( © C.R. “Gus” Manning 2022 )

My fellow Americans.  As a candidate for public office, I want to share my views on what I believe are the important issues confronting our nation. This talk will reflect my desire to communicate directly on the larger issues to most Americans who love this country and wish to make it better.  Rather than using buzzwords and slogans, I want to present reasonable ideas and tell the truth, backed up by facts.

My first message is that America is a good place to live.  My first policy goal is to preserve the good things this country offers, and to oppose those who would tear down the best things about this country.

I will start with preservation of our country as a democratic republic under our 1789 Constitution, with its Bill of Rights, Separation of Powers, and the other features that daily protect our people from harm.  At two-hundred thirty-three years, and counting, we are, by far, the oldest democratic republic in the history of the world.  Since office holders take an oath to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution, this should never be a political issue, but it has become one, as current office holders daily ignore, defy, or misconstrue our Constitution, reducing the protections designed by our Founders.  I will not continue to ignore the Constitution.  I will preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution with my last breath.        

At this point I must introduce some history.  At its founding, and for 100+ years after, the USA was the only democratic republic in the world.  From 1789, immigrants streamed into this country to build new lives, taking advantage of the right to life, liberty, property, and, of course, the pursuit of happiness.  According to GDP estimates published by the World Bank, during the period 1800-1900, the United States vaulted from the 12^th largest economy in the world to the 1^st.   Noting this remarkable progress, half the nations of the world (more than 100) converted from autocratic to democratic forms of government between 1910-1990.  In the 20^th century, the USA reluctantly entered two World Wars, and, in World War II, led a group of democracies and Russia to victory against the axis autocracies.  That is how the USA became known as the “Leader of the Free World”.  This is not a marketing slogan.  It is completely backed up by facts.

Though young compared to many nations, we have the oldest constitutional government on this planet.  It has lasted 233 years, because it is the best form of government yet found.  Winston Churchill famously said: “Democracy is the worst form of government, except all those other forms that have been tried.”  Avoiding the risks of simple democracies, the US Founders created a republic which places checks and balances on democracy to protect minority viewpoints and prevent tyranny by a majority.     

Our government is far from perfect, but, compared to other countries, the USA has the best constitution and the most stable government.  Rather than patting ourselves on the back, let’s look at more facts. Besides stable government, and high GNP, the USA receives more immigrants per year than any country.  Currently, more than 48 million people who live in the US were born in another country.  This is more than 4x the proportion of foreign-born residents residing in any other country.   Emigration from the US, per capita, remains among the lowest of any nation.   More people want to come here than to other countries, and few want to leave.  These are facts.

Here is my second message.  Immigration rates prove my first statement that America is a good place to live, and immigration is generally a good thing.  Immigration provides new talent that is needed to maintain economic growth rates in a developed country with a decreasing birth rate.  Nobody in his right mind could be against immigration.  Similarly, no reasonable person would suggest we should open the borders of our nation with no documentation or control of who is entering.

My second policy goal is to work toward improvements in immigration law that would preserve economic growth, the rights of current citizens, as well as law and order.  Under the Constitution, congress must act on this.  It is not legal for a president to change, of fail to enforce, immigration laws without an act of congress.

Over the past 60 years economic growth has accelerated across the globe.  In his eye-opening book Factfulness, Hans Rosling reported World Health Organization (WHO) statistics demonstrating that 50% of the people on the globe lived in extreme poverty in 1966.  41 years later, in 2017, the percentage living in extreme poverty had decreased to 9%.  This happened despite population growth, which had been predicted by experts would lead to mass starvation before the year 2000.  The WHO, the World Bank, and other institutions not controlled by any nation, see a strong correlation between economic growth and the health, and well-being of all people.

Rapid economic growth requires cheap land, cheap labor, and cheap energy. These days, the USA has a shortage of these factors. During the 19th century, with cheap lab, labor, and energy, the USA had the highest year-over-year economic growth rate of all nations.  In the 21^st century, the innovation that naturally arises in a free country have kept growth rates high compared to other developed countries.  Most countries that exceed the US growth rate are copying what the US did during the 19^th century.  Countries, such as Russia, North Korea, Iran, Cuba, and Venezuela, who chose to do the opposite, are stagnant, with flat or decreasing GDP.

My third message is that economic growth is good and necessary.  Our business community, which pays all of our bills, is one of America’s greatest assets.

It is important for the well-being of our people to have a climate of innovation coupled with a strong business community that creates a rising tide of employment and income.  While it may be possible for government to create jobs, all salaries and wages, all revenues, come from the private sector.  This obvious fact rarely appears in the media.  The government has recently been successful in inflating the supply of money, which it is able to do.  However, the government can only get away with increasing the money supply when it controls the world’s reserve currency.  For a century, international bankers have made the US dollar the world’s reserve currency, as it has proven the most stable (hardest) currency available.

Following some success in inflating our currency, we have begun to experience higher prices across the economy, defeating the original goals of the Federal Reserve system. The inflation we now experience is mild compared to what would occur if the USA were to lose its reserve currency status.  Reserve currency status depends on the reputation of the dollar, which arises from the world’s most productive business community and the world’s most stable financial markets. We will not keep these advantages by bashing business.

My third policy goal it to support the continued success of the business community in the USA including its employees.  Many politicians promote the idea that we can tax, regulate, intimidate, and threaten business without affecting the employees of the businesses.  This is, of course, ridiculous.  When we bash business, we are bashing the employees.  Since employers and employees of business provide all of our revenue (except what we get by inflating the currency), politicians should view businesses as valued clients, rather than enemies.  We should not interfere with the bond between employers and employees.  Surveys show that employees like and respect their bosses more than their local government representatives. There is a good reason for this.

This is not to say that businesses need not behave themselves.  The US has many laws and regulations, and our policy will be to insist that businesses follow our rules and regulations, avoiding monopolies, and other anti-competitive practices. Businesses should also restrain efforts to influence decisions of government in conformance with lobbying rules and laws. Our policy will to look at new and existing legislation and seek opportunities to improve the efficiency of both business and government.         

My fourth message is that our country has a lot of problems, but our problems are not as many, or as big. as the media and politicians would have us believe. 

I think most Americans do not like a crisis, but nowadays we seem to have one every minute.  Today, every problem becomes a crisis in the media, but a crisis is not really a factual thing.  A crisis is a state of mind, like a panic.  Crises and panics usually lead to bad decisions, quickly made and long regretted.  Any good family or business would like to avoid a crisis, or at least, to minimize the number of crises that are going on at once.

When too many crises seem to be happening at once, those of us who don’t like crisis management should look for the cause of these crises.   Like the TV detective, Harry Bosch, we should ask: “Cui bono” …  “Who benefits?”

There are two obvious suspects who benefit from a crisis: the media and politicians.  I will lean on another quote from Winston Churchill who said: “Never let a good crisis go to waste.”  This quote has recently been recycled by lesser politicians.  Politicians loves a crisis, and the media loves to create them. The marriage of media and politicians is a marriage made in hell.

Today’s many crises arise from exaggerating real problems. Nowadays, many experts make their living detecting subtle trends, unnoticed by most people, that could be threats in the long term.  Since the livelihood of experts depends on making their problems seem important, they go to the media for attention.  Experts have recently found subtle, negative trends and interacted with the media to promote fears about population growth, abortion, inequality, pollution, environmental damage, climate change, police misconduct, urban violence, disease prevention, and crime.

When experts bring their data about small negative trends to the media, the first thing that happens is exaggeration.  “If we don’t exaggerate, there is no story.  It’s back page stuff.”  When it hits the front page, politicians grab the newspaper and run to the nearest video camera shaking the newspaper and screaming “crisis”.

The way that the expert/media/political complex works, there is a strong tendency for every situation with any evidence of negative effects to become a crisis in the media.  Every media person knows a crisis makes a good story, and every politician who wants to expand government knows what a shame it is to “waste a good crisis”.

The pronouncement of a crisis, and the prediction of catastrophes has become a routine media practice.  Catastrophes do occur, but studies have shown that they are difficult to predict.  History has shown that predicted catastrophes hardly ever occur, but when real catastrophes occur, the experts are surprised.  As stock brokers always warn you: “Past performance is not indicative of future results.”  An American philosophers, Lawrence Berra (better known as “Yogi” Berra) famously said: “I never make predictions, especially about the future”.

I am not saying we don’t have problems with population growth, pollution, environmental damage, climate change, police misconduct, inequality, urban violence, disease prevention, and crime, etc., but I believe these are not crises, but merely problems.  My policy will be to address negative trends carefully with effective policies that do not undercut other important goals related to our people, especially their life, liberty, property, and the economic growth that lifts people out of poverty.  My policy will be to prioritize policy goals, and to avoid a crisis and panic approach to problems.

In reviewing the list of problems our administration must address, I believe the one that most resembles a crisis would be poor schools.  In the most recent report of the Programme for International Student Assessment, which measured reading ability, math and science literacy of 15-year-olds in 71 countries, the US ranked 38th in math and 24th in science. Among the 35 developed countries sponsoring this initiative, the US ranked 30th in math and 19th in science.  Older Americans will remember the USA as being first in science and first in math in 1965.

As with immigration, it would be illegal for a President to mandate changes in our schools.  However, as President, we would advocate and support every initiative that promises to make schools more competitive and more accountable to their customers … the parents of American children.

We had said several times that the USA is a good place …  millions want to come here and hardly anyone wants to leave.  If the USA is such a good place, we should be reluctant to make changes.  We should think like the doctor who is following his Hippocratic oath: “First Do No Harm.” The Cure Should Never be Worse Than the Disease.  Government should try to make the country better in every way, and never try to tear it down. 

If elected, I will seek to scrutinize every policy, law, regulation, practice, or statement to see if it will have the positive effects claimed and avoid unintended negative effects on our people’s life, liberty, property, and general economic growth.

As good a place as it is, the US is constantly protrayed in the media as falling short when compared to an ideal world invented by neo-Marxist intellectuals.  The US may fall short when the deeds of this country 150 years ago are compared to what we think is right today.  But, let us be fair.  When you compare the USA at any time in its history to other countries during the same time, it is hard to find a country that has performed better or behaved better than the USA.  Recently, a few smaller countries may have been performing or behaving better than the USA in some ways. Running a small country is a bit easier. Throughout history, it is difficult to find another large country that has performed or is performing or behaving better than the USA. 

My fifth (and final) message is to speak out against what I believe may be the truly existential threat to the well-being of the American people over the next 5-10 years.  This is the increasing impact in popular culture of an old philosophy that says: truth and reason are not real, the rule of law and fair play are impossible, and everything is a power struggle between mostly male and light-colored people who are oppressors and darker-colored and female people who are oppressed. 

This philosophy offers no solutions, but following its logic leads to tearing down pretty much everything … a people’s revolution with no tomorrow.  If you listen to the spokespeople, this philosophy says Cuba and Venezuela are good, but the USA is bad. How smart can that be?

Since the 1960s, mostly in the shadows, an ideological movement, spawned and explaned on college campuses, and has now taken deep roots in the popular media, often led by the New York Times, the most illustrious newspaper in history.

This movement, which calls itself “woke”, because it has “awoken” to past injustices, says it desires “social justice”.  But, as we follow the narratives, we learn that this movement eventually attacks everyone who has been successful, who has power, who is well-regarded, especially if they were born a male, or with light-colored skin, or have made a statement that advocates deem hurtful to marginalized people.  It also attacks practically everyone who lived in the past (except, so-called marginalized groups) for not living up to current notions of right and wrong.  Worse, it attacks people with no proof, no rules, and no presumption of innocence. 

I think a majority of Americans would desire social justice, but would never subscribe to the way social justice is practiced by the “woke ideology”.   After listening to the narratives, “woke” social justice begins to sound like the opposite of actual justice.  You blame living people for things done by dead people.  You blame dead people for doing things that everyone believed were right at the time.  You accuse people and condemn without proof or process. And, you only blame light-colored people, or males, but never people who belong to so-called marginalized groups.

I do not mean to attack people who desire the idea of social justice.  I mean to attack the essence of the woke, neo-Marxist, nihilistic, critical philosophy that seems to have gripped popular media, especially the New York Times over the past two years.

My final policy goal is to let voters know that I will oppose any policy, law, regulation, practice, or statement that suggests that some people are guilty because of the color of their skins or because of anything dead people did, or suggests that America is more guilty than other countries.    

Unlike many candidates for office, I have tried to clearly express some of my ideas and to explain major policy positions.  These are logical conclusions developed by reasoning from facts.  Here is a quick review of the positions I have articulated.

If elected, my first policy will be to preserve and defend the Constitution in a real and significant way, and not as window dressing.

If elected, my second policy will be to move toward improved immigration law, while enforcing and supporting current laws.  Presidents don’t make laws, they enforce them.

If elected, my third policy will be to support and promote the continued success of the US business community, to hold them accountable to obey laws and regulations, and to collect more taxes, the more they succeed.

If elected, my fourth policy will be to prioritize and address appropriately each national problem presented by congress, the cabinet, or the media.  In this, I will attempt to consider proposed solutions on a cost-benefit basis, including possible side effects, conflicts with other goals, and resource limitations.

If elected, my fifth policy will be to support diversity of opinion and free speech and to oppose any policy, law, regulation, practice, or statement that seeks to judge people based on their skin color, origin, sexual orientation, or seeks to teach that all Americans, all light-colored people, or that dead people are guilty.

Our greatest President, Abraham Lincoln, stood on the battlefield at Gettysburg 87 years after the Declaration of Independence, and referred to its goal of a people, created equal, seeking life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.  Lincoln asked “whether a nation so conceived and so dedicated can long endure”.  161 years after Gettysburg and 248 years after Jefferson’s Declaration, we can see that the longest-running consitutional democracy in history has proven that “it can long endure”.

Some might still ask: “How much longer can we endure?”  I will end with a lesser-known quote, again from Winston Churchill, who said: “You can always count on the Americans to do the right thing, after they have tried everything else.”       

Categories: Commentary, Culture, Ethics, Philosophy, Politics