I grew up with a loathing of communism, thanks to my father Leon Kobrin. We lived in NYC in the 1960’s, at the height of the Cold War with Russia. Dad would rail against the system “that made a slave out of everybody!” 

His family, along with many other immigrants, had fled the Bolsheviks, the Nazis, and other totalitarian regimes. My aunt had married a Holocaust survivor who, after finding sanctuary in the US, joined our Navy to defeat the Japanese imperialists. Their generation had fought – and many had died – for the preservation of freedom and liberty. 

You don’t think about death much as a child, but these brave souls showed me that freedom is a cause worth living – and dying – for.
I remember my teachers warning us about the evil Soviets coming for America. I have a vivid recollection of my sixth-grade teacher imploring us to never forget this moment at the UN: Krushchev emphatically banging his shoe on a podium, while declaring that he would “bury” us. 

One high-school teacher, with the prescience of a prophet, had asked my class, “What do you think these ’60’s radicals’ and ‘anti-Establishment hippies’ will be doing in ten years? They will be parents, and brainwash their kids. They will have jobs as teachers, and brainwash your kids. They will be mayors, and bureaucrats, and maybe even President. And you will find out that when they talk about ‘freedom,’ they mean only for themselves. To get their freedom, they will want to take away yours.”

How bleak. But he also said something very encouraging: “Who do you think should win a in a fight: somebody who wants to hold on to something that is rightfully his, or somebody who wants to unfairly take that away from him?” 

Fast forward to year 2020. The Covid lockdowns; Antifa / BLM riots; and election theft all revealed this ugly truth: my government, and their corporate cohorts, would try to lay claim to my body; my business; my rights as a citizen; and even my life. All for their own selfish benefit. If we let them.

Not in my country.

911 was my wake-up call: it could happen here. War could come to our shores. I became involved in community safety and security.
Fortunately, my town has always promoted citizen participation. They had a Community Emergency Response Team (CERT,) and I underwent training to support the Office of Emergency Management.

The Police Department ran a Citizens Police Academy. I graduated that, and went on to start a Neighborhood Watch with other graduates.

I worked closely with both the OEM and PD on helping local houses of worship with emergency preparedness.

When the Pittsburgh synagogue massacre took place, I started a private Facebook group to discuss community safety and security. I had two goals:

1. To keep people mindful of all threats, not just mass shooters. As congregations hardened their physical defenses, I wanted to make sure every-day issues like environmental health and street violence were not forgotten;

2. To identify all the factors that could make communities unsafe. Shootings, and other violent crimes, do not take place in a vacuum; there is a cultural /  legal / political environment that can either encourage or discourage health and safety.

The year 2020 showed how true this all was. Government officials locking down entire states to “defeat Covid” – and in the process causing more illness and suffering than the virus?! Government officials allowing domestic terrorists to attack people and property with “peaceful protests”?! Government officials conspiring in  a “color revolution” (their words) to unseat an elected President, and demonize his supporters?!

It became clear to me that the NUMBER ONE threat to community safety and security, is a government that will turn against its own citizens.  

I have spent most of my life working in small business. As a matter of fact, my family is a small business family. 
My father, along with my aunt and uncle, worked in my grandfather’s corrugated box factory. He later went on to form his own life insurance brokerage.

My mother had a long career working for a variety of small business owners in publishing, teacher training, and child care.  
I was one of those kids who ran a lemonade stand on hot summer days. And, I grew up in my father’s brokerage.
I had a series of jobs with small firms before starting my life insurance sales practice. My wife also worked in a number of small firms before joining my brokerage as web master and office manager. My son has worked with me too, in addition to running his own small ventures.

The small business environment promotes freedom: freedom to be your own boss. To create. To build a better mousetrap. To succeed or fail by your own efforts.
A long time ago, I decided that I would much rather have the pressures of paying my own way, than the stresses of working for someone who did not have my personal well-being and prosperity at heart. That ruled out a government job, and working for a large corporation.

When I see the push to expand government control of the economy, as well as to have Big Companies provide more and more of our goods and services, I see small business owners and self-employed people becoming sacrificial lambs. There was no clearer example of this than when some state governors shut down “non-essential” businesses in the Covid pandemic – while the Big Ones stayed open and took their customers.

“Non-essential?’” The income of every person is essential – to their own household.  

No room for Marxism in America.  

Free people have been fighting totalitarian rulers since Biblical times. Tyrants assume they are gods, and oppress the masses for their own selfish gain. The good people endure as much pain and suffering as they can take, and eventually strike back. Both great warriors and everyday heroes lead the way.

Enter the Jewish people into the fight.

Over 3000 years ago, God redeemed us from slavery in Egypt. The Pharaoh at that time thought he was the ruler of the world, but God basically told him, “You are not the boss of the Hebrews – I am. Furthermore, I am the Boss of you.”

God then gave us the Torah, and led us to the Promised Land. Since that time, the Jewish people have been a thorn in the side of the tyrants, despots, and dictators who have sought to rule over us.

Why? Because we know that government is not God.

In America today, Big Government zealots are waging war on individual rights and freedoms. They are trying to make each person a cog in their wheel. The Jewish people know how wrong this is, and the damage it can cause. We have millennia of experience fending off such crusades. We have not only survived but thrived because we know right makes might – not the other way around.

I have the privilege of training in Bagua Kung Fu under Shifu Raymond Ahles, at the Blue Dragon School of Martial Arts in Bergenfield, New Jersey. Traditional martial arts provide important, common-sense life lessons and life skills, such as these:

Meditate and work hard on yourself, so you can have inner peace. If you are at peace with yourself, you can be at peace with others.
Avoid fights, both verbal and physical. Why bring more trouble into your life?

If you have to fight, do only what is necessary to stop the fighting. Adding to the aggression would simply prolong the conflict.
Your combat skills are for self-defense and preserving the peace.

When I was a kid, my father gave me this direction in street fighting: “Don’t start the fight. Just make sure you finish it.”
I like the Martial Way better: “Don’t start the fight. Just make sure it stops.”
Big difference. It’s not a matter of winning. It’s a matter of Stopping the Fighting.

This is a crucial perspective for America today.

We are being invaded by foreign enemies. Imperialists from various corners – Communist China, Iran, and assorted globalists among them – want to cut us down to size, and take over our rich resources. Their prime target is our population – industrious, creative, enterprising Americans.

Their ideas have infiltrated our core institutions, from families to government agencies. Many of our children, parents, students, teachers, business leaders, and politicians have become advocates of their totalitarian ideas.

Because many of the “enemies” are “within” – among our family, friends, neighbors, and coworkers – we need to defend ourselves but not make the damage worse. We don’t want to fracture the country. We don’t want to break up families. We don’t want to divide communities.

We want to defend what is rightfully ours, and preserve the peace. The Martial Way will help us stop the fighting.