Two Things You Can Do to Make the World a Better Place Today

Tom Sheppard

10/16/2020

Many people today are very agitated about the state of our nation and the world. Everyone has their own reasons for being distraught. Some are so upset that they are taking to the streets in protests. Others are engaging in violent and riotous behavior, either believing that violence is the only way to effect change, or because they feel others have no right to their own views or property.

For many Americans taking to the streets is either too extreme, ineffective, or dangerous. They feel helpless in the face of these strong storm winds of change. Typically, the silent majority remains silent, speaking only through their votes, rather than carrying placards, or guns, in the streets.  However, times like these seem to require more than just silently casting our votes, because many interpret silence as acceptance.  That implicit acceptance feeds their belief that they are a majority rather than a minority view.

The reality is that the protestors and violent actors represent a small, but very vocal and active minority in this country. The majority of people believe that change can, and should be enacted through non-violent, civil means.

What is Fundamental Change?

While some of those espousing the need for change are calling for "fundamental" changes in this country, the majority of people are understandably reluctant and resistant to fundamental changes in our country. They have good reason for their reticence.

The phrase "fundamental change" literally means changing our foundations.  To be clear, the foundation of our nation is the US Constitution and the Bill of Rights and other Constitutional Amendments.  So, anyone calling for fundamental change is calling for the abolition of the US Constitution either in whole or in large part.

The publicly stated premise of the need for this fundamental change is a false charge that the United States is fundamentally flawed and supports racism and other unjustices through the very concepts, ideals, and organization framed in our Constitution.

When you liken the Constitution to the foundation of country you can fully understand what people like CNN correspondent Don Limon means when he talks of "burn[ing] it all down."  If you want to replace the foundation of a building, in most cases, you have to tear down the whole building and start over.  This is exactly what these activists are talking about.  What is more, the new foundation they want to install is Marxism, also known as communism, socialism, statism, fascism, progressivism, liberalism, etc.

Institutional Racism Has Been Removed

I stated above that a key driver of demand for all this change is a false charge of fundamental racism.  This cry of fundamental racism is an extension of a similarly false charge of systemic racism pervading our nation and its institutions.

I say these charges are false based on the mountains of evidence which refute these charges.  Although there is not sufficient space in this short column (or in a whole library) to demonstrate all the evidence refuting these claims I will provide a few counterpoints to support my belief that these are false charges.

The Declaration of Independence which set forth the guiding principles which led to the creation of our Constitution boldly declares that, "all men are created equal" and all have the same rights. Further it states that the source of these rights come to individuals by right of birth, not dispensed or revoked by any government of men.  These declarations exempted no one.  

While it is true that the protection of these rights was imperfectly implemented in the Constitution, those imperfections which supported slavery and the limitation of rights based on race were cured with both the blood shed in the US Civil War and legislation in subsequent years including amendments to the constitution ensuring equal rights for all citizens without regard to gender, race, or religion.  The fact that those imperfections were cured within the current framework demonstrates that the foundation is both strong and worthy of continued support.

Racism Persists

While it is inarguable that racist and sexist behaviors continue to persist in individuals and even in some societies and businesses, the purging of racism and sexism from the halls of federal, state, county, and city governments across the United States of America is clearly demonstrated in both statute and court cases where such anti-social behaviors have been punished with both criminal and civil penalties.  Likewise court cases demonstrate that the weight of law has been consistently been brought to bear to rectify racist and sexist discrimination in both public and private institutions and societies wherever it has been found.

In short, the history of our nation shows over and over again that our system of government is very effective in the ongoing perfection of the defenses of our rights.  

A More Perfect Union

Some seek to discredit the Constitution and our national foundation by pointing out the flaws of the founders.  Noting how some of their behaviors were in greater or lesser degree in conflict with the ideals they embodied in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.  The notion here is that their creation could not be less flawed than the founders.

The reality is that the founders were not perfect.  Many of them had aspects of their lives which were not in full harmony with the principles they put forward in the framing of our government.  As noted above, some of their imperfections were passed on through the Constitution.  

While individuals have the option of repenting and changing their behaviors to align their actions more closely with their principles, those attacking the foundation of our nation would have you believe that no such means to remedy defects exists for our government.  However, as I mentioned above, those means not only exist, they have been applied and continue to be applied.  

Because of its amendments, our Constitution today is a more perfect document than it was when it and the The Bill of Rights were ratified back in 1787.  

Our founders declared their intent was to create "a more perfect union."  What the created was not perfect.  It was, however, more perfect than what it replaced.  And since then, it has been perfected further.

The world today is so much better than it ever has been before because of the existence and rise of the United States of America.

To this point in my column I have explained why our union does not require fundamental change.  What follows is to help to take action to protect our foundation from those who want to burn down our nation and rip up the US Constitution.

Action #1 - Stop looking to government to solve societal problems.

Those who are seeking to "burn it all down" are rationalizing their efforts on the basis that the government is not adequately addressing societal ills.  This argument rests on a false foundational premise.  It assumes that it is the role of government to cure the ailments of our society.  

The problem with this assumption is that our societal ailments are neither more nor less than manifestations of our own human imperfections and bad actions driven by ungodly defects in human nature.  When I say ungodly, I mean that literally. 

Ungodly defects in human nature are those motives, thoughts, and actions which are in conflict with the best attributes we believe are inherent in deity, e.g., love, charity, kindness, generosity, etc.  Any efforts which profess to be attempting to rid us of these ungodly defects are reflexively wrapped in a mantle of altruism because they appear to be aimed at making us better people and thus making the world a better place.

Government Cannot Change Human Nature

Unfortunately, there is no government or economic architecture which has ever been devised and tested in the history of this world which is capable of transforming human nature into a more godly version of itself.  That is the realm of religion, not government.

The reason governments fail to effect this transformation is because they, necessarily, are only able to control the outward behaviors of people and cannot force thoughts and beliefs to change on demand.  Those which have tried, notably communism is in this camp, have used mass extermination to eradicate those whose manifested thoughts and beliefs, or behaviors, failed to conform.

In contrast with the universal failure of government in this regard, religion has achieved the transformation of man's nature on several individual and at least two documented collective occasions.  However, the ability to sustain a community of such transformed individuals has been, at a minimum limited by individual life spans and sometimes they were exterminated by those with differing beliefs or agendas.  

Successful Individual Transformations Achieved by Religion

According to Buddhism, the Buddha successfully transformed his nature, and then taught others.

According to Islam, Mohammed's nature was changed as he became the prophet, and he then taught others.

Judaism and Christianity teach that Enoch, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Peter, Saul/Paul, and John the Revelator all overcame the defects in their human nature to transform into the kind of people we should be.  I omit Jesus of Nazareth from this list because although "he learned wisdom" in this life, his disciples believe he was perfect from birth, rather than achieving some transformation during his mortal life.  It is his nature that Christians seek to emulate.

Successful Collective Transformations Achieved by Religion

According to the Old Testament, not only did Enoch achieve personal transformation to the point where he "walked with God,"  the entire city of Zion, people led by Enoch, achieved that transformation to the point where all of them were "caught up into heaven."

The New Testament records a period where the disciples of Christ, for a time at least, achieved a very happy state where they had all things in common and had no poor among them.

Successful Individual or Collective Transformations Achieved by Socialism

• The Soviet Union - NO 20+ million killed (just by Stalin) trying to make it work.
• Cambodia - NO 2+ million killed trying under Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge to make it work.
• Cuba - NO with nearly 100,000 dissidents dead, the country still looks like it is living in the early 1950's, at best. 
• Venezuela - NO 7,000+ dead by "security forces" with violent unrest and rampant poverty
• China - NO 45+ millions killed already with tens of thousands more in "re-education" camps right now.

With this sort of proven track record shown in this scorecard you would think that socialism in all its forms would be dead and buried, never to rise again.  However, like some shambling, shuffling, half-decayed horrifying walking-dead zombie in a B-grade film socialism continues to rise up and threaten the lives of us all.

If the zombie of socialism were as blatantly distinct from our current government it would be easy to hunt it down and kill it.  However, at least since FDR's New Deal, socialism has been making massive inroads into the American government.  So many socialist solutions have been implemented to lesser degrees that nearly the whole economy and government has been converted over to socialism piecemeal.  Don't believe me?  Take a good hard look through this lens.

Anytime government is tasked with doing something for people which they should be doing for themselves, that is a form of socialism.

Social Security is Socialism

The Great Depression threw many people into poverty and highlighted the fact that many of the elderly lacked sufficient means to support themselves in their waning years.  In response, Congress passed the Social Security Act and FDR signed it into law on August 14, 1935. The underlying notion of Social Security is that we somehow have a life-long right to economic security and everyone around us is responsible to protect that right.

Economic Security is Not a Right

Take note that economic security was not listed in The Declaration of Independence as one of our inalienable rights, nor did it appear in any form in The Bill of Rights, or any constitutional amendment.  The notion of this "right" is based on the idea that it is the "right" thing for us to care for the less fortunate among us.

This is not only a perversion of transforming morally right behavior into a legally defensible right it uses immoral means to support this morality.  In the past, impoverished people, if they were unable to rectify their own situation turned first to family and then to the community through private charities.  

Private Charity Beats Government Programs

Private charities and families rely on morally impelled charity to help the impoverished.  Government uses forced taxation and income redistribution, which are immoral means to try to remedy a moral wrong.

Healthcare is Not a Right

Medicare and Medicaid likewise are state sponsored charity.  Both are aimed at setting right a morally wrong situation where people are unable to afford their health care.  In fact the whole notion currently being promoted around "Medicare for All" is just a logical extension of this usurpation of private charity by the state.  Are you seeing a pattern here?  

Congressman Bernie Sanders, a self-proclaimed socialist and erstwhile Presidential candidate has proclaimed that from the socialist view private charities should be abolished.  The socialist view is that all "charity" is handled by the state by using tax dollars pulled from the pockets of working people.

When President Johnson declared the "war on poverty" he integrated a whole new raft of government programs to "right" a moral wrong of people living in poverty.  He attacked the problem through taxes and government programs instead of promoting what was already working to reduce the number and percentage of people in poverty - self-reliance, hard work, thrift, and the safety net of the nuclear family.  The results speak for themselves - destruction of the nuclear family among the poor, rising poverty levels, rising crime rates in poor areas, and the list of human misery just keeps mounting with every new wrong that socialists want to make right with the power of government. 

How can you determine if a politician or social movement is promoting good or bad solutions?  

Use the simple question, will the implementation of this result in increased dependence on government or increased emphasis on self-reliance?  

Take note, I ask you to consider not just the hype, but to consider how it will look once it is implemented.  If it is the former, oppose it.  If the latter, support it.  

Here are some practical ways to implement Action #1.

Read and analyze party platforms (national and state) to uncover whether the party philosophy trends toward reliance on government or self-reliance of individuals.  Most parties post their platforms online now so they are relatively easy to find.

Read and analyze proposed and actual legislation and ordinances to uncover whether they tend to increase the intrusion of government into private lives or to protect individual and states’ rights.

Study the effects of existing laws and ordinances to uncover whether they tend to support self-reliance and individual industry or government dependence.  Look at key demographic trends before and after a given piece of legislation was introduced.

For example, if you look at poverty rates in the US, particularly in the Black American community you will see that the rates were falling steadily for many years prior to LBJ's War nn Poverty.  After, the rates leveled out, instead of continuing to decline, and have begun to climb. 

It is telling that a key indicator of poverty is whether or not there are two parents in the home.  Prior to The War on Poverty, the percentage of single mothers in the Black American community was less than 10%, now it is well above 50%.  It seems pretty clear that the economic incentives in this legislation had the effect of encouraging out-of-wedlock marriages and the dissolution of the nuclear family.  

The results have been devastating the the Black American community, locking multiple generations into poverty and enforcing the soft bigotry of low expectations to exacerbate the problem by discouraging academic achievement by children.

Study and analyze both the voting records and pronouncements of candidates and politicians to uncover where their words and deeds align with the protection of individual and states’ rights and encourage self-reliance or government dependency.

Action #2 - Make Your Views Known

Exert your influence to encourage the cause of liberty, self-reliance, charity, and decreased worship of government as the cure for all our ills. Bear in mind, this step is neither passive nor free of costs.  The biggest costs may be the loss of friends and the vitriol of those who disagree with your views.  Whenever you take a stand, there are inevitably those who will oppose you.  These days, that opposition has proven to be particularly nasty and uncivil.

Whether or not others become uncivil is irrelevant. If you want to maintain the moral high ground that comes with supporting our unalienable rights (and their attendant responsibilities) you need to maintain high standards of civility and decorum.  Descending to the level of those who oppose you degrades you and your position, creating a semblance of moral equivalence between the principles you promote and those you oppose.

Use social media appropriately – don’t go negative.

Most of us are far too familiar with how nasty people can be on the internet.  Don't be one of those folks.  When you use social media, keep it positive and uplifting.

Many years ago while I was serving as a missionary, one of my trainers pointed out a very important principle to me.  He taught me that there are two ways to attempt to win people to your view. 

One way is to tear down the view of others while touting the brilliance of your view.  He pointed out that this seldom works because it puts people on the defensive.  They tend to become reactive and are so busy thinking of how to defend or attack that they often quit listening to the positive points you are trying to make.

The alternative is to largely ignore the view of others while simply talking up the good points and benefits of your view.  Many times, this wholly positive approach disarms them a bit and draws them in to look at your view more deeply and begin to ask questions.

To that end, here are a few rules of the road to remember:

• Make sure your posts and comments encourage support for your views without denigrating others
• Make complimentary comments, likes, follows, and shares of posts which support your views without denigrating others.
• Engage in civil discourse instead of uncivil discourse.

Please note, avoiding denigrating other view points does not mean avoiding disagreeing with them.  I am not calling for the total avoidance of conflict.  Rather, I am calling for the use of constructive conflict instead of destructive conflict.  

Constructive conflict is conflict that doesn't leave people damaged in its wake.

Civil discourse means learning how to disagree without being disagreeable. 

• Use facts as much as possible. Don't blindly repost memes either for or against.  Make the time to do a little research and try to verify facts before sharing them.
• When you move from fact to belief, state it as a belief.  This clarity bolsters your use of facts and deprives opponents of the opportunity to justifiably call you out for substituting beliefs for facts.
• Do not use insults or name-calling (ad hominem attacks).  When you resort to hurling insults at your opponents it is because you have lost your ability to use facts and reason and are resorting wholly to emotion to exert influence.  While emotion has its place, all too often it leads people into indefensible and ill-considered positions.
• Engage with and support political candidates and parties that align with your views.

Consider Running for Public Office

Having run for office I can tell you it is no picnic.  It takes some money, good support, and a lot of hustle.  As nasty as it may sound, running for office is all about marketing, and you are the product.

Perhaps the worst aspect of running for office is the very negative views many people have about politicians.  As soon as you run for office, you are now a politician.  All those unkind things you may have said or heard about lying, dishonest politicians will now be said to you and about you.

Look local first. School Board, City Council, Mayor, County Council, County Clerk, etc.

It sounds trite, but it is true, the higher you go in politics the less you can actually affect.  You can have the most significant impact at the local levels rather than at state and federal levels.

Summary

Two things you can do to make the world a better place today are to stop looking for a governmental solution to societal ills and make your influence felt in a positive way.  These are pretty simple, but not particularly easy steps.  However, you can do them and they will begin to immediately make your tiny corner of the universe a bit better.

See Tom's political views on Facebook at: https://www.facebook.com/TomSheppardPoliticalViews/
Follow Tom on Twitter: @ThomasKSheppard

Tom Sheppard is a business consultant and coach to small business owners and individuals. He is a recognized author with dozens of titles in business and fiction to his credit. One of his endeavors is to help those who want to see their own book in print. He does this through his trademarked Book Whispering Process (TM).

The author is not an official spokesperson for any organization or person mentioned herein.

(c) Copyright 2020 A+ Results LLC. All Rights Reserved.

Your comments are welcome... Please observe some ground rules. No profanity, vulgarity, or personal attacks. Profanity, vulgarity and personal attacks not only betray a lack of vocabulary and imagination, they also are the hallmarks of bigotry, and bigotry is the hallmark of someone who is fundamentally insecure in their views. Facts are always welcome.

If you believe Government is NOT the answer to all our problems, you will want to read
 Godvernment: Government as God

Racial Supremacy: A Color-Blind Problem

Tom Sheppard

5/23/2019

IN today's Deseret News there is an "in-depth" article asking "Are white supremacist attacks and hate crimes getting enough attention from federal law enforcement?"  In addition to the primary question, the author, Matthew Brown, posits another question, "why racially motivated violence is on the rise?"  Tellingly, the author points out that "the steady climb in the number of hate crimes in America pre-dates the Trump administration."

The plain admission that this increase pre-dates the Trump administration should be enough to allow any reasonable person to set aside any prejudice (or bias) against our current POTUS and look beyond his administration for answers to the questions raised.

My thoughts on this went away from the question of attention from the Feds and instead focused on exploring why racially motivated violence is on the rise.  Because the article specifically points to white supremacy, I will share my thoughts on this with the backdrop of white supremacy rather than focusing on any non-white related hate crimes.

Racial Supremacy Comes in All Flavors

Let me begin by stating that I categorically reject racism and racial supremacy.  I find racism an abhorrent exercise in ignorance, prejudice, and hatred.  Let me also be clear that I utterly reject the notion, injected into some or our middle school textbooks, that racism is only about whites being prejudiced.  It may sound a bit crazy to say it, but racism is color blind, it is not a whites-only crime.  To put a point on it, in World War II, the Japanese believed they were "the superior race."  They disdained, and institutionally treated as less than human, the Chinese, Koreans, Filipinos, Vietnamese, whites, blacks, and anyone who was not Japanese.  In that regard they were both a perfect and ironic partner with the Nazis of Germany who believed in the superiority of the Aryan race.  The unrealized reality of World War II is that had the Axis won, they would have eventually, inevitably, gone to war against each other.  The racial imperatives of their respective platforms would have forced it to happen.

Closer to home, the preaching of the likes of Malcolm X, Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, and Jeremiah Wright, are by any rational measure both anti-white and black supremacist.

Al Sharpton

Jeremiah Wright

Mainstream Media Promotes Racial Supremacy

Psychology has very well documented the "fight or flight" autonomic response people have to threats.  The simple reason for a rise in racially motivated crimes is a rise in racial supremacists of all colors.  Add to this the media barrage against white males which has been going on at least since the days when Carrol O'Connor put forward the ignorant bigot Archie Bunker as the epitome of the white working-class man and a rise in "white supremacy" is bound to follow.  The white supremacists are feeling threatened by legal, societal, and media actions which undermine the perceived foundations of their legitimacy and threaten their ability to be taken seriously and heard in the public square.  While many will flee this conflict, at least for a while, an increasing number will feel their backs are against the wall and will feel compelled to take a stand, perhaps even a violent stand, against those who seem to trying not simply to un-empower them, but to wage a war of extinction on them.

Racial Violence is a Reaction to Racial Supremacy

The reality is that racial and hate crimes will continue to rise as long as two things are happening.  1) As long as racism is institutionally supported and 2) while racial supremacists are being widely heard.

Because of the 1st Amendment we cannot deny racial supremacists their place in the public forum.  However, we can continue to combat institutionalized racism.  Right now, the majority of institutionalized racism exists in Hollywood.  Movies and television shows for at least the last twenty years have typically portrayed the straight, white, male (Archie Bunker) as everything from a mere buffoon to an evil villain. Favorable portrayals of straight, white, males in sitcoms on national TV was limited to Tim Allen's Last Man Standing, which the major networks cancelled regardless of its ratings.

When you couple unrelenting media bias against straight, white, males with the unvarnished willingness of the mainstream media to lend credibility to racial supremacists who are attacking whites and trying to invoke misguided notions of racial guilt and racial shame it should be no surprise that the result sometimes is violence.

All Racial Supremacy is Founded on Lies

The problem with all this racial supremacy is that it is all founded on falsehoods.  The reality is that brown, black, white, red, yellow, pink, or otherwise, we are all one race.  We are the human race.  Whatever genetic anomalies have occurred over the millennia which created the diversity of our skin colors has not created multiple versions of the human race.  So, if we want to feel superior, let's revel in the superiority of the human race, and quit stressing over our skin colors, hair colors, eye colors, etc.

To justify their enslavement of Africans, for a time Europeans promoted the notion that Africans were actually a species of ape.  They promoted the notion that Africans were not of the human race, but were a simian race.  Not only has science put that silly notion to rest, it was never more than an attempt to rationalize the treatment of fellow human beings in an inhumane way by pretending they weren't actually human.  Even today, to succeed, racial supremacists must demonize their opponents, changing them from human beings into some incarnation of evil or vile stupidity.

Just Say "No!"

So, the next time you see a TV show, or someone in front of a crowd (in person or on Facebook), calling those who disagree with them "evil", "idiots", "brainless", "stupid", etc. take a pause and realize that the speaker is trying to dehumanize those who disagree and by doing that is directly promoting the sort of unreasoning hatred and disdain that leads to both the crimes of racism and genocide.

The answer, however, is not to respond with equal vitriol and insults.  Rather, it is to make calm, rational, fact-based responses and to disengage when others clearly lose their hold on sanity and devolve into foul-language riddled rants which are aimed to incite emotion rather than citing fact and appealing to reason.  As I have said elsewhere, learn to disagree without being disagreeable.

Tom Sheppard is a business consultant and coach to small business owners and individuals. He is a recognized author with dozens of titles in business and fiction to his credit. One of his endeavors is to help those who want to see their own book in print. He does this through his trademarked Book Whispering Process (TM). 

The author is not an official spokesperson for any organization or person mentioned herein. 

 (c) Copyright 2019 A+ Results LLC. All Rights Reserved. 

Your comments are welcome... Please observe some ground rules. No profanity, vulgarity, or personal attacks. Profanity, vulgarity and personal attacks not only betray a lack of vocabulary and imagination, they also are the hallmarks of bigotry, and bigotry is the hallmark of someone who is fundamentally insecure in their views. Facts are always welcome.

Radical Immigration

My father's father was a naturalized US Citizen.  An immigrant.

Tom Sheppard

7/20/2018

The picture above was taken when my grandfather was working and living as a trapper in the Northwest Territory of Canada, many years before he emigrated to the US and married my grandmother.  After becoming a citizen, he built, bought, and sold several businesses.  He owned a ranch for a while, until Roosevelt's New Deal made it more profitable for him to not plant wheat or run cattle and sheep.  Then, he became a store owner and drilled water wells.

His three sons all went off to war during World War II.  They all came back alive.  The oldest boy was among the "Battered Bastards of Bastogne" who withstood the German siege of Bastogne, France during The Battle of the Bulge.

My point in telling you this snippet of family history is to let you know that I have very personal knowledge of the contributions immigrants make in this country. 

In addition to my personal knowledge of the contributions of immigrants, I lived for nearly two years in Ecuador, South America.  Ecuador is a wonderful country, and it is, in many ways, very typical of the third-world countries all over the world.  This experience, living in a third-world country, not just passing through as a tourist, gave me intimate, first-hand experience with real poverty, political turmoil of the sort that makes our elections look like family picnics, and  the hearts, minds and lives of ordinary people who live in these circumstances.

All of these experiences, as well as what I see in the history of the US shapes my views on immigration.  Because of these experiences and study, I have come up with a pretty radical view on immigration which might shock many of those who know how politically, economically, and socially conservative I am in my views.

Before I explain my radical immigration proposal, I want to share a little bit of the history of immigration law in America.  We all understand that the first Europeans in America were immigrants.  In fact there was no real immigration law in America until the US was founded.  Even then, for a long time, the only real immigration law was that the President of the US had to have been born in the US.  He or she could not be a naturalized US citizen.  Alas, my grandfather's political ambitions were capped. :-)

The Constitution authorized Congress to establish immigration and naturalization laws.  They left the open borders policy of the Founding Fathers pretty much in place.  However, it is relevant to note that from its very start, the immigration and naturalization laws of the US had a racist bent.

Those who know me well will be surprised to hear me say that something is racist.  I believe the term is not only over used, but often misapplied.  However, as your read on, you will see why an acknowledgement of racism (or ethnicism, to be more accurate) is applicable in this case.

The Naturalization Act of 1790 prescribed the manner in which "free white persons" of "good moral character," could become US citizens.  The wording expressly excluded anyone who was not of European descent.  As you will see later, this was narrowed at some points to provide the easiest path to those of Northern European descent (people like me and my family).

In 1868 the 14th Amendment to the Constitution was passed, granting citizenship to children born of parents in the US.  In 1870 the law was broadened to include blacks, but explicitly excluded anyone of Asian descent.  One step forward, and one step backward on the ethnicism front.

In 1882, Congress got even more explicit against the Asians with The Chinese Exclusion Act (everyone of Asian descent was, of course, considered Chinese).  This Act was the true beginning of our current immigration laws.  It should resonate with many anti-immigrationists that the term "Yellow Peril" was popular at this time, as a shorthand for describing the threat to the US posed by any permanent settlement of the folks who helped build the transcontinental railroad.

The act was tightened in 1884 and renewed again in 1892.  In 1902 it was made permanent, not requiring any further debate to renew it.  It wasn't repealed until 1943.

In 1907 we clamped down on Japanese immigration, particularly into Hawaii.

In 1882 immigration law banned folks with poor mental health, physical health, or lack of education.  In 1901 they outlawed the immigration of Anarchists, after one of the assassinated President McKinley.  The Immigration Act of 1917 (note the timing with the First World War), a literacy requirement was added to the immigration law.

Things really got going on the institutionalized ethnicism in 1921 when Congress enacted the Emergency Quota Act.  Immigration quotas were set for pretty much all countries outside of Northern Europe.  The quotas were intended to limit the number of "undesirables" coming from the countries of Eastern Europe, since Asia and Africa had already been effectively prohibited.  The quotas were revised by Congress in 1952.  The UK, Germany, and Ireland were the favored countries for immigration.  Everyone else were pretty much personae non grata.

Immigration laws were used to strip Indians of their citizenship and to remove the property rights of Native Americans (not the same folks as Indians, who come from India).  Those property rights were later restored, but I think anyone can now see the pattern our immigration laws have followed for a very long time.  From the very early on they were aimed at ensuring that the majority of people in this country had Anglo-Saxon ethnic origins.  This meant that, as noted before, Ireland, Scotland, England, Wales, and Germany were given preferential immigration treatment, with the countries of Sweden, Norway, and Finland not far behind.  In contrast with these favored ethnicities, everyone else was put on a quota system.

The quotas restricted all Eastern and Southern Europeans and they almost excluded African, Asian and Middle Eastern.  

Although in 1965, they ostensibly abolished the quota system based on national origins, for the first time,  they implemented quotas on immigration from countries in the Western Hemisphere, and it gave preference to immigrants with skills that were desired to fuel our economy.

For those who mistakenly believe this all came about as a result of Republican Racism, alas no less than Senator Edward Kennedy was a primary architect of this bill and is quoted as saying, in defense of this bill, "the bill will not flood our cities with immigrants. It will not upset the ethnic mix of our society. It will not relax the standards of admission. It will not cause American workers to lose their jobs."  So, the racist/ethnicist inclinations cross and crisscross the aisle of Congress.  The hands of neither major party are clean in this ugly history.

In my view, the quotas on immigration from the Western Hemisphere are a response to the "Brown Peril."  Unfortunately, the fear of having whites drowned in a flood of Hispanics is not without some foundation.  No less than the President of Mexico has endorsed the "Reconquista", the taking over of the Southwest United States by Hispanics, specifically by Mexicans.  The avowed aim of this movement is to return those lands to Mexico, or to turn those states into pro-Mexican puppets within the United States.

The term Reconquista has its origins in Spain as the Christians of Spain worked for about 780 years to retake the peninsula from the Muslim (AKA Moorish) forces which had conquered it.  Now, it is about the cultural and political retaking of the US Southwest by pro-Mexicans.  

Regardless of the aims of the Mexican Reconquista, the way to combat it is not through overt or covert discrimination in our immigration laws.  Rather, it is by doing what Americans do best, leading by example.  The reality is, if things in Mexico and other countries in the Western Hemisphere were so great, their people wouldn't be beating a path to get into this country.  We have something they want, and it isn't land, it is freedom.

In this country, if the police pick you up off the street, you get a phone call.  You don't disappear, as happens in so many other parts of this hemisphere.  In this country, you can disagree with the President, or the Government in general without fear that some pro-government para-military forces are going to drag you from your bed in the middle of the night and execute you in front of your family, or kill your family in front of you, and then kill you.

In this country, if you are born into what we here call poverty, you are not automatically condemned to a life at the bottom economic rungs of society.  Interestingly, a recent study of the top 1% in the US found that not only are they not the idle rich, they are working hard for their money, but fewer than 10% of them inherited their wealth.  That means that 9 out of 10 of the top 1% rose from lower economic positions to attain great wealth.

Immigrants to this country are four times more likely to become millionaires than are native-born citizens.  Why?  Because those immigrants have lived in societies where their status at birth capped their opportunities for advancement.  They were ambitious souls, so they came to America, where no one can utterly block the advancement of their ambitions.

By the way, don't confuse being a millionaire with being in the top 1%.  The top 1% are billionaires and hundred millionaires.  In this country, more people around you than you might imagine are millionaires.  The book, The Millionaire Next Door outs them very well. 

Photo (C) NBC News

The Road So Far

1. Our Immigration Laws Are Ethnically and Socially Discriminatory
2. Immigrants Tend to Boost Our Economy

My Radical Immigration Plan

My plan has a few simple (but not easy) points.

1. Build a digital wall
2. Abolish all quotas and immigration number limits
3. Deny immigration requests only on the basis of criminal activity or for national security reasons.
4. Make US Citizenship a Desirable Privilege
5. Give Aliens Clear Paths to US Citizenship

Let me elaborate on each point.

Build a Digital Wall

We have technology to create a digital, biometric registry of every person coming into the US.  Every person seeking entry to the US, including diplomats, should have their fingerprints, retinal scans, facial scans, DNA, and all other biometric information, along with their name and other identifiers loaded into a national registry which is accessible to all law enforcement agencies in the US.  Each entrant should receive an Alien ID Card with a unique identifying number.  Possession of this card would allow them the legal right to work at any job in the US for which they can get hired, be that picking lettuce, or being a brain surgeon.

Aliens would be required to update their addresses whenever they moved.  This could be done with a simple box and bit of info on mail forwarding materials with the USPS.

This registry should be constantly cross referenced to databases of crimes and criminal evidence.  Anyone attempting to enter who is found to have been deported due to criminal activity would be denied entry.

Abolish All Quotas and Immigration Number Limits

This is very simple, and means just what it says.  We will let as many people into our country as want to come, as long as they are not criminals or national security threats.

Deny immigration requests only on the basis of criminal activity or for national security reasons.

The Alien Registry would need to be constantly accessed by our national security forces and intelligence services to screen out known threats to national security and known criminals.  Criminals might be known either internationally, within our own borders, or to the security and police forces of their country of origin.  Anyone who triggers a flag from this check would either be automatically denied, or require a security review and a waiver before being admitted to the US and issued an Alien ID card.

Make US Citizenship a Desirable Privilege

As controversial as my earlier points are, they probably pale by comparison with this one.  The short version of this point is that Aliens should not enjoy all the rights and privileges accorded to US Citizens.  Their basic judicial rights, trial by jury, right of appeal, right against unreasonable search and seizure, etc., would be provided.  But none of the taxpayer funded financial programs available for US Citizens would be available.

• All government entitlement programs, be they at the municipal, state, or Federal level are reserved solely for US Citizens.  This would also include things like unemployment insurance and workmen's compensation.  
• Aliens would be able to attend public schools, but would not enjoy resident rates at state funded colleges or universities.  
• They would not be eligible for any voucher programs for state funded schools.  
• Their wages and earnings would be subject to Social Security and Medicaid Taxes, just like everyone else, but they would be ineligible to participate in those programs as recipients, no matter how many years they had paid in.
• Obviously, they could not vote in any municipal, state, or Federal elections and could not hold any publicly elected office.
• They could not lawfully purchase, sell, or possess firearms or weapons of any kind.
• They could enlist in the US Military, which would provide a fast-track for citizenship.

None of these restrictions on taxpayer funding for aliens would hamper private charities from extending any form of aid they desired.

Are these restrictions unfair?  Absolutely.  They are deliberately calibrated to deny to Aliens many of the most desirable rights under the US Constitution and the laws of the land.  This makes US Citizenship a desirable privilege.

Give Aliens Clear Paths to Citizenship

The short version of what follows is that Aliens need to keep their noses clean while they are here.

• Anyone desiring US Citizenship should be required to speak, read, and write English at a minimal level.  Perhaps 6th or 8th grade level of competency?
• They should be able to pass a basic test, showing that they understand their Constitutional rights and responsibilities as citizens.
• They should be required to sign an oath of allegiance to the support and defend the US Constitution, much like that which is required of those who take public office and those who enlist in the US military.
• They should have resided in the US for at least 5 years with no history of violence or drug crimes.
• Any Alien currently under a felony indictment is ineligible for Citizenship until the indictment is dropped or they are either pardoned or acquitted in a court of law.
• Aliens who enlist in the US Armed Forces can apply for Citizenship after just 2 years of residency.  All other requirements apply.
• Any Alien convicted of violent crimes, drug crimes, or any Felony will be deported immediately after their release from prison, regardless of whether that release is due to completion of their sentence or probation, and they will be ineligible for reentry into the US.

For all Aliens that are present in this country at the time of enactment of these laws, they would have two paths open to them.

1. They could immediately proceed to an Alien Registration Port and become Registered Aliens.
2. They could return to their country of origin and apply for entrance from there.

All Aliens currently residing in the country would have 12 months to get their Alien Registration ID and become a Registered Alien.  After that twelve month period, if they are apprehended and determined to be an illegal alien, they would be deported with no possibility of readmission to the US.  Their evasion of the law would be a de facto admission of ill-intent toward the US, its laws, its government, and its citizens.

Unregistered or illegal aliens who have been residing in this country prior to the enactment of these laws, and who subsequently register, would have no shorter path to citizenship than the 5 year requirement.  All other restrictions would also apply until they attain their US Citizenship.  It would be as though they had arrived in the US on the day they received their Alien Registration ID.

Conclusion

The United States of America is the greatest nation on earth.  Our Constitution is a marvel of world history and both an example and bulwark of liberty for people all over the world.  Our Constitutional Rights are worth shedding blood to defend.  They are also worth protection from all enemies, foreign and domestic.

Immigrants have helped make America great.  They continually inject new energy into our country and our society.  We need to abolish the racist/ethnicist underpinnings of our current immigration laws and replace them with laws which honor the principles which have made this country great.  They need to embody the principles and sentiments expressed in the poem New Colossus, which is associated with the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor.

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,With conquering limbs astride from land to land;Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall standA mighty woman with a torch, whose flameIs the imprisoned lightning, and her nameMOTHER OF EXILES. From her beacon-handGlows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes commandThe air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.

"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries sheWith silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

I have my doubts that my Radical Immigration ideas will ever get read by President Trump, or anyone in power in the US Government.  But, I will put them out there anyway, and go on the record.  Perhaps my friend Eric Trump will see this post and show it to his Dad.

Tom Sheppard and Eric Trump, son of President Donald Trump

Perhaps one of you will share it and it will find its way to the eyes and minds of those who can make this happen.

Tom Sheppard is a business consultant and coach to small business owners and individuals. He is a recognized author with dozens of titles in business and fiction to his credit. One of his endeavors is to help those who want to see their own book in print. He does this through his trademarked Book Whispering Process (TM). The author is not an official spokesperson for any organization or person mentioned herein. 

The author is not an official spokesperson for any organization or person mentioned herein.

Visit Tom's Amazon.com Author's Page

(c) Copyright 2018 A+ Results LLC. All Rights Reserved. 

 Your comments are welcome... Please observe some ground rules. No profanity, vulgarity, or personal attacks. Profanity, vulgarity and personal attacks not only betray a lack of vocabulary and imagination, they also are the hallmarks of bigotry, and bigotry is the hallmark of someone who is fundamentally insecure in their views. Facts are always welcome.

Antifa and the Alt-Right

Tom Sheppard

8/16/2017

In the aftermath of the violence in Charlottesville President Trump noted that both sides were to blame for the violence.  His remarks set off a firestorm of righteous indignation in both major political parties.  Most of those excoriating him failed to perform even the most rudimentary examination of the facts to determine if, perhaps he was speaking from a well-informed position, instead of assuming he was shooting from the lip.

The reality of the violence in Charlottesville is that it was the entirely foreseeable result of bringing two avowedly violent groups together: violent white-supremacists and the violent anti-racists known as Antifa (more on both these groups later).  Because both groups are very ready and willing to engage in violent, physical conflict, and are on opposite sides of the topic of racism, for them to come together into the same physical space is like bringing lit matches and gunpowder together. It really doesn’t matter which one you think is which, when they come together, a violent explosion is nearly 100% certain.

Some of President Trumps critics claim that when he pointed out that Antifa charged in with clubs in hand, he was making Antifa and white supremacists morally equivalent.  That is blatantly twisting the facts.  He made no argument for the moral equivalence of the two groups.  Rather, than address the morals of either side, he noted the detestable actions of both sides.  As much as most of us may hate what they say, white supremacists have the same rights to free speech as anyone else.  No one has the right to use violence to silence the free speech of another.  If you start down the road of justifying allowing one group to violently silence another in the name of moral rectitude, soon you will have a society of self-righteous prigs living in an echo chamber where only the views they like will be heard.

So, where do these two groups come from and what does the name Antifa mean?  Antifa characterize themselves as anti-fascists.  The white supremacists commonly wave the NAZI flag and use the symbols of NAZI Germany in their materials along with the Confederate “Stars and Bars” battle flag.  The white supremacists call the Antifa socialists and communists and the Antifa call the white supremacists fascists and the Alt-Right.   The name calling, on both sides, is missing the mark more often than not.

Wikipedia gives a pretty good definition of fascism as “a form of radical authoritarian nationalism, characterized by dictatorial power, forcible suppression of opposition, and control of industry and commerce.”  This gives us a four-point checklist to keep in mind as we identify fascism.

1.       Authoritarian Nationalism

2.       Dictatorial Power

3.       Forcible Suppression of Opposition, and

4.       [Governmental] Control of Industry and Commerce

Leading up to the American Civil War, the Northern States were characterized by being a racial melting pot that fueled an emerging industrial economy. They were anti-slavery.  However, that virtue may have been as much of an economic as a moral stance.  Slave labor was a threat to the working poor of the North.

Northern culture was characterized by a work ethic focused on individuals making their own way and eating their bread in the sweat of their brow.  The majority of the norther colonists had come from commoners and religious dissenters who fled Europe to avoid death at the hands of clerics and aristocrats.

Southern culture was oriented more toward the notion of European aristocracy.  Wealthy southerners sent their daughters to Paris for their finishing school.  The European notion of aristocracy eschews manual labor as a sign of poverty and commonality.  The ideal aristocrat does not labor for his money.  Rather, his time is free to hunt, to whore, and to adventure.

This culture of indolence sat at the top of the Southern social model and its values filtered down throughout the society all the way to common men who wore their indolence as a badge of honor.  In spite of their impoverished circumstances, they placed greater esteem on hunting, whoring and adventuring than in hard work.

This cultural conflict is part of the reasons the State of Missouri enacted an extermination order on Mormons.  Mormon converts, coming mostly from the New England area at that time, migrated to Missouri to establish Zion.  Their inherited ethic and regard for hard work directly conflicted with the indolent ethic of the Missourians.  Adding in religious elements to this basic clash of culture and intolerance, misunderstanding, and violence were almost inevitable.

Fast forward to the years just before the Civil War.  You find the Republican Party leaning heavily toward abolition of slavery.  You find Northern states ranging from open hostility toward slavery to tolerance as long as it stays out of their state.

In the South, you find aristocratic Democrats holding the levers of power and doing all in their power to preserve the institution of slavery because of its key role in their agricultural economy and Southern society.  They were ready and willing to use the powers of government to preserve slavery by putting down slave rebellions (individual and collective), and even waging open war on other states which want to abolish slavery in the entire Union.  Their behavior was definitely racist.  They were possessed of violent nationalism, although it was directed to supporting the distinct sovereignty of each state as though it were a nation.  They lacked dictatorial control and lacked the governmental control of commerce and industry that is a hallmark of fascism.  On balance, the Confederate States of America was a racist, but not a fascist government, scoring only two of the four points on the Wikipedia-derived checklist for fascism.

When the Emancipation Proclamation appeared during the Civil War, impoverished Irish in the North, at the bottom of the economic ladder engaged in race riots against the blacks, out of fear that the newly freed slaves will displace them and push them even further down the economic ladder.  This behavior was definitely racist, lacking any clear government support, they little resemblance to fascism.

After the Civil War, the Democratic party continued to support racism and its members filled the ranks of the Ku Klux Klan as the paramilitary arm of the Democratic party, using terror to resist allowing blacks to enjoy all the rights of citizens.  If a dictatorial power existed within their ranks, it was a secret which has never been revealed to the wider world.  So, they continued as racists, but not full-blown fascists.

Fast forward again to the time leading up to World War II.  In Europe, as well as the United States, communism and its younger brother socialism gained substantial political grounds since the emergence of the nation with a communist government (post-Czarist Russia). 

Where the communism strives to establish one world government where government owns all and individuals own nothing, and we are all part of one family of man, its little brother, socialism has a slightly different vision.  Socialists want to apply the governmental principles of communism while retaining the pride and distinctiveness of each nation.  These pre-WWII national-socialists diluted the absolute anti-capitalist communism to embrace some elements of capitalism, as long as it operates under the close control of the government (and can be used as a means of extending the reach of government without all the budgetary and bureaucratic mess inherent in government).  The new national-socialist-psuedo-capitalists gained the name of fascists. The fascists tweaked their nationalism (twisting it would have required greater effort) into a form of racial pride based on their nation, thus incorporating racism into their fascism.

The racist-fascist formula succeeded in gaining a much wider following than communism, and in short order, fascist governments were running Germany, Italy and Spain.  In America, they were openly admired by rich and powerful American Democrats such as John D. Rockefeller, Franklin D.Roosevelt and Henry Ford. 

In the polyglot world of America, the conflation of nation and race is not so intuitive as it was in Europe.  A quick study of European history shows that the nations of Europe arose around concentrations of racially and ethnically distinct groups.  The blond and red haired Aryans of the north were the core of countries such as Germany, Norway, Finland, Sweden and Denmark.  The dark haired, white skinned Celts (the Romans called them Gauls) were the primary race in what is now France and the isles of Britain.  The dark haired, olive skinned Latins were the racial core of Italy, Spain, Portugal, and Greece.  These racial alignments, reinforced by centuries of racial warfare, pre-disposed the Europeans to embracing racial politics.

When the fascists took power in Germany, they brought with them an overweening pride in their race and asserted that the Aryans represented the only pure race among all the white races and that as such they were the master race which by rights of its purity should rule all the other elements of the human race.  Part of their plan for achieving this world domination involved not only killing off the unfit among themselves, but also in killing off entirely all the “lesser” races of humanity.  If they had succeeded, their slaughter of the Jews would have paled compared to how many of the “brown” races they would have happily destroyed beneath the heel of their racist regime.

Ironically, their Japanese allies on the other side of the world, although they ignored the lures of socialism or communism in favor of their own aristocracy, decided that the nation of Japan and the Japanese race were the embodiment of the master race which owned the right to rule humanity.  They embraced all the hallmarks of fascism and racism.  They happily treated the Koreans, Chinese, Philipinos and whites all as less than human.

An unfortunate side-effect of this nationalistic furor with its racial threads was that racism and fascism became interchangeable terms in the minds of many people.   This is especially true today.  As a result, anyone embracing racism and most especially the notion of a master race is deemed a fascist.  Although this is factually incorrect, many of the racist groups supporting white supremacy further promote this error by embracing the symbols of fascism such as the NAZI flag.  Most of these groups are neither socialists nor truly NAZIs.  They typically embrace the concepts of rugged individualism that permeate the political right.  However, their use of symbols of fascism and the master race rhetoric of the fascists makes it simpler to label them fascists than to give them the more discerning and accurate label of simple racists.

From the time of the Civil War until the middle of the twentieth century, the scions of the Democratic party held the levers of power in the South and used them to disenfranchise the blacks until the Republican party forced the passage of the Civil Rights Act in the 1960s and used the power of the Federal Government to break the last vestiges of the Democrats’ use of the powers of government to support their racism.  After the passage of the Civil Rights Act, the Democrats adroitly changed their roles from would-be masters over the blacks to their would-be protectors.  Many leading black pundits today recognize that the welfare state (of which the Democratic Party is the primary champion) is no more or less than another way to keep blacks dependent upon the Democrats by making them dependent upon the transfer of wealth from successful individualists into the hands of the plantation slaves who, for more than a century, depended upon the generosity of their white masters for the food on their table and clothes on their back (see Star Parker’s book, Uncle Sam’s Plantation: How Big Government Enslaves the Poor and What We Can Do About It).

Recently, a movement known as Antifa (Anti-fascists) has appeared among the political left in the United States.  Although the Antifa attempt to link themselves to the historical anti-fascist movements in trans-WWII Germany, Italy and Spain, they define themselves as opponents to the likes of the white-supremacists, which they call the Alt-Right.  Because these white-supremacists are actually racists, not fascists, the legacy of the Antifa is not rooted in anti-fascism, rather it is anti-racism and more specifically, it is anti-white-supremacist.  The danger with being anti-white-supremacist is that it is easy to become anti-white, in reality or just perception.  Being anti-white is racism with a swap in roles for oppressor and oppressed.   

Calling the white supremacists fascists and the Alt-Right is inaccurate and misleading.  The reality is that fascism is not a political movement from the right of center.  It is a political movement from the left of center.  Racism too is not a movement from the right of center.  It has historically been used and supported by the Democratic Party.  Labeling Democrats as left and Republicans as right of center is as nuanced as saying that the sky above is blue and the earth beneath is brown.  The characterizations lead to misperceptions and hide the truth.  Although many Democrats embrace the political ambitions of the left, many leading Republicans do likewise.

In the US and most of the world today, the political left is the champion of the rights of groups over the rights of individuals, “authoritarian nationalism”, “dictatorial power, forcible suppression of opposition, and [governmental] control of industry and commerce” are the hallmarks of their vision for government.  The political right is the champion of individual rights such as freedom of speech, religion, association, and self-protection, smaller, less-intrusive government, and minimal governmental regulation of industry and commerce.

Government sponsored racism, is not an artifact of the political right.  The political right has its roots in respect for the rights and civic responsibilities of the individual.  It is embodied in such phrases as those found in the Declaration of Independence that, “all men are created equal and endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights.  Among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”  These sentiments and philosophies allow no room for racism and certainly do not support any notion of a master race.  Rather, they point the mind toward the universal brotherhood of humanity as sharing a common creator.

Government sponsored racism, such as that found in the fascist nations of World War II, is only possible where despotism prevails.  It is an aberration when free people choose to unleash the powers of their government against a minority of any sort.  Although an aberration, it is not without precedent in the history of the United States of America.

Before the Civil War, the people of the United States of America supported and encouraged their government to wage open war against the members of the Mormon church.  The Civil War seems to have burnt out of the main of our nation the inclination to use the powers of government to oppress minorities, racial or religious.

I am sure some will argue that the wars against the Native Americans was a racist war that was supported by the people.  While there may be some truth of racism buried in there, the reality is that the Native Americans were (and are) sovereign nations (as well as peoples).  When the United States prevailed against them, the results were not racial cleansing, enslavement or extermination.  Rather, the results were disarmament, subjugation and restriction.

From my view of history, the racist strains of the US were scorched (although not entirely burnt out), root and branch, and the government sponsored racism of the south was broken long before the fascists of Europe arose to take a place on the world stage.  Those in this country with whom fascism resonated most were not Republicans, but old-guard Democrats who hewed to the notions of the Southern Democrats that whites are superior and that blacks can be excluded from the rights delineated in our founding documents because they aren’t actually human, or not fully human.

The scary part of this last point is that black supremacists today embrace the same notion, that whites aren’t really true humans.  The only true humans are those with dark skins.

Today, white supremacists and other racists want to implement government sponsored agendas of racism which are incompatible with the ideals of freedom and individual worth.  Those ideals are the hallmarks of the political right.

This white supremacist fringe is no more an alternate right (Alt-right) than West is an alternate North.  Those who seek to equate racism with the political right are either ignorant of the facts of history, or are selling something.  It behooves every responsible citizen to examine the motives of those who use labels to hide rather than to shed light on the true motives and ideals of others.

ADDED Material
Today's Wall Street Journal ran an op-ed piece about the Free Speech Rally in Boston.  They noted that Antifa was there trying to suppress free speech with fascist tactics.  There were about two dozen free-speech advocates at the rally and hundreds of Antifa-led counter protesters there to prevent anyone from being heard, except them.  The author notes, "Neo-Nazis and white supremacists may be a continuing American embarrassment and eyesore, but they are not today’s most pressing threat to our civil liberties."

The day before this article, CNN "unmasked" the Antifa as "undocumented immigrants, transgender people, low-wage workers, those who don't conform to the traditional 9-to-5."  They believe somehow that it will work to "use force in the name of eradicating hatred."  Like that will work?  When was the last time having someone punch you in the face made you want to agree with them and embrace love?  For most people violence only makes them want to respond with violence.  And violence inspires hatred, it doesn't eradicate it.

Here are a few more quotes from the CNN article...

"Antifa activists often don't hesitate to destroy property.."

"Antifa members also sometimes launch attacks against people who aren't physically attacking them."

"...members focus on outing people they believe are neo-Nazis, even trying to get them fired and evicted from their homes."

John Morley, in 1874, is credited with saying, "You have not converted a man because you have silenced him."  President John F. Kennedy repeated nearly the same sentiment many years later.  Antifa's methods lead me to believe that rationality is not at the core of their movement.  It is based wholly on emotion.  They are the leading advocates of mob rule in our country today.  And it was lynch mobs and mob rule that fueled and led the charge for racists throughout the civil rights era of the 60's.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:  I confess I was mildly surprised when mainstream media sources began condemning Antifa actions.  Then, I saw this article where no less a venerable liberal scion than Nancy Pelosi trashed Antifa (follow the link to the WSJ article).  Her statement must have given the green-light to the left-conforming editors and reporters of the mainstream media to decry the actions of their leftist allies who resorted to fascist behavior to violently suppress the free speech of others in the campaign to combat fascism.

Related Links:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-great-nazi-scare-of-2017-1503440903
http://www.cnn.com/2017/08/18/us/unmasking-antifa-anti-fascists-hard-left/index.html

Tom Sheppard is a business consultant and coach to small business owners and individuals. He is a recognized author with dozens of titles in business and fiction to his credit. One of his endeavors is to help those who want to see their own book in print. He does this through his trademarked Book Whispering Process (TM). 

The author is not an official spokesperson for any organization or person mentioned herein. 

(c) Copyright 2017 A+ Results LLC. All Rights Reserved. 

Your comments are welcome... Please observe some ground rules. No profanity, vulgarity, or personal attacks. Profanity, vulgarity and personal attacks not only betray a lack of vocabulary and imagination, they also are the hallmarks of bigotry, and bigotry is the hallmark of someone who is fundamentally insecure in their views. Facts are always welcome.

Learn more about Tom Sheppard at his Amazon Author Page:

https://www.amazon.com/Tom-Sheppard/e/B0073GEHIK

Get your own copy of Tom's blockbuster Godvernment today.