Cultural illiteracy has been measured repeatedly. A 1990 Gallup survey for the National Endowment of the Humanities, a 1993 Department of Education survey, a 1999 American Council of Trustees and Alumni survey of liberal arts universities, and continuing surveys by the Intercollegiate Studies Institute, among others, point to an increasingly high rate of cultural illiteracy.

An inordinate number of high school graduates and young millennials know precious little about American history and the roots of American culture compared to earlier generations. Moreover, although English is the American “lingua franca,” it is not the common bond found in years past. Many young people have a nominal ability in spoken and written English. In fact, they are generally not readers or writers. Literature, especially classical literature, they know little about. As for such mysterious subjects as economics -- forget it.

Americans were raised in the academy which made little distinction between “education,” “indoctrination” and “training.” Education, as understood, prepared young people for the workforce. This abstraction came from the former Soviet Union via the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). Education for the purpose of producing functional, literate, and moral citizens faded into a forgotten concept. What was considered education placed US young people further behind other international age groups in math and science. This is where “The Myth of the Rational Voter” comes into play.

“The Myth of the Rational Voter: Why Democracies Choose Bad Policies” by Bryan Caplan was published in 2007 by Princeton University Press. Caplan, Professor of Economics at George Mason University, was brought to the faculty by Professor Walter E. Williams when Williams was Chair of the Economics Department. Caplan’s book develops the central idea that voters are worse than ignorant. They are irrational -- and vote accordingly. Professional politicians at election time will advocate any policies that will gain them votes. These candidates are then re-elected by voters persuaded through false reasoning, mental biases, and emotional appeals.

It is little wonder that less-than-rational voters fall prey to establishment politicians. Without firm grounding in constitutional principles and American history, voters (many older ones) allow their elected officials to do just about anything without challenging the premise of their logic. Consequently, politicians and bureaucrats decide the kind of light bulbs we must use, the kind of cars we must drive, the amount of water used to flush toilets, and how many trillions of dollars of debt they can compel the public to pay. All of this is smoothly phrased as “what’s best for the country” or “this is what Americans want.” And voters follow like sheep.

Voters play into the hands of the political elite when they swallow such pablum as “free markets are evil”, “big business is bad”, and “big government is good”. No wonder protectionism, price controls, and other foolish economic policies are so easily accepted. When voters elect politicians who promote bad public policy, it is not surprising that cities and states across the nation are going bankrupt. With the national debt at $39 trillion, the federal government may do likewise.

Look around. Irrational adults are everywhere. And they vote. Traditionally, Americans freely elect those they choose to lead them. Long-serving professional politicians drift upward in successive elections to become the elite directing the lives of millions. Continued dependency upon government by each succeeding generation of young adults is very empowering to these politicians and their bureaucrat sycophants. In the aftermath of disastrous social and economic policies only “unintended consequences” are held accountable rather than the politicians who spawned them. In such disasters politicians whine, “It seemed like a good idea at the time.”

No complaints, please. In our democracy citizens have the freedom to speak with ballots even if the intellectual understanding behind the vote is missing. Two quotes summarize alternative views, and these views are not contradictory. H. L. Mencken once quipped, “Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want and deserve to get it good and hard.” Alternatively, Winston Churchill famously said, “Democracy is the worst form of government, except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.”

Caplan concludes with his own observation. “In democracies the main alternative to majority rule is not dictatorship, but markets.” In markets, millions of people typically make rational choices, and the good choices significantly outweigh the bad ones. If Caplan is right that the rational voter is a myth, then he admits that a great deal of published research based on a rational voter is wrong. In any case, the best choice would be that ignorant people refrain from voting rather than voting and imperil the culture and the rest of us with foolish policies by incompetent elected officials.

Dennis M. Patrick can be contacted at bnt0019@gmail.com.

“I thought,” he told Cuomo during a May 14 discussion, “you were going to wax them [your competitors].”

Do you know when I realized Mamdani would win?

The very first time I saw him on TV.

No, it wasn’t that Mamdani was promising to rob Peter blind to pay Paul and then send both home to rent-frozen apartments on a free bus. It was that I understand the Luciferian Beauty Principle.

Now, you can take the following as metaphor if you’re not a theist. In Christian theology, Lucifer chose pride over God, rebelled and became the purest manifestation of evil: Satan. But he also was something else: As Lucifer, whose name means “light bringer,” he was known as the most beautiful of angels.

There is an all-important lesson there. It’s not just that evil doesn’t appear comic-book style, with a pitchfork and horns; it masquerades as something beautiful and impressive. Rather, it’s also that the malevolent know how easily humans are seduced by what pleases the eye and ear. We see this, for example, whenever a man is deceived by a comely gold-digger.

As for Mamdani the power- and national grave-digger, he’s a good-looking young guy with an easy smile, charisma on command and the most silvery of tongues, eloquent and articulate to the hilt. Note here the studies showing that it doesn’t matter what you say; if you say it well, you will sway people. It’s a testimonial to the power of style over substance.

Mamdani isn’t alone, either.

In fact, it appears that the hard-left (e.g., socialists) have possibly been purposely, actively applying the Luciferian Beauty Principle for a number of election cycles now. It’s a dangerous phenomenon, too, one threatening to vault us into tyranny.

I wrote about the appearance imperative in 2011 in “That Presidential Look: The Bad, the Beautiful and Voting-booth Realities.” I asked, essentially: When was the last time an unattractive, bald, fat and/or bespectacled candidate won the presidency?

If you say, “Prior to the television era,” go to the head of the class.

In fact, the last time we elected a balding president was 1956 (Dwight Eisenhower). Four years later we witnessed history’s first televised debate between presidential candidates—Richard Nixon and John F. Kennedy—and got an immediate lesson in the Luciferian Beauty Principle.

That is, Americans hearing the debate only on radio thought the more intellectual, but pale, sickly-looking and sweaty Nixon won. Those watching it on TV supposed that the younger, far more handsome Kennedy won.

Donald Trump would seem an exception to the appearance imperative with his generous girth. But, first, he carries it well; second, he did generally shed pounds during campaigns. Most importantly, however, Trump is a singular, historic, transformational figure (e.g., the first to win the presidency despite no military or prior political service). He’d long been a celebrity and a star on television, a member of the glitterati.

Speaking of which, the late Rush Limbaugh would say that politics “is just showbiz for the ugly.” Well, the Democrats generally, and their far-left fringe puppeteer crew in particular, may be applying a formula: Put an uber-attractive, ultra-articulate candidate who delivers his lines splendidly in ugly-people showbiz and “Voilà!” He perhaps can’t lose.

Lest you think I exaggerate, question: Do you know how Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) entered politics?

She was chosen by “progressive” PAC the Justice Democrats, from about 10,000 applicants, through what was, essentially, an audition-like process. 

Yes, really.

The result was one of the biggest upsets in recent congressional history: Cortez trounced 10-term incumbent Joe Crowley in the 2018 Democrat primaries by 14 points.

By the way, don’t kid yourself, Cortez does fit the bill. She is attractive (I know some make fun of her), especially relative to the ugly-showbiz, female-pol norm. She certainly can talk chicken off the bone, too.

Oh, it’s empty talk, you say? Cortez is ignorant?

Sure, but you are not going to vote for her no matter what. You also probably wouldn’t buy snake oil. But the snake-oil salesman doesn’t need your business. He doesn’t have to know anything about medicine. He just has to be sufficiently charismatic and glib to convince enough suckers that he does, and he becomes wealthy. That is Cortez.

Rest assured, too: If she bested 10,000 other applicants, she has some skills—not at being a statesman, but a politician. 

To cement the point, it’s instructive noting why professional commentators, and politics wonks generally, under-emphasize the Luciferian Beauty Principle. Such people are more likely than average to proceed intellectually, to evaluate candidates on their positions. But even the smartest among them can make a very human mistake: projecting your own mindset onto others.

The reality is that many voters, and probably most, often make decisions on emotional bases, not rational ones. This is perhaps especially true of the “undecided vote,” which can be 20-plus percent of the electorate early in campaigns. Also known as the swing vote, capture most of them and you win. And Luciferian beauty will entice them.

This brings me to the last style-over-substance candidate I’ll mention, Texas Democrat James Talarico. Running for the U.S. Senate, he’s polling even with each of his two possible Republican opponents: Senator John Cornyn and Texas attorney general Ken Paxton. This is in a “red” state, mind you, and despite Talarico’s radicalism (e.g., he firmly embraces abortion and sexual-distortion—aka “transgender”—treatments for children; he also believes there are six “genders” and fancies God “nonbinary”).

Now, I know polls can be manipulated and often are. But I warn you: Talarico can win (this isn’t to say he will). He has Luciferian beauty in spades, being young, handsome, charismatic and silver-tongued. He also claims Christian status—advantageous in Texas—and skillfully makes his un-Christian positions look pretty, too, with Luciferian rationalization.

We may wonder at this point how much of the Democrat’s beauty play is conscious strategy. We know it was planned with Cortez, chosen via her “audition.” And though Mamdani rose through the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) ranks more conventionally, his comrades surely recognized and decided to capitalize on his political skill. Talarico’s ascendancy was perhaps more typical still, but this brings us to another point.

With liberals being characteristically emotion-driven, they’re more likely than conservatives to subordinate substance to style. This being so, they’d perhaps be more likely to deliver in the primaries a Luciferian-beauty candidate.

Whatever the case, at issue here is a real phenomenon. Research has shown that in politics, the more charismatic and attractive candidate wins more often than not. Why, one study found that via exposure to candidates’ faces for as little as 100 milliseconds, research subjects picked actual congressional and gubernatorial race winners with 57-68 percent accuracy.

So perhaps one reason, aside from Americans’ declining virtue, we chose better candidates in the pre-TV/radio age is that most Americans never saw or heard major-office candidates; they perhaps only read about their positions in newspapers.

What’s for certain is that the Luciferian Beauty Principle combined with the idiot vote is a toxic mix. It can deliver an absolutely beautiful package—hiding a demonic inner ugliness that’s deadly to a republic.

Contact Selwyn Duke, follow him on X, Truth Social, MeWe, Gettr, Tumblr, Instagram or Substack or log on to SelwynDuke.com.

Yes!  Diversity IS our strength!  Who woulda guessed?  

There is no question that the West could never be what it has become without mass migration from the third and fourth worlds - Morocco, Syria, Pakistan, subsaharan Africa and perhaps Afghanistan.  Without them where would we be?  Where would America be without Colombia, Guatemala, Mexico, China?  Why, we’d be plodding along in the 50s, wouldn’t we?  Back in that staid era of front porches, trolleys, gazebos in the park, band concerts and Main Street shop windows.  Boring.  Thank God for our new cosmopolitan milieu.  Imagine people celebrating their team’s win with a cold beer and a brat on the patio or pub?  

But no.  Thanks to open borders and the welcoming attitude of our Western establishment we don’t have to put up with that stale old lifestyle.  Who needs little girls wearing frilly dresses and white gloves on Sunday or grace before dinner?  Teenagers trying to emulate Audrey Hepburn instead of a face full of nuts and bolts, purple hair and teeshirts with obscene messages?  Now instead of a Saturday night sock hop at a park’s tennis court we have mobs of teens and their older siblings tearing our cities apart and calling for a communist takeover.  And then voting for it.  Back in 1960 we never knew we had it in us.

And the center pivot point of our Western ideals and aspirations was always Paris.  For some, maybe, London.  Now we look to these cities and see our future . . . unless, of course, we recognize our horrific mistake.  Here is Paris today, June 1, 2026.  Coming here would be a dream vacation, right?  

And with all of this destruction and violence, all this misery, we still hear about diversity being our strength!  How?  How can we say it, how can we listen to it, how can we even tolerate it?  

Some of us have not recently arrived at the conclusion that we don’t need and should not desire immigration.  It has been a century since we needed an immigrant.  The only reason to allow an immigrant should be on a case-by-case basis for real need.  A genuine marriage, maybe, one that has stood for at least long enough to look real.  Maybe a world-renowned expert in something who wishes to move to America to peacefully pursue his science, art or business.  One at a time.  Never more than one family at a time.  And all carefully vetted for as long as it takes.  

It is time to end workers’ visas - H1A and H1B.  I don’t care if they were good business for Donald Trump.  I don’t care if they are a big boon to Tyson Chicken.  I don’t care.  We have enough people here to do whatever work we need done.  Our own young people are getting shut out of entry-level work to benefit greedy businesses.  We do not need any foreign students in our colleges or universities.  In fact our colleges are being corrupted by the competition to grab the foreign students.  We are not here to serve foreign students.  

But we don’t need to wait to find out what is ahead on the road.  We can look at Paris today.  The champions of French culture and independence - like Marine LePen - end up getting their sanity questioned, while the floodgates are wide open and we see France and the rest of Europe enriched by hordes of third world failures who would rather destroy Europe (and America) than build anything in their own countries.  None of these people is a refugee from anything other than laziness and stupidity.  Don’t think for a moment that the West and its pandering leaders are doing anything to better the lives of these invaders.  If you doubt this, take another look at the video.  Who is doing well in Paris?  And why has no one deposed the witch Ursula Von Der Leyen?  I am suggesting that now would be a good time to make her a private citizen again, preferably residing in the midst of the mess she has helped to make.  Same for Angela Merkel, Emmanuel Macron and the rest of them. 

Ah, well, springtime in Paris.  If we ever get in the dumps we can always imagine that.

The pandering cynicism of Christopher Nolan is on full display with the release of trailers for his new film, The Odyssey. He took the Western world’s most fundamental mythical legend, that of the Trojan war and its immediate aftermath and turned it into a shameless grab for approval by the rest of his woke kind.   It is a legend woven into our everyday speech, in fact:  “the face that launched a thousand ships”.  Helen of Troy.  A woman so surpassingly beautiful - the daughter of a god - that great nations went to war just over her.  The myth belongs to the world, but it also belongs to Greek culture.

So for some perverse reason, Nolan wronged the Greeks, the general public, women in general and his choice for Helen of Troy - Lupita N’yongo, and threw everything in their faces.  Lupita N’yongo, very obviously sub-Saharan African, was loaded into the canon and Nolan lit the fuse.  She would have been well-advised to simply turn down the part.  And Nolan might as well have tapped Michelle Obama (she’d have said yes).  It is as much an insult to N’yongo as to the Greek myth.  In fact, my question is this:  why did Nolan go so traditional and cast a cis-woman in the first place?  He could have checked one more box.  Now N’yongo is out there having to defend herself and Nolan.  About all she can offer up is “Our cast represents the world”, or words to that effect.  But this isn’t a story about the “whole world” - it is specifically a Greek myth about an incredibly beautiful Western woman, whose scant description can’t possibly include even the greatest African beauty.  And to be fair, it could not include the most beautiful Asian or Indian woman either.  These peoples were hardly known to the ancient Greeks.  This is essentially a Western and classcal European story.  

Maybe he thought he covered the bases by casting Elliot Page as Achilles.  Who knows.  But there is a lot wrong with this film.  The translation he used to craft his script is apparently comic book level.  

We know why he did all this, really.  He figures it is the one way to get this year’s Oscar.  He figures the Academy of Motion Pictures would not dare not to hand it over to him after all this “controversy”.  All this unnecessary controversy.  It is sad, but this kind of product is destroying what is left of Hollywood and the film industry.  No one can possibly take any of this nonsense seriously any more.  So perhaps pictures with authentic stories about believable people, stories that could enrich us, won’t ever be made.  

None of this controvery has anything to do with racism.  It has to do with objectivity.  N’yongo is objectively NOT “Helen of Troy”.  Elliot Page is objectively NOT “Achilles”.  Miscasting at this level is a cruel joke played upon those cast, really.  Nolan sort of holds them up to inevitable ridicule.  Of course they should have said no, but they, too, have flawed judgment.

It is also sad that in our present illiterate society so many get their “education” through the movies.  Overall, most of them are not equipped to question or research any of this for themselves.  So to them, Michelle Obama look-alike N’yongo is “Helen of Troy” and the whole reason thousands of Greek soldiers went to war to rescue their Queen from rival power Troy.  It flies in the face of all we know and all Helen has come to be.

Here is a thought:  why doesn’t someone make another movie about the life of Martin Luther King?  Think about it.  A producer could go traditional and cast Liam Neeson as King.  Why not?  Oh, wait.  That would be “cultural appropriation”, wouldn’t it?  And that’s a no-no.  Or he could cast Meryl Streep as King and check the box.  Martin Luther King doesn’t have to be male or black - he “belongs to the world”.  Of course there would be no truth whatsoever in this depiction, but then, why should we care about truth or accuracy of any kind, or keeping faith with our foundational material or our facts when we can just play with them Lego-style and make what we want of them?  And call them “The Odyssey”?

In the end their is objective classic beauty, there is objective valor.  Neither is appropriately represented here.

And here's one final thought:  Africa is rich with its own legends, gods, heroes, its own beautiful goddesses and its own landscape and history.  Why doesn't one of these uber-woke directors give some thought to making movies that actually depict black African people instead of trying to paste black faces onto European stories?  Wouldn't that be more respectful of black and African culture?  Is Nolan totally ignorant of African culture and myth?  

That’s right; This article Is About That New Odyssey Movie

We all know what Christopher Nolan is up to, or rather, down to, with his recent atrocity gleefully dripping like pus from his victorious fingers. He wanted an Oscar so bad he grovelled like none before him, and I hope he gets one because he deserves one. Purple Hearts are for valor in combat; Olympic medals are for athletic achievement; Oscars are for sucking up to the status quo and Christopher Nolan sucked up magnificently. This article won’t be long because, frankly, I don’t think there is much left to be said about the travesty of a movie he has named "The Odyssey” except maybe to doff any pretense that he didn’t know what he was doing, or that this movie “missed the mark” or any such foolery. He knew exactly what he was doing and he hit the target dead-on. 

Christopher Nolan is a Janissary. A Janissary was a boy kidnapped from the Christian world, made a slave, brainwashed and turned into a soldier for the Ottoman army. We can assume there was a lot of patty-cake happening while the Ottomans were at it. Now, strictly speaking, the Ottomans were out to destroy Christendom, whereas Hollywood, and the Left more generally, are out to destroy greatness, but aren’t we really splitting hairs at this point?

We don’t need to go into the details of the movie. We all know the gist. This slave-boy-soldier-for-mediocrity casts one of the more ungainly women I’ve had occasion to see on or off screen in a hot blue moon or two to play who’s supposed to be the most beautiful woman in the then-known world. I haven’t bothered to dredge up his exact rationale but I don’t think it’s relevant to understanding his motivation. That’s something else that needs to be said about people like this. Nothing they say is relevant to anything.  An ant on the sidewalk has more to say than this guy. I think even referring to him by a name is being generous. 

Anyway, his motivation was clear: to mock beauty. The very idea of it. To hold up a woman who looks like Puff Daddy in a dress as the summit of female beauty and whose face doesn’t so much launch a thousand ships as it does maybe a thousand lunches. Who’d wanna go to war over that? 

That’s his point. He doesn’t matter and he doesn’t want anything to matter. This is mediocrity’s revenge. Achilles is supposed to be the greatest warrior ever to have lived. Cast a waif with a torso so scrawny Miley Cyrus looks like Tarzan of the Apes next to her. Make ‘em swallow it. That’s what he did.  Make ‘em call his casting choices “daring” and “controversial”. Give those idiots on The View post something to gobble over. 

That’s.  Showbiz.  Kid. 

Having established his motive in making this movie, it is up to the individual to decide whether to spend half his paycheck for a bucket of popcorn and the embarrassment of watching an anorexic frail pretending to duke it out with a bunch of men in front of a green screen, and if that’s his idea of entertainment, well, he’s a Janissary too, and that’s his Maker’s mess to sort out. As for the rest of us, this Nolan guy looks like a kid who hasn’t figured out the hide part of hide and seek and I would like to say just this one last thing: Yes, he is deserving of derision, but let us not fall into the trap of thinking derision is, itself, a kind of virtue. That would be to cede him victory. He doesn’t care if the whole world hates him. Sticks and stones. He burned his half. Yes, he is a flyspeck, and his creation is a flyspeck’s flyspeck, but let us not, in tooth-picking his squashage off the bottom of our shoes and reaching for that disinfectant spray, forget that there is greatness to be sought; there is beauty; and that there’s nothing this little weasel and the faceless golems that give his kind bits of junk once a year can do to stop us from marvelling at, and if we are so inclined, creating great and beautiful things. 

About the author, Walter Isaacson

Walter Issaacson, born of a Jewish father and a mother with Christian roots, was baptized by evangelical aunts and received more Christian religious education than Jewish. He does not align with a specific faith, describes himself as secular and voices a humanist philosophy. He has stated that “Religion was at its best when it emphasized spiritual experiences rather than received dogma” and views different religions as “different doors to the same house”.

Past work as president of the left-leaning Aspen Institute (Kamala Harris, Gloria Estefan), chairman of CNN (Rachael Maddow), and managing editor of Time magazine (Time’s 2023 “person of the year” was Taylor Swift…) reveal a decidedly (self-described) secular humanist slant in his approach to his work.

An American Life?

The best Isaacson could do in describing his book is “An American Life”, a rather condescending descriptor of the book’s content. Another noted Democrat author, Jon Meacham, an episcopalian, employs slightly more enthusiasm in his tiles, “Thomas Jefferson – The Art of Power” in describing our left-leaning “Democratic-Republican” third president and “American Lion - Andrew Jackson in the White House” in describing our first Democrat president.

Excerpts from Benjamin Franklin, an American Life, by Walter Isaacson

Page 15, 5^th paragraph (January 17, 1706)

Benjamin Franklin was born and baptized on the same day, to Puritan parents. He was named after his father’s brother who emigrated from England at age 65 when young Benjamin was 9 years old.

Page 18, 2^nd paragraph

The plan for young Benjamin was to have him study for the ministry, his father Josiah’s tenth son anointed as his tithe to the Lord.

Page 19, 2^nd paragraph

Josiah came to believe, no doubt correctly, that his youngest son was not suited for the clergy. His skeptical turn of mind and allergy to authority made it unlikely that he would have become, as planned, a minister. My own experience of being gifted with a good and decent mother who encouraged me to enter the clergy makes me clearly understanding of Benjamin’s resistance to the idea. Like myself, I am convinced that Franklin did more to spread the gospel during his life as an inventor, writer, and philosopher than he would have as a puritan minister. While he was skeptical of Jesus’ resurrection, he accepted Jesus as the greatest moral figure in the history of mankind.

Page 260, 3^rd paragraph (late August, 1771)

Franklin arrived, through storms and floods, in Edinburg [Scotland] late on a Saturday and spent one night “lodged miserably” at an inn. “But that excellent Christian, David Hume, agreeable to the precepts of the gospel, has received the stranger and I now live with him,” Franklin reported the next day.

Page 285, 3^rd paragraph (December 1774)

Later that same evening, Franklin dined with two old friends, the Quakers John Fothergill and David Barclay…

Page 470, last paragraph (April 17, 1790)

Close to twenty thousand mourners, more than had ever before gathered in Philadelphia, watched as his funeral procession made its way to the Christ Church burying ground, a few blocks from his home. In front marched the clergymen of the city, all of them, of every faith.

Christ Church

Christ Church was founded in 1695 as a parish of the Church of England… and played an integral role in the founding of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States.

Franklin, like no other man, did all he could to prevent the Revolutionary War; yet when the time came to choose, he chose independence from a dastardly King George.

About slavery

Slavery (also termed human trafficking) developed in the Mediterranean beginning about 1200 B.C. Egyptians (ruled by Pharaoh Ramesses III) claimed they were threatened by “Sea Peoples” from Southern Europe and the Aegean and subsequently forced them into servitude or conscription into the Egyptian military.

Between 500 B.C. and 400 A.D., as Rome and Carthage dominated the Mediterranean, large scale enslavement occurred, of thousands of Europeans (as slaves in North Africa) and of North Africans (brought as captives to Europe).

Between the 1500s and 1800s, North African Barbary corsairs (operating from Tunis, Algiers, Tripoli, and Morocco) captured and enslaved an estimated 1 million to 1.25 million European Christians. The term “corsair” refers to Ottoman and Berber privateers that were state-commissioned by the countries they operated from.

Franklin, at age 23 in 1729, published one of the nation’s first anti-slavery pieces. Later, at age 45 in 1751, he attacked slavery strongly in “Observations on the Increase of Mankind”. At age 66 in 1772, he wrote “The Somerset Case and the Slave Trade” preaching that one of Britain’s greatest sins against America was foisting slavery on it. On behalf of the “Pennsylvania Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery”, Franklin presented a formal abolition petition to Congress in February 1790 at age 84. Congress decided that it did not have the authority to act on Franklin’s petition. The multitudinous judges that denied “standing” to the litigants claiming that the 2020 presidential election was rigged can probably well identify with the Congress of 1790 that claimed they lacked authority to do what was right (out of fear?).

Concerning “Democracy”

Benjamin Franklin’s guiding principle was “a dislike of everything that tended to debase the spirit of the common people.” Fortunately, few of his fellow founders felt Franklin’s full comfort with “pure democracy”. Our representative form of government (we are a Democratic Republic) with its “checks and balances” including three distinct branches (legislative, executive, and judicial) is infinitely preferrable to a pure democracy where 51% of the voters can decide to “rob blind” the other 49%.

When you hear the left crying “We are losing our Democracy” remember, we never were a pure Democracy... by design of the founders who lived under an actual King, George of England.

About the “Midterms”

The left-wing media would just love it if those folks that voted for President Trump in November 2024 would stay home for the 2026 federal elections this coming November. A Democrat ruled House and Senate would do everything they could end the second Trump presidency two years earlier than 2028. My advice to Trump voters is to AGAIN vote on Trumps behalf in the midterm elections, making them “Too Big to Rig”. One man cannot do it all alone; he needs our help!

Love = Work + Courage

Resourceful individuals with moderate tastes and a keen awareness of the social and economic environment figured it out long ago. These folks left the work force fleeing stress and hassle. Others will figure it out eventually.

Why work? As a society, we’ve finally arrived at the glory of a one-party system -- the Government Party – replete with a Democrat wing and Republican wing.

The decision whether to work is not a matter of ethics or conscience. It’s a matter of complying with the established norm, a culture built by generations of politicians.

Over the years politicians created a wonderful network of “no work” entitlements, grants, giveaways, and assorted benefits. In exchange for their largesse, voters retained their politicians in office for life (or so it seems). What a deal!

Why work? During election season voters must beware that they do not kill the goose that lays the golden egg! What a shame if our current crop of politicians were ousted. Their inexperienced replacements would screw things up trying to learn “the system”.

So, why work? The more a person earns the fewer benefits to which they are entitled. To add insult to injury, the greater a person’s income the more they pay in taxes to pay for the benefits granted to others. Benefits granted to the well-off, if any, are determined by a magic formula called “means testing.” If you earn too much money, you might get some small benefit and pay for full benefits of several more people.

Even special interest groups like AARP work hand-in-glove with congress advocating on behalf of seniors. For AARP, anyone over 50 is a senior entitled to a whole raft of benefits. But for various states and local governments, and the federal government, the definition of “senior” is on a sliding scale. For example, for purposes of social security, otherwise known as a Ponzi scheme, the age qualifying for benefits is pushed further out.

Why work? Congressional leaders on both sides of the aisle ignore any restraint on presidential budget requests. Year after year more dollars are borrowed to fund an ever-expanding welfare system. Why shouldn’t every American get a slice of the pie? During Obama’s tenure and beyond, Congress repeatedly chose not to adopt a budget -- period. Then why should anyone be concerned about a ballooning deficit? In fact, most welfare programs, by law, are mandated to be funded. They can never be cut at the discretion of Congress. Why work?

Why work when everybody is guaranteed the American dream -- a home of their own -- regardless of the borrower’s ability to pay the mortgage? Banks are required to lend, and Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are required to make good on any default.

Why work? No one in America goes without food and shelter. President Johnson’s “Great Society” saw to that. In fact, we are told America has an obesity problem.

Why work? A well-educated generation of millennial graduates with degrees in puppet arts, theme park design, and bicycle design will surely solve America’s economic challenges. Their most challenging task will be finding sufficient tax credits when filing their tax returns.

Big manufacturing, big insurance, big banks, big pharma, and big agribusiness make big bucks. They replace people with artificial intelligence in the name of cost cutting and federal regulations. They ship jobs overseas preferring cheap Chinese and Mexican labor at the expense of American drive and ingenuity. So goes the foolish hue and cry, “Punish the rich.”

Why work? Those who pay into the system their entire working lives are merely looking for a return on their investment. Surely by taxing the rich there’s plenty of everything to go around.

First Lady Michelle Obama once remarked during her husband’s campaign stop in February 2008, “For the first time in my adult life, I’m really proud of my country.” Wonderful! And when her husband, Barack, was elected president she was proud that Barack led our government in a systemic redistribution of America’s wealth.

We are told that the real problem in the world is America. If America would stop polluting the earth and stealing the world’s resources for her own opulent lifestyle and cease her racist, obnoxious ways, then she would not need to spend money on a military presence. Cut the Defense Department and spread the wealth around.

The words once uttered by wise theologian Jeremiah Wright ring as clear today as ever, “America’s chickens are coming home to roost.”

Ah, yes, “A chicken in every pot” --- and feathers and entrails all over the place.

Why work?

Dennis M. Patrick can be contacted at bnt0019@gmail.com.

Following September 11, 2001, a new era was ushered in, and another generation of veterans were recognized for making the ultimate sacrifice. We are in a protracted conflict like no other that has continued for centuries. Islamic fanatics from many nations wish to harm the West in general and the United States in particular.

The so-called War on Terror has historical roots. For years Western Civilization has confronted forced Islamic domination. That said, there is always a risk of being misunderstood. The argument is not with the Islamic faith but rather with extremists who have hijacked Islam for their own ends.

Why would these extremists wish to harm the United States? Much of their attitude has to do with the Islamic rendering of history as taught in Islamic schools around the world. The Islamic spin on history taught to young Muslim men in the madrasah is distinctly different from the history taught to Western youth in public and private schools. Reason? The logical premise is based on a radically different understanding of God.

The hatred for the West taught by Islamic radicals stems partly from the perceived humiliation of Islam by the West. A tenant of the Islamic faith is that the entire world must submit to Islam for the glory of Allah. Their idea of conversion did not include handing out tracts on street corners and witnessing. Time and again the West has rebuffed Islamic territorial incursions.

In 630 AD Mohammed founded Islam. Conversion of peoples ranging from India and Central Asia through the Middle East and across North Africa into Southern Europe occurred in a mere 100 years by the power of the sword.

In 732 AD the attempted conversion of Europe to Islam was stopped dead in its tracks at Pointier, France, 180 miles south of Paris. The Saracen general Abd-ar-Raham attacking from Spain led an army of Arab and Berber Cavalry across the Pyrenees into France. They were met by French heavy Infantry who defeated the invaders decisively. Had the Muslim invaders conquered Europe, Oxford University in England might be teaching the Koran today.

For the next 950 years Islam focused on preventing the re-conquest by Christians of Muslim lands while at the same time expecting the rise of a great leader, a Caliph. That Caliph would complete the effort to conquer the world for the glory of Allah.

Instead, the Islamic world continued to shrink. The defeat of Ottoman Turkish naval forces by Spain, Italy, and the Papal states in the Battle of Lepanto in 1571 freed the Mediterranean region of Muslim dominance. In 1683 a final attempted incursion into Europe by the Ottoman Turks was defeated at the gates of Vienna.

What followed was the slow and painful decline of the Ottoman Empire and the rise of Western colonialism.

WW I and the defeat of some colonial powers encouraged Islamic leaders to see that the West was not invincible. Then, the years following WW II saw a further decline of Western dominance with the breakup of former colonies into individual states. This reinforced Islam’s perception that the West was not unconquerable.

Then came the birth of the State of Israel in 1948. Islam viewed this event as a Western state planted in the middle of the Islamic world -- a setback for Islam.

Following the 9/11 attack on the US by Islamic radicals, the US chose to confront the Islamic terrorists on their own soil. At this point the principal obstacle between the terrorists and the American citizens was the American military.

In Iraq and Afghanistan, the US military drove wedges between Islamic radicals and the rest of the Islamic world by helping create a sense of fairness and decency even if these objectives were imposed by infidels. America’s premise was that the countries where the majority exercised self-determination would be more stable and less of a threat than would be a unified block of totalitarian states controlled by extremists.

On Memorial Day 2026 our fallen sons and daughters from all branches of the military including Active Duty, National Guard, and Reserves and from all wars, deserve heartfelt commemoration from a grateful nation. Special honor is due to those most recently fallen in Iraq, Iran, and Afghanistan.

Dennis M. Patrick can be contacted at bnt0019@gmail.com.

Second comes an introduction to Mark Steyn, a polarizing public figure widely read by supporters for his critiques of Western culture and demographics. Mark Steyn is a Canadian author, columnist, and broadcast commentator best known for his work in political and cultural commentary. He was born in 1959 in Toronto, Canada and has worked primarily in Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Steyn began his career as a music, theater, and film critic. He is the author of several books, including America Alone, After America and Lights Out. He has been a frequent guest host and commentator on various media programs including The Rush Limbaugh Show and Fox News.

Now for the crux of the discussion. On January 4, 2006, The Wall Street Journal published Steyn’s first draft of what would become the thesis of his bestselling book, America Alone. The article title summed it up: “It’s the Demography, Stupid: The Real Reason the West is in Danger of Extinction”. Opening paragraph: “Most people reading this have strong stomachs, so let me lay it out as baldly as I can. Much of what we loosely call the Western world will not survive this century, and much of it will effectively disappear within our lifetimes including many if not most Western European countries. There’ll probably still be a geographical area on the map marked as Italy or the Netherlands – probably -- just as in Istanbul there’s still a building called St. Sophia’s Cathedral. But it’s not a cathedral; it’s merely a designation for a piece of real estate. Likewise, Italy and the Netherlands will merely be designations for real estate. The challenge for those who reckon Western civilization is, on balance, better than the alternatives is to figure out a way to save at least some parts of the West.”

Steyn’s argument is clear. His article, and books that follow, drive home a point. The western world is going out of business because it’s given up having babies. The 20th century welfare state, with its hitherto unknown concepts such as spending a third of your life in “retirement”, is premised on the basis that there will be enough new citizens to support the old ones. But there won’t be.

His explanation follows. “When it comes to forecasting the future, the birthrate is the nearest thing to hard numbers. If only a million babies are born in 2006, it’s hard to have two million adults enter the workforce in 2026... And the hard data on babies around the Western world is that they’re running out a lot faster than the oil is. Replacement fertility rate -- the number you need for merely a stable population, not getting any bigger, not getting any smaller -- is 2.1 babies per woman. Some countries are well above that. The global fertility leader, Somalia, is 6.91, Niger 6.83, Afghanistan 6.78, Yemen 6.75. Notice what those nations have in common?

“Scroll way down… and you’ll eventually find the United States hovering just at replacement rate with 2.07 births per woman. Ireland is 1.87, New Zealand 1.79, Australia 1.76. But Canada’s fertility rate is down to 1.5, well below replacement rate; Germany and Austria are at 1.3, the brink of the death spiral; Russia and Italy are at 1.2; Spain 1.1, about half replacement rate.”

Steyn then turns his observation to Islam which “…sportingly volunteered to be the children we [the West] could not be bothered having ourselves.” He continues, “The design flaw of the secular social-democratic state is that it requires a religious-society birthrate to sustain it. Post-Christian …rationalism is… a lot less rational than Catholicism or Mormonism. Indeed, in its reliance on immigration to ensure its future, the European Union has adopted a 21st-century variation on the strategy of the Shakers, who were forbidden from reproducing and thus could increase their numbers only by conversion.

“That didn’t work out too great for the Shakers, but the Europeans figured it would be a piece of cake for them… As long as you kept the immigrants coming, there would be no problem. To avoid collapse, European nations will need to take in immigrants at a rate no stable society has ever attempted.”

Steyn then asks, “Can a society become increasingly Islamic in its demographic character without becoming increasingly Islamic in its political character? This ought to be the left’s issue… Why then, if your big thing is feminism or abortion or gay marriage, are you so certain that the cult of tolerance will prevail once the biggest demographic in your society is cheerfully intolerant?”

Steyn concludes with this final observation, “Can these trends continue for another 30 years without having consequences? Europe by the end of this century will be a continent after the neutron bomb: The grand buildings will still be standing, but the people who built them will be gone. We are living through a remarkable period: the self-extinction of the races who, for good or ill, shaped the modern world.”

Our political leaders seem nonplussed about today’s demographic trends. But history will likely see demography as the biggest story of our time. Read Mark Steyn’s book America Alone for an enhanced perspective.

Dennis M. Patrick can be contacted at bnt0019@gmail.com.