Imagination is a way to escape reality and fulfill unconscious desires. The role imagination plays in the search for glory may show unmistakably and directly in daydreams. In the teenager, they may have a frankly grandiose character. It is a way to bridge the gap between imagination and reality. There is for instance the college boy who, although timid and withdrawn, has daydreams about being the greatest athlete, or genius, or Don Juan. There are also in later years people like Paris Hilton, who almost constantly indulge in dreams of romantic expression, of a mystic perfection, or of a mysterious saintliness. Sometimes these take the form of imaginary conversations in which others are impressed or put to shame. Others, more complicated in their structure, deal with shameful or noble suffering through being exposed to cruelty and degradation. Frequently daydreams are not elaborate stories but, rather, play a fantastic accompaniment to the daily routine. When tending her children, playing the piano, or combing her hair, a woman may for instance see herself in much the way a tender mothers, a rapturous pianist, or an alluring beauty would be presented in the movies. In some cases, such daydreams show clearly that a person may, like Paris Hilton, constantly live in two World. Again, in others equally engaged in the search for glory daydreams are so scarce and abortive that they may say in all subjective honesty that they have no fantasy life. Needless to say, they are mistaken. Even if they only worry about possible mishaps that might be fall them, it is after all their imagination that conjures up such contingencies. #RandolphHarris 1 of 23

However, daydreams, while important and revealing when they occur, are not the most injurious work of imagination. For a person is mostly aware of that fact that he is daydreaming, id est, imagining things which have not occurred or are not likely to occur in the way he is experiencing them in fantasy. At least it is not too difficult for him to become aware of the existence and the unrealistic character of the daydreams. The more injurious work of imagination concerns the subtle and comprehensive distortions of reality which he is not aware of fabricating. The idealized self is not completed in a single act of creation: once produced, it needs continuing attention. For its actualization the person must put in an incessant labour by way of falsifying reality. He must turn his needs into virtues or into more than justified expectations. He must turn his intentions to be honest or considerate into the fact of being honest or considerate. The bright ideas he has for a paper make him a great scholar. His potentialities turn into factual achievements. Knowing the “right” moral values make him a virtuous person—often, indeed, a kind of moral genius. And of course, his imagination must work overtime to discard all the disturbing evidence to the contrary. Imagination also operates in changing the neurotic’s beliefs. He needs to believe that others are wonderful or vicious-and lo! there they are in a parade of benevolent or dangerous people. It also changes his feelings. He needs to feel invulnerable—and behold! His imagination has sufficient power to brush off pain and suffering. He needs to have deep feelings—confidence, sympathy, love, suffering: his feelings of sympathy, suffering, and the rest are magnified. #RandolphHarris 2 of 23

The perception of the distortions of inner and outer reality which imagination can bring about when put to the service of the search for glory leaves us with an uneasy question. Where does the flight of the neurotic’s imagination end? He does not after all lose his sense of reality altogether; where then is the border line separating him from the psychotic? If there is any border line with respect to feats of imagination, it certainly is hazy. We can only say that the psychotic tends to regard the process in his mind more exclusively as they only reality that counts, while the neurotic—for whatever reasons—retains a fair interest in the outside World and his place in it and has therefore a fair gross orientation in it. Nevertheless, while he may stay sufficiently on the ground to function in a way not obviously disturbed, there is no limit to the heights to which his imagination can soar. It is in fact the most striking characteristic of the search for glory that it goes into the fantastic, into the realm of unlimited possibilities. All of the drives for glory have in common the reaching out for greater knowledge, wisdom, virtue, or powers than are given to human beings; they all aim at the absolute, the unlimited, the infinite. Nothing short of absolute fearlessness, mastery, or saintliness has any appeal for the neurotic obsessed with the drive for glory. He is therefore the antithesis of the truly religious man. #RandolphHarris 3 of 23

For the latter, only to God are all things possible; the neurotic’s version is: nothing is impossible to me. His will power should have magic proportions, his reasoning be infallible, his foresight flawless, his knowledge all encompassing. The theme of the devil’s pact begins to emerge. The neurotic is the Prince Lestat who is not satisfied with knowing a great deal, but has to know everything. This soaring into the unlimited is determined by the power of the needs behind the drive for glory. The needs for the absolute and the ultimate are so stringent that they override the checks which usually prevent our imagination from detaching itself from actuality. For his well-functioning, man needs both the vision of possibilities, the perspective of infinitude, and the realization of limitations, of necessities, of the concrete. If a man’s thinking and feeling are primarily focused upon the infinite and the vision of possibilities, he loses his sense for the concrete, for the hear and now. He loses his capacity for living in the moment. He is no longer capable of submitting to the necessities in himself, “to what may be called one’s limit.” He loses his sight of what is actually necessary for achieving something. “Every little possibility even would require some time to become actuality.” His thinking may become too abstract. His knowledge may become “a kind of inhuman knowing for the production of which man’s self is squandered, pretty much as men were squandered for the building of the Pyramids.” His feelings for others may evaporate into an “abstract sentimentality for humanity.” #RandolphHarris 4 of 23

If, on the other hand, a man does not see beyond the narrow horizon of the concrete, the necessary, the finite, he becomes “narrow-minded and mean-spirited.” It is not, then, a question of either-or, but of both, if there is to be growth. The recognition of limitations, laws, and necessities serves as a check against being carried away into the infinite, and against the mere “floundering in possibilities.” The checks on imagination are malfunctioning in the search for glory. This does not mean a general incapacity to see necessities and abide by them. A special direction in the further neurotic development may make many people feel safer to restrict their lives, and they may then tend to regard the possibility of being carried away into the fantastic as a danger to be avoided. They may close their minds to anything that to them looks fantastic, be averse to abstract thinking, and overanxiously cling to what is visible, tangible, concrete, or immediately useful. However, while the conscious attitude toward these matters varies, every neurotic at bottom is loath to recognize limitations to what he expects of himself and believes it possible to attain. His need to actualize his idealized image is so imperative that he must shove aside the checks as irrelevant or nonexistent. There are over one million people locked up in mental hospitals because they cannot shut up about the crime. One thing is clear in my years with these people—the more mentally ill they are, the more they are caught in egocentricity, selfishness, and uselessness. #RandolphHarris 5 of 23

In mental hospitals, there are many relics of people with vaunted selfhood even though their World is riddles with strange influences. The more vaunted, the more riddled. It is apparent to us, but not to the mentally ills, that this diseased World is representative of them since the disease walks where they walk. They contend that it occurs only in the hospital, but when they visited a large city, there is this same monstrous business going on. It is the same thing whether we say they are diseased or their World is diseased. The two are really one. In ordinary social intercourse with others, or in the more intense experience of group psychotherapy, there is a manifest difference between the person who must explain and must defend their view from the person who enjoys and easily accepts the Worlds of other persons. The first is a bore, a difficult person, one who rouses anger or needs to be treated carefully. The second is an easier, more likeable person. In group psychotherapy one often sees the clever professional or layman who must tell, must be right, must interpret what the other person really means. A less obnoxious egotism is the one who is very concerned what to say, how a thing will be taken, whether he is understood or appreciated. These people are painfully trapped in the evaluations of others because they are so concerned for themselves. In my own little World, it has become clear to me that I am of use to others insofar as I am not concerned for my reputation. I have seen brilliant intuitive insights come out of me when I was only aware of the other person. #RandolphHarris 6 of 23

I have also seen miserable failure when I was out to prove that I was clever. I look for pride in me, and if it is there, I had best be silent. In both therapy and social relations, there is an almost mystic beauty when my self vanishes and the style, nuances of bodily movement, voice inflection and concerns of the other person fill the whole stage. I am liked best when I am not. For most of my young life, I had been told it was not okay to display anger. Thus, the journey from manipulation to mastery is not a neat, two-dimensional, passionate, random, helter-skelter journey, with our emotions swinging from one polarity to another, from love to dependency to weakness to criticalness—often many times in a matter of minutes. Exactly how the process takes place should not concern you, unless you are a therapist. All you need to be concerned with is that the process does work—and you can use it to improve the quality of your life, the dynamism of your relationships. What therapy does is start a person on the road to mastery. It starts them looking at their internal conflicts. The process of dealing with polarities goes on through life—at all times and on all fronts. Those who follow spiritual ideals will have to take their stand. Nonviolence is a good. Violence is an evil. However, in the compulsory choice between violent defense against violent aggression or passive submission to such aggression, it is often the lesser of the two evils. For the first may bring the aggressor to suffer the consequences of his crime whereas the second may condone it. The first may re-educate him to abandon his evil ways whereas the second may encourage him in them. #RandolphHarris 7 of 23

There are savage creatures, moral monsters and insane animals who look like men but have only partially risen into the human species in their passage from the lower ones. Having human faces and limbs, digestive and sense organs, is not enough to render them worthy of human classification. With a wise mercy, which need not be stretched too far but must not be stretched too little, we must temper natural desire to punish the violent criminal adequately. The pacifist who believes that his attitude will affect the war-makers and alter their attitude is as irrational as the sparrow who appeals to the hawk for his life to be spared. However, pacifism has a far sounder basis than this weak one. The adherence to nonviolence is not a sign of ignorable weakness but rather of noble wisdom. The folly of war cannot be reconciled with the dictates of reason. To use violent means for the defense of nonviolent ideals can only lead to the loss of those ideals. To use violent means for the defense of nonviolent ideals can only lead to the loss of this ideals. What is conquered by violence must be maintained by violence. Every form of totality is restrictive. Surrealism is not concerned with action, but with asceticism and spiritual experience. The profound originality of the movement is the restoration of the sacred and the conquest of unity, which make surrealism so invaluable for a consideration of the problem of rebellion. Surrealism—the fusion of a dream and of reality, the sublimation of the old contradiction between the ideal and the real. We know the surrealist solution: concrete irrationality, objective risk. #RandolphHarris 8 of 23

Poetry is the conquest, the only possible conquest, of the “supreme position.” A certain position of the mind from where life and death, the real and the imaginary, the past and the future…cease to be perceived in a contradictory sense. What is this supreme position that should mark the “colossal abortion of the Hegelian system”? It is the search for the summit-abyss, familiar to the mystics. Actually, it is the mysticism without God which demonstrates and quenches the rebel’s thirst for the absolute. The essential enemy of surrealism is rationalism. Should we dissolve contradictions in the fires of love and desire and demolish the walls of death? Magic rites, primitive or naïve civilization, alchemy, the language of flowers, fire, or sleepless nights, are so many miraculous stages on the way to unity and the philosophers’ stone. Vitality on old age depends on three factors: constitutional robustness; physical health; type of script. The onset of old age is determined by the same three factors. Thus, some people are vital at eighty and others start vegetating at forty. Constitutional robustness is a force majeure, that is, it cannot be changed by Parental programing. Physical disability is sometimes a force majeure, and sometimes a script payoff. In the “Cripple” Script it is both. The crippling itself may occur because of unavoidable physical illness, but it is welcomed because it is part of the script and fulfills mother’s injunction to end up disabled. #RandolpHarris 9 of 23

This occurs occasionally in cases of poliomyelitis in young adults, where the man in the wheel chair says: “When I knew I had polio I almost welcomed it, as though I had been waiting for something like that.” If his script called for him to be a cripple, and Nature did not help him out, he might have crashed a car. Nature’s solution is simpler to deal with. Older people may similarly welcome a stroke or a coronary occlusion, but for a different reason: not because it is part of the script, but because it relieves them of the compulsion to carry on with their script strivings. For the Child in them, these catastrophes become “Wooden Leg” or “Wooden Heart,” so that they can say to the Parent in their heads: “Even you cannot expect a man with a Wooden Leg or a Wooden Heart to carry on your witch’s curse.” Faced with a blood clot in Jeder’s brain or heart, only the most ruthless parent does not concede defeat. If a disability occurs early in life, it may fit very well into a mother’s script, or may throw it off completely. If it fits, the child will be raised as a professional cripple, sometimes with the help of outside organizations devoted to helping Crippled Children (as long as they stay cripped) or Children with Intellectual Disabilities (as long as they have an intellectual disability). (If the child recovers, the drag is due to the fact that the government subsidy usually stops.) In such cases, the mother learns to “face it,” and teaches the child to do likewise. #RandolphHarris 10 of 23

If it does not fit the mother’s script, however, she does not learn to face it. She keeps trying, and the child learns to do likewise, so that he ends up as a one-legged jitterbug, a clubfooted broad-jumper, or a brain-damaged orthopedic specialist (all these examples exist or have existed in real life). The Crippled Children’s organization and the Mentally Ill organization pitch in here, too, and are delighted if one of their proteges makes it (with outside help). If the mother’s script does not call for a physically or mentally disabled child, and the disability is so severe that it is necessarily permanent, then her life becomes a script-frustrated tragedy. If her script does call for a disabled child, and the disability is borderline, and possibly remediable, then the child’s life becomes an unnecessary, script-inflicted tragedy. Now to return to old age. If they have “Open-Ended” Scripts, even people with robust constitutions and no physical disabilities (or only minor or hypochondriacal ones) can begin to vegetate at an early age. These are commonly people living on pensions. The Parental precept is: “Work hard, and do not take any chances,” and the payoff is “After that, give up.” Once Jeder has put in his twenty or thirty years, and Santa Claus has come and given him his retirement banquet and gold watch, he does not know what to do. He is accustomed to following his script directives, but now they are exhausted, and he has no further programing in his head. Therefore, he is content to sit and wait until something turns up: Death, for instance. #RandolphHarris 11 of 23

This raises an interesting question. What do you do after Santa Clause comes? With an “Until” Script, he comes down the chimney and brings a Freedom Certificate. Jeder has fulfilled the requirements of his script, is freed of the curse by the antiscript, and is now at liberty to do what he always wanted to do since he was a little boy. However, going his own way is full of dangers, as many Greek myths attest. While he is free of his witch parent, he is also unprotected, and can easily come to grief. This is shown in fairy tales as well. A curse gives protection as well as trial and tribulation. The same witch that laid on the curse sees that the victim continues to live while he is under it. Thus, Sleeping Beauty was protected by the briar forest for a hundred years. However, the moment she woke up, and could tell the witch to buzz off, her troubles began. A handy situation is to have a double script: an “Until” Script from one parent and an “After” Script from the other. In the commonest case this reads “You cannot be free until you have raised three children” (from mother), and “After you are free you will become creative” (from father). Thus, in the first half of her life Zoe is controlled and protected by her mother and in the second half by her father. In the case of a man, the double-script directive may be the same as above, but the control and protection are reversed: Father during the first phase and Mother during the second. #RandolphHarris 12 of 23

The vegetating age are divided into three classes, and in this country the insignia are financial. Those with losers’ scripts live alone in rooming houses or rundown hotels, and are called old men and old women. Those with nonwinning scripts own and live in small houses where they are free to develop their idiosyncrasies and eccentricities, so that they are known as old characters. Those with winning scripts live in retirement homes run by financial promoters, and are called Senior Citizens, or Mr. and Mrs. Taxpayer, which is how they sign their Letters to the Editor. The cure for the scriptless age is permission, but they seldom use it. There are thousands of older men living in small rooms in every large city, each of them wishing there was someone to cook for him, talk to him, and listen to him. At the same time, there are thousands of older women living under the same circumstances, wishing they had someone to cook for, talk to, and listen to. Even if the twain do happen to meet, they rarely take advantage of it, each preferring to remain in his or her familiar drab surroundings hunched over a glass or a TV set, or sitting with folded hands, waiting for a riskless, sinless death. Those were mother’s directives when they were little, and these are the directives they are following seventy or eight years later. They never took chances before, beyond a small bet at the racetrack of the stadium, so why should they jeopardize everything now? The script has vanished by its own fulfillment, but the old slogan lingers on, and when death comes, they will greet him gladly. And on the front of the tombstone, they will carve: “Gone to rest with his forebears,” and on the back it will say: “I lived a good life, and never took any chances.”. #RandolphHarris 13 of 23

They say that in this century, children will be grown in bottles, according to specifications laid down by the state and the parents, and there they will be genetically programed However, everybody is already raised in a bottle according to specifications laid down by the state and his parents, and there he is script-programed. Script-programing is easier to shake off than genetic programing, but few people exercise the privilege. For the ones who do, there can be a more inspiring tombstone. Nearly all pious epitaphs, translated into Martian, come out “Raised in a bottle, and stayed there, too.” And so they stand, row after row of crosses and other symbols in the graveyard, all with the same motto. Only here and there is a surprise: “Raised in a bottle—but I jumped out.” Many people refuse to do that, even when there is no cork. Genetic history, as opposed to political history, is a record of those moments when a successful gene pool migrates in response to swarming pressures when the hive castes out its future probes. The migrating waves produce the highest peaks of civilization, of culture, of hive philosophy and of art and science. Civilization began in the East. Shuttling up and down the spinal column from Suez to China. The great pyramids of Egypt remind us that long ago women and men looked at the stars and built enormous highways aloft. Inside the pyramids, they assembled all the instruments and comforts needed in a post-terrestrial life. The Egyptian gene pool evolved rapidly and prematurely because they had temporarily solved the four terrestrial survival problems—security, political autonomy, technological predominance and a national sociosexual mythos. The Nile Valley geography produced this early genetic probe into the future. #RandolphHarris 14 of 23

If you are not intelligent about your leadership, the best training in the World cannot make you an effective, respected leader. An intelligent firefighter or EMT is one who is mentally agile, sound in judgement, innovative, tactful, and knowledgeable. Intelligent action will get you through many difficult situations. The Sacramento Fire Department’s intelligence draws on their mental tendencies and resources, shaping their conceptual abilities. These conceptional abilities enable them to exercise sound judgement about their duties and responsibilities even before they implement their concepts and plans. They help the firefighters and EMTs think creatively and reason analytically, critically, ethically, and with cultural sensitivity. Conceptual abilities enable them to consider unintended consequences. The Sacramento Fire Department always thinks through what they expect to occur as a result of a decision. Some decisions may set off a chain of events, so they must attempt to anticipate the second- and third-order effects of their actions. The conceptual components affecting the Sacramento Fire Department’s intelligence include: Mental agility, judgement, innovation, interpersonal tact, and domain knowledge. “I met my wife in 1995, but we didn’t get married until 2000. One of the first things that got us acquainted was when I found out that she went to the same oral surgeon that I did. It wasn’t just broken teeth, I had shattered my upper jaw, I busted it in a million pieces, and I was all wired up. We didn’t meet in the doctor’s office, but once we started talking, you known when you first meet somebody, you have to have something to talk about. She had some problems and went to the same doctor, so we started talking about different ordeals. That’s what we talked about. #RandolphHarris 15 of 23

“I was crazy about the fire department, and she knew before we were married that she was going to be second to the fire department. She doesn’t tell me she worried about the dangers, but when there are firemen’s funerals on TV, she says, ‘Please don’t ever do that to me.’ I tell her I’m real careful. I am aggressive, but I’m careful. She knew about the dangers early on. We were just about to get married, we were getting ready for the pictures and the parties and all that stuff, when we had a fire in the high school library. I was on the hose with this other guy. We crawled in. You know you can take the heat before you crack the line. This guy put the nozzle on a narrow fog. If it had been me, I would have put it on a straight stream, because that stuff turns around and the steam comes right back. I was behind him, and the man behind the line takes a rose beating than the man on the nozzle, because they hit the ceiling.  Everything was hot. It burned this guy and myself. So the big worry of everybody at the wedding was whether I was going to look like a wreck in my wedding pictures. I had these Dumbo ears. When the blisters went down, I still had a lot of scars, but it wasn’t so bad. But it was a big concern to her. How was I going to look? We have one, child, a two-year-old boy. He better get all the education that he can, because I think that we’re looking at two-class society—the people that have the education and the wealth, and the people that don’t have anything. I don’t know where the firefighters are going to fit in, but if firefighters don’t continue to increase their skills—and we’re heading in the right direction—in areas like hazardous materials and emergency medical, we could easily end up down there with the huddled masses #RandolphHarris 16 of 23

“My wife knows that the fire department is giving me something no one can give me, including herself. She knows it is giving me a sense of satisfaction and a sense of personal worth. You see some joker win a million-dollar lottery on TV, I don’t need that. I want to be comfortable, and I want to be secure. My wife knows it. If I ever lost this job or became crippled, I don’t know what I could do. I would have to go to a psychiatrist and have him tell me that I am worth a damn as a human being, and try to get me interested in something else. But I would have a heck of a time, and my wife realizes that.” All members of the Sacramento Fire Department are loyal, dedicated to duty, respectful, selfless, honourable, possess a great deal of integrity and display personal courage in the face of danger and adversity. You can save lives by making a donation to the Sacramento Fire Department. The proud members of the Sacramento Fire Department are committed to providing the highest quality and highest level of courteous and responsive services to the residents, businesses, and visitors of Sacramento. This is accomplished by implementing comprehensive strategies and training in fire prevention, fire suppression, emergency medical services, and all risk mitigation, including human-caused and natural disasters, emergency preparedness, emergency services and community-based fire services. The Sacramento Fire Department physical requirements for the firefighters and EMTs state that you must be medically and physically fit, and able to pass the Occupational Physical Assessment Test. #RandolphHarris 17 of 23

 Therefore, physical and mental toughness are just the basic requirements. You achieve excellence when you habitually show discipline and commitment to the department’s values. Individuals and organizations pursue excellence to improve. Citizens, remember to give the right-of-way to any law enforcement vehicle, fire engine, ambulance, or other emergency vehicle using a siren and red lights. Failure to pull over may result in a ticket. Drive to the right edge of the road and stop until the emergency vehicles(s) have passed. When approaching a stationary emergency vehicle with flashing emergency signal lights (hazard lights), move over and slow down. If you are in an intersection when you see an emergency vehicle, continue through the intersection. Drive to the right as soon as it is safe and stop. Obey any direction, order, or signal given by a law enforcement officer, or a firefighter. Even if they conflict with existing signs, signals, or laws, follow their orders. When their siren or flashing lights are on, it is against the law to follow within 300 feet of any fire engine, law enforcement vehicle, ambulance, or other emergency vehicle. If you drive to the scene of a fire, collision, or other disaster, you can be arrested. When you do this, you are getting in the way of firefighters, ambulance crews, or other rescue and emergency personnel. Moral courage is the willingness to stand firm on values, principles, and convictions. It enables you to stand up for what you believe is right, regardless of the consequences. #RandolphHarris 18 of 23

The concept of professional courage does not always mean being as tough as nails, either. It also suggests a willingness to listen to other peoples’ problems, to go to bat for them in a tough situation and it means knowing just how far they can go. It also means being willing to tell the boss when he or she is wrong. As a reminder, parents, pleasure teach your children love America and be patriotic citizens and to buy goods and services made in America. It is also important to respect law and order and treat your elders with respect. Having the Southern American boarder open and not having American farmland protected, not producing beef, poultry, fish, fruit, produce and dairy in America, and without American goods and services being our number one manufactured and selling items, America has created a dangerous and significantly elevated risks to national security, national economic security, and national public health. Some people may believe that these claims are overstated, but by not routinely monitoring Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CEVs) or other security relevant alerts, such as end-of-life of machinery is how the Oroville Dam Crisis occurred in 2017. Other crises that have occurred due to neglect of critical infrastructure is the 2025 Palisades fires because Southern California ran out of water, when they are located next to an ocean and they could have simply created desalinating plants to help with the water shortage. The water is so plentiful that it is currently eroding land and causing homes to fall into the sea. #RandolphHarris 19 of 23

 American government should know all exploitable vulnerabilities and fix them prior to the situation becoming a crisis. Failure to take such mitigating actions is dangerous and significantly elevates risk to national security, national economic security, and national public health and safety. The American government must understand that significant time and resources must be invested in America. They must also encourage corporations to plan for both mitigating safety vulnerabilities in the short term and eliminating them in the long term. For instance, a company might begin by reaching out to the federal, state or local government and requesting tax incentives to provide security to dangerous communities, to help the government repair bridges and potholes. America needs an approach to eliminate safety vulnerabilities in American cities. There needs to be a road map by the end of 2025, outlining a prioritized approach to eliminate crisis situations in America. There is enough money to send aid to foreign nations, but the American government does not have enough money to care their infrastructure, provide adequate resources, nor end the affordable housing crisis. Nor is there enough money to fund other national critical functions (NCFs). These bad practices of putting America and Americans last is considered exceptionally risky, particularly to national security, national economic security, and national public health and safety. In 2024, Americans spent $100 billion on Japanese cars. #RandolphHarris 20 of 23

In an effort to help America pull through the massive national deficit, please buy American made cars. American made cars used to be the envy of the World and because American car brands are offering a wide range of options, from family SUVs to electric vehicles and luxury sedans, we are now seeing a resurging interest. American made cars are equal or superior to those made overseas. The Chevrolet Trax, for instance, is a well-designed, fuel efficient, and safe SUV. And as you know, there is no better car on Earth than 1950-1970s American Muscle Car. Americans make sure superior product, but we are buying things from other nations. American food imports have risen by 300 percent since 1999. American farmland declined by nearly 20 million acres between 2017 and 2022. As of 2022, there were 880.1 million acres of land dedicated to farming, compared to 900.1 million in 2017. The data shows there are now little more than 1.9 million farms in the country.  Americans and American corporations spent $136 billion on food and beverages from other countries. It is a national security risk to lose American Farms and farmers. If there is a war, and most of our meat, produce, poultry, dairy, and fruit is coming from foreign counties, we stand the risk of starving. With war breaking out all over the World, in these uncertain times, it is very important to bring American farms back. Las Vegas is running out of buildable land and is expected to reach its maximum number of homes in 2032. So, home prices are expected to rise dramatically. #RandolphHarris 21 of 23

Additionally, State Farm is asking the California Department of Insurance if they can raise homeowner insurance rates by 22 percent. If election for an unprecedented third term, to make housing more affordable and offset the cost of homeowner’s insurance, President Trump plans to abolish property taxes. Much like the land crisis in Las Vegas, we could also run out of land to farm and will not be able to grow or cultivate our own food. We can protect American farmland and support American farmers by buying American made beef, poultry, dairy, and produce. Also, country of origin labeling is very important so Americans can know where their food is coming from and have the ability to support American farmers and ranchers. As money flows, it influences further investment. Save the land that sustains us by protecting American farmland. Once the land is built on, we lose it forever.  And in the future, there may be food wars. Also, to ensure that we have farmland and buildable land for future use, we need to start limiting the number of people allowed to immigrant to America. Perhaps with the immigrants we do allow into America, there needs to be a diversity program to make sure we have a population that equally represents all races of people. If Americans continue to spend money on American products, then more need to be made to keep up the inventory. When investors notice these goods are selling, it gives them the confidence to pour more money into that local business. It shows that people want these goods made in America and pressures investors to keep these goods and services in America. The jobs stay here, the business stays in American, wages naturally increase, and more money is invested to keep up with demand. This reduces the burden on the taxpayer. #RandolphHarris 22 of 23

When you support American businesses, that money stays in our economy and can help to reduce the national debt. The government creates debt by borrowing from businesses in the private sector or from foreign countries. It also increases the national debt by spending more than it gains in tax revenue in a fiscal year. When people shop locally, more tax money stays in the economy and goes to the government. This way, it keeps more money in our national economy and keeps more jobs located in American which also sends more taxes to the government, which can again help to reduce the national debt. When you buy foreign goods, these companies usually have lighter tax loads or exemptions, meaning less money for the nation debt, plus you are helping to strengthen these foreign nations by send more money overseas. Buying American made products is also better for the environment and helps to reduce the carbon footprint because these products do not have to travel nearly as far. Furthermore, American companies and manufacturers are held to much higher standards in regard to pollution. American companies have to be more careful about air, land, and water pollution and have proper ways to dispose of waste. Moreover, please remember to respect law and order and treat your elders with the utmost dignity and kindness possible. And take your education seriously so that you will be successful in life and make your family proud. It is inborn in the human minds to wish to know. If this begins with the endless surface questions of a child’s curiosity, if it continues into deeper questions of a scientist’s probing investigation, it cannot and does not stop there. For the higher part of the mind will eventually come into unfoldment, that union of abstract reflective thought with mystical intuition, which is true intelligence, which needs and sees a view of the whole of things. And so, the knowing faculty enters the realm of philosophy. As a reminder, parents, pleasure teach your children love America and be patriotic citizens and to buy goods and services made in America. It is also important to respect law and order and treat your elders with respect. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic, for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. #RandolphHarris 23 of 23

Ventris Place

Welcome to Ventris Place at Laguna Park, a vibrant new neighborhood in the heart of Sacramento, featuring 37 rear loaded homes. Offering modern, open-concept floorplans with designer finishes.

This sought-after community is ideally located near top shopping centers, dining, and retail options. With easy access to downtown Sacramento and Sacramento International Airport, perfect for those seeking style, a low-maintenance lifestyle, and a thriving location. https://nextgenerationcapital.us/new-homes-elk-grove-ventris-place/