Heart of AG: Shop your values, America
by: Amanda Radke
In this busy, loud and often chaotic world we live in, with our full schedules and constant demand to be on-the-go, the older I get, the more I savor and appreciate silence.
I find I do my best thinking and praying in silence, whenever I can find it. And, I’ve realized unless I intentionally carve out some quiet times, the world will continue to come at me at break-neck speeds.
For me, true solace can be found in the pastures where my cattle graze. I ditch my cell phone and head outside, and in the peace and quiet of the great outdoors, I find it’s not really quiet after all.
When we pause to listen, the prairie comes alive – birds chirp, frogs croak, pheasants crow, bees buzz, cows moo, the creek bubbles and as dusk blankets the South Dakota plains and the sun kisses the horizon for another day, the hills echo with the sounds of coyotes howling in the distance.
In the words of Musician Corb Lund, “This is my prairie. This is my home.”
The prairie is a place I’ll fight to protect. It’s a place I’ll raise my children. It’s a place I’ll grow old with my spouse. It’s a place where I’ll build my agriculture business, and it’s a place outside of the modern world where I can find peace and beauty and abundance of blessings and it doesn’t cost me a dime. It just asks me to pause, reflect and appreciate all that it is.
I was doing exactly this the other evening, alongside my husband Tyler. It’s one of our favorite things to do together, and I hope I never take these simple moments for granted.
On this particular evening, as I looked out over the land I love, I realized this country has so many amazing treasures to cherish but none more so than the people who call this nation home.
And, as I thought of the incredible Americans I have been blessed to meet on my travels as a speaker, a sadness attempted to overwhelm me. There are so many attacks on these great people – on farms and ranches, entrepreneurs, small town main street businesses, the church and the family too.
These attacks come from so many directions, it can make your head spin. However, none are more egregious than the attacks from our own – with policies and regulations being weaponized to threaten the very fabric of America we all know and love.
As I often opine in my columns and speeches, we the American people hold the power and the leverage to change the culture of this country for the better. We may not be able to change what happens in Washington, D.C., but we can absolutely shift the political landscape locally when we stand firm and stick together for what is right.
And even more than this, in the face of a downturn economy and so many American businesses suffering, we can also choose to shop our values and fight for a country we want to live in.
What this means is skipping the big box stores which mass produce everything overseas. It means refusing to shop at foreign clothing shops like Shein and Temu, who steal photos from American boutiques and use child labor to create the lowest-cost, cheaply-made version for the American consumer.
It means shopping your values and choosing stores that stand for America-first values, not companies and corporations who have bent the knee to the Green New Deal. It means choosing to live in this world, but not of this world, and prioritizing living your faith every single day in every single way, not just at Sunday morning church.
It’s choosing the hard path. It’s choosing the path towards an America which will thrive for our kids and grandkids. It’s choosing to think long-term gains, instead of short-term pleasures. It’s simple in theory, but difficult in practice.
But the cost of not doing exactly this is too much to bear. The cost of outsourcing our best talent; our food production; our clothing, technology and equipment to foreign countries creates a reliance and vulnerability we simply cannot afford.
It is an election year, but we are voting on so much more than a president. We are voting on the down-ballot issues which will shape the course of our states and local communities, and we are voting on the future we want to see based on our spending habits and the values we prioritize.
Americans, we are the change. We are the shift, but we must support each other in this endeavor. Shop local. Shop small. Shop American. This is the energy we all need going into the holiday season and beyond. God bless.
Amanda Radke is a rancher, author, motivational speaker and podcast host. For more information, visit amandaradke.com.
