How to Survive the Next 4 Years

This seems to be an “all over but the shouting” sort of moment.

With each defeat in the courts, it seems more and more certain that Joe Biden will be sworn in as President on January 20^th. As a presidency, his time in office will probably look just like “Obama II;” if anything, even more extreme, especially with Kamala Harris, who just so happens to have been the Senator with the most extreme leftist voting record, since Obama himself.

This has caused some quiet panic amongst those of us who consider ourselves to be conservatives, with some people already stopping as low as the left, by saying “not my president,” just as they have for the last four years. Others are denying the election, hoping for a “hail Mary pass” which will give Trump a second term.

It’s clear that Team Biden is planning on undoing a lot of what Trump and his administration have accomplished in the last four years, just as Trump undid much of what his predecessor has done. This is a sad part of the political process, showing just how politically divided our country has become.

Let me say that I firmly believe that Biden won the election through voter fraud. Whether that came out of his campaign or it was more grassroots is immaterial. The fact is that there are so many “irregularities” in the 2020 presidential elections that it is statistically impossible that he won without massive fraud.

But as the courts either overturn or flat out refuse to hear cases that might give Donald Trump a win, it’s becoming clearer and clearer that without a miracle, our country will have a new president on January 20^th. Just what sort of president he will be and whether Harris finishes out his term, is yet to be seen.

Our bigger concern is how to make it through the next four years, with Biden and Harris in the highest office in the land. How are we going to do that? Let’s look at a few key areas.

Get Your Facts Straight

To start out with, we need to make sure that we understand exactly what we’re dealing with and not led astray by either fear-mongering or political rhetoric. Politicians seem to be experts on making campaign promises that they can’t uphold. So many of those need to pass through Congress and be written into law, before the president can act.

The real danger is if one political party gains control of both Houses of Congress, as well as the Presidency. In that case, they can do whatever they want. That’s how we got Obamacare. But like Obamacare, the more extreme agenda items will be challenged in the courts.

Nevertheless, starting back in the second Bush presidency, there has been an increase of the use of executive orders to carry out a policy that wasn’t passed into law. 9/11 pushed Congress into abdicating much of their power to the presidency, something that Bush and Obama both took advantage of. Trump has as well, although to a lesser extent, perhaps because he’s not really a politician, but rather a businessman who has entered into politics.

The other important thing to realize is that little of what we receive as “news” actually meets the definition of that word. We talk about the mainstream media and their “fake news,” which is really political commentary that they try to sell as news. But we are in danger of the same thing from the right. Many of the best known right-wing news personalities aren’t giving us news, but rather their opinion. While that usually aligns with our own, it’s still not news.

Finding actual news today, which reports just the facts, is challenging. But if you can, you’ll probably find that it doesn’t agree with what either side is saying. So don’t get caught up in the hysteria that comes from commentators telling us what they are thinking; even if it is coming from the best conservative commentators there are.

Think things through for yourself. Get the best information you can, and then think it through. Ask yourself the question, “How is this going to affect me in my day-to-day life?” In many cases, it’s not; or it will be in subtle, hidden ways that you can workaround. If that’s the case, don’t get stressed.

Packing the Supreme Court

One of the more dangerous proposals of the Democrats in recent times is packing the Supreme Court, changing its traditional makeup in order to garner a majority. Should that happen, a Democrat-controlled Congress would then be able to get away with just about anything they wanted to. To a large extent, we would become a one-party system, much like the old Soviet Union. We might be able to vote for another party, but it wouldn’t make any difference.

From my viewpoint, this is what the Democrat Party wants, more than anything. That’s something to be afraid of, as it is true tyranny. If we actually get to that point and there isn’t a civil war, then it would be the end of the experiment the Founding Fathers started almost two and a half centuries ago.

Freedom of Speech

The left has been attacking our First Amendment right of freedom of speech for years. As time has gone on, this has increased, with the left inventing the term “hate speech” and applying it to anything they don’t agree with. Political correctness is a major part of this campaign, invented by the media as a means of silencing anyone with a voice that doesn’t align with their left-leaning sensibilities.

President Trump has shown us how to deal with political correctness. That’s to ignore it and say what we want to say. The First Amendment guarantees our rights to do so, regardless of what the left says. If we continue to cower to the pressures of political correctness, we will soon find that we have no right to say what we think at all.

I would recommend using a bit more tact than Trump does though. One of the things people don’t like about him is his manner of expression. A conservative message is offensive enough to those on the left, we don’t have to go out of our way to offend them.

Freedom of Religion

Another area that the left has been attacking for a number of years is our First Amendment right to freedom of religion. Many have commented on how restrictions have been overly stringent on churches during COVID-19, compared to businesses that have been considered “essential.” Obviously, those restrictions were put in place by people for whom religious beliefs are not important; and who are applying their own beliefs to others.

One inconsistency in religious tolerance in this country is that anything restrictive of religion seems to only apply to the Christian and Jewish religions. Strangely, the same doesn’t apply to others, especially Islam, which has somehow come under the protective wing of the left.

One of former President Obama’s many statements was an attempt to redefine Freedom of Religion as “the freedom to practice the religion of your choice, in private.” That’s obviously not what the First Amendment means, but rather an attempt to change the meaning.

Those of us who are Christians need to realize that religious persecution is something to be expected, even in the land of liberty. It was foretold in the Bible and is bound to come. As it does, we need to seek out how to embrace it and maintain our faith, even in the midst of adversity. The good news is, the church has always thrived under persecution.

Keeping and Bearing Arms

Team Biden has made it clear that one of their priorities is to go after our guns, specifically AR-15 style rifles and normal capacity magazines. We’ve all heard it before, as the same litany has been repeated over and over again.

Biden is treading on really dangerous ground here, politically and legally speaking. First of all, there is little he can do, without it being challenged in the courts. Changing a Constitutional Amendment requires agreement from 2/3 of the states, and that’s not going to happen. So, he’s limited to trying to enact restrictions through laws and regulations, which we’ve survived before. Secondly, he’s attacking his own base too, as 40% of the gun purchases made in the last six months have been to first-time gun owners, most of whom are Democrats.

I would recommend doing what you can to make sure that you have firearms and ammunition which can’t be found. Either bury it underground or construct a truly invisible hidden storage space in your home. Another idea is to build an 80% firearm before ATF makes those illegal. If you want to be able to defend yourself, then you’re going to have to find a way to keep the government’s hands-off your guns.

Taxes

One of the things we can be absolutely sure of is that Biden and company will increase our taxes. They’ve said so themselves, making it very clear that in their minds, Trump’s tax decrease was not in the best interest of the country. After all, that’s why we earn money, isn’t it; so that we can pay taxes?

Knowing this is coming, I’d start preparing for it now. That means restructuring your finances so that you can live on less. We should be doing that anyway; but if you don’t do it now, you’ll be caught having to do it once whatever new tax laws take effect. Even if the Republicans manage to hold the Senate, I doubt they’ll stop a tax hike.

COVID-19

We’ve all survived the COVID-19 pandemic to this point and we can continue to survive it, regardless of what our government, at all levels, does. For the record, I think they’ve done an admirable job, dealing with a developing situation, with little information to go on. Most people forget just how little we knew at the outset, yet the disease hasn’t ravaged our country as badly as it could have.

According to my own figures, the death rate in April was 36.56% of the people who contracted the disease. That has been steadily coming down, to the point where it is currently 3%. As far as I’m concerned, our medical community has done an outstanding job of studying this pathogen and applying the lessons they’ve learned in real-time.

Sadly, many on the right are saying that it’s all a hoax and that the disease isn’t any more deadly than the flu. While that might be somewhat true today, that’s only because of the actions which have been taken in the past months. Had we paid attention when they started saying that, we would have seen a lot more people die. Even now, these people are ignoring the numbers of their fellow citizens who are suffering from long-term medical problems due to the disease.

But now we are faced with something new. It appears that there are two vaccines that are now approved for the disease, one of which uses a very experimental methodology, which has never been used in a vaccine before. While the FDA has certified these vaccines, there is a lot of skepticism about the safety and effectiveness of these vaccines.

That’s understandable, as the fastest a vaccine has ever been developed in the past was four years. Yet, our medical community has put a herculean effort into this and it appears that it might have paid off. So, that leaves us with the question of whether or not we take the vaccine.

Actually, that question might be taken away from us, as apparently, the government has the authority to force us to take it. Legal scholar Alan Dershowitz, whose option is respected on both sides of the political aisle, has opined that the government has the right to do that. While I’m sure any such law or order would be challenged in court, I’m pretty sure the government would win that one.

So what do we do? As far as I’m concerned, I’m going to be one of the last people in the country to take the vaccine. If they force me to take it, I will; but I won’t be rushing to get to the head of the line. Let others be the guinea pigs, I’ll wait to see what happens to them. If we’re all going to turn into zombies, I prefer to be one of the last.

Wars and Rumors of Wars

Before Trump got him to the bargaining table, Kim Jong-un was putting a lot of effort into his ballistic missile and nuclear arms programs. While I doubt that he has stopped, he seems to at least be doing so in quiet now, without all the saber-rattling and threats he was making before. We aren’t really any safer from him than we were before, but it has the appearance of that being the face.

Let me say here, that I never believed he went to the bargaining table in good faith. Rather, I always thought that he did so as a means of seeking what concessions he could get from the rest of the world. Both his father and his grandfather did that, and he was taking his shot at it as well.

The other part of that is that I think he was honestly afraid of President Trump. His famous statement about having a button on his desk and Trump’s response to having a bigger one just might have brought some reason into the situation. Kim realized he couldn’t win that contest, so backed off publically, while continuing to work in private.

Likewise, Iran has been eerily quiet since Trump backed out of Obama’s illegal treaty with them (it was illegal in that it was never presented to the Senate for ratification). Did they realize he wouldn’t cave to their bluster or was it something else?

Nevertheless, with Trump and his brash ways out of the Oval Office and Biden in, are we going to see another presidential apology tour? More importantly, are we going to see these bad actors, as well as ISIA and others, take center stage again, as they see an opportunity presenting itself with the new president?

It’s hard to tell right now, but I will say this; the danger hasn’t gone away during the last four years, it’s just been swept under the rug. As long as these counties exist, with the governments they have, there will be a danger. We’ve just closed our eyes to it as if we were taking a nap.

Are You Ready?

As we end this year and prepare to face the next four, I think we all need to ask ourselves if we are ready. Have we allowed ourselves to slip up in the past four years and let our guard down? Has COVID depleted our resources and reduced our readiness? Are we ready to face the next four years?

We’re preppers and getting ready for the next disaster is what we do. So, whether you think any of the above is a disaster or not, you should be prepared. It’s time to take inventory, both of our stockpiles and our general level of preparedness. If there’s something that needs to be made right, now’s the time to do it, regardless of what it is.

At the same time, we need to encourage our brothers and sisters on this journey of preparedness. There has been a distinct slump in preparedness over the last four years, as those of us on the right have become comfortable and stopped being worried. Maybe it’s time to worry again. At least, if Biden causes us to worry, let us put it to good and use it to upgrade our preparedness.