Surrounded by Idiots

Is it stupidity?  Maybe it is narrow-mindedness. Or laziness.   Maybe it’s just wanting to live in a make-believe reality.  I don’t know.  But I know that with so many on the Left it is completely impossible to have a fair-minded, rational, objective conversation. 

Take this example:

• Persons on Left note an article from a Left biased news source stating that Trump’s new Communications Director Scaramucci believes the earth is 5500 years old.
• I find this questionable so research and discover that if one watches the entire interview one sees that Mr. Scaramucci added that he was referring to recorded history.  (Of course, not speaking with absolute perfection, having to add a comment in a second sentence is an unpardonable sin with the elitist Left who spend days/weeks/years with focus groups and speech writers honing their words to reflect precisely their party line if not their truth.)
• I point out to Persons on Left that the Left biased source had omitted that key fact of clarification (upon which time period most anthropologists would agree) in order to cast negativity upon the Trump administration.
• Person on Left states that they did not read the full article, just up to that statement (not that it mattered since their article did not include the clarifying information).  Person on Left then states that nonetheless they are not impressed with Trump’s other picks.
• I think to myself:  are they not impressed because they have only read similar biased stories about those picks?
• I reply asking that Persons on Left just make sure that the lack of being impressed is based on actual fact and not the characterizations and portraits painted by the biased Left media.
• I am hoping that Persons on Left realize that perhaps they should read more carefully and critically.
• And yet, Persons on Left instead of noting that fact, now change the discussion to point the finger back as if saying it’s ok if we are biased and stupid because you are too.  Person on Left states that Trump supporters don’t acknowledge that they are biased too.
• I want to ask them what that has to do with the fact that they are relying on inaccurate information to make their political views and opinions.  But, I realize that is probably hopeless since they simply cannot see that they have relied on false information.  They cannot see the distinction between the existence of bias and their relying upon that bias.
• These People on Left then continue to carry on a discussion about how awful Trump and his people are. 
• I wonder what they actually know about him or his people – what actual facts, not biased and distorted hyperbole, they are relying on to make their judgments.

But, at this point I stop and walk away because I have come to realize that my comments are futile.  The Left will always find something, even the slightest imperfection, to attack, or, if they can’t, then they will simply change the subject.  I have repeatedly suggested to people I know on the Left, including the above Persons on Left, that they might want to read other sources than only Left biased in order to get a more complete picture of the world.  I have suggested where they can find a variety of sources. From many conversations, it is apparent that they are not interested.  Yet, they walk about and talk about as if they were the most informed people on the planet.  They seem convinced that they understand what others do not; perhaps that is why they see no need to find the facts and the truth – they assume they already know it.

Do they not understand that they are the victims of serious misrepresentation if not fraud?  When one omits substantive and relevant facts in a way that distorts the truth, a fraud by omission has been committed.  Does the Left care?  I suspect not.  Do the many people on the Left know they are being duped?  If they do, they choose to look the other way because it serves their hateful purposes not to know: if they discovered that the Trump administration and those who support it are not actually evil personified, then it will be harder to hate these folks or dismiss them as deplorable.

How can we ever hope to move forward as a country if people are either incapable of facing, or unwilling to face, reality?  Yet, that is the situation we find ourselves in.  I, personally, find this stupidity enormously frustrating; it makes me angry that so many are so incapable of seeing the nose upon their face, so incapable of recognizing truth or bias, and so unwilling to use their minds to understand what is and what is not objective news.  They refuse to accept bias when it is pointed out and right in front of their faces; they refuse to accept that they may have been and are being duped; they refuse to accept that it might be their shortcoming in failing to read beyond the first lines.  But, then, I guess I too need to accept reality:  I need to accept that too many are unwilling to exert the effort that finding truth and fighting bias requires.  And, so, I find myself surrounded by idiots.

Fear Leaves Us To Freeze In Hell

What are the Republican congress people afraid of?  Obamacare was a bad idea.  They promised to repeal it.  So repeal it already!  Get that done.  Then consider whether it needs to be replaced, and if so, what should the replacement look like.  Yet it seems to be heresy to question whether we need some sort of governmental healthcare insurance structure. Many people have become accustomed to the handouts provided and the Representatives and Senators are afraid to upset these folks who in their minds are simply votes.  So, who are these congress people working for?  Not the people who elected them to repeal Obamacare; no, they are working for their own power.  Just as are the Democrats.  They, too, must see what a disaster Obamacare is, but they used that plan to essentially buy votes and now they use it to keep those votes.  Regardless of whether the handouts in Obamacare are good or bad for the country, they will retain it for their own power.

All these people are simply afraid.  Afraid to stand up for what is right for the country as a whole if there is any chance that might put their own political futures in jeopardy.  Well, if the voters have any sense, the political futures of all those congress people should be in jeopardy due to their lack of backbone.

Let’s look beyond Obamacare to the functioning of the House and the Senate generally.  They are frozen, incapable of doing anything for the American people.  The Democrats use the rules of House and Senate to stall, to prevent items even coming to the floor for debate or vote.  They refuse to deal with Republicans, choosing instead to oppose any and everything they propose simply because they are the party of Trump.  And the Republicans who hold majorities in each body, cannot figure out how to combat both the Democrat’s obstructive tactics and their own inability to draft legislation that furthers the agenda upon which they were elected. 

Meanwhile, the Republicans’ lack of backbone, their fear and inability to act, along with the Democrats’ fear that if they do not attack and obstruct everything  Republican and Trumpian they will lose any power grip they still have on the administrative state, all of this leaves the American people without any real voice in their own government.  It leaves us frozen out and in a sort of Hell.

Back to Obamacare.  We do not have a right to government provided or subsidized healthcare.  Obamacare and its backers has led some to believe that we do, but any government provided healthcare is really provided by the people who pay the taxes that will pay for that healthcare.    It is the epitome of big, centralized government of the sort that takes away individual responsibility, independence, and ultimately freedom. 

It would take guts, but why not repeal Obamacare today – not a repeal to become effective down the road, but today.  Then start from scratch.  What do the people want, what do they need, how can we achieve the best health care (not health insurance, but health care!) and do we want to turn our healthcare decisions and management over to the government?  

Of course, to repeal Obamacare outright and immediately takes a lot of guts because it would indeed cause a bit of chaos.   But sometimes chaos is a necessary precursor to improvement.   Let’s face it, Obamacare was always a bad bill and it only gets worse:  more expensive, less coverage.    But what about Medicaid you may ask.  Well, let’s discuss whom we want Medicaid to cover and are we both willing and do we have the tax base to cover those people.  Should able bodied folks capable of working but choosing not to be provided by the state with health insurance?  Let’s address that head on, regardless of whom it upsets and whom perhaps it removes from the benefits.  Our representatives and senators won’t do this because they are afraid.  They want to please everyone who might be a possible vote.  In the process, they do nothing for the people who did vote for them, and nothing for the country.

These alleged leaders in our Congress are really weak and fearful.  Few if any are willing to stand up to the existent administrative state; they are not willing to rock the boat.  They huff and they puff, but show me a Democrat who is willing to reach across the aisle or even in any way counter their party line, and show me a Republican who is not more concerned with not upsetting the apple-cart of his or her own political career than with the people whom they are meant to represent.

And we, the people, have allowed this to happen.  Too many do not take the time to educate themselves about issues beyond their immediate gratifications, but to also understand the broader and long-term ramifications of those issue.  Too many do not take the time to educate themselves about the candidates beyond their party affiliation or whether they are someone they’d like to have dinner with, or many other hopelessly superficial reasons.  We the people also need to find our backbones and demand more from those whom we elect.  Again, the country depends on it.  I don’t know if Hell ever freezes, but the fear running rampant in the halls of congress is freezing out any movement forward for America, and it sure feels like Hell.

Another Russia Collusion Story Fail

According to Alan Dershowitz (prominent Constitutional Law scholar) in an interview on Fox, there is nothing wrong with a candidate getting information about an opponent from any type of source.  This right is based in the First Amendment.  “If it were to be prosecuted the First Amendment would trump. A candidate has a right to get information from whatever source the information comes. It’s like The New York Times publishing the Pentagon papers case or the Washington Post publishing material stolen by Snowden and Manning. You don’t prosecute the newspaper and you don’t prosecute the candidate or the candidate’s son. If the material was obtained unlawfully you prosecute if you can the people who obtain the material. But there is a First Amendment right of a candidate to use information. So you can’t include information under the campaign finance law, that would be unconstitutional."

So, once again the attempt to overturn the election based on the meeting to obtain information about Hillary must fail.  Even if the material was obtained illegally by Russians or others, the Trump campaign had a first amendment right to collect it and to use it. 

But, beyond the obvious (that it is once again a hysterical but ineffective attempt by the Left to overturn the election results), there is the more frightening underlying concept:  that the Left really has no regard for the First Amendment.  Our First Amendment rights are a necessary and critical part of our democracy.  Yet the Left would just as happily do away with them as keep them.  We have seen this for some time now, and their attack on the First Amendment has ramped up since they began their quest on Nov. 9, 2016, to overturn the election results and remove President Trump from office if not destroy him completely. 

The First Amendment to the United States Constitution states: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”  First, as to religion:  the conservative Christian community has been under attack since then candidate Obama made fun of them “clinging to their Bibles.”  Those who do not have the same beliefs or values as the Left are not tolerated but are silenced in any way possible.   Moving on to the freedom of speech and the right to assemble: too often we see those with views contrary to those of the Left shouted down, attacked, or in any way possible denied their right to speak.  The Left seems to believe that their own right to assemble includes violence against property as well as against those with whom they disagree.  Last time I checked, such violence was not a part of the word “peaceably.” 

The First Amendment essentially underscores the tolerance for diversity that is a necessary part of our democracy.  The Left would destroy both the Amendment and the underlying tolerance and replace it with a demand that everyone accept their views and values.  They would do away with dissent by anyone who disagrees with their positions.  That, my friends, is not America.

We see this attitude of the Left, the belief that the Constitution and laws that are the cornerstone of our democracy should yield to their obsession with removing Trump.  Alan Dershowitz, in addressing their current ploy, also stated, “I’m shocked as a civil libertarian, and a criminal lawyer and a liberal at how liberals are, some of them at least, prepared to stretch existing laws, talk about treason, talk about other kinds of crimes that just don’t exist when it comes to the facts as we know them about this meeting. So I’m going to keep insisting we stop accusing people of crime when there is no evidence of crime.”

We should all insist the same:  that the Left (and the media) stop accusing people of crimes when no evidence exists.  As Mr. Dershowitz further stated, "It's so dangerous to democracy to throw around these criminal law terms and accuse people willy-nilly."

But beyond that we should all insist that our elected officials, even those on the Left, remember and obey the oath they all took: to uphold the Constitution of the United States of America.  For even if President Trump were to be removed from office, or were to be defeated in the next election by someone to the Left’s liking, that is going to serve no one but the power structure of the Left if the very foundation of our democracy has in the process been destroyed.

America Needs You to Stand Up Against the False Narrative of the Left

I really thought that by now we’d be over all this, that the Democrats would have come to their senses, realized they lost the election and stop blaming the winner.  But instead they have become obsessed, completely, with their witch hunt seeking to destroy Donald Trump, everyone around him, and everything he stands for, including the wishes of the people who elected him. 

Donald Trump was sent to Washington by the people to dismantle the power structure that was destroying them and their country.  Those in power, those who believed they would remain in power to continue their destruction of the democratic republic that they seem to so disfavor, were in total shock that this man of the people, the people whom they find deplorable, actually won the election.  And since that day their whole goal has been to attack him in any way possible and do everything in their power to stall and prevent his administration from carrying out the will of the people.

These people cannot believe that everyone does not agree with them, that everyone does not hate Trump.  They can’t believe that they are no longer in control and that is something they cannot handle.  They do not care about the people of this country nor about this country itself.  Indeed, they find very little to praise in either.  They are totally self-absorbed and, to soothe their hurt and shock that everyone does not love them and they lost the election, they have decided to create their own narrative.

Their narrative is not based in fact, but in what they would like the facts to be.  They grasp at straws.  When they think they have found a way to finally catch Trump you can literally see them salivating like dogs before the kill.  And they come up with new “gotcha” stories almost daily.  And their minions, those who carry the title of news reporters even though that is not what they report, do their bidding, talking up the narrative and ignoring the real news.  And, sadly, many – too many – simply accept what they hear.

The hypocrisy is also overwhelming.  Let’s just look at the current Donald Jr. alleged Russia connection.  Gosh, the shock that someone would want to get dirt on their political opponent during a campaign.  Of course that was not what the Democrats were doing when they had foreign entities assist them in preparing a false dossier on then candidate Trump.  This is apparently the first time ever that someone has been interested when they were offered some dirt on their opponent.  And, of course that interest somehow means that they were colluding and that now, according to a losing candidate, have committed treason.   Look at the media, they can’t get enough of this, they see blood as do the Left, they become hysterical and stir up as much hysteria in others as they can.  Really, these people have completely lost their minds.

I think that is obvious.  But I do get more and more concerned that their constant repetition of their narrative, as obviously false as it is, will eventually start to be seen as true just as a result of its mere repetition. For, isn’t it true that if you say something enough then finally you start to believe it?

Imagine what it would be like if these people were in power.  Perhaps the large cities of the east and west coast would be pleased, but the rest of America would be faced with disaster.  Those 2,654 out of 3,141 counties in America that voted for Trump, those voters seen as stupid and deplorable by the Left, will be left once again without hope and without a voice. 

The Left cares about little other than themselves.  They are like small children, completely self-centered and still throwing their tantrum because they didn’t get their way.  They love to throw anything they can at the one who didn’t let them have what they want.  They post every headline that is negative about Trump on their social media.  They attack and demean those who support him.  They are acting like babies.

But sadly, their tantrums and their selfish and sick behavior have the potential to ruin this country.  Their narrative is so obviously unreal that anyone with any sense should be able to see that and, if and when they do, should stand up against it, even if that is an uncomfortable thing to do.  America depends on its people and right now she really really needs them to put a stop to the childish but very dangerous behavior of the Left.

Thoughts on the Fourth of July

I have been away from home, traveling between large cites through rural America.  These are real people; people who understand the President and agree with his agenda to make America great again.  They fly flags in front of their homes, they go to church on Sunday, they go to potlucks and help their neighbors and they work hard at whatever they do. 

I also watched Sunday’s morning shows where the language used to avoid asserting false statements while implying their truth is ridiculous.  “There is possibly evidence that….”; “If evidence is found it has the potential to destroy the Trump presidency….”; etc.  Are these news media hoping that if they assert these things long enough they will somehow become true?   I laughed out-loud when they claimed that by wanting to make Hillary emails public after there was some indication that Russians might have been behind the DNC leaks, that the desire for the American people to see what the leaks pointed to meant that there was some collusion with Russia.  Wow.  So if I am made aware of some secret or possibly criminal activity and I share that information with people who should know about it, then I am somehow involved with the people who exposed the secret information?  What crazy and twisted logic.

Of course, the big story while I was traveling was the latest Tweets. I have yet to be disgusted by one of President Trump’s Tweets.   I know that many are.  But disgust is not a reason to remove someone from office.  I believe it was on Friday that Sen. Feinstein commented that “that’s not how we talk.”  Well, maybe not how she and other elites talk, but many people do talk like that – like real people.  When it suits Democrats’ purposes, it is Ok for people not to be so erudite or perfect:  thus, the Democrats loved it when Bill Clinton talked (on MTV I think) about what kind of underwear he wore.  It made him like a regular person, someone we could all relate to, they said.  But now, they don’t want the president to be a real person.  Why?  Because they don’t like the president and because he is not one of them.  Fine, they can feel as they do, but, again, that is just not a reason to remove him from office.

So back to the America that I drove through over the last many days.  Semi-rural, flags flying, love America and love God signs in abundance.  Family farms and businesses.  Tolerance and respect for differing views and no demand that others accept your views.  Pride in family and country.  People who eat lettuce, not arugula.  People who talk in plain language, use simple words and swear sometimes.  People who know they are not perfect but do the best they can.  People who, like their country, make mistakes sometimes, but who take responsibility for those mistakes, try harder, and are deserving of love and respect.  This is the America that I know and love, not the America where every word is pre-thought before exiting the mouth, not the America where people think they know what is best for everyone, not the American where some look down their noses at others who do not possess their education or talents, not the America where there is no tolerance for views that do not meet the standards of the progressive Left; not the America where those with differing or traditional values are considered stupid, uneducated, and deplorable.

Perhaps there really are two Americas, but I think not.  For the one that the Left envisions is a false America; it is not the America of equality and tolerance and belief that has been a beacon of freedom and democracy.  The Left’s America is not such a land, but rather one where opportunity and acceptance is based on a variety of identity factors and where the goal is that there be no diversity of thought or values or beliefs. Its beacon is not one that will shine, though using smoke and mirrors the Left may be able to make it appear that it will if power is in their hands. 

On this Fourth of July, between barbecues and beers, take a moment to read the Declaration of Independence.  Think what America truly stands for.  Think about its history.  America is not perfect, but it is truly great.  When you watch the fireworks, think what they are truly celebrating.  Compare that with the false America that the Left is trying to sell and then let them know you will not buy their false contrivances.