I was raised to believe that a person must be disciplined, and be in control of themselves, at all times. Particularly, a man must, as he will one day be charged to care for his family, and the undisciplined, unrestrained man will not be able to do this with success. As I’ve said, this is what I’ve been raised to believe, and though I still believe that discipline is important, and self-discipline doubly-so, I do not believe that it is solely the man’s responsibility to set the standards of morality in his house. Why? Because, in a dangerous world, the conveyance of morality from parent to child is extremely important, and there is no such thing as a perfect man.

I’m coming back to the 2025 project, to continue my exercise of examining the hijinks that are happening within Republican party plans. When you read through the 2025 documents, you might be excused for thinking there could be more evidence there. For example, when they say (with regard to the DoD), that the United States should “prioritize the U.S. conventional force planning construct to defeat a Chinese invasion of Taiwan before allocating resources to other missions, such as simultaneously fighting another conflict.” The implication, clearly, is that the United States is not already planning for the possibility of multiple conflicts. Allow me to introduce you to the actual United States military strategy, as per Joseph R. Biden, President of the United States of America. The Rand Institute (yes, that Rand Institute) has even suggested that the cost to be able to fight multiple wars across multiple continents is prohibitively expensive.

As I lay awake last night, listening to the fireworks go off in the far distance, I pondered some of the things that I’d learned recently. I asked myself what, out of everything that I’ve experienced, had impacted me or influenced me the most in the last year. Most of this breaks down into knowledge about human behavior that now drives my decision making process. I’m hopeful these observations can also help guide yours!