America Needs Consequences

Irresponsibility Will Destroy Us

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Consequences work every time they are tried. If our actions become painful, we are hesitant to repeat them. Our parents used consequences when we were children, and we used them with good results with our children.  You can do as you please but count the cost.

Unfortunately, at present in America, consequences are either not used, or to be nice, people try to “soften the blow” to prevent someone from feeling the full impact of the consequences.

This develops an attitude of irresponsibility in individuals, corporations, and government. Let’s look at a few examples.

Lois Lerner was the director of the Exempt Organizations Unit of the IRS. Her unit was tasked with approving non-profit applications for tax-exempt status. However, her unit was found to be bringing the massive power of the government against conservative organizations. Harassing them to make them withdraw their applications. During the investigation, IRS hard drives containing evidence mysteriously went bad, and IRS could find no backups. Her unit was, nonetheless, found guilty and fined $3.5M. What consequences did Lerner face? None. She was permitted to retire early with a fat government pension.  

During her time as Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton used a private email server in her home to store and transmit classified material. All this was in strict violation of the law. Her email server was later hacked exposing classified documents to the hackers. Her lawyers wiped the hard drives destroying 30,000 emails before surrendering the server to the FBI. According to FBI Director Comey, of the remaining information, the FBI found 110 classified emails. Among them were 8 documents classified as Top Secret. What consequences did Hillary Clinton face? None. Director Comey found that because she did not “Intend” to do anything wrong, no charges would be filed.

George Soros has spent millions of dollars to get progressive DAs elected. These DAs then implement soft-on-crime policies like eliminating bail and refusing to charge criminals with a crime. This has led to an increase in all crimes from shoplifting to murder. Walmart recently announced it would close its 2 remaining stores in Portland, OR due to shoplifting. Watch this report from KGW News in Portland. What consequences do these thieves face? None, so the rate of theft increases.

Our government schools are no longer teaching students to read, write, or think logically. Teachers spend so much time teaching a warped view of America, and indoctrinating students with a woke agenda, like CRT and transgenderism, they don’t have time to teach children skills they need for success. Townhall reports that many Baltimore high school students read at elementary school levels, and that statistic is not limited to Baltimore. Many of America’s schools are failing our young people. What consequences do these failing schools face? None, because there is no competition, and unions prevent teachers from facing accountability. However, these students will spend the remainder of their lives facing the consequences of a failed school system.

One would think that airlines might emphasize having the best employees, especially their pilots. The consequences of a mishap at 30,000 feet with 300 passengers onboard are unthinkable. That is of no consequence for United Airlines. United Airlines CEO, Scott Kirby said they will hire 5,000 pilots in the next decade and half of them will be women and people of color. Racial quotas are illegal, but United will prioritize racial quotas over merit. Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion will be the death of airline travel. It is not much consolation as the airplane is in a nosedive headed toward the ground to remember that the flight crew is diverse. Consequences may work to change the airline's behavior, but not on my flight.

America has a massive debt problem, $31.5T to be exact, or as exact as one can be with debt increasing at thousands of dollars each second. Each year Congress spends more money than they receive in tax revenue, but that doesn’t stop them. Consider the 2023 Omnibus Budget Bill. Congress passed it in December 2022. Unfortunately, the books didn’t balance, but they passed it anyway. They were so happy to leave DC and go home for Christmas, they did not care about the $1.7T deficit. They passed the bill and flew home. Will there be any consequences for their reckless behavior? There does not seem to be, as it is hard to vote them out of office. But there will be consequences for America, and rampant inflation is just one of them.

American students have been told that they need a college education if they want to succeed in life. To make that possible, student loans became a part of college life for many. Universities promoted the loans as being easily repaid with the increased earnings a college degree will provide. Students bought that lie, and with easy money, they kept heaping on debt to pay for the ever-increasing price of college. Many got degrees in fields that may have been interesting at 20 years of age, such as feminism or gender studies, but will not prepare a young person for employment in the real world. Will there be consequences for that? Yes, angry young people are now demanding the government, you and me, to pay their debt for them.

Last Friday we heard of the failure of 40-year-old Silicon Valley Bank, SVB. SVB was the 16^th largest bank in America with assets of $210B. SVB was the go-to bank for the tech sector and especially for venture capitalists. It was the second-largest bank failure in American history.

Charlie Kirk spoke of SVB’s closure on his Friday show. Kirk was in no way joyous of the failure, even acknowledging that many people would get hurt by the failure. Nevertheless, Kirk read from the SVB DEI page asking if it was possible that their focus on woke DEI policy could have led to their demise.  

In our capitalist system, a company’s primary responsibility is to the owners of the company, whether the owner is one or a group of shareholders. Management has a fiduciary responsibility to make decisions that lead to profitability for the owners. As Milton Friedman said: “The only social responsibility of a firm is to increase profit.” When a business moves far afield from that philosophy, there will be consequences.

The present contagion of woke, whether under the guise of Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) or Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI), is a Marxist principle. Those who espouse these principles are either useful idiots for Marxists or deliberate saboteurs working toward the destruction of America.

Woke politics is antithetical to America. It is a blight upon our great nation. Rational Americans should give it no more credence, and work against it whenever possible. There will be consequences for us all if it continues to gain acceptance.