Democrat hopeful Pete Buttigieg recently advocated removing Thomas Jefferson’s memory from the public square and ending the practice of naming public events in his honor. The legacy of Jefferson, he said, is “problematic.” “There’s a lot to admire in his thinking and his philosophy,” he said, “but then again if you plunge into his writings, especially his notes on the state of Virginia, you know that he knew slavery was wrong.”

It’s a stunning display of his ignorance, certainly. But interestingly, Buttigieg has unknowingly pinpointed precisely why Thomas Jefferson should be eternally revered by our society, which believes that enslaving other human beings is wrong.

That is, that Jefferson knew that it was wrong at the time.

Thomas Sowell explains, brilliantly as ever:

Of all the tragic facts about the history of slavery, the most astonishing to an American today is that, although slavery was a worldwide institution for thousands of years, nowhere in the world was slavery a controversial issue prior to the 18th century[.] …

Everyone hated the idea of being a slave but few had any qualms about enslaving others. Slavery was just not an issue, not even among intellectuals, much less among political leaders, until the 18th century — and only then in Western civilization.

Among those who turned against slavery in the 18th century were George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Patrick Henry, and other American leaders. You could research all of 18th century Africa or Asia or the Middle East without finding any comparable rejection of slavery there.

In other words, these prominent men having turned against an institution that had been normal throughout human history was an expression of a revolutionary idea. To imagine that the idea that slavery is morally wrong would be embraced by everyone overnight, in such a world, is nothing short of childish fantasy.

The Founders knew that such change would require not only time, but a practical argument against the institution as well. Moreover, it would require proof that slavery is harmful.

Scotsman Adam Smith, another revolutionary thinker who deeply influenced our Founders, also rejected slavery. His was not solely a moral argument, but also an economic one. “I believe,” he wrote, “that the work done by free men comes cheaper in the end than the work performed by slaves. Whatever work [the slave] does, beyond what is sufficient to purchase his own maintenance, can be squeezed out of him by violence only, and not by any interest of his own.”

We could expound upon what was then just a theory with some evidence supporting it, but with the luxury of hindsight, we don’t have any need. Time fleshed it out, fully, to be a law of economics.

As the Industrial Revolution progressed, the industrial Northern states in America found this law immutable. Moreover, so did the planters in the agrarian Southern states, which relied much more heavily on slave labor and were more resistant to ending the practice.

As Alexis de Toqueville observes in Democracy in America (1836), even before America’s founding, “the planters were struck by the extraordinary fact that the provinces comparatively destitute of slaves increased in population, in wealth, and in prosperity more rapidly than those who contained many of them.”

The Founders, even those in the Southern colonies, had come to understand that slavery was both a moral and economic evil that was “cruel to the slave” but economically “prejudicial to the master,” according to de Tocqueville.

The question became how to eliminate it. As Thomas Sowell writes:

Deciding that slavery was wrong was much easier than deciding what to do with millions of people from another continent, of another race, and without any historical preparation for living as free citizens in a society like that of the United States, where they were 20% of the total population.

The Founders rejected slavery as a moral evil, certainly. They also recognized its economical inefficiency, and perhaps most importantly, they scribed the precepts that would end it into our Constitution.

The Constitution etched in stone a prohibition on the importation of slaves from the year 1808 onward. Why would the Founders commit to such a strict prohibition if they intended for America to be a slaveholding nation in perpetuity? The document implements few absolute prohibitions on all the new States, so that answer is simple. They wouldn’t.

It also scribed a lingering detriment to slaveholding states with the three-fifths clause, which determined that slaves would equal three-fifths of a person for the purposes of determining representation in Congress. In short, if slaveholding states were to continue having meaningful representation in Congress, they would be required to gradually remove slavery as a primary means of economic production. All states assented to this provision through ratification, then considered a “compromise,” which eventually doomed the slaveholding states.

Irrespective of how you feel about the Constitution’s vision for the future of slavery, one cannot deny that the dominoes fell in such a way as to destroy the institution forever.

As the North industrialized and commerce flourished in freer markets, the need for free hands to perform labor for wages increased. The realization that free markets were economically preferable to slavery led to massive influxes of European immigrants to fill the need. So, as Northern states abolished slavery, former slaveowners in the North sold their slaves to the South, where there was still a value for the slave.

The South could not import slaves after 1808 due to a constitutional ban. So the same “laws that prevented slaves from the South coming North,” according to de Tocqueville, “[drove] those of the North to the South” as the South sought more slave labor.

All of this led to the death spiral of the Antebellum South. It was the above dynamics, and not the importation of slaves, that caused the population of slaves in the South to “explode” to roughly 33% of the population by 1860. Largely agrarian, with fewer urban centers of massive population of fully countable people in the Census, the Northern states owned overwhelming representation in Congress, the circumstances of which led the South to believe themselves underrepresented by the United States.

Sowell lays this out, too, in the only way a sensible historian can:

The question [of slavery] was finally answered by a war in which one life was lost for every six people freed. Maybe that was the only answer. But don’t pretend today that it was an easy answer — or that those who grappled with the dilemma in the 18th century were some special villains, when most leaders and most people in the world at that time saw nothing wrong with slavery.

Perhaps, rather than focusing on the fact that some Founders owned slaves, we would do better to remember their uniqueness in morally opposing slavery in their time and for having presented the economic formula through which it was expunged from American society forever.

Breathing life into such ideas in a world where trade was dominated by the existence of slavery faced public opposition, as all but the most dimwitted should understand. But it’s impossible not to observe the following conclusion, to which I’m often led.

Slavery ended because the visionaries who founded our nation had the moral courage to suggest that individual laborers have a right to property, which includes a right to the product of their labor — i.e., wages. That’s the moral argument.

But beyond that, it is economically more efficient for everyone to be paid wages for his labor and provide for himself, than to be reared in his youth, supported in his working years, and cared for in his later years by a master who determines what his labor is worth — all of which is done absent the consent of the individual.

That’s interesting to me — because the same argument our Founders made against slavery is the same argument that we conservatives now make against socialism.

That’s what really makes me wonder. Is the fact that the Founders owned slaves really the problem? Or is the Left frustrated by the fact that our Founders’ ideas, which unquestionably led to slavery’s end, would impede the Left’s vision of a government master that cares for us all from cradle to grave, and decides for us how much our labor is worth in the economy, as somehow considered less American than Thomas Jefferson?

To modestly amend Adam Smith’s observation, the work done by free men comes cheaper in the end than the work performed by workers in a socialist economy. Whatever work either a slave or a worker in a socialist economy does, beyond what is sufficient to purchase his own maintenance, can be squeezed out of him by violence only, and not by any interest of his own.

Slavery and socialism, in other words, could be considered synonymous. Liberty is something else entirely. Our Founders should be continually celebrated for having recognized that there’s a difference between the two things and for advocating liberty over slavery.

William Sullivan blogs at Political Palaver and can be followed on Twitter.

In the 60s and 70s, the cultural emphasis shifted from rationality and common sense to feelings first. This subjectivism was paired with phrases such as, “Question Authority” or “Live and let live.” It’s ironic. As reason and critical, objective thinking declined over the last 50 years, and feelings became paramount, did we become a free-spirited paradise? I don’t think so. Today, we’re in the early stages of an actual dictatorship, we’re afraid to go anywhere near America’s once safe and thriving cities and the spirit of intolerance and control rivals that of anything seen in a medieval or present-day nation run by Sharia law. “Question Authority” in an era of tyrants telling you how far away you must sit from someone else at a restaurant, or that you must wear a mask on your face even on a 100 degree day, is hardly the theme of our times.

Michael J. Hurd

With the left doing everything it can to disrupt and terrorize the streets of major cities, promising to give all illegal aliens a path to citizenship, and working overtime to take down President Trump by every means possible, the cost of letting Biden win in November is becoming more evident. Critical differences between Trump and Biden make giving Trump four more years essential to the future of America.

Conservatives hold onto the hope that America’s silent majority are ready to provide an encore Trump victory in 2020. But even if Trump wins, we may very well be on the verge of losing the culture war that puts the future of America in doubt. The left is using their hold on our public schools to mold the thinking of our next generation of voters—our children.

President Trump is calling for the schools to open in the Fall, and he’s talking about supporting “school choice.” When schools are balking at opening and want more money, giving all parents school choice and the funds to go with it is a potentially winning issue for November. Is it not time to stop forcing parents to send students to underperforming schools dedicated to indoctrinating their children in leftist thinking?

Minority parents are crying out for school choice and the funds to make it happen. Parents of all races want their children in schools that give them the best chance of success. It’s time to end direct funding for public schools and let all schools compete for students on the basis of their results. In Sweden, school choice has been in force since 1982. Fail to produce results, and you lose students. Produce results and more students will come.

Education Secretary Betsy DeVos said what conservatives have wanted for years: “If schools aren’t going to reopen, they shouldn’t get the funds.Give it to the families to decide” Let the fund allocations follow the students to the school they choose to attend. That’s school choice!

At a time when American public schools choose not to open and continue to languish and underperform, it’s clear that school choice—vouchers and charter schools—can increase parental satisfaction and involvement, make public schools more accountable, and lead to the hiring and keeping of better teachers. Results and competition should matter.

Recently, the U.S. Supreme Court issued an important ruling supporting school choice for parents. In upholding school choice programs without discriminating against religious education, the Supreme Court, in a 5-4 decision regarding Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue, advanced school choice stating: “A State need not subsidize private education. But once a State decides to do so, it cannot disqualify some private schools solely because they are religious.”

It’s time to give low income, minority parents the choices wealthier citizens already enjoy. As Senator Tim Scott (SC) asserted: “In our society . . . we spend so much time on the ‘root causes’ and the disadvantages that we forget to talk about the solutions and the advantage that we have over the rest of the world. . . . It is absolutely essential that we have quality education in every ZIP Code, especially the poorest ZIP Codes in America. That is the path forward.”

With public schools refusing to open and provide their essential service, it’s time to free up their funds to let parents find schools that will. It’s time for school choice!

I wish someone would explain to me what an “authentic” black person is. Or an “authentic” Hispanic person, gay person or anything else.

The context for the term is usually political. “If you vote Democratic, then you’re an authentic black person. If you don’t vote Democratic, then you’re not authentic.”

But “black” refers to a person’s race. Isn’t a black person BLACK regardless of whom he or she votes for? Clearly, something illogical is going on here. The lack of logic is less disturbing than the fact that nobody seems to question it.

Define racism. I define racism as elevating a person’s skin color and/or ethnic heritage over and above his or her character, choices and personality.

When you make friends with someone, is it primarily or exclusively because of his or her race? Or is it because of other attributes? Ditto for when you fall in love with someone, or marry someone. Is race the primary consideration? And what about hiring a car mechanic, a doctor, an accountant or an employee for your business? Do you hire exclusively based on the person’s race? And if so, isn’t THAT racist?

Clearly, it’s racist to make someone’s race the most important thing about them. The moment you start talking about “authentic” or “inauthentic” black people, you are making race the primary attribute of a person. It seems to me that you ought to focus on a person’s ideas and choices, not their race. When I meet someone, I am interested first and foremost in their ideas, choices and character — not their race, any more than their hair color or eye color. If you don’t like the person’s choice of political candidate, then question their ideas or choices. Race has nothing to do with it.

Freedom versus slavery, socialism versus capitalism, individualism versus collectivism … these are not racial issues. These are HUMAN issues.

Telling someone, “You’re not a real black person if you don’t vote Democrat” relies on two faulty assumptions. One, that race is the most important thing to focus on. But the person’s voting is presumably based on other factors. The person who prefers Republicans will likely choose either a black OR a white Republican, male OR female. And there are plenty of both white AND black Democrats. So if voting is your concern, look at the ideas involved — not the race.

The other faulty assumption is that you can intimidate someone into doing what you want — and that it means something, if you succeed. If you haven’t convinced a black individual that voting for Joe Biden over Donald Trump makes sense, then you’ve revealed the weakness of your own argument by saying, “Well, you’re not really black if you don’t vote for Biden.” Biden himself did this a few weeks ago. He blurted out (without regret) that if you don’t for him, you “ain’t a real black person.” They’re smug and confident-seeming when they do this. But it’s actually a WEAKNESS. When I hear leftists and Democrats do this, what I actually hear is: “I don’t have a convincing argument. So I’m going to shame you into taking my position.” I laugh at them. But they think they’re strong and “convincing” by shaming people in this way.

Yet that’s what leftists — Communists, national socialists, totalitarians — have always done, isn’t it? They rely on SHAME and FORCE. Whether it’s tyrannical COVID mandates, Black Lives Matter looters, raging mobs, nationalized medicine, 90 percent tax rates or concentration camps (yes, those CAN happen here, and WILL, on our current course) … It’s all they’ve got. Reason, facts and logic have nothing to do with any of it.

We listen to them — and vote for them — at our peril.

Michael J. Hurd

I wish someone would explain to me what an “authentic” black person is. Or an “authentic” Hispanic person, gay person or anything else.

The context for the term is usually political. “If you vote Democratic, then you’re an authentic black person. If you don’t vote Democratic, then you’re not authentic.”

But “black” refers to a person’s race. Isn’t a black person BLACK regardless of whom he or she votes for? Clearly, something illogical is going on here. The lack of logic is less disturbing than the fact that nobody seems to question it.

Define racism. I define racism as elevating a person’s skin color and/or ethnic heritage over and above his or her character, choices and personality.

When you make friends with someone, is it primarily or exclusively because of his or her race? Or is it because of other attributes? Ditto for when you fall in love with someone, or marry someone. Is race the primary consideration? And what about hiring a car mechanic, a doctor, an accountant or an employee for your business? Do you hire exclusively based on the person’s race? And if so, isn’t THAT racist?

Clearly, it’s racist to make someone’s race the most important thing about them. The moment you start talking about “authentic” or “inauthentic” black people, you are making race the primary attribute of a person. It seems to me that you ought to focus on a person’s ideas and choices, not their race. When I meet someone, I am interested first and foremost in their ideas, choices and character — not their race, any more than their hair color or eye color. If you don’t like the person’s choice of political candidate, then question their ideas or choices. Race has nothing to do with it.

Freedom versus slavery, socialism versus capitalism, individualism versus collectivism … these are not racial issues. These are HUMAN issues.

Telling someone, “You’re not a real black person if you don’t vote Democrat” relies on two faulty assumptions. One, that race is the most important thing to focus on. But the person’s voting is presumably based on other factors. The person who prefers Republicans will likely choose either a black OR a white Republican, male OR female. And there are plenty of both white AND black Democrats. So if voting is your concern, look at the ideas involved — not the race.

The other faulty assumption is that you can intimidate someone into doing what you want — and that it means something, if you succeed. If you haven’t convinced a black individual that voting for Joe Biden over Donald Trump makes sense, then you’ve revealed the weakness of your own argument by saying, “Well, you’re not really black if you don’t vote for Biden.” Biden himself did this a few weeks ago. He blurted out (without regret) that if you don’t for him, you “ain’t a real black person.” They’re smug and confident-seeming when they do this. But it’s actually a WEAKNESS. When I hear leftists and Democrats do this, what I actually hear is: “I don’t have a convincing argument. So I’m going to shame you into taking my position.” I laugh at them. But they think they’re strong and “convincing” by shaming people in this way.

Yet that’s what leftists — Communists, national socialists, totalitarians — have always done, isn’t it? They rely on SHAME and FORCE. Whether it’s tyrannical COVID mandates, Black Lives Matter looters, raging mobs, nationalized medicine, 90 percent tax rates or concentration camps (yes, those CAN happen here, and WILL, on our current course) … It’s all they’ve got. Reason, facts and logic have nothing to do with any of it.

We listen to them — and vote for them — at our peril.

Michael J. Hurd

The “powers that be” are in a pickle. They say we have to lock down, social distance and wear masks because there’s a virus. But there will always be a virus. If not this virus, then another one. And, even when/if there’s a vaccine, not everyone will get the vaccine (government simply can’t force EVERYONE), and there will always be a new virus out there, too. So on their current assumptions, we have to keep these restrictions in place forever. The only way to LIFT the restrictions would be to concede — at least indirectly — that they were wrong.

Just imagine your mayor or governor saying in March 2021, or November 2021, “Well, there’s still a virus, but we don’t have to wear masks any longer.” It’s not going to happen. Not unless that mayor or governor concedes he or she was wrong. Mayors and governors are mostly arrogant narcissists and pricks. They don’t admit wrongdoing. They double and triple down, precisely as we see them doing right now. Democrats are the worst, but they all do it, with only a couple of exceptions.

So we’re stuck. We’re stuck because the great majority of us have decided to comply. Most of us have concluded it’s easier to comply than not. Some of us think it will all be over after the election. Well, that may be true, but I don’t think so. If Trump wins, the Democratic side will be worse than ever. Masks will be the least of our problems as they incite and foster even more chaos and destruction. And if Trump loses, masks will be the least of our problems. Why? Because the message will have been sent that the radical far left — the Marxist left — can win in America. Once they see that, they will go a LOT further than making us wear masks.

I’m not trying to be negative. I’m being realistic. And there is a solution. STOP COMPLYING. Be a royal pain in the neck to your governors and mayors. Dissent, not just verbally on social media, but in actual practice. Make it hard for them to rule you. I know, you don’t want a fine. You don’t want to be embarrassed. You don’t want to be politically incorrect, because you might lose customers or have to change jobs. Those are NOT trivial concerns. But think about a total loss of liberty. We are ONE election away from becoming a Marxist state — because that’s the platform the Democrats are running on, and if they do win, it will be a victory for Marxism. America is over, at that point. If they lose in a crushing defeat, it will be a great thing, but the war will be far from over.

I’m not saying you should be sacrificial martyrs for freedom. Freedom should not be a sacrifice. Totalitarianism IS a sacrifice. If you’re afraid of being chewed out by a nasty leftist Democrat friend or relative, or you’re petrified of losing a few customers (probably not as many as you think), or if you might have to change jobs, then think about the brave souls who stood up in the American Revolution, the anti-slavery side in the Civil War, and the Civil Rights movement when led by Martin Luther King. Think about THEM. If you’re not willing to raise the bar to that level, then you’re going to get … well, frankly you’re going to get exactly what you asked for.

Michael J. Hurd

Justice is giving people what they deserve — no more, and no less.

Condemning yourself for “seeking revenge” is fostering unearned guilt. You’re not bad simply because you want justice. But justice has to be in accordance with the facts. If you let your emotions — and your emotions alone — tell you what a person deserves, you’ll make mistakes. You’ll condemn or cut people off before they deserve it, or you’ll foster relationships with people who are not good for you. You’ll reward vice and punish virtue. You’ll act against your own interests, in the long run.

Justice has to be grounded in reason and facts first. Emotions are important, but they follow; they don’t lead. Justice doesn’t just mean punishing the negative; it also means rewarding the positive. In fact, the latter is much more important.

Justice isn’t mainly for courts and societies. It’s mainly for individuals, in daily life. Just and fair people will foster just and fair societies.

When enough people turn rotten, their institutions turn rotten too, sadly. Sometimes the mainstream of people are better than their institutions, and that leads to civil strife or civil war.

In our present social crisis, either the people are far better than their institutions and “leaders” — or the people have turned bad too. I don’t know the answer — not yet. I suspect we’ll know soon enough. In the meantime, practicing justice in everyday life is the area that’s most important.

Michael J. Hurd

Just before the dark times began I re-read Bobos in Paradise, David Brooks’s entertaining, best-selling 2000 book about America’s then-new elite, and it was striking how the age described seems so vanished. And, in many ways, changed for the worse.

The most striking bit was where Brooks writes about a media class comprised of journalists “at national publications [who] can now count on six-figure salaries when they hit middle age”, and of liberal arts majors who “can wake up one day and find themselves suddenly members of the top-income bracket”.

He speculated that life was becoming so comfortable for Bobos that politics might become quite boring, the two main parties so close together in ideology people would only be arguing about technical details (in so many words).

Anyway, cut to “twenty years later” and mobs of hooded extremists are fighting it out in the street and government squads in camo gear led by people called “Chad Wolf”. Narrator: American politics did not become more moderate.

A year after Bobos, Brooks wrote an essay, The Organization Kid, about how un-rebellious students had become, obsessed with building their careers rather than protesting or other wildness. It was a fair enough analysis of his generation, Ross Douthat writes in his most recent comment, because meritocracy at the time seemed to work. Now instead it has become this “exhausting ‘Alice in Wonderland’ Red Queen Race of full-time meritocratic achievement” in the words of a pseudonymous commentator.

Then, having run this gantlet, our meritocrats graduate into a big-city ecosystem where the price of adult goods like schools and housing has been bid up dramatically, while important cultural industries — especially academia and journalism — supply fewer jobs even in good economic times. And they live half in these crowded, over-competitive worlds and half on the internet, which has extended the competition for status almost infinitely and weakened some of the normal ways that local prestige might compensate for disappointing income.
– ROSS DOUTHAT, NYT
American culture has always emphasised competition more than any other, which was part of its strength, economically and socially, leading to a more meritocratic social hierarchy which allowed talent to rise.

But meritocracy has its dark side, in particular the low esteem it casts on those who don’t win at the game of life, made worse by the erosion of the institutions that once provided a buffer and comfort — family, community, religion. For the poor, drugs are a way of coping with this disaster, a substitute for faith. For many of the middle-class precariat, it’s politics-as-replacement religion. Many are literally addicted to the sense of outrage that the little device in the pocket provides on an hourly basis, and also provides some sense of dignity because they can at least distinguish themselves from the Brexit and Trump-voting rubes below them.

But the over-competitiveness Douthat describes is also one of the root causes of the darkening political intolerance across the water. When a political view becomes a mark of status, then the competition to appear higher status will push politics in an extreme direction.

There are no surrender papers for conservatives to sign; you cannot just accept defeat and move on, because progressivism is a transformative religion that must go forward by its very nature because there is always “so much more work to be done”. But it is not a coincidence that this new form of intolerant politics has found its home in the land of competition and meritocracy. Ed West

The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education is taking aim at Fordham University for placing a student on probation for two images he posted on social media, one of which memorialized the Tiananmen Square Massacre.

On June 3, rising senior Austin Tong posted to his Instagram account a photo of David Dorn, a retired St. Louis police captain killed by looters in the unrest following the killing of George Floyd. The photo included the caption, “Y’all a bunch of hypocrites,” a reference to Tong’s frustration, as a supporter of the Black Lives Matter movement, with what he refers to as “the nonchalant societal reaction over [Dorn’s] death.”

The following day, June 4, was the 31st anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre of pro-democracy activists. Tong, who emigrated from China as a child, posed for a photo holding a legally-obtained gun off-campus, with the caption “Don’t tread on me.” The caption also included an American flag emoji, a Chinese flag emoji, and a hashtag commonly used by Chinese citizens to avoid censorship of online discussion of the Tiananmen Square massacre.

Fordham actually punished the student for being critical of the Chinese Communist government. More evidence that schools should be 100 percent defunded of all taxpayer money. Let them spread totalitarian propaganda on their own funds. This student is a hero.

At least a dozen Seattle police officers were injured on Sunday as rioters attacked multiple police precincts, a municipal court, an Amazon building, and a Starbucks.

The Seattle Police Department said the rioters “were responsible for a significant amount of property damage to government buildings and private businesses” and that “at least a dozen officers were injured.” [The Daily Wire 7/20/20]

Notice the disparity between the Seattle Police Department and their boss — Seattle’s mayor:

The Seattle Police Department tweeted out photographs of some of the damage, writing: “Demonstrators went from Westlake Park to the Municipal Courthouse and then headed back north to the West Precinct…leaving behind a trail of property destruction. These are criminal acts, not peaceful protests.”

Where’s the mayor?

Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan has yet to issue any kind of a statement about the violent riots, the destruction of property, the attacks on government buildings, or the at least dozen police officers who were injured.

No civilized city (or nation) can go on like this, where the police force sees the crime for what it is, and the mayor — well, the mayor calls the destruction of life, liberty and property a “Summer of Love.”

President Trump is called a dictator by this mayor for threatening to use federal force to do what the mayor and city council of Seattle refuse to do: Uphold the individual rights of the citizens. Other than the right to life, the right to property is the most basic right there is. We scream about the need for “safety” in the context of the COVID virus. What about REAL safety — the right to count on both the mayor of your city AND the police to retaliate against people who break the windows of your business? And loot your own property?

These are such basic questions. Even the need to ask them shows how insane — and evil — much of our society has become. People are prepared to vote for this mayor (or her equivalent) again after she actively sides with the criminals. These people who vote for her are just as evil as the criminals. I cut them NO slack. Ditto for those who support Joe Biden and his now anarchist, openly Communist party, a movement with no regard whatsoever for individual property rights.

We can’t go on like this. We are NOT going on like this. In the cities, lives are falling apart. If this leftist mentality dominant in Seattle gets hold at the national level, then all of America will be without protection. We will be in a state of perpetual civil war with nobody to defend us, except our own (undoubtedly illegal) weapons.

Isn’t that just a TINY bit scarier than a virus with a 99.9999 percent survival rate?

Michael J. Hurd