Politics
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These are a bunch of articles I've written on politics. Of course, they're all one person's opinions (or at least other people's opinions that I agree with). But the reason I have these opinions is based on observations, facts, and realities about human nature, and the history/consequences for doing the opposite. This area is also sort of a catch-all on things that have political ramifications, but might not fit neatly into other categories.
Groucho Marx got it right, that institutional or party politics is finding problems everywhere and applying the wrong solutions. Remember, if Politicians fixed problems, then they couldn't campaign on fixing them -- so those that choose politics as a vocation have a negative incentive to fix the underlying issue, and positive incentives to sabotage efforts to fix the real issues.
Politics
2015.12.08 Muslim Ban - After a series of coordinate Paris Terrorist attacks, the San Bernardino attack, and various other islamic extremist attacks, during the campaign, Candidate Trump says we should consider a temporary Muslim ban until our leaders can figure out how to address the crisis. After elected and consulting with lawyers, he does a far more moderate thing. Before doing journalism (interviewing and asking what does he mean), NBC (Tom Brokaw) spun the story with half truths and compared this to various leftist atrocities (without offering that context). Trump's implementation (a couple years later) was just to require extreme vetting from a list of countries that the Obama administration flagged as being unable to effectively vet people from. Oh the horror. The left and FakeNews continue to call this a Muslim ban anyways, not letting truth get in the way of their agenda.
Abortion - Abortion is a deeply personal view, and I used to explore people by asking or sharing my views on it and seeing how they respond.This article covers many aspects of the topic, in what I hope is a somewhat neutral and informed way, though I openly have and express my opinions. The point is not to change anyone's mind, and I leave people room for their own personal views.
Alt-right - While many people don’t know what the term Alt-Right really means, if they’re getting their cues from the mainstream media, they think it's a formal group or caucus that's the Nazi/Racist wing of the Republican party. Though I'm not sure how they can tell that for the normal Republicans, since that's how they're presented as well. But the term "Alt-right" is highly overloaded, and means different things depending on who was saying it and the context and time it was said.
American Exceptionalism - Is America exceptional? Yes. In so many ways. Those that can't recognize that, like many on the left, are demonstrating an anti-American bias that it out of touch with reality. Examples include: first country to give the world a people's Constitution, a Bill of Rights, to have the people govern, the only country to protect the right of self defense (2A), the least imperialistic for how much power we had. We fought a civil war to free another people (the slaves), and fought most of our wars to protect others: Europe from the Nazi's, prevented the USSR from taking over Europe (Cold War), freed the Iraqi's from a tyrant, stopped the enslavement of Korea and slowed the enslavement of South East Asia from the communists. The most philanthropic, and one of the most open to trade. We had the most entrepreneurial freedoms. We pay more in healthcare in order to subsidize the world's medical innovation (over half is done by the U.S., more because of our free market). We gave the world more than any other country in economics, culture, science and technology: from the Internet to microprocessors, going to the moon, Smart Phones, Search, Social Media, various drugs and medical innovations, the airplane, and so on. No other 5 countries combined have done as many innovations because our economic and personal freedoms, our capitalism, and our willingness to invest in making the world a better place. That's not just jingoism, that's recognizing an exceptional global performance.
Anti-Fact - While the right is far from immune from bias, the left puts agenda first. That puts agenda above science, reason, tolerance, and facts. Here's just a few examples of living in an Alternate Reality:
Anti-Science Party - Republicans are the anti-science party, unless we're talking about any of the following things the left believes that are anti-science: Beepocalypse, Biofuels, Black Conspiracy Theology, Carpool lanes, Corporate Personhood & Citizens United, Evolution and Creation, Gender Wage Gap, Gender is a choice, Global Cooling Scare, Green Energy, Keynes, Leftonomics, Life Begins at..., Light Rail, Nuclear Energy, Organic food fraud, Paranormal beliefs, Peak Oil Theory, Plastic Bag Bans, Recycling, Science and Religion, Secondhand Drinking, Secondhand Smoke, Smoking, Smoking and Healthcare costs, Straw Bans, The Population Bomb, Unintended Consequences, War on Science, Wind Power, and so on. The right isn't immune to being anti-science, it's just that democrats/left/media pretends they are better, when the informed know that as a group, they definitely are worse. Of course I treat individuals as individuals and not a group, but any democrat/leftist individual that broad brushes conservatives for being anti-science is demonstrating hyper-selective blinders (hypocrisy).
Antifa - Antifascism is just fascism by another name. They incite or commit violence, and the left tolerated and supported it for years. They say they hate Trump because he's a fascist, but they love Antifa which are Anti-Capitalists who dress in black (like Fascists), to fight Fascists by emulating fascist tactics, commit acts of violence, disruption, vandalism, and beat up anyone they don't agree with.... just like fascists. Nope, that doesn't sound like the other far-left movement called Fascism... other than it is exactly like Fascism. For the exact same excuse: you need them to protect you from people like them. Just another group of violent leftists.
Bernie Sanders - I constantly read fawning articles and blogs about Sanders. I really don’t care who you want to vote for, I just care that people are voting from a position of knowledge and are not lying to others (or themselves) about who/what he is. This reminds people of all the info they didn't get from the media.
Bob Dornan and Loretta Sanchez - The anecdote about Bob Dornan and Loretta “Dirty" Sanchez, and how illegal aliens stole an election in my district. Which is why when folks deny that it happens or that it matters, I just shake my head. I saw it first hand.
Broken Promises - They say, "never assume malice for something more easily explained by incompetence". But they also say, "Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me!" What we know is that on the big issues, the left is almost never right. And for some reason, that creates trust issues for the self aware, and it doesn't for the biased and polemic. This is a list of big things that the progressives got wrong, to support the point. Of course I'm not claiming that they never get anything right. Just that there's a good reason for folks to be skeptical and remain critical thinkers whenever a politician is promising something. Doubly so, if that politician is a lefty or progressive.
Bush Derangement Syndrome - I try not to make fun of the "challenged". But BDS (Bush Derangement Syndrome), like TDS (Trump Derangement Syndrome, or RDS (Reagan Derangement Syndrome) before it, it seems as if may left of center can't have adult conversations about anything related to things more conservative or informed than they are.
Capitol Hill Violence - After 12 years of Occupy Wall Street, BLM and Antifa riots and hundreds of assaults (and a few murders) on Trump supporters... who knew that a few Republicans acting like Democrats (or Democrats dressed up like Republicans) would suddenly flip the left and their media from being riot apologists and defund the police fanatics into, "shoot them in the face" and complete totalitarian authority fans? Since the intelligent response for the violence apologist left would be to either (a) say nothing (b) apoligize and say "I see now that I was wrong", they instead turned this into a partisan opportunity to divide us more -- and blame the other side, for what they started, agitated, and are trying to further with their histrionics (whether they are bright enough to recognize it or not).
Conspiracy Theories - The left (BlueAnon) and right both have some conspiracy theories. The left loves to associate QAnon with the right, which isn't quite true -- they are anti-left (generally), but they are definitely not establishment right or mainstream. Heck, the CNN watchers and Blue folks seem to know more about QAnon from their FakeNews sensationalizing it, than the right knows of them. Meanwhile, the left is, as usual, accusing the other side of doing what they do.
DACA - Do you love the Constitution and Rule of Law, or do you prefer a corrupt political tyranny (where the President has the powers to write/nullify law)? Pick one. If you support DACA then you aren't compassionate, you just picked the latter.
DNC Crusades - What causes do the Democrats believe in (will they fight for), or oppose (will they fight against)? I'm not talking the average Democrat voters, I'm talking about their leadership votes for or against. Read Democratic National Committee for the broader history.
Democratic Tolerance - Judge a man (or a party) by their actions. Do they do good things, or do they use the other side's bad behavior to rationalize their worse behavior? This article is about the worst things Democrats have done recently. Read Democratic National Committee for the broader history.
Double Standards -
I've claimed that the if the left didn't have double-standards, they wouldn't have standards at all. That's of course not completely fair, as I'm sure there are a few people that are hard core leftists that have standards and will be as outraged by their sides bad behavior as they are against the other. Someday I'll meet them. But for now, it's the 90% of vocal ones that give the rest a bad name. Here's just a list of examples of cases where I'm annoyed by the hypocrisy. |
Dumb Democrats and Evil Republicans - They say Republicans think Democrats are dumb, while Democrats think Republicans are evil. But why? The answer is surprisingly easy. Democrat know they want to help people, so they think anyone who doesn't like their ideas on how to do so must be evil. Republicans know they want to help people -- so when Democrats call them evil (or greedy, racist, etc), and they know better, then they know that Democrats are just stupid. So Republicans know Democrats are dumb, because Democrats think Republicans are evil.
Election 2016: shame and regrets - Tomorrow (11/09/2016) will be the day after a work party that turned into a drunken orgy. You try to shower and wash clean the fuzzy memories of what just happened, and have the fortitude and denial required to make eye contact with your coworkers the next day... but you all share each other's guilt and shame.
Electoral College and the National Popular Vote - After every election that the democrats lose, a faction starts coming out in force and explaining why we should eliminate the electoral college Which is especially ironic if their selective amnesia didn't interfere with their memories of just weeks before the 2016 loss, they were excitedly talking about how the electoral college could help Hillary prevent President Trump from coming to power, even if he won the popular vote. After they lost, the tone flipped 180° without a picosecond of introspection, or the slightest bit of irony. If you want to understand the full force of that irony, remember Obama lost the popular vote to Hillary in the primary (but he had more delegates), and Hillary lost the popular vote to Bernie Sanders (but she had more delegates): so neither of them would have likely been President if they practiced what they preached. But when some people lose, they want to retroactive change the rules, and get mad when you call them bad sports for doing it. However, if you have any clue about civics, history and human nature, you have an inkling of why the electoral college was created, and why eliminating it, would probably destroy the nation.
End Women's suffrage - Many, many years ago (say 10 or 20), I used to get myself in trouble by talking politics and basically just trying to make a difference and make people look at things in different ways. Many people just hate that. You would think that through the school of hard knocks that I would eventually learn to just shut-up -- but alas, some people never learn. One thought experiment I used was about what happened when we gave the disenfranchized the vote, and how the country went downhill (in at least a few ways). I took some heat for this, but it's still valid to think about cause and effect.
Envy up - There's many that are victims to what I call the “Envy Up” phenomenon. You can either envy people that are richer and have more things, or envy people that have less "things" but a richer life or life experiences (envy down: in economic status).
Fascism - Fascism is overloaded (means different things to different people/groups), with a brutal history, so no one wants to be associated with it. Thus the side that it came from is going to do everything they can to obfuscate and pretend it came from "others". But fascism is more than an ad hominem attack: we can clarify conflicting meanings, and look at real history and motives. Just know that while some of us can handle the truth, reasonable intellectuals aren't usually found on internet forums or Facebook feeds.
Foreign Policy -
Gender Wage Gap - This one is many myths (lies) in one: (a) Women get $.77-.82 cents on the dollar compared to what men make (this injustice is called the "Gender wage/pay gap" or GWG) (b) We need big government (politicians) and new laws/regulations/taxes to fix it (c) Democrat politicians motives are all sincere, anyone that opposes is a sexist/misogynistic/bigot. All false, and debunked here.
George Orwell - George Orwell, brilliant author of books such as 1984 and Animal Farm, that warned of the decline of civilization through Socialism, Collectivism, and Group-Think. And explained all their fallacies through allegories that the left doesn't think is a warning, but as an instruction manual.
Gropegate - "Gropegate" is a completely overloaded term, since the most popular way to slander a political opponent in recent years, is to accuse them of sexual harassment.. then trounce out one or more Women with claims ranging from "he said something that they felt was to sexually forward", to "he used his position to intimidate me into sleeping with him", all the way to various kinds of rape to slur their integrity. Thus there is no "one" gropegate -- there's Clinton, Schwarzenegger, Trump ("grabbing pussy" comments on tape, or specifically one of the women on a plane that said he did it to her), everyone in Hollywood, the media, and all those that helped them.
Hamilton vs Hamilton - Mike Pence went to see the rap-musical about Alexander Hamilton. And was rewarded by the classless audience with boos, and by the less classy cast, with a call-out and civil lecture about how inclusive they all are, and welcome him to be (with bitten tongue snark implying that he/Trump are bigots). The motto seems to be: never miss an opportunity to lower the bar, or whine when this gets reflected back.
Hillary Clinton - Here's a brief summary of Hillary's scandals (with links to more on each of them). This isn't meant as a balanced piece to show what good she's accomplished as a politicians or person (that would be a much shorter list), the intent is just to show the pattern of scandals that her detractors recognized and her proponents ignore. If you want the pro-Hillary spin just listen to her, the NYT, CNN or MSNBC, they carry her water for her.
Is Socialism left-wing or right-wing? - Some will claim, "Socialism/Communism is a left wing ideology". Which is sort of true, in theory (it is egalitarian). In practice, it is right wing (authoritarian).
- Assuming left-right on the individual/authoritarian dimension, in theoretical socialism, individuals vote on everything and get a say, thus it is individualist and left-wing. But theoretical socialism, only exists in theory. Since you can't vote on everything, you need to put a command-hierarchy (authority) in place, and practical socialism, people only vote on their leaders and they decide everything: so it is autocratic and right wing.
- Another dimension is that left wing ideologies support using government power to fight against inequality or accept natural order (and accept that inequality is unavoidable). Theoretical Socialism rises to power promising to fix income, racial, gender or class inequality (left wing). But the only way to combat inequality with the government is by making things less equal/fair and granting special privilege or punishments based on which groups/individuals the public or political class favors at the time. There's a truism that no American leftist supports Socialism expecting to become a farm worker, they all expect to become part of the ruling/political class. Practical Socialism replaces a semi-merit (or luck) based natural-order system, with an artificial political order system -- and they end up more classist than before, just status is granted based on political connections instead of money/business ones. That's right-wing authoritarianism.
Anyone that thinks Socialism is left wing (egalitarian) is a rube or someone that is thinking only of the theory, and not of every attempt at application.
Isn't fascism a right wing ideology? - Fascism is categorized by some as "right wing", because in Europe (historically), left and right isn't liberalism vs. conservatism, it often means individualism (left) vs. authoritarianism or collectivism (right). So by that definition, British and American Liberalism (Libertarianism) was considered left wing, and Fascism was right wing because it was authoritarian and collectivist (not individualist) - but that means Socialism and Communism are right wing well. While in America, our terms reversed: individualists (libertarians, classical liberals, conservatives) tend to pool on the right, not the left, so the terms/meanings/roles are directly reversed. If Fascism is right wing in Europe, it's left wing in America (or they were using a different dimension to compare it on. The same way in America, Conservatism means go backwards: back when we had less government control, but in many European countries, conservatism can mean going back to when they had Monarchs and more authoritarian control. These terms don't translate as well as some people think. There's a lot of other ways to look at right versus left wing: none of them show fascism to be a purely right wing belief system, while all show it to be a strongly left wing one (by American definitions).
Jim Jones -
Jonesian Democrats | Tribalism
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Hypocrisy
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Ignorance
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Intolerance
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Transparency
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Paranoia
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Leavability
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Abuse
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Insecurity
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Eccentricity
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Prophets
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Extremism
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Level | 🔟 | 9️⃣ | 9️⃣ | 8️⃣ | 🔟 | 🔟 | 🔟 | 🔟 | 9️⃣ | 8️⃣ | 9️⃣ | 🔟 |
Total | 112/120 |
You've probably heard of Jim Jones, the Jonestown cult, and references to drinking the Kool-aid. And you might have heard the basics that 900 people died in Jonestown, Guyana on November 18, 1978, because a religious cult leader convinced them drink the cyanide laced Kool-aid, and commit mass suicide. But if you don't know that Jim Jones was the first trans-racial Marxist, given the MLK award, was called the most influential Democrat on the West Coast, and was supported by Jerry Brown, Willie Brown, George Moscone, Milk, John Burton, Diane Feinstein, and was appointed to head Housing and Human Services in San Francisco, then you've been a victim of propaganda, and don't really know what happened. He started a far-left Cult by promising everything the left ever wanted in one place, and when it turned out like leftist utopias always do, he did what many leftists resort to: killing their own rather than admitting their mistakes. Following in those footsteps, the media/left does their best to suppress that part of the story, or waive it off as "not real socialism" (aka the appeal to purity or No true Scotsman fallacy).
Libertarian - Libertarian is also known as Classical Liberalism, Randian/Randianism (after Ayn Rand), but is just the belief that liberty should be the core principle of their philosophy, seeking to maximize political freedom and autonomy, emphasizing freedom of choice, voluntary association and individual judgment (and responsibility/accountability). In Europe, this would be left wing, in the U.S. it is right wing. (Technically, Libertarian can mean the party, or a form of Classical Liberalism).
MeToo - #metoo is the hashtag of sheep, followers, and the antithesis of what we should want from our daughters and sons. Look, I get it. There are people that abuse their positions, and that's wrong. But that's not reason to give up our individuality and reasoning for sake of political correctness. A strong woman comes forward at the time. Weak women wait years or decades and only come out long after they got the job/promotion for their service and when others came out first and the statute of limitations have run out.
Medicare - Articles about Medicare.
Money buying elections - There's a lot of scare mongering amongst the left on how much money (especially evil corporations) is corrupting the political process.Yet, most money isn't corruption, most of the money that is corrupt is going towards the Democrats, we spend more on Halloween than an election, Russians $100K didn't have any significant impact, Hillary out-raised Trump like 2:1 and lost, Perot, Bloomberg and Steyer (all billionaires) tried to buy an election and they didn't come close to a win. So while rubes repeat the fiction, they have no evidence to support their delusion.
Net Neutrality - The left fought for "Net Neutrality", which really means giving the government taxing and regulatory authority over the Internet. It is a Mao suit: one-size-fits all, poorly -- to defend us from choice and free will. Imagine the idea of "mail neutrality": where you're only allowed to charge one fee for mailing a letter, or a 500 lbs. refrigerator, any distance: one price fits all. We had no net neutrality for the first 60+ years of networking, the Obama admin invented a few "regulations" in 2015 to protect us from liberty (imaginary demons under the bed and non-problems that weren't happening), and the left/media act like repeal of that (liberty) will be end of days.
Obstruction of Justice -
What does Obstruction of Justice look like?
Peace in the New Year - Here's a simple resolution for the new year (and every New Year): World Peace (or at least heading towards it).
While, "no war at all" is a near impossible, we could certainly strive to make the world (or at least our part of it) a better / more harmonious place. And contrary to what many will tell you, this isn't even that hard of a goal.
Q: How?
A: First, think about what causes conflict: then stop doing it. It's not rocket surgery.
Q: So what causes all conflicts?
A: One individual or group, trying to tell another, what to do and/or how to do it.
That's kind of it. You can't stop them from resisting your rules, but you can stop making them (and trying to enforce them). And if you don't try to force them into doing something they don't want to do, there's almost no conflict.
Political Spectrum - There's confusion over what is left or right wing, and it means different and often opposing things in the U.S. versus the rest of the world. So if anyone says, left or right wing, I want to know, on which spectrum are they talking about:
- Authoritarian/Liberal/Anarchist : traditionally authoritarian means right-wing. In the U.S. left-wing authoritarianism is far more common than right.
- Collectivist/Moderate/Individualist : traditionally individualism is left-wing, while in the U.S. it is right-wing.
- Progressive (Postmodernist)/Moderate (Modernist)/Traditionalist: traditionally this didn't map to left or right, in the U.S. it's mostly progressive left and traditional right.
- Tribalist/Nationalist/Globalist: traditionally this didn't map to left or right, in the U.S. the right still has all three while the left purged most non-globalists from their ranks.
- Isolationist(Pacifist)/Moderate/Interventionist(Militarist) : traditionally this didn't map left/right. While the left pretends they are the isolationist/pacifist, in practice, they've been as bad or worse.
- Secular/Agnostic/Religious: traditionally this didn't map left/right. In the U.S. the left has purged more of their religious from their leadership, leaving more diversity on the right.
- Social Justice/Realist/Hedonist: traditionally this didn't map left/right. In the U.S, the left thinks they're about Social Justice and the others are just selfish, but it's really just arrogance, myopia and hypocrisy. How is stealing from and controlling others not hedonistic? Both sides want to help the downtrodden: the right by equality opportunity (and more of it), the left by equality of outcome (punishing success and rewarding failure). While the left vilifies the right as greedy, the right gives more to charity, and in the U.S. most crime is by leftists in leftist cities/regions.
Politicizing Sports - Progressives seem unhappy when anyone else is happy and not waving their flags of anti-patriotism. They see some injustice in the world (real or imagined) and they feel compelled to lecture and spoil anyone else's good time. Nothing demonstrates this more than the recent politicization of sports -- with the completely expected consequences that this alienates enough of the audience, to ruin it for everyone.
Rent Control - As Swedish economist Assar Lindbeck one said, "rent control appears to be the most efficient technique presently known to destroy a city – except for bombing". I think he was understating it. Rent control, like all other price and wage control proves that you can control the prices, but not the unintended consequences of controlling the prices, and it makes things worse, virtually everywhere it has been tried. It is the idea that if you help one person, at a cost to many others, that you can come out ahead in the long run. It never works (long term).
SOTU - State of the Union Speeches, and commentaries.
Sanctuary State Backlash - Californians (who supported this), lost their right to ever complain about state overreach again. California arrogantly tried to proclaim that federal immigration law, doesn't apply to them -- and anyone in the state that complies with the federal law, will be victimized by the government of the state.
Shanty Town - I have no problems with social experiments. I just want honest accounting of them. San Jose Mayor (Sam Liccardo) got people to sponsor "tiny homes" (garden sheds) for the homeless on public lands, at about about 5x the cost per unit (≈$70K each) as it would cost an individual. Which I find compassionate to the homeless, and cruel to the taxpayers. We know how this will end: crime, disease, and detritus to our community, suppress property values, it will attract more homeless (for the free housing, etc) -- and those things will cause backlash against the Homeless it claims to help. But Sam gets free press, and that's what's important, right?
Socialism - Socialism has been the most tried, and most failed government system, next to it's older brother (Tyranny). There have been many, many communes (cults, utopias). Some were small (like Zoar, Ohio), others were large (USSR, China, Nazi Germany, etc). Virtually all of them ended poorly.
Socialists - This is a list of a few people who are Socialists. You can look for commonality or not (that's human nature): Michael Moore • John Oliver • Bernie Sanders • Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez •
Socialized Medicine - These are articles on Socialized Medicine.
The Left Lies - Imagine the truth is not on your side and thus you can't win the war with facts and logic, but you still want to win? What would you do? The obvious answer is that you'd make the truth into a crime. By and large, this is what the left has become. Now, I'm not talking every Democrat, or even every progressive; most Democrats like most other people are just lazily plodding through life, and repeating what they hear on the news or for their friends: some lie without knowing it, some are just rooting for their team without thinking it through. But the leadership of the left, whether political, celebrity or intellectuals, do not have the truth on their side, so they need to re-define truth, history, and attack anyone that contradicts them, or their belief system and party would go extinct. This article offers just a small sampling of the evidence.
The Southern Strategy - Politician 101: if the truth is unpopular, then lie. A perfect example of that is the Democrat/Media narrative that after the Civil Rights act of 1964, all the racists democrats all switched sides, and that's why despite the progressive democrats being the Party of the KKK, immigrant and minority oppression, and so on, they suddenly became saints, and the Republicans became all the racists (and why they started winning the South). Only none of that actually happened, and anyone with a cursory understanding of politics or history laughs at the idea. (Yet the partisan democrats, and gullible rubes, still repeat it).
Trump Derangement Syndrome - Just like the left had alternate histories about Bush and suffered from BDS (Bush Derangement Syndrome), Reagan with RDS (Reagan Derangement Syndrome), or Nixon, they do the same with Donald Trump with TDS. Instead of learning from their mistakes, they're getting worse. This varies from fear mongering, inciting violence against Trump and his supporters, to outright delusion, but you can't have adult conversations with people that are screaming Hitler, or want to pretend that everyone who disagrees with them is a racist. Of course that's what they want, because if you can discuss the topic rationally, you might find what while he's a bombastic jerk, he's done none of the things they predicted.
Unintended Consequences - Every action causes a reaction. Some reactions are pleasant surprises, many are negatives, some are counter productive (perverse) and make the problem worse. Since consequences matter more than intentions, we have a social obligation to plan for them (and avoid them). The phrase "unintended consequences" is used as either a wry warning against the hubristic belief that humans can control the world around them, or more often against a really bad implementation of not-so-smart ideas or implementations. Those that deny unintended consequences are denying science (reality).
Vaccines and Anti-Vaxxers - I hardly have a dog in this fight, and don't have a problem (in theory) with either side -- but both sides can be preachy and wrong. While I'm no anti-Vaxxer (I've gotten all mine, I don't think vaccines are the cause of autism, and I would get them for my imaginary kids), I find the anti-Vax crowd has points that the anti-anti-vax crowd is either unwilling or incapable of understanding (their arguments are more simplistic and focused around the cult of authority). There are extremes and idiots on both sides, but I usually throw out the outliers and listen to the moderates on both sides, and the anti-Vaxxers I know, are far more well reasoned than the anti-anti-Vaxxers, at least based on the arguments both sides have presented. That could just be the circle of libertarian minded friends, or many articles I've read. But I've searched and found few anti-anti-vaxxers that were well informed or willing to concede valid points. To me, it's not ignorance that's a problem, but willful ignorance mixed with preachy sanctimony that gets on my nerves. This article has a few reminders on these facts.
Voter Suppression - The knee-jerk anti-voterID response is, “but Voter Suppression”. While voter suppression is real, and infrequently happens on both sides of the aisle -- it's usually done by not having enough polling places in the right areas, not by checking ID. And you can tell how seriously the Democrats care about it, because in cases where goons in Philadelphia are standing outside a polling station with clubs, presumably to intimidate away anyone not voting how they might prefer, the Obama Administration's DOJ (Democrats), just dropped open-and-closed case, to prevent sending a signal that such voter intimidation/suppression will not be tolerated. It would only be a problem for them if white folks did that.
VoterID and Voter Fraud - The purpose of this aimless article isn’t to convince people of any particular solution, it is to meander through the facts, eviscerate the fallacies, and give everyone the data to come to their own conclusions about Voter fraud and VoterID. There are a lot of fallacies and noise about voter fraud and whether voterID (requiring ID at voting places would fix it). I’ll list just a few of the many examples of voter fraud, and reasons for concerns below -- yet, there's are a lot of DNC fronts (media outlets) that claim there’s virtually none. Why the discrepancy? Well the reason is that voter fraud overwhelmingly benefits the Democrats (DNC). If you were them, would you want it to stop? Denial ain't just a river in Egypt.
War - One of the reasons the left is thought to be Anti-American and Anti-Fact has to do with selective hypocrisy/rememberences on American Wars. They might cheer for the War at the start (especially if Democrat Presidents are for it).... but then they undermine American interests and support our enemies in the end. Almost every trope that makes America look bad about War, (Bush Lied, America did it for Oil, imperialism, etc) has leftists at the forefront of the cause with a megaphone, and often Soviets or other American-hating backers behind them. Years or decades later when you show their trope was false all along, they deny, make excuses, or attack anyone for defending the facts.
War on Women - Whenever I hear about the Democrats and their Fake News complaining about the Republicans and the "War on Women", the word that comes to mind is hypocrites. We have dozens of examples of Dems behaving worse, and the media ignoring or excusing them -- while imagined slights are exaggerated if the person involved might be conservative or have an (R) after their title. Thus, while I have no problem with prosecuting asshats, the same standard must be applied to both sides or we have a much bigger problem on our hands. And in the case of Women's issue, the hypocrisy of the left and their media while pretending that their side has the moral high ground for objectively behaving worse hints at a much bigger problem than injustice against Women: but injustice against justice itself.
Warren:MeToo - Elizabeth Warren has a bit of an exaggeration problem, as exemplified by her MeToo story:
- In 1997 at the memorial of Eugene Smith (a colleague), she talked fondly of him, and told the gathered mourners she was laughing as polio stricken Smith once chased her around his desk.
- In 2017, once she could garner attention by jumping on the #MeToo bandwagon, suddenly, it was a traumatizing about how he would tell dirty jokes and make comments about her appearance, and then terrorized her by chasing her around a desk, and she "never told anyone" about the trauma... well other than mourners, and a biography writer.
So which is it? Was she lying before by choosing to show up to his memorial and tell light hearted story about the guy, or was she lying by telling the harrowing tale of how she was traumatized into silence by a superior (and yet there was no consequences)? They seem pretty mutually exclusive to me.
Who has more psychotics, Democrats or Republicans? - Q: Who has more Psychotics (Democrats or Republicans)?
A: It doesn't matter. The Democrat controlled media loves to run stories showing how the conservatives and right are all nut-jobs and ad-hominem the other side as a form of virtue signaling. ("We're better than they are"). But it's stupid. Even when it backlashes and the truth is more the opposite.