WHAT TBP MEANS TO ME

With all the turmoil in the last few weeks over websites, censorship, free speech, and leftist tech corporations banning sites they don’t like, I thought it would be a good time to clarify my vision and purpose for The Burning Platform. First, TBP is not an alt-right, white supremacist or pro-nazi website. I also don’t consider it a pro-Republican website. It’s been built by being anti lots of stuff. I don’t want to be part of any group that would have me as a member.

My philosophy is practical libertarian. I want to be left alone to live my life as I choose. I don’t care how others live their lives. The less government, the better. The purpose of our military is to protect our country from invasion, not policing the world. The Austrian School of economics makes the most sense to me. Keynesian economists are either liars or brain damaged. I’m a strict Constitutionalist. I despise Wall Street bankers, the Federal Reserve, liberal politicians, GOP establishment politicians, neo-cons, fake news corporate media, the military industrial complex, government apparatchiks, the surveillance state, and the Deep State oligarchs.

The site’s patron saints are Ron Paul and David Walker. The mistreatment of Ron Paul by the corporate media and the GOP establishment during his 2008 and 2012 campaigns for president was the motivation for me to begin writing. The name of the website is taken from a quote by David Walker which I believe sums up the dilemma facing our country. Our fiscal situation is now far worse than it was when he made this statement in 2007. But still, the ignorant masses continue to mindlessly sleepwalk through life staring at their iGadgets as the American Empire accelerates towards bankruptcy and a great fall.

“The US government is on a “burning platform” of unsustainable policies and practices with fiscal deficits, chronic healthcare underfunding, immigration and overseas military commitments threatening a crisis if action is not taken soon.

There are striking similarities between America’s current situation and the factors that brought down Rome, including declining moral values and political civility at home, an over-confident and over-extended military in foreign lands and fiscal irresponsibility by the central government. The fiscal imbalance meant the US was on a path toward an explosion of debt.

With the looming retirement of baby boomers, spiraling healthcare costs, plummeting savings rates and increasing reliance on foreign lenders, we face unprecedented fiscal risks. Current US policy on education, energy, the environment, immigration and Iraq also was on an unsustainable path. Our very prosperity is placing greater demands on our physical infrastructure. Billions of dollars will be needed to modernize everything from highways and airports to water and sewage systems.”

– David Walker – 2007

The original intent of creating this website was to have a place where I could post my articles without being censored. Seeking Alpha began changing my articles and eventually banning me. Financial Sense black balled me. They both sold out to Wall Street. After having a falling out with my original web master and then running the site on the cheap by myself for a few years, a massive denial of service attack in 2014 looked like it would be the end of TBP. That is when fellow blogger Mike Krieger and TMWNN came to my rescue. TMWNN fought off the denial of service attack and has protected TBP ever since.

TBP went from a half assed shoestring operation to a more professional website. My generous readers stepped up with a significant level of donations and the big boob ads get plenty of clicks from my dirty old man demographic, generating decent ad revenue. The site has changed dramatically over the last few years as my annual visitor totals have doubled from 4.4 million to 8.8 million. Not bad for some guy doing this in his spare time.

As the TBP community has grown I had to make a choice. I could just write an article or two per week and leave the site dormant for most of the week. I have very limited time, especially during the workweek. It became clear to me the community wanted to interact on a daily basis, so I decided to turn TBP into a mini Zero Hedge with 15 to 20 posts per day from various writers. I’ve been thrilled to have multiple TBPers become great contributors to the site with an outstanding array of articles and viewpoints. I’ve become more of a publisher/editor and less of a writer. I prefer writing, but keeping this community entertained and involved on a daily basis is more important.

The entire point of this website is to piss people off, wake them up to the evils being done by their government, uncover the fake data pumped out on a daily basis by the government and media, reveal the propaganda techniques used by the Deep State to keep the sheep sedated, and warn them of the financial peril that unequivocally will destroy our country. I view everything through the lens of the Fourth Turning. Strauss & Howe’s generational theory makes total sense to me. There is nothing that has happened since I read that book in 2007 to make me question it’s hypothesis. We are in the middle of a Fourth Turning and I’m trying to help people navigate through it.

TBP is about free speech. I post articles that I agree with and articles I disagree with. I try to post things that will provoke a vibrant discussion. I don’t think TBP is an echo chamber. The flame wars in the comment section proves that. I rarely moderate comments and it takes a lot to get banned from TBP. But I am the benevolent dictator of TBP. If I believe a commenter is just attempting to troll and disrupt, they will get the boot. I used to tear apart government data reports on a daily basis. I don’t do it anymore. I don’t like repeating myself. When I have the time and energy I’ll write an article. In the meantime, I will try to keep this site up and running for all of you.

I also attempt to use humor as an antidote to the never ending doom we subject ourselves to as critical thinking people who can see what the future holds. I use Cloudflare, Go Daddy, and Paypal. What they have done to other websites could be done to TBP in an instant. We are living in dangerous times. Many people don’t like what we have to say. When the really nasty portion of this Fourth Turning gets going, who knows what censorship and 1984 like measures will be taken by the government. I’m sure we are already on a list of subversive websites. But, with the dedicated behind the scenes help of TMWNN, we’ll do everything in our power to keep this free speech zone open and fighting the good fight.

What does TBP mean to you?