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.
This just happened. I was on the subway to work, and a fellow steps into the car. In a mellifluous, but loud enough, voice he announces that he recently lost his job and has medical bills to pay. He has 2 children who are staying with relatives. He has been looking for a new job, but in the meantime has needed to rely on handouts from strangers. It's a nice enough story, not too dissimilar to those I've heard with some regularity on the train. Depending on the look or feel of the person, I will hand them a buck or two. This guy looks legit.
However, as he passes one fellow, he collects a business card. In handing the card, the charitable soul says "This is a soup kitchen nearby, you can bring your children here and get hot meals."
The fellow looks up and replies, "Free food? Here, in Manhattan?"
"Yes."
"So I can bring my kids?"
"Yes."
"So you're saying I have to travel up to the Bronx to get my daughter, then travel down to Brooklyn to get my son, then bring them both with me to Manhattan to get free food? Is that what you're telling me I have to do?"
"Sir, you don't have to do anything. It's free food. It's your choice, but it's a place to go."
"Right."
He didn't get angry, didn't cause a scene. But it occurred to me if he was really destitute, this wouldn't be an issue. I realize some panhandlers are professional. There is one who sits by my office with a dog and a sign that "the dog comes first, I come second." I'd say he's been there for 3 years, except it's not a he. It's a them. There are 3 or 4 different people who switch out on any given day.
I don't mind giving money to people in need. There's a limit, though. When the ability to get a free meal prompts the kind of response I heard on the train, alarm bells go off. If you're in need, you don't look a gift horse in the mouth. Yes, everything requires work, even 'free stuff'. It's not as if his tromping through train cars isn't work. If he has real money issues, I'm sure he's not covering his costs by panhandling all day. But he must be doing well enough to keep doing it, and he should realize that it requires significant effort.
If this sounds like someone who has what he needs criticizing someone who is without, I'm sorry. That's not my intent. I'm not judging these people, I'm simply saying work is work. A 'free' lunch of any kind requires effort. It's a shame we don't have a political class that understands this when they make promises to people with money that isn't theirs.
What the Sanders supporters and the Trump supporters have in common is this: the government will in fact take care of everything. Trump supporters get Trump: he too is for universal health care, he too is for the entitlement state, he too will provide the solutions [the deals] that individuals would otherwise have to provide themselves through self-discipline, hard work, and the refusal to conclude you're a victim of forces outside your control.
It is medically improper to try to diagnose anybody one has not evaluated in person, but have people wondered whether Donald Trump has a bipolar spectrum disorder, such as a chronic hypomanic?
The bigger, wealthier, more powerful and more intrusive government becomes, the more citizens tend to feel like little people, rolled over by a distant, indifferent steam roller. Proud, patriotic, tax-paying citizens of a free republic do not like to feel that way. Beneficiaries of the machine don't care.
Though I intend to vote for the GOP nominee, each new round of appalling idiocy by that vulgar human troll doll tests my resolve. But as much as we wish to focus on the flawed messenger, the problem is that we have refused to heed the message he has adopted (and which I have little doubt he will abandon if elected). It’s not the illegals who are living in the shadows; it’s our own base, the guys and gals who got the short end of the globalization stick. The vast majority of Trump’s supporters are good people who we have let down, and as free agents in the political free market they have found someone who saw a need and is filling it.
They aren’t going away; we need to reintegrate them.
All sorts of people like Donald besides the victims of globalization
The answer that I keep gravitating to is that despite the 4.9 percent unemployment rate, the job market is still pretty weak, and probably malfunctioning in some way. This isn't the only possible answer...
Very dangerous school, esp. for women and minorites. Remember its history as a school for white boys who wanted to become scholarly ministers in the Congregational Church. At the time, even scholarly ministers had to learn chemistry, physics, math, Latin, Greek, history, etc.
Who is more personally (not politically) unappealing - Cruz or Hillary! ? Mrs. BD and I were thinking about about which candidates we'd be glad to have as next-door neighbors. We came up with Carson and Bernie. Maybe Kasich. Nothing to do with political preferences.
What we are seeing here is something about how the Cloud People view the Dirt People. Loyalty to a society has always been anchored in loyalty to the people in that society. A man is willing to take up the sword on behalf of the king, because the king is doing the same for his subjects. In other words, you’re not fighting for the king, you’re fighting for what the king embodies, what the king represents. Loyalty flows in both directions.
What Marco Rubio is all about is Warfare State republicanism. When he talks about restoring American Greatness it is through the agency of Imperial Washington. He has no kinship with Harding, Coolidge or Eisenhower. None of them were intent on searching the earth for monsters to destroy, as does Rubio in every single speech.
And make no mistake. Every time this naïve smart aleck chastises Obama for weak leadership and alleged failure to get the job forcefully done in Syria, Libya, Iraq, Yemen and countless elsewheres, the ghost of John Quincy Adams should be hollering in his grave. Stalking the globe for monsters to destroy is exactly what this wanna be little Napoléon is all about.