complementarity.

“Gay marriage” is not a “right” but an alteration of a sacred and critical institution, that of marriage. Beyond that, the notion of “gay marriage” is irrational, an oxymoron. Gays cannot marry because they are sexually the same. Whether they love one another and plan to spend the rest of their lives together does not matter. Marriage cannot be twisted, bent, or folded to suit personal preferences. A proper understanding of

marriage falls outside the realm of “rights,” for it is a descriptive term, a matter of logic, natural law, and biology. Marriage, by definition, is between opposite sexes and must be as such. Sexual complementarity has always been a requirement of marriage, and the reasons are not difficult to fathom. They are rooted in biology, and we are, in the end, biological creatures.

two houses of humanity, male and female, unite to bring children into the world.

To recognize gay marriage (and all other “models” that would follow) would blur the significance of traditional marriage, desanctify and weaken it, and render it just another life style choice. Already a battered and weakened institution, marriage should be bolstered and upheld, privileged and elevated. While gays enjoy the right to free speech, due process, and equal treatment before the law, there is no “right” to transform fundamental institutions to suit elite tastes or enhance gay self-esteem. Society must

tolerate gays but is not obligated to endorse their activities or goals.

“feminism,” and, more recently, transgenderism) is but another arrow in its quiver by which to undermine society, to fracture and uproot its time-honored institutions, and, particularly, to chip away at that great bulwark against collectivism, the traditional family.

Obergefell was also an assault not just on Christianity but all faiths, our culture, and on American civilization, which is based on the Judeo-Christian tradition. It was an attack on common sense, federalism, separation of powers, and the constitutional order. We live in a post-constitutional age, under attack by the progressive (regressive) Left that seeks to flip our culture on his head, and to undermine the two great impediments to centralized government, the traditional married family and the church. These are the twin pillars of the civil society, which stand between the individual and the central government.

Obergefell was another salvo of the sexual revolution and its war on the family and Christianity. Abortion, radical feminism, gay marriage and now transgenderism are all of piece. But five leftist judges cannot redefine marriage. It remains a union between a man and a woman, an organic institution based on nature and biology that precedes the political order. Its purpose is to civilize the mating process and to provide the best environment for children to grow in. It is about creating new life. It is not about validating the adult relationship of your choice or satisfying elite opinion. We must defend traditional marriage. It is time to overturn Obergefell.

Richard Moss, M.D., a board-certified surgeon, was a candidate for Congress in 2016 and 2018. He has written “A Surgeon’s Odyssey” and “Matilda’s Triumph,” available on amazon.com. Contact him at richardmossmd.com or Richard Moss, M.D. on Facebook, YouTube, Rumble, Twitter, Parler, Gab, Gettr, Truth Social, and Instagram.

Against Modern Day Pharaohs

Wed, 20 Apr 2022 15:45:10 GMT

With spring on its way and the world moving on from COVID, I was looking forward to attending the Passover Seder at the temple my family and I have attended for some 30 years. We have been less involved as the children have gotten older, but I wanted to reunite with old friends and celebrate our Festival of Freedom together.

Before committing, however, I inquired if the temple required masks. Happily, it did not. Alas, there was another catch: all Seder attendees needed proof of vaccination, meaning that the celebration was off-limits for my family.

Passover is one of the central holidays of the Jewish calendar. At Passover we celebrate the Exodus, the event in which Judaism’s greatest prophet, Moses, was called by God to deliver His people, the children of

Israel, from Egyptian bondage after 400 years of slavery. We recall the 10 plagues God imposed on Egypt and its ruler, Pharaoh, to break his will and force him to let the Israelites go. Yet in the midst of our great Festival of Freedom celebrating release from the harmful edicts of Pharaoh, the temple was imposing its own misguided decrees upon those who wanted to celebrate the holiday with fellow Jews. It seems they have joined with other modern-day Pharaohs.

Today’s Pharaohs shut down our economy, destroyed businesses and jobs, locked our children out of school, and forced us to social distance, quarantine, test, and mask. They censored and canceled those who

disagreed, they stole our medical freedom, and suppressed therapeutics that could have saved lives. And as

my experience with the temple demonstrates, they have also pressured us to take a risky vaccine.

Much has been written about the vaccines, their experimental nature, their emergency use authorization, and their questionable efficacy, especially as the virus continues to mutate. The adverse events associated with the vaccine—including death and serious life-threatening conditions concern many. Since the vaccine was released in December of 2020, the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) credits nearly 27,000 deaths, more than 217,000 serious injuries, and some 1.2 million adverse events as a result of

the vaccines. Even with these disastrous outcomes, we are still accounting for only a fraction of vaccine-

related injuries, because of underreporting. All this from a vaccine for an illness with a survival rate of 99.95

percent—or better than the seasonal flu—for healthy individuals under 70.

Despite these vaccinations and their subsequent boosters, many are still infected by the virus, spread

it, require hospitalization and ICU admission, and die of COVID. International numbers paint a particularly

dismal picture. In the U.K., 77 percent of COVID deaths in those over 70 are triple-vaccinated, while 80 percent of severe cases in Israel are among the fully vaccinated.

By contrast, the continent of Africa has a low vaccination rate (11 percent) but far lower rates of COVID

deaths than the U.S. and other advanced nations, all of which are heavily vaccinated. Nigeria, for example, has vaccinated roughly 8 percent of its 200 million population. It has a COVID death rate of 15 per million, while the U.S. has a death rate of more than 3,000, one of the worst in the world.

Then there is the matter of natural immunity, which is far more durable and robust than the weak,

transient immunity obtained from the vaccines. More than 40 percent of Americans—including my

family—have already had the virus. Given this information, one wonders why the Temple would require

previously infected individuals to have the vaccine before attending.

Another important point to consider is that the vaccine is still experimental, rushed through the

approval process in the midst of a pandemic and without the benefit of long-term studies. It generally takes

four to six years to bring a vaccine to market. What safeguards were bypassed in the rush to produce a vaccine for COVID? Early release of the data from clinical trials by the FDA (initially to be hidden for 75 years until reversed by a court order) showed that there were more than 1200 deaths in the Pfizer roll out, among other significant issues. That alone should have prevented the vaccine from ever being released to the public.

We know that the original COVID viral strain that likely emerged from the Wuhan Institute of Virology

in China—with funding from our own National Institutes of Health—has mutated multiple times. The current

COVID strain is several generations removed from the original, making the vaccines outdated and ineffective

against Omicron. Indeed, they have negative efficacy.

But even if the ineffectiveness and harm of the vaccines wasn’t an issue, there is still the critical matter

of medical freedom, bodily autonomy, and the right of individuals to choose which medicine or treatment

people wish to take. This is particularly so under the circumstances of an experimental vaccine. Does not the temple agree that individuals, made in the image of God and blessed with powers of reason, should have ultimate authority over which medicines or gene therapies they introduce into their bodies? One would think that, given our knowledge of the medical experimentation carried out on fellow Jews in Nazi death camps by Josef Mengele, it would be considered immoral to mandate individuals take any medicine, vaccine, or gene therapy as a condition for attending a religious service.

Finally, I asked my temple what Moses would say to today’s Pharaohs. How would Moses respond to a

temple that mandated a vaccine as a condition for attending a Seder? “Let my people go,” Moses would say, as he said to the Pharoah.

“Let my people go to our Festival of Freedom, our feast of unleavened bread, to celebrate our redemption, our liberation from slavery and tyrants, at our Seder with fellow Jews, free of mandates, lockdowns, closures, and wicked decrees.” Let my people go were the words of Moses and have been the words of the Jewish people since.

We all should embrace those words.

See this publication in: Intellectual Takeout , Indiana Policy Review

richardmossmd.com or Richard Moss, M.D. on Facebook, YouTube, Rumble, Twitter, Parler, Gab, Gettr,

TruthSocial, and Instagram.

When A Medical Newsletter Goes “Woke”: We’ve Had Enough

Wed, 02 Mar 2022 16:31:44 GMT

The woke are a uniquely pestilential force in the nation and surely lacking in good taste, but one generally does not expect them to appear in what is ostensibly an ENT (Ear Nose and Throat) Newsletter. Alas, Leftism is religion for the godless, and so they manifest in the most bizarre settings, serving their fundamentalist creed like any believer. I took note of some mischief in my corner of the universe and responded in writing.

To the Editor: “In multiple issues over the last couple years, and, particularly, post George Floyd, the editorial staff at ENT Today decided that an ENT publication should, along with providing ENT information, also promote and advocate for woke leftist ideology. 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 , 6 , 7 We are already bombarded by this every day and everywhere, in our schools, colleges, the media, Hollywood, professional sports, corporate America, Big Tech, Wall Street, the Democratic Party and to a lesser extent, even the GOP. It only stands to reason that our cultural betters at ENT Today would feel compelled to educate us on wokeness as well.

I would ask the enlightened leftist wokesters at ENT Today if there is no bastion where we can be free of woke, race-baiting politics, the demonization of America, the racialization & balkanization of the country, the destructive reduction of the nation from a land of free individuals, possessed of God-given inalienable rights, to a nation of warring ‘identity groups’ or tribes based on race, sex, ethnicity, and sexual orientation? Is it possible for you to spare us the racial taunts, insults, diatribes, and accusations? Must you lecture us on “systemic racism”, “white privilege,” and “diversity, equity, and inclusion” in an ENT Journal? Is there not enough of that already, across the fruited plain? Does the notion of a color-blind meritocracy not ring a bell somewhere in the misty caverns of your woke corpus callosums? Do the words of a famous black preacher, who once spoke of a nation where Americans will “not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content on their character,” no longer measure up?

Why not stick to your mission of sharing ENT information, which heretofore you performed admirably, and dispense with the cult-Marxism?

You may enjoy virtue-signaling, but you do not help blacks and other minorities by continually picking at the scabs of our racial history. Slavery has been universal and present throughout time. It exists today, including in Africa and elsewhere. This may surprise you, but it was not an invention of the United States. Only one nation fought a war to end it – this one.

Minorities do quite well in “racist” America. To be able to live in America is a dream for “people of color” around the world; to have that privilege is to have won life’s lottery. Many risk life and limb to come to “racist” America. It is not America’s fault if there are not identical outcomes for all racial and other identity groups. That’s called “life.” Even within a given family, same genes, same upbringing, there are often gaping disparities, let alone in a nation of 350 million from every walk of life, culture, and nation on earth. Many Blacks, Hispanics, Asians, Gays, Muslims, Women, and so on, are very successful, very wealthy, very influential in “racist” America. Many minorities living here, including from Cambodia, Korea, Pakistan, Bolivia, Iran, Taiwan, India, the Philippines, and many others, enjoy higher per-capita income in “racist” America than whites. We have had, in case you missed it, a black President and now a black Vice President.

How does that happen in a “systemically racist” country?

The answer is we are not systemically racist.

The existence of disparities between races does not mean “systemic racism,” but other factors, such as culture, social dysfunction (high rates of out of wedlock childbirth, educational failure, criminality, incarceration, all particularly high amongst blacks), bad choices, self-selection, and preference. We have equality of opportunity and treatment before the law. Not equal outcomes. Equal outcomes or “equity” has a name. It’s called communism. North Korea may be the model you are seeking.

No one questions, for example, that there are few Asians, Hispanics, or even whites, relatively speaking, in the NBA. Because we recognize that the selection of players by the various teams is meritocratic, as it should be. Blacks are better at basketball, by and large. It is not questioned. Every disparity in outcome does not imply fault or indict the society. Perhaps the group may be to blame, or perhaps it merely reflects individual differences, self-selection, or preference? There are many more female nurses and teachers than males, for example. Does that imply misandry? Absurd. There are many more men in our military than women. Does that imply misogyny? Ridiculous. Precise proportional representation in a nation this diverse is not possible nor desirable.

I would recommend that you save your lectures for left-wing, “woke” friends and colleagues in your private time, and relieve us of your balkanizing, predictable, and monotonous sermons. And, by the way, spare us other leftist shibboleths as well, such as “climate change.” Puhleease…

Steer clear of it. We have quite enough of it already. It is ubiquitous. It does not belong in an ENT newsletter. If you want to affect politics write a column for the New York Times or run for office.

I do not expect you to make pro-Trump, pro-MAGA pronouncements, or call for secure borders, locking up criminals, fracking, or to abolish abortion. It is not your place to do so. Similarly, I do not expect you to drive a divisive, anti-American, leftist agenda, offensive, I would imagine, to the majority of your readers.

You have unnecessarily politicized what was otherwise an excellent ENT journal. A shame. I would recommend you scale it back totally and stick to ENT. However self-righteous and virtuous you may feel in doing so, your polemics are distasteful to me and, I suspect, many others. Cut out the race, gender, diversity nonsense, and spare us the politics.”

I sent this to the Editor and staff at ENT Today along with some 40 odd members of the advisory board. Not surprisingly, I heard not a word. Humility and acceptance of wrongdoing is not a trait of leftists, besotted as they are with their secular faith. But, at least, they have heard. Better that than to continue in their stuporous path, oblivious to how drunken they are in their misbegotten ideology.

See this publication in: Western Journal

richardmossmd.com or Richard Moss, M.D. on Facebook, YouTube, Rumble, Twitter, Parler, Gab, Gettr, TruthSocial, and Instagram.

Resisting COVID Tyranny

Tue, 30 Nov 2021 20:02:09 GMT

The following statement was sent to me and other members of the medical staff at a local hospital in October 2021 by its Executive Committee after approval at a Medical Staff meeting:

“In early September, the Federation of State Medical Boards, as well as the American Board of Family Medicine, American Board of Internal Medicine, and American Board of Pediatrics, issued a statement about vaccine misinformation. They stated that providing misinformation about the Covid-19 vaccine contradicts physicians’ ethical and professional responsibilities, and therefore may subject a physician to disciplinary action, including suspension or revocation of their medical license.

In support of this position, the Medical Staff voted to issue the following statement:

We believe that distribution of COVID-19 vaccine misinformation by a physician or advance practice provider via any means is contrary to the known science and the best interests of patients. Such conduct is also inconsistent with our standard and those practitioners may be subject to Medical Staff action…”

It is no small thing to imperil a physician’s livelihood, practice, medical license, and family over differences of opinion regarding optimal treatment for a particular condition. That, however, is precisely what this hospital and medical staff through its Executive Committee has done. Specifically, they threatened physicians with “disciplinary action including suspension or revocation of their medical license” for the crime of “[distributing]… Covid-19 vaccine misinformation.”

There are intense debates surrounding the vaccine, its efficacy, how long the immunity lasts, particularly as the virus evolves, its experimental nature, its “Emergency Use Authorization,” and its serious side effects and adverse reactions, including death, that have been well documented. Many who have already been vaccinated still contract and spread the virus and fall ill from it. Tens of millions of Americans, previously infected, have “natural immunity,” which is far broader and more durable, and do not require the vaccine. The recovery rate for patients under seventy and in good health is 99.95%, better than the flu, and many choose not to get the vaccine for varying reasons, including risk-benefit analysis, concerns over potential complications, religious and medical objections, or personal choice. Patients under age 18 have far more risk from the vaccine than from Covid, for example. There have been some 17,000 deaths attributable to the vaccine, of all ages, but many believe that the numbers are much higher, even as much as 150,000, along with other serious complications such as thromboembolic phenomena, myo-endo-pericarditis, menstrual irregularities, stroke, myocardial infarction, and others.

Further, the various vaccines are not “vaccines” as commonly understood but “gene therapy,” mRNA platforms that insert themselves into our DNA. They then harness our own cellular machinery to produce the famous “spike protein” to be distributed throughout the body eliciting the immune response, but sometimes with devastating consequences, as we have learned. A vaccine generally takes 4-6 years of development before being released and that for the Covid vaccine to have come out in just a few months meant bypassing the usual safeguards that serve to protect the public before a new drug or vaccine is brought to market. Further, the principle of “bodily integrity” or “bodily autonomy,” or the right to do what we wish with our bodies (within reason), is settled law in this country based on a number of Supreme Court decisions, including Cruzan, Griswold, Casey, Loving, Rowe, and others. Beyond that, the right to one’s own “personhood,” the right to the possession and control of one’s own body and person, free of restraint or interference, including the right to breathe freely and unmasked or the right to choose notto receive a medicine or vaccine, is as foundational as the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The right to self-govern and the freedom to choose is implied in our constitution and, hence, a constitutional right. Beyond that, it is a God-given, natural right.

There is also much discussion about the optimal treatment for Covid, the use of therapeutics, and the questionable logic of mass vaccination, particularly, of a “leaky” vaccine, in the teeth of a pandemic. Such an approach may select out for a “super bug,” highly transmissible, that easily evades the uniform and less robust immunity derived from the Covid vaccine. Science evolves swiftly as new data and research arrive, even on a daily basis. What may be “science” or “truth” one day may be found incorrect and false the next. Further, the issue of Covid, lockdowns, school closures, masks, and the vaccine itself have become heavily politicized. “Science” has been recruited in some quarters to pursue a particular political agenda; hence, it is not “science” so much as “political science.”

All of this is to raise the question: What, exactly, is “misinformation,” who decides, and who is responsible for “distributing” it? We may, with time, be surprised at the answers to these questions. Perhaps, we will find that it is the large pharmaceutical companies and their allies in government, the media, and elsewhere? Is this essay “misinformation?” Will my privileges and license be revoked for writing it?

This “statement” threatens and intimidates those who may disagree with the received wisdom from the public health and medical establishment. It silences free and open debate regarding best practices for Covid, including the use of the vaccine, even when there is legitimate disagreement. It chills honest discussion and sincere, worthwhile professional exchange and differences of opinion. This “statement” suppresses healthy skepticism, discourages counterargument, quashes dissension, critical in a free society and for the scientific enterprise. It leads to outright censorship and intimidation of authentic interlocutors who differ in their medical opinions. It represents, therefore, an attack on free speech and our First Amendment. It is an assault, as well, on reasonable scientific inquiry and examination. It is, in a word, tyranny.

Hence, it is unwise, unsound, and unscientific. It is also unconstitutional and un-American. It is unworthy of the medical profession, the scientific process, and this great nation. It should be repealed immediately.

I communicated in writing these identical sentiments with the President and other members of the medical staff, executive committee, executive team, and board of directors. There has been no response nor did I expect one. They have already indicted themselves with their “statement.” They are complicit with evil and unlikely to alter their position.

The Public Health and Medical establishment and their allies in government and the media have done horrendous harm to the nation with 19 months of “misinformation” and disastrous policies, including the lockdowns, school closures, quarantining, and mask and other mandates, none of which had any effect on the trajectory of the virus. Instead, they have inflicted enormous collateral damage on society far worse than the virus itself. The medical establishment have refused to recommend or offer early treatment and therapeutics, sacrificing tens of thousands of lives that could have been saved. Now, they push a very questionable and experimental “vaccine” upon the nation including children who have little risk from the virus. They have regrettably subsumed themselves to the interests of pharmaceutical companies and others.

History will judge this to be medicine’s darkest hour. It will rank among the worst of medical atrocities and genocides. What is telling and tragic is that the rot of official medicine has spread not only to its commanding institutions, but to local hospitals and medical staffs.

See this publication in: American Thinker , Citizen Sentinels Network , The Official VIP News

Richard Moss, M.D., a board-certified surgeon, was a candidate for Congress in 2016 and 2018. He has written “A Surgeon’s Odyssey” and “Matilda’s Triumph,” available on amazon.com. Contact him at richardmossmd.com or Richard Moss, M.D. on Facebook, YouTube, Rumble, Twitter, Parler, Gab, Gettr, and Instagram.

Against Masking Our Children: My Experience With A Local School Board

Fri, 12 Nov 2021 15:29:22 GMT

“Fifteen days to flatten the curve,” the first of many COVID lies, has become nineteen months to flatten the country. Indeed, the collateral damage from the lockdowns and other devastations visited upon us by the regime have far exceeded the costs of the COVID virus itself. But in a largely secular nation, many of our countrymen have found a new religion, the religion of COVID. Like all religions, it has its sacraments. The COVID sacraments include the vaccine and the mask, and the docile worship of Anthony Fauci, the grand Mufti of the Public Health establishment.

Masking in general is an abomination, but masking school children is particularly egregious. Given the ideologic challenges at the federal and, often, state level, it is at the local level where we may be most successful at exerting influence regarding COVID policies. It is through such grassroots activism that we may preserve our rapidly deteriorating nation or, at least, create safe zones or “sanctuaries.” In the wake of the turmoil surrounding the Loudoun County (Virginia) school board and elsewhere, I, thus, share my experience with my local school board on the matter of masks.

I presented my case against masking school children before the school board on three occasions, in May, July, and September of 2021. In May, the governor of the state of Indiana (Eric Holcomb) had lifted the statewide mask mandate but not for schools. I called each of the members of the board and the superintendent in advance of the May meeting, urging them to lift the mask mandate for the school as well. At the meeting, I explained that school age children were virtually invulnerable to COVID but the ones most traumatized and adversely affected by masks. By rights (and the “science”), if we were to lift the mask mandate in stages (I preferred lifting it completely), it should have been children first. The board though was unwilling to challenge the state, and the children remained masked until the end of the school year.

In July, the pandemic seemed to be ebbing. I spoke again before the board and urged them to prepare for the inevitable surges in COVID cases that would come later in the year. I asked them to resist the temptation to institute further mask mandates. I explained that we had never enacted such policies before COVID despite the many instances of infectious diseases far more deadly to children that have come and gone through the years. We should, I advised, reject masking children as a “new normal.” Rather, we should return to the “old normal” and never mask again. The next surge, as it happened, would arrive not in months but weeks in the form of the “Delta variant.” Predictably, with the start of classes, they issued a mask mandate.

In September, I sent a letter (below) to each of the school board members in advance and spoke again at the meeting. The written statement was important, because dozens of local doctors and nurse practitioners had sent a letter urging the school to - amazingly - mask the children. It was, therefore, vital to have a physician (myself) counter their arguments formally, in writing and with references.

Herewith, then, as an example of such efforts, my letter to a local school board against mandatory masking and in support of a voluntary mask policy.

Dear Board Members and Superintendent:

We have all experienced the calamity of the COVID pandemic over the last 18 months. Far more devastating, however, has been our reaction to it. 1,2,3 The lockdowns, shutdowns, shelter-in-place, school closures, social distancing, quarantining, testing, contact tracing, and masking have had little effect on the trajectory of the virus but have exacted an enormous price on all of us while conferring no advantage. Variants have now arrived, and they, too, will continue to mutate and spread, no different than influenza. There will be no returning to zero- COVID. We must accept this and take science-based, targeted 4,5 precautions without harming our economy, society, schools - and children. Indeed, the collateral damage, not of the virus but our reaction to it, has been far worse than the virus itself, a great self-inflicted wound. 6,7

But of all the examples of unintended ruin that have occurred, perhaps the most egregious has been from the masking of children. We have known from the beginning of the pandemic that the at-risk populations are the elderly and the sick, specifically those with significant co-morbidities. 8 If you are under 70 and healthy, you are relatively immune to COVID, with a recovery rate of 99.95%, greater than the flu for which we never undertook such excessive measures. For the 18 and under cohort, the risks are vanishingly small. A review of total deaths in children (under 18) in England following SARS-CoV-2 infection during the first pandemic year found a death rate in healthy children of 1 per 2 million cases. This cohort included 12 million children and showed an overall survival rate of 99.995%. 9 While the Delta variant has been more contagious in all age groups, including under age 18, the severity in children remains unchanged. 26

Children are also not spreaders, particularly when asymptomatic. They are blessed with robust immune systems and are able to fight off the virus promptly. Teachers face no increased risk of COVID from students. Schools have not increased the spread of COVID. 10

The mask, further, confers no benefits. Neither for children nor adults. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease (NIAID) director Dr. Anthony Fauci himself said as much in February of 2020 before reversing himself when it became politically expedient to do so. 11 Other high-level members of the medical establishment pre-politicization of COVID have also criticized the use of masks: “‘Seriously people—STOP BUYING MASKS!’ So tweeted then–surgeon general Jerome Adams on February 29, 2020, adding, ‘They are NOT effective in preventing the general public from catching #Coronavirus.’ World Health Organization (WHO) Health Emergencies Program executive director Mike Ryan, on March 30, 2020, said that ‘there is no specific evidence to suggest that the wearing of masks… has any particular benefit.’” 12

Masks, including N95 respirators, do not prevent the spread of infection including bacteria and far smaller viral particles. The N95 label states clearly that the mask will not “eliminate the risk of contracting infection, illness or disease.” 13,14 Surgical masks and commonly used cloth masks, often worn for weeks, are utterly ineffective and can themselves be sources of cutaneous and respiratory infection, as they are frequently contaminated not just by viruses but bacteria, fungi, and parasites. 15 Some contaminants are known pathogens including organisms causing pneumonia, TB, Lyme disease, food poisoning, meningitis, Staph infections, and others. 21

Large randomized controlled studies conducted before the age of COVID, and before masking became politicized, showed no benefit of N95s over surgical masks in protecting against the flu. “Among outpatient health care personnel, N95 respirators vs medical masks… resulted in no significant difference in the incidence of laboratory confirmed influenza.” 16 Medical masks are widely recognized as being ineffective in preventing the spread of viruses and so apparently are N95s.

In a review of fourteen randomly controlled studies 12 that examined the effectiveness of masks in preventing the transmission of respiratory viruses, eleven suggested that masks are either useless or counterproductive. One randomized control study found that cloth masks allowed 97% of particles through, and may actually increase the infection risk. 18

India had 81% mask compliance in February 2021 and cases soared 2966%. Cases peaked 2 weeks later and then went down. Two months into Israel’s reinstated mask mandate, cases are up 7970%. 17,19,20 Masks had no effect on the transmission of the virus.

Masking children causes a host of other health problems. These include claustrophobia, increased heart rate, dizziness, headaches, nausea, stress, skin infections, sinusitis, reduced immune resilience, lack of empathy, and increased emotional stress. There have been increases in self-harm, substance abuse, depression, anxiety, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and tics. 10,22,23,24,25

In summary, masks do nothing to prevent the spread of the virus in children or adults. They also have adverse effects and can themselves become contaminated and transmit deadly pathogens. Children remove, touch, and even trade masks. There is no reason to mask children - or anyone.

A voluntary mask policy may be appropriate given the level of misinformation and panic created by the media, medical establishment, and government, but never a forced mask mandate. Individual students may wear masks if they or their families choose. Other students should be able to attend school without masks. Based on the science and other valid reasons, I request that you end the mask mandate immediately. Please, stop masking our children!

Respectfully,

Richard Moss, MD

I included twenty-six citations in support of the points made in the letter, aka “the science.” The local school board, to their credit, and amidst opposition, agreed to implement a voluntary mask policy thus sparing our children, age five and above, the indignity and harm of forced masking eight hours a day, five days a week, ad infinitum. The pressure for a mask mandate however endures. We must remain vigilant.

November 2, 2021

See this publication in: American Thinker

richardmossmd.com or Richard Moss, M.D. on Facebook, YouTube, Rumble, Twitter, Parler, Gab, Gettr, TruthSocial, and Instagram.

1. David L. Katz, MD, MPH, FACM, FACP, FACLM, Is Our Fight Against the Corona Virus Worse than the Disease? There May Be More Targeted Ways to Beat the Pandemic, March 20, 2020, New York Times, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/20/opinion/coronavirus-pandemic-social-distancing.html

2. David L. Katz, MD, MPH, FACM, FACP, FACLM, Corona Virus Harm Minimization, Framework For Risk Based Interdiction for Corona Virus, https://davidkatzmd.com/coronavirus-information-and-resources/

3. David L. Katz, MD, MPH, FACM, FACP, FACLM https://davidkatzmd.com

4. Martin Kulldorff, PhD, Dr. Sunetra Gupta, Jay Bhattacharya, MD, PhD, Great Barrington Declaration https://gbdeclaration.org

5. Tom Woods, Covid Charts CNN Forgot, https://libertyclassroom.s3.amazonaws.com/cboyack.libertyclassroom/ebooks/ebook-enclosed_covid-charts-cnn-forgot.pdf

6. Richard Moss, MD, Red China’s Pearl Harbor, April 8, 2020, City County Observer, https://city-countyobserver.com/red-chinas-pearl-harbor/

7. Richard Moss, MD, When Red States Act Blue, May 14, 2020, VIP, http://www.theofficialvipnews.com/google2badecc5bb02684b.html/2020/05/14/when-red-states-act-blue-by-richard-moss-md/

8. Dave Bondy, CDC: 94% of Covid deaths had underlying medical conditions, August 30, 2020, ABC News, https://abcnews4.com/news/nation-world/cdc-94-of-covid-19-deaths-had-underlying-medical-conditions

9. Clare Smith, David Odd, Rachel Harwood, Joseph Ward, et al, Deaths in Children and Young People in England following SARS-CoV-2 infection during the first pandemic year: a national study using linked mandatory child death reporting data, pre-print, Research Square, https://www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-689684/v1

10. Rational Ground, July 30, 2021, Masks, Children, and Covid 19, Published Studies, https://rationalground.com/masks-children-and-covid-19-published-studies/

11. Ben Zeisloft, Five Different Mask Policies Held by Dr. Fauci in Eleven Months, February 11, 2021, Daily Wire, https://www.dailywire.com/news/the-5-different-mask-policies-held-by-dr-fauci-in-11-months

12. Jeffrey H. Anderson, Do Masks Work? A Review of the Evidence, August 11, 2021, City Journal, https://www.city-journal.org/do-masks-work-a-review-of-the-evidence

13. New York State, Department of Health, https://www.health.ny.gov/publications/2805/index.htm

14. Daniel Horowitz, No, N95 Masks Won’t Stop the Virus Either, August 12 2021, Blaze Media, https://www.theblaze.com/op-ed/horowitz-no-n95s-wont-stop-the-virus-either

15. Dr. Carla Peeters, Dr. Wim Vanden Berghe, Dr. Mattias Desmet, Rapid Response: Psychological, biological, and immunological risks for children and pupils make long-term wearing of masks difficult to maintain, September 9, 2020, BMJ, https://www.bmj.com/content/370/bmj.m3021/rr-6

16. Lewis Radonovich, Jr, MD, Michael S. Simberkoff, MD, Mary T. Bessesen, MD, et al, N95 Respirators vs Medical Masks for Preventing Influenza Among Health Care Personnel, A Randomized Clinical Trial, September 3, 2019, JAMA, https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2749214

17. @ianmSC, Well, how bout an N95 mask, then? No dif for Bavaria, August 23, 2021, Twitter.com, https://twitter.com/tk0383/status/1429939919754088453/photo/1

18. Chandini Raina Macintyre, Holly Seale, Dung Chi Tham, Nyguyen Duc Hein, et al, March 26, 2015, BMJ, https://www.researchgate.net/publication/275360639_A_cluster_randomised_trial_of_cloth_masks_compared_with_medical_masks_in_he althcare_workers

19. @ianmSC, Daily New Cases India, June 10, 2021, Twitter.com, https://twitter.com/ianmSC/status/1403059916458258434

20. @ianmSC, Two Months Into Israel’s Reinstated Mask Mandate Cases Are Up 7970%, August 23, 2021, Twitter.com https://twitter.com/ianmSC/status/1429855892120346632

21. Jennifer Cabrera, Dangerous Pathogens found on Children’s face masks, June 16, 2021, Rational Ground, https://rationalground.com/dangerous-pathogens-found-on-childrens-face-masks/\

22. Fair Health, White Paper: The Impact of Covid 19 on Pediatric Mental Health, March 2, 2021, Fair Health: Know Your Source, https://s3.amazonaws.com/media2.fairhealth.org/whitepaper/asset/The%20Impact%20of%20COVID- 19%20on%20Pediatric%20Mental%20Health%20-%20A%20Study%20of%20Private%20Healthcare%20Claims%20- %20A%20FAIR%20Health%20White%20Paper.pdf

23. Chughtai, A.A., Stelzer-Braid, S., Rawlinson, W. et al. Contamination by respiratory viruses on outer surface of medical masks used by hospital healthcare workers. BMC Infect Dis, https://doi.org/10.1186/s12879-019-4109-x

24. Daniel Horowitz, The Medical Field’s Immoral War on Children, July 12, 2021, Blaze Media, https://www.theblaze.com/op-ed/horowitz-the-medical-field-s-immoral-war-on-children

25. Richard Moss, MD, Hydroxychloroquine, Me, and the Great Divide, May 30, 2020, American Thinker, https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2020/05/hydroxychloroquine_me_and_the_great_divide.html 26. Melissa Jenco, CDC: Delta variant causing Increase in Covid-19 cases, not severity, September 3, 2021, AAP News, https://www.aappublications.org/news/2021/09/03/covid-delta-variant-children-hospitalizations-090321

There is no Moral Equivalence Between Palestinians and Israel

Mon, 24 May 2021 19:12:07 GMT

On May 14, 2018, the 70th anniversary of the birth of the state of Israel, a modern-day miracle, the U.S., under President Donald Trump, fulfilled a promise made by Congress in the 1995 Jerusalem Embassy Act, passed by a 95-3 vote in the Senate to move our embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, the eternal capital of the Jewish people. That bill, unfortunately, came with a presidential waiver, and every president since, including Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Hussein Obama, promised to move the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem but failed to do so. Only one, Donald Trump, a modern-day Cyrus and eternal friend of Israel and the Jewish people, kept his promise.

Simultaneously, 45 miles away from the festivities in Jerusalem, at the Gaza border with Israel, the so-called "March of Return," an annual event inaugurated in 1998 by arch-terrorist Yasser Arafat, had been going on for weeks and culminated on May 14. It commemorated what the Palestinians call the "Nakba" or "Catastrophe," their self-pitying reference to Israel's Independence Day. Fifty thousand Palestinians, most of them Hamas terrorists, attempted to breach the border with Israel for the purpose of killing or kidnapping Jews in neighboring Israeli villages. Women and children, the "human shields" Hamas is famous for, accompanied the marchers to maximize civilian casualties for the compliant press.

The peaceful marchers, as instructed, brought guns, knives, pipe bombs, and grenades and hid them under their clothing. They also brought fire kites to inflict damage on Israeli fields and crops. More than sixty of the invading Palestinian terrorists were killed at the border, dutifully reported with glaring split-screen images of the chaos in Gaza and the events in Jerusalem, designed to tarnish the embassy event, President Trump, and Israel.

Israel abandoned Gaza in 2005. Every Jew dead or alive, including those buried, was evacuated. Israel left behind elaborate greenhouses and other infrastructure and synagogues, all of which were destroyed in scenes reminiscent of Kristallnacht. In 2006, Palestinians in Gaza voted in Hamas over the Palestinian Authority. In June of 2007, Hamas launched its military takeover of Gaza, killing hundreds of its Muslim brothers in the Palestinian Authority by dragging them through the streets chained to cars, throwing them off roofs, and shooting them in the heads in front of their wives and children.

Hamas is a terrorist organization, recognized as such by the U.S. and the European Union. They call openly for the destruction of the state of Israel and do not recognize the right of Israel to exist within any borders. They are the Palestinian offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood and as such seek not the destruction of not only Israel but all of Christendom and Western civilization including the U.S. and the establishment of a global caliphate. Since taking over Gaza, they have done nothing to help their citizens build the institutions of a civil society, to promote normal democratic discourse, or to develop a free market economy, preferring instead welfare dependency based on international aid. In the process, they have inflicted great suffering on their citizens, running what is in effect an open-air prison state for 2 million people. There are high unemployment and poverty, poor sanitation, and inadequate health care. Gaza, with its proximity to Israel’s high-tech economy, ports, trade, beaches, and tourism, and a willingness by the nations of the world, business interests, and aid organizations to help them develop their private sector, should have been Singapore on the Mediterranean. Instead, it is Afghanistan. Israel blockades Gaza because Hamas is an Iranian-backed terrorist organization that engages in acts of terror. Hamas uses its assets and plentiful aid to build tunnels; fire missiles at Israeli civilians; and breach borders with armies of armed terrorists to kill, main, and kidnap. Egypt blockades Gaza for the same reason.

Israel is a first-world nation that provides for its citizens the highest standard of living in the Middle East, equivalent to that of Western Europe. It is an open democracy governed consensually by the rule of law, with human rights, free speech, religious freedom, a free press, and a world-class free-market economy. It boasts the best hospitals, universities, museums, and symphonies in the world and leads the planet in any number of cutting-edge technologies. Its more than one million Israeli-Arab citizens are the freest Muslims in the Middle East. None is interested in joining his Muslim brethren under the benighted Palestinian Authority or Hamas, preferring instead to keep his citizenship in the Jewish State — for good reason.

Hamas, on the other hand, like its secular terrorist counterpart in the West Bank (Judea and Samaria), the Palestinian Authority: corrupt, kleptocratic, genocidal extremists. Of all the nationalist movements around the world, the Palestinians, Hamas, or the P.A., are the least deserving of a state — and should not be given one. The world scarcely needs another dysfunctional terrorist regime. There is no difference between either of them and ISIS or al-Qaeda except that for "intersectional" and anti-Semitic purposes, they enjoy good press from a left-dominated media — as long as it is Jews engaging them.

The Assad regime, for example, in the ongoing Syrian Civil War, has killed thousands of Palestinians in the Yarmouk Refugee Camp in Damascus, the largest Palestinian refugee community in Syria, transforming it into a "death camp," engaging in wanton acts of barbarity far worse than anything Israel has ever committed. But you never hear about this because it involved Arabs killing Arabs — not Jews, and therefore of no interest to the left.

There is one card the Palestinian jihadists know they can always play. That is the support and positive spin of their egregious behavior by the international left, including the media, the E.U., the U.N., the U.S. Democrat party, and many liberal-leftist American Jews and their various anti-Zionist organizations (J Street, Jewish Voice for Peace, and many others).

They will discredit the Israelis, delegitimize them, hold them to an impossible standard, and continually advance the Hamas narrative of brutal IDF soldiers cutting down innocent, defenseless Palestinian Muslims — despite Israel having the most moral and honorable military in the world, one that goes well beyond any other fighting force to protect innocent life, often at huge costs to its own soldiers.

The media and their political functionaries thus create and perpetuate the crisis. By supporting the jihadist narrative, they encourage more of the same and avoid putting pressure on Palestinians to create a functioning, viable state. The media and the rest of the anti-Israel cabal can be relied on to defend genocidal Islamic terrorists.

Hamas sees dead Palestinians as a photo op. No media, no dead Palestinians. Yes, our media and their leftist allies have blood on their hands, rivers of blood, most of it Palestinian. It is they, not Israel, who prolong the agony, suffering, and death.

May 24, 2021

America in Crisis: A Red State Manifesto to Defend the Nation - And Our Rights

Thu, 22 Apr 2021 14:14:14 GMT

As the Left grows ever more aggressive and imperious, the Republican Party at the federal level remains as feckless as ever. It will fall to red states, therefore, to push back against the emerging socialist tyranny. The absurd hair on fire roll- out of leftist outrage regarding the modest election integrity law passed recently in Georgia is the latest example of leftist ascendancy and dominance over the nation and our institutions. Not only does the Left control the media, academia, Hollywood, professional sports, and Big Tech, but add to the list Wall Street and corporate America, all of whom now worship at the church of “wokeness.” As dysfunctional and corrupt as they may be, it is the Left that governs our nation and culture.

This comes alongside the Covid fascism that has paralyzed the nation, destroyed jobs and the economy, and attacked basic rights and civil liberties. They robbed us of the right to walk and breathe without physical encumbrances such as a mask, send our children to school, maintain our businesses and jobs, or attend church: all of it, mind you, for a lie, for none of the Covid measures have had any impact on the trajectory of the virus.

Covid, indeed, gave the Left the excuse it needed to clamp down on a passive people that has forgotten its legacy of liberty and independence.

There are, however, 30 states where republicans control both houses of the legislature, or 60% of the states, some overwhelmingly so. Twenty-three of those states enjoy the trifecta that includes the governors. Given the failure of the Republican party nationally, it falls to these solidly red states to defend the rule of law, our constitutional system, and our pre-political God-given, inalienable rights.

Herewith, a list of measures that red states should undertake to reclaim lost ground against the growing power of the Left, Covid-fascism, and useless RINOs that we may preserve the nation, or some part of it, and our way of life.

I would propose the following:

1. State legislatures shall call themselves into session at will, particularly when confronted with a tyrannical governor. Many state legislatures are part time, which befits the principle of limited government, something conservatives would generally approve of. In the context of unrelenting Covid-fascism, including in red states by Republican governors, and encroachments by the federal government, it is paramount that this be amended.

2. The state shall limit executive orders for emergency powers by governors to a single event and for not more than ten days. Extensions or further such orders shall require legislative approval.

3. The state shall declare and uphold the right of its citizens to freely assemble, worship (including in churches and homes), engage in free speech, to walk and breathe freely without encumbrance such as the wearing of masks, and to buy and sell and otherwise engage in commerce.

4. The state shall limit school closures to ten days. Further extensions shall require legislative approval.

5. The state shall end all mask mandates. It shall declare vaccination passports illegal including when imposed by corporations or other entities. When the state ends mask mandates, it shall render illegal for individual counties, cities, and towns to continue such mandates or pass their own mandates.

6. The state shall abolish all sweeping, universal powers of health departments at the state and county level. It shall be illegal for state or county health departments and directors to issue sweeping or universal mandates, force schools or businesses to close, or require the wearing of masks or other physical encumbrances, or impose quarantines. They may provide immunizations, public education, and guidelines, but shall have no authority to issue mandates, impose quarantines, or force universal closures of schools, businesses, houses of worship, including churches, temples, or homes, any private or public enterprise, or any category of business such as restaurants, bars, salons, movie theaters, gyms, or other. They shall have no authority to ban gatherings at social, cultural, religious, or sporting events, or to force schools, housed of worship, or other gathering places to close or impose mask or other mandates. Health departments may carry out standard inspections of restaurants and other facilities as prescribed by law, and target a specific business entity if negligent based on established protocols, but no authority beyond that. Health directors are not mini-dictators. They are paid employees of the county and state, serve at the pleasure of the public and its elected representatives, and readily terminated at the discretion of the state and county and their elected officers.

7. The state shall scrutinize all federal executive orders and laws. Any or some of them deemed unlawful and unconstitutional shall be nullified and declared null and void.

8. The state shall declare itself a sanctuary state for the Constitution, particularly the 1st and 2nd amendments, but its entirety. The citizens of the state and its government embrace freedom of assembly, worship, speech, and the press, freedom to petition the government, and to buy and sell, freedom from executive orders and sweeping mandates, including: mask mandates, vaccination passports, quarantines, and school and business closures, and general shutdowns. The state shall defend the right to bear arms, and freedom from unwarranted search and seizure.

9. The state shall refuse all so called “asylum” or “refugee” cases, shall refuse all such resettlement efforts in the state, as virtually none of so-called “refugees” are refugees by any definition but rather economic migrants that entered the nation illegally. They, rather, abuse the refugee/asylum system, as do many so-called charity/religious based organizations, law firms, and open-borders or other politicized advocacy groups. Refugee/asylum is intended for truly persecuted minorities, not those laboring under generalized poverty or crime in a particular country or area, which affects much of the world. They are not refugees and

should not be accorded refugee status or resettled here.

10. The state shall refuse the resettlement of illegal aliens, in general, to support or educate them in anyway, provide health care, other than emergency interventions, whether they declare themselves refugees or not. The state may send them to blue Democrat states that covet them, if there is a shared border. Red states on our southern border shall send such individuals back into Mexico. Given the lawless behavior of the federal government in failing to enforce federal immigration law, defend our sovereignty, secure our border, and protect Americans, the individual states shall themselves enforce the law and protect their borders, territory, and citizens.

11. The state shall end the teaching of racist theories including critical race theory and the “1619 Project,” which is a baseless, ahistorical, and polemical attack on the nation and its history, deliberately demeaning of the founding of the nation and its founding principles, and rejected as partisan, militant, and inaccurate by respected historians and intellectuals on both sides of the political spectrum, and other anti-American propaganda, in any publicly funded schools, universities, or colleges.

12. The state shall defund schools and universities, and school and college boards that indoctrinate students in leftist/Marxist/critical theories, race or otherwise, encourage hatred of a particular race, and hatred of America, the American founding, and our founding principles. The state encourages and actively supports schools, colleges, faculty, educational boards, curriculum advisors, superintendents and educational departments to educate, foster, and cultivate patriotism, assimilation, nationalism, love of country, loyalty to America and the glories of the founders, the founding, and our founding principles.

13. The state shall treat each citizen as an individual, equal before the law, regardless of race, color, creed, or national origin. There shall be no consideration of race, color, creed, or national origin in matters of law enforcement, criminal or civil justice, government benefits, admissions, hiring, contracts, or set asides. There shall be no quotas or preferential treatment based on race, color, creed, or national origin.

14. The state shall restore the integrity of election laws so we may never again see electoral fraud as occurred in battleground states on November 3, 2020. Such measures shall include the following: Eliminate unsolicited mail in ballots. End same day registration and motor-voter registration. Ban computer systems. Return to paper ballots, hand counted. Require proof of citizenship. Limit early voting shall to two weeks or abolish all together, in which case there would be a single election “day,” not “season.” Update voter rolls regularly. Abolish “drop boxes.” Require photo ID.

15. The state shall pass anti-bullying legislation directed against any company, advocacy group, sports entity, league, or otherwise, professional or otherwise, and individual athletes or celebrities that disrespect our nation and flag or threaten to boycott a red state for passing a legitimate law regarding, for example, religious freedom, protecting children, students, and the general public against depredations by the Left with civilization-destroying ideas and policies such as transgenderism or critical race theory, and other intrusions on a lawful, open polity, and, of course, ensuring the integrity of our elections. The state shall ban such entities from future and existing state contracts, tax breaks, set asides, anti-trust, or other protections, and further work, business, or other dealings with the state.

16. The state shall consider banning companies, athletes, sports leagues and entities, professional or otherwise, that maintain commercial or other relations with the slave empire of China from future and existing state contracts, tax breaks, set asides, anti-trust or other protections, and further work, business, and other dealings with the state.

17. Attorneys General of red states shall aggressively litigate against leftist, globalist, anti-American corporations including “Big Tech” corporations that infringe on the rights of their state’s citizens including the enforcement of speech codes, censorship of conservatives, “canceling” individuals who espouse conservative or traditional beliefs, and otherwise prohibiting normal, free, and open exchange. Big Tech companies that deplatform, silence, cancel, ban, shadow-ban, filter, or demonetize individuals, websites, groups or organizations for expressing opinions they disapprove of, shall be fined, penalized, litigated

against, including anti-trust litigation. States shall regulate them as utilities, no different than the phone company, or radio and TV, for the right given them to use the public “space” and public “airwaves,” and pursue punitive actions and litigation when they deny access to their platforms for political reasons. Similarly, they shall pursue litigation or other measures against any and all corporations that engage in boycotts and other threats or intimidation against the state.

18. The state shall pass “Right to Try” Legislation that allows eligible patients to have access to investigational drugs or medicines that are safe and therapeutic particularly for life threatening conditions but not necessarily approved by the FDA or other regulatory agencies or boards, often for political or economic reasons.

19. The state shall pass legislation protecting the right of doctors to prescribe and patients to use medicines for “off label” purposes. In the Covid era, despite much experience and data demonstrating efficacy of various medicines and supplements, this became highly politicized and not allowed. This included such safe, inexpensive, commonly used therapeutics found effective in the treatment of

Covid, for example, such as Hydroxychloroquine, Ivermectin, Zithromax, Doxycycline, aspirin, steroids, Vitamin D3, Zinc, Quercetin, Elderberry, among others. State medical boards shall have no authority to discipline or threaten in anyway physicians who engage in such efforts, respecting the primacy of the patient-doctor relationship over dictates from politicized boards or other agencies. Pharmaceutical companies, pharmacies and pharmacists shall similarly honor such prescriptions and recommendations by healthcare providers.

20. The state and the various cities, towns, and counties, through its law enforcement officials and criminal justice system shall enforce the law. Criminals, particularly violent criminals, those engaging in murder, rape, intimidation, extortion, assault and battery, robbery, armed or otherwise, those engaged in unlawful violent protest, looting, and destruction of private property, incitement of violence and insurrection, terrorism, the use and sale of illicit drugs, those unlawfully encamped on public streets, thoroughfares, and places, shall be prosecuted, held, tried, and jailed for their crimes. Law enforcement officials, district attorneys, courts, and judges shall be supported in their efforts to maintain law and order and preserve the peace. The state shall vigorously support the rights of victims of crime and protect them from criminals.

21. The state and officials at all levels, state and federal, on both sides of the political spectrum shall call for and demand that “woke” corporations and other entities and groups that hypocritically opposed election integrity efforts, particularly photo ID, as occurred recently regarding Georgia’s “Election Integrity Act,” boycott the 2022 Olympics in Beijing.

22. Make Red States Red Again.

Each state should consider coordinating its efforts with other red states that the pro-America forces may present a united front against the Marxist Left. But each red state should begin protecting its own people first against the encroachments of the tyrannical Left and Covid fascists, often, but not exclusively, one and the same.

We must fight against the autocracy of the Left who have abused the country and employed Covid fascism to pursue political goals. We oppose conditions and policies that render the US less free than North Korea and Cuba or much of Europe. Students of history, we recognize that King George never did to the colonists what our government(s) is (are) doing to us today. We are well passed the time of reclaiming lost ground and demanding our God-given rights as free citizens. It is essential that conservatives wield political power, help friends and allies, and punish our enemies, as the Left does.

Let this serve as a Red-state manifesto, a rallying cry to galvanize those who are in a position to preserve what is left of the nation, in parts of the nation where the founding and founding principles still hold sway.

Make Red States Red Again.

See this publication in: The Official VIP News

richardmossmd.com or Richard Moss, M.D. on Facebook, YouTube, Rumble, Twitter, Parler, Gab, Gettr, TruthSocial, and Instagram.

Red States: Our Last Bastion of Defence.

Sun, 11 Apr 2021 16:36:18 GMT

These are treacherous times. Our principal institutions have been overtaken by the Left. We are fast approaching French Revolutionary levels. However dysfunctional and disturbed they may be, the Left rules us, and they grow more authoritarian and imperious as we speak.

The latest example of their audacity and command of our dominant institutions is the response to Georgia’s modest election law (SB202 or “The Election Integrity Act”). It included ID requirements for mail-in ballots, banned the practice of giving food or water to voters in line at polling stations, limited the number of “drop boxes,” and shortened early voting, none of which was racial or restrictive in the least. But the carefully orchestrated mass rollout of hair on fire outrage was classic Leftist agitprop, perfected through the decades. So absurd were the accusations that, absent an utterly compliant press, a political movement or party could never get away with it.

Shortly after Governor Brian Kemp signed the bill into law, President Joe Biden on ESPN referred to it as “Jim Crow on steroids” and supported Major League Baseball moving the All-Star game out of Atlanta where it was scheduled this year. MLB, indeed, rolled over instantly, moving the event to Denver. Not insignificantly, this year’s summer classic also planned to honor the memory of Hank Aaron, one of baseball’s greatest players, who passed away recently and played with the Atlanta Braves. That Hank Aaron was a black man and that Atlanta is a black majority city that would be negatively impacted by the loss of hundreds of millions of dollars seemed not an afterthought. Biden later called the bill “sick,” “un-American,” and an “atrocity.” Former President Barack Obama agreed with the sentiments as did the entire Democrat Party apparatus and its poodle media.

“Voting Rights” activists called for boycotting Georgia-based and other companies if they did not condemn the legislation. Prominent corporations and professional sports teams folded at breakneck speed. AFLAC, the Atlanta Falcons, Atlanta Hawks, Coca Cola, Delta, Home Depot, JP Morgan Chase, Facebook, Citigroup, Merck, Cisco, Apple, Wal-Mart, Under Armour, Google, Twitter, Este Lauder, HP, Microsoft, and ViacomCBS all succumbed to a sudden attack of wokeness and vigorously denounced the bill. Thus far, nearly 200 major corporations joined in. A group of 72 prominent black corporate executives, in an open letter published in the New York Times, condemned it. Several black “civil rights” groups including the Georgia NAACP, “Black Votes Matter,” and Stacey Abrams’ “Fair Fight,” condemned the law as well. Lawsuits have been filed. The National Black Justice Coalition called on the PGA Tour to pull the Masters Tournament from the Augusta National Golf Club in Georgia where it has been played since 1934. LeBron James, NBA star, co-owner of the Boston Red Sox, and otherwise oppressed billionaire, too, voiced his support for MLB’s decision to move the summer classic out of Atlanta, stating that he was now a proud “part of the MLB family.” Lebron and many of the coalition of the irate have had no trouble doing business with the democratic Chinese Communist Party and their slave empire. Prominent liberal sports writers and figures, including the reliable Al Sharpton, also got on their soap boxes.

American Airlines and Southwest came out against a similar such election bill in Texas.

The various election laws passing through Republican states are a result of the election debacle that occurred on November 3, 2020. Particularly in battleground states, election laws were unlawfully changed in the lead-up to the election, because of lawsuits by Democrat lawyers, generally bypassing the state legislatures who constitutionally have the final say on election law. Criticisms by leftist groups and the Democrat party invariably accuse the bills of being “restrictive” and causing “voter suppression,” by which they mean the suppression of blacks and other minorities.

The bills, of course, did nothing of the kind. They were intended to prevent election fraud, which Democrats depend on to win elections.

The over-the-top reaction to the Georgia legislation, however, is merely a prelude to the passage of the “For The People Act” (HR1 and S1), in which Democrats at the federal level, engaging in typical doublespeak, seek to nationalize election law and enshrine the changes they engineered in 2020 for perpetuity, thus ensuring a one party nation under Democrat rule forever.

How should conservatives respond?

It is up to the red states.

And the response should be vigorous and unapologetic. Each state dominated by Republicans, where Republicans hold both houses of the state legislature, of which there are 31, and then the trifecta, which would also include the governorship (24 such states), should pass election integrity laws. All should eliminate unsolicited mail in ballots, something done unnecessarily because of Covid, but allow for “absentee” ballots, as always, which must be verified well in advance with proper explanation (illness, disabled, out of state, in the Military). Eliminate same day registration and motor-voter registration. Abolish computer systems. Return to paper ballots, hand counted with poll watchers from both parties present. Require proof of citizenship. Limit early voting to two weeks or consider eliminating it all together. Mandate one election “day,” as was standard until relatively recently, not election “season.” Declare it a holiday. Clean up voter rolls regularly. And, of course, mandate photo ID, something that for Democrats, is akin to daylight for vampires.

The Democrats may never win a national election again.

But there is more.

No longer can conservatives allow companies and sports entities, professional or otherwise, to bully and abuse us. It is time for red states to pass “antibullying” legislation against the Left and their corporate minions. Any company, sports entity, and individual athletes or celebrities that disrespect our nation and flag or threaten to or implement a boycott of a red state for passing entirely legitimate legislation should be banned from all future and existing state contracts, tax breaks, set asides, anti-trust protections (where appropriate), and further business dealings with the state.

Legislation considered within the purview of the state, wholly reasonable, would contain laws and protections involving religious liberty, protecting children and students from the various and sundry depredations of Leftist theories and policies including such gems as transgenderism and critical race theory, bogus refugee and illegal alien resettlement, and, of course, ensuring the integrity of our elections. Consider also forbidding companies, athletes, sports leagues and entities that have business ties with China’s totalitarian regime from business relations or other benefits, tax breaks, and contracts with the state.

Attorney generals of red states should aggressively litigate against leftwing corporations and Big Tech that infringe on the rights of their state’s citizens including the enforcement of speech codes, censorship of conservatives, “canceling” (also known as crushing and destroying) individuals who espouse conservative or traditional beliefs, and otherwise prohibiting normal, free, and open expression. Similarly, they should file suits against corporations that engage in boycotts and threats against the state. Red states must coordinate their efforts. In particular, states like Texas and Florida, with their large populations and economic clout and with supportive governors, notably, Ron DeSantis of Florida, can take the lead, but any state so inclined can move aggressively.

Finally, Republican officials at all levels, state and federal, should demand that woke corporate hypocrites boycott the 2022 Olympics in Beijing.

The conservative, pro-founding, pro-American, nationalist movement has for decades been inattentive to our culture and commanding organs, including corporate America. As a result, it has largely ceded them to the Left who have been diligently infiltrating them. They have completed their long march through our institutions and now control them, as they do the nation. But we still have power at the state level. We must fight back as viciously as the Left using the tools that we have.

That means the red states.

It is time to save the country, if it is to be saved at all.

See this publication in: American Thinker

richardmossmd.com or Richard Moss, M.D. on Facebook, YouTube, Rumble, Twitter, Parler, Gab, Gettr, TruthSocial, and Instagram.

Impeach The RINOs

Sun, 14 Feb 2021 20:49:36 GMT

When one ponders the treachery of Republicans in the aftermath of the recent stolen election, one wonders what purpose they serve? It was dormant Republican controlled state legislatures in many of the “battleground” states, after all, that allowed the changes in election law, perpetrated by scurrilous Democrats and their lawyers that led to the whole debacle in the first place. Some rose up after the fact, but by then it was too late.

Where were they before?

Republican appointed judges, in many cases, including Trump appointees on the Supreme Court, joined in the perfidy and refused to hear legitimate cases brought to their courts regarding the election fiasco. Texas , joined by 17 other states, brought a suit against Pennsylvania, Georgia, Michigan, and Wisconsin, regarding unlawful changes in election law in those states. The Supreme Court had original jurisdiction, but the recent Trump appointees and Chief Justice John Roberts had no interest. Their cowardice thus enshrined Democrat election fraud for perpetuity, when they could have ended it. It will make it even more difficult for Republicans to win future national elections.

Nice job, Justices.

With the attack on the Capitol on January 6, many Republicans properly expressed outrage, but then were all too willing to join Democrats in their scorched-earth rhetoric. President Trump clearly did not incite the riots. Rather, he urged supporters to “peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard.” The attacks were pre-planned, with agent provocateurs present from Antifa and Black Lives Matter. Timelines have shown the riots started well before President Trump finished his speech.

These same Republicans, furthermore, were silent for six months of sustained left-wing terrorist, insurrectionist violence, the torching of our cities, and attacks and murder of innocent bystanders and police. Prominent Democrats such as President Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, Kamala Harris, and many others, incited and endorsed it. Here, most Republicans were mute, with some even providing aid and comfort to the enemy.

On January 13, Ten Republicans in the House joined Democrats to impeach Trump for “incitement of insurrection,” led by third ranking House Republican, Liz Cheney of Wyoming, making Trump the first President to be impeached twice. Cheney further said that “Trump summoned this mob… and lit the flame of this attack.” She called it the “greatest betrayal” of a US President ever. But there was no trial, hearings, witnesses, cross examination, evidence presented, or due process of any kind.

It was not a hearing. It was a purge.

Eleven Republican Senators led by Ted Cruz , said they would oppose the certification of the electoral college vote. Senator Josh Hawley had already indicated as such. They called for an electoral commission to investigate electoral fraud in several states, citing an 1877 precedent. On January 6, after the attack on the Capitol, six of the twelve reneged on their commitment to oppose the certification, including one Mike Braun of Indiana, my Senator. But the Capitol riot and electoral fraud had nothing to do with one another.

House Republican minority leader, Kevin McCarthy protected Cheney from criticism and kept her in her position as chairman of the House Republican Conference. McCarthy , a political chameleon, also said the Trump bore responsibility for the violence at the capitol. House Republicans then secretly voted to retain Cheney in leadership despite her vote, rebuking Trump supporters. Republican Senate leader, Mitch McConnell , also defended Cheney saying she was “a leader with deep convictions and the courage to act on them.”

Right, and so was Barack Obama.

Representative Adam Kinzinger (R-IL), formerly a Tea Party guy, but now a favorite of leftist organs of propaganda, also voted to impeach Trump and is forming a PAC to pull the GOP away from Trump.

When Senator Rand Paul called for a vote on the constitutionality of impeaching a former president, five Republicans voted in favor of it. Mitch McConnell did not, but earlier indicated that he favored impeachment, hoping the party would make a clean break with Trump. Seven Republican senators ultimately voted with the Democrats to convict Trump. McConnell, although voting to acquit, blamed Trump for the riot and said his actions were “unconscionable.”

McConnell’s wife, Elaine Chao , Secretary of Transportation in the Trump cabinet, along with Education Secretary Betsy Devos, jumped ship on January 8, two days after the capitol attack, abandoning Trump with a mere 12 days left in his presidency. Chao wrote that she was “deeply troubled” by the “entirely avoidable” events at the capitol. Chao’s family, has a successful shipping company with deep ties with China’s ruling elite in the Communist Party.

These, of course, were only recent betrayals. When the Republicans enjoyed federal monopoly power during the first two years of Trump’s administration, they passed tax cuts. This was not the burning issue of the day. It was important to help Trump unleash the economy, but less critical than other policy matters.

The cardinal issues in 2016 for Trump and Republicans, what Trump ran on, were eliminating Obamacare, ending illegal immigration, and reforming legal immigration. It was to secure the southern border, reduce legal immigration, and switch to a merit-based system, little or none of which was done. Because the Ryan-McConnell-cheap labor wing of the GOP blocked them.

Ditto when Republicans under George W. Bush had federal monopoly power for six years (2000-2006). The result of the Bush years: protracted wars without victory, doubling the national debt, massive new federal programs, stimulus and bailouts, ten million illegal aliens - and 8 years of Obama.

And, oh yeah, some tax cuts.

When Republican voters first nominated the outsider Trump from a crowded field of 17 well-qualified GOP standard bearers, and then elected him in 2016, they effectively impeached the Republican party. But the GOPe didn’t get it. They misread the MAGA movement and were oblivious to their role in its formation. They defended the idols of free trade and markets, corporate tax cuts, and maximum profits as American industry moved to China, and eviscerated middle America and our workers. China stole our jobs and technology. Republicans didn’t mind.

GOP elites, corporatists, useful idiots, RINOs busily feathering their nests, junior partners in the liberal establishment, wanted to eliminate Trumpism and consign it to the dustbin of history. They were comfortable with the status quo and their place at the table. Globalism was their thing. Little Michael Bloombergs. Get rid of Trump and things will be OK again. Nationalism, patriotism, and secure borders were anathema to them.

Republicans mumbled pathetically as the absurd leftist narrative of sedition, and incitement of violence and insurrection, with endless Nazi and racist references, ran unimpeded. Or when Democrats unconstitutionally impeached a President even though out of office. They cowered as fascist Big Tech oligarchs shut down free speech, removed a President from their platforms, and joined openly and incestuously with leftist media puppets, the Democrat Party, and Big Government. When the Left destroyed careers and lives for “incorrect” thoughts, they looked away. As Democrats moved the Overton window ever more leftward, they remained silent. When cultural Marxists knocked down cultural pillars like traditional marriage or school prayer, or taught Critical Race Theory in our schools, and allowed men in our daughter’s bathrooms, they nodded amiably. As our woke military pushed for women in combat and paid for sex change operations, they didn’t object. When millions of third world immigrants invaded our country every year, burdening our schools and public systems, providing cheap labor to corporations while stealing jobs from American citizens, and flipping red states to blue, they encouraged more. Quisling Republicans went along with the lockdowns, mask mandates, and boundless stimulus. They stammered pitifully when the deep state spied on and undermined our President.

They and their liberal elite friends have ruined our institutions – and destroyed our country. And we don’t recognize it anymore. The MAGA remnant is all that is left.

And they don’t have a clue.

President Trump refused to be a “good loser.” He was not Romney or McCain. He was not perfect, but he was the best we had. He put America First. He fought back as viciously as the Left. And so, they hounded him. And the RINOs abandoned him.

But their mandate from heaven has been broken.

As we impeached the Republican Party with Trump's nomination, now we must convict them.

Good riddance, Vichy Republicans.

You have let our glorious country slip through your greedy fingers. We can hardly stand you.

There are patriots who will defend President Trump, Trumpism, the MAGA movement, and the nation. They must transform the GOP into an effective political vehicle that guards the founding, protects the base, and confronts the Marxist Left.

It is still possible to save the country.

February 14, 2021

Indianapolis Has Fallen: A Red State Surrenders Its Capital

Mon, 11 Jan 2021 22:02:36 GMT

I had known this mid-size metropolis since the seventies when I lived here as a medical student, attending the Indiana University School of Medicine. Then, Indianapolis was referred to as India-no-place or Naptown. But Indianapolis has come a long way since then attracting professional sports teams, stadiums, arenas, and major corporations. There are cultural and art districts, comedy clubs, and trendy, upscale neighborhoods. It has an array of tech-schools and universities, gondola rides along its canal, distilleries, symphony halls, theaters, ethnic restaurants, an excellent zoo, and several museums including the largest children’s museum in the world.

My children and I have enjoyed much of what this city has to offer, in particular its downtown area, known as Monument Circle. Here, the Soldiers and Sailors Monument inspires and dazzles, with its glorious fountains, pools, and statues honoring our valiant soldiers and sailors from Indiana who fought and died in each of our nation’s wars. The Christmas lights are iconic and splendid, and each year we visited the great memorial at night, lit up brilliantly, our Rockefeller Center. It had always been a clean and safe downtown, a place I had felt comfortable visiting with my young family.

U ntil now.

T his year, Monument Circle swarmed not with tourists and patrons but with a succession of homeless encampments, bedecked with tents, sleeping bags, blankets, cardboard shelters, cigarette butts, newspapers, plastic bags, bottles, cans, and, of course, hundreds of vagrants sleeping or milling about. What had been one of the cleanest, most scenic, and safe downtown centers in the country had deteriorated into a third world, garbage strewn, and threatening urban nightmare.

The entrances to the Hilbert Circle Theater and the nearby Indiana Repertory Theater were boarded up, closed, and crammed with itinerants, trash, and debris. It was demoralizing and disgusting, an urban cesspool of dystopia and vagrancy.

T he next morning, we walked around a trendy and historic neighborhood, adjacent to downtown, known as Lockerbie Square. Here are individual homes, tree lined streets, coffee shops, yoga studios, and delightful, antique cobblestone lanes. The former home of James Whitcomb Riley, Indiana’s great poet laureate, is located here. I did not see vagrants or garbage, but there was a plethora of BLM (Black Lives Matter) signs, with the clenched fist emblem, and other expressions of solidarity for the racist, Marxist, anti-Semitic organization. Had the neighborhood gone “woke,” upscale, lefty-ish, and chic as it was? Or were the signs a form of insurance, some of the homeowners hoping to avoid the wrath and destruction of marauding peaceful protesters from nearby downtown?

P ost George Floyd, the burning, looting, riots, and violence that occurred in cities throughout the country, also beset Indianapolis. Then, of course, there was the pandemic, with its crushing raft of lockdowns, closures, mask and social distance mandates, devastating to small businesses everywhere.

Democrat Mayor Joe Hogsett, voiced standard liberal bromides about “inequities” and “underlying” causes. In a recent article, he and two associates wrote:

“…many cities still use punitive measures to respond to homelessness. Using police to sweep homeless encampments or issue citations and arrests doesn’t reduce homelessness or help people find stability. Instead, it traps people in a homelessness-jail cycle …

Yes, Mayor, of course.

“This pandemic has exposed failures and inequities across our society, including in how we respond to homelessness. But we know what works. Now is the time for policymakers at all levels of government to invest in housing with services that address the underlying problem, rather than using punitive responses that fail to help anyone...”

And so on.

Mayor Giuliani, where are you?

But, no, Mayor Hogsett, the answer is to hold the “homeless” (vagrants, drug addicts, bums) to the same middle-class bourgeois standards that we hold everyone else to. These include taking a shower, dressing up, not drinking or using drugs, acquiring a skill, finding a job, obtaining a dwelling, and getting off the street.

There is also a cornucopia of welfare programs that provide assistance for those in need. Some of these include food stamps, direct financial aid, Medicaid, housing and heating subsidies, and more. There are church or faith-based charities. Such public generosity should require a minimum of 20 hours community service, beginning with cleaning up the messes they have made.

O ur Declaration of Independence proclaims an inalienable right to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” Nowhere does it mention a “right” to a home. That, dear liberals, is up to the individual.

We stayed on Pennsylvania Avenue, a block away from Monument Circle. Next to my building was the office of Senator Mike Braun, also from Jasper, one of our two Republican, allegedly conservative, senators. On the other side of the Circle, a mere block away, was the state Capitol, a majestic, classical structure. All of our representatives must have seen what I saw.

I n the state of Indiana, a very red, pro-Trump state, both houses of our bicameral state assembly are overwhelmingly Republican. The governor, who recently won a second term, is also a Republican. Our two US Senators are Republican and seven out of nine Congressmen are Republican. Vice President Mike Pence was an Indiana Congressman and then governor before ascending to the vice presidency.

While recognizing that state and federal representatives do not operate on the local level, and that the current Mayor of Indianapolis is a Democrat, is there no influence they could exert on local officials to clean up this nauseating mess in our capitol city?

T he filth and squalor of America’s Democrat run cities, well before the George Floyd incident and far worse after, exacerbated by the plague and our absurd and destructive overreaction to it, is well known. We have seen and heard the horror stories of New York City, LA, San Francisco, Seattle, Portland, Chicago, DC, and elsewhere. There is rampant homelessness, public defecation, open drug abuse, skyrocketing crime, shuttering of businesses, and closing of parks, schools, churches, and temples. We have witnessed and experienced the destruction of the economy and the forfeiture of our civil and religious liberties, and the humiliating forced wearing of Chinese facial diapers, by tyrannical left-wing mayors and governors.

But we don’t expect this to occur in deep red states.

Yet it does.

Other than Florida and South Dakota, which have both given a good account of themselves through the pandemic, Republican run states have been as slovenly, craven, and ruthless as any blue state. They have given over to the mindless anarchy and violence of BLM/Antifa/SJW mobs running our streets and the homeless bivouacs. Likewise, they have been as tyrannical as the Democrats, enforcing demeaning masks of submission mandates, lockdowns and closures, including, unfortunately, here in Indiana.

Indianapolis is the crown jewel of Indiana, particularly Monument Circle. And so it should remain.

W hen will our elected Republican leaders at all levels of government stand up to the degradation of our cities, the anarchy and tyranny in open display? When will they challenge a level of oppression that King George III never dreamed of imposing upon the colonies in his day?

I f Republicans other than Trump are unwilling to fight as Democrats do, then a new model of organization and defiance for patriots is needed, a Liberty Alliance, or some such formulation. Modeled after the Tea Party movement, it should avoid the mistakes of that crusade. It should remain independent and prevent the Republican Party from co-opting it. We will require a more local, county-level system of defense, aid, and resistance, apart from either party, but in particular the ineffective and worthless Republicans, who have been happy to take our money and votes and do nothing.

W ho will stand up for regular, scorned, tax paying, working, patriotic Americans? Who will defend the deplorables that love their country?

Hoosiers, their elected representatives, and a new grassroots coalition of patriots must restore our beloved capitol city, Indianapolis, even as we push back against t he jackals in what must remain the freest and greatest nation in the world.

January 2, 2021

Chanukah, Christmas, and Western Civilization

Thu, 24 Dec 2020 18:01:01 GMT

After the Greeks fell away, there was a brief interlude of Jewish independence in Israel but then the Romans conquered the Holy Land in 63 BC (Pompey). Life under Roman rule was difficult and there was another rebellion in 70 AD. General Vespasian destroyed the Jewish kingdom and King David’s ancient capital fell for a second time. Many Jews died or were enslaved. There rose again a savior in 135 AD, Bar Kochba, but in the end his rebellion too crumbled before Rome’s might (Emperor Hadrian). Jerusalem and the Temple were ploughed under with salt and hundreds of thousands of Jews were slaughtered. Jerusalem was resettled. Rome renamed Israel, Palestina, reaching back to Israel’s ancient foes the Philistines to conceal its Jewish past. The exiles went forth as slaves and rootless wanderers. And the long night began.

With Christmas upon us, there is also a light that burns for Christians, under assault in the West by the secular left and around the globe especially within the Muslim world. It is symbolic that in the darkest time of the year, Christian teaching tells that the logos or the word was made flesh in the form of a newborn baby, the baby Jesus, a Jew, under a star, a light for the world to drive away the darkness and bring redemption and hope.

We must dedicate ourselves to preserving America, the West, and Western civilization, by preserving its Judeo-Christian tradition. The light of Chanukah and Christmas must continue to burn, and illumine the night, pushing away the darkness that is always present, the norm for most of history. They should guide us and our nation and the West for all time. It is what distinguishes us from the rest, our values, our devotion to truth, knowledge, goodness, beauty, and reason, the belief in the sanctity of the individual made in the image of God, rejecting the moral and cultural relativism of the post-modern left and the totalitarian threat of unreformed Islam. We must rededicate ourselves in our current battle as the Maccabees did against the Greeks and as Israel did against the Arab armies that sought its destruction in 1948 and has done ever since against its many enemies.

The spirit of Chanukah and Christmas should inspire us. Happy Chanukah and Merry Christmas to all.

Crush and Destroy Culture

Mon, 05 Oct 2020 21:19:35 GMT

I have always felt that the term “cancel culture” was far too mannerly and tame. It scarcely captured the degree of hatred the Left and its social media zealots unleashed with any transgression from woke orthodoxy. Even doctrinaire liberals, tried and true “progressives” with a lifetime of fidelity, have felt the sting of leftist vengeance after betraying the cause on a single, isolated point. Individuals have been disgraced, careers ended, livelihoods wrecked, and reputations trashed over minor infractions of the progressive canon. And that is how they treat former friends and allies. Conservative foes are filleted and quartered outright in broad daylight.

I recently found myself the target of leftist vitriol and experienced the full fury of “cancel culture.” The events and tactics are worth reviewing.

I produced a 50-second pro-2nd amendment video in my backyard with my 25-year-old son. I placed two Trump-Pence signs in front of us. An American flag behind us. I spoke of my love of country, the Constitution, and Bill of Rights, in particular our Second Amendment. I said that we were not looking for trouble but would not run from it, and tossed out a challenge to “BLM” (Black Lives Matter, the organization). I closed by saying that I liked President Trump. Of note, my son and I were holding our respective AR-15s. Not pointing them, mind you, just holding them.

The context, of course, is the more than 4-month siege on America’s cities, the violence, rioting, and arson occurring since the George Floyd incident on May 25. Many of us seethe at this ongoing disorder and the unwillingness of Democrat politicians that govern these cities and states to control it. It is also galling to find our dominant institutions supporting the radical street thugs.

Into this maelstrom, I posted my 50-second video on my Facebook and Twitter pages. The next morning, I was seeing patients in my medical practice. One of my employees who monitors my social media noticed tens of thousands of views and thousands of comments, reactions, and shares. By the end of the day, it was going “viral,” with both supporters and detractors responding and sharing. The insults, hatred, and threats, however, were extreme.

“I’d rather die from cancer than have you as a doctor,” one cheerful commentator mentioned, among many other choice statements far more appalling than that.

Then came the menacing comments and “doxing” of my home and office as detractors posted my name and address on Facebook and Twitter. Individuals I had never met called my office, disparaging my work as a physician. Some asked for the office manager, thinking I was employed, attempting to pressure the employer into firing me. As I am self-employed, that ploy did not work.

The attackers took to my Google business page and left nasty comments and one-star reviews to damage my reputation and practice. There were threatening and derogatory calls to my local hospital, which had to increase security. The hecklers contacted my State Medical Board, prodding them to revoke my medical license. There were also plans for a demonstration at my house that same week on Friday at six PM.

On the first night of the video, my son, who appeared in the video, was concerned because of the threats and doxing. He worried about the safety of our home and family but also the impact on his career. At his request, I deleted the video. It did not help him. The next day, he lost his job. Furthermore, it had already been “screen captured” and spread by others throughout the internet despite removing it from my page.

On Friday at six PM, the beginning of the Jewish Sabbath, four police cars were outside my house to provide protection. I met with the police and thanked them. As it turned out, the protesters did not show.

As yet, my practice remains busy. I live my life as always, but with greater awareness of my surroundings. I have installed security cameras. And, yes, I carry.

There is a great divide in the country today. And our opponents have declared war. Consider that, in this case, there was my 50-second video. Patriotic, pro-American, pro-2nd amendment, and, perhaps, a bit provocative. But, merely a video. On the other side, there have been four months of continuous burning, looting, assault, and murder in our cities. There have been calls for defunding and abolishing the police. Democrat politicians, local, state, and national, rather than condemn the mayhem and violence, encourage it as do their media allies. So, too, the Academy, Hollywood, corporate America, and professional athletes. BLM and Antifa, the Marxist perpetrators of the turmoil, with the open support of our principal institutions and the Democrat Party, call for “burning down the system.” They deface synagogues and churches and refer to Jesus as a “white supremacist.” Yet, in this contest, hardly equivalent, my otherwise harmless little video was sufficient cause to denounce and threaten me in the vilest ways, including attacks against me personally, my home and family, reputation, career, and livelihood. This, even as the same malcontents say nothing about the radicals destroying our cities.

We are in the midst of an assault on our Republic, a Marxist Revolution under the guise of “racial justice.” Who knows what will come after the election in November? The passions today are no less extreme than they were in 1860. Both times, Democrats were attempting to dismantle the nation.

We are well beyond cancel culture. The proper term is “crush and destroy culture.” But it is worse than that. It is an insurrection, and the enemy has taken over our leading institutions. Unwittingly, though, these forces of darkness have roused the sleeping giant. Patriots and citizens, modern-day Paul Reveres, have organized and pushed back as we have seen in Kenosha, Oregon, Ohio, Colorado, Seattle, Staten Island, and elsewhere, including outside Walter Reed Medical Center, during President Trump’s brief hospitalization. Thousands I had never met rose to defend me in the social media and telephone blitz against me. We outnumber them. We can and must defeat, these, the enemies of civilization.

October 5, 2020

George Floyd: Lies, Myths, and Fraud

Sun, 06 Sep 2020 16:47:00 GMT

Yes, you’ve heard of George Floyd, the holy, blessed martyr, peace be upon him, newly beatified by the secular, pagan church of Anti-racism. He rests in his misty perch in atheist heaven on God’s right side, gazing benevolently upon us. Yes, that George Floyd, the one with the rap sheet down to his ankles. There were eight jail sentences for a variety of charges including drug possession, theft, criminal trespass, and armed robbery during a home invasion. That latter charge involved holding a loaded firearm against the belly of a pregnant woman after gaining entry by deceiving her while five compatriots then pillaged her home. Nice George.

Floyd met his fate, as the entire world knows, on May 25, 2020, in Minneapolis, MN, when police were called because he attempted to pass a counterfeit bill. The initial disturbing video of the encounter with law enforcement showed officer Derek Chauvin holding his knee against the back of Floyd’s neck for nearly nine minutes. He was face down on the ground and handcuffed as he called for his “Momma” and said that he could not breathe. Floyd, indeed, stopped breathing and subsequently died. We have been living with non-stop mayhem and violence in our cities since.

The final autopsy report issued by the Hennepin130 County Medical Examiner indicated that the cause of death was “cardiopulmonary arrest complicating law enforcement subdual restraint, and neck compression.” Under enormous political pressure, it also stated that the manner of death was homicide.

The media, Democrats, and their leftist militias, Black Lives Matter and Antifa, hold that the Floyd episode is another example of police racism and brutality targeting blacks. But the contradictions in the story suggest otherwise.

Two of the four officers who responded are non-white. The Chief of the Minneapolis Police, Medaria Arradondo, is black. Minneapolis is a Democrat-run city. It’s Mayor, Jacob Frey, is a Democrat, as is their city council and state governor, Tim Walz. Minnesota has voted Democrat in every national election since 1932, including the Reagan landslide of 1984, the only state Reagan lost. Are the critics then stating that the Democrats who run the police, city, and state racists?

Then came suppressed videos and court documents that mysteriously went missing as the outrage festered, and our cities burned. The body-cam videos of the other three officers present during the arrest, including Tou Thao (Asian), Thomas Lane, and Alexander Kueng (black), showed Floyd to be highly agitated and erratic. He resisted arrest before the officers placed him on the ground. He appears to have lost all self-awareness, complains of stomach and neck pain, and foams at the mouth. The officers struggled to get him in the back of the squad car. Once there, he complains that he “can’t breathe.” He then leaves the vehicle on the opposite side. He asks the cops if he can get on the ground because he is having trouble breathing. In another video, Floyd is seen in his car before the arrest swallowing a white pill, apparently doing drugs or, perhaps, attempting to conceal evidence by ingesting them.

None of the four officers in the case used racial slurs or referred to his race. There was no evidence that race motivated them at all. Further, why would the officers, particularly Chauvin, deliberately murder Floyd in broad daylight with multiple witnesses, and iPhone and body cam videos? If they intended to murder Floyd, why did they call the ambulance and help Floyd after the medical team arrived?

Previously suppressed court documents showed that the chief medical examiner, Dr. Andrew Baker, stated that the fentanyl level in Floyd’s blood was “pretty high” and could be “a fatal level of fentanyl under normal circumstances.” Dr. Baker also said that “if Mr. Floyd had been found dead in his home… and there were no other contributing factors he would conclude that it was an overdose death.” Baker, referring to Floyd’s fentanyl level of 11 ng/ml, told investigators that “deaths have been certified with levels of 3.” In another memorandum filed on May 26, the Attorney’s Office said Baker concluded, “The autopsy showed no physical evidence suggesting that Mr. Floyd died of asphyxiation.” Floyd also tested positive for COVID on April 3.

In another document, Baker said, “this is a fatal level of fentanyl under normal circumstances.” Other forms also noted that Floyd had a “heavy heart” and “at least one artery was 75% blocked.” The Armed Forces Medical Examiner agreed with Baker’s findings, writing that Floyd’s “death was caused by the police subdual and restraint in the setting of severe hypertensive atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease and methamphetamine and fentanyl intoxication.”

So, if the knee on neck didn’t kill him, what did? Why, drugs did. Floyd overdosed on fentanyl, which stopped his breathing and his heart, known as cardiopulmonary arrest, resulting in death. Whether the officers encountered him or not. The stress of the arrest and positioning did not help, but with the amount of fentanyl he ingested, he would have died anyway. He also had morphine, amphetamine, alcohol, and marijuana in his system. He died of cardiopulmonary arrest, caused by a fatal fentanyl overdose and underlying cardiac disease. He sealed his own fate.

Derek Chauvin is accused of 2nd-degree murder and manslaughter, the other three charged as accomplices or aiding and abetting second-degree murder and manslaughter. The first charge carries a sentence of 40 years, the second a sentence of 10 years. Yet, none of the officers sought to murder Floyd. There was no intent to do so. You cannot prove murder or manslaughter unless there is intent. Although it has since been changed, at the time, Minneapolis Police training materials show pictures of a suspect, face down, handcuffed, with knee on neck. Chauvin was simply following police protocol. The autopsy and videos demonstrate it was not racial and not murder. These officers are innocent. The police, including Chauvin, will and should be acquitted. It was a fraud, a manufactured lie.

Why did authorities not release the evidence earlier to prevent the violence and rioting? Cops did not kill Floyd. Why did they let cities burn and not save innocent lives? Must we imprison innocent men to appease the mob? Why weren’t the exculpatory testimony and videos released sooner to stop the riots, looting, destruction, and death?

Because the Left wanted the lie to go out. Authorities deliberately chose not to release evidence that could have cleared the police, undermined the narrative, and stopped the mob violence. Black lives don’t matter to the Left, the media, the Democrats, or their brown-shirt militias. Blacks are simply pawns in their game. They use them, reckless charges of police brutality and “systemic racism,” and the consequent civil unrest to agitate their base, get out the vote, and win elections. It is a naked will to power, nothing more, whatever the costs. They are ruthless and despicable. Their misbegotten plans may yet backfire.

September 6, 2020

Dr. Moss is a practicing Ear Nose and Throat Surgeon, author, and columnist, residing in Jasper, IN. He has written A Surgeon’s Odyssey and Matilda’s Triumph, available on amazon.com. Find more of his essays at richardmossmd.com. Visit Richard Moss, M.D. on Facebook, Twitter, Parler, and Instagram.

BLM Republicans

Fri, 24 Jul 2020 19:41:47 GMT

I watched the interview of my friend and former political opponent, Senator Mike Braun, Republican of Indiana, on the Tucker Carlson show recently regarding the topic of BLM and police reform. I know Senator Braun because we are both from Jasper, Indiana, a small town in south-central Indiana, population of 15,000. Braun is an immensely successful businessman whose company employs more than 600 individuals. I came to know Mike when we ran against one another for the state representative seat for Indiana’s 63rd district in 2014. We spoke before the same audiences and sat at the same tables. We discussed issues and philosophies. He defeated me handily.

I would not describe him as a movement conservative, which meant he was likely to move leftward once ensconced in D.C. after winning the Senate seat in 2018. He favored lower taxes and large deductibles for health insurance coverage. All well and good, but limited. Beyond that, I felt he knew little. Not on national or international matters, on energy or immigration. Nor on cultural issues, which Republicans have ignored, to the nation’s detriment, for decades. Braun provided a clue of the direction he would take when in his very first year in the Senate he joined with Senator Chris Coons, (D-DE) to form the first Senate bipartisan caucus on “finding solutions to ‘climate change.’” Not a good start, Mike. Still, I thought, in most ways, at least, he would have conservative, common-sense instincts as a Jasper man, Midwesterner, and successful businessman.

As many have seen, I could not have been more wrong. Braun’s response to the post-George Floyd rioting was to introduce a bill named the “Reforming Qualified Immunity Act.” This bill would have taken aim at “qualified immunity,” which protects police from frivolous lawsuits pursued in the regular discharge of an officer’s duties. Braun, in so doing, was accepting the BLM-leftist premise that one of the significant problems confronting blacks in America was the statistically invalid claim that there is widespread police brutality targeting blacks. He neglected to mention the exploding rates of black out-of-wedlock childbirth, welfare dependency, educational failure, drug addiction, criminality, incarceration, and the formation of an entrenched black underclass since the Great Society. Braun felt that cops needed to be held accountable. He brought up the cases of George Floyd, Rayshard Brooks, and Breonna Taylor. He signaled his support for Black Lives Matter, a Marxist organization that has called for the killing of police and the abolition of the “Western-prescribed nuclear family.”

We also learn of the efforts of Senator John Cornyn, (R-TX), who sponsored a bill to make “Juneteenth” a federal holiday. This day, June 19, marks the anniversary of the last slaves officially liberated in Texas and the Confederacy in 1865 after the Civil War had ended. Senators Ron Johnson, (R-WI), and James Lankford, (R-OK) agreed with the bill but went a step further by recommending exchanging it for Columbus Day, effectively eliminating that holiday, a position advocated by BLM Marxists. Johnson cited concerns over the debt. This, after Johnson and most of Congress had already voted for stimulus packages of more than $2 trillion in the wake of the COVID pandemic and a likely federal deficit of $4 trillion for 2020.

In the aftermath of the George Floyd incident on May 25, Republican Senate Majority Leader, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, announced to reporters on Capitol Hill that “we are still wrestling with America’s original sin [of slavery].” He later spoke of “obvious racial discrimination” in policing that would require legislation.

Joining a protest against police brutality, Republican Senator Mitt Romney of Utah stated that “We need to stand up and say that black lives matter.” A GOP-led Senate Armed Services Committee approved a proposal to strip Confederate names from military bases. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, (R-CA), said he was “not opposed” to renaming bases.

These Republican efforts come as avowed communist activists pull down statues, deface monuments, loot, burn, and pillage their way through the land, undertaking to destroy our economic and political systems and erase our history. The tactic of destroying memorials to Robert E. Lee and other confederates moved at lightning speed to engulf the founders and other historic American heroes, including Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, Grant, Frederick Douglass, and others. Columbus became another favored target. For leftist book burners, Columbus is a genocidal racist, responsible for Western colonialism, slavery, and oppression of “indigenous people.” Their cultural jihad has now moved to our churches, synagogues, and Jesus himself.

In the face of this cultural onslaught by the Left, supported by our dominant institutions, including academia, the media, the Democrat Party, and corporate America, the Republicans speak of “police reform,” renaming military bases, and eliminating Columbus Day. But then Republicans begin every confrontation with the Left by accepting their premises and narrative, fighting, in effect, on their territory and disagreeing minimally if at all, seemingly oblivious to the threat.

Wars, however, are not won by playing defense. Republicans should begin by defending our culture, institutions, and history. They should extoll our legacy of human rights, liberty, Constitutional governance, and Western achievements in art, music, literature, science, and technology. Our unparalleled standard of living and material, moral, and spiritual riches should be proudly brandished and upheld.

But Republicans must also go on the offensive, and attack the decadent, degenerate Left, within our country and without. Point out their record of poverty, oppression, and genocide. Describe the devastation of the Soviet Union, Red China, and the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia. Wrap the Marxist record of destruction around the necks of their successors in the American Left and the Democrat Party who now openly embrace that corrupt system. Draw inspiration from a previous Republican leader, Ronald Reagan, who confronted tyranny and defended liberty. Reagan lambasted the Soviets as the “evil empire,” and demanded that Soviet General Secretary Gorbachev “tear down this wall” to the chagrin of RINOs and Democrats of his day.

But that is not what you will get from the BLM Republicans, our chestless Republican boys. They lack the stomach for political warfare. A new political vehicle is required, or the party drastically reformed. It must become a party and movement that will unabashedly defend our institutions and history. Only when we have such a party, capable of attacking the Revolutionary Left, can we save the country. Would that Braun of Indiana, or others in the Republican fold, consider such change with the nation under siege.

Join the conversation over at American Thinker by clicking the link below. Over 100 comments as of August 2020.

The Towering and Pathetic Cowardice of Republicans

Tue, 30 Jun 2020 19:39:40 GMT

On June 9, 2020, Republican Senate Majority Leader, Mitch McConnell , of Kentucky, in the aftermath of the George Floyd incident on May 25, announced to reporters on Capitol Hill that “we are still wrestling with America’s original sin [of slavery].” He later spoke of “obvious racial discrimination ” in policing that would require legislation. Senate Republicans led by black Republican Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina released the “ Justice Act” on June 17, 2020, with broad guidelines for police reform. A day earlier, on June 16, President Donald Trump signed an executive order also to promote law enforcement changes. Joining a protest against police brutality, Republican Senator Mitt Romney of Utah stated that “We need to stand up and say that black lives matter.” On June 11, the GOP led Senate Armed Services Committee approved a proposal to strip Confederate names from military bases. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-CA, said he was “not opposed” to renaming bases and agreed with some aspects of the sweeping police reform bill released by the Congressional Black Caucus.

It is one of life’s certainties that when racial tensions flare Republicans will fold into a defensive crouch and surrender to all absurd and counterfactual leftist claims such as “systemic racism,” and widespread “police brutality” targeting blacks. They will then serve up some version of radical-progressivism-lite to cover themselves and attempt to appease the leftist mob. It is particularly obnoxious and self-defeating because Republicans have an excellent case to make when it comes to “race” if only they would make it.

Remember, Republicans, that your party, the Republican Party, was formed in 1856 as an abolitionist party, the purpose of which was to end slavery. State that your greatest son, Abraham Lincoln, perhaps the nation’s most revered President and martyr, the first Republican President, liberated the slaves in a Civil War. That cataclysm consumed the lives of 700,000 soldiers, including 400,000 mostly white Union soldiers that perished to preserve the Union and free black slaves.

Instead of whimpering and pandering, report that it was the Democrats that seceded from the Union to form the Confederacy to keep their precious slaves and that the Civil War was not North against South, but Republicans fighting Democrats. Include in your vapid commentary that Democrats fought reconstruction and opposed all civil rights legislation to defend the newly freed slaves. Affirm that it was Democrat Supreme Court justices who gave us the Dred Scott decision of 1857 that declared that black slaves were “property,” the prelude to the Civil War, and the Plessy v. Ferguson decision of 1896 that established “separate but equal.”

Recall, Republicans, that the Democrats fiercely resisted the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision that ended “separate but equal,” including 99 Democrat Senators and Congressmen that signed the “Southern Manifesto ” of 1956 (with one Republican) that viciously condemned it. Boldly emphasize that the Democrats were the party of segregation, the KKK, black codes , poll taxes, literacy tests, and Jim Crow laws.

Can you bring yourselves to recollect that it was Republicans that granted the nation the Emancipation Proclamation, the Civil War amendments, including the 13th , 14th , and 15th amendments that liberated the slaves, gave them equal justice, and the right to vote, which Democrats opposed? Or that Republicans in Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1866, overriding a veto by Democrat President Andrew Johnson, the successor to Lincoln. Republican President Ulysses S. Grant, the conquering Civil War general who defeated the southern Democrat armies, signed into law the first Ku Klux Klan Act also known as the Civil Rights Act of 1870, the Second KKK Act (Civil Rights Act of 1871), the Third KKK Act of 1871, and the Civil Rights Act of 1875. Recall that the KKK was a terrorist group formed by Democrats. Report that Republican President Dwight Eisenhower signed the Civil Rights Act of 1957 and the Civil Rights Act of 1960. Democrat President Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, but only after Republicans pushed it through both houses of Congress amidst Democrat opposition.

But don’t stop there Republicans. For now, it is necessary to challenge blacks themselves, their very mixed record since Great Society, their misguided acceptance of liberalism and the Democrat party, and its malign prescriptions of grievance, victimhood, identity politics, and government dependency. Declare that there are many successful blacks in America today, along with Asians and Hispanics, including a black President, black billionaires and millionaires, black doctors, attorneys, professors, writers, businessmen, movie stars, entertainers, commentators, and athletes, and many other black success stories. This, even as a law-abiding, taxpaying black middle-class flourishes.

Proclaim also that taken as a whole, American blacks are the most powerful, affluent, and influential black community in the world. Clarify that poverty, unemployment, and incarceration rates for blacks were shrinking in the decades preceding the expansion of the liberal welfare state in the ‘60s, in some cases outdoing their white counterparts.

Do not forget that blacks live in dark blue cities and states controlled by Democrats, one-party rule for generations; virtually all of them are liberal Democrats, many of whom are also black. The governors, mayors, city councils, school superintendents, judges, prosecuting attorneys, juries, police commissioners, and most police in these cities are liberal Democrats, 95% of whom voted for Barack Obama. If there is systemic racism, then it would have to be the Democrat politicians, judges, lawyers, bureaucrats, officials, and citizens, many of them minority, who are the racists. Furthermore, declare that if our institutions are “systemically racist,” including the Academy, Hollywood, Entertainment, the media, and much of corporate America, they are virtually all liberal Democrats. It is they, then, who must be racist.

Then, Republicans, discuss conservative efforts to reform cities and help blacks break the cycle of poverty and welfare dependency. Such proposals include school choice, charter schools, vouchers, tax-reform, enterprise zones, vocational training, community colleges, entrepreneurship mentoring, and apprenticeship programs, much of it opposed by liberal Democrats.

Proclaim, Republicans, the glories of liberty, free markets, private property rights, and the individual, education and self-motivation, industry and enterprise, success and upward mobility, of the American Dream. Promote law and order, the two-parent family, faith, prayer, and the Western tradition. Defend the many accomplishments of America, our history and culture. Speak of the rule of law, robust policing, excellent schools, and safe communities instead of mouthing platitudes about George Floyd, “police reform,” or renaming military bases, as if any of that will help blacks.

The nation is burning before you. The radicals seek to break the country and government on the back of race and race war. These are communists, well-funded, organized, and ruthless. They represent our French and Russian Revolutions. If you allow them, they will become our Stalins, Maos, and Pol Pots. They seek to dismantle the nation and our institutions and grind them to rubble like the buildings they loot and burn, using race to demoralize the people, destabilize our constitutional system, take over the nation, and begin a thousand years of darkness. The stakes could not be higher. For once, Republican eunuchs, stand up to the horde, defend the nation, our history, culture, and civilization, before the barbarians destroy it forever.

June 30, 2020

Hydroxychloroquine, Me, and the Great Divide

Sat, 30 May 2020 19:30:53 GMT

I took hydroxychloroquine for two years. A long time ago as a visiting cancer surgeon in Asia, in Thailand, Nepal, India, and Bangladesh. From 1987 to 1990. Malaria is rife there. I took it for prophylaxis, 400 milligrams once a week for two years. Never had any trouble. It was inexpensive and effective. I started it two weeks before and was supposed to continue it through my stay and four weeks after returning. But I stopped it after two years. I was worried about potential side effects of which there are many, as with all drugs right down to Tylenol and aspirin. These, however, are rare. At a certain point, I was prepared to take my chances with mosquitoes and plasmodium, and so I stopped.

Chloroquine, the precursor of HCQ, was invented by Bayer in 1934. Hydroxychloroquine was developed during World War II as a safer, synthetic alternative and approved for medical use in the U.S. in 1955. The World Health Organization considers it an essential medicine, among the safest and most effective medicines, a staple of any healthcare system. In 2017, US doctors prescribed it 5 million times, the 128th most commonly prescribed drug in the country. There have been hundreds of millions of prescriptions worldwide since its inception. It is one of the cheapest and best drugs in the world and has saved millions of lives. Doctors also prescribe it for Lupus and Rheumatoid arthritis patients who may consume it for their lifetimes with few or no ill effects.

Then something happened to this wonder drug. From savior of the multitudes, redeemer and benefactor of hundreds of millions, it transformed into something else: a purveyor of doom, despair, and unspeakable carnage. It began when President Trump discussed it as a possible treatment for COVID-19 on March 19, 2020. The gates of hell burst forth on May 18 when Trump casually announced that he was taking it, prescribed by his physician. Attacks on Trump and this otherwise harmless little molecule poured in. The heretofore respected, commonly used, and highly effective medicinal became a major threat to life, a nefarious and wicked chemical that could alter critical heart rhythms, resulting in sudden cataclysmic death for unsuspecting innocents. Trump, more than irresponsible, was evil incarnate for daring to even mention it. While at it, the salivating media trotted out the canard about Trump’s nonrecommendation for injecting Clorox and Lysol or drinking fish-tank cleaner to combat COVID. It was Charlottesville all over again.

Before a nation of non-cardiologists, the media agonized over, of all things, the prolongation of the now infamous “QT interval,” and the risk of sudden cardiac death. The FDA and NIH piled on, piously demanding randomized, controlled, double-blind studies before physicians prescribed HCQ. No one mentioned that the risk of cardiac arrest was far higher from watching the Superbowl. Nor did the media declare that HCQ and chloroquine have been used throughout the world for half a century, making them among the most widely prescribed drugs in history with not a single reported case of “arrhythmic death” according to the sainted WHO and the American College of Cardiology. Or that physicians in the field, on the frontlines, so to speak, based on empirical evidence, have found benefit in treating patients with a variety of agents including HCQ, Zinc, Azithromycin, Quercetin, Elderberry supplements, Vitamins D and C with few if any complications. Or that while such regimens may not cure, they may help and carry little or no risk.

And so, the world was aflame once again with a nonstory driven by the COVID media. The HCQ divide within the nation is only a continuation of innumerable divides that have surfaced since the pandemic began -- and before. One will know the politics of an individual based on his position on any number of pandemic issues: lockdowns, sheltering in place, face masks, social distancing, “elective surgery,” and “essential businesses.” The closing of schools and colleges. Blue states and Red states. Governor Cuomo or Governor DeSantis. Nationwide injunctions or federalism. The WHO and Red China. Or, pre-pandemic, Brexit, open borders, DACA, and amnesty. CBD oil, turmeric, and legalizing marijuana. Russia Collusion, Trump’s taxes, the 25th amendment, Stormy Daniels, the Ukraine non-scandal, and impeachment. Or Obamagate. And now HCQ.

HCQ is only another bellwether. It represents the latest nonevent in a long string of fabricated media nonscandals. If a nation can be divided over HCQ it can be divided over anything. It shows neatly, as many of the other non-issues did, whether one embraces the U.S., our history, culture, and constitutional system, or rejects it. Whether one believes in Americanism or despises it. It is part of the ongoing civil war, thus far cold, but who knows? The passions today are no less jarring than they were in 1860. One would have thought that a man taking a medicine prescribed by his physician, even a President, would be a private matter. But no. Not today.

We swim in an ocean of manufactured disinformation created by a radical COVID media, our fifth column. They inflame the nation one way or another based on political whims. The propaganda arm of the Left, they seek victory at all costs including dismantling the economy, culture, and our governing system. Is there a curative for the COVID media and their Democrat allies who would destroy a nation to destroy Trump? He is all that stands between us and them. Is there an antiviral for this, the communist virus that has infected the nation, metastasized throughout its corpus, and now threatens the republic?

Dr. Moss is a practicing Ear Nose and Throat Surgeon, author, and columnist, residing in Jasper, IN. He has written A Surgeon’s Odyssey and Matilda’s Triumph available on amazon.com. Find more of his essays at richardmossmd.com. Visit Richard Moss, M.D. on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

My Neighbors Hunt

Wed, 22 Apr 2020 19:36:23 GMT

My neighbors hunt. They can survive in the forest, hills, lakes, and rivers, here in Indiana. They understand the world of nature, its vicissitudes and savagery. Appreciating its transcendent beauty and cadences, they also accept its fierce cruelties. They do not worship nature. They seek reconciliation with it that they may endure and protect their loved ones. They admire the natural world, its towering majesty and microscopic complexity, but they do not hold it on a pedestal, pristine, and viewed from a distance. Theirs’ is a realistic appraisal of nature and its vagaries, and what they require to survive.

Coming from the Bronx, I was acquainted with riding the subway or bus or navigating the busy and often treacherous streets of New York. There I learned to survive in the city, but I knew nothing of hunting, fishing, or surviving in nature. Coastal elites have disdain for those schooled in such things. They assume that food, water, and other necessities and amenities just appear. They lack awareness of the complex grids, structures, and platforms that maintain their comforts. The sources of the electricity that powers their computers and air-conditioning. The gasoline that fuels their cars. They do not appreciate those who make these daily, secular miracles possible, the commonplace wonders of modern, electronic civilization.

Many Hoosiers preserve food. Some steam or pressure can. Or dehydrate, pickle, freeze-dry, smoke, or salt items. Knowing how to farm, they cope with caterpillars, aphids, and cutworms and guard against hedgehogs, fungi, and lack of rain.

Some have gas tanks and generators. They have water filters, propane stoves, purifying tablets, first-aid kits, pick-up trucks, drills, hammers, and wrenches. They can repair a car, a machine, or a leaking pipe. And yes, they also know how to install wifi, use computers, navigate the internet, and operate smartphones.

They have guns and ammunition. Well trained, many are veterans, serve in the National Guard or law enforcement, and are defenders of the 2nd amendment. They have shotguns, bolt-action rifles, AR-10s, and other semi-automatics. They own handguns and an array of shells, including expanding home-defense rounds. Many have night vision, tree stands, bows, arrows, camouflage, trail cameras, scents, GPS devices, and 2-way radios. They hunt duck, quail, and deer. Floating down a river or walking the fields, they recognize the rhythms of the animals they track and pursue, their migration and trail patterns, driven by the weather, mating seasons, and food sources.

Some love to fish. Equipped with bait, rods, reels, nets, and spears, they cast for bluegill, catfish, and carp.

It is a different world from city dwellers who know only of going to a grocery or ordering online. They are ignorant of nature, although they worship it in a paganistic way, atheists as they generally are. They believe in nothing, so they believe in everything. Global warming concerns them, though none would change their lifestyle to reduce their carbon footprint. They are uninformed of the history of climate patterns, the solar cycles that drive the weather, the ice ages and interglacials that occurred well before the industrial age. They blindly accept the panicked predictions of flawed Global Climate Models, not unlike the hysterical coronavirus forecasts that called for the Black Death and forced the unnecessary crashing of our economy. They would abhor nature if they actually had to live in it.

But these metropolitans, gentry liberals, and globalists, scornful and sarcastic, enclosed in leftist coastal ecosystems, have their opinions confirmed daily by everyone around them. Predictable and conformist, they hilariously imagine themselves wild and free, and look down at those who know so much of nature, who can live and flourish in the wild. Hunters, fishermen, food preservers, and preppers do not idolize the environment. They just respect it. Such people, blue-collar types often, farmers, oil workers, mechanics, and coal miners, make the lives of the urbanites possible. They provide them with power, goods, food, and water that they may live and sneer.

But if the power grid went down from a solar event or an EMP (Electromagnetic Pulse) device, or if the economy collapsed, the denizens of flyover country would survive. Probably not so our sophisticated urbanites.

They would soon realize that their clever turns of phrase, condescending smirks, allegiance to “diversity,” abortion, and the rejection of God, would mean nothing before the fury of nature and nature’s God. It would be a distant and aloof nature, whose whims had formerly been kept at bay not by Greenpeace, Sierra Club, or the ACLU, but by truckers, electricians, and refrigerator repairmen.

Their fatal conceits would vanish in terrified moments as nature delivered its cruel blows. Their high-minded rhetoric, progressive orthodoxy, navel gazing, and self-absorption would dissolve before the acid rain of Gaia’s indifferent wrath. The globalists, media types, and hip Marxist professors would not do well. The anointed ones, the ruling class, and other pompous visionaries would descend to savagery in a war of all against all. But the country bumpkins would get by. Some may not even blink an eye, for they already anticipated this, and had spent their lives preparing.

In the age of coronavirus, a time of plague, with the economy crumbling, hospitals closing, streets emptied of life, perhaps the metropolitans may want to reconsider their contempt. What is certain is that our elites, in the media, academia, and elsewhere, cloistered in liberal ghettoes, amongst fellow members of the cognoscenti, would not survive without the welders, assembly line workers, and equipment operators. Those whom they refer to as hicks, rubes, and deplorables who cling to their guns and Bibles. Maybe they should thank them. But don’t hold your breath.

Armageddon for Red China

Thu, 09 Apr 2020 19:03:16 GMT

The Chinese Virus, also known as the Red Chinese Virus, the Communist Chinese Virus, the Kung Flu, Flu Manchu, Lung Pow Sicken, Chop Fluey, Covid19 or the Novel Corona Virus (highly bigoted against the producers of Corona Beer, which is made in Mexico), is treated like no other illness in the history of the planet. It has caused enormous damage to the nation as much from government reaction to it as the medical consequences of the disease itself. It was also completely preventable.

The virus emerged from Wuhan, China under uncertain circumstances. Some have speculated that it was part of the Communist Chinese biowarfare laboratory in Wuhan where it escaped and mistakenly entered the population at large. Or it may have been a zoonotic virus arising from a live, “wet” market. A Chinese ophthalmologist in Wuhan who has since died from the disease was one of the first to break the news. The Communist Chinese regime silenced him and others to avoid losing face or creating uncertainty about China. This cover-up went on for six weeks until the world came to know of the problem. If China had been forthcoming, even by as little as three weeks, it is estimated it would have reduced the number of cases by 95% and limited global spread.

Part of the China coverup included silencing its experts, taking away credentials from five US media outlets, and expelling journalists from the New York Times, Washington Post, and the Wall Street Journal. China launched a disinformation campaign blaming the US Military for spreading the virus. Playing the victim card, China even descended into identity politics claiming at the time that President Trump’s banning of Chinese from entering the United States on January 31, 2020 was racist, a charge eagerly embraced by the Red Chinese American media. The American press went further into overdrive in defending the totalitarian regime when it accused President Trump of racism for referring to the virus as the Wuhan or Chinese virus despite having used the same terms repeatedly themselves. WHO puppets, like the American media, have parroted Red Chinese propaganda.

Trump has engaged in a number of unprecedented steps to impede the spread of the Chinese Virus, including banning travel from China, Europe, the UK, and Ireland, sealing our borders, and declaring a public health emergency. He has formed a task force headed by Vice President Mike Pence, held daily press conferences, worked with state governors, and invoked the Defense Production Act. Trump has also signed the historic $2.2 trillion Corona Virus Stimulus bill, with a dizzying array of spending and funding options. More than half the states have imposed lockdown measures, quarantines, “sheltering in place,” and “social distancing,” disrupting the activities of more than 100 million people and halting the operations of thousands of businesses. The impact of placing much of the country under house arrest, the abridgment of civil liberties, and shutting down vast segments of the economy has been crushing.

In the last two weeks of March, there have been 10 million jobless claims, already exceeding the 8.7 million claims filed during the Great Recession 2007-2009 from peak to trough. The stock market entered a bear market with the Dow plunging 23% for the quarter, its worst since 1987. Oxford Economics estimates there will be 24 million lost jobs and a 14% unemployment rate in April, well above the 10% peak reached during the Great Recession. GDP is expected to fall by 9% in the first quarter and 34% in the 2nd quarter, the worst since World War II.

The Corona virus pandemic shatters several sacred myths held by governing elites. These include religious devotion to open borders and globalism, the rejection of nationalism and the nation-state, and absolute allegiance to free trade, particularly with China. Many American companies outsourced their manufacturing to China, creating enormous profits for themselves on the backs of Chinese slave labor while eviscerating the American heartland. For the privilege of investing in China and having access to its vast market, the Communist government forced companies to give the regime majority ownership and its proprietary intellectual property. In time, the regime created its own version of the company, stealing its technology and eliminating the competition.

Yet we foolishly went along with this scam for two decades. In so doing, we knowingly jeopardized our national security, devastated our labor force, and placed our supply chains for critical products at risk. We suffered through massive trade deficits, the loss of manufacturing, the lowering of life expectancy, increases in suicide and drug dependency, and the wiping out of communities, littered like so many carcasses through the midsection of the country.

Even more delusional was the notion that through trade Red China would liberalize and become a more open, democratic, law-abiding member of the international community. The Chinese government, however, is a Leninist regime, a totalitarian police and surveillance state that has no intention of relinquishing power. Nor will it abide rights or freedoms for its subject population. Instead, it persecutes and imprisons them, crushes dissent, and commits human rights abuses and atrocities against marginalized communities such as the Uighurs, Tibetans, and the Falun Gong.

Through tax, regulatory, legal, and other incentives and remedies, the US must return manufacturing to the US, recreate supply chains within the country or with allies, wean the nation from China, delink our economies, stop flooding our universities with Chinese students, and treat China as an “evil empire” and strategic threat far greater than the Soviet Union. We must have free trade, but an America First free trade that benefits the nation and our workers. The cost of globalism has proven too high.

The Chinese have delivered unto our nation this century’s Pearl Harbor. With the cover-up and unleashing of the Chinese Virus upon our shores, either deliberately or through negligence, it has devastated the country every bit as much as the attack on our naval base in 1941. We must punish China and treat it as the adversary it is.

April 6, 2020

FOOTNOTE: Dr. Moss is a practicing Ear Nose and Throat Surgeon, author, and columnist, residing in Jasper, IN. He has written A Surgeon’s Odyssey and Matilda’s Triumph available on amazon.com. Find more of his essays at richardmossmd.com. Visit Richard Moss, M.D. on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

The City-County County Observer posted this article without bias, opinion or editing.

Red China's Pearl Harbor

Thu, 09 Apr 2020 18:59:51 GMT

The Chinese Virus, also known as the Red Chinese Virus, the Communist Chinese Virus, the Kung Flu, Flu Manchu, Lung Pow Sicken, Chop Fluey, Covid19 or the Novel Corona Virus (highly bigoted against the producers of Corona Beer, which is made in Mexico), is treated like no other illness in the history of the planet. It has caused enormous damage to the nation as much from government reaction to it as the medical consequences of the disease itself. It was also completely preventable.

April 6, 2020

The City-County County Observer posted this article without bias, opinion or editing.

When Red States Act Blue

Sat, 14 Mar 2020 19:22:20 GMT

My state folded. The people didn’t fail; our government did. Specifically, our governor. Indiana is a red, Republican state with two Republican US Senators, seven (out of nine) Republican Congressman, a Republican State House and Senate, and, ostensibly, a Republican governor. Governor Eric Holcomb is his name. With Republicans like him who needs Democrats.

Holcomb won the governor’s seat by a series of unlikely events. He had never before won elected office. A state GOP apparatchik, he was a behind the scenes character. He had run for the Senate in 2016 against two Republican congressmen, Marlin Stutzman and Todd Young. Unable to compete politically or financially, the lackluster Holcomb quickly withdrew.

But then lightning struck.

When Mike Pence’s lieutenant governor, Sue Ellspermann, left the ticket in 2016 to head Ivy Tech, then governor Mike Pence tagged Holcomb to be his running mate. Donald Trump then tapped Pence for the Vice-Presidential slot. This opened the door for Holcomb to ride the Trump/Pence coattails to the governorship of Indiana.

Holcomb has since dealt with the Covid-19 pandemic like any Democrat governor would. Only he is not a Democrat, and Indiana is not a Democrat state.

On March 23, 2020, Holcomb announced a stay-at-home order through April 7, subsequently extended to May 1. The arguments against a draconian, one-size-fits-all, statewide lockdown are many.

Selective, targeted, or more “surgical” interdiction, as Dr. David Katz referred to it in a widely read Op-Ed on March 20, 2020, in, of all places, the New York Times, makes sense in light of the growing knowledge of the at-risk, vulnerable populations. These are the elderly and infirm who should be quarantined for their own protection. The risk of dying from Covid for the young and healthy approaches zero. Why engage in “diffuse hostilities” or “carpet bombing” with significant “collateral damage” when a more precise, “surgical” approach would suffice? Selective quarantining of vulnerable populations, such as are found in nursing homes, assisted living facilities, and hospice makes sense. Closing schools full of young, healthy children does not.

Among many absurdities in the Holcomb shutdown was a halt of so-called “non-essential” or “elective” surgery, a misleading term that suggested interventions along the lines of breast implants or facelifts and not medically necessary, albeit non-emergent, procedures. These would include diagnostic studies, biopsies, cancer resections, gall bladder surgery, hernia repair, pediatric, neurosurgical, orthopedic, and cardiac procedures, chemotherapy, radiation, and treatment of brain aneurysms. These are medically necessary, yet Holcomb foolishly grouped them into the fictitious category of “elective” surgery. We have heard nothing about the number of patients who have died because of the non-treatment of life-threatening non-Covid medical conditions.

Holcomb and other governors introduced the notion of “essential businesses” versus “non-essential” businesses as if they could make such an arbitrary distinction. All companies are essential to their owners, employees, customers, and suppliers. In doing so, many businesses had to close, some likely never to reopen.

Consider the devastation of not the pandemic, but rather our reaction to it, to the economy, healthcare system, supply lines, schools, tens of thousands of shuttered businesses, and tens of millions of unemployed Americans, a horrible self-inflicted wound. How has it come that Indiana, a very red state, would have followed the same failed policies of deep blue states? Particularly when there are eight states that did not issue blanket lockdowns? They are close to Indiana geographically and, although not identical, are at least similar demographically. These include North and South Dakota, Nebraska, Arkansas, and Iowa. Also included are Wyoming, Oklahoma, and Utah.

As of May 6, 2020: According to Worldometer:

Deaths per million for Indiana: 207.

IA: 70

OK: 65

NB: 43

ND: 41

SD: 38

AK: 28

UT: 21

WY: 12

Unemployment rate as of April 30, 2020:

IN: 16.8% (7th highest in the nation)

IA: 14.9%

OK: 14.9%

ND: 14.1%

AK: 13.2%

WY 10.1%

NB: 10%

UT: 8.4%

SD: 7.2%

Indiana, with a total of 1377 deaths or 207 deaths per million, saw an unemployment rate of 16.8%. NY, with 25,436 deaths and 1,378 deaths per million, had an unemployment rate of 10.5%. On the other hand, South Dakota had 34 deaths, or 38 deaths per million, and an unemployment rate of 7.2%.

Holcomb, like so many others, sought to “flatten the curve,” but succeeded only in flattening the economy.

Daniel Horowitz rightly complained about Minnesota Governor Tim Walz’s lockdown of that midwestern state, its low death rate but devastatingly high unemployment rate in comparison with New York. Walz, however, is a liberal Democrat governor of a blue state. How much worse is it when it is the Republican governor of a red state with a Republican monopoly on state power?

Great job Governor Holcomb.

The problem with Holcomb is the problem with Republicans and the Republican Party in general. They are terrified of stepping out, of bucking the liberal mob, of standing up to the Covid-media.

Why not, for example, seek the aid of recognized experts and researchers in the field, many of whom have written of their opposition to total shutdowns, and develop an alternative account? Individuals like John Ioannidis, David Katz, Scott Atlas, Knut Wittkowski, John Geach, and others, could have assisted in formulating a coherent, science-based argument to counter the false narrative thrust upon us by the Covid-media and their universe of manufactured lies. Instead of following the herd, he could have educated, reassured, and, ultimately, liberated the state and its people from the panic and hysteria that have consumed the nation.

In the name of “following the science,” this sickening phrase used endlessly by a litany of political and moral lightweights, as if it were a sacrament instead of the fraud that it is, Holcomb, like so many others, actually abandoned science. He laughably imagined himself a bold leader making a painful but necessary decision rather than a quisling that sidestepped the opportunity to benefit his state and set an example for the nation. Thus, he could have challenged the tyranny and fascism on display in many blue-states by, indeed, “following the science.” Selective quarantining of vulnerable populations was needed, not blanket shutdowns of entire states.

Rather than protecting Indiana, our economy and healthcare system, our students, schools, and churches, and our civil and religious liberties, Holcomb found his inner Mussolini and locked them all down. He conferred not with his Republican base, the State House and Senate leadership, and respected experts, but with blue-state Democrat governors.

With Republicans like him who needs Democrats?

Chanukah, Christmas, and Western Civilization

Wed, 25 Dec 2019 20:08:27 GMT

After the Greeks fell away, there was a brief interlude of Jewish independence in Israel but then the Romans conquered the Holy Land in 63 BC (Pompey). Life under Roman rule was difficult and there was another rebellion in 70 AD. General Vespasian destroyed the Jewish kingdom and King David’s ancient capital fell for a second time. Many Jews died or were enslaved. There rose again a savior in 135 AD, Bar Kochba, but in the end his rebellion too crumbled before Rome’s might (Emperor Hadrian). Jerusalem and the Temple were ploughed under with salt and hundreds of thousands of Jews were slaughtered. Jerusalem was resettled. Rome renamed Israel, Palestina, reaching back to Israel’s ancient foes the Philistines to conceal its Jewish past. The exiles went forth as slaves and rootless wanderers. And the long night began.

We must dedicate ourselves to preserving America, the West, and Western civilization, by preserving its Judeo-Christian tradition. The light of Chanukah and Christmas must continue to burn, and illumine the night, pushing away the darkness that is always present, the norm for most of history. They should guide us and our nation and the West for all time. It is what distinguishes us from the rest, our values, our devotion to truth, knowledge, goodness, beauty, and reason, the belief in the sanctity of the individual made in the image of God, rejecting the moral and cultural relativism of the post-modern left and the totalitarian threat of unreformed Islam. We must rededicate ourselves in our current battle as the Maccabees did against the Greeks and as Israel did against the Arab armies that sought its destruction in 1948 and has done ever since against its many enemies.

The spirit of Chanukah and Christmas should inspire us. Happy Chanukah and Merry Christmas to all.

Dr. Richard Moss is a board certified head and neck cancer surgeon and was a candidate for Congress in 2016 and 2018. He graduated from the Indiana University School of Medicine and has been in practice in Jasper and Washington, IN for over 20 years. He is married with four children. Author and columnist, he has written A Surgeon’s Odyssey and Matilda’s Triumph available on amazon.com. Find more of his essays at richardmossmd.com. Visit Richard Moss, M.D. on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram

The 1932 and 1939 Project: How the New York Times Covered up Murder and Genocide

Wed, 06 Nov 2019 19:55:23 GMT

With the launching of the New York Times’ “1619 Project,” the paper of record seeks to reframe American history. Formerly we had foolishly assumed the birth of the nation to be July 4, 1776, with the writing of the Declaration of Independence. But no, the paper of record has another date in mind.

It turns out to be 1619, with the importing of the first African slaves to America. That moment, the Times believes, more accurately depicts the founding of the nation and its underlying precepts. We now learn that our Declaration, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights, or our disingenuous claim that “all men are created equal” do not define the nation. Rather, it is that America is a uniquely racist and exploitative enterprise, a criminal operation, morally stained in its DNA, founded as it is on the institution of slavery. Furthermore, we are to understand that all the advances and benefits that have accrued to our nation in its 243-year history, come not from our religious underpinnings, individual and private property rights, free markets, and our constitutional system of limited government, but rather -- you guessed it -- slavery.

Others have refuted the ideologic and political 1619 Project, so I will not retrace ground covered elsewhere. It makes more sense to declare a new project that I will describe as the “1932 and 1939 Project,” not as a new timeline and birthdate for the founding of the nation but rather as the origin of the despairingly predictable leftist propaganda machine that the media have become. Why 1932 and 1939? These are the years that the NY Times chose to ignore, cover up, and whitewash for ideological purposes what were among the worst genocides of the 20th century -- the Ukraine famine and the Holocaust.

Walter Duranty was the NY Times Moscow Bureau Chief from 1922-1936, soon after the Bolshevik overthrow of the Russian government. Duranty was an apologist for communism. Many in the American intelligentsia were also sympathetic to communism and appreciated Duranty’s dispatches. It was after Joseph Stalin’s first five-year plan, 1928-1933, in which Stalin attempted to restructure the Soviet economy, that Duranty became prominent based on exclusive interviews that Stalin granted him. The dictator’s policies led to widespread famine, particularly in the Ukraine, where estimates of up to 10 million people perished between 1932-1933, thought by many to be a deliberate genocide. Duranty received the Pulitzer Prize in 1932 for a series of reports from the Soviet Union in which he defended Stalin and denied that there was widespread famine. Contemporaneous observers reported that Duranty knew of the starvation and knowingly misrepresented the evidence.

The Times is also notorious for covering up the Holocaust, the Nazi effort to exterminate the Jews during World War II. It did so by burying stories about the Nazi genocide against the Jews in the back pages of the paper, avoiding the front page except on rare occasions. The Times often avoided mentioning that the victims of the Nazi persecutions, deportations, and death camps were Jews. If you had read the front page of the NY Times during the period of the Holocaust (1939 -1945), you would have missed the fact that the Nazis were rounding up, imprisoning, torturing, starving, executing, gassing, and otherwise exterminating on an industrial scale millions of innocent Jews

In the face of the ideological groupthink of the press, our own Soviet media, it seems reasonable to ground it in historical events that arguably define the onset of its debasement. If the Times can casually change the birth of the U.S. from 1776 to 1619 and redefine our founding principles, as it did in its 1619 Project, then surely we can recommend reasonable start dates for the perversion of our media. And what better and more consequential press outrages than the gloss-over by the NY Times of two of the 20th century’s greatest genocides?

The media is no longer content to simply fulfill its obligation to the First Amendment and report the news objectively, share ideas, challenge dogmas, enlighten the public, promote American principles, and provide critical oversight of the government. Instead, it has descended into an openly leftist propaganda coalition intent on promoting a Marxist view of reality indistinguishable from that of the Democratic Party. This collapse into summary leftism in support of one political party and dogma has reached its acme in the age of Trump where even the pretense of impartiality has been discarded.

The “1932 and 1939 Project” targets two critical moments when the NY Times, the dominant media voice of the radical left, failed to expose and marshal attention toward a critical matter. It chose instead to conceal and bury two catastrophic annihilations, deliberately collaborating in the deaths of millions of innocent victims.

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Ingenuity

Thu, 10 Oct 2019 20:11:33 GMT

The internet provides opportunities to promote one's career in many different directions. The whole "Indie" movement based on self-publishing and the Amazon platform represents a revolution in marketing one's literary efforts. It is American capitalism that creates these opportunities, the endless innovation and tinkering and refining and sometimes explosive revolution in technology and science; it is protean and dynamic, endlessly refining itself, a wonder of nature. It should be appreciated and allowed to flourish, but that future is uncertain.

Dr. Moss is the author or “A Surgeon’s Odyssey” and “Matilda’s Triumph” available on amazon.com and at Barnes and Noble in Evansville, IN. For more information visit richardmossmd.com. Find Richard Moss, M.D. on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

Dilemma

Thu, 10 Oct 2019 20:09:31 GMT

I have always had a conflict between writing and my day job. It is a good day job and pays well, I cannot complain, still the time involved takes away from creative work, which for me is writing. William Buckley Jr. used to say "write fast." And maybe that's an answer in part, to let it flow - quickly. I can hardly stand to hear another discussion or podcast on "time management." Leave me alone already with time management - but there, too, may be part of the answer. It is hard to walk away from one's day job. Some argue to do just that. But with wife, four kids, and home (not to mention pet cat)? It's a level of courage I do not possess. So, in the meantime I will continue working the writing in between time at the office and surgery. There is a synergy between the two to a certain extent. But at some point I want to devote myself fully to writing. It would be a relief for me to have the time.

Clash

Thu, 10 Oct 2019 20:05:24 GMT

In one of the earlier scenes in my book, A Surgeon's Odyssey, I meet an older Thai man of military bearing at the Chiang Mai Train Station (Thailand) just after arriving from Bangkok on the overnight train. He is something of an imposing figure, a man of distinction. After a brief greeting, he immediately inquires as to whether I am married and if I want a wife. For just a moment, I wondered how this might be achieved. Before I could respond, my colleagues from the hospital appeared and whisked me off in their car to begin my life in Chiang Mai, and so I never learned what my interlocutor had in mind. But within that question is a universe of meaning and significance: on what is acceptable to ask even a perfect stranger, the expectations and customs of Thailand, the importance of marriage and family in traditional cultures, the relationship between the sexes, and much else. In Western cultures, the expectations 60 years ago might have been similar, but in the maelstrom of social upheaval of the last six decades, for better or worse, we have moved far from such assumptions. But quite apart from the political and moral dimensions, from the perspective of a traveler and writer it is everything. It is why we travel not as tourists but as wanderers and seekers, searching for experiences that become the material that allows us to tell a story: we seek such cultural mother lodes, big and small, to inspire or move us or even depress or repel us but in someway to compel us. We hunt for these nuggets of life, culture, humanity, truth, and reality to exploit for our own purposes: to describe and write about, and ultimately to transform into literature, a form of alchemy - to take that which may even seem ordinary (or extraordinary) and convert it into something else. Eventually it becomes part of a book, essay, blog or column, a snippet or chapter along with hundreds of other such tales that we string along the necklace of our story. We plunge into our experience and discern or uncover that which is hidden or not hidden to expose and display. There is always the craft of writing, the dialogue, description, timing, and so forth. We must sculpt and mold the account skillfully and ensure that it fits in the overall weave. But it is the raw material of the clash of cultures, of individuals, of moments, of the ordinary and extraordinary, of the unexpected and mundane, the capricious and predictable, of the chain of vignettes, that drive the narrative and unearth the riches of redolent experiences that become literature. This is the ore we mine as writers and tellers.

Blessings

Thu, 10 Oct 2019 19:56:50 GMT

It is an astonishing time we live in although it is easy enough to take it for granted. Most people would not appreciate that the poorest American today lives a far better and more comfortable life than the richest American a hundred years ago. By any measure: life expectancy, health, access to sophisticated technology including life-saving medical devices and pharmaceuticals, handy comforts and devices, food, clothing, heating, cooling, electricity, lights, refrigeration, transportation, powerful computers that the poorest among us now hold in our hands, and so on, speak to an endlessly transformative economic system known as the free market, which continues to dazzle and improve our lives. One of the greatest of these developments has been the internet. Overnight, as it were, untold volumes of information have become available to us at virtually no cost, with the click of a finger on a smart device or other computer. There are many benefits to this, but one of the most important is the ease with which any of us can start a business, an online business, with relatively minimal costs: a domain, hosting service, and website; then marketing your product online, through social media, email, and so forth, and, of course, monetising it in someway, if possible, generally by deploying good and appealing content, goods, and services - on a steady basis. None of this is terribly costly, just time, labor, imagination, and marketing. But contemplate the pricetag in starting a business pre-internet. It would require an office, phone and fax lines, furniture, printers, employees, rent, insurance, equipment, supplies, advertising, and so on: the expense and overhead would put it out of reach for many if not most people, regardless of how creative the business idea or content might have been. Writers, columnists, novelists, bloggers, commentators, essayists, fiction, non-fiction, professional, trade, artistic, fantasy, have opportunities to develop, promote, and publish their work with an ease that would have been unreachable to writers of yesteryear - and in any genre or style: a plethora of subjects, perspectives, styles, and agendas that would have been unthinkable before. It is a new writer's market that, thanks to American ingenuity and the free enterprise system, any such vagabond scribe can now join. The writer's journey can be taken by anyone with the will, wit, skill, and desire to ascend it. Or any business or creative journey for that matter. The world has opened.

Japanese Food

Thu, 10 Oct 2019 19:51:08 GMT

When I traveled to Japan as a fourth year medical student from the Indiana University School of Medicine I was thinking less about sushi and more about the medical experience. I spent three months under the tutelage of my good friend and sensei (mentor), Dr. Shozo Tateishi, a thoracic surgeon at Kyoto University in Kyoto, the ancient capitol of Japan and perhaps my favorite city in the world. Kyoto is magical and historic, flush with magnificent and inspiring Buddhist temples and Shinto shrines scattered liberally throughout the city, castles, gardens, intimate winding streets, small inviting shops, and grand festivals, rich with spectacle, costume, and tradition. Nara, the original capitol of Japan, also replete with a seemingly unending array of temples and shrines, including the great Todai-ji temple containing the largest bronze Buddha in the world, is only an hour away. These two cultural gems rank among the great paired cities of the world. It was even more enchanting to later take my then thirteen-year-old daughter Arielle to visit Dr. Tateishi and see Kyoto and Nara through her eyes after ascending, as Dr. Tateishi had always urged me to, to fatherhood, he being the progenitor of his own five "kittens" (daughters), as he called them. But apart from the mesmerising temples, shrines, and gardens, and the delightful atmosphere of these fabled cities was the food. And here Dr. Tateishi exposed me to the eminent culinary tradition of Japan. "Rick-san," he would say, "please try this," as he passed a dish of some exotic morsel, encouraging me to sample yet another item from the elaborate banquet spread before us. Through Tateishi, I encountered sushi and sashimi, at his home or in a restaurant, and in extravagant fashion, always with a cup of sake (a rice based alcoholic beverage), and innumerable condiments and spices for enhancing the entrants of the spectacular buffet. As a mere medical student, I hardly deserved such lavish treatment by Professor Tateishi and his beloved wife Kyoko, a pediatrician, and the many colleagues and professors who took turns hosting me in yet further adventures in delectable dining, but in those months of feasting, I became familiar with the virtuosity and appeal of Japanese cuisine. Now I am in Indiana with wife and four children, living in the small town of Jasper. And my love of Japanese food has not ebbed. It is light, weighs easily on the stomach, and the tradition of presentation along with taste, remains paramount, an art form. And some restaurants are better than others. I took my wife and son, Noah, to one such establishment in Evansville, which emphasizes more Hibachi. I did not recall the Hibachi experience in Japan. I didn't know how authentic it was. But being true to sushi, I ordered a Las Vegas roll as it was called. And I could see that their heart was not in it. The presentation was sloppy, the rolls of sushi unkempt and scraggly, not tightly packed little parcels as they should have been. For a cuisine that emphasizes display as much as taste, it was not impressive. But the Hibachi was good. The spatula acrobatics with eggs and pieces of sea scallop coursing through the air put on by the Mexican man was entertaining. My wife enjoyed her meal. But I hearkened back to another Japanese restaurant, this one in Jasper that did not have Hibachi grills and related circus stunts, just another working eatery subsumed in the timeless Japanese culinary arts, providing sushi and sashimi and other traditional items flawlessly such as teriyaki, yakisoba, tempura, udon, and miso soup. Named "Yamato's," its owner is Chinese. I see few Japanese in America, at least not in the midwest. I miss them. I believe in the Japanese, their manners, qualities, and skills in so many things. They are an accomplished people and take a second seat to no one, one of only a handful of prosperous, productive, and functioning nations. It is also a small island country and possesses precious few natural resources yet has become one of the major cultural, economic, and technological powers of the world. Particularly, when one considers their emergence from the ravages of World War II, their homeland destroyed and 2 major cities atom-bombed. They did not wallow in their crushing and, yes, deserved defeat; they rose quickly from the ashes to assume their role as a top-tier nation. No, I have never lost my fondness and respect for Japan and its people. And at Yamato's, they maintained the sushi tradition. The pieces of salmon, tuna, eel, or yellowtail, are set alongside slivers of avocado or cucumber, encircled by a blanket of white rice, tightly swathed in seaweed, encrusted with tempura flakes or orange masago, lined with crunch and topped with spicy Tobiko sauce or other tasty condiment, arranged pleasingly atop the polished porcelain boat-shaped platter, a pugnacious but soldierly air about them, like little samurai garbed and festooned in battle armor and ready for an honorable death. The pink ginger slices and green wasabi paste and small bowl of soy sauce are positioned to the side for dipping the individual rolls. It is a seamless and transcendent realm I have entered into at Yamato's, an alternative universe. Indeed, I am restored here through succulent food, reunited in memory, visual and gustatory, and the soothing aromas, with my beloved Japan, and old friends, Tateishi-san and Kyoko-san. It is they who introduced me to the wonders of Japan, its art, religion, and temples, and, yes, its food. I live now for these precious moments, immersed in a web of pleasant sensations and reflections. I bask again in the glory of one of the great cuisines of the world, its cultivated variety, subdued majesty, refined hue, texture, and arrangement, and, yes, its transporting tastes and rarified flavors. At Yamato's, I am absorbed like a monk in the exalted deep eating of yesteryear - and today.

Winter of The Mind

Thu, 10 Oct 2019 19:47:08 GMT

The depths of winter are the bleakest of times, grey and fallow, the trees emptied of life, the wildlife desperate and sullen, the earth a crystalline tomb. The winter mires us and spreads its desolation before us. It sinks its fingers into our flesh, immobilizing us as it does the world. The winter is a metaphor for death, but it is death itself. It captures us like beasts and encircles us.

But within the wretchedness there is a thread. Winter bears a bitter irony - that with its pitiless encroachment new meaning can come. But like nature we must turn inward. In winter we self-examine and prune our excesses. As nature labors inwardly after the leaves have fallen, so must we.

Turn inward in winter, as nature does, and repair oneself. Recall the past and discern its wisdom. As the winter consumes us, so too does it scatter the seeds of the next generation: the earth will ply its orbit and hold its tilt, the sun will cast its broad filigree of light, and the eternal cadences will release us and bestow God’s benediction. Through the specter of death we may live again. Within the winter of the mind we glimpse the spring of the mind. New life will come.

Game Feed Nostrums: Saving the Plot of America

Thu, 10 Oct 2019 19:43:38 GMT

I went to a “Game Feed” recently, an event put on annually by a local who goes by the name of “Chief.” He organized this every January, in the winter, on a Saturday, in the middle of God’s country, on the outskirts of the town of Duff in Dubois County, southern Indiana.

It was a cold day with freezing temperatures, which was better than last year when it was raining and muddy. The dirt road was rocky and curving and surrounded by dense forest; it led into the property where the hunters gathered. It included a run down but functioning old cabin that dated back more than a hundred years, something from a bygone era within which was a fireplace, a perfect place to congregate and escape the cold. Some one hundred or so hunters and friends met here every year. These were gun people, a Second Amendment crowd, comfortable in the world of guns, ammo, camouflage, decoys, field dressing, butchering, and living off the land, my kind of people. Last year when I visited during my Congressional campaign they received me well, recognizing me as a fellow Second Amendment patriot. There were all ages represented including my son and his friends in their early 20s, and then up into the 50s, 60s, and beyond.

The theme here was “game,” which meant flesh garnered through hunting, not from the supermarket or deli, and so the various meats were lean, free of chemicals or additives, as good and tasty as it got. The hunters prepared the meats, cooking, sautéing, grilling, barbecuing, or frying on small gas or other makeshift stoves in the open weather. There was turkey, pheasant, duck, moose, deer, squirrel, beaver, elk, rabbit, and boar. They prepared it fresh, the enticing aromas everywhere. Some of the morsels were wrapped in bacon or strips of ham, or layered with cheese, accompanied by different sauces or gravies, or plain, the wondrous flavors of the ungarnished meat more than delicious enough.

The spirits flowed freely including whiskey, gin, bourbon, vodka, rum, beer, and homemade wine, accompanied often by cigars, manly combinations. There was a plentitude of small fires around which the congregants huddled, drinking and eating, enjoying the camaraderie and their shared passion for hunting. The conversations were lively and good-natured.

I spent time with my son and his friends. Most of them had been very supportive of my prior political runs; they were a rarity, it seemed today, young conservatives. In somewhat inebriated fashion, they bemoaned the changes occurring in the country, the breakdown of the family, the coarsening of the culture, and the rejection of faith. There was the ticking debt bomb. They worried also about future assaults on the Second Amendment and their right to self-defense. They expressed unease about their future, and I did not blame them.

These young men and the other kindred spirits here, patriotic, gun-loving Americans in flyover country, were a despised demographic in today’s media and culture. Taken together, they were quite a motley collection: factory workers, small business men, farmers, truckers, mechanics, builders, marketers, salesmen, website designers, students, teachers, merchants, retailers, attorneys, craftsmen, accountants, and so on, in other words the heart and soul of the nation. They were united by a love of the outdoors, guns, and the hunting arts, and, I suspected, many shared values. While conversing with them, I felt a sense of despair, as if I were witnessing the passing of a way of life and culture, one that had dominated the country since its inception, had always been mainstream, but had now become marginalized and under attack.

These young people and, I suspected, the majority of those present that day, understood that America was a unique phenomenon. Its formation was providential and based on a most improbable sequence of events and convergence of philosophies; it was unlikely to be repeated. The way of centralized planners and the encroaching, coercive state was the way of all history and of the world today other than a precious few outliers, led, of course, by this country.

The United States was different in that it upheld from its origin a belief in the sanctity of the individual, the right to self-defense, small government, the free market, and Judeo-Christian tenets. Most important was the influence of the Bible, and the belief that individuals were created in the image of God. Indeed these were the magic ingredients, the critical strands that the founders cobbled together to forge a nation that rejected tribal norms and historical precedent and embraced instead inalienable rights and liberty.

I hoped that America would withstand the assaults from within and not go the way of Rome and other great civilizations that have come and gone. I prayed that a divided nation with so many of its citizens having lost the plot of America, would not succumb to illiberal and hostile ideologies, culminating in its demise and fragmentation, a once magnificent civilization that ultimately could not be sustained.

Yet my young friends were confident even as they expressed their apprehensions. Their eyes were glazed, intoxicated as they were, but they were laughing and rowdy. Through the haze of gin and bourbon, they espoused optimism. They stumbled through defenses of the American way. They drunkenly tripped over declarations of allegiance to free enterprise. And, yes, despite the alcohol, they were rational.

Many of them were athletes from high school days including my son. They were a hardy bunch, full of themselves, and of sturdy timber. They had engaged in

high level contests at young ages on the courts and fields of athletic competition. Victory and defeat had seared them. They understood discipline, teamwork, and sacrifice. Young leaders, they were among the best this nation had to offer. They did not doubt themselves or their future prospects. They had their plans come what may. They intended to continue the plot of America, the story of America, the great dream of America. I believed in them, and the country depended on them - and millions of others like them. I hoped they would succeed, convince others of their creed, and thus save the nation.

April 17, 2019

Reparations Or Liberty

Mon, 16 Sep 2019 14:27:01 GMT

Among many tell tale signs of the tectonic fissures dividing the nation, perhaps the most telling is the near universal call by prominent Democrats and others for reparations. This refers to a compensatory payment made to the descendants of African slaves brought to America through the Atlantic Slave Trade. It is unworkable, but speaks loudly of the state of our politics and culture.

Proponents of reparations argue passionately of the stain of slavery, the long, dark shadow cast by this cruel institution across the American soul. This great evil, the original sin of slavery, has cursed the nation at its inception, at the founding, and in our founding documents. The country is thus irredeemably marred and defective, and the blot of that dark inheritance is fixed in our moral DNA. This insidious legacy lives on in America, in the systemic racism that pervades the nation, and the disparate outcomes of blacks and whites in all sectors of society today.

But there are counter-arguments. We begin with the obvious. Slavery ended in America 150 years ago by something known as the Civil War; roughly 750,000 soldiers died in that cataclysm, a great and bloody cleansing of the nation over that mortal sin. Furthermore, no one alive today in America is a slave or slaveholder, and sons and daughters are not responsible for the sins of their parents let alone distant ancestors of more than a century ago.

Many of the Founders and newly formed states deeply opposed slavery. But some southern states demanded that the slave trade be protected. To obtain broad support to ratify the Constitution, the framers made concessions to pro-slavery factions. Had they attempted to eliminate slavery at the time, a political impossibility, there would have been no nation or Constitution. The Founders were painfully aware that the existence of slavery clashed with the belief that “all men are created equal,” but they also understood that they could not resolve the terrible inconsistency at the time. But they had planted the seeds for ending slavery in the founding documents and the principles of the American Revolution; they established states and a central government robust enough to ultimately eradicate the institution in a later generation.

There are other complexities. American blacks earn 20-50 times more than compatriots in Africa (David Horowitz). Blacks in America taken as a whole would represent the fifteenth richest nation in the world. The lives of American blacks today is incomparably better than it would have been had they remained in Africa. This, in no way, excuses the practice of slavery in America.

There were also 3,000 “free black” slave holders who owned some 20,000 slaves. American Indians were also slaveholders and held them well after the end of the Civil War. Most Americans, even in the antebellum south, did not own slaves. Black Africans and Arab Muslims were also responsible for enslaving the ancestors of black Americans.

Most Americans today, including blacks that came later, have no relationship to slavery (in America) as they or their ancestors came after the Civil War (with the two great waves of immigration in 1880 and 1970). It would be improper to link them to slavery in this country.

Further, the reparations claim is not based on specific injury (such as Jewish victims of the Holocaust or Japanese- American victims of “internment” under FDR) but on race. It perpetrates a new injustice against those who committed no crime for the benefit of those who are not victims.

There is also no evidence that individuals living today are disadvantaged by a slave system that ended 150 years ago. There are many successful blacks in America today including black millionaires, a black billionaire, and a black President, among many black success stories - even as the black middle class is prosperous and growing.

Furthermore, poverty, unemployment, and incarceration rates for blacks were shrinking in the decades preceding the expansion of the liberal welfare state in the ‘60s, in some cases bettering their white counterparts (Thomas Sowell). Blacks were coming out of poverty and entering the middles class despite actual institutionalized racism at the time. Most black children then were raised in two parent families.

Many Americans are mixed race, with complex ancestries that would be challenging to sort out for reparations claims.

Interpreting practices of centuries ago through a modern, 21st century perspective is also problematic.

The Civil Rights Act and Great Society Programs that began in 1965 already represents trillions of dollars in wealth transfers to blacks through welfare payments, subsidies, and preferential treatment based on race (Affirmative Action).

Slavery, furthermore, was not unique to the United States. Bondage in North America was a small percentage of slavery in the Americas. Brazil, for example, had 4 million African slaves compared with 400,000 in America. Cuba had 800,000 (Henry Louis Gates). In total, about 12 million African slaves were brought to the Americas, through the Atlantic Slave Trade, 95% of which went to South and Central America and the Caribbean, while only 5% went to America.

Then there was the Muslim slave trade, which had existed since the 8 th century when it began enslaving Africans; it persists to this day. It enslaved as many as 17 million people from the coast of the Indian Ocean, the Middle East, and North Africa. Muslim slave traders between 1500 and 1900 transported approximately 5 million African slaves. Arab Muslims also enslaved more than 1 million Europeans (whites or “Slavs,” hence the word “slave”) between the 16th and 19th centuries, more than double the number of black Africans brought to America.

Western (white Christian) nations ended slavery, a universal phenomenon involving all races and cultures that dates back more than 5,000 years to ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, and beyond. But slavery persisted in other parts of the world, particularly the Muslim World. Indeed, only a handful of Muslim nations have officially ended slavery and then not until the late 20th century.

Further, there are some 40 million slaves world wide today (antislavery.org) including nearly 10 million in Africa, many of them black Christians enslaved by Muslims. There are millions of slaves in the Middle East and Asia (Arantxa Underwood). Yet those clamoring for reparations, so concerned with American slavery that ended 150 years ago, have little to say about slavery today.

No, reparations are not likely to bind the nation’s racial wounds, rather it will rip them apart; but perhaps that is the point. Peddling “race” has been a major growth industry in America and many who traffic in “racism” have benefitted from it. But they have also done great damage to American blacks, race relations, and the nation as a whole.

Apart from its divisive nature, impracticality, and cost, perhaps the greatest indictment of reparations is that it continues to treat blacks as victims unable to advance without government assistance, a disabling ideology that is destructive of blacks. Reparations serves to further infantilize blacks, and will perpetuate the same damaging incentives and moral chaos created by “Great Society.” It will increase dependency, steal ambition, and build resentment; it will expand the black underclass; it will ensure that the pattern of family breakdown, illegitimacy, educational failure, criminality, incarceration, and economic and social dysfunction that plagues many blacks continues.

It would better serve blacks to appreciate their good fortune to live in America, to participate in the American enterprise, as many already do, to embrace the blessings of liberty and opportunity that this nation uniquely provides. It would benefit blacks to realize that the nation that ended the slave system more than a century ago has also helped them achieve the highest standard of living of blacks anywhere in the world. Blacks would profit by championing the American project, despite its history and flaws, while rejecting the toxic gruel of the Democrat Party, the intersectional Marxist Left, and the various race hucksters that emphasize victimhood, a debilitating message that will only hinder them in their lives, diminish their prospects, and make it impossible to engage in the American story.

It is far better to regard blacks, and all Americans, not as members of a racial group or as victims but as individuals, endowed by their Creator with inalienable rights among which include life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; to judge them not based on skin color but on character, talent, and achievement. Therein lies salvation for blacks, whites, and the entire nation. This is the American creed that will set us all free.

See this publication in: American Thinker

richardmossmd.com or Richard Moss, M.D. on Facebook, YouTube, Rumble, Twitter, Parler, Gab, Gettr, TruthSocial, and Instagram.

Game Feed Nostrums: Saving the Plot of America

Fri, 26 Jul 2019 18:42:20 GMT

I went to a “Game Feed” recently, an event put on annually by a local who goes by the name of “Chief.” He organized this every January, in the winter, on a Saturday, in the middle of God’s country, on the outskirts of the town of Duff in Dubois County, southern Indiana.

These were gun people, a Second Amendment crowd, comfortable in the world of guns, ammo, camouflage, decoys, field dressing, butchering, and living off the land, my kind of people. Last year when I visited during my Congressional campaign they received me well, recognizing me as a fellow Second Amendment patriot. There were all ages represented including my son and his friends in their early 20s, and then up into the 50s, 60s, and beyond.

These young men and the other kindred spirits here, patriotic, gun-loving Americans in flyover country, were a despised demographic in today’s media and culture. Taken together, they were quite a motley collection: factory workers, small business men, farmers, truckers, mechanics, builders, marketers, salesmen, website designers, students, teachers, merchants, retailers, attorneys, craftsmen, accountants, and so on, in other words, the backbone of the nation. They were united by a love of the outdoors, guns, and the hunting arts, and, I suspected, many shared values. While conversing with them, I felt a sense of despair, as if I were witnessing the passing of a way of life and culture, one that had dominated the country since its inception, had always been mainstream, but had now become marginalized and under attack.

The United States was different in that it upheld from its origin a belief in the sanctity of the individual, the right to self-defense, small government, the free market, and Judeo-Christian tenets. Most important was the influence of the Bible, and the belief that individuals were created in the image of God. Indeed, these were the magic ingredients, the critical strands that the founders cobbled together to forge a nation that rejected tribal norms and historical precedent and embraced instead inalienable rights and liberty.

Many of them were athletes from high school days including my son. They were a hardy bunch, full of themselves, and of sturdy timber. They had engaged in high level contests at young ages on the courts and fields of athletic competition. Victory and defeat had seared them. They understood discipline, teamwork, and sacrifice. Young leaders, they were among the best this nation had to offer. They did not doubt themselves or their future prospects.

They had their plans come what may. They intended to continue the plot of America, the story of America, the great dream of America. I believed in them, and the country depended on them – and millions of others like them. I hoped they would succeed, convince others of their creed, and thus save the nation.

Broadway World: New Medical Memoir Delves into a Young Surgeon's Pilgrimage through...

Thu, 25 Jul 2019 18:24:31 GMT

NEW YORK — From 1987 to 1990, author Dr. Richard Moss traveled extensively through Asia while working as a cancer surgeon in the countries of Thailand, Nepal, India and Bangladesh. In his autobiography, "A Surgeon's Odyssey" (published by Archway Press), Moss describes the adventures and challenges he encountered while attending to patients struggling with cancer in Asia.

More than just a medical memoir, Moss shares his story that includes insights into life and other nations, cultures and religions as well as his journey through Malaysia, Singapore and the Indonesian archipelago. Moss shares the medical side of operating and treating patients in third-world conditions while also telling of the people he met and the cultures he experienced.

Moss states that his work was voluntary, however the payoff was in the rich, fascinating and often bizarre experiences he had both as a surgeon and wanderer.

The book is available for purchase at: https://www.amazon.com/Surgeon's-Odyssey-Richard-Moss-M/dp/1480859524.

About the Author:

A New York City native, Dr. Richard Moss is a board-certified Otolaryngologist-Head and Neck Surgeon in private practice in Jasper, Indiana since 1991. He received his Bachelor of Science in biology and his Doctor of Medicine from Indiana University. He is also a columnist, businessman, local investor and a member of the Indiana State Medical Association. Moss and his wife have been married for over 27 years and have four children. He has also written "Matilda's Triumph: A Memoir."

Simon & Schuster, a company with nearly ninety years of publishing experience, has teamed up with Author Solutions, LLC, the leading self-publishing company worldwide, to create Archway Publishing. With unique resources to support books of all kind, Archway Publishing offers a specialized approach to help every author reach his or her desired audience. For more information, visit archwaypublishing.com or call 888-242-5904

Dubois Count Herald: Moss book recounts ‘traveling in the raw’

Wed, 24 Jul 2019 18:12:38 GMT

JASPER — There came a time in Dr. Richard Moss’ life when he bucked convention, security and comfort. At age 33, done with medical school and residency, the Jasper doctor rolled the dice and took a chance. He recounts the ensuing journey in his new book, “A Surgeon’s Odyssey.”

He had a plan before he left the United States to become a vagabond, volunteer cancer surgeon throughout Asia during the late 1980s and early 1990s. He was a trained and licensed ear, nose and throat doctor and head and neck cancer surgeon. He always wanted to experience life outside the country. And he had a passion to help others. But nothing could prepare him for the incredibly complicated journey he embarked on or the incredibly colorful characters he met in the three years he was away.

“I gave up financial security,” said Moss, who lived off of a few thousand dollars he’d saved up as well as stipends from university hospitals during those years. “I could have been making a lot of money.”

Instead, he made very little. But when Moss thinks back on it, he remembers his time working abroad as one of the most rewarding periods of his life.

He described the book as an adventure story, but said it is also about the cultural and spiritual passage he wandered through during his time on the continent of Asia. After 14 years of studying and training to become an otolaryngologist, he was more than ready to get out and satisfy his deep wanderlust.

“For me, I had such a deep wanderlust and a desire to get out there and just see the world — bare bones and naked,” Moss reflected in a Tuesday interview. “And see it at its most beautiful and most destitute and impoverished and miserable. You saw it all. It was really traveling in the raw.”

He worked in university hospitals in Thailand, India, Bangladesh and Nepal, which allowed him to both help patients and teach medical students modern techniques he’d learned. He removed tumors and completed other ear, nose and throat surgeries for everyone from average citizens to the extremely wealthy and politically powerful. And he never charged anyone for his work.

During the journey, he met his wife, Ying, in Thailand. He interacted with and operated on political elites because of his highly sought-after American training and board certification. But eventually he ran out of money and had to come back to the states.

Someday, he said he might go back and complete more volunteer work overseas. He wishes now he could have figured out a way to both make money and continue his volunteer efforts in The Orient, but remembers how focused he was then on not accepting any money at all for his services.

And while Moss looks back on his time as a volunteer fondly and considers volunteerism a positive and noble pursuit, he stressed the importance of individual nations promoting free markets and the private sector to actually end suffering and elevate their societies.

“It’s a thimble full in an ocean of suffering and wretchedness,” Moss said of volunteer efforts.

“Ultimately, all the volunteers in the world, all of the government aid, all of the NGOs (non-government organizations) and the international organizations will not touch the problem. What ultimately will elevate a culture is when the people and their government decide to create liberty and opportunity and have a robust free market with innovation and research and development and strong civic institutions.”

Signed copies of his book can be purchased at Moss’ Jasper medical office, 721 W. 13th St., Jasper. Physical copies and e-book versions are also sold on Amazon and through Archway Publishing.

Moss is a board-certified head and neck surgeon with a private practice in Jasper, where he has lived for more than 27 years with his wife and four children. Moss earned his medical degree at the Indiana University School of Medicine in Indianapolis. He is also a columnist, local businessman and investor, and has sought political office. He is the author of “Matilda’s Triumph: A Memoir,” a book about his mother’s encounter with a devastating stroke intertwined with vignettes of her as a young woman, raising her five sons as a single parent in the Bronx.

Conservatives Still Rejected by a Progressive Republican Party

Wed, 26 Jun 2019 16:58:29 GMT

One Year Later: The Conservative Movement

Still Lacks a Political Vehicle

By Richard Moss MD

A year ago I was locked in a political race for the Republican nomination for Congress from Indiana’s 8thdistrict. I was running against then 4-term incumbent, Larry Bucshon. I had also run in the prior election cycle in 2016. And I had run in 2014 against Mike Braun (now US Senator for Indiana) for state representative (HR 63).

Among issues popular among conservatives, I also had what I thought was a compelling matter regarding the incumbent: Bucshon and his family had moved to Washington DC. That combined with his generally weak voting record could, I hoped, propel me to an upset victory, never easy against an incumbent. I started early and ran hard. I had raised money and traveled extensively throughout the 18 counties of Indiana’s 8thdistrict, meeting and interacting with voters.

Despite a vigorous, hard-hitting campaign, we came up short – actually worse than the prior election. I had dropped from 35% to 26%. I also observed that many in the 8thdistrict county level GOP establishment were upset over my criticism of Bucshon for moving to DC. I contended, however, that a representative and his family must live, work, and attend schools in the area he represented. In this era of an increasingly centralized federal government, far removed from its constituents, Bucshon’s decision to move to Washington exemplified a DC-centric mentality that defined perfectly what was wrong with our political system - and why I had run.

Having lost in three political campaigns, I can report that it is wonderful notto run for office. I return home at night. I have more time with my family. I no longer have to suffer the slings and arrows of detractors. I can observe the political machinations and comment from afar.

The reasons for running in three separate campaigns, however, have not disappeared. Our “one party” system in Washington remains profoundly corrupt and self-serving. It consists of career politicians from both parties, special interests, donors, and lobbyists, all of whom agree on one thing: growing the size of government.

The Republican Party, in its budgeting and voting, is a left of center party; it is, as I often referred to it as, the Republican wing of the Democrat Party. With an increasingly Marxist Democrat Party, and no serious conservative opposition from “soft-progressive” Republicans, the trajectory of the nation is all to the left: more spending, more programs, more socialism, and ultimately more tyranny.

Rather than promote a constitutional, limited government agenda that would actually expand liberty and shrink the power of the federal government, the GOP, in effect, embraces the tenets and policies of the Democrats (other than occasional, meaningless rhetorical flourishes to the contrary). Thus, there is no active force to thwart the mortgaging of the nation and future generations by politicians seeking short-term political gain.

Thanks to our federal government, for example, we have annual trillion dollar deficits, a national debt approaching $22 trillion (larger than our GDP), and $200 trillion dollars in unfunded liabilities. The actuaries of Medicare and Social Security indicate both programs will be bankrupt in 2026 and 2035 respectively. The Republican Party, allegedly a stronghold of fiscal prudence, is, in fact, handmaiden to profligacy and insolvency.

The GOP remains hapless on the issue of immigration. It has done nothing to curtail and reform legal immigration to reflect the national interest (i.e. to make it meritocratic, limited, and diverse; to end chain migration, the “diversity” visa, birthright citizenship, and lawless “sanctuary cities,” among many critical issues); it has not secured the southern border nor prevented the influx of hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens, virtually all of whom are impoverished, uneducated, and unskilled, and who will burden our schools, hospitals, courts, and public systems. Many of them are disease carriers, drug dealers, criminals, and terrorists.

Thanks to feckless Republicans, our immigration system has become a giant welfare magnet for the world, a threat to our sovereignty, the rule of law, and national security.

The GOP has failed abysmally on the cultural front; it has feebly accepted the cultural Marxism of the left rather than pushing back against the nihilism and degradation of our popular and politically correct culture. It has failed to promulgate a conservative “narrative” to confront the anti-Christian, anti-family, anti-American narrative foisted upon us by our cultural overlords.

Today’s Democrat Party, overtaken by the radical French Revolutionary Left, is not the Democrat party of your grandfather or father, of Truman or Kennedy, or even Bill Clinton or Barack Obama. This bunch, should they come to power, is preparing the ground for future gulags not unlike their Marxist predecessors of the 20th century.

In effect, the conservative movement lacks a political vehicle in which to enact its agenda, policies, and narrative, hence the nation is at the mercy of liberaldom. Absent effective and principled resistance from a fighting Republican Party, the leftward tilt of the nation, its decline into socialism and bankruptcy, its fragmentation into tribalized, warring identity groups, and the continued breakdown of its culture, is unavoidable. The Trump years, like the Reagan era, will represent temporary but minor respites in the downward spiral of the country.

We live in treacherous times and the fault lines dividing us may be insurmountable. But conservatives must continue to uphold our priorities that the nation may return to its foundational principles and beliefs. We must reassert the religious and cultural underpinnings of the country, the central role of the two-parent family, faith, and the Judeo-Christian tradition; we should foster an appreciation of our unique history and heritage, of liberty, individual rights, the rule of law, free markets, and the principles of our founding documents, the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights. We, the believers, must remain the vanguard defending Western and American civilization – with or without the Republican Party.

June 12, 2019

Dr. Moss is a practicing Ear Nose and Throat Surgeon, author, and columnist, residing in Jasper, IN. He has written “A Surgeon’s Odyssey” and “Matilda’s Triumph” available on amazon.com. Find more of his essays at richardmossmd.com. Visit Richard Moss, M.D. on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

Zeus Retires But the Jasper Band Marches On

Wed, 26 Jun 2019 16:48:44 GMT

Although it was not a surprise it still had its effect. The leader of our beloved high school marching band was retiring. An email from the sainted one himself, Mr. James Goodhue, so stated it. He had hinted at it before. But now there was the reality. I had asked him to stay on, at least until my two youngest, Isaiah and Adina, current members of the marching band, had graduated. My first two children, Noah and Arielle, had been members of the Jasper Marching Band in their day. There were many vivid memories.

We band parents live and die by the fortunes and travails of our marching band. The band director defined and symbolized the tribulations of our young charges as they assembled weekday evenings and weekends to practice and compete. It was no mean task to convert a throng of some 200 adolescent youths into a disciplined and effective musical marching band and color guard.

As I had written earlier:

“I heard the truncated blasts of the winds, the blares of the brass, and the staccato of percussion, loud and abrupt, stopping and starting, shifting and adjusting in interminable iterations, in some manic pursuit of an unattainable vision, to pluck the platonic ideal from the ethers, and magically transform this rabble into a silvery, mellifluous, marching band; it seemed a Sisyphean task from which no good could emerge, only frustration.”

He had been with us for 29 years. We followed him and our band loyally as they rehearsed in the steamy summer and the chilly fall. We trudged weekends with them to distant stadiums. The demanding schedule strained our children. Yet we recognized that it was a worthy endeavor, participating in a storied institution with a tradition that reached back decades. This was life properly understood and engaged: devoting oneself to honorable pursuits, spending oneself in grand enterprises, participating in something larger than oneself.

Mr. Goodhue was quirky and idiosyncratic, a kind of mad genius. He was subject to mood swings. He criticized his young wards mercilessly. He could be mercurial and ruthless. But it was the nature of the job and we stood by him. He was a connoisseur and historian of music and a master musician. In so many ways he was better suited, by dint of knowledge, talent, and experience, to a larger venue in which to display his pedigree and gifts. His temperament did not quite fit in this parochial midwestern enclave. It was more subtle and nuanced even as it could be flamboyant and bombastic. Yet here he was, and here he stayed. Despite the intellectual and dispositional mismatch, he carried on, and the community benefited enormously.

“Above the din was a voice from Mt. Olympus, emanating from a Zeus-like figure, ensconced upon a mechanical perch, as if upon some cloud encrusted peak, hurling flame and thunder, scolding, hectoring, commanding his young minions to hasten or slow, play louder or softer, demanding yet better performance from his weary foot soldiers in the quixotic quest of excellence.”

When the letter came announcing his retirement, my younger two despaired. They threatened to quit rather than continue under some other imposter. They would endure the trials of marching band with only one man, General Goodhue!

And then yet another email from Mr. Goodhue arrived shortly after the initial gut-wrenching missive, this one unexpectedly with a more uplifting message. He announced that the band director at another local high school had been hired to replace him. This individual had brought glory to his own school and town. Under his leadership, his band had won Class D state championship six out of 15 years and runner up another five years. He was also a composer and had arranged the music and marching sequences for our marching band since 2012 - and for bands across the country.

The other school was smaller. But it was recognized in its division as a powerhouse. Jasper High School was class B, a larger school, and also a major force in the marching band universe. I had wondered previously if this maestro would leave his school knowing how excruciating it would be to that community. I imagined there had been discussions. And, indeed, the challenge of working at a bigger school and one also with a great marching band tradition proved too tantalizing for him to resist.

When I heard the news I rejoiced because I recognized that the legacy of Mr. Goodhue would continue. I shared with my children Mr. Goodhue’s own words sent out that day in his email to the marching band family:

“Chad has been the director at Forest Park for many years, and I am sure everyone knows the success the FP band has had, and what a class-act group they are. I think he is a great choice, and students should rest easy - I know you will enjoy having Mr. Gayso as a director and teacher.”

And so life would continue in our small town. Even without Zeus, the Jasper band would march on. Mr. Goodhue has bequeathed us a rich musical endowment – through the infrastructure and tradition he established, the teaching he bestowed, and the example and standard he set. And now we have a suitable successor. Thanks, Mr. Goodhue, for the many wonderful memories.

Dr. Moss is the author or “A Surgeon’s Odyssey” and “Matilda’s Triumph” available on amazon.com. For more information visit richardmossmd.com. Find Richard Moss, M.D. on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

"Unplanned": A Review of the Movie - And Our Culture

Sat, 20 Apr 2019 05:00:00 GMT

I took my two youngest children to see Unplanned, a Christian pro-life movie. It provided a different message then what is typical in our media and general culture. We are a conservative Jewish home perhaps a little unusual in the American Jewish community, which is broadly Democrat and liberal. With so many movies and other aspects of our culture shifting evermore to the left, the opportunity to see a film that delivers a more traditional religious theme was welcome, rare as it is.

The movie tracks the life of Abby Johnson, who early in the story has two abortions, including one chemically induced by the abortifacient RU-486, in a particularly agonizing scene. She is recruited to be a volunteer at a Planned Parenthood Clinic in Texas and eventually attracts the attention of the director, Cheryl. We observe the arc of Abby’s thinking. At first she is comfortable in her role at the clinic, believing that she is helping women in crisis. As she sees it, she is providing necessary reproductive health care and “family planning,” and thereby reducing the number of unwanted pregnancies and abortions.

There are conflicts with her family. Her parents are religious Christians and believe that life begins at conception. Her boyfriend who later marries her is also a Christian and pro-life. She goes on to have a daughter. Her parents and husband had hoped that with the birth of her own child, she would change her mind, but does not. She misses the inconsistency. But then she is not alone; much of the nation and one major political party, has been gripped by the rather vile idea that killing children or fetuses at any stage is acceptable, a matter of convenience.

Cheryl tests her resolve by taking her into the POC room (“Products of Conception” or, as fellow workers refer to it, “Pieces of Children”); Cheryl shows her aborted fetuses, miniature babies, in effect, with all the likenesses there of, and she clinically examines them; Abby is fascinated rather than disgusted. She passes the “test” and Cheryl thusly welcomes her into the sorority. She has found her future director.

There is a conflict, albeit kindly, with the pro-life Christian group, Coalition for Life. They pray at the fence surrounding the facility every Saturday. Abby develops a polite acquaintance with Shawn, who leads the group, and his wife, Marilisa. As devout Christians, they are gracious and compassionate. This allows them to cultivate a cautious friendship despite their differences.

At one point, Abby is asked to assist with an ultrasound-guided abortion. She watches in horror as a 13-week baby fought for and ultimately lost its life at the hand of the abortionist. She experiences a crisis of conscience remembering the baby being dismembered and sucked into a tube. It’s a deeply unsettling scene that undercuts the accepted narrative that aborted babies are just fetuses unable to feel pain.

Later, Cheryl, the former director now based at corporate headquarters in Houston, takes her to task. She is accused of being disloyal to the mission. She is advised that the purpose of Planned Parenthood is to provide abortions.

"Abortion is what pays your salary!" Cheryl snaps, reminding Abby that "nonprofit is a tax status, not a business model."

Abby meets with her Christian friends and joins them. After some 22,000 abortions as director of the clinic, she resigns.

It is refreshing to see a film with a religious Christian message. We swim in an ocean of narrative created by the left, which controls the towering heights of opinion, education, culture, and the economy, not to mention social media, Big Tech, and Silicon Valley. They run our schools, colleges, media, entertainment industry, and, of course, Hollywood. To have a movie espousing biblical, Judeo-Christian values with a message of Christian love and compassion is a welcome reprieve from the “pro-choice” culture that we must now endure – particularly as Democrat governors of New York and Virginia and the Democrat Party unabashedly support not just late term abortion but “post birth” abortion, in effect, infanticide.

It is instructive to note the ratings and criticisms of the movie. Film critics like so many of our cultural betters are liberals. Most panned it, with a varied array of put downs and insults, citing its partisanship, oversimplification, and one sidedness; decrying it as right wing propaganda, preaching to the choir, pro-life talking points, rallying the base, absolutist, extreme, dim-witted Christian drama, shaming women, twisting facts, and so on. Such critics do not appreciate their own privilege, the unending deluge of propaganda through TV, movies, and other forms of media that deliver their message and narrative everyday to Americans. They attack Unplanned as if this small, independent film would threaten their dominant position in our culture.

Let me help. Hey! You guys have won, we live in your world, your narrative, your culture, the one you foisted upon us with the advent of the sixties, yes, “sex, drugs, and rock and roll,” the sexual revolution, promiscuity, radical feminism, cohabitation, the welfare state, secularism, the rejection of marriage, two parent families, religion, and so on. This is your universe, replete with the various destructive lifestyles, habits, attitudes, and ideologies you so lovingly promote.

Thanks to your policies and culture, we now have rampant out of wedlock childbirth, single-parenthood, fatherlessness, divorce, welfarism and dependency, high levels of criminality, incarceration, and drug abuse in certain communities; soaring domestic and sexual abuse, poverty, unemployment, educational failure, permanent underclasses, and, yes, many “unwanted” pregnancies and, thus, abortions, hence the consequent “need” for operations like Planned Parenthood – which you celebrate.

You won the cultural wars years ago; you control all the organs of power and culture with a firm Soviet grip. Now witness the social calamity, chaos, and tragedy you have sown.

This film is part of a rear-guard battle, a “Hail Mary” from a shrinking demographic appalled at what has become of the nation and a response to the culture the left has produced; it is one tiny bright spot in a dismal canopy of darkness, a miniscule salvo against the leftist barrage. Unplanned is a small step in the right direction of reasserting the bold biblical truths that founded the nation. Go see it. And pray.

April 17, 2019