People don't realize how hard it is to speak the truth to a world full of people who don't realize they're living a lie.

Eric Snowden

By Dr. Jim Ferguson

I remain highly critical of Eric Snowden who betrayed our country and defected to Russia. If we ever get the opportunity, he should be tried for treason for stealing classified information and giving it to the Russians. But apparently a lot of people trade in classified documents and state secrets these days.

People ask me where I get my stories. The humorist Will Rogers once quipped, "I don't make jokes. I just watch the government and report the facts."

I read widely from many sources and various genres. I love good science fiction, not Flash Gordon or apocalyptic themes. Many turn up their nose when they hear the term science-fiction. But how would you know you don't like something unless you've tried it?  I challenge you to read the short story, "Flowers for Algernon" by Daniel Keyes, before you turn your nose up at science fiction.

"The Matrix" was, in my opinion, an overdone science-fiction movie, but asked one important question: What is reality? The movie depicts humanity as unknowingly held prisoner by technology, which controls and perverts their reality. The protagonist is ultimately forced to make a decision whether he will swallow the red pill and end his idyllic non-reality, or take the blue pill and continue as a psychological and physical prisoner. Perhaps America is struggling with whether to take the red pill of freedom and hardship or the blue pill of enslavement and comfort.

I thought about "The Matrix" as I watched the apocalyptic mushroom-like cloud over East Palestine, Ohio. The train derailment, and resulting environmental disaster, was a metaphor for the wheels coming off the train of America.

It is hard to imagine anyone worse than Biden's Homeland Security Secretary Mayorkas who labels parents at school board meetings terrorists and has made our southern border nonexistent. However, iPOTUS' Transportation Secretary, "Pothole Pete," is undeniably incompetent, woke and insensitive.

Apparently, the optics of the toxic cloud rising above Palestine, Ohio, interrupted Pothole Pete's focus on preaching racial quotas for construction crews, and forced him to deal with yet another train derailment. This train wreck has led to an environmental disaster with vinyl chloride and other carcinogenic chemicals leaking into the soil and water. Then the geniuses of the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) decided to burn the vinyl chloride, to "prevent an explosion," producing phosgene gas, a poisonous gas used during WWI. Pete, who can also claim ownership of the airline, shipping and supply chain crises, then typically blamed the derailment on President Trump.

Last week, seeing the pale faces of Congressmen, leaving government briefings about the balloon/UFO issue, gave me no re-assurement that my government knows what it's doing. This government asks us to believe they are in control of our airspace, intelligence agencies, the economy, the money supply (Federal Reserve), the border, the environment and I could go on. Our government is as incompetent, woke and insensitive as Pothole Pete. Folks, the wheels have come off.

And it is especially disturbing that a recent Rasmussen poll revealed 45% of Americans would vote for Biden over President Trump. But then Pothole Pete is polling ahead of Biden. Perhaps Breitbart is right, "Politics is downstream of culture," and our culture is the wreck.

And did you hear that the "50 members of the intelligence community" – a bunch that is not intelligent nor a community – now maintain that they were misquoted? Their infamous letter, released two weeks before the 2020 election, stated that the Hunter Biden laptop was a Russian disinformation ruse. We now know that the laptop is real, scandalous and was in the possession of the corrupt FBI for two years prior to the letter signed by, among others, James Clapper, the former Director of National Intelligence who previously perjured himself before Congress. These elites actually interfered with the 2020 election, but since the Department of Justice has also been corrupted, we have no justice.

There are other examples of the American trainwreck. A recent, huge, worldwide study showed that face masks, including N95s, did nothing to stop the transmission of Covid-19 or flu-like illness. And yet I still see people at the grocery wearing masks, while politicos still threaten us with these "facial diapers." I grant that social distancing and masks initially seemed reasonable, but both recommendations were based on poor science and have subsequently been disproved. And the well intentioned "shelter in place," which was supposed to be for two weeks to bend the hospitalization curve, continued for years and destroyed freedom, education and produced terrible consequences of depression and social isolation.

It was my turn to select the book for my egghead book club, so I chose "The Quest for Cosmic Justice" by Thomas Sowell. In a nutshell, Sowell maintains that attempting to correct the wrongs of the universe without considering the consequences is impractical and destructive. Equality under law is not the same as equality of outcomes (aka equity).

Milton Friedman said it best: "A society that puts equality – in the sense of equality of outcome – ahead of freedom will end up with neither equality nor freedom. The use of force will destroy freedom, and the force, introduced for good purposes, will end up in the hands of people who will use it to promote their own interests."

We have strayed far from the ideals of the Founders and the Constitution. I saw the play "Hamilton" which is currently the rage. I just hope it will stimulate people to once again consider history and the genius of men like Hamilton, Franklin and even Jefferson, who justifiably fares poorly in the play. Jefferson finally concedes that Hamilton "took us from bankruptcy to prosperity." Hamilton was hated because of his genius and brashness.

We can put the American train back on track, but we must demand the truth, accountability and consequences. And we need to stop listening to the race hustlers and the entitlement hucksters.

Nancy Reagan had the "Just say no" campaign. Let's say NO! to the haters of America.

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