THE END OF THE SILK ROAD

Dunhuang, Gansu Province, China.  As you can see from the map, here is where the branches of the Silk Road came together. 

From Dunhuang it was a straight shot through the "Gansu Corridor" between the snow-capped Qilian (Southern) Mountains and the Gobi Desert to the first big city in China, Lanzhou, and on to the capital of ancient China, Chang'an (now called Xian, famous for the Terracotta Army made for the mausoleum of China's first emperor, Chin Shi Wang (259-210 BC) – after whom China is named although Beijing insists his name be spelled Qin).

For the pilgrims, merchants, and traders who brought the exotic goods of the West to the East, here is where the road ended.  Finally they were in China.  So it seems appropriate that I am here at the end of the fabled Silk Road on the day when the American Road of Freedom came to an end.

This is a day of true historical tragedy, when history's greatest nation of its own free will decided to commit suicide for no good reason whatsoever, an act of inexplicable mass insanity.

Yet this is not a time for bitterness or anger.  It is, instead, a time to shrug.

Those of you who have read Ayn Rand's great work of prophecy, Atlas Shrugged, know what I am talking about.  Those of you who don't, read it – now.  Over 50 years ago, she predicted what is happening at this moment – only this is far worse than even she imagined.

In Rand's other great novel, The Fountainhead, the villain, Ellsworth Toohey, asks the hero, Howard Roark, what he thinks of him.  Roark gives him a puzzled look and answers, "I don't think of you at all." 

That is exactly what I propose we do regarding the Marxist Hate-America Gangster who was just elected by a majority of American voters to lead them to their doom.  In fact, I hereby forswear my mention of his name in To The Point. 

He is not my president.  I owe neither him nor his government any loyalty.  I do not recognize his authority over me.  I shall obey the laws of his government and shall not advocate anything illegal, not out of any patriotic duty but solely because his government and its goons have the guns to kill me if I do not obey.

For henceforth however, I shall refer to him only as Not My President:  NMP for short.

Respect and patriotism for a country and its people must be earned.  It cannot be granted with a blank check, paid out no matter what it and they do.  As of this day, I have lost my respect for a majority of the American people and my patriotism for the country I once loved so deeply.

If America wishes to regain my respect, loyalty, and patriotism, it must re-earn it.  Until it does, my loyalty is restricted to my family – which includes my family of members of To The Point.

What this means is a re-focus of To The Point on our self-preservation – the preservation of my and your personal freedom and financial security.

The assault on both by NMP and his Gangster Government will be extreme.  The government's finances, for example, is like a pyramid balanced on its point, with 1% of taxpayers paying almost 40% of taxes.  Their money has already begun to flood out of the country.  When enough of them do this, the pyramid falls down, and the fascist assault on anybody's wealth begins.

I know there are folks like Michelle Malkin and TTP's beloved Joel Wade who want us to "gird our loins" and fight for a free America.  But the reality is that a substantial majority of Americans decided yesterday they don't want a Free America, they want a Fascist America.

Granted, they may be too stupid, thanks to public education, to know what they voted for, but that's just the stupidity that allows fascism to establish itself.

The reality is that the path of freedom versus fascism is almost always one way:  towards fascism.  Take a look at the past seventy years.  With FDR's New Deal, America became less free and never regained the freedom it had before him.  With LBJ's Great Society, the same thing.  Finally we got our Churchill, Ronald Reagan – who won the Cold War, yet nonetheless could not eliminate one single government agency.

But with NMP, we are in a whole new dimension of danger, of outright Brown Shirt fascist thuggery.  Let's be very clear here.  There was wild mass enthusiasm by Germans for Adolf Hitler who elected him Chancellor in 1933.  Very few thought it was in their obvious interests to get out of Germany or otherwise protect their assets and freedom – even Jews.

We conservatives are about to become the new Jews – hated, reviled, persecuted, despised, outlawed and criminalized.  The worse it gets – and the economy is going to get much worse – the more NMP and those who voted for him will need scapegoats, who are us.

And any brave attempt to "fight back" will be squashed by your local city's SWAT Team thugs.

The terrible truth, the ugly reality, is that our country has been headed towards fascism for a long time – slowly, step by step, until finally here we are, at the end of the road where there's a sign reading Welcome to NMP's America.

We conservatives are now Strangers In Our Own Land. 

So – is that it?  Are we – is freedom in America – finished?  Of course I hope not.  But it does not depend on what we do – for we are up against mass hysteria, against which reason and evidence are useless.

The only hope is that NMP will overreach and fail so disastrously that those hysterical millions who voted for him will be shaken out of their trance and come to their freedom-loving senses.

We can help bring that about on the margins.  To The Point will always be searching for those places on the margins, where we can advance freedom and damage or slow down NMP's jackboot march.

But that will not be TTP's primary purpose.   

That purpose agrees with Dr. Wade's advice, Don't Get Mad, Get Effective – but being effective at preserving your own personal and financial freedom. 

The world is a very big place, and there are lots of places where you can safely invest, for example.  We're not converting TTP into some investment newsletter, but TTP has many friends who are very savvy about how to protect their money and freedom from fascists in Washington and elsewhere – and we are going to laser in on their knowledge and expertise for you.

We'll also be focusing more on world or geopolitics and less on American.  If not, we'll end up being one long list of NMP fascist atrocities.  We'll focus on how best to protect yourself from those atrocities and leave it at that.

It would be nice to solace ourselves with the hope that this fascist, seemingly Anti-Christ nightmare may be short-lived:  just four years and then we'll elect Sarah Palin or Bobby Jindal and America will be America again!

It's certainly possible – but don't bet your and your family's freedom and financial security on it.  Bet on yourself, and your ability to preserve and even expand both.  Count on us to help you do it.

Dunhuang was the end of the Silk Road – but only for those coming from the West into China.  For those leaving China, embarking on a long perilous journey to the West, it was the beginning, the start.

By preserving our freedom, by focusing our energy on protecting our families and not wasting any energy on NMP or the America that voted for him, we can best position ourselves to lead America when she is ready to reverse course, and begin anew trodding the path to freedom for our country.

Call it the start of the New Silk Road if you will.  There is always hope.  But for now, reality and the freedom of the TTP Family will come first.