EV Competitor 2

Follow up to this post

Ford Motors' CEO is worried about their market share: "We are in a global competition with China. And if we lose this, we do not have a future at Ford." It's not just Ford, but the whole car industry in America.

Those are strong words, very similar to Elon Musk's: “Frankly, if there are not trade barriers established, they will pretty much demolish most other car companies in the world.”

Chinese electric car makers (about 130 companies) are a growing threat to American car makers. They've "studied American inventions, replicated them, and arguably surpassed them, selling them at scarily-cheap prices around the world." In the U.S., that price would be roughly $10k lower than Tesla.

Their EV leader, BYD, overtook Tesla in global sales in Q4 of 2023 (image). A writer for InsideEV's likes BYD's interior and software integration better than Tesla's, and says they're quieter too.

Some governments, including the U.S., worry that Chinese EV's cameras and sensors may collect data to pass on to their military. 

From "China Is Overtaking America. In an Electric Car."

Slavery legacy 2

Follow up to this post

One-sided arguments mislead people. Among the politically-left leaning folks in this country,  a one-sided story about race has dominated academia: that the white race is uniquely to blame for slavery. 

But it's just not true, as Coleman Hughes teaches at UATX. Most American students have been taught this one-sided narrative with twisted results like hopeless discouragement and contempt for their neighbors.

Kaizen Asiedu is a rising "influencer" online who has something to say about it.

(cont'd tomorrow)

Slavery legacy?

 (cont'd from yesterday's post)

"Abraham Lincoln freed the slaves," and he did that in 1863, 160+ years ago. But issues remained, and still remain today. 

According to our left-wing, America's unique slavery guilt is everlasting and unforgivable, deserving of contempt and punishment. 

This black author (photo) sees it differently. He teaches a course called "Legacy of Slavery" at University of Austin where he informs students--to their surprise--that slavery was never a "white person thing," that it was global and nearly unopposed until a couple centuries ago. It's news to them, and maybe it's news to you.

The experience of slavery throughout the world was never limited to the black race, and was never uniquely perpetrated by the white race. If you have any interest in understanding it, read his article.

To take this position in our current cultural moment shows courage.

from The Free Press

Slave owner

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

Yes, some of the American founders owned slaves as well. The author of the Declaration himself, Thomas Jefferson, was passionate about freedom and probably meant every word he wrote. He gave words to the principles of freedom, but he didn't live up to them as the owner of up to 600 slaves. 

We don't give him or the others a free pass on his hypocrisy. He knew it wasn't right and worried about it (image), but he couldn't summon the strength of character to walk away from the privilege he was born into according to the norms of his day.

But he and the other founders did have the courage to call out the right principles for their new nation. They gave us something to work toward. America and the world got better because of that.

"Join or Die"

As Dr. Aram said in yesterday's video, "Join or Die" (image) was a political cartoon (the first?) created by Ben Franklin in 1754. Originally meant for the time of the French and Indian War, it went "viral" during the time of the Revolutionary War.

Its meaning is clear: if the American colonies would not unite, then they would all die. Only by uniting could they hope to survive.

Many years later in 1944, Judge Learned Hand would speak on "The Spirit of Liberty." He says we must be united by a spirit of liberty living in the hearts of the American people. Laws alone won't keep us free.

We don't seek unbridled liberty to do everything we want, but rather the liberty to seek what's true and good both for ourselves and for each other. As an example: free speech for me and free speech for thee as well.

It's still true. All of us Americans need to unite on this common value, not just seek to win. 

Yes, exceptional

Patriots come in different colors, in different religions, from different regions of the country, and they're even found in different political parties. If you are any sort of American patriot, you will enjoy these two patriots (who both live in the Northeast) talking about America.

First is Bari Weiss whose story you've heard, and then it's Dr. Akhil Amar, a Yale professor who actually loves his country. Listen to him telling the story of how our Declaration got written (it wasn't only Thomas Jefferson), and how those words affected us and our history.

Spoiled

We're only 249 years old officially, but the USA definitely became that game-changer that monarchs of the world feared we would be. Many people were inspired to believe in liberty and self-governance after this dangerous idea spread and went "viral" (by the standards of that day).

Beyond political effects, though, the USA became hugely wealthy by global standards, wealthy beyond what the founders probably pictured. In fact, it may be said that Americans became "spoiled" by our success.

Immigrants think so, according to this black American:

"Black immigrants don't really respect . . people who are traditionally born in America. [Their experience was] to relentlessly eat, sleep, grind, hustle, go and get it, so when they finally get over into America and they see the opportunities that are presented [here], Nigerians, Jamaicans, any kind of immigrant come over here in this country [they] mop the floor with . . specifically black Americans . ."

Here's one of those immigrants, who disdains the "protests": Fayz 

Dangerous idea 2

(cont'd from yesterday's post) 

Most nations were created by war or one impressive individual, for people united in bloodline. But America was created on the basis of an idea stated in the Declaration: all people were created and endowed by their Creator with unalienable rights, and governments exercise rightful power only by the consent of those people.

This is the principle which Rev. Martin Luther King reminded the American people about, and the moral basis for his campaign of equal rights for black people. It's also the basis for the whole human rights movement of the last century in America.

The Declaration, though written by sadly imperfect people, codified the principle into American law. This is the reason and basis for America, not promotion of slavery as claimed by the 1619 Project. It's the principle we go back to all through our history, that people should be free and that they can rightfully oppose government that doesn't help them.

It made America different. Monarchs around the world knew that America could be a dangerous game-changer . . and she was.

Dangerous idea

"Europe was created by history. America was created by philosophy." Margaret Thatcher was right in this, that America was founded on ideas. Our founders didn't invent the ideas, but they organized a whole country based on them.

Here's just one more take on that day (July 4, 1776) when the congress of the United States of America declared itself separate from its colonizer, the British Empire:

"America has always been a dangerous idea." Dangerous to whom?

from The Free Press 

(cont'd tomorrow) 

No saddles

Thomas Jefferson was the primary writer of the Declaration of Independence, that document which told the world that the American people intended to cut their bonds to England and take their place among the sovereign nations. 

An invitation to Washington D.C. to celebrate the signing of that document was sent to him fifty years later, in 1826, but he couldn't go because of ill health. 

It's clear how passionate he still was about the people's liberty and rights in his reply to the invitation, and he's still right about this: human beings are not born with saddles on their backs so that some elites can ride them with spurs and reins.

Our founding

Hillsdale College was asked by the President to help celebrate America's 250th birthday next year by producing a video series about America's founding. It's a great story - worth remembering together.

Here's the president of Hillsdale introducing it. We'll feature those videos in future posts.

Move aside 8

Follow-up to these posts

Welcome to the week of celebrating Independence Day (4th of July). We start with an excellent ruling coming down last week from the Supreme Court: 

Parents are the authority in choosing what is best for their children. Schools cannot take that authority away from them. 

In a post from 2022, I reported that Muslim, Jewish and Christian parents tried to "opt out" their kids from classes promoting LGBTQ. School administrators would not cooperate, saying that parents have no right to "opt out" their kids. The Supreme Court decided with the parents that they do have that right. 

Many schools are trying to subvert the choices of parents, trying to get parents to "move aside" and let them take control (image generated by Grok). With this SC decision, that will end -- or should. When school teachers or administrators in the future try to re-assert dominance, a lawful judge will have to decide with the parents.

Polyface farm 2

(cont'd from yesterdays post)

Re-post from 2017 

Polyface Farm has not applied a chemical since the family bought it in 1961, says Joel Salatin. They don't run things like a "normal" farm does today. Mimicking the pattern of nature, fertilizer and sanitation are supplied by the animals instead of by chemicals and antibiotics. 

The farm is open to visitors and cameras every day, and he claims they have no disease problems like those that plague industrial farms. Cows are moved to fresh pasture every day, chickens follow cows by 3 days, then turkeys. Pasture receives the time it needs to re-grow.

"It’s all a symbiotic, multi-speciated synergistic relationship-dense production model that yields far more per acre than industrial models. And it’s all aromatically and aesthetically romantic." That means it smells good and looks good. We were there last summer, and it's beautiful.

"On our farm we have cows, pigs, chickens, turkeys, rabbits, ducks, lambs, fruit, honeybees, forests--it's breathtaking choreography, always dancing," p. 119 of The Marvelous Pigness of Pigs.

Dig for truth

Christians in America are waking up to a couple of modern facts: our views and our churches don't enjoy near-universal approval anymore, and we need to re-think our response to our culture in light of that.

Modern life is confusing. American culture has been disrupted by people who don't share our values. 

This journalist (below) is a Christian. He challenges both himself and the rest of us to be careful to tell the truth rather than just play for hits and likes on social media, to do things God's way rather than the selfish way. He challenges all of us to respond with restraint and kindness even when confronted with opposition and hate.

We 're all going to have to "dig for truth" in this environment. Think things through.

U.S. Army 1775

Relations were already tense in 1775 when British "redcoats" marched on an ammunition depot which their American colonists had stocked in Concord, Massachusetts. Civilian colonists took their firearms and stood to defend it (here and in nearby Lexington) against the foremost military of world. 

Who shot first is debated, but it's been called "the shot heard round the world" because the ensuing revolutionary war freed the colony to become the United States of America.

Just two months later, on June 14, the Continental Congress created its army to fill its need for a "united fighting force with a clear chain of command." George Washington was then selected to be its general, and a new chapter in world history began.

 Our Secretary of Defense tells the story of the formation of the U.S. Army:

Army's 250th

Under the previous administration in 2024, the United States Army was granted a permit to have a parade on the occasion of its 250th anniversary. That celebration took place last Saturday, June 14, in Washington D.C. 

Notice that the Vice President and his wife brought their three children.

Paid protester 2

Was that "paid protester" really offered money to protest, to play the part of an innocent demonstrator trying to change American policy out of sincere beliefs? Or did he make that up?

It wasn't just him. Someone published a craigslist ad seeking people to demonstrate in Seattle last Saturday for a pay check of $500/day. 

As this writer says:

"In case you believed the mainstream media when it said the anti-ICE protests aimed at frustrating the enforcement of just, democratically enacted, bipartisan U.S. immigration laws are spontaneous reactions from local communities to heavy-handed enforcement … well, just don’t."

Education crisis 1

Everybody seems to agrees that our education system is in crisis. Various opinions describe it as being teacher shortages, poor reading skills, student mental health, too much bureaucracy, and they're all right and there's more problems than these--they affect every educational level from K-12 right up to the college level.

Administrators and other non-teaching staff have grown by 7x the number of teachers in the last several decades. "Both students and staff are chewed up by a bureaucratic machine that favors ever larger budgets . . ." The cost keeps rising, yet test scores rise little or not at all.

Almost 100 Yale professors signed an open letter to its president, opposing the growth of non-teaching staff which now amounts to double the number there a couple of decades ago. 

This Brown University student testified before Congress that he found enormous, wasteful spending bloat at the university level: 

Paid protester

In the past, protests in America were mostly people caring passionately about some cause enough to go out on the streets and demonstrate for their opinion. Today many protesters are not moved by conviction but for pay. 

They may carry a sign, shout, obstruct the right of way for their neighbors, destroy public property, destroy private property (photo), attack the police, throw bricks--crimes. 

Here is a young man who was offered $150/day to protest in Los Angeles. He doesn't really care much about the point of it which is to protest ICE officers deporting illegal immigrants, but he needed the money so he took the job.

But he started realizing that he was involved in destroying the community. They told him to go to certain streets where he found pallets of bricks to use (in destroying the community). Later he saw a pallet of molotov cocktails and thought, "Man, should I really be doing this? Like, this is bad news." He didn't care about the city of Los Angeles, but he thought "But I'm American, after all, like, this is not good." This man's conscience kicked in.

"I got to thinking, whoever is funding this must really hate this country." Yup, I believe he's right. 

from X post 

Peaceful?

Have you heard reports that the Los Angeles riots protesting federal ICE officers have been peaceful? 

One way or another, people are still finding ways to report true conditions (photo), a fruit of the freedom of speech we still have. 

Suggestion: if you heard that the protests are peaceful, a little suspicion would be appropriate in your future trust of that source. 

from Stream