Revolution 2.0

Introduction Each of us chooses where to buy. Businesses offer value propositions, e.g., price, selection, convenience, hours, location, quality, customer service, return policies, etc. We consumers vote with our dollars; we choose which businesses thrive and which ones do not. But Joe Biden is putting his thumb on the scale. That is the subject of today’s 10 minute episode. Continuing Every business person chooses the type of offering they believe is right for them, i.e., the combination of price, selection, customer service, convenience, etc. that will work best for them and their business. Customers choose which of the offerings is best for them. In the end, it is the consumer who chooses which businesses succeed, and which do not. I will give you an easy example. Not many years ago, I would go to ACE hardware when I needed anything of the type of products they sold. I would buy everything from a $1K barbecue to a 27 cent bolt. Regardless of the size of the purchase, I knew that I could count on great

Introduction I am using the word “closed” to mean both not open to in person learning, and not open to school choice. And I am going to tie both to today’s accusations of racism. That is the subject of today’s 10 minute episode. Continuing Let’s change things up a bit and start with today’s Key Points: Remote Learning is an oxymoron. School Choice means a better education for every child, and a better value for the taxpayers. I’ll give you the beginnings of why I tie both of these to racism. Both remote learning and lack of school choice lead to the same dismal results, frequently suffered by minorities, that some people and political groups blame on racism. The irony here, or is it hypocrisy, is clear. There is a unifying force behind both of these damaging practices: Money. “Follow the money” is a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catchphrase (catchphrase) popularized by the 1976 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Docudrama (docudrama) film All the President’s Men. The idea, put forth by

Introduction Manipulating stock markets, attempting to make money independent of any realistic valuation of the stock in question, is deeply wrong, and creates stunning amounts of damage. Most often to the little guy. That’s what’s happening with GameStop.   That is the subject of today’s 10 minute episode. Continuing What is behind GameStop is market manipulation, more specifically a pump and dump. More than a little reminiscent of a Ponzi scheme or a chain letter.  The mythical Robin Hood took money from the ruthless, undeserving rich, and gave it to the downtrodden and disposed. The Sheriff of Nottingham was the strongarm for Prince John, the embodiment of the evil, undeserving rich. Today, Robin(hood), an online broker, offering a no-fee way to buy and sell stocks, and its band of Merry Day Traders, orchestrated a short squeeze, with the avowed intention of simply punishing hedge funds, today’s Sheriff. With today’s Prince John presumably being the “system” which is always unfair to the little guys.

Introduction Impeachments throughout history have been entirely political proceedings, with voting almost entirely along party lines. Juries in criminal proceedings vote in accordance with the evidence as they see it. Congress votes along party lines. That is the subject of today’s 10 minute episode. Continuing Armed with the knowledge that voting follows party lines and not the evidence, then why do we have impeachments, and why do we bother following them? A. Political Theater is useful for politicians, and entertaining for us. And impeachments allow us further opportunities to vent. Impeachments have nothing to do with determining innocence or guilt; they are show trials with the outcome predetermined. Let’s pause for the definition of a show trial: “A trial held in public with the intention of influencing or satisfying public opinion, rather than ensuring justice.” (Oxford Languages). History is rife with samples of show trials, almost always in totalitarian countries. But Revolutionary France had mo

Introduction Immigration is one of, if not the most, important issue facing our country today. And there is a clear, workable and comprehensive solution set that has been ignored for decades. Why? Because politicians don’t want a solution that works for America. Politicians on both sides want a solution that works for them at the expense of the country. That is the subject of today’s 10 minute episode. Continuing The key to a comprehensive immigration plan is insisting on having secure borders. Anything less is nothing but a plan to have open borders. Open borders add the voters that some want, and the cheap labor desired by others. The logical end point to an open border policy is to cease being the United States as a sovereign nation, becoming the State of America in the United States of the World. With an unsecured border, every town is a border town and every state is a border state. And some people actually want that. I do not. (Do you?) Donald Trump got it right in wanting secure borders, but he bl

Introduction “99 44/100% pure. And it floats!” That was Ivory Soap’s tagline once upon a time. Being that pure does not float anymore. It is 100% or go fish. That is the subject of today’s 10 minute episode. Continuing Beware the True Believers. QAnon and antifa are true believers, as are the many who believe that the 74+M who voted for Trump in 2020 are in league with the KKK and other white supremacists. I am not talking about people who have a true belief in a higher power, a moral compass that guides their lives. We all need that in one powerful form or another. And we should all be True Believers in America, and in each other, but we’ll get to that. I am talking about those who hold the conviction that if you are not 100% with them on everything, that you fall short of the mark, that being 99.44% “right” does not qualify as acceptable. Where did that 100% or nothing thinking come from? A. From being lazy. Okay, Will, how is that the correct answer to your question? Simple, seeing things in black a

Introduction President Biden is calling for unity, and through unity, healing. All people of goodwill want unity, at the very least unity of purpose. Everything good, including unity, requires honesty; complete and unabridged.  Healing requires us to heal ourselves, not the “other person.” That is the subject of today’s 15 minute episode. Continuing The issue at the very core of what divides us is the belief that we are right, and those who disagree with us are wrong. Add the conviction that: 1. Being right allows us to do, or at least excuse, just about anything done to pursue that supposed “right” and 2. That anything the others do in pursuit of their beliefs is deeply wrong simply because they are deeply wrong. Certain principles are bedrock; here are two of mine: http://resultswithreason.com/2018/12/07/responsibility-lessons-from-desert-pete-ep-85/ (Personal Responsibility); take it, teach it and, Be Your http://resultswithreason.com/2018/03/23/am-i-my-brothers-keeper-2/ (Brother’s Keeper). The a

Introduction In 2016, my wife, son and I went to check out the Republican nominee, Donald Trump, at a rally here in Colorado Springs (COS). In 2021, he ignored everyone’s recommendations and moved the new Space Force from its home in “The Springs” to Huntsville, Alabama. In the meantime, he was the President of the United States, affecting, for better or worse, my town, the US, and the world. That is the subject of today’s 10 minute episode. Continuing At the 2016 rally, Trump had the crowd of almost 2,000 fully engaged. I did not participate in the “Lock her up!” cheers, but led one of the “USA!” cheers. It bothered me that Trump threw the COS Fire Chief under the bus several times by saying, “He is refusing to allow more people in than the posted occupancy limit allows. I don’t think he likes me.” There was an overflow Trump crowd of the same size very nearby, listening on public address loudspeakers. I was briefly interviewed, near the 150 or so protesters, on the way out by a local TV reporter, comple

Introduction Hailing the banning of unwelcome and disturbing (to you) thoughts and opinions, or joining a resurrected Parler or otherwise retreating to the warm embrace of sites and apps where you feel comfortable and unchallenged is the opposite of what we all need. The basic choice is between: 1. Further separating ourselves into silos or 2. Changing ourselves and our political and conversational environments to encourage and embrace an active marketplace of ideas. Choose the marketplace of ideas.   That is the subject of today’s 10 minute episode. Continuing The last thing that we need is to further bury ourselves into think-alike silos. Wrapping ourselves up in the warm embrace of everyone-thinks-like-I-do, or at least every person of goodwill with a room temperature I.Q. thinks like I do, is lazy, self-congratulatory and destructive. And this way is seductively easy.  We–all of us–must dig into the inconvenient, often unrewarding, and difficult task of sharing what we believe, especially

Introduction Our common enemy as the world’s oldest democracy is not Trump, antifa, Nancy Pelosi, AOC, QAnon, or Bernie. The enemy is rationalization, the destructive thinking that says that we and others like us are in the right, and those who do not think like us are just wrong. And that being right is license to do whatever it takes to rid the world of the other side. That is the subject of today’s 10-minute episode.  Continuing Let me make a few stark points to kick off today’s episode: Whatever it takes is another way of saying that the ends justify the means. Not true. All means are ends in and of themselves. There was no justification for the months-long antifa and BLM violence in the Spring and Summer, any more than there was justification for the recent violence at the Capitol. The egregious and deadly attack on our democracy lasted two hours, with Congress safely returning to its duties, including certifying the defeat of an out-of-control President. Civil liberties are under massive attack.

Introduction COVID has me hunkered down, mostly isolated from both family and friends, but I understand why, and now that I have my vaccination dates, I can see the light at the end of this tunnel. The continuing estrangements are not medical necessities, but personal choices. Presidential politics, masks, riots, burnings and assaults on the capitol, and variations on those themes have caused longer lasting personal “lockdowns” in my life than COVID and all of its variations. Why? That is the subject of today’s 10-minute episode.  Continuing Isn’t the answer to the why question our priorities? Which is more important, existing, long term relationships or cleansing our lives of “incorrect” people? And which is more important, new, wonderful friends, or limiting our lives to associating with only those with whom we agree politically? BTW, if you really and truly believe that your positions and policies are so important, so vital, then why would you put yourself in a position that you are always and only sp

Introduction Joseph Heller’s famously popular 1961 novel, “Catch-22”, he wrote that to get out of the Army in WWII, you needed to declare that you were insane. But if you were sane enough to claim that you were crazy in order to get out, you have proved yourself to be sane and you are still in. If you claimed to be sane, you are still in the Army, and if you claimed to be insane, you are still in the Army. That’s the Catch-22 in Joseph Heller’s eponymous book. Far worse is happening today. That is the subject of today’s 10-minute episode.  Continuing Today’s Catch-22 is just as idiotic, and just as circular–and far more pernicious and damaging. If you admit to having been, say, racist, sexist, transphobic, or anything of the kind, then you are–and always will be–one or all of those things. No amount of apology, grovelling, contributions to woke causes or taking blood oaths to change will result in any kind of absolution, or even forgiveness. That’s who you are forever. If you used the “N

Introduction To change anything, we must start by changing ourselves. Changing others, our family, our community, our political or planetary environment and the world, all must start with changing ourselves. That is the subject of today’s 10-minute episode.  Continuing Let’s start by hearing a voice from almost a thousand years ago. “When I was a young man, I wanted to change the world. I found it was difficult to change the world, so I tried to change my nation. When I found I couldn’t change the nation, I began to focus on my town. I couldn’t change the town and as an older man, I tried to change my family. Now, as an old man, I realize the only thing I can change is myself, and suddenly I realize that if long ago I had changed myself, I could have made an impact on my family.  My family and I could have made an impact on our town.  Their impact could have changed the nation and I could indeed have changed the world.” –Written by an unknown Monk around 1100 A.D. This piece of ti

Introduction First, some questions: 1. What is higher education? and 2. How should we fund it? President-elect Biden wants to make community college free to the students. In essence, he wants to take the free and currently failing public school K-12 program and make it a failing public school K-14 program. And he wants to make a piece of it retroactive. That is the subject of today’s 10-minute episode.  Continuing Let’s start today’s conversation with the two main purposes of education: 1. Developing a broad base of knowledge in facts, history, economics and politics, arts and languages, philosophy, etc. And add in the training in logic and thinking skills needed to put that knowledge to use in productive and creative ways. This learning should be akin to a multiple course meal, with a wonderful variety of tastes and experiences. With occasional purely fun education “beverages” to wash it all down with to add to the enjoyment. One of the keys here is to train students how to think, not what to think. 2. V

Introduction Congress has passed the $900 billion Covid relief and an Omnibus budget bill totaling $2.3 trillion. Joe Biden called it a mere “down payment” and Speaker Nancy Pelosi said it is “a first step.” And the President wants to more than triple the individual $600 payment.  Do you believe that what you might be getting is fair? Do you believe that the overall spending package is fair? That is the subject of today’s 10-minute episode.  Continuing Pause for a definition. Do you know what a trillion is? Start by imagining a thousand of something. That’s pretty easy; think of a sports stadium that seats, say, 20 thousand people and picture 5% of that total. Now try and picture a million, a thousand thousand. Now a billion, a thousand million. Still with me? Now conjure up an image of a trillion, a thousand billion. I got lost at a million. The point here is that concepts like billions and trillions of dollars can easily lose their meaning, and get tossed around like rent money. Keep in mind that

Introduction The question is not who is judged to be legal, but who is qualified. Remember, just because it is legal, does not mean it is right. The reverse is also true; just because it is right, does not mean that it is legal. That is the subject of today’s 10-minute episode.  Continuing We’ll get to specifics in a moment, but here is what is needed in general to be qualified to vote: Love and respect your country; whether you think it needs massive changes, some changes or no changes, you need to love America and want the best for her.  Understand the many responsibilities that come with the right to vote. All rights have equal or greater responsibilities. Let’s unpack which responsibilities underpin the right to vote, and what those responsibilities mean. At the official founding of our nation, with the ratification of the Constitution in 1789, only propertied white males could vote. This was the opposite of inclusiveness and diversity, but it had temporary advantages. These were the very men wh

Introduction Was the 2020 Presidential election fair, or was the outcome engineered in a way to all but guarantee the election of the Democratic Party’s nominee? That is the subject of today’s 10-minute episode.  Continuing I want to start off by saying that I am convinced that any actual fraud was not sufficient to have swayed the election. Having said that, it does seem clear there was a fair amount of under the table activity designed to tilt the results. All of which was denied. And it goes without saying that none of it was self reported. Self reported? Who does that? Well professional golfers, for one. And sometimes with millions of dollars at stake. The rules of the game, and they are honored, call for the player to self report an error, a foul, no matter how small, no matter how costly. It’s called the honor system. Conversely, in the NFL and NBA, we see repeated attempts to both deny having committed a foul, and to act in a way to influence officials that a foul was committed against them. Let’s

Introduction That is the subject of today’s 10-minute episode.  Continuing This is a global pandemic, requiring each and every one of us to take it seriously, and do our individual best to contain, and eventually, end it. Nothing less is acceptable. If you believe that COVID is a hoax, or that you are not called to go all out to do your part, then skip this episode. I will be happy to welcome you back to the next one; after all, I create two a week. To start with, let’s look again at the two main tenets that we believe in at Revolution 2.0™: Personal Responsibility; practice it, teach it and Be Your http://resultswithreason.com/2018/03/23/am-i-my-brothers-keeper-2/ (Brother’s Keeper). The answer to the question, “Am I my Brother’s Keeper?” is a resounding “Yes”. There is no other answer. Now, let’s apply our principles to the COVID world we live in. Being personally responsible here means that we are responsible for keeping ourselves safe. This responsibility does not lie with the government or

Introduction We are not built to live in a spirit of fear and timidity, but of courage, love, and discipline. That is the subject of today’s 10-minute episode.  Continuing This concept has been expressed in many places, including the Christian Bible. Regardless of the source, I posit this to be a fundamental truth. Given the effect that COVID is having on all of us, even those not infected with the virus, this is a timely subject. Fear is everywhere. For some, it is the fear of the ravages of the virus, for ourselves and for those around us. For others, it’s fear of the government. For many, it is just a general malaise disguising itself as fear. I confess to being more than a bit concerned myself. I find that thinking through and sharing this episode is providing me with relief. I trust that reading or listening will offer you ease and comfort as well.  And it takes all three; love, courage and discipline. Any one or two is good, but for life to work as it should, we need the three of them working toget

Introduction With COVID, the Holocaust and Climate Change there are legions of deniers, the true unbelievers.  That is the subject of today’s 10-minute episode.  Continuing All three of today’s topic areas, COVID, the Holocaust and CLimate Change are, if true, events of monumental importance which we ignore or, or worse, deny, to our peril. So the question is the extent to which each one of these is real as portrayed by those making that claim, and not exaggerated or even a hoax.  The Holocaust, the brutal incarcertion, enslavement and murder of 6M Jews would seem to be easily proven by overwhleming and compellingly shocking evidence. Tens of thousands of documents, photographs and videos all testify to the truth of this horror. Additional tens of thousands of eyewitnesses from the inmates to the guards to the Allied soldiers who saw the camps, and an equal number of German citizens who were forced to tour the camps in their areas have added their voices to the mountains of silent evidence. And the Holoc