Lesson of the Kobayashi Maru

Greetings, everyone. If you are a fan of the original “Star Trek” you will immediately recognize the title of this missive. It comes from the training exercise in the Starfleet Academy that was designed to test the character of the cadets in what was deemed a no-win scenario. Therefore, there had never been any cadet who had beaten the Kobayashi Maru test. It was not intended for one to win, but rather as an assessment of how a cadet could handle the scenario. The key to the test was not “never fail” but always learn from missteps and outright failures . . . a lesson our young people could use today.

Well, that scenario about a no-win situation did not sit well with one Starfleet cadet, James Tiberius Kirk, who would become the Captain Kirk, later commanding the Starship Enterprise. Kirk was renowned because he was the only cadet in Starfleet history to ever beat the Kobayashi Maru scenario.

How did Kirk, William Shatner, do it?

We learned in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan that Kirk reprogrammed the simulation so that it was possible to win. As he stated, he never believed in a no-win scenario.

As I listen to and read posts this midterm election cycle, there are so many who feel that all is lost when it comes to fair elections. One need only look at the prolonged situation in Arizona, Nevada, and California. We can go back to the reelection of Minnesota Senator Norm Coleman where ballots kept being found until Al Franken was declared the winner. Or just two years ago, the congressional reelection for New York Congresswoman Claudia Tenney, where the attempt was to once again by the progressive socialist left, assess how many ballots were needed, and keep finding them until they won. Rep. Tenney ended up prevailing.

To many, the voting situation in America has become the Kobayashi Maru, a seemingly no-win scenario. I must admit, I cannot fathom how in Arizona, the Secretary of State, Katie Hobbs, is allowed to oversee her own election process in running for Governor. With a Republican-controlled legislature and Governor in the Arizona, how do the shenanigans in Maricopa County prevail?

Well, we can sit around and be like all the previous Starfleet cadets and accept the failure and have the Pyrrhic “we learned from the experience” psyche, or we can adopt the bravado of Captain Kirk.

It is time we understand the program and seek to reprogram it so that we can have fair elections and restore the confidence of Americans in the system. This starts at the state level, and we saw extreme success in Georgia and Florida to rectify their electoral issues. This has to be a wholehearted endeavor across the country where we have Republican controlled state legislative bodies. A great example is in my home State of Texas where the legislature reclassified voter fraud from a felony offense to a misdemeanor. That must be reversed. States should be conducting rigorous Beta testing of voting machines and implement measures to resolve situations like what we saw happen in Maricopa County, Arizona. And we must make it a full court press to eradicate the unsolicited mail in ballot scheme that is a dangerous remnant of leftist strategy from COVID.

Take for instance what we have done at the American Constitutional Rights Union. We witnessed what was happening in our Senior living facilities and memory care centers and went on offense. Yes, we got inside the program and reprogrammed it to make these facilities aware that we were watching. We established the Center for Vulnerable Voters and developed a hotline where we received nearly 900 tips on nefarious and questionable actions.

It is time we took bold actions and get inside the leftist decision cycle when it comes to election integrity. Learn the schemes being used and not accept the “no-win”scenario. The left has metastasized their plans to where it comes down to ballots, not the voters. We must do as any good commander does on the battlefield, improvise, adapt, and overcome. We must use the legislative process to block these strategies or understand the strategies and use them to our advantage.

Remember the quote attributed to Josef Stalin, “It is not the person who casts the ballot that matters (meaning the voter). It is the person who counts the ballot that matters.”

Yeah, you can learn from failure and missteps, but we can also lose the longest-running Constitutional Republic that the world has ever known. As the great philosopher Ricky Bobby said, “if ya ain’t first, you’re last.” Let’s find the boldness of one Starfleet cadet, James T. Kirk and defeat the no win scenario called the Kobayashi Maru, which, in our time, is our election process.

Steadfast and Loyal!