Mark Shepard column
Mark Shepard served two terms in the Vermont Senate (2003-2006) and ran for Congress in the 2006 Republican Primary. (Click here for more.)
For a number of reasons, not the least of which is its small size, Vermont has been targeted as a key beachhead by those desiring to move America away from its liberty-based birth – where the laws of nature and nature's God were supreme – and toward socialism, where the state (man's wisdom) is supreme. It was in that environment that Mark ran and served in elected politics.
The efforts of recent years to move our national policy toward socialistic ideas is very much patterned after what happened in Vermont, where there has been a very serious exodus of businesses, young people and young families. And where today there is no political party standing strong on America's founding principles, but rather each merely chases after power by playing on various human weaknesses to get votes.
Like so many other families and businesses in Vermont, in 2011 the Shepard family also moved their family and business from Vermont, relocating to Virginia, where Mark's wife, Rebecca, was raised and where they were married in 1990.
Mark holds Bachelor and Master Degrees in Electrical Engineering and owns and operates an industrial controls business he started during his last year of graduate school (1993). Prior to going to college, Mark worked in the building trades where he completed the four-year Vermont Electrical Apprenticeship and earned his Journeyman Electrician's License. Mark was raised on a strawberry farm in the hills of Hartland, Vermont, where his family has lived for several generations.
For a number of reasons, not the least of which is its small size, Vermont has been targeted as a key beachhead by those desiring to move America away from its liberty-based birth – where the laws of nature and nature's God were supreme – and toward socialism, where the state (man's wisdom) is supreme. It was in that environment that Mark ran and served in elected politics.
The efforts of recent years to move our national policy toward socialistic ideas is very much patterned after what happened in Vermont, where there has been a very serious exodus of businesses, young people and young families. And where today there is no political party standing strong on America's founding principles, but rather each merely chases after power by playing on various human weaknesses to get votes.
Like so many other families and businesses in Vermont, in 2011 the Shepard family also moved their family and business from Vermont, relocating to Virginia, where Mark's wife, Rebecca, was raised and where they were married in 1990.
Mark holds Bachelor and Master Degrees in Electrical Engineering and owns and operates an industrial controls business he started during his last year of graduate school (1993). Prior to going to college, Mark worked in the building trades where he completed the four-year Vermont Electrical Apprenticeship and earned his Journeyman Electrician's License. Mark was raised on a strawberry farm in the hills of Hartland, Vermont, where his family has lived for several generations.
Subscribe to Mark's columnMark Shepard
October 20, 2023
We are now engaged in two wars, supplying massive military equipment, intelligence and support. Thousands upon thousands of people have been killed, with . . .
Mark Shepard
July 31, 2023
On July 27, I went to a forum hosted by Americans for Prosperity, which focused on fixing the deep problems in K-12 schooling. I had been asked to come and . . .
Mark Shepard
January 19, 2023
(Originally written January 6, 2023)
Today is a very sad day, but one we should never forget. On this day in 2021, an insurrection occurred in our nation's . . .
Mark Shepard
October 4, 2022
Prop 5, Article 22 on Vermonters’ 2022 ballot, reads, “That an individual’s right to personal reproductive autonomy is central to the liberty and dignity . . .
Mark Shepard
July 1, 2022
Following the overturn of Roe, a young woman protesting in Lynchburg held a sign saying, “I’d have more Rights if my Vagina shot Bullets” (exact quote). . . .
Mark Shepard
June 17, 2022
Why is it that after every tragic gun-murder those who respond loudest for gun bans are often the same people who respond the loudest against anything that . . .
Mark Shepard
October 7, 2021
Is voting Democrat an evil act in God’s eyes? That question rose from a recent Sunday-school lesson on 1 Kings 21, where King Ahab wanted Naboth’s vineyard . . .
Mark Shepard
September 2, 2021
Why has Centra Health climbed on the vaccine mandate train?
COVID-19 has an overall survival rate of 98.4% and much higher for most demographics. And that . . .
Mark Shepard
August 30, 2021
Virginians, like much of the nation, have been thrust into a number of very unsettling controversies by ideas being pushed upon us. With a disgraceful lack of . . .
Mark Shepard
January 1, 2021
"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing." (Edmund Burke) I suspect Vice President Mike Pence has quoted that many times. . . .
Mark Shepard
November 27, 2020
Rep. Tom McClintock: "I rise this morning in defense of Governor Gavin Newsom of California who defied his own idiotic Covid edicts as he partied at one of the . . .
Mark Shepard
November 23, 2020
There is no path for a true Joe Biden victory. The reason has nothing to do with anyone who does not want him as president. Rather, has everything to do with . . .
Mark Shepard
October 31, 2020
There now is a mountain of evidence, authenticated by the FBI and many other government and private entities that millions upon millions of dollars were doled . . .
Mark Shepard
October 30, 2020
Do you know the real value of your vote?
Comparing the stark contrast between the energy and foreign policies of President Donald Trump and his Democratic . . .
Mark Shepard
October 18, 2020
On a September post at “Reasonable Faith with William Lane Craig”, Dr. Craig writes: “I am definitely advocating that we prioritize policy over character. . . .
Mark Shepard
September 20, 2020
There is a concerted effort to market this election as solely an up/down vote on Donald Trump's personality. Joe Biden is a non-factor and neither are the . . .
Mark Shepard
September 12, 2020
Some people may act surprised by the “Black Men for Trump” movement (https://blacktrumpmen.com/), because "it is not supposed to happen." I am not at all . . .
Mark Shepard
April 21, 2020
Part 2 of this article explored a free-market approach to education from a Christian worldview perspective. Part 3 listed practical action items and ideas to . . .
Mark Shepard
April 20, 2020
Part 1 of this article made a case that every education option impresses a set of values and ideas into students. A free-market education model is the only . . .
Mark Shepard
April 19, 2020
Part 1 exposed many of the problems with the state-controlled public education system in our nation today and proposed moving to a free-market education system. . . .
Mark Shepard
April 18, 2020
Schools are closed, children are home, and parents are confronted with how best to help their children continue their education at home, where parents are more . . .
Mark Shepard
December 16, 2018
Last Sunday we were blessed with about 12" of beautiful snow, which is uncommon in Virginia. So we decided to have church at home and worked on finding an . . .
Mark Shepard
November 4, 2018
(Updated from a November 4 column)
In an October 27 debate for the U.S. Senate seat in Vermont, current Senator Bernie Sanders, an unapologetic self-avowed . . .
Mark Shepard
August 24, 2017
The recent violence in Charlottesville, VA has a long history that must be remembered if we have any hope of not repeating a part of history that thankfully . . .
Mark Shepard
October 3, 2016
The Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union (1940s to 1991) operated under a doctrine called Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD), where both sides . . .
Mark Shepard
March 25, 2016
A recent article, titled "Congratulations, GOP, You've Created a Monster," connected the rise of Donald Trump to the Republican majority's betrayal of the very . . .
Mark Shepard
March 5, 2016
Donald Trump has accomplished what few people could.
Donald has created a situation where go-along Republicans are coming to terms with the reality that . . .
Mark Shepard
February 26, 2016
While I am sure there are similar examples in every state, I would like to take you back to two elections in my native state of Vermont that I believe shed some . . .
Mark Shepard
February 19, 2016
The importance of the Republican primary cannot be overstated. I say this as someone who came very close to running against Bernie Sanders when he first ran . . .
Mark Shepard
February 6, 2016
Who doesn't agree that one of the biggest problems with our federal government is corruption? Elections are won with money from political favors on the . . .
Mark Shepard
July 4, 2015
Just as we in the United States were preparing for the annual celebration marking the most amazing national experiment in liberty, our nation was mortally . . .
Mark Shepard
March 15, 2014
The other day a Facebook friend posed the following question: "Do you think we can turn this country around just by voting?"
My short answer was: Not a . . .
Mark Shepard
March 23, 2011
I thoroughly enjoy downhill skiing and even more so now that I am enjoying it with our four boys. I find skiing most enjoyable when I ski with the mountain . . .
Mark Shepard
July 16, 2010
The inability of our federal government to function in the real world is not simply that we elected the wrong people to run it; it is that we allowed our . . .
Mark Shepard
May 15, 2010
On top of mortgaging our children's future, the federal bailouts have essentially killed a very effective teacher — the natural consequences of poor judgment. . . .
Mark Shepard
March 11, 2010
Ignoring constituent concerns about the constitutionality of the federal government controlling healthcare did not work. Sighting Article I, Section 8 of the . . .
Mark Shepard
January 18, 2010
Recent polls show the Tea Partiers now outnumber registered Republicans and Democrats. That is great news because the people connected to tea parties are . . .
Mark Shepard
December 17, 2009
As Christmas comes, reactions abound. Since the fourth century AD, when Roman Emperor Constantine embraced Christianity, church service attendance in Western . . .
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