Opinion

“You can’t fight city hall.”

“What can one person do?”

“Things never change.”

“That’s just the way it is.”

“There’s nothing you can do.”

“You’re just beating your head against the wall.”

“You have to learn how to accept reality.”

You’ve probably heard all of the above phrases. The only purpose they serve is to obstruct individual initiative and achievement.

This results in the propagation of the erroneous belief that individuals are at the mercy of groups, governments and committees.

For the first time in our lives, we have experienced a universal international event, known as COVID-19.

The World Series doesn’t come close to being a global event. The World Cup and the Olympics are much more global, but even these events bypass certain parts of the globe (and many around us have no interest in these sporting events).

All of us, however, have been impacted by COVID-19. We have all, at times, been wearing masks, monitoring our social distancing and discussing the pros and cons of various treatments and vaccines.

In the last century, “public education” usually meant a system of government-run schools.

Yet increasing concerns about uneven quality and unmet student needs have given rise to a new idea: What if public education was not just a system but a mission? And what if, in pursuit of that mission, we put parents in charge?

The status quo, of course, has plenty of defenders. One of their arguments is that because the Oklahoma Constitution requires a system, it forbids anything more. There are several reasons why this claim is false.

Barely beginning his second year, President Joe Biden is already in the running for the most damaging administration to U.S. interests in quite some time.

Under his watch, the terrorist-led Taliban has regained power in Afghanistan and Vladimir Putin has directed an unprovoked invasion against Russia’s innocent neighbor in the most unjustified, brazen and destabilizing act of European aggression since World War II.

Next up, President Biden is alarmingly renegotiating the ill-advised, Obama-era nuclear deal with the Iranian terrorist regime.

When the New York Post broke its “Hunter Biden Laptop” stories in October 2020, mainstream media tried to ignore it.

On the social media side, Twitter banned linking to them and Facebook used its algorithm to minimize discussion of them pending “fact checks” that apparently never happened.

The Streisand Effect -- a tendency toward keen public interest in anything that looks like a cover-up -- came to the rescue.

If you were the least bit interested in presidential politics, you knew as much as you wanted to about the matter (and then some) in short order.

Every March, America recognizes and celebrates the accomplishments of women throughout history.

Among these figures are pioneers, scientists, politicians, and often athletes. Now, it seems our country is straying from this ideal.

Women cannot make history in sports if they’re not the ones in the arena.

“Every event that transgender athletes competed in was one spot taken away from biological females throughout the meet,” Reka Gyorgy, collegiate swimmer from Virginia Tech, recently wrote in a letter to the NCAA.

We are currently looking at the best budget numbers in the entire history of our state. Last month, the Board of Equalization certified that the Legislature would have more than $10.4 billion available to appropriate for Fiscal Year 2023, which begins this July 1.

A lot of people are very excited about that figure, including me. But when we start drilling down into those numbers, what we’ve learned from past budget years and how we prepare for those to come, it’s clear we need to take a thoughtful, conservative approach.

Two years into the COVID-19 pandemic, as the U.S. approaches -- according to the official statistics -- 80 million confirmed cases and a million deaths, most Americans seem to finally understand that America's “public health” institutions were the opposite of helpful in combating the disease.

U.S. Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) has a solution: Triple the number of such institutions at the top.

America is no longer buying energy or vodka from Russia. Russians can no longer buy a McDonald’s hamburger.

They can’t pay for their gasoline with a Visa, Mastercard or even an American Express card. One thousand Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurants have ceased operations in Russia.

How tough can life become?

For a better picture of a tough life, watch some of the news clips played daily on most television stations. See what the Russians are doing each day to Ukraine.

Whenever and wherever too much government power produces bad policy and terrible results, U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) can be counted upon to pop up with the same proposed solution: More government power and more bad policy. Surely that will fix it.

Current case in point: Oil prices.

“Putin’s war is causing gas prices to rise,” she tweeted on March 8, “but this is no excuse for large oil companies to pad their bottom line with war-fueled profits. Senate Democrats are watching closely -- and already working on a windfall profits tax.”