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.
Celebrity and Politics. Obama is the classic celeb in politics, but it expands beyond electoral politics, even into urban planning and architecture. Williamson
Very popular. The author of the musical plays Hamilton too. I do not need to see this show, but I am glad they are getting rich. Making money is a pretty good thing. Not the best thing, but good.
I have a problem with the premise of that question, assuming that the premise is that Americans work 35-40 hour weeks. Americans are not the French.
I don't know anybody in any field who works as little as a 40-hour week. Nobody other than clerical and support staff. Everybody I know works like a farmer, ie as long as it takes to get it done, to keep the job, to advance, and to show results. I do not think that most Americans count their work hours outside of union jobs. The 40-hour week was from another time, another era.
Perhaps my perception is skewed by working in business in NYC for a few years, so please inform me how I am wrong.
The Battle of Trafalgar established Britannia as the ruler of the waves for over a century and shaped the face of Europe today. The Wiki write-up on it is an excellent summary.
"It’s all just so exhausting. And I guess what I resent most of all is the fact that I will spend the rest of my life arguing with people who not only think that their faith in progressivism and the State is smart and modern, but that their opponents are the ones who are stuck in the past. And in the process, they’ll keep making the country worse, with every failure providing the latest evidence that now, now, is the time for a new New Deal."
My old Grandpa said to me, 'Son, there comes a time in every man's life when he stops bustin' knuckles and starts bustin' caps and usually it's when he becomes too old to take a whoopin'.'
I don't carry a gun to kill people; I carry a gun to keep from being killed.
I don't carry a gun because I'm evil; I carry a gun because I have lived long enough to see the evil in the World.
I don't carry a gun because I hate the government; I carry a gun because I understand the limitations of government.
I don't carry a gun because I'm angry; I carry a gun so that I don't have to spend the rest of my life hating myself for failing to be prepared.
I don't carry a gun because I want to shoot someone; I carry a gun because I want to die at a ripe old age in my bed and not on a sidewalk somewhere tomorrow afternoon.
I don't carry a gun to make me feel like a man; I carry a gun because men know how to take care of themselves and the ones they love.
I don't carry a gun because I feel inadequate; I carry a gun because unarmed and facing three armed thugs, I am inadequate.
I don't carry a gun because I love it; I carry a gun because I love life and the people who make it meaningful to me.
Police protection is an oxymoron: Free citizens must protect themselves because police do not protect you from crime; they just investigate the crime after it happens and then call someone in to clean up the mess.
Personally, I carry a gun because I'm too young to die and too old to take a whoopin'!
I think I have settled on the New Balance Minimus 20V-3 Trainer as my all-purpose exercise/work-out shoe. Lightweight, stable for weights, good for everything a Cross-Trainer or gym rat might need. They do not make you feel bare-footed, but close enough.
They have a 20v4 out now, but the 3 is fine. They come in men's and women's because men and women are different.
New Balance (made in USA) tend to run 1/4-1/2 sizes small, so I go up 1/2. They make narrow, which is good.
“He is a progressive on the home front, but he is pretty reactionary when it comes to foreign policy,” says Gloria La Riva, the 2016 presidential nominee for the Party of Socialism and Liberation. “He supported the Israeli war against Gaza. He supports the drone bombing campaigns in other countries, which is a war crime. He has said that Cuba needs to be a democracy, but we believe Cuba already truly is a system for the people there.”
Those were the days before these Americans identified as victims. They didn't want to be victims, and pushed their way into the middle class. That was before the 1960s mess.
It's not just that humans are tribal, although they are. I am almost always curious about people with other backgrounds and stories, but I am most "at home," most relaxed, with people whose backgrounds and stories are similar to mine. You can help me explain all of the reasons for that, but part of it is social predictability. For example, it is difficult to build trust when you do not know or understand another person's definition.
A good degree of cultural homogeneity is good for a society because there is a shared context, shared values, shared referents, and shared meanings. This goes far beyond language itself, so assimilation into a culture takes several generations, with real effort, if it is to happen at all.
I suspect that the only places into which I could assimilate would be Canada, England, Oz, and Germany. In other places, I visit more as an amateur anthropologist, an outsider, and I know I will never really get it. Mind you, I live in NYC which is a United Nations of immigrants, a tower of babel. It's fun, but there is a right amount of it.
I think I am in the mainstream to hold the simple view that a society/culture can handle a modest or moderate degree of immigration, but not an invasion. Borders and armies exist primarily to prevent invasions. Today in a few parts of the world we see unarmed invasions, and many governments do not seem to know what to do. Suppose that Charles Martel had met 200,000 unarmed Muslims thronging towards Poitiers on their way to Paris?
The greater the cultural disconnect, and the fewer the cultural connections and traditions, the more likely one will feel like a stranger in a strange land and the more likely that the immigrant will be viewed as one. Whatever the multicults claim, there is a shared American culture from California to New Jersey, from Michigan to Alabama. Lots of subcultures, but an overarching set of shared ideas and assumptions.
Europe and the US seem to have had enough. I think it's a combination of the volume and of the feeling of being exploited. My basic question to legal immigrants would be "What will you do for America?" (I question myself every day about what I do for friends, family, community, God, and country. Scouting brainwashed me that way. Whenever I ask what is done for me, I squash the thought). For illegals, I tend to be with Trump. I guess that makes me a meany.
The ME is one of those little disputatious, duplicitous corners of the world which attract the interest of diplomats and strategists far out of proportion to their intrinsic importance or value. Small pawns in the big game of international politics.
Obama or not, the world is not America's sandbox. Most of the world does not think like Westerners, much less think like Americans, and they never will see life through our eyes.
Furthermore, while the American people like the idea of being the world superpower, they have not been particularly enthused about geopolitical adventures and military maneuverings in minor places since WW2 - none of which have ended very successfully anyway (eg Korea, Cuba, Southeast Asia, the Muslim world, Nicaragua, Ukraine, etc.). Reagan's pressure for the dismantling of the Soviet empire was a success without a single military death, but the result is less than beautiful except for a few ex-eastern bloc nations.
The argument is always that X is critical to America's interests. Really? Syria? Ukraine?
Syria has been a Russian client/ally for a long time. Some good points here: The Mind of Mr. Putin
If you wish to debate, first tell me a few places in the world which can not be construed as"critical to US interests." (I'll use "critical" meaning worth going to war about.)
...There is a wonderful quote from Epictetus that I think of every time I see someone get terribly upset about one of these things (I try to think about it when I get upset about anything): "If someone succeeds in provoking you, realize that your mind is complicit in the provocation." He said that some 1,900 years ago. Even then we felt that it was easier to police the outside than examine our inside.
We have known how much of a scam it is for many years. Still, people make money from it via governments.
The upside is that it provides an avenue to an easy and costless feeling of virtue. Either that or, in some municipalities, protects you from a garbage ticket. We have noted that most recyled garbage ends up in landfills anyway.
Over the transom - 
I think I have settled on the