Is DeSantis' 'culture war' a distraction from economic issues?

Last week, writer Bari Weiss interviewed Peter Thiel, co-founder of PayPal. The tech billionaire opined that "the focus on identity politics, on the woke religion, is probably a distraction from stagnation. It's a distraction from economics." He was talking about Ron DeSantis and how, in Thiel's opinion, the governor would make a great Republican candidate in 2024. However, he feels DeSantis should modify his focus from fighting the woke mentality and focus more on economics: "It's a distraction from the way in which the younger generation in the U.S. is probably gonna have a hard time getting the same standard of living as their parents."

Now, I'm no tech billionaire, nor am I an economics genius, but it seems to me Mr. Thiel is missing the point altogether, promoting the damaging mindset that has gotten us here in the first place. By "here" I am referring to our crumbling economy, our morally bankrupt and partisan federal government, our sold-out legacy media and our failing grasp of the rule of law, just to name some of our most pressing issues. All these troubles have their origin, not so much in economics, as much as in out-and-out immorality.

The failing grasp on the rule of law stems from the idea that we are not all equal and should therefore be treated differently when it comes to enforcing the laws that have been legally put on the books by duly elected representatives of the people. That is the very definition of bigotry, which is, of course, immoral.

Our sell-out legacy media is also acting immorally by choosing to trumpet a false visual of our nation, presenting outright lies to the public and denigrating innocent people, all for the purpose of maintaining their lucrative big-money advertisers like Big Pharma. If you're willing to lie to make a buck, that's utter greed and selfishness. Have you noticed lately how many pharmaceutical advertisements are on the major networks? It's absolutely indecent!

It has been a running joke all of my life that all politicians are inveterate liars. But lately, it seems the lying has been taken to a new and dire level, where so many accuse their opponents of the very immoral acts they themselves are perpetrating; what unmitigated gall! We are told bald-faced lies about vaccine efficacy and side effects, for example, from bureaucrats whose powers stem from our elected officials "delegating" their responsibilities (choosing not to do the jobs they've been hired to do) and allowing bureaucracy to overstep the bounds of government outlined in our Constitution. That is what I call breach of contract, which is also immoral.

Our crumbling economy has its origin in yet another example of government overreach in the form of the Federal Reserve. A truly capitalist society has no business manipulating the interest rate or any other part of the economic life of our Union or our people. According to the Federal Reserve Act of 1977, the Fed's mandate is to facilitate "maximum employment, stable prices, and moderate long-term interest rates." That all sounds great until you realize just HOW they go about this. They use what they term quantitative easing (QE). QE basically consists of printing money to fuel the economy. Again, sounds good until you realize that every dollar they print steals buying value from the dollars in your pocket.

Mark Jeftovic, in his "Jackpot Chronicles No. 3," states: "… Central banking and fiat currency … [gives] asymmetric advantages to the class of elites closest to the monetary spigots." Furthermore, maintaining a 2% average annual inflation rate makes economic numbers look great on paper, but again steals purchasing power from the dollars in your bank account – and the longer it sits there, the less it's worth. This is all pure theft. See Jeff Felder's great article "The Great Wealth Illusion" for greater detail on this.

This brings us to the ludicrous lengths to which Keynesian economics has been taken. The idea that we can print money ad infinitum without consequence is pressed forward because, on the back door, it makes our government debt worth less than what it was when we incurred it. That is a great example of the old "bait and switch" con. The end-game of this idea is to never have to pay off the federal debt. That is immoral too. (By the way, if we can just print money without end, why do we need to pay taxes?) Imagine if I, as an individual, lived my life with the intent of never paying back what I've borrowed from others. I believe the proper term for that is deadbeat. It's a form of theft, and it's utterly immoral!

All this leads to rampant immoral social behaviors that have run amok to the point where medical professionals freely bill insurance companies for services consisting of mutilating physically healthy youngsters because they have a bit of confusion about who they are at the moment. Then there's the education community attempting to expose mere babes in kindergarten to full-blown pornography. Meanwhile, the foundation of peaceful and abundant society, the family unit, is actively pooh-poohed as backward, repressed and boring – a concept I and many others wholeheartedly reject since our life experiences prove otherwise.

No, Mr. Thiel is incorrect. Moral values are not a distraction from economics; it's the other way around. If our people won't do what's right unless they can obtain the standard of living their parents had, then we are morally lost. Our problems are a direct result of the abandonment of our moral compass, and whoever the candidate is for whatever party, our only hope is a fresh embrace of morality in the face of economics. We need to do what's right and good even if it costs us dearly, and the longer we wait the more it will cost.

In a letter to the Massachusetts militia dated Oct. 11, 1798, John Adams, the United States' second president, stated, "Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other."

I've said it before and I'll say it again: We don't have a political problem or an economic problem in this country; we have a spiritual problem. The stain of it shows most deeply in the fact that every facet of our society has succumbed to rampant immorality, and the only answer is to fight that battle head-on without getting distracted.

Sin has consequences, and that's what we're seeing today.

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