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Skip past Robert's garbage and get right to the punchline (which he buries waaaaaay down the article):
Are we going to do anything about it? To shift metaphors, if we thought there was a 50 percent chance of an asteroid crashing into North America a year from now, would we be content to hope that it wouldn’t? Or would we be taking every conceivable measure to try to stop it, including many things that might not work but that, given the magnitude of the crisis, must be tried anyway?
Oh, you mean like the tiny little issue going on right now in New York on the other side of the coin?
Where Trump and his firms are being tried in direct contravention of the US Constitution which guarantees a right to trial by jury -- under a law that NY State claims is legitimate and bars being heard by a jury.
This is no traffic ticket (we can quibble over the dollar controversy limit in the Constitution and whether it should be inflation-adjusted) and thus that indeed you don't have such a right with a traffic ticket which today has a $200 fine associated with it but not when the matter in question is over millions of dollars, as it is here.
If we are going to apply Robert's standards why haven't we started erecting and using both gallows and guillotines already? Let's be serious here: There are plenty of people who have been screwed blind out of either money, freedom and in some cases their life at the hands of various actors, whether directly in government or enabled by it in direct violation of the Constitution.
Is magnitude important? Probably. Is a revolution (or even assassination) justified over refusal to grant any sort of trial at all over a red-light camera's ticket? I would think not.
How about several trillion a year robbed from the American people by the medical system violating felony federal law that has stood for over 100 years yet neither a Democrat or Republican attorney general or other prosecutor will bring the charges because all of them love the "revenue" generated by the "economy" of said thefts and frauds?
Hmmmm....
If Robert can go where he did, and he did, then I can go here too.
The pharmaceutical industry and government cheated in developing mitigations. They did so after getting themselves legal immunity that violates the Constitution of the United States in several ways, not the least of which is the 14th Amendment that guarantees equal protection under the law, and thus prohibits this. The legislature cannot override the Constitution. Never mind the foreign and United States entities and persons who clearly were involved in developing the virus in the first place.
Worse, this is not speculative or a "probability" question either as there's a lot of dead people, arguably much worse than anything Trump could perhaps dish out if someone's fear came true, so if house burnings, beheadings and other extra-legal things start happening to those responsible...... I vote not guilty, because, well, "its the only way to get it done" as Robert has laid out and that asteroid isn't just maybe going to hit Earth at a 50% probability -- it already DID hit us and now we're talking about who to hold accountable for it and all the dead bodies, which is a much clearer debate, is it not?
Not my standard folks, his standard.
Are you sure you want to go there?
First Fact, which everyone learns in school: Science is a process, not a result.
We then all allow others who claim a result to shove their alleged "result" down our throats.
What we should do is refuse, and if said refusal is met with violence or the credible threat of violence then remove said persons from society.
Instead we suffer billions, even trillions of thefts and frauds -- and, in many cases, dead bodies on top of it.
One example: The alleged "science" of mammography.
It is true -- that is, a fact -- that using ionizing radiation (X-rays, basically) can detect cancer. However, there are false alarms. Further, it can detect technical cancers that will never progress to invade other tissues; while said persons have "cancer" it poses no threat to them. It is not possible to know if such a situation exists (only if it doesn't, that is, if invasion has already occurred.) And while breast cancer can kill you (and certainly does kill people) radiation is not a zero-risk game; that is, there is also a small but measurable risk that the exposure can cause cancer.
How does this all measure out? That's difficult to determine and there are lots of people who have billions of reasons to lie. Medical procedures and the manufacturers of devices of course get paid only if you use them. As a result they have a personal financial interest in "overselling" what they produce and practice. You see this every single day in your life from your first remembrances of childhood; the cereal maker sells you cereal which they promise is "good" in their advertising -- even if it turns out that its full of sugar and both makes you fat and rots your teeth! "Part of a good breakfast" the ads all say; nowhere is the "this product may make you fat and also may make your teeth fall out."
What is the relative risk of the two things? That's not in the advertising, is it? Of course not.
There is evidence that routine mammography, that is, giving women X-ray tit exams when there is no physical symptom of distress, does indeed catch cancers but also leads to false positives which then cause both severe emotional distress and a huge additional medical expense which is not necessary. The data also implies, in many cases, that the total mortality is unchanged whether you undergo the procedure on a routine basis or not. That is, across very large data sets (hundreds of thousands of women) while the procedure may well catch cancers it doesn't reduce your risk of being dead from all causes.
As a result, by the math, while it does detect and lead to removal of some breast cancers it also causes some other set of harms which kill an equal number of women as the detections save -- while at the same time generating dancing TikTok nurses, doctors driving fancy cars and medical device companies and hospitals making billions of dollars for zero improvement in all-cause mortality among women.
Is this isolated to that one thing? No. Statins are the same way; except among those who have already had a heart attack they too have no significant all-cause mortality benefit. There was a recent meta-analysis done that was trumpeted all over the place (if you Google this that's pretty much all you'll find in the top results) that claimed huge risk reductions.
Problem: The baseline risk was small and the absolute risk reduction for all-cause mortality was under 1%, and 0.4% for stroke! Further, there's question as to whether those results were valid at all since a known risk factor of their use is Type II diabetes and that does seriously disable and kill but not over short periods of time, so a 10 year study (for example) will overstate the all-cause death benefit -- and in fact might hide a negative result. But this much is certain: The drug isn't free, and if it gives you Type II diabetes neither will be the additional medical care and even more drugs you are then compelled to consume.
How about so-called "climate change"?
Well how is this all working out? We were told that the price and stability of "green" energy would be superior to fossil fuels. We're also told that we're dirty pigs for using said fossil fuels.
The latter is absolutely a lie and the former is proving to be one.
On a per-capita basis burning heating oil (which is the same thing as diesel chemically) is much less harmful to the environment than burning wood. The CO2 is not the issue there; there is much less in other, no-argument pollutants, released into the atmosphere from burning the fuel oil on a per-BTU (that is, usable energy) basis.
Much of our energy production, both electrical and home heat, has moved from fuel oil to natural gas. My parents converted our house to natural gas heat when I was a kid. They didn't do it to "save the planet" they did it to save money; on a per-BTU basis natural gas was cheaper. It also, because it is CH4 and the hydrogen has a large amount of chemical energy bound in that compound, releases far less CO2 and no other pollutants when burned compared with other alternatives.
As societies improve in technological and engineering capacity their energy efficiency in terms of BTUs released for unit of pollutant released goes up. That's not because we're trying to not be pigs and destroy the planet it is because we get better at utilizing resources and get more for what we do utilize. In other words what drives all this is cost, if you leave the market alone productivity solves the problem; doing more with less is the definition of productivity and humans seek this for obvious reasons.
Nobody has to be forced to use wind and solar power if it pencils out just like nobody had to be forced to use natural gas for either heat or electricity. If its cheaper all-in it wins all on its own. The entire reason we have all this arm-twisting and "subsidies" is that it isn't cheaper and the people pushing it know that; it is a net loser and not by a little.
Demanding that less-developed groups of people on our planet forego that which we did isn't "saving the planet" -- its creating slaves. Subsidizing them just creates dependency which is just fine with plenty of people but it shouldn't be -- ever. Further, said people who are not as far along technologically both can't support said efforts due to lack of infrastructure along with the lack of skilled persons to build, operate and maintain it AND they can't afford to buy it from someone else either.
On top of this they wildly outnumber those of us who have achieved such advancement -- there are four billion, roughly, of them between sub-Saharan Africa, China and India for example.
Our one billion between Europe and the United States are immaterial because those other parts of our planet have yet to go through the industrialization, learning, educational maturation, infrastructure development and social progress that we have. Some of them don't even have indoor flush toilets!
If the claimed cause of "global warming" by our increased consumption of energy is correct unless you intend to produce a permanent slave class, and that is the actual goal being pursued, you must accept that they will go through the same process we did and until they do their per-capita energy and pollutant use will rise before the pollutant emission per-BTU falls back. Further, you must accept that the total CO2 emissions will rise; it is simply a matter of mathematics and is inevitable unless you intend to either repress or kill them.
We can't subsidize their advancement because there are more of them than there are of us by a factor of four and we can't pay for it even if we wanted to. Further, until they advance in terms of education and technical ability there is no way for them to produce and operate same, nor will it work at-scale. Therefore even if the alleged cause is true it doesn't matter unless you are willing to enslave people, in which case can we stop talking about "climate change" and start talking about making new and permanent groups of "niggers" at best and if you deny that is your goal then what is left is eugenics, because that is exactly what is being intended and practiced!
Never mind the examples right here that the so-called "advancement" in fact is a lie when it comes to "green" energy in the first place in that it is in fact deliberate regression -- the doing of less with more. This isn't conjecture -- it is and has been proved right here, right now.
California, which has eschewed so-called "fossil fuels" has an electrical cost roughly DOUBLE that of areas which have not. How many people can afford that and its impact in everything? What do you do with those who cannot afford it? May I remind you that only 35% of California generation is renewable and, compared against most other areas that's about twice their "renewable" component (e.g. Tennessee is about 14% with most of that being hydro.) To go to 100% renewable energy in California would increase power costs by roughly four times today's price or eight times what it is in many other parts of the US, approaching $1.00/kWh.
If your electric bill is currently $100/mo in Tennessee or Florida it would be from $600-800 a month if we went all "green" with wind and solar. Can you pay that? Can a median-income earner pay roughly $9,000 a year in electric charges to heat, cool, cook food and light their home?
No, but that is what doing this will result in when it comes to your bill. As a result those pushing this crap should be summarily executed as they are all lying about their intent and their true intent is to render you into abject poverty and servitude or even kill you outright and either if THOSE goals ought to get them strung up right here, right now.
Is the claimed effect and "climate impact" of carbon-based fuels real? The so-called "models" in virtually every case I've looked at violate the laws of thermodynamics and thus are clearly and obviously not "real" simulations of anything. Since the people pushing these "theories" and "assessments" are all quite-intelligent I refuse to believe they are unknowingly putting forward models that violate the laws of thermodynamics -- and that strongly implies intent.
Intent to do what?
GET RICH, just as is the case with mammography and statins!
They simply don't care if they're screwing you and in fact they cheer it on. How many dancing TikTok nurses did you need to see while your Grandmother was denied the ability to even hold her husband's hand when she passed? Did he not, as her husband, have the right to take whatever risk he might choose of acquiring said infection? Of course he did. They didn't just want to be able to act with nobody watching, which incidentally is a direct violation of your unalienable rights (you have the pre-government right to delegate your agency as you see fit to your spouse or other loved one) they also took actual joy in both his AND HER anguish that they DELIBERATELY imposed!
Do you think the climate screamers are any different?
They are not. In fact some of them even have the balls to so-note their intentions openly.
But even if we assume that despite the provably-false models alleged adverse climate impact from human activity and use of carbon-based fuels is real the only place we can put effort that does not enslave others and will matter -- that is, actually work -- is to find ways to mitigate the claimed harms and either neutralize them or turn them into benefits. This is not impossible and in fact runs with the laws of thermodynamics; plants love CO2 as it is their food. Natural gas is an excellent feedstock for fertilizer. Water can be desalinated and there is no shortage of seawater, nor will there ever be. Coal has 13x the heat content from burning it contained in the thorium present in trace amounts within it, and that can easily be extracted and used as nuclear fuel as it is trivially separable by chemical means. Exploiting all of these known countermeasures would contribute to feeding said people, which is a good thing, right? People can move away from low-lying land if in fact the sea level does rise (it takes decades or even millennia to do so) or build walls and other diversionary structures.
Which is smarter -- do what we know will work or do something that we are told to do by various scolds who have been serially wrong through my entire adult life back to the 1970s at enormous cost which precludes doing what we know will work because you can only spend a given dollar once, and further those scold's prescriptions, while their record suggests they absolutely will fail, will, with certainty, double, triple or even multiply by 10x your electric bill and render a very large percentage of the population unable to pay their bill at all -- while making those issuing the pronouncements even more rich.
Further, if the last three years taught you anything it is that greed will and does override anything else and what's worse a huge percentage of those who are greedy actually ENJOY watching you suffer. You cannot reason with such people as they actually like screwing you -- it is not an "unfortunate side effect" at all from their point of view -- particularly if they can make money while doing it.
I vote for doing what we know will work and if threatened with anything reasonably considered "force" by the scolds that we give them the choice of cutting that crap out or we will remove all of them from society and redistribute all their wealth to everyone else.
As those who have read my column for a while know I tend to publish a Thanksgiving Day ticker that reprises the actual story of what happened with the original colony in what is now America. It isn't what you're told and sold in public schools, but it is factual.
Said colony was originally designed around socialist principles and that set of socialist principles, delineated in the Mayflower Compact, nearly killed everyone -- literally killed. Fortunately the colony had a literal dictator in the form of Bradford who recognized after losing fully half of the colonists that if he didn't rip it up and implement capitalism everyone else -- including him -- would die.
He did rip it up and the colony became prosperous.
You never hear this in the mainstream media nor in government schools. I learned it in a school, but not until I was no longer in a government-run and funded school, all of which had previously taught that socialism was the original foundation of America. They just conveniently left off the fact that it literally killed half the colonists before being abandoned by a literal dictator, and absent said dictator it might not have been abandoned in time and there are decent odds America would not exist at all.
Today of course we don't have said "dictator", and it would be pretty damn hard for someone to try to implement that here in America, as we have a lot of ways to stop them. People love to point at America's firearm collection but that's not even a tenth of it. Modern "societies" in the information age may seem like a dystopian surveillance hellscape, and to a large degree they are, but they are also interdependent in ways that make actual imposition of such hell upon a non-consenting public effectively impossible.
As just one example we all know where the cops in our neighborhood live. They live among us. Most park their cruisers in their driveways; "protect the blue" and all. Well, ok, except to go to work said cop has to leave; exactly how much gasoline -- or how big of a wrench -- does it take to burn down said cop's house, whether by using the gas or simply disconnecting his gas line and using a garden hose to fill the basement or crawl with it? Without he or she physically being there how do they stop that? You don't; oh yes, you'll get caught, prosecuted and jailed for doing it, but the fact remains that you can inflict an effectively unlimited amount of pain on the so-called "abusers" if they take things too far -- and they can't stop you and still inflict the abuse. They have to choose. This is the nature of being outnumbered and the cops of various sorts always are in fact outnumbered by wild ratios -- somewhere around 300:1 in the United States.
So why do we keep putting up with the various forms of socialism ignobly shoved down our throats? The premise that a man can "declare" himself a woman and then screw the women on a sports team is in fact an expression of this sort of stupidity. Said man wishes to cheat, period, and insists you accommodate his insanity and allow him to steal that which is not earned, using his known unfair advantage. Such a person is a thief and since the assault is sexual in character we could reasonably call him a rapist and in addition call all those who enable that bullshit, including school boards, college administrators and other government officials rape enablers and supporters, ostracizing them from society. When there are minors involved let's call that by its proper name too: Pedophiles and pedophile enablers.
Exactly how, why and when did we as a society permit the absolute first job of a father, the physical protection of his offspring, by force if necessary, to be redefined out of existence? All this crap would stop in one day if fathers simply told the School Boards and other government agencies that the price of entry into a girl's locker room or restroom while in possession of a penis always has been and always will be the immediate and permanent forfeiture of said body part and if they try to stop that their life will be immediately forfeited also as protection of said father's offspring is their first and primary job, such job predates government, and it cannot and will not be surrendered and by the way you're outnumbered 100:1 so said government goons will submit to that which is both obvious existential fact and predates all governments -- or else.
Similarly, why do we permit unbridled and illegal entry into the United States? Yes, its under our control as citizens. There is nothing the government could do if we refused to permit it. Oh they'd threaten various things but we can threaten back -- cut that shit out or else. Given that history conclusively proves that unbridled socialism always kills everyone who practices it that is a reasonable demand. Well?
The problem large groups of people have is that its very easy for people to become "compassionate" when they don't have to actually practice what they claim. That's theft, and when done by force its armed robbery, so tell them that either they cut it out or you're going to stop them from completing their armed assault. If someone wants to house some number of undocumented, illegal, unskilled aliens on their own they should be free to do that -- but they should be forced to actually house, feed and educate them on their own dime and within their own means and property, and be jointly and severably liable for any criminal act said sponsored persons commit.
How many of those advocating for this policy would do so on their own? We already know the answer because when a bus full of said "migrants" showed up at Martha's Vineyard which happened to have an awful lot of not-presently-occupied bedrooms and such in the housing there instead of welcoming said persons to partake of a nice warm bed and food in the fridge they were immediately deposed off the island.
Well?
Do I have things to be thankful for?
Sure.
I'm on the warm side of the grass this Thursday, and if you're reading this I'm probably in the middle of freezing my ass off while running a 5k race in Knoxville. Not bad for a 60 year old dude who could have been fat, stupid, with failing hips, knees, ankles and kidneys -- but I am none of the above. Ten+ years ago after following the "standard" advice to start trying to drop mass and having had it fail repeatedly through my adult life I told the various doctors and other so-called experts to fuck off and stopped eating both seed oils and fast carbs. 60lbs disappeared, all the signs and symptoms of my body headed for Type II diabetes disappeared along with the extra body mass, my exercise tolerance went from dogshit to being able to run half-marathons or hike 18 miles in a single day down and up the Grand Canyon and today, at 60, I require and consume exactly zero pharmaceutical drugs for a "condition." Post getting covid in the summer of '21 I added a daily Vitamin D and K2 supplement -- at the cost of about a nickel a day -- and further improved my health which I can objectively attest to in that I haven't had so much as a clinical cold in the subsequent 2-1/2 years. My body mass, blood pressure and glucose control are normal and unlike most men of my age everything still works without pharmacological assistance if I had occasion to use my male organ for other than watering some government asshole's headstone.
To put an underline on this statistics are that 80% of those over 60 have hypertension and seven out of ten men 60 and above can't get it up. Almost one-third of those 60+ are Type II diabetic (formally!) and 41% are obese with two out of three adults of all ages being either overweight or obese so damn near everyone older is in fact fat and no, they're not healthy at "any size"; that is a malicious fucking lie and anyone running that crap on anyone, particularly young people, should be excised from society.
The medical, public health and regulatory bodies in our nation are entirely responsible for this by not only enabling the costs to be shoved on others but directly lying to the public about the causes and claiming it is not possible to fix it, but it can be managed, which steals literal trillions of dollars each and every year from the public at-large. Every single person in the country has over a thousand dollars stolen from them every single year by these lies and that money is extracted by force of arms.
This is intentional and has been for decades, and as the voracious greed has overtaken all else it has become the mass form of financial and health rape served upon the country -- all of which we should remove today, permanently, and I no longer care how it happens since they don't care either as was amply proved on a daily basis over the last three years.
The truth is that it costs zero dollars for any person to fix it personally and further, if you fix it you deprive those assholes of both your money and their ability to profit from your misery. Yes, some damage cannot be reversed -- but you'd be surprised at how your body can solve its own problems if you stop poisoning it. Admitting this, of course, means taking agency and then perhaps taking just retribution at the Taj Mahal and its "employees" down the road, otherwise known as a medical center or hospital and then of course their enabling government goon squads, all of which were perfectly happy to murder your loved ones for money over the last three years -- some more-efficiently than others, but all of them practiced it in some form or fashion and yet they're still standing, functioning enterprises.
I guess that counts as consent eh? After all consent is the only difference between rape and sex!
Here, have a(nother) Wegovy shot. Oh, I'll take the over on that eventually being discovered to screw you too -- after those ghouls you refuse to drive from polite society have all your money, of course.
Yes, I'm thankful that I'm not fat and disabled as every single obese individual factually is to some degree but if you want me to be thankful and productive within our economy then you'd better wake the fuck up and make clear that those cocksuckers who keep shoving a gun up my ass and demanding I pay for the intentional false claims and harms done by them cut it out or you're going to have THEM for Thanksgiving dinner.
No?
Well then I think I'll decline to be industrious to my potential since you think I should consent to you stealing my output by force.
Happy Fraudsforcing.
Fact: If you believe "X" (where "X" is conferred by birth and not personal choice) are "God's Chosen People" you're a racist.
Now if "X" is a decision made by individuals, and one can opt in or out as one decides in their life, then no. If you believe that a certain way of life, which one chooses and then practices, means you find God's favor, well, ok. There's no problem there; that's otherwise known as either ethics or morals, depending on whether you believe divinity or rational thought is at the core of the expected result.
But if you believe that status is conferred by lineage you're a racist and any such delineation in employment, education, housing and public affairs in the United States is illegal.
Today, it is -- you know.
What is it?
A day to honor those who served. This is not Memorial Day; that's for those who died, which is a subset of those who served. If you wish to honor those who died on this day that's fine, but its not limited to those people. Many served and didn't die, but still wrote a blank check -- its just that not all of them got cashed.
I was never cut out for the military and knew it. Oh, maybe I should have anyway, but I might have spent half my time in the brig and the other half swabbing the latrine with a toothbrush. Such is the nature of some of us and I wasn't dumb enough to tempt that funnel knowing there was a 50/50 chance I'd go down the wrong side of the switchback.
Here's the thing though; war is for the young when you get down to the actual fighting. The reason isn't because I can't fight -- hell, I'm probably in better shape than half the 18 year olds in this country today. Might not be able to pass the physical requirements now, even after going through Basic, but I'm 60 and have plenty of miles on this body. Would it tune up "well enough"? I don't know.
But I bet I'd be a good enough shot to qualify, and of course there are plenty of mental things that the military needs -- cyber-related stuff and such. Nonetheless, the reality in America is that the military is under civilian command and ultimately the political side is under the command of the people.
No, its that today my view is that the people simply aren't worth it and I'm no longer young and full of cum and thus "rah-rah" doesn't work anymore on me. Now you have to convince me with logic. If you can I'd go -- even if it means I might die. But that's what you have to be able to do.
Oh argue with me if you wish in the comments, but that's my view. Exceptions do not make the rule folks, and that's what many of you reading this are: Exceptions.
Let's face some facts on our society because this is the vast majority of Americans today.
You're willing to allow a biological boy to go into the girl's locker room in High School and you haven't stopped it on a national basis. How many fathers (or mothers) have dragged said boy out of the locker room by his hair? I've yet to read of one and you can bet it would make the news.
You're willing to watch as our government lets a bunch of citizens who were foreign nationals of the government that funded a terrorist attack on our soil leave, and then send our military to blow up a nation that had nothing to do with it. At the time in 2001 you didn't know (I didn't, but suspected it) but years later it was documented, proved, laid out in front of everyone in the nation and exactly zero people have been held to account for either our 3,000 dead Americans or the few hundred thousand we slaughtered under false pretense, never mind the hundreds of billions if not trillions of oil we've bought from the people who funded it since. Myriad members of Congress and a former President are still alive and many of the Congress people are still serving. McConnell, for example, was Chair of the National Republican Senatorial Committee in 1998 and 2000. Well?
You're willing to watch as our "Good Southern Neighbor" throws open their borders and allows several million people to flow through their nation and into ours, not lifting a single finger to stop them and in fact giving them aid and comfort. Oh, you don't think so? Ever try to hike 2,000+ miles? Go hike the AT, start 100lbs overweight and let me know if you manage to finish -- if you do, I guarantee you the extra 100lbs will be gone -- and you won't have a nice, clean, new pair of Nikes and a brand-new backpack without a rip or piece of dirt on it either. It will also take six months -- or even more and the AT is about 2,100 miles, or on roughly equal scale as one of these "caravans." So how is this happening without Mexico's explicit involvement, permission and direct assistance? Could they -- or we -- post our military on either border and close it? You bet. Well?
I don't agree with any of this and that's just the start of a nice long list.
But most of my "fellow citizens" do. If even 10 or 20% didn't none of it would have happened and all of it would be stopped. The government would have no choice. Oh they wouldn't like it, but the fact of the matter is that all government exists only with the consent of the governed, and this has become wildly more-true in the last 100 years as technology and interconnectedness has increased.
Do you really think Hitler and the Nazis didn't have the support of the people? Who do you think built the tanks, aircraft, U-boats and ships? Did he wave a magic wand and materialize them out of thin air?
On our side who was Rosie the Riveter? Of course our people supported the war. Who do you think made our ships, planes, ammunition and guns?
Ditto for the Japanese; who made the Zeros, the carriers and other weapons?
How about now? Who makes the ammunition, the fancy aircraft, the Patriot missile batteries, the boomer and fast attack subs and ships? How about the radios, the fancy radars, the Reaper drones and other stuff? Who do you think makes all that stuff? You -- or your next door neighbor! Oh, and plenty of people have nice swanky stuff as a result of all that spending on it too. Drive around outside Eglin AFB in the Ft. Walton and surrounding area and you'll see all manner of defense contractors -- and civilians work in every single one of those buildings, voluntarily, every day.
It has always been thus.
So yes, today I honor those who served.
But they served at our nation's behest, which when you get down to it means at our behest.
Not the President's, ours.
The common schlub. You, I, everyone else. All of us.
We've enabled the best of America...... and the worst.
So yes, give thanks to Veterans, because frankly I'm glad we still speak English here and not German -- or Japanese.
But don't kid yourself about the modern era, especially since WWII, as to exactly what you've been supporting.
Because you have, and you ought to either own it with your head held high -- or change it.