All or Nothing

I voted for President Trump not once, but three times. I firmly believe it was the best thing I could do, and, indeed, would do it again under similar circumstances. But I will not go to bat for everything he says and does. That, simply, is intellectually dishonest. People make mistakes or sometimes say and do things which are perplexing if not downright indefensible. We need to be upfront and honest about that, particularly about ourselves and those we support.

Everyone needs to do it. Full stop. I'm not trying to be particularly political here, honest, but President Biden and his supporters needed to do this in recent years. They weren't very willing to speak and act honestly about COVID and were loath to allow the expression of opposing views. The folks attempting to track every move ICE makes, as does ICE itself, need to consider how they act and what they say. So does the religious, the atheist, the sports fan, the everybody. It's okay to defend someone doing something when it is in fact good. We must also be critical of the one doing ill even if we otherwise agree with him.

If this world teaches us anything it teaches us that it is far from perfect. Yet we human beings seem to want everything or nothing. Quite a few of us litmus test. We're seeking gotcha moments rather than truth when we do that. 

I can support Donald Trump in securing the border while questioning just what the hell that speech at Davos was about. Democrats can call for open borders while asking themselves seriously whether Biden had mental troubles which affected his ability to be President. We ought, generally speaking anyway, to treat individual issues and actions as exactly that, and analyze them accordingly. None of that but you're guy is just as bad really helps. It is almost certainly hyperbole to assert a President is the Devil incarnate, even if it's Donald Trump. Or Joe Biden.

You can't have everything, and you must regularly question your own actions and motives. Above all you cannot demonize. That only hardens the heart of the other guy.

Democrats Shocked

The Democratic Party was shocked yesterday when some guy did something in Florida a scant two months after some other guy did something in Pennsylvania.

"I believe I speak for all my fellow Democrats when I say I can't believe some guy did something in Florida right after some guy did something in Pennsylvania," a visibly shocked Member of Congress Ilhan Omar said when told of the second guy doing something. "Our Party will not tolerate anyone who does something, even against the Master of Lies who will become Dictator of the United States and spread hatred if elected."

Asked whether theoretically her party's accusations might have inspired some guy to do something, Omar smirked, "Of course not. We are the party of peace, love, and tolerance, not exclusion and hatred like the guy who the guy tried to do something to is." Then something was done by somebody to the reporter who asked the question.

Experts think that maybe Secret Service protection for the guy who nearly had something done to him will actually be upgraded in case a third guy tries to do something. 

This election got it right

I love the electoral college. It speaks to me.

Go on, carp about how Hillary won the popular vote. But we are the United States, you must remember. United States. Emphasis on States. Why should California and New York tell the rest of us how to live?

That's the forgotten, or ignored, part of the equation. The two largest fragments of our country are not our whole country. The rest of us, indeed together with them, we are the whole country.

Damn the popular vote. We are not one nation. We are a union of sovereign States, each with an existence which does not depend on the opinions of our other, sister, states. The vast majority of our sister states did not want Hillary Clinton as our President. So she is not.

And that it how it should be. The majority should not rule without the consent of the minority in their true rights. I believe someone named Jefferson said as much. The Electoral College allows the minority to be fully and completely represented in these United States. Indeed, it checks the power of the majority by ensuring that power will be diffused. It has surely been diffused this past election year.

Freedom is only won when power is properly checked. Power has been properly checked this election cycle.

Election 2016

Well, I cast my vote. I suppose that means in some quarters that I support World War III. Tonight I will substitute in a curling match in Canada, a game which I agree to play last week.

Right after my friend asked me to play, he then remarked that he hadn't thought of it being Election Day here in the States. I replied that I didn't mind curling for him as the distraction would be nice.

I do wonder if the border will be slow this evening. I intend to be home by 10 or so, and will likely watch a lot of the elections returns. Don't expect any live blogging; I don't intend to pay that much attention.

Who will win? I still believe that Clinton will win the White House but the GOP will keep Congress. I can live with that.

I'm just glad it's all coming to an end. Tomorrow will finally be just another day.

The bombastic iconoclast

Well, the deed, it seems, is done. Those Indiana Republicans who cared to vote have apparently sealed it. Donald Trump will be the Republican standard bearer for the November 2016 elections. I do hope that my friends who support him will properly revel in this. They should. It is all the comfort they might have come November 9th.

I fervently hope that things are not so bad as they tonight appear to be, to me. I genuinely fear that they are in fact more horrible than my worst nightmares.

My good and dear conservative family and friends, this is bad. Donald Trump is not our savior, despite his messianic bravado. Donald Trump is not by any stretch of the imagination Jesus Christ. He is not even Ronald Reagan, whom, I'm sure, could not by his own admission I am also sure tie Our Lord's sandal straps. Reagan was a principled idealist, a man who saw both the ideal and the real and sought to work in reality with an eye towards the ideal. A man who knew that a united people working on right principles could actually inch towards a Heaven on Earth. This man, the Donald, this hero of yours, is an egotist on the supreme ego trip. He wants to be the President of the United States as though it were a mere prize in a radio contest. That's essentially the same mentality which elected Barack Obama. And you see what that has wrought.

Donald Trump is not our savior. He is rather a bombast, hurling grenades at paper targets for his own ends. Perhaps he is regal, and I am misinterpreting him. Perhaps I am not understanding American themes and he reads history better than I, though I am not sure that is a positive. Perhaps he is the real deal, and I am a dinosaur. Perhaps.

Yet perhaps he is the iconoclast without direction. And where, I ask, might that lead us?

Trump violence

Now we seem to have recurring violence at rallies for Presidential hopeful Donald Trump. That's not surprising; he appeals to the more extreme elements of the GOP while also somewhat ironically igniting the extremes of the left. If that's not a recipe for trouble I don't what is. But it will all of course be the GOP's fault, even though the Republicans have no real control over who represents them. Go figure.

Go now. What are you waiting for?

I am not a fan of Donald Trump. I do not want him to be the standard bearer for the GOP in November 2016. But I do have two words for those who say they will move to Canada if he is elected. Two very simple words.

Go now.

I am not a fan of Barack Obama. I suspect I feel about him the way many anti-Trump supporters feel about The Donald. In truth, I likely feel more powerfully anti-Obama than they feel anti-Trump. But never once during the 2008 or 2012 Presidential campaigns did I ever think that I would leave my country if that man were elected. This is my country. I will not abandon her merely because I do not like her choice for President. But if you would, if you would leave simply because you do not like the occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, then I have two words for you.

Go now.

I'm aware of the spike in google searches for immigration to Canada in recent days. I love Canada myself; if forced to leave the United States, I would go there, if you'd excuse the irony, in a New York minute. But as it is, my country is the USA. And I will not leave her merely because the political tides are against my beliefs. But to those of you who would, I have two words.

Go now.

What are you waiting for? Clearly your patriotism is shallow and parochial. Go now. The door is open.

The Trump Card

Just how seriously are we to take Donald Trump's presumed decision to run for President? That is a question which will leave the nation hanging for the next few weeks, it seems. But a quick analysis may help to put the possibility in a better light.

If he does run, he will of course be a factor, to the detriment of the other Republican candidates who may be considering a run themselves. The Donald (is he still called that?) may well cast a shadow on any and all who seek the same nomination. This is not necessarily good, and indeed points to one of the flaws in the current American system: that an outsider could well force himself upon the GOP. Sat what you will, neither major party ought to have a potential tasteless candidate forced upon them. Such is not democracy: it is the tyranny of the majority, in this case the mere numbers who may call themselves Republican who would not otherwise or who do not really contribute anything to the Party except an occasional vote. If the formal organization of a political party, any political party, we must stress, must accept a candidate as their standard bearer due to overdemocratized laws, our political system is weaker, not stronger.

Perhaps this is merely a publicity stunt by Mr. Trump. Perhaps; but it would seem that of anybody in America today he least needs more attention. If he does feel that way himself, then we must conclude that it is ego talking more than anything else.

So he questions President Barack Obama's birth. If that is meant to attract people to him then we must believe all the more that he may only be feeding his own sense of self worth. This can only attract the precise element which least needs more attention itself today. We do not need the fringe partisans having greater attention heaped on them. It will do nothing less than distract us from the real work of the 2012 election cycle.

It doesn't seem likely that the GOP would want him as their candidate. As bad as we may look to the rest of the world with our elections (thank you Al Gore for be such a graceless loser) the potential for debacle which a Trump/Obama race would offer is far greater than we as a nation ought to have to suffer. A socialist against a socialite. Who could blame the rest of the world for guffawing at such a race?

Let's hope he doesn't run. Our own regular party candidates on each side of the aisle do a decent enough job of embarrassing America without an inflated ego added to the mix. The Libertarians may get our support after all if Trump actually leads the ticket.