Growing up in the small town of Williamston South Carolina, spending a lot of time growing up in the county farmland of the Cheddar community and being the son of hard working small business owners, I was taught that real wealth doesn’t always look flashy—it grows slow, steady, and is rooted in discipline. It’s not about what you make; it’s about what you keep. And in many ways, that’s the heart of why tariffs—particularly the ones proposed under President Trump—make a whole lot of long-term sense for the average working American.

See, somewhere along the way, Americans got addicted to cheap. Cheap gadgets. Cheap labor. Cheap thrills. And while that might’ve looked good on a spreadsheet or at the checkout counter, it hollowed out our ability to produce, build, and sustain our own wealth at home. We outsourced jobs and insourced debt and the result is a very out of whack and unfair tariff system, where we are paying more than our fair share.

What tariffs do is bring the real cost back into the conversation. They say, “If you want access to our market, you’re going to play fair and pay your share.” That isn’t isolationism—that’s accountability and accountability leads to prosperity. We need to take the politics out of it. It’s not about being a Republican or Democrat, conservative or liberal, it’s about living in what I believe is one of the best places in the world to live – the good ole United States Of America.

Sometimes you gotta stop buyin’ biscuits from the place that quit makin’ ’em with real butter. Tariffs are about gettin’ back to real butter. Supporting the folks who plant, harvest, and grind the grain, not just the ones slappin’ a label on the bag. At some point, we have to make the tough decisions that level the playing field.

It’s not about hating other countries. It’s about loving our own people enough to say, “You matter. Your job matters. Your work is worth protecting.” Because when the backbone of a nation—its middle class—can thrive again, everything else starts to stand a little taller too.
And that, my friend, is how you build a country, not by buying cheaper but by investing smarter, deeper, and closer to home. Here’s an idea: If the other countries agreed, maybe we could just do away with tariffs altogether?

Now, I have never claimed to be the sharpest pencil in the pack, but I do think that my upbringing by and with hardworking men, women, boys and girls has provided me with some common sense and while I am not one for controversy and I’m sure this will cause some, but we can’t help but acknowledge that what we’ve been doing is not working.

-MJHarvell

Now, I don’t claim to know everything, but I do know this—when Paul said, “Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in your midst?”—he wasn’t talking about some fancy cathedral with stained glass windows and polished pews. No sir, he was talking about you. That’s right. You, me, and anybody else who’s ever trusted Jesus and tried their best to walk with Him, even if we stumble along the way.

See, God don’t live in buildings made by men—He moved in right next door to your heart the moment you said yes to Him. That means everywhere you go, God goes too. Whether you’re sipping sweet tea on the front porch or stuck in traffic behind a tractor, the Spirit of God is riding shotgun.

And let me tell you something else—if you really believe God lives in you, you’ll start treating yourself and others a whole lot better. You don’t trash the place when you know it’s sacred. You don’t talk ugly to people when you know the Spirit’s listening.

So today, walk like you’re carrying the presence of the King—because you are. And remember: you’re not just somebody, you’re somebody God chose to move into.

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