An open letter to fellow patriots

​MAY 1, 2020

Fellow Patriots,
                                                                                              
Albeit wars, we are in the most unusual time in modern history. Leadership has not experienced what they are faced with and solutions are new ground. There’s no one not affected in some way with the wrath brought upon us attributed to China, a most adversarial trading partner. The communist authorities controlling 1.4B people with an iron fist find themselves in a precarious position. On one hand the world economic standstill is playing into the hand of the Chinese leaders. Relatively speaking, they are succeeding in bring the world down to their economic level. On the other hand, they risk the wrath of their world’s trading partners evaluating the future of Made in China on their shelves, which represents 17% of the world’s GNP. To be sure, the farming peasants brought to the city for production jobs need to remain employed.

While this is clearly an economic war, China’s dictators would have no second thoughts of losing a few million Chinese in a conflict. (It didn’t bother Hitler). However, America has not seen major conflict within our shores since we unlinked ourselves from King George. How many deaths or destruction within our shores would we consider acceptable in today’s world? It’s a rather precarious situation to maintain trade relations, yet maintain military superiority to avoid a military conflict.

So where are we?

 As Berks County Patriots, we need to focus on where we are and what consequences may lay ahead of us. Do we just pick up the pieces and move on or do we respond to China, as Trump suggested without defining what that might be? We, as Patriots, need to stay the course. Stay informed, stay unified. Attending our meetings provides the platform to hear from speakers with knowledge and desire to Keep America Great. The Berks County Patriot meetings are but one avenue that will provide you with knowledge to be part of the solution that you may better inform those that are with less knowledge or less informed, which is antithetical to a self-governing democracy.

The political left will argue that Trump can do no right. The political right will argue Trump can do no wrong.  The question is, could the president have done anything sooner or better? He was called a xenophobe for halting China travel to America, yet with Huwan, being the source of the virus, evidence suggests it was the right thing to do.  One question has to be asked why any country would be developing a lethal virus unless at some point their intent was to use it.
Hunkering down the country for several months could well be that the cure is worse than the disease. Recovery could take months or more. Mistakes will be made, but in retrospect could we have done anything differently? Will shutting down the country for weeks, if not months, have economic consequences far beyond what lives may have been saved? Consider the shutdown impact on hotels, travel, retail chains, small businesses that carry mortgages. If business doesn’t pick up are we going to see defaults or bankruptcies? This could escalate beyond simply going back to work.
    
Notwithstanding what I may lack in financial expertise, printing over four trillion dollars distributed into the private sector, unlinked to productivity, is tantamount to inflation. It’s an axiom that when the government prints money and puts it into circulation, the dollar is worth less. For example if the farmers over produce corn, making it plentiful, the price of corn drops, likewise with the dollar.  
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Surely, the world has changed. The effects of the pandemic will be with us for a considerable time. It will be of interest to see if those nations, Iran, Iraq, North Korea and others, having an adversarial relationship with United States, might provoke confrontation as we are in an economic recovery mode.

Stay tuned for more messages from the Berks County Patriots.