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Posts Tagged → virtue signal

Being thankful is being American

Watching America’s wild riots since 2020, including recent pro-jihad protests demanding that America embrace evil, anti-Western values, you would be forgiven for thinking Americans had become largely self-entitled and unappreciative for all of the incredible bounties we have. College campuses are now full of upper-income white kids wishing hate on America, and upper-income brown kids wishing hate on white people, and no one showing appreciation for anyone who had prepared the way for all of the beneficence they all take for granted.

Note to uneducated young people: White Europeans created both your unique American freedom of speech and the fancy institutions you are at now, as well as all of the technology you practically live on, and they pay most of the taxes that run the military that protects you from direct foreign take-over so you can drink expensive coffees and pose and preen and virtue signal to your shallow ego’s fullest desire.

Nothing wrong with white people, and nothing is wrong with America. Can you identify a better, freer country with more opportunity for more people than America? I can’t, and you can’t, either. America’s young people must learn to be thankful for what they have and where they live, or they will lose everything they are taking for granted right now.

Being thankful and appreciative for what we each have was baked into the American culture from the beginning. Because the first few generations of Americans had to work hard for food and shelter every day, and the Europe they had fled was closed to upward mobility and meritocracy.

In Europe if you were born poor, you stayed poor. Only in the new America did we have “influencers” who gained popularity and income through their persuasive skills. That is the essence of capitalism, by the way.

Thanksgiving Day has its beginning in the thanks to God and to helpful American Indians given by the Puritans. Having fled violent religious persecution in Europe, the Puritans were starving. Despite being newcomers posing a potential threat, they were saved by their Indian neighbors, who taught them how to farm and hunt. Traditional Thanksgiving food that we eat today includes the foods eaten at the first Thanksgiving feast – wild turkey, squash, beans, and maize.

On October 3, 1789, after the brutal American Revolution and the War for Independence, America’s first president, George Washington, gave this Thanksgiving statement of appreciation below. May each of us Americans, and especially our foolish, spoiled young people who take so much for granted, read it and imbibe it, follow through on it, and express our thanks for everything we have – clothing, food, home, and smart phone, and the opportunity for so much more than anywhere else on planet earth.

By the President of the United States of America—

A Proclamation

Whereas it is the duty of all Nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey his will, to be grateful for his benefits, and humbly to implore his protection and favor—and Whereas both Houses of Congress have by their Joint Committee requested me “to recommend to the People of the United States a day of public thanksgiving and prayer to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many signal favors of Almighty God, especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness.”

Now therefore I do recommend and assign Thursday the 26th day of November next to be devoted by the People of these States to the service of that great and glorious Being, who is the beneficent Author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be—That we may then all unite in rendering unto him our sincere and humble thanks—for his kind care and protection of the People of this country previous to their becoming a Nation—for the signal and manifold mercies, and the favorable interpositions of his providence, which we experienced in the course and conclusion of the late war—for the great degree of tranquility, union, and plenty, which we have since enjoyed—for the peaceable and rational manner in which we have been enabled to establish constitutions of government for our safety and happiness, and particularly the national One now lately instituted, for the civil and religious liberty with which we are blessed, and the means we have of acquiring and diffusing useful knowledge; and in general for all the great and various favors which he hath been pleased to confer upon us.

And also that we may then unite in most humbly offering our prayers and supplications to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations and beseech him to pardon our national and other transgressions—to enable us all, whether in public or private stations, to perform our several and relative duties properly and punctually—to render our national government a blessing to all the People, by constantly being a government of wise, just, and constitutional laws, discreetly and faithfully executed and obeyed–to protect and guide all Sovereigns and Nations (especially such as have shown kindness unto us) and to bless them with good government, peace, and concord—To promote the knowledge and practice of true religion and virtue, and the increase of science among them and Us—and generally to grant unto all mankind such a degree of temporal prosperity as he alone knows to be best.

Given under my hand at the City of New York the third day of October in the year of our Lord 1789.

  Go. Washington

 

 

 

New York City is dangerous and dirty

In the past three years I have had the unhappy necessity of visiting Manhattan a number of times for business and family. Last June was the last time I went, and hopefully the last time I have to be there until the place is cleaned up from top to bottom.

Last June I took the pickup to move our daughter out. She lived in New York City for eight years, from undergrad through dental school, and until the last couple of years she enjoyed her experience tremendously. But when we had loaded the last of her things into the bed of the truck, she got into the cab and said “I can’t wait to leave Manhattan. It’s so sad, because I used to love this place. But now it is dangerous and dirty and I want out. Let’s go.”

Manhattan is now looking like its worst days back in the 1970s and 1980s before Rudy Giuliani was elected mayor. Trash is blowing around everywhere, thugs hang out and loiter and saunter along every street and park bench, homeless bums are living in the parks and on building steps. People are being attacked on the sidewalks by demented mental patients prematurely released before their treatments are completed. People exit a restaurant and are immediately punched, kicked, and robbed by young people who laugh about it.

The police do nothing about this dangerous chaos because the Manhattan district attorney believes that holding criminals accountable for their violence and destruction is somehow mean, or wrong. And so the criminals now rule the streets, as an official policy.

The old Diamond District on 47th Street is a shell of its former self. A thousand years of jewelry making and watch making and world class talent all concentrated into one city block is now gone, because some communist in power decided that all this material excess violated some notion of “equity,” and so the jewelers and watchmakers were driven out. It is a sad ghost town now.

An old friend of mine who lives in Manhattan complained about how her own restaurants, which her architect husband had designed, and into which she had invested great amounts of time and money, were torched and looted in the riots of 2020. When I asked her if this destruction was a result of political failure, she went straight to blaming the Bad Orange Man. Who does not live in NYC, was not on city council or mayor of said city, and who had no control over the policing of Manhattan’s streets. It is impossible for me to understand the mental state of a person who appears sane but who reflexively blames their own mistakes on someone hundreds of miles away with no involvement in the matters that have made said person so unhappy.

So long as the citizens of New York City continue to believe they can vote for self-destructive policies and for the political candidates who promote them, and yet expect a different outcome than the mess we see, then Manhattan will continue to descend into madness and filth.

Making matters worse, the prior administration of mayor “Bill DeBlasio” (this is his fictitious name), had embarked on one of those “It only makes sense on paper and in terms of vague feelings” massive landscape changes. Such as turning streetside parking all over the city into un-used bike-only  lanes and on-street dining for restaurants. Even going so far as to fill in empty spaces where people used to park with gigantic flower pots and concrete containers. Anything to make NYC unfriendly to car drivers.

This makes no sense, because Americans in general and visitors to New York City in particular still drive cars. But such is the power of blind ideology: “Because all cars are bad, then places to park cars must also be bad.” This is crazy stuff, and it has resulted in a congested city being even more congested, even less user friendly and less accessible than it used to be. Which was difficult enough. If this gigantic failure is how you measure success, then further natural failures will continue to follow. As we see even right now today, failure is considered success in Manhattan.

I am glad I do not live there and don’t have to go there.

The concrete planters need a place to park where cars should be able to park. Because “cars are bad”

Median areas that used to offer car parking and delivery vehicle offloading are now clogged with concrete in order to stop “bad cars”

Rental bikes lined up in the most expensive and colorful virtue signal possible. No one uses these. But someone somewhere feels good about the symbolism

An empty and unused bike lane where cars used to park. Cars still need parking spaces, but don’t expect to find them in Manhattan, where virtue signaling is most important

Go ahead and make sense of NYC’s parking regulations. Try.

Restaurants have fully enclosed “outdoor” dining in the street, where cars used to drive and park. The cars still need to drive and park. Just more congestion and more exhaust fumes trying to navigate all the pointless virtue signaling