SPEAK OUT!

Coming to a City Near You

Art DeJong

East and West met at our house. My wife grew up very near Provincetown, Cape Cod, on the Atlantic coast and I in Seattle on the Pacific coast. Provincetown was then a quaint fishing village, complete with crusty fishermen and an annual blessing of the fleet, Seattle a sensible western city run by Boeing engineers who watched hydroplane races and went hiking and skiing in the Cascades on the weekend.

Provincetown was an inclusive place where fishermen worked, raised their families, and tolerated a diversity drag scene in the summer, long before anyone heard of DEI. Then, however, the affluent summer crowd just bought the place, making it an exclusive inclusive enclave with a nautical décor but not much room for fishing families.

Something similar took place in Seattle on a larger scale. First it got hit with waves of California migrants who joined Seattle’s home-grown Microsoft trust fund babies who bought the city to make their own DEI upgrades. They got rid of the ablest engineers, defunded the racist police, and funded the downtrodden criminals, addicts, and other unemployed fellow travelers—all with predictable results. Don’t bring the family to Seattle’s Pioneer Square after dark, if at all.

We watched the fun from a blessed distance. Although Sheboygan too had been a hardworking, hard drinking port town, it was also a city of churches and remained a pretty good place to raise a family. But the end of that may be near, I fear. Last week I watched the Sheboygan common council railroad its city manager for “No Cause,“ except for what most suspect was his reluctance to get with the DEI program.

Unlike Provincetown and Seattle, however, family friendly Wisconsin may not roll over so easily. Each ”alder” who voted to oust Sheboygan’s sensible city manager now faces a challenger in the upcoming spring election. As my wife says, “We’ll see, won’t we.”

Art DeJong, Sheboygan

(TheSounder 1/19/2023)

SPEAK OUT!

The Flag Flies Over Fort Sumter

Art DeJong

Recently my wife and “got away” from election madness to visit one the 13 colonies where American freedom all began, Charleston, South Carolina. It was here too where the cannons that routed the British fleet in the Revolutionary War later leveled federal Fort Sumter, igniting our civil war that ultimately created a “more perfect union,” one that included all races and classes of Americans.

We were reminded of all this when, with a boat load of tourists, we helped to raise the Stars and Stripes over the battered remains of Fort Sumter in the Charleston harbor. Later, walking the decks of the aircraft carrier Yorktown and the destroyer Laffey, moored across the harbor reminded us that every generation eventually has to pay the high price of liberty. Our fathers had to build these ships after much of our ill prepared fleet, including the original Yorktown and Laffey, had been shot to pieces during the early years of World War II.

When we climbed into the Laffey’s aft gun battery, a video appeared, conveying the last desperate minutes of that gun crew’s battle against a swarm of more than twenty suicide bombers that ambushed their lone ship. The video abruptly ended with a kamikaze direct hit, Yet this valiant “ship that would not die,” fought on, even after at least five such direct hits. It then limped home to be refitted for service in our next war, the Korean War.

Shifting from heroism of a past generation to the present, I wondered whether the peeling paint of these legendary ships signifies our present republic, too demoralized to honor its own history, incapable even of securing its own streets and defending its own borders.

Later we followed our noses to a Chick-fil-A for lunch, interestingly located directly across from the parade ground on the campus of The Citadel. Here our mood lifted. Watching the “knobs” drill on the parade ground, we realized that the love of liberty has not died in the hearts of these young men and women, many whose families have lived here for generations, others who have fled here from around the world to escape almost universal tyranny.

This trip to Charleston reminded us that the political battles being waged across this country are not a violent revolution or civil war, but a revival--a revival of the old principles of liberty that brought the 13 colonies together so long ago. Our present political ferment is a sign of hope that what happened in Charleston did not stay in Charleston.

Art DeJong, Sheboyan

12/28/22

SPEAK OUT!

A Red Wave Breaks

Art DeJong

Unlike the hurricanes that headed out to sea after battering both east and west coasts of Florida, the red tsunami that hit there surged all the way into the upper mid-west, flooding 56 of the 72 counties in Wisconsin and 66 of the 83 counties in Michigan. Every township, village, small city, and suburb in Sheboygan County, except Elkhart Lake, joined the surge which stopped abruptly at Sheboygan’s city limits. There, 20 of the 21 wards voted for big government Democrats. This raises a Bidonese, two word question, “Why?” Not why did it stop, but why did it happen? Was it climate change?

Not surprisingly the top three opponents to the wave were Dane, Menominee, and Milwaukee Counties. Liberty and limited government create prosperity for everybody, but limiting the number and sizes of government checks is not a winning message in big government towns. Their replacing election-day with harvest season just insures a house win. Naturally, Governor Evers won re-election in Wisconsin but with the support of only 16 out of 72 independent counties, while Michigan’s Governor Whitmer hung on, despite being supported by only 17 out of their 83 counties.

That a red wave, or even a red ripple, happened at all tells that there is life left in our old republic. It speaks well for the common sense, independence, and wonderful orneriness of the American people. It testifies to the integrity of lots of election officials, local volunteers, and candidates who sacrificed their personal comfort and fortunes to rescue our flailing republic. Few thought that the people of Wisconsin would have the backbone to stand against years of vitriol orchestrated against Senator Ron Johnson by the most powerful government entities and the wealthiest media and tech corporations on the planet.

This wave tells of millions of people who want to live as members of families, churches, and states, not as sub-atomic particles of an identity group or global collective. It speaks of millions more who chose the liberty of limited government over subservience to George Orwell’s outworn l984 Big Brother who still stalks the land even after 38 years. The wave that broke against Sheboygan’s city limits gives us millions more reasons to be thankful to God during this Thanksgiving season and every season.

Art DeJong, Sheboygan

SPEAK OUT!

And a Free Lunch for All

Art DeJong

When my wife returns from grocery shopping with stories of weekly price increases and when I pay fifty dollars to top off our Honda’s gas tank, I think about the three banknotes from a small collection of family China mementos on our mantel.

They are a slightly used 10 Yuan note and two 5000 Yuan notes printed issued by the Central Bank of China in 1945. These small amounts had rapidly become useless as the Chinese government ran the presses hot to pay its creditors with worthless paper. By Christmas, 1948, when our family scrambled aboard a US Navy liberty ship to be evacuated from Shanghai, it took 3,000,000 Yuan to equal one American Dollar.

We escaped to paradise America with its secure border, sound dollar, intact families, and great schools, schools that began each day with the Pledge of Allegiance and the Lord’s Prayer and taught kids respect for God, family and neighbor, in that order. “Enjoy your work--there is no free lunch,” teachers warned.

There was no escape for the Chinese people who couldn’t flee to Formosa (Taiwan) or Hong Kong when the Republic of China collapsed in 1949. The victorious communists shot the landowners and capitalists. seized all property, broke up families, and set out to create a brave new, agrarian world, free from capitalist greed and patriarchal gender roles, a world of lone individuals, loyal only to the state leader who promised to provide a free lunch for all—a 1949 style woke fantasy. Millions starved, froze, or worked to death, but still there was never quite enough free lunch to go around.

I reflect on this sad history and wonder why Democrats now are destroying our own economy by flooding it with worthless paper. As I watch parents drive by to pick up their children’s free lunch, even in the summer, at neighboring Grant elementary School, I conclude that this suicidal printing is rooted in the idea of “free lunch.”

Our grown children who now control all three branches of government are printing trillions to provide more free lunch, for everybody--including every person on the planet who can climb aboard our sinking liberty ship. For just a few trillion more they promise to throw in climate control. Think of it—no more hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, or droughts—all this and free lunch too.

It’s time for sensible adults to step in. The American Dream is rapidly becoming just a dream, and I see no liberty ships standing by.

Art DeJong,

Sheboygan, Wisconsin