Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and others have greatness thrust upon them.
William Shakespeare, from “Twelfth Night”
Last week, I had the honor of meeting Master Sergeant Matthew O. Williams, who is a recipient of the Congressional Medal of Honor. He was in Knoxville as a guest speaker to raise awareness of this select “band of brothers” who are American heroes. The Medal of Honor is our nation’s highest military decoration for valor. It is awarded by the president in the name of Congress, representing the gratitude of the American people.
Green Beret Williams is an impressive man. I encourage you to Google and read about the Battle of Shok Valley, Afghanistan, which occurred on April 6, 2008. You will begin to understand why warrior and Master Sergeant Williams is a hero and deserving of our nation’s highest military honor.
The Medal of Honor award began during the Civil War and is not infrequently awarded posthumously. Knoxville’s Master Sergeant Roddie Edmonds fought at the Battle of the Bulge during WWII and was captured by the Germans. As the highest-ranking prisoner in Stalag IX-A, Edmonds refused to identify Jewish soldiers in the prison, telling the Germans, “We are all Jews here,” undoubtedly saving 200 men. Senator Marsha Blackburn introduced legislation to award Edmonds the Medal of Honor, and on March 2, 2026, President Trump posthumously gave Sergeant Edmonds our country’s highest military decoration.
We need heroes like our Medal of Honor recipients, our Olympian hockey teams and medalists, and our soldiers who are now battling the mad Mullahs of Iran. Those religious fanatics declared war on us in 1979 and have been killing and maiming Americans ever since. Becky and I honor our servicemen and women, police, first responders and the agents of DHS and ICE who protect us. We donate to many causes and are adding the Congressional Medal of Honor Society to that list. And we plan to take a road trip to Chattanooga (where our nation’s first and highest military award was presented) to visit the Charles H. Coolidge National Medal of Honor Heritage Center.
These days, patriotism and the wisdom of common sense seem to have been replaced by the pursuit of power, prestige, party and money. The patriotic love of our country is even ridiculed by the warped and lost. Their hatred of Trump overrides any love of country.
Philosophy is the love of wisdom, and the father of philosophy is Plato. Being a science guy, my education was not within antiquity’s classical trivium and quadrivium. As a result, my formal education was skewed toward sciences like chemistry. So, what I know of history, philosophy, theology, rhetoric and creative writing is largely self-taught (autodidactic).
We moderns often fancy ourselves as wiser than the ancients. Actually, mankind has changed little over time. Our technology and knowledge base have increased, but the ancient cardinal virtues of common sense, courage, justice and moderation seem to have suffered.
Plato and his mentor Socrates were deep thinkers, and in “The Republic,” Plato outlined the divisions and philosophy of an ideal society. There were leaders (“guardians”), producers/workers and “auxiliaries” who were the warriors charged with protecting the polis (city-state) and the people. Plato thought that philosophers would be the best leaders because they would wisely seek what was best for the people. Unfortunately, this ideal is unachievable because of imperfect human nature. As a result, there were political factions in ancient Greece as well as dishonest people and fools.
And today we have liars, fraudsters and fools. It amazes me that Democrats keep finding 80-20 issues to side against common sense, the American people and heroes. It was bad enough to disparage our hockey teams, but Democrat leaders would not even show support for grieving families and injured children. They even sided with illegal aliens over citizens during the SOTU address. And now Democrat Grand Poobah Hakeem Jeffries cheers against our warriors and for the Iranian Mullahs.
President Trump is right: “They are crazy!” They display none of the cardinal virtues espoused by the ancient Greeks. We must not allow these modern Democrats to regain power. It is a national security issue.
Everything that the modern Democrat party stands for is a farce. They offer no solutions, and their only policy position is, “I hate Trump.” And most everything they say is a lie. Their base is constantly enraged because many Democrat media types and celebrity mouthpieces who suffer from Trump derangement syndrome foment dissent. Notable examples of lunacy include Rachael Maddow, Keith Olbermann, and Robert De Niro. Leftist fools dress up as furries, frogs and giraffes, drop F bombs and screech protest songs.
The one voice of common sense in the Democrat party is Senator John Fetterman. One could argue that he suffered a “therapeutic stroke,” which ablated an area of excessive liberalism in his brain. As I said last week, “I don’t fear Russia, China, North Korea, or Iran. I fear modern Democrats and the useful idiots who support them.”
I am not a starry-eyed optimist, but after the US Olympic hockey triumphs and successful Winter Olympics, President Trump’s optimistic and patriotic State of the Union address, I believe the tide has turned. And with the border controlled, the economy improving, reindustrialization underway, the Venezuelan drug pipeline interrupted and the mad Mullahs (along with their terrorist 3-H club of Hamas, Hezbollah and Houthis on the run), I believe this will be America’s grandest anniversary of freedom, celebrating the most successful nation in human history.
I have read that other cultures support winners, whereas the US has empathy for the underdog. What if the elitist liberal movement of the last 50 years has relegated Americanism to the underdog status? What if President Trump’s historic reelection as the 47th president stopped our descent into decay and destruction and began the resurgence of Americanism? Two hundred fifty years ago, Europeans derisively labeled our revolution and Constitution as “the American experiment.” Maybe we’ve been the underdog all along.
The midterm vote will answer the question whether we are poised for an American Renaissance or whether we will again devolve into Democrat impeachment fiascos and have us again circling the drain to destruction. Join me and President Trump to Make America Great Again by opposing and voting against Democrats everywhere.
