Last week, RF wrote while he “may regret saying I’m with Donald I will never regret saying I’m without her.” Given the way that Hillary supporters and their fellow travellers have comported themselves since election day, the concerns or doubts I’ve had about the wisdom of voting for President-Elect Trump have been steadily slipping away.
The past month hasn’t been all sunshine and bunny rabbits, though.If there’s one thing that’s been shoved in our faces and illuminated with blinding klieg lights, it’s that the constellation of political groups on the left really hate anyone who they suspect isn’t on their side, and nowadays going to church is apparently a sin equivalent to being Steve Bannon in their eyes.
More than that, they’re afraid of people who prioritize such right wing notions as the right to keep and bear arms. (Just peruse the comments section of this Mother Jones article on the prospects for the Second Amendment in the near future, and you’ll see what I mean. If you actually needed more proof at this point.)
We’ve always known that there were some people who aver that they are “less afraid of the criminals wielding guns . . . than I am by those permitted gun owners,” as Tricia Bishop put it in the Baltimore Sun. In my misbegotten youth, I believed this was a simple matter of ignorance, one that could be cleared up through a liberal application of sunlight. There are none so blind, however, as those who refuse to see.
When I see the left throwing around slurs like “racist”, “sexist”, “homophobe” and “Islamophobe” at the President-elect and his supporters while Donald Trump is, literally, giving speeches where he “condemns bigotry in all of its forms and envisions an inclusive America premised on our own American dream,” I see a lot of people who prefer the certitude of blindness to the occasional doubt induced by sight.
This is evidenced when you see things like George Takei placing the blame for an Islamic terrorist’s car and knife attack at Ohio State on the NRA. You also see it in the sudden increase in assassination revenge fantasies directed at Donald Trump. You even see it in the quilting blog of a community college instructor that veers into unvarnished hate for her fellow citizens.
Last year, I wrote an article expressing concern that the NRA was going far afield of its mission when it offered the estimable Dana Loesch a platform for conservative views whose relationship to the right to keep and bear arms was questionable. While I continue to believe that the NRA shouldn’t fritter away its resources and political capital by searching for other dragons to slay, as gun owners we need to be cognizant of the fact that we are in the middle of a culture war. The other side views gun owners as deplorable, incorrigible cretins, unworthy to talk back to their “betters.”
There are non-gun issues that impact us as firearm owners in this culture war. In the past, others have pointed out how the powers that be in the Democratic Party are counting on unregulated immigration to serve as cheap labor in the service of a technocratic elite, as well as a way to improve their election chances by increasing the number of voters who are beholden to them. California is, of course, the model for both, and the right to keep and bear arms does not fare well there.
For my part, I’m finding those arguments more and more persuasive — which is somewhat incredible when I reflect on my dearly departed grandmother who came to this country illegally after being orphaned in a flood in Mexico. She came here to be an American, and raised a daughter who cried real tears every July 4th. And December 7th. Perhaps the road less-travelled really does make all the difference.
For those reasons, I’m quite willing to be forgiving toward the President-elect. If I occasionally feel that some of Mr. Trump’s off-the-cuff remarks on things such as flag burning are a bit off-putting, it’s a small thing when compared to what I feel about people who are, right now, actively pushing — and passing — substantive laws to undermine the Bill of Rights. Especially when it looks like comments such as his are less indicative of an actual legislative agenda, and more a tool to smoke out the hate-filled groups who are arrayed against him — and us.
No, this isn’t the Libertarian moment I’d hoped 2016 would bring. I cannot say, however, that the path we’re currently on is leading us astray. I may be too optimistic (words rarely uttered in a firearms-related publication,) but the path we’re on might actually lead to a brighter future. For that reason, I’m willing to give the President-elect the benefit of the doubt.
[H/T: Ann Althouse for clip of Trump’s Cincinnati speech.]
i’d like to be pleasantly surprised.
at least i’m aware of the worst that could happen.
Not enough hate on the Conservative side. The evil (D) is still a Scourge, there are millions of POS (D) voters that came really really close to gleefully giving us “more of the same”. They haven’t accepted defeat, they’ve merely pulled back to coalesce. This isn’t High School bedlam rivalry. Further, we have the POS world globalist-communists wolves at our gate, and the gate’s open. The fight’s not over.
I consider these Dems, Libs, Leftist, SJW’s, and whoever the hell is also on that side to be the enemy. Just as the Muslim extremists are the enemy. I feel plenty of hate. They push and I’m pushing back harder. The second amendment will never end because a bunch of certifiable crazies make laws for the rest of us. Fuck them.
I consider these Dems, Libs, Leftist, SJW’s, and whoever the hell is also on that side to be the enemy. Just as the Muslim extremists are the enemy. I feel plenty of hate. They push and I’m pushing back harder. The second amendment will never end because a bunch of certifiable crazies make laws for the rest of us. They’re going to see counter aggression to their State supported aggression. They’ve taken it too far.
I’d say that we should just give him a chance, but keep encouraging him and Congress to pass pro gun laws.
Antis just need ANTI forehead tattoos.
That way any law abiding citizen who is not an anti can quickly ID them in a given situation and act appropriately.
For example, if you find one or a few in distress or at the mercy of a criminal, we can be sure not to intervene lest we cause them more undue distress with my “deplorable” nature.
Not Godson’s Law, but Godson’s Premise (Who the hell is Godson to be passing laws?)
Your comment sounds a little too close to wearing yellow or pink stars on their clothing. Not a good image.
I refer the readers once again to Robert Heinlein’s “Beyond This Horizon”, the source of the popular quote: “…an armed society is a polite society.” In this story the people often go armed in public and dueling is culturally acceptable. Further, if you do not wish to be part of this sort of activity you may VOLUNTARILY advertise yourself as unarmed by wearing a shoulder brassard announcing that fact. While so designated it is considered very bad form to be attacked, challenged or bullied and any other armed citizen of honor will come to your defense.
The point being that being unarmed and being so designated by the brassard is voluntary.
Then big difference being my idea for public ID is based on their personal choices, not me inflicting or trying to control their behavior with my beliefs (which they are doing). Sure the tattoo idea is an extreme example, but there are many options
for more functional approaches.
Similar to the campaign someone had to convince antis to put up “no guns on premises” signs on their lawns, so they could lead by example — the majority refused because they feared criminals would be attracted to their unprotected homes, yet they want to disarm others.
I have no sympathy for antis because their philosophy and unconstitutional legislation is still costing good people their lives.
My attitude is wait and see. He hasn’t even taken office and a lot of what would be beneficial for gun rights needs the cooperation of Congress or the courts. If good things happen, then I’ll celebrate them, and I’ll credit him for his contribution.
“needs the cooperation of Congress”
And I’m already reading about the cocksu-, I mean, Republican Leadership’s plans to stall and stymie the implementation of Trump’s campaign promises on many issues, including illegal aliens.
Yeah wait and see. I don’t see Donnie being any kind of savior-just better than the Hildebeast. Oh and I didn’t have to spend my entire SS checkon guns as I planned before 4 weeks ago?
“I may be too optimistic (words rarely uttered in a firearms-related publication,) but the path we’re on might actually lead to a brighter future.”
There might be a brighter future 15 years from now but the immediate future involves a financial crisis of staggering proportions followed by the media mafia pouncing on President Elect Trump for “destroying the beautiful economy that Obama built”. Then will come the calls for a cashless society and Trump will simply be remember as a speed bump on the Globalist’s 100 year journey to make the masses voluntarily enslave themselves.
Damn, that’s a depressing thought. And possible. If you look across countries, most seem to be spending far beyond their means. I’m no economist, but common sense dictates that something has to give sooner or later if it continues.
I don’t believe it. The globalists are being pushed back in the U.S. in Europe. Whether it’s a temporary retreat is to be seen, and depends on us.
Trump is doing a really good thing is nearly single handedly destroying the Mainstream Media, which had a large part to play in how we got here. The future looks hopeful, but the war is not over.
A wise man once said, “We are not at the end. We are not even at the beginning of the end, but we may be at the end of the beginning.” Fight on.
As Johannes Paulsen correctly noted, we are in the middle of a culture war. So is Europe, albeit with a different flash point.
In this war, the enemy of my enemy isn’t just my friend; he’s my brother.
Fortunately, this war is being fought with words. For now. If we win, this war will never become violent. If we lose, well, god help America.
Gunners never lose because our will to succeed in the quest of individual liberty. Recent uptick in the left purchasing arms is the last gasp of failed reasoning. Antis in order to succeed must lift a rifle and become what they are not. If their uncomfortable because a man is elected then they will collapse when rounds are inbound.
I’m actually optimistic that Trump is going to be a pretty successful President. Possibly awesome. I’m also pretty confident that his ego will cause him to continue to repeat his past mistakes when it comes to over-stating or exaggerating every success that he has, thereby giving the leftist media plenty of fodder to fact-check and complain about for the next four years. They won’t want to focus on the successes of course, but on how Trump overstates them. The Washington post is already doing it with the Carrier job deal. I predict a lot more of the same to come.
I’d think he’s be doing himself a big favor if he ditched his Twitter account and left every future announcement up to the right staff people to handle. That could greatly reduce the opportunities for sniping from the bitter left.
“he’d be”
Eh, the truth of it is that Trump is (unsurprisingly, even obviously) not yet imbued with authority to do much at all, and the types of deals he’s taking credit for landing are the sort which take months to arrange, so… But it’s not like it’s the first time a politician has taken credit for others’ hard work, nor will it be the last, and it mostly stands out so starkly because Obama’s had so damn little good news to take credit for, regardless of whether it was any of his own making. It does make me wonder just how hard Trump is going to ‘spike the football’ every time anything appears politically positive happens for him (can you imagine the parades and fanfare if Bin Laden had been killed on his watch, LOL?) Again, not even close to the worst vice in a politician, but I could easily see it becoming tiresome after the umpteenth “jobs deal brokered by Trump personally” hyperbole is blared with sirens on Drudge and Breitbart.
There’s also the aspect –being played up by disingenuous liberals and neocons but a valid concern nonetheless– of this behavior being corrosive to the small degree of separation that still remains between private economy and the federal government. If Trump is willing to personally intervene and arbitrate for random corporations in order to ‘further the interests of the nation,’ why not union contract negotiations affecting strategic industries? That’s getting dangerously close to full-on economic fascism where the government openly directs and controls the affairs of privately-owned industry (you can still become rich through your own effort, but only so long as it also furthers the government’s interest). Historically, presidents & congress have tried (to varying degrees of realism) to limit their negotiations to affairs with foreign states on behalf of generic domestic corporate interests, but were ostensibly not involving themselves with specific cases as a matter of course (the regulatory departments following general rules & oversight practices handled that)
Both the left and the right have misunderstood the Trump phenomenon. Donald Trump is a big government loving liberal Democrat crony capitalist. But he is a throw back to the George Meany-Tip O’Neal era where there are a lot of gun friendly Democrats. His appeal spans the cenrer/left to center/right but he is much more attuned to the voices on the center/left. Had Barak Obama been smart enough to understand both the demand and need for border security he would have guaranteed Democratic Party rule for a generation.
That’s pure delusion. Democrats have been banking on open borders to try to secure their “rule for a generation” by shifting the “demographics” in their favor. And, so did most of the GOP with their weak ass border stance as well. Trump, if he maintains his promises of border defense and deportation, will have Infact saved the republic from such a future.
Yeah, nothing says conservative like a $1 Trillion in pork barrel spending and industrial policy. /sarc.
This may come as a surprise to you but before Bernie decided to run for President he was for border control. Prior to 1992 organized labor was anti-immigration and so was much of the Democratic Party leadership. The modern Republican Party, i.e., since Goldwater was pro-legal immigration.
It is you who is delusional if you think Donald Trump is a conservative. He is already backtracked on deportation. Now he says he will only deport criminals. He is probably going to rely on self deportation by enforcing immigration laws. Sounds a lot like Mitt Romney. Trump was for open borders until 2015.
I don’t know, nor care what Trump is, and neither do you. Because he’s focused on two things, profit, and success at all costs. That’s what a billionaire does. The Democratic Party has also flipped 180 on tons of issues since its heyday, to become what it is now. You can’t sit there and tell me that the GOPe and DNC weren’t all for tanking this republic with illegal immigration because that’s just plain fact. I’ll gladly take my chances with the egocentric billionaire who actually might pull it off, than a Bush/Clinton/RINO who would’ve continued buisness as ussual while paying lip service to conservative causes.
There is no such thing as GOPe. Trumpsters started using that when the term RINO became inconvenient because Trump is a liberal Democrat masquerading as a Republican. It is made up term that is now of no further use. FYI, the so-called GOPe had a first class ticket on the Trump teain. Can’t get much more establishment than Mike Pence and Reince Priebus.
Trump has already announced his intention of spending gobs of money on infrastructure pork and has been engaged in industrial policy. He is a Liberal Democrat. Get over it.
Wow. You clearly didn’t watch the last election if you’re seriously claiming the GOPe was on the Trump Train. Looks like that’s enough for tonight bud.
Leading GOP guys always back the winning horse, and they were not convinced he would win until he managed to somehow pull it off. Supposedly, Trump’s being an outsider billionaire with no obligations would shield him from their inevitable attempts to co-opt him into the crime family. Instead, he made the very head of the GOP his chief of staff, Goldman Sachs guys his top financial brains, a downright JEB-like Mike Pence (he’s basically JEB with a personality) his VP –his second pick behind NJ gun-grabber Christie, btw–, several RKBA-skeptical generals to important posts along with Mitch ‘Cuck’ McConnell’s wife, and is apparently consulting an awful lot with Mitt Romney for some reason.
Will be greatly expanding federal spending in; military, housing, healthcare, subsidies (industrial, oil, and farm), child care
Will be cutting federal spending through promises of decreased graft/fraud and increased efficiency made possible by the expanded programs. The same ‘you gotta spend money to make money’ bullshit we got from Obama and a long line of others.
He’s a conservative to Bush as Reagan was to Nixon (or as Nixon was to Eisenhower). Which is to say, a Great Leap Leftward for what used to be a conservative ideological group. The new Republican Party is basically where the Dems were under Bubba, which is pretty damn ironic considering who they were supposedly so dead-set on denying the White House to. It’s no longer left vs. right, but left vs. Marxist (the Dems are far too aggressively confiscatory on a number of policies anymore to even be considered socialist, imo; they’re all about the end-game, now)
I personally think it’s as stupid & shortsighted a play as progressive populist policy has ever been, but I do hope it works out for Donald and the Republicans somehow, and they can be in a much better position four years from now. Counting on the dems once more running the worst candidate since McGovern from an incompetent administration on the heels of a recession, and managing to pull off a strategic electoral college win against a rather substantial popular vote deficit is a stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid, plan. Trump’s win was an unexpected fluke, same as his entire candidacy or TV celebrity, and hoping for a second lightning strike is very foolish.
Man, you are delusional. Even Ted Cruz came crawling back to the Donald. He wasn’t the establishment’s choice during the primary but once he got the nomination they backed him. I don’t think they expected him to win but had to do well enough to hold the House. I initially thought he would win but his inability to stay focused after the conventions convinced me that he would finally crash and burn. Had he campaigned from beginning like he did the last two weeks it would crushed her but that doesn’t make him a conservative. The measure of how far left the Democrats have marched is that to many Trump looks conservative but he is a pre-1992 Liberal Democrat. If he realized how vulnerable HIllary was he was run as a Democrat and won big time.
Too much weed? Put the bong down brotha.
@tdin
vawi: you forgot to close with /sarc“…people who aver that they are “less afraid of the criminals wielding guns . . . than I am by those permitted gun owners,”
There is a logical, “reasonable”, “common sense” basis for such statements: Criminals wielding guns do not live in my neighborhood, go to the good places I go, do not congregate with the good people like me, are readily identifiable by skin color or ethnicity (other than caucasion). “Permitted gun owners” are exclusively white, look like me, go to all the good places, with all the good people, like me. I won’t be in a place where a criminal might shoot at me, but I definitely will find myself in places where gun owners and carriers are likely to be near me, be carrying a gun, and have it go off by itself, or they might think they are Walker Texas Ranger, and shoot the wrong person.
See how that works? Criminals might be dangerous in areas where criminals live and work. Permitted gun owners are like totally dangerous to all the good people around them.
“There is a logical, “reasonable”, “common sense” basis for such statements”:” For liberal/regressives. They are projecting their own self-hatred and self-loathing based on their lack of self respect for being powerless, helpless and defenseless. This creates incredible self directed rage, which they turn outward towards those of us that do take responsibility for our own self-defense.
This is why the great majority of mass shooters have been leftists, or left leaning voters. It is this incredible soul destroying rage and self-loathing, exploding in an orgy of blood and death, directed at those they blame for their pathetic condition.
You left off the (Sarc) tag.
If you were serious, you live in a dream world where good and bad are separate and never the twain shall meet. The bad guys don’t live where you do and are a different color.
Unfortunately the bad guys can appear anywhere. Some of them look for the “good people” because they are more likely to have something worth taking.
And then, there are those who only want to take your life.
Those who prefer to be legally armed are statistically the most law abiding whose goal is to protect their family and maybe even, under the right circumstances, your family also. They are no danger to you and seek only to be left alone.
Long ago I was a Boy Scout and learned their motto: “Be Prepared”, a good motto to live by.
I take no position. Only pointing out what is abundantly clear about the basic life theory underlying the quoted statement.
Oh yeah, and maybe identifying the immovable obstacle to possession of firearms.
the only thing we really know is the harridan will not get the chance to do what she said she would do. for all we know the orangutan will do those same things. maybe versus will.
Reaallly hoping this “but Hillary” crap dies out rapidly after the inauguration. It’s even more retarded than the “Bush’s fault” bullcrap Obama pulled for a solid eight years. She’s gone, it’s over, all that matters now is Trump. And all that *should* matter to you about Trump is making sure he’s held to his promises and maintains focus on issues important to those who voted for him. The “but Hillary” mentality will also prove monumentally destructive to his electoral support in four years when Hillary *isn’t* running against him, but some young & telegenic minority in the mold of Obama.
They are already looking for the next obama. Corey Booker is being floated as a possibility.
Sen. Corey Booger’s political future is in jeopardy here in N.J., his pal Sen Robert Menendez is about to be convicted of bribery and Booger himself has been implicated in the massive Newark N.J. Watershed bribery scam, other defendants may rat him out to save themselves extended prison stays. With Jeff Sessions being named Attorney General I wouldn’t want to be in Booger’s shoes. Booger also does NOT reside in N.J. he actually lives in NYC when not in Wash D.C. and he is a closeted homosexual which his community (inner city Democrats) who usually frown upon that behavior ignore because of his skin color and political persuasion.
Trump needs to be put in perspective. He dislikes, for example, flag burning. Well, welcome to the club. Many of us dislike it. So, we share that. However, he takes his dislike and goes in a bad direction, in my opinion.
Now, take that 1A issue and compare it with the Dems. A small group of folks made an expose on the Sainted Hillary and wanted to pay per view it. When the FEC indicated that it would slam them for this political speech, they went to court. The Dems hate this decision, in favor of the small group. They loathe it. They wish they could shut up groups whose political speech they oppose.
So, compare the two 1A issues. Spreading the word on candidates for president is critical to our republic. Absolutely critical.
“Trump needs to be put in perspective. He dislikes, for example, flag burning. Well, welcome to the club. Many of us dislike it. So, we share that. However, he takes his dislike and goes in a bad direction, in my opinion.”
That’s it, in a nutshell. It’s a very similar logical approach to what Stephen Colbert did on his show back when he was funny (not just the Colbert Report) where he’d take one or two broad, supportable, reasonable aspects of a topic, and follow them to a hyberbolic illogical conclusion. Were Trump a talented political comedian (he’s not, he’s been a walking joke in public his entire adult life) I’d suspect it was an act, but at this point I truly think it is probably the legitimate overzealous passion that guys like Colbert were mocking.
Most Americans dislike anti-patriots like flag burners, but wanting them silenced and jailed is, itself, unpatriotic. It is hatred of an idea and those who hold it, made into policy. It’s not right when liberals do it, and it isn’t right when conservatives or populists do it. I truly think Trump wants to be a great American and work toward a great America, but he damn sure won’t get there by acting like the socialist, fascist, corrupt, or tyrannical scumbags who have brought us to this low station.
You both miss what Trump is doing in the big picture, and miss what he did in the small picture with the flag burning comments.
In the big picture, Trump is making the leftists in this country, and especially the political press, absolutely crazy. They don’t know what to do about Trump – he’s the monster they’ve created, and he keeps embarrassing, ridiculing and humiliating them by turns.
eg, the flag thing. Trump tweets that out. The press goes apeshit. Then people point out that Hillary sponsored legislation that laid onerous penalties upon those who burned flags in 2005, when she was a senator. Her legislation would not have stripped someone of their citizenship, but it specified pretty harsh penalties for burning a flag.
Did the press remember this? Nope. So when the press started running their yaps about Trump’s tweet, he just waited for people to point out Hillary’s bill from 2005, then waited for the press to look like a bunch of morons. It took all of 36 hours. To be sure, it doesn’t take many IQ points to savage these twerps with J-school degrees, but still, it’s like picking up dog crap: it’s a simple job that needs done, and Trump is doing it.
He’s “shaping the battlefield” as it were with the press. His aim is now obvious to me – he means to cost them the rest of their credibility. They squandered huge amounts of their already diminished credibility when they said, as close to the election as the very morning of November 8th that Hillary was going to win easily. Since then, Trump has just stood on the back of their necks as he rubs their faces in their own crap.
As Dick Cheney pointed out this past weekend to CNN’s Barbara Starr at the Reagan Library:
“I think one of the reasons people get so concerned about the tweets is it is sort of a way around the press. He doesn’t have to rely upon, uh, rely upon — this is the modern era, modern technology. He’s at the point where we don’t need you guys anymore.”
Bingo. Cheney gets it.
Think about what happens to politics in this country if the Democrats lose their propaganda arm, the DC press corpse. They’re done, finished. The DNC is now a political organization run by doddering, screechy, complaining, hectoring and nagging white women (Clinton, Pelosi, Warren, et al) who probably buy their Depends undergarments by the 56-count package at Walmart. They’re all in their late 60’s to mid-70’s, and they look it.
At the rate Trump is going, these women won’t be able to complete a thought on camera in a year without the press holding their hands, they’ll be so mentally unhinged. Well, Father Time will finish the job on their harridans, but the press needs to be eliminated as cheerleaders in order to have a chance at discussing policy proposals with the public. Well, that’s where these tweets come in. The press in DC is now mostly a bunch of 20-something dopers who took the lazy way through their colleges and came out with a j-school degree. Were I advising these twerps, I’d have told them that stupid and deeply in debt is no way to start an adult life, but hey, none of them asked me.
After Trump has had his way with them at the rate he’s going, they won’t come out of Mommy’s basement into the daylight.
So calm down, pour yourself a glass of a fine adult beverage, and enjoy the show.
If it is some sort of of Machiavellian, 4D chess, it’s a game with a lot of potential blowback. Sure, he can stir the pot and make people freak out, and there will be a lot of people who will enjoy that show. But he also risks making himself known generally as erratic and petty,and since it will be him doing it directly on Twitter, there won’t be any media to take the blame.
Here’s something to temper your good cheer….
On the day following the election of Trump, millions of Leftist teachers and professors went back to their jobs of indoctrinating our youth with Leftist ideology.
Until we blow up that edifice we are destined to lose.
The best bet is to either employ the uneducated or convince your employer to. The universities have become enormously powerful now that damn near everyone has to get their approval (in exchange for a shit load of money and brainwashing if you add it all up) if they wish to land a decent job to live on. This only happened due to the ‘degree inflation’ that exploded over the last several decades as the skilled and manufacturing trades dried up in favor of service careers. That scarcity is part of the reason those trades are so well paid, which is why their employers fled to inferior overseas workforces to remain competitive.
To starve the beast, go around the system; hire a kid with only a highschool diploma, associates degree, or apprenticeship/certificate to do your jobs, and at the same wage as a degreed applicant. Many employers believe they can’t due to modern selection bias (the only kids who *choose* to avoid secondary training/school tend to be worthless), but this is because they no longer even try to recruit undeveloped talent straight out of high school. Yet at my Fortune 500 employer freshman/sophomore interns are given similar job assignments as newly-graduated entry level employees; clearly the degree is not truly necessary to perform the work. But the beast is wise to this angle, so many contractors to the government no longer have that option due to contract requirements or legal liability.
“Until we blow up that edifice…”
Please read up on the Chinese Cultural Revolution before suggesting something as monumentally retarded and horrible as this (even metaphorically)
I think you don’t understand the Cultural Revolution in China, or the situation here.
In China when Mao was finishing his takeover (’48 onwards), the universities were filled with some genuinely smart people who understood that communism would never work. It’s why Mao went after them. In China, their caste system has a “student caste,” ie, families of multiple generations of educated, smart and capable people – many of whom actually ran the government in various bureaucratic offices. My wife’s family included ambassadors to foreign countries who were kept on after Mao achieved power. Her father, who was a MD, fled the country because Mao was a guy who put his faith in quacks – including quacks who told him that sleeping with young girls was a way to preserve his health, and that he shouldn’t brush his teeth.
Mao peddled his economic nostrums to the most ignorant of Chinese society, the subsistence farming class of people. They were illiterate peasants who, like their counterparts in Venezuela today, vote in a form of government they support because the commies promised them “free stuff.” This is how 10’s of millions died in the PRC – Mao convinced & ordered illiterate subsistence farmers to produce steel in his “Great Leap Forward” in the 50’s, which meant that the farmers occupied their time in futile attempts to make steel. This meant they weren’t farming – and the eventual result was a famine that killed 10’s of millions.
The academics could see this coming – there’s only so much food grown in China, and it has never been enough, and diverting farmers from farming is always a bad idea in China. It has been ever thus, and Mao isn’t the first leader to have made this mistake. The academics quietly pointed that the famine had been avoidable, and that agrarian policy should be left to people who actually knew something about this very important issue, and Mao then when ape with the Cultural Revolution as retribution to the “student caste” who had been the people who had been running the government for centuries in China, through one political upheaval after another.
Our situation is different: We’ve somehow achieved a situation where our farmers are smarter than our academics. If I had to choose which cohort of people in whom I’d trust to run a government, I’d choose farmers in a New York second. Our academics are now mostly useless, and in many cases, they’re the sworn enemies of competence (never mind liberty) because they’re some of the only ones in America stupid enough to believe that marxism is a viable economic model.
And when Marxism fails, as it always and inevitably does, there will always be an ‘expert’ (usually a Progressive) to proclaim that it would have worked, but they just didn’t do it correctly.
But hey, no worries, they figured out why it failed and they *promise* this time they’ll do it right. (and you can trust them this time.)
“… there will always be an ‘expert’ (usually a Progressive) to proclaim that it would have worked, but they just didn’t do it correctly.”
Worse than that….American leftists/progressives/liberals/statists will tell you that only they are smart enough to make it work. Every other nation is defective in intellect, thus the record of failure since Marx/Engles.
As much as I disagree with Trump there is nothing that makes me happier than to see the histrionics of the left right now.
Sadly, Schadenfreude is not a system of government. People will figure that out eventually…I hope.
True but only with significant electoral reform will we have a chance of fixing things. Unfortunately any fixes will be vehemently opposed by the very political parties that have helped shaped the screwy system we have today.
Whats, precisely, is “electoral reform”?
Electoral reform as in requiring legal ID to vote.
Because hey, you have to have valid ID to buy a gun or board an airliner…
Ok, understand.
But you overlook a major fact: everyone has the right to vote; no one should have the right to have a gun. So, to vote you only need be breathing. To buy a gun, a car, board transportation is altogether something else. You don’t have a right to any of those, regardless of some yellowing, fading, ancient document written by a bunch of country bumpkins (words of the English intellectual class) who only wanted to make themselves rich through slavery and accumulation of all the wealth for themselves. The original “1%” were the 56 signers.
Just saying.
Only citizens of this country have the right to vote.
However you don’t need to prove that you are a legal citizen.
It is very easy in most places to become a registered voter.
You don’t even have to speak or be able to read English at least not where I live.
Everything is written Bilingual.
“But you overlook a major fact: everyone has the right to vote;”
Wrong. Not being a legal citizen, felony convictions, etc. means you loose your right to vote. That has been upheld as Constitutional by SCOTUS.
” no one should have the right to have a gun.”
WRONG again.
Unless you are specifically deemed a prohibited person, you have a right to own a gun…
OK. Take another look at my comment. Ask, “Does this make any sense?” If so, to whom?
That was the undertone.
There is a redneck saying that the leftists forget when they denigrate Trump: If you’re so smart, how come you ain’t rich. Trump is rich.
“If you’re so smart, how come you ain’t rich. Trump is rich.”
By that logic; how come I’m not as rich if I understand what’s in the Constitution and Bill of Rights better than Trump, not to mention my expertise in the field of aerospace engineering? Why is Tom Cruise even richer than me, despite being a demonstrably idiotic man-child who (IIRC) didn’t even have to get a GED to make a living with his pretty mouth? Is it because I’m stupider than them, or is it because I didn’t inherit tens/hundreds of millions of dollars to invest with, and wasn’t scouted by Hollywood casting folks for my dashing good looks & diminutive size into a multi-million dollar acting gig out of highschool? The leftists are half-right about one thing; different people are born into different circumstances that are not equal, and at that point we just have to be adept enough to succeed given that starting point. Trump was smart enough to make almost as much money as the S&P 500 index funds with all the money he inherited, making a fool of himself through some very poor business dealings in the process. Smart enough to keep a distance from the Mob in his business interactions with them, but clearly not smart enough to actually play their game directly & make even more money. Cruise was smart enough to actually hang onto the miraculous windfalls he got in showbiz, unlike so many others. I’ve managed to work hard enough to get through a good university into a well paying job that satisfies my humble needs. Mike Tyson managed to blow half a billion dollars in winnings over the course of a couple years, and now has to humiliate himself on TV for nickels to keep the lights on. Money (or beauty) is only a measure of intelligence to a moron.
Did anyone else notice that all the pro gun comments were deleted from the mother Jones NRA article? You can see the replies, I use that word lightly because the venum is dripping from the anti-gun replies.
Make them feel this mistake. Start pushing local dems out wherever you find them. Local dem running unopposed? Run a goat or puppy against him, you might just win. Do not let them breathe, and remember all politics is local.
Not a new phenomenon with the POS (D), and not going away any time soon, with all the POS (D). Further, there’s too much globalism infused in D.C., it’s like people have alresdy been paid, or promised big sums of money, and there will need to be an accounting and penalties for sell outs of any ilk. The Congress and Senate are already talking against and taking action against DJT more than they ever opposed Ohole or the fing POS (D) in the other side of the House and Senate so
THEY ALL GOT TO GO in the next election. We’ll see with the mid terms, but the mfs are still sitting on their thumbs while we are getting overrun in the southern states at an increased rate since the election. And if they’re not protecting America from an influx of illegal aliens, and they’re not protecting America from those illegals voting anywhere (FU CA for giving away drivers licenses convertable to open privilges in other states, your sh_t is drawing due) and if it’s their America to give away by the same logic it’s our America to take away from them.
I want people people on the left who hate me this much and express the desire for the destruction of my liberties with such fervor to fear me. And they should.
The one thing that should be clear to everyone after the past election is that the left simply doesn’t disagree with us, they hate our guts. Does anyone doubt that the majority leftist would have no reservations sending the door kickers out disarm us deplorables and would happily see us dead? These are not people who are to be reasoned or compromised with. Within their world view, anyone who does not share their ideology is evil an must be destroyed. Trump’s victory is simply a holding action, this is not over by a long shot. I still fear this will end in blood and fire. I suggest preparing accordingly.
Agreed. The left isn’t going away quietly; they are regrouping. Trump isn’t even President yet. I would not be shocked to find out that Hillary actually found a way to “sway” enough electors to change the electoral results. It’s not likely, but it’s not impossible.
I’m not sure TTAG is exactly the outlet that can report about the fear and loathing of donald Trump with Firearms Concierge and Farago on the roster. Either completely destroys the brand’s credibility.
You butt-hurt there, Brah?
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