We are a commune of inquiring, skeptical, politically centrist, capitalist, anglophile, traditionalist New England Yankee humans, humanoids, and animals with many interests beyond and above politics. Each of us has had a high-school education (or GED), but all had ADD so didn't pay attention very well, especially the dogs. Each one of us does "try my best to be just like I am," and none of us enjoys working for others, including for Maggie, from whom we receive neither a nickel nor a dime. Freedom from nags, cranks, government, do-gooders, control-freaks and idiots is all that we ask for.
Good grief. Well, I guess a lot of politics in democracies is about scaring the morons and bribing the others. Hey, conservatives want to take away birth control from women so they can't have fun, take away Social Security, starve the poor to death, shoot all the brown people, send immigrants to the gas chamber, and then burn up the planet afterwards. Who would vote for that in good conscience?
Iraq? We should have left it to Saddam. He understood that craphole same as Quaddaffi did his: government terrorism works better than random, volunteer terrorism. All governments use fear, to varying degrees of barbarity. If some Americans want to bomb bad people, how about bombing the Castros out of Cuba? They have been "Death to America" for generations.
I want to visit Cuba, though, before Capitalism ruins it (and turns it into a new Miami). For the slumming and the cheap stuff and the incredibly beautiful women. Seriously though, for the fishing.
Paranoids, grievance-collectors, and excuse-seekers cannot be too alert to the microaggressions and micro- acts of disrespect which occur all day long on the oppressive, hostile American college campi. Microaggression is an epidemic oppression, and microaggressors must be brought to justice. I'd include the nanoaggressors too because they are the sneakiest.
Remember, micro may mean teeny-weeny or invisible, but so is Ebola.
... anyone who believes ISIS is a non-trivial threat to ordinary Americans at home, at work, or at play would be frightened of their shadows. Indeed, if the danger ISIS presents to the sovereignty and people of the United States satisfies a threshold to justify war, then we should not tarry in attacking Russia, China, North Korea, Pakistan, Iran, Cuba, the Mexican drug cartels, or otherwise. Moreover, even if we destroyed ISIS, the dynamics behind its creation would remain to create a new variety, just as ISIS has eclipsed Al Qaeda: namely, utterly dysfunctional and tyrannical Arab governments ruling over artificial nations whose boundaries were drawn by a handful of donnish European diplomats a century ago with ulterior motives.
All that we have to do is to send two Mujahedin to the farthest point East to raise a piece of cloth on which is written al-Qa’ida in order to make the generals race there to cause America to suffer human economic and political losses without their achieving for it anything of note other than some benefits to their private companies… So we are continuing this policy in bleeding America to the point of bankruptcy.
It's a tar baby, Mr. President. There are no good guys. Let's just help protect the Kurds from genocide.
For Queen and Country- Nigel Farage and UKIP want the British Isles in the hands of the people, not Brussels.
Parliament still has much sway, of course, but in a broad sense Farage is not wrong. Because of its membership in the European Union, the United Kingdom’s immigration policy, energy policy, and justice system are all ultimately subject to Brussels. If, for instance, Britons want to close the nation’s borders to potential Islamic jihadists with passports from other EU countries, they will have to withdraw from the European Union. It is, insists Farage, that simple.
The issue is especially interesting to me as it relates to states' rights and state sovereignty in the US.
Related, Who Lost Britain? 14 Culprits - The nation that gave us the Magna Carta and
originated core principles of freedom, individual rights, and
representative government faces a future of chaos, warfare in the
streets, and civil war.
And isn't independence generally a good thing? A commenter at the above:
Scotland can have a legal referendum for independence with no violence or problems, but Eastern Ukraine gets bombed for voting to become independent and part of a new Russian bloc which may trigger WWIII. Makes sense to me!
Over the transom. I can't say, but I'd believe it. THESE ARE ACTUAL COMPLAINTS RECEIVED BY "THOMAS COOK VACATIONS" FROM DISSATISFIED CUSTOMERS:
1. "I think it should be explained in the brochure that the local convenience store does not sell proper biscuits like custard creams or ginger nuts."
2. "It's lazy of the local shopkeepers in Puerto Vallarta to close in the afternoons. I often needed to buy things during 'siesta' time -- this should be banned."
3. "On my holiday to Goa in India, I was disgusted to find that almost every restaurant served curry. I don't like spicy food."
4. "We booked an excursion to a water park but no-one told us we had to bring our own swimsuits and towels. We assumed it would be included in the price."
5. "The beach was too sandy. We had to clean everything when we returned to our room."
6. "We found the sand was not like the sand in the brochure. Your brochure shows the sand as white but it was more yellow."
7. "They should not allow topless sunbathing on the beach. It was very distracting for my husband who just wanted to relax."
8. "No-one told us there would be fish in the water. The children were scared."
9. "Although the brochure said that there was a fully equipped kitchen, there was no egg-slicer in the drawers."
10. "We went on holiday to Spain and had a problem with the taxi drivers as they were all Spanish."
11. "The roads were uneven and bumpy, so we could not read the local guide book during the bus ride to the resort. Because of this, we were unaware of many things that would have made our holiday more fun."
12. "It took us nine hours to fly home from Jamaica to England. It took the Americans only three hours to get home. This seems unfair."
13. "I compared the size of our one-bedroom suite to our friends' three-bedroom and ours was significantly smaller."
14. "The brochure stated: 'No hairdressers at the resort.' We're trainee hairdressers and we think they knew and made us wait longer for service."
15. "When we were in Spain, there were too many Spanish people there. The receptionist spoke Spanish, the food was Spanish. No one told us that there would be so many foreigners."
16. "We had to line up outside to catch the boat and there was no air-conditioning."
17. "It is your duty as a tour operator to advise us of noisy or unruly guests before we travel."
18. "I was bitten by a mosquito. The brochure did not mention mosquitoes."
19. "My fiancee and I requested twin-beds when we booked, but instead we were placed in a room with a king bed. We now hold you responsible and want to be re-reimbursed for the fact that I became pregnant. This would not have happened if you had put us in the room that we booked.
Jason Riley believes that African Americans ought to pursue their lives like everybody else does. In other words, he does not see brown-skinned people as handicapped or as government-dependents.
"Married black Americans in the US have the same average incomes as married white Americans."
The Establishment cannot grasp that religion, race, and nationalism are far more powerful motivators than is economics. Globalism, with its hollowing out of the state, is in fact paving the way for more primal war, fought for age-old reasons by entities that are not states.
Good article. Readers know that my opinion is that all of the insanity of this conflict-ridden world is not my problem. I do not really care what Putin does (a "Hitler"? Give me a break). Iraq? I don't care. Memo To Washington: Iraq Is Not A Nation And You Can’t Build One There With Bombs
This administration goes from stupid to stupid, but so did the Bush admin. I am in favor of benign neglect unless those morons step on my toes in NYC or anywhere else in the US. Most other places are just tar babies, and ungrateful in the end. Beheading people? That's what they like to do. Everybody knows that. I am not shocked, but it's news to John Kerry.
The Middle East: These barbarians will be killing and fighting for the next 1000 years just like the past 5000 years. It's their natural way of life, and they like it. They like to kill, rape, and die. It's their culture, and we must be sensitive to it. By Western Civ standards, they are all nuts and the notion of a civil, Western-style secular nation does not really interest them. To them we are decadent and ungodly and we may be, but the Western World has not been a civil one for very long either. Leave them alone with their tribal and religious furies, but just keep the barbarians far away from me. My life without Moslems would not diminish my life one bit...well, I do like falafel.
The Ukraine: Who cares? Russia is a crappy, deteriorating third-world country with a bit of oil and with Czarist imperial delusions. Not our problem. If Europe cares, let them put on their big boy pants and do whatever they want. Start a European war. Last I heard, the Ukraine was not one of the United States.
Israel? They can handle things themselves. Their battles will never end just as in biblical days.
China? They want to be a big deal again. Well, they are, sort-of. They own most of the US debt, sadly. But that's our fault. If they want to be a big deal, it's ok with me. Why anybody would chose to live there is beyond me. Horrible, charmless place of desolation, with too many people and the stupid, paranoid, autocratic government they deserve. To each his own.
These sorts of things are not "crises," they are just ordinary life on planet earth. The "American Imperium" isn't over - it never really existed. Go ahead, try a round of golf - and tell me why I am wrong not to be hysterical. Trouble, conflict, and war is the way of the world.
I am going fishing now, happy to be a rebel American.
Hope y'all will be on a salt-water beach or on a boat this weekend. Stupid not to be.
I'll do both. Such delights are hard-earned. See ya out there on Block Island. I'll be the youngish guy near the dock with the Coors Light. I'll raise a can for Industrial Labor, but not for government labor unions. So the unions drive the auto industry to Mexico - we still have Unemployment and Disability. Mexico loves our Labor Day! Viva Mexico!
On the other hand, a great weekend to bang around NYC too. Nobody there, so it's all yours.
Why does anybody care 
Hope y'all will be on a salt-water beach or on a boat this weekend. Stupid not to be.