Fear not--the phony "crises" invented by the media and the kook-fringe Left are meant to be distractions from your productive and peaceful lives. Fake crises are just the next step after fake news.

There is no surer sign that America is in serious trouble than the sheer and utter lack of reason swirling around contemporary political and economic issues.  Any topic, real or invented, and however trivial, has the capacity to create the most raucous and violent conflicts in the United States today.  Whether folks are discussing climate change, health care reform, illegal immigration or Islamic terrorism, what is most often missing from these debates is any real substance, intellectual honesty or factual basis. 

In most cases, emotional symbolism and personal political preferences have replaced truth, integrity and scientific evidence as the foundations of our public discourse.  Therefore, important public discussions cannot effectively occur.  Instead, public debates frequently devolve into hate, rage, screaming and phony protests.  Tragically, our elected leaders are often as much to blame for this situation as any private citizen. 

Both of Virginia’s senators oppose repealing the misnamed “Affordable Care Act,”  despite the fact that Obamacare is collapsing under the enormous weight of its massive federal bureaucracy.  We now know the truth that the public was misled by the previous administration and by Senator Warner.  Warner’s promises that people could keep their doctors and keep their plans were patently false.  His claim that Obamacare would reduce costs was fabricated.   Nevertheless, both Senators Warner and Kaine prefer allocating huge infusions of additional taxpayer cash and making minor adjustments of the broken system to honest admission that is was fatally-flawed from inception and cutting the nation’s losses. 

The inability or unwillingness of a person to admit one’s own mistakes is a debilitating trait in any occupation.  It is especially dangerous when exposed in someone whose sworn duty is to uphold the U.S. Constitution and defend the people “from all enemies, foreign and domestic.”  And yet, mustering the courage to confess one’s mistakes is the very action that demonstrates valuable personal integrity. 

On the Senate Intelligence Committee, Senator Warner continues to investigate Russian hacking and possible collusion between Moscow and the Trump administration, despite the existence of zero evidence that either occurred, and following a year-long covert F.B.I. probe that was illicit and duplicitous.  Meanwhile, Warner’s committee persists in turning a blind eye to genuine violations of federal law by Hillary Clinton and the Obama administration, as well as classified leaks to the media. 

In Richmond, Governor McAuliffe seems determined to follow the missteps of the repudiated Obama administration, surrendering vital Virginia jobs in the coal fields.  McAuliffe’s stated justification for this betrayal is the fraudulent claim that eliminating the coal industry will make a positive impact on the global climate, despite the fact that climate change is nothing more substantial than a bogus political scare tactic intended to strip U.S. citizens of their wealth and liberty.

As precious lives are ruined and billions of tax dollars wasted pursuing solutions to absurd imaginary crises, real problems affecting Virginia citizens are ignored.  Gubernatorial candidates, Ralph Northam and Tom Periello are currently chasing the very same inane policies that resulted in the eight years of economic misery just passed--policies that voters rejected.

While it may be politically beneficial to support “free healthcare” and a “free college education” to every Virginia resident, mature adults recognize that these promises are empty and unfeasible.  They are solutions to fictional issues with real and substantial costs that citizens are being told they must bear. 

Reckless lawmakers and prior administration officials heaped upon the nation, a $20 trillion debt which taxpayers, their children and grandchildren are obligated to repay.  This enormously wasteful and needless burden was imposed even as the people’s sources of income were ripped away.     

Governments perform few functions well, and for this reason, should be carefully limited.  These few purposes are clearly articulated in the U.S. and state constitutions.  Public security is one role the government can and must execute effectively.  Administering health care benefits, college tuition funds, summer feeding stations and management of non-academic public school mandates are not. 

When people denounce political distractions such as climate change hysteria, pointless political persecutions and useless expansions of social programs and begin to demand that their governments address real problems, then liberty, prosperity and justice can be restored.  And only then.