Random thoughts 3 weeks into the new administration
Some random comments from a website whose commenters seem pretty perceptive. As you'll see, all of 'em are very concerned about the future.
==
One of the big problems in the U.S. today is that there's no penalty for making crappy decisions or breaking the law. When aggrieved "snowflakes" notice that no penalty applies, the see no reason to either make good choices or obey laws.
==
If you want to see what the Left will do if they succeed in recapturing the government, watch what they're doing right now in California (which has a Dem governor and Dem-controlled legislature).
Until a year or so ago I always believed we could once again work with the Left and they with us to make things work as well as possible. But that requires a) the desire to work together for positive results; and 2) willingness to compromise. It would appear that the Left doesn't want to do either. The Left's idea of compromise is 'you give us exactly what we want and we won't order our followers to riot.'
==
[Re Berkeley riots:] Hmm...People in masks intimidating others with violence. Isn't that exactly what the KKK did? And haven't liberals screamed forever about how awful that was (and it was)? But suddenly it's totes cool. Why? Oh, got it...
==
Various Federal and state benefits for the unlucky, the incompetent, the illiterate and the lazy provide a powerful disincentive to get a job. Every time I see a woman with four or five kids in the grocery line using food stamps, and all the kids have a $200-$600 smart phone--with its accompanying monthly operating cost-- I know something is wrong.
==
20 years ago liberals totally trashed the idea that natural gas could be transported across the ocean in liquid form. But today Japan imports 85 million tons of LNG a year, shipped on giant tankers. Imported LNG produced 44% of Japan's electricity in the year ended March 2016. But according to liberals, it could never be done economically.
==
The USGS upgraded their estimates of the natural gas in western colorado so that now they are roughly the same as estimates for natural gas in the Marcellus shale of Pennsylvania ohio and West Virginia. The only way to get the gas from the wellhead to consumers is via pipeline, so the Obama administration...refused to allow the pipeline that would have brought that natural gas to west coast gas terminals to be built. So the energy program by the Democrats is: no new oil, no new gas, no coal at all, no new nuclear plants, no new dams. Just lots of expensive, eagle-killing wind turbines.
==
In science, if you have valid proof of something, you publish your proof. All of it. Allow others to critique and test.
If you can't prove your theory you can bluster and bully. By intimidation and coercion you can build a contrived "consensus" and claim the debate is over--that "the science is settled."
You maintain the deception by demonizing the skeptical, cutting off research funding to intellectually honest researchers, trying to get those of opposing views fired. Call your opponents "climate deniers".
We see the same approach in political discourse. The left wants no part of reasoning and rationality. Now that academia has been purged of virtually all conservative professors and administrators, the left is working hard to ensure that no opposing arguments are allowed to be heard.
The modus operandi is bullying, intimidation, violence, and mockery. Don't even allow the opposing view to have a voice on campus. The use of these strategies is the strongest evidence of the bankruptcy of the narrative.
==
You can judge how sound liberalism is by the fact that liberals--at all levels--keep making promises or predictions that are so quickly shown to be false. Like...
*"No American has ever been killed by a person from the seven countries named by the president's temporary travel ban."
*"2016 was the hottest year ever."
*"The polar bear population is shrinking."
*"Global warming means every year there will be more severe weather events."
*"Quantitative easing will help the economy recover, because every dollar the government prints generates 1.4 dollars in demand."
*"The Arctic will be totally ice-free by 2015."
*"The unfortunate events in Benghazi were due to a spontaneous demonstration caused by an inflammatory video on the internet."
*"If you like your doctor can keep your own doctor."
*"The ACA will save the average family $2500 every year on health care."
*"Sea level is rising faster and faster due to global warming."
*"The fact that Mount Kilimanjaro is losing snow proves that global warming is real.
*"Obama spent TARP money on shovel-ready infrastructure projects."
*"Donald Trump will never be President of the United States."
One can go on. Liberals, "progressives" and Dems all believed ALL of these claims. One begins to wonder about the actual intelligence of these people.
So if their policies are so bad, why do they keep on? Because for leftists the 'win' comes from having their signaled virtue noticed and applauded by their peers. No other results matter.
==
Most Americans pretty much like what they have and would like more. They notice when they lose what they have, and they don't like it. In fact they look around for a reason.
When politicians don't deliver on the promises they made, or when things people like or need either vanish or become more costly, people naturally wonder why. Pols always blame the opposition: thus Dem leaders blamed the hideous failure of so many state "health exchanges" (20, I think) on "obstructionism" by Repubs. But this excuse only works for awhile (and national repubs couldn't sabotage at the state level in any case).
Slowly-- too slowly for the Left to notice-- the temperature of popular discontent has risen to the point that it can no longer be blamed on Republicans, nor mollified by the pols making even more extravagant promises. People began to suspect a fraud.
Thus the Left has called for--and delivered--violence (riots) hoping people will be distracted and fall silent. They're counting on this tactic to work.
==
What *does* the Left want?
That everyone in the world be allowed to live in any country they want.
That every liberal-arts grad--say, womens' studies--get a six-figure job right after graduation.
That no one have to work more than three days a week, six hours per day.
That all college be free for everyone.
That everyone get a guaranteed income, regardless of whether they work or not.
That U.S. defense spending be cut by 80 percent.
That illegal drugs be de-criminalized.
That all cities provide free high-speed internet service for all.
==
So-called "progressives" claim they want good things for all people everywhere. If true, it follows that anyone who is a good person should fully support "progressives'" ideas and policies.
So conversely, anyone who opposes or obstructs the actions, demands, or desires of a "progressive" must be a bad person, since only a Bad Person would oppose the acts of someone trying to do Good for all people everywhere."
==
After 8 years of silence during Obama's faaabulous reign, the TV networks are suddenly re-discovering homelessness and joblessness. Apparently neither existed when Duh Won was emperor, but suddenly after Trump's been in office for a whole 3 weeks, both those are AWFUL problems!
==
Commenter: Training someone to proficiency with the gun is easy. The hard part is convincing them to actually use it when they should. Convincing someone that they actually need to overcome the culturally conditioned aversion to interpersonal violence that Americans have been spoonfed for the last sixty years, is far more challenging than teaching someone the mechanics of gunfighting.
Guess which side has already overcome that cultural conditioning? It’s the people who are already cracking their "enemies" in the head with bricks, then repeatedly kicking the unconscious victims before throwing a Molotov cocktail through their car window.
The Left has won far more dirty civil wars and insurgent conflicts than the Right has. There are many reasons for this but most notable is the conditioning folks on the Right have to to obeying the law. As long as there is a politician telling them, “Now, now, let’s all stay calm and let the authorities handle it,” the Right is content to stay home and wait for the cops.
Meanwhile Leftists are screaming “FUCK THE MAN! BURN THIS BITCH DOWN!” So while the Right is saying, “Let's let the police do their job” the Left is already killing.
The scary truth is that if shooting starts on a wide level, your government isn’t going to save you--not you, not your neighborhood nor your city. To the extent that cops even show up for duty, their political bosses will deploy them to protect the politicians, not you.
==
When Obama won in 2008, I believed it was going to be a national disaster. And IMO, it was.
I didn't dress in black and go assault some Obama voters.
Didn't firebomb anyone's car.
Didn't join a riot and break store windows.
Didn't scream and call Democrats names or unfriend them.
I believed America had made a disastrous choice-- one posing an existential threat to our Constitution and our country. But I respected the voters' choice--even though I thought it was insane.
But after the recent election upset we find that the idea of mutual respect for the other's candidate only goes one way: Dems only respect the Constitution, the law and the rights of others when they *win.* Then they invoke constitutional authority. But when they lose, they behave like fascists--rioting, beating opponents, breaking things, torching cars--while calling *us* fascists.
==
Every member of the lying mainstream media loved Obama, so their stories about him were uniformly slobbering. They told us he was great, regardless of whether his programs were good and successful or bad or failures.
Money could be borrowed almost to infinity, wars could be lost, allies abandoned, and the media was thrilled. The enemy was always domestic--always some pathetic conservative whining that Obama's latest act was unconstitutional. The fights were easy to win; a flower shop owner, a small town pizza restaurant. Greenhouse gases? Shut down any activity then borrow money to buy the stuff made somewhere else.
The answers were easy. A bunch of black kids are killing each other in gang wars? Blame the cops. Cops are bad. Obamacare not turning out the way everyone was told it would? Blame Republicans. Some crackpot shoots up a gay club shouting islamic slogans? Must be because conservatives hate gay marriage.
==
By itself, the soft left is no match for the "deplorables" they despise, so they will welcome the young, tough, brutal Muslim men who are willing to terrorize the deplorables into obedience.
Leftists are so contemptuous of religious Americans because they see the latter as stupid and willing to concede on every point to keep the peace. The idea that members of a "religion" would happily kill them is totally outside their experience and understanding, so they think they can always buy off the true believers.
The tough, brutal Muslims will prove them dead wrong. Of course by then it will be far too late.
==
Guy analyzing the court order--upheld by the 9th circus--blocking Trump's executive order travel ban:
"Actually for the Trump Admin this court ruling is good news, even if bad news for the country. Reason is that now the State of Washington, the Democratic Party, the rioters at Berkeley et cetera will OWN any terrorist attack that occurs in the U.S.!
The Dems backed a policy of allowing terrorists to come in unvetted, and if we get hit again people will blame them."
You'd think so, but with the Lying Media providing air cover, Americans will never learn of the connection.
==
One of the big problems in the U.S. today is that there's no penalty for making crappy decisions or breaking the law. When aggrieved "snowflakes" notice that no penalty applies, the see no reason to either make good choices or obey laws.
==
If you want to see what the Left will do if they succeed in recapturing the government, watch what they're doing right now in California (which has a Dem governor and Dem-controlled legislature).
Until a year or so ago I always believed we could once again work with the Left and they with us to make things work as well as possible. But that requires a) the desire to work together for positive results; and 2) willingness to compromise. It would appear that the Left doesn't want to do either. The Left's idea of compromise is 'you give us exactly what we want and we won't order our followers to riot.'
==
[Re Berkeley riots:] Hmm...People in masks intimidating others with violence. Isn't that exactly what the KKK did? And haven't liberals screamed forever about how awful that was (and it was)? But suddenly it's totes cool. Why? Oh, got it...
==
Various Federal and state benefits for the unlucky, the incompetent, the illiterate and the lazy provide a powerful disincentive to get a job. Every time I see a woman with four or five kids in the grocery line using food stamps, and all the kids have a $200-$600 smart phone--with its accompanying monthly operating cost-- I know something is wrong.
==
20 years ago liberals totally trashed the idea that natural gas could be transported across the ocean in liquid form. But today Japan imports 85 million tons of LNG a year, shipped on giant tankers. Imported LNG produced 44% of Japan's electricity in the year ended March 2016. But according to liberals, it could never be done economically.
==
The USGS upgraded their estimates of the natural gas in western colorado so that now they are roughly the same as estimates for natural gas in the Marcellus shale of Pennsylvania ohio and West Virginia. The only way to get the gas from the wellhead to consumers is via pipeline, so the Obama administration...refused to allow the pipeline that would have brought that natural gas to west coast gas terminals to be built. So the energy program by the Democrats is: no new oil, no new gas, no coal at all, no new nuclear plants, no new dams. Just lots of expensive, eagle-killing wind turbines.
==
In science, if you have valid proof of something, you publish your proof. All of it. Allow others to critique and test.
If you can't prove your theory you can bluster and bully. By intimidation and coercion you can build a contrived "consensus" and claim the debate is over--that "the science is settled."
You maintain the deception by demonizing the skeptical, cutting off research funding to intellectually honest researchers, trying to get those of opposing views fired. Call your opponents "climate deniers".
We see the same approach in political discourse. The left wants no part of reasoning and rationality. Now that academia has been purged of virtually all conservative professors and administrators, the left is working hard to ensure that no opposing arguments are allowed to be heard.
The modus operandi is bullying, intimidation, violence, and mockery. Don't even allow the opposing view to have a voice on campus. The use of these strategies is the strongest evidence of the bankruptcy of the narrative.
==
You can judge how sound liberalism is by the fact that liberals--at all levels--keep making promises or predictions that are so quickly shown to be false. Like...
*"No American has ever been killed by a person from the seven countries named by the president's temporary travel ban."
*"2016 was the hottest year ever."
*"The polar bear population is shrinking."
*"Global warming means every year there will be more severe weather events."
*"Quantitative easing will help the economy recover, because every dollar the government prints generates 1.4 dollars in demand."
*"The Arctic will be totally ice-free by 2015."
*"The unfortunate events in Benghazi were due to a spontaneous demonstration caused by an inflammatory video on the internet."
*"If you like your doctor can keep your own doctor."
*"The ACA will save the average family $2500 every year on health care."
*"Sea level is rising faster and faster due to global warming."
*"The fact that Mount Kilimanjaro is losing snow proves that global warming is real.
*"Obama spent TARP money on shovel-ready infrastructure projects."
*"Donald Trump will never be President of the United States."
One can go on. Liberals, "progressives" and Dems all believed ALL of these claims. One begins to wonder about the actual intelligence of these people.
So if their policies are so bad, why do they keep on? Because for leftists the 'win' comes from having their signaled virtue noticed and applauded by their peers. No other results matter.
==
Most Americans pretty much like what they have and would like more. They notice when they lose what they have, and they don't like it. In fact they look around for a reason.
When politicians don't deliver on the promises they made, or when things people like or need either vanish or become more costly, people naturally wonder why. Pols always blame the opposition: thus Dem leaders blamed the hideous failure of so many state "health exchanges" (20, I think) on "obstructionism" by Repubs. But this excuse only works for awhile (and national repubs couldn't sabotage at the state level in any case).
Slowly-- too slowly for the Left to notice-- the temperature of popular discontent has risen to the point that it can no longer be blamed on Republicans, nor mollified by the pols making even more extravagant promises. People began to suspect a fraud.
Thus the Left has called for--and delivered--violence (riots) hoping people will be distracted and fall silent. They're counting on this tactic to work.
==
What *does* the Left want?
That everyone in the world be allowed to live in any country they want.
That every liberal-arts grad--say, womens' studies--get a six-figure job right after graduation.
That no one have to work more than three days a week, six hours per day.
That all college be free for everyone.
That everyone get a guaranteed income, regardless of whether they work or not.
That U.S. defense spending be cut by 80 percent.
That illegal drugs be de-criminalized.
That all cities provide free high-speed internet service for all.
==
So-called "progressives" claim they want good things for all people everywhere. If true, it follows that anyone who is a good person should fully support "progressives'" ideas and policies.
So conversely, anyone who opposes or obstructs the actions, demands, or desires of a "progressive" must be a bad person, since only a Bad Person would oppose the acts of someone trying to do Good for all people everywhere."
==
After 8 years of silence during Obama's faaabulous reign, the TV networks are suddenly re-discovering homelessness and joblessness. Apparently neither existed when Duh Won was emperor, but suddenly after Trump's been in office for a whole 3 weeks, both those are AWFUL problems!
==
Commenter: Training someone to proficiency with the gun is easy. The hard part is convincing them to actually use it when they should. Convincing someone that they actually need to overcome the culturally conditioned aversion to interpersonal violence that Americans have been spoonfed for the last sixty years, is far more challenging than teaching someone the mechanics of gunfighting.
Guess which side has already overcome that cultural conditioning? It’s the people who are already cracking their "enemies" in the head with bricks, then repeatedly kicking the unconscious victims before throwing a Molotov cocktail through their car window.
The Left has won far more dirty civil wars and insurgent conflicts than the Right has. There are many reasons for this but most notable is the conditioning folks on the Right have to to obeying the law. As long as there is a politician telling them, “Now, now, let’s all stay calm and let the authorities handle it,” the Right is content to stay home and wait for the cops.
Meanwhile Leftists are screaming “FUCK THE MAN! BURN THIS BITCH DOWN!” So while the Right is saying, “Let's let the police do their job” the Left is already killing.
The scary truth is that if shooting starts on a wide level, your government isn’t going to save you--not you, not your neighborhood nor your city. To the extent that cops even show up for duty, their political bosses will deploy them to protect the politicians, not you.
==
When Obama won in 2008, I believed it was going to be a national disaster. And IMO, it was.
I didn't dress in black and go assault some Obama voters.
Didn't firebomb anyone's car.
Didn't join a riot and break store windows.
Didn't scream and call Democrats names or unfriend them.
I believed America had made a disastrous choice-- one posing an existential threat to our Constitution and our country. But I respected the voters' choice--even though I thought it was insane.
But after the recent election upset we find that the idea of mutual respect for the other's candidate only goes one way: Dems only respect the Constitution, the law and the rights of others when they *win.* Then they invoke constitutional authority. But when they lose, they behave like fascists--rioting, beating opponents, breaking things, torching cars--while calling *us* fascists.
==
Every member of the lying mainstream media loved Obama, so their stories about him were uniformly slobbering. They told us he was great, regardless of whether his programs were good and successful or bad or failures.
Money could be borrowed almost to infinity, wars could be lost, allies abandoned, and the media was thrilled. The enemy was always domestic--always some pathetic conservative whining that Obama's latest act was unconstitutional. The fights were easy to win; a flower shop owner, a small town pizza restaurant. Greenhouse gases? Shut down any activity then borrow money to buy the stuff made somewhere else.
The answers were easy. A bunch of black kids are killing each other in gang wars? Blame the cops. Cops are bad. Obamacare not turning out the way everyone was told it would? Blame Republicans. Some crackpot shoots up a gay club shouting islamic slogans? Must be because conservatives hate gay marriage.
==
By itself, the soft left is no match for the "deplorables" they despise, so they will welcome the young, tough, brutal Muslim men who are willing to terrorize the deplorables into obedience.
Leftists are so contemptuous of religious Americans because they see the latter as stupid and willing to concede on every point to keep the peace. The idea that members of a "religion" would happily kill them is totally outside their experience and understanding, so they think they can always buy off the true believers.
The tough, brutal Muslims will prove them dead wrong. Of course by then it will be far too late.
==
Guy analyzing the court order--upheld by the 9th circus--blocking Trump's executive order travel ban:
"Actually for the Trump Admin this court ruling is good news, even if bad news for the country. Reason is that now the State of Washington, the Democratic Party, the rioters at Berkeley et cetera will OWN any terrorist attack that occurs in the U.S.!
The Dems backed a policy of allowing terrorists to come in unvetted, and if we get hit again people will blame them."
You'd think so, but with the Lying Media providing air cover, Americans will never learn of the connection.
posted by SF at
4:11 PM
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