Keep voting democrat… One day they will restrict your freedoms, restrict your history and restrict your safety. All in the name of professional victims who do not understand the consequences of their ignorance.
Ronald Regan 1987
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By Dr. Jim Ferguson
I have become a homebody. I didn’t used to be this way. All my life I was “going” … somewhere, but now I’m there.
My parents instilled in me a desire to travel, and I was blessed to traipse across dozens of countries on five continents. But my wanderlust has abated; you might say it has wandered away. It’s just as well because the latest European war and Covid have made travel problematic, especially for cruising, which Becky and I loved. The cruise industry is in ruins from the virus, and with the damaged economy and inflation, it may not recover.
Sometimes it’s hard to remember what I’ve written. So, excuse me if I repeat myself and mention the retirement home Becky and I built five years ago. Since our girls were grown and launched, Becky and I needed less and one of our daughters needed more space for her growing family. So, she now lives in the homestead and Becky got to build her dream home on our farm property. And I get to sit on my veranda in the sunshine, see my grandchildren almost every day and enjoy my retirement.
You may have noticed that I have a new home on the pages of The Focus. The paper continues to be successful, offering a much-needed counterpoint to the local fish wrapper. However, success brings challenges and recently reorganization of The Focus format became necessary. Unfortunately, several people, including my mother, had difficulty finding my column. Thank you, Mr. Hunley, for my new home in section B which thankfully is “satisfactory” to my mother.
Many have observed a reluctance to change as we become older. As the metaphor goes, we become set in our ways. When we were young everything was new. Nature designs younglings to be adaptable, enabling them to stretch themselves and explore the world. As we grow older, we learn what works and what does not. The school of hard knocks is a formidable teacher. Perhaps this is one reason why older people are less amenable to trying new things.
I once read that major innovations and discoveries are made by younger people. An example is Einstein’s theories of special and general relativity, which were conceived in his late 20s. Science has demonstrated that intellectual quickness peaks in our 20s. However, I take comfort knowing the accumulation of life experiences more than compensates for the decline in mental quickness – and my difficulty remembering phone numbers.
Notably, children’s brains are immature and incapable of defining, among other things, their developing sexuality. As a result, I am violently opposed to school sexual indoctrination of children. And from my research, the Biden administration’s recent endorsement of transgender sex change surgery for adolescents is dangerous and wrong.
Long ago I toyed with the idea of living somewhere other than Knoxville. I did live in Memphis during medical school and the first part of my internal medicine residency. I saw the underbelly of Memphis and consequently it was never on the shortlist. Admittedly, the idea of living somewhere other than Knoxville was youthful fancy, although during my travels I did consider Wellington, New Zealand and Victoria, British Columbia. But I was born and raised in Knoxville and here I will make my stand.
These days we hear much about Ukrainians sacrificing and professing love of their homeland. I found it disturbing to read in a recent poll that 53% of “Democrats” would flee and not defend our country. Like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz, I feel that “There’s no place like home,” and America and Knoxville are special. I know because I’ve traveled and sampled the world. I vow to defend my home, my family and my country against enemies both foreign and domestic.
In last week’s essay I wrote about The Great Reset and the concept of the new world order which envisions a world citizen and government overseen by elite globalists like John Kerry, Klaus Schwab and Justin Trudeau. Interestingly, Socrates considered himself a citizen of the world rather than just a citizen of Athens. Philosophically, I can identify with the evolved 24th century John Luke Picard of Star Trek, but we are not yet ready for a world government. And I certainly would not surrender my freedom to the miscreants who are running our country, the Eurozone or China.
I am no fan of the Academy Awards or much that comes out of Hollywood, also known as Tinseltown, because it is a façade of reality. I quit paying attention to the Academy Awards when Saving Private Ryan lost best picture to Shakespeare in Love, although both movies are wonderful. The big flap (or should I say big slap) last week was Will Smith defending his wife. Many elites who forgave Will Smith cursed Donald Trump who championed our homeland and pushed back against democrats and progressives in Hollywood, academia and the media. I would rather have Trump’s reactive tweets than Biden’s dementia.
I recently heard an interview with Jason Whitlock about “DIE,” diversity, inclusion and equity. I have written about equity which is vastly different from equality under the law (knoxfocus.com March 22, 2021). I have no problem with diversity and inclusion unless they are mandated by Big Brother or wokesters like the Walt Disney Company. But what if diversity means that minorities assume victim status and are manipulated, and the tail begins to wag the proverbial dog? This happened with the NCAA transgender rules which will destroy title IX and women’s sports. We hear a lot about diversity and inclusion when it suits the left, but where are diversity and inclusion in basketball and football? I believe the best player should play despite their skin color. This is called meritocracy. The ideological theocracy of the left is a pernicious perversion of DIE.
They say, “Home is where the heart is.” And so, America and Knoxville are home for me. And I use the talents and the voice I have to fight the evil that has come among us. Join me in the crusade to say NO to democrat progressives and wokesters. Let us stand up for our children, our freedom and Constitutional equality.
