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.
Strategy of the Left: Keep everybody else constantly on the defensive. And Trump is Hitler, of course. As Tucker says, nobody seems to care about the American kids whose parents are in jail.
“We hear of the conversion of water into wine at the marriage in Cana, as of a miracle. But this conversion is, through the goodness of God, made every day before our eyes. Behold the rain which descends from heaven upon our vineyards, and which incorporates itself with the grapes to be changed into wine; a constant proof that God loves us, and loves to see us happy!”
Nobody wants to separate children from parents, but nobody should get to jump the immigration line just because they show up on the beach with a kid in tow.
Unless the laws are changed, I'd just ship every border-crosser back to Mexico with a little lunch money. Clearly the issue is deterrence. Suggestions?
The people that you think of as "poor" -- like the people you see living on the streets, the beggars, the people in the shelters and those in the low income housing -- all of them, if they ask, have full access to benefits that, if counted, will immediately lift them out of measured poverty. Now, could there be some who, even though entitled to such benefits, somehow fall through the cracks because they fail to apply or to take advantage of what is offered? Of course. On the other hand, there are government workers out there every day looking for these people to try to help them. The remaining "real poor" can't actually be a significant part of the residual 2%.
... you’d think that the Left, which is always going on about the importance of dialogue, would champion Donald Trump’s efforts. They don’t, partly because they despise the messenger, partly because his success only underscores their own irrelevance. That in itself has its comic aspects, also its pathetic ones. I think that this is what Hegel called a world-historical moment. If so, I will also note that the dialectic, as the anti-Trump Chihuahuas are about to discover, is a remorseless engine of change. Yesterday people listened to you. Tomorrow, you have a million Twitter followers but no one cares what you say.
Why the hatred? Is it fashion, is it about personality style, or is it about policy?
Hatred is ugly. If it's about policy, I'd like to know what these people object to with their megaphones, not that their opinions deserve to be of any more interest than my own are.
As I recall, many of my pals hated Obama's policies, but never had a visceral hatred for the man himself. I'd gladly have a beer or two with Obama anytime because I think he is a clever bullshitter. Glib clever bullshitters amuse me.
... in the aftermath of the G-7 summit the Democrat-Left-Media complex and the Eurabians are all butthurt that PDT has insulted them and not knuckled under, like previous administrations have (for the most part) since the end of World War II. With all due respect to Europe and the Left, which is to say none at all, GFY. The President is right; we spent our blood and treasure liberating you from ideologies of your own making twice in a generation and after rebuilding your continent and economies, we've spent nearly 75 years afterwards funding your dissolute, insane, cheese-eating, wine-guzzling, adulterous lifestyles while protecting you from Russia, all to see you committing cultural suicide at our expense and then blaming us, evil Jooz, capitalism, Christianity and the 40 hour work week for the ills you brought upon yourselves, as the illusion of the European union collapses around you. Enough.
Bush 2 and Obama began the turn away from "Old Europe," and it continues. Europe needs to take care of itself, but shows little desire to do so. Spoiled and weakened for too long by America's sentimental largesse in trade and protection. Trump just says out loud what the State Dept. has been thinking for decades.
It's a good quote and a true one, but Ben Franklin didn't say “Beer is proof God loves us and wants us to be happy.”
We're spending the weekend on the water. Picking up a boat in Essex CT, then out to Fisher's and Block Island.