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Steve A. Stone
15085 Old Pascagoula Rd.
Grand Bay, AL 36541
251-865-4402
228-623-2282(C)
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13 March 2018
President Donald J. Trump
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, D.C. 20500
Dear Mr. President,
I watch with a sense of awe as you continue to do the people’s work and “slay dragons.” I stand ready to assist in any way possible, should you call on me.
Today I write with twofold purpose. The first is to register my thoughts regarding the true causes of the recent violence at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, FL and possible actions needed to correct those causes. The second is to give my thoughts as a regular citizen regarding the subjects of tariffs and free trade.
The entire nation was taken aback and disgusted with the shooting incident in Parkland, FL. But, many of us are also disgusted with the political aftermath, where principles and Constitutional rights are being assessed for modification due to popular but misguided perceptions.
Instead of launching into a full-throated defense of my rights under the Second Amendment to our Constitution, I propose to appeal to you to change the entire debate. The incident was not the product of a gun culture and had nothing at all to do with the chosen style of weapon or even the intent of Nikolas Cruz in taking the actions he did. The school shootings have little at all to do with guns, other than a gun was used to perpetrate mayhem. The conversation needs to be refocused.
If school shootings were a major crisis in our nation, as the press and anti-gun advocates would have us believe, then why is the actual statistical incidence of death in such cases 1 in 614 million? Those are the true odds of any single school child being gunned down during their school day. Far more children die each year from illnesses caught while at school and from random accidents. In truth, this sad event is being used as nothing more than a handy excuse to further diminish the rights of all citizens to have the ability to protect themselves and their property from external threats. Think of it in another way; if guns had anything to do with school shootings why didn’t our country experience mass shootings throughout our entire history, not just since April, 1999? Indeed, if guns were a significant part of the problem, why didn’t we see mass shootings in all the years when schools across America participated in the Civilian Marksman program and kids routinely brought their guns to school and put them into their lockers? If that simple logic is true, then it holds equally true that the actual causes lie in a completely different place.
Progressives own this problem. They strive mightily, and successfully to divert attention from the actual causes of today’s violence. What’s really at the core is Biblical. We are reaping the crop sown by progressives decades ago. I recall reading the report on the 1964 Watts riots written by then-Professor Daniel Patrick Moynihan. In his report he indicated the true causes of the Watts riots were the disintegration of family structures and weakening of community ties as a result of ill-conceived social welfare programs. Instead of taking the Moynihan Report at face value the progressives in Congress rationalized the report’s findings in a way that would support what they were already doing – building President Johnson’s Great Society. Their interpretation of the Moynihan Report was the underlying problem of Watts, and all urban centers like it, was inadequate funding of the social welfare programs, not mistakes in their conception and execution. The truth was there in the Moynihan Report, and it still is.
If you want to look to the source of the violence of school shootings, look no further than federal welfare programs and their administration. They have aided and abetted an industry based on the perpetual weakening of values of citizens, promoting the decline in the number of intact families, and one that fosters dependence on the federal state instead of family members, church communities, and the communities in which people live. It’s a system that in practical effect makes the federal government parent, spouse, and deity to all those who dwell within it.
The practical way of looking at it is simple. I refer you to William Golding’s masterpiece psychological novel, The Lord of the Flies. In that novel Golding correctly portrays a society where a stranded group of young boys survives in isolation and makes up their own rules. Because they have no adult experience and limited historical points of reference the boys conceive their own society; one ruled by caprice, violence, and immature logic. It’s a horror story, but one founded on essential truths, and one that’s replicated in our own society today.
It’s not just an odd urban phenomenon, but one with similar social hallmarks; young men who are psychologically isolated, with self-obsessive notions of oppression and revenge, supported by a pseudo-society made up of very similar individuals. They are in fact isolated, usually by family circumstances. They are often latch-key kids who are left to fend for themselves as their parent or parents go off to earn a living. They are most often obsessed with violent video games and desensitized by those games and the realistic depictions of war and murder they see in movies and on TV. Then, there are also the true and obscenely graphic presentations available on the Internet where young men can see beheadings, stonings, dismemberments, hangings; brutality that defies the imagination.
The result of 60 years of social engineering by progressives is obvious. We now have a growing population of damaged people in our midst. They look like us, sound like us, and they often seem just like us, but they aren’t. They are unexploded ordnance, waiting for their fuses to be activated. They are only one impulse away from chaos and mayhem.
No commission finding will fix the problems of our society. We need to undo what was done in a careful and deliberate way. We need to find ways to encourage communities to reassume responsibility for their citizens and for families to reassume responsibility for their members. We need to back the federal government out of the daily lives of the people and reinstate more traditional American values instead of undercutting them through progressive policies that are ultimately designed to create a society of passive subjects.
Your commission may make recommendations on how to secure schools against intruders. They may recommend all school property be surrounded by security fences topped with concertina wire, have metal detectors at each entrance, and have armed guards roaming continuously. But, one has to think about the next step. If we succeed in securing schools to the standards of high security prisons, what will happen next? Won’t those people I described in the paragraphs above only look for another venue to wreak their havoc? Will we next have to put the same security measures in all the malls and shopping centers of the nation? Will we see grocery stores that require photo I.D.s and retinal scans to gain entry to buy a gallon of milk? Where is the logical end? Answer that and you’ll understand how illogical the entire subject is. It never touches the source, does it?
Understanding it’s a bit jarring to shift from school violence to trade, I still wish to do so.
I am 100% in agreement with your impending tariff plans. Of course, I have no idea of exactly what you intend to do, but I trust you have a thought-out concept and it will work.
It’s very easy to say, “I’m all for free trade!” but what exactly does that mean? How often is any trade 100% free, anyway? The EU may complain, but I do know you are correct in your statements on trade barriers that keep American products out of their zone. They fail to acknowledge their own corporations get all kinds of state and local government subsidies to set up operations on our soil, yet they do very little that works to our favor. I do believe tariffs change behaviors, and many nations around the world need that behavioral modification. They’ve taken us for granted for too many decades and we have the debt and deficits to prove it. It is time for America to make our goods the most sought-after in the world. It’s time to play hard-ball and at least insist on trade parity whenever it appears feasible.
I closed my last letter to you with the following, which I repeat in full:
I will take my leave of you now, Mr. President. I hope you have read my letter and taken it seriously. I am but one voice out here in fly-over country. But, I’m certain my voice is identical to many thousands. We are behind you. We, too, want to Make America Great Again.
In Liberty,
Steve Stone
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