Some Random Thoughts for the Day – October 15, 2020

There is so much to analyze, so much to comment on, so much to write about, I think today I’ll just list bullet points. Please click below to read them…

  • The chaos being sewn by both parties, but particularly and obviously that by the Left, is deliberate. It makes it difficult for many to sort fact from fiction, to sort honesty from dishonesty. Only clear-headed Americans with open minds and critical thinking skills will be able to discern truth from lies.
  • The Left, and I’ve said this before, will stop at NOTHING to defeat Donald Trump and the Republicans this election cycle. Couched in a wide range of statesman-like rhetoric (e.g. Dick Durbin) to outright obnoxious, poisonous and odious verbal diarrhea (e.g. Kamala Harris) the Left is throwing anything and everything at the wall in hopes something will stick.
  • If you look up “unhinged” in the dictionary, Nancy Pelosi’s picture should be next to the definition. Her performance with Wolf Blitzer on CNN simply says it all. You can’t make this stuff up.
  • As evidence of how on the one hand our country is innovative as hell, and on the other how crazy it’s becoming, I offer the fact that Hormel is now offering face masks with the scent of bacon. ‘Nuff said.
  • New bumper sticker: “My expert/scientist is bigger than your expert/scientist”.
  • Seen on a trail in the middle of nowhere in the High Peaks Wilderness of the Adirondacks a couple of weeks ago: a family, all wearing masks, including the family dog!
  • I predict the barons of Wall Street, in a final attempt to knock Trump down, will tank the market just before the election.
  • There is corruption on both sides of the political swamp, but the Clintons, Bidens, and their ilk truly are the varsity, All-American champions. Tell me how a so-called public servant his entire life, Joe Biden, is fabulously wealthy (and don’t say because Jill Biden is a physician… she didn’t make THAT much over the years). Don’t even try to justify the Biden family’s “business interests” that were implicitly, if not explicitly tied to his government positions as less than major conflicts of interest, whether ‘legal’ or not! As for the Clintons…the $100,000 commodities trading scandal was nothing compared to what they extracted and continue to extract from the Clinton Foundation into which influence buyers poured tens of millions of dollars! Again, legal or not, it stinks to high heaven!
  • Amy Comey Barrett is a superstar, and it’s not because of her technically perfect performance before the Senate Judiciary Committee. It’s because she acts, behaves and speaks like a NORMAL PERSON with solid traditional values – a role model if ever there was one.
  • Anybody with half a brain knows how corrupt and biased the so-called mainstream media is. The Twitter and Facebook censorship of the NY Post article on Hunter Biden that was published yesterday underscores just how corrupt and biased Silicon Valley is as well.
  • How any self-respecting citizen of our country could believe the Left’s lies, distortions, deflections, dissembling, denigrating, deceit, whining and histrionics is truly a sad commentary on our society.
  • The Republican outcry against the already evident problems with this election’s ballots may be enough to scare or at least influence ballot counters, poll watchers and voters to be vigilant. Contrary to what’s being trumpeted, I think there’s a good chance we WILL know the outcome of the election the night of November 3rd. The lawsuits and s#$%-show that will inevitably continue (they’ve already started) post November 3rd will not change a clear outcome.
  • Yogi Berra where are you when we need you. Your sayings, “It’s like “déjà vu all over again” and “It ain’t over till it’s over” have never been more apt.
  • Conservatives and Republicans don’t participate in polls and don’t put lawn signs up in Blue and Purple States.
  • “My Doctor is Bigger than Your Doctor” too!
  • School age kids are suffering. The Left doesn’t give a damn…they just want to use their new teaching platform to indoctrinate them through the medium they’re most used to. Teaching has now become a “social media” activity…
  • If you don’t want to be shot by a citizen defending himself or herself or by a law enforcement officer, it’s simple… don’t: a) hang out with the wrong people at the wrong times in the wrong places, b) strictly obey law enforcement’s commands, c) don’t threaten in an attempt to be macho, d) don’t be insolent, condescending…show respect for law enforcement, e) don’t do things that are, simply, ILLEGAL, e.g. riot, loot, destroy property, trespass, physically assault others, carry an unlicensed firearm or other deadly force object and misuse it, etc. etc.!
  • Life begins at conception, period. If you don’t want to have a baby, practice contraception, not infanticide.
  • Labels like socialism, marxism, white supremacy, ‘Karen’, oppressed, victim, racism, white privilege, etc. etc. are empty when not properly and adequately defined and explained. They’re just labels intended to incite positive or negative ‘feelings’ and simply should be ignored!
  • The lines will be long on election day. Try not to be too impatient and plan on going early and staying as long as you have to to make your vote count!

Their Real Strategy

Been away for a week hiking in the mountains. With a fresh head I’ve returned home and caught up on all the latest Leftist shenanigans. I am increasingly convinced their strategy of fomenting as much chaos as possible in connection with both the confirmation of Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court as well as the election is deliberate and calculated.

I believe what the Left really wants is to create so much doubt about the results that either: a) should Biden miraculously win on election night, they will immediately stop counting votes and declare him the winner or b) when he gets shellacked on election night, they will declare Biden victorious anyway, ensure that additional ballots miraculously materialize to make it so, and in the meantime start promoting a Biden 100 days plan, publicize his cabinet picks, etc. so as to make it seem a fait accompli.

The whole process now already stinks and the BS flag needs to be thrown well in advance of November 3rd. What the Supreme Court should REALLY do is rule that citizens must show up at a polling place on election day, or submit an AUTHENTICATED election ballot well in advance such that it arrives by election day. NO OTHER BALLOTS should be permitted, except, perhaps, for legitimate and authenticated ballots submitted by U.S. Military personnel or expatriates serving abroad.

Aside from the occasional moron wearing a mask on the trail (I even saw a dog with a mask…maybe it was a fashion statement?), the leaves were turning, the air was cool, clear and pure and there was no cell or internet service so I guess I missed some events in the continuing soap opera. But even though every election is billed as “the most consequential in our lifetime”, this upcoming one is certainly a notch above the last one, and THAT one took the prize!

In just a few weeks Americans will have the chance to either vote for what is Right, or what is Left. Left no longer means liberal – there’s nothing wrong with true liberals. Today’s Left, however, is so antithetical to everything that made America the greatest nation in the history of the world, no self-respecting, self-reliant, self-determinant, self-responsible citizen of our nation should even consider voting for Leftists in November. Say what you will about Trump and the Republican Party, at least they’re not completely insane like the woke, defund-the-police, anti-Christian/Religion, let-the-government-solve-all-my-problems, hyper-hypocritical, projecting Leftist idiots also on the ballot!

Now ask me how I REALLY feel about the new Democrat party.

I’m Envious of Billionaires Too!

At last night’s Democrat debate schoolyard brawl/whine-fest, the unifying theme was, “Let’s bash millionaires and billionaires!” No, wait a minute…let’s just bash billionaires because everyone up there, perhaps with the exception of Boot Edge Edge, (although his CNN or MSNBC contract is waiting) is already a millionaire.

This is one of the big problems of the Democrats. SUCCESS ENVY. Does anyone honestly think, if having invented a product or service that makes a billion dollars, Klobuchar, Buttigieg or Sanders would say, “No, I’ve made too much money?” The hypocrisy of the Left stinks to high heaven.

Hey, I’m envious of billionaires too. I wish I had invented a better service than Quotron (the predecessor to the Bloomberg product/service) and made billions. I’ll bet the “My Pillow” guy is doing ok too!

The problem with the Left is their envy has always manifested itself in a Robin Hood complex. Unable to achieve success on their own, they demand that those who have it give the fruits of that success to them. They argue that those who succeeded either gamed the system somehow, or stepped all over exploited workers, cheated, or were successful because the government was responsible for that success (“You didn’t build that.” – Barack Obama).

It’s the winners against the losers. Irrespective of how the billionaires made their money, let’s think through what would happen if Sanders or Warren were elected and able to impose confiscatory taxes on people making, I think one of the suggestions is, more than $600,000 per year.

  1. The arithmetic is extremely simple and everyone with half a brain already knows that even if you taxed ALL of that income at 100% there wouldn’t be enough money to fund the Democrat utopian dream list.
  2. If you imposed those taxes, would the high income earners put the same amount of money away in private equity, venture capital, hedge or mutual funds, the pools of capital that fuel innovation, job creation, and which indeed trickle down (sometimes flash flood down) to employees thereby boosting the economy and growth in general? And what would that do to the American Spirit and the American Dream? Would people still work hard to advance their careers, think out of the box, invent new things, hire employees, shop more at Saks or WalMart? Of course not. Their consumption and spending would decrease as they would be deprived of the incentive to make more than the specified threshold.
  3. If you actually confiscate wealth as some Leftists have suggested, i.e. say to the wealthy…”I’m going to demand you give us X% of your 401(k) or stock portfolio or savings account so we can redistribute it by providing healthcare or tuition free college for all” for example, how hard will you want to work knowing you’ll be penalized if you’re actually successful?
  4. Look at those people on stage in South Carolina last night. Even if you’re the most altruistic person in America, would you really want ANY of them to decide how to redistribute and allocate the money they’ve taken from you in taxes?

For further understanding of what happens when Democrats take your money and redistribute it, you need look no further than Obama’s 2012 $800 billion, “shovel ready projects”, so-called “stimulus package”. Here’s the breakdown of how that our money was spent:

First of all, it galls me that “Individual Tax Cuts” are called “stimulus” at all. TAX CUTS ARE THE ABSENCE OF INCOME OR WEALTH CONFISCATION, NOT GOVERNMENT SPENDING! (TAX REBATES, by the way, are a RETURN OF YOUR OWN MONEY THAT THE GOVERNMENT PREVIOUSLY CONFISCATED) It’s RELIEF, not STIMULUS. Are you stimulated by the act of a government bureaucrat taking out the nail they drove into your forehead?

Same goes for Alternative Minimum Tax Relief, the second item in the chart. It too was just the absence of additional taxation and had nothing to do with “shovel ready projects”.

State Fiscal Relief wasn’t infrastructure spending either – it was handouts to fiscally irresponsible states, particularly Democrat-controlled states. As with “Aid to Directly Impacted Individuals”, it trickled down only to the public sector unions to fund their entitlement (pensions and healthcare) spending shortfalls and to shore up welfare spending as well.

The final category…Public Investment Outlays… paid for the signs you saw on some of the highways and parkways around you. Did we really see much of any benefit to our nation’s roads and railways from that $270 billion? No. And so only 1/3 of the so-called “Stimulus” went to “infrastructure projects”. The rest went to reward favorite Democrat constituencies, i.e. into the ether.

I used to think Liberals were altruistic. I’ve learned over the years that their motivations are either the garnering of power for power’s sake, or an unbounded arrogance that if they have power and control of our money, they can make everybody happy. Both are evil because they deprive us of the impetus to work hard and achieve success for ourselves, and by extension, our families, communities and our country.

So do we really want Bernie Sanders, Elisabeth Warren, Joe Biden or any of the other megalomaniacal, power-famished hypocrites who were on that stage last night in charge of the government?

To Buffet and Gates’ credit, they’re working hard to give much of their wealth away and there are a lot of true needs and programs where philanthropy is the beginning of a solution. The various charities that build water purification plants in Africa such as “Action Against Hunger” or Doctors Without Borders are good examples, or here at home, the Tunnel to Towers Foundation or the Appalachia Service Project. Do you really want any of those Democrat candidates determining how money should be doled out for such projects? Not all, but the vast majority of Democrat controlled spending consists of handouts to “victims” who with hands out will vote to keep them in power.  

I’d like to be a billionaire too. I wouldn’t buy a yacht. I wouldn’t buy a bigger house. I would still insist that my kids and grandkids work at McDonalds when they turn 16, or stock shelves as mine did. And I’d find those meaningful charities that TRULY support the TRULY needy, or that promote self-reliance, meritocracy, the production of goods and services that advance the frontiers of science and health, human longevity, and natural resource renewal and preservation (NOT ENVIRO-FASCISM BUT CLASSIC CONSERVATION).

Please let’s stop allowing the Left to serve as our nanny, putting spoonful’s of pablum in and wiping the corners of our mouths while congratulating themselves over champagne on how well they’re taking care of us. Please America, just at the point where we’re starting to get back to basics, let’s not empower demagogues such as we saw at the debate last night to spew their utopian fantasies or, God forbid, enact more of their soul-crushing plans.

Schadenfruede

I can think of no better word to describe the feeling I had last night watching the Democrat debate. The spectacle gave whole new meaning to the expression “circular firing squad”. What’s more, it highlighted, again, the absurdity of the Democrats’ positions on just about everything.

Trying to focus on the issues at hand was darn near impossible. It was a food fight extraordinaire…a stage where each tried to out-perform the other. Bloomberg hid behind his lectern (.sic), and acted small, arrogant, smug, and clueless and as he tried hard to stoically look ahead while taking deserved incoming fire. Warren was her usual shrill, unhinged self, screeching #metoo platitudes and demonstrating once again how poorly an academic understands the real world. Sanders with his hand and arm gesticulations continues to look like he might fly away, and while he’s authentic alright, he’s authentically idiotic. Poor Joe Biden with his face lift and newly whitened teeth tried his best to look energetic but appeared the geriatric politician completely disconnected from today’s world, still stumbling and unable to find the right words to insert in his sentences and pitching the “good old days” when his boss was President – coattails on which Obama has made him unwelcome. Pete Boot Edge Edge represented himself, and his whole generation of snowflake millennial spoiled brats superbly, demonstrating his glibness and immaturity at the same time. Finally, Amy Klobuchar, a U.S. Senator believe it or not, looked completely outclassed, childishly defensive: “Are you trying to say that I’m dumb? Or are you mocking me here, Pete?”

What a bunch of clowns!

But I flipped to the Phoenix rally that Trump was holding court over and saw, regrettably, another jester’s performance. Trump really doesn’t act like we should expect a President to act. He still acts like he’s running The Apprentice. It’s embarrassing.

But here’s the kicker…Obama, with his nose in the air and his imperious attitude, his eloquence and presence, was highly ‘presidential’, and spent eight years fundamentally trying to transform America into some two-bit foreign midget while Trump, with his bumbling act, is fundamentally trying to save America from that fate. He may be the most inarticulate President we’ve ever had, and contra-presidential in many ways, but his intentions, his actions and his results have been spot on. I wish I could read what historians will write about him 50 years from now.

If I were a Democrat candidate, and I really wanted to defeat Trump in November, I’d embrace his nationalism, embrace his policies, applaud and thank him for his efforts and suggest that with minor tweaks, the path we’re on could be straightened and smoothed to accommodate the other half of the country who want a more liberal or “progressive” (although I’d avoid that term altogether because it’s a joke) approach. I’d adopt a presidential diction, speech and demeanor and present a serious, no-nonsense persona to contrast myself with Trump’s antics.

I’d still lose, of course, because more than 50% of the population, irrespective of Trump, are happy with the Country’s direction and are optimistic about where we’re going. But at least I’d have a chance to help down ballot Democrats with their runs, and I might even have a respectable run myself.

But the Democrats can’t help themselves. They’re so caught up in hysterics, theatrics, hypocrisy, misandry (.sic), megalomania, and victim-celebrating they’ve completely forgotten about the true majority: the millions of Americans with their heads down working hard caring for themselves and their families, supporting their friends and communities, productively contributing to the growth and welfare of our entire Nation. The Democrats have bought into the notion that the disadvantaged, the downtrodden, the tiny minority of true victims should be helped no matter what the cost to the rest of society or the nation.

When I was a kid we used to use the expression “My heart bleeds purple peanut butter for you” when feigning sympathy for a buddy who skinned his knee. I’m not so callous anymore, but I cannot support, for example, crushing the agriculture industry in California by restricting water flows thus jeopardizing farmers and crops and livestock production because some whiny biologists are distraught that a tiny fish might go extinct (I’m referring, of course, to the famous “snail darter” here.)

What about the vast MAJORITY? How about we celebrate the WINNERS? How about we celebrate EXCEPTIONALISM? How about we celebrate INDIVIDUAL ACHIEVEMENT? How about we reserve the use of NANNIES for our toddlers instead of treating everyone as if we needed the government to serve as one.

Trump may be crass, undignified, inarticulate and may appear at times to be off his rocker, but he’s crazy like a fox in that, like Reagan (“just a dumb actor from California” according to the Democrats), he loves this country, he believes a rising tide lifts all boats, that growth (i.e. GROWING the pie instead of trying to slice the pieces thinner and thinner) solves the problems of the vast majority of our people and indeed, for the whole world.

The Democrats whine we’re destroying the planet. While that is simply nonsense (see George Carlin’s famous routine about “Saving the Planet“), my response to the unlikely possibility that mankind will use up ALL of the Earth’s natural resources or somehow so upset Nature that we will all die of carbon dioxide or monoxide poisoning, or that our orbit will decay such that we fall into the Sun, is to go out and find ourselves another planet to live on (which is exactly what we’re doing)!!!

Growth. Prosperity. Equal opportunity, not equal outcomes. To each according to his MERIT, CONTRIBUTION and RESULTS, not his “needs” is the answer. So long as the Democrats continue to whine and stamp their feet, I’ll keep smiling as they seek to destroy one another.

Schadenfreude.

Traditionalists vs. Progressives

by Treadstone (Contributor)

The battle for the soul of our country is not between Republicans and Democrats, not between Conservatives and Liberals, but between Traditionalists and so-called Progressives; in broad terms, the “Right” and the “Left”.

First of all, Progressives aren’t progressive. Just listen to any of the Democrat presidential candidates for 2020, all of whom wrap themselves in the “Progressive” label, and you’ll hear a mish-mash of old, tired, recycled Marxist/Socialist drivel dressed in inflammatory and headline-grabbing, 7 second soundbites and catchy phrases. It’s lipstick on a pig. It’s regressive, not progressive.

Look up “Traditionalists” and you’ll see a variety of definitions and descriptions. Some equate Traditionalists with religious conservatives, some with people born before 1945, some call Traditionalists the “silent generation”.

We characterize Traditionalists as those who espouse many or most of the Core Values listed in our About Page. In shorthand, we us the term “The Right” even though that term itself has many connotations. We use The Left as the opposing side in the culture war.

We Traditionals on The Right look around us and are appalled, perhaps even frightened by what we see happening before our eyes. We know we live in the greatest country in the world, but we see the light-shining-on-the-hill dimming, perhaps not precipitously, but as in a death by a thousand cuts, slowly but surely.

At its core, our society is still more traditional than not, but the megaphones the Internet and social media have put in the hands of Progressives: “victims”, takers, losers, indolent, faithless and statists gives them undue influence and exposure.

We recently came across a really good essay by John Hawkins on Town Hall that nails what’s happening to our culture.  We suggest reading the whole article, but here are the bullet points:

  • We treat success as an accident or a cheat while defending people who make bad decisions, who won’t educate themselves or who won’t work.
  • We’ve allowed pornography to become so accessible that it’s practically universally viewed, even among teenagers.
  • We love victims so much that people actually fake hate crimes to claim victim status.
  • We celebrate losers and deviants by giving them their own reality shows. Meanwhile, Hollywood regularly portrays businessmen, Christians and soldiers as the worst people on earth.
  • More children have died because of Roe v. Wade than were killed during the Holocaust.
  • Marriage is falling apart and we’re encouraging that by pushing gay marriage.
  • Our universities reward Communists, terrorists and blatant anti-American sentiment with professorships. Those are the last people who should be teaching impressionable young Americans.
  • There’s a whole grievance industry full of people who make a living claiming to be “offended” by things.
  • Religion and morality are denigrated while nihilism and immorality are considered cool.
  • Legalism has superseded morality and what’s “right” and “wrong” has become secondary to what’s “legal” and “illegal.”
  • We’re the greatest, most powerful, most prosperous and most virtuous nation that has ever existed and despite all of that, we obsess over our nations faults instead of our achievements.
  • Americans across the spectrum are being encouraged to separate themselves off from the larger culture and nurse grievances that barely would have been given a thought a few decades ago.
  • In practice, our society focuses almost exclusively on the short term without thinking about the long-term consequences of our actions.
  • We have a higher moral standard for the NFL than we do for our own leaders in Washington.
  • We have a political party dedicated to the idea taking things from people who’ve worked for it and giving it to people who haven’t.
  • We make little effort to assimilate immigrants into our society and instead, encourage them to embrace the culture they fled for the United States.
  • We’ve stopped acting as if we have to pay back the money we borrow.
  • We treat the rule of law as optional, depending on who’s impacted by it.
  • We believe our children can grow up in a moral sewer and still turn out to be fine, upstanding citizens regardless.

Hawkins’ conclusion is both devastating as well as prescriptive:

We’ve become so divided, so antagonistic, so morally separated that for the first time in over a century there are people asking hard questions about how much we really have in common with other Americans. If you’re comparing let’s say a conservative from South Carolina to a liberal from California, the honest answer is “not much that matters.” Perhaps not even enough to hold a country together over the long haul if one group or the other ever became politically dominant.

There’s only one way to change that and it’s to address the real sickness at the heart of American culture. That sickness is our newfound reluctance to address the moral health of our society. Over the long haul, we can’t thrive and we may not even be able to survive as a divided, degenerate society full of people who reward failure, resent success and live for the moment. Morality matters and if we forget that, our nation is doomed to descend into decadence, decay and perhaps one day, even dissolution.”

Quite simply, we agree. In other articles we attempt to answer the question, “So how do we revive basic morality in our country?” Stay tuned.