The Laws of Conservative Politics

The  Laws of Conservative Politics:

1- No matter how trivial an issue, some people never let it go if it has any possibility of damaging liberals

2- All change is opposed, especially change for the greater good

3- Perception is reality. ie, Fox News. Fallacious news gets traction through repetition 

4- Fear and anger is exploited over than compassion and reason

5- Most conservative voters are under-informed or misinformed. This works to their advantage

6- Business interests trump everything

7- No matter how important an issue, partisan interests determine the position

Black 10 Year Old Legend Preston Traumatized by Police

Legend Preston is very lucky he wasn’t holding a squirt gun. He may not be alive today. Black lives matter. This has to end! 

In Newark, New Jersey, a story has surfaced about police traumatizing a 10-year-old child by chasing him through the streets with guns drawn. Fifth-grader Legend Preston was standing outside his home on August 14, when police say they mistook him for a robbery suspect and began chasing him down an alley. Preston says he thought the police were running after him because he’d chased a ball into the street without looking. He says neighbors then surrounded him to protect him, yelling, "This is a child." This is 10-year-old Legend Preston.

Legend Preston: "Some police are coming from this way with guns pointing right at me, and then like I ran into the backyard. I ran because they thought that I walked the ball in the street on purpose, and they were just holding the shotguns at me like this, trying to shoot me."

When was the last time police chased a 10 year old white boy standing in his front yard? Never. That's what  I think. 

Dowsing For an Honest Politician

The art of dowsing has been around for millennia. Some people believe in the skills of paranormal behavior to search and detect all sorts of objects, including water and graves hidden from obvious determination. The search for water is most common and frankly, believed to work  even by people educated in science. Why do we accept what we can not explain? Because we want to? 

Fortuitously, the art art of dowsing for water is aided by the fact that most of the  subterranean  soil and rock is saturated with water making the probability of detecting water with a stick nearly 100%.  This takes me to the question at hand. Can we detect an dishonest politician with a dowsing rod? Since all politicians are dishonest, to a degree, then we are bound to succeed by dowsing a politician for honesty. 

Does dowsing work? No. Does it detect water? Yes. Does it detect a dishonest politician? Yes.  Wow! Imagine their reaction if you greeted a politician with a dowsing rod and proclaimed you can detect their integrity. I can hear the audience crying out from here, “Get him outta here!”. We want to believe, so we do believe, both the dishonest politician and dowsing.

Global Warming- It’s the Population Stupid!

We equate human contributions to global warming to the industrial age of carbon consumption. And yes, there is a correlation between increased use of fossil fuels and global warming. But there is also another direct correlation- population growth.  The human population was estimated to be 1.5 billion people around 1880. Today we have 7 billion people.  The forty years from 1960 to 2000 saw a doubling of our population from 3 billion to 6 billion people. This was also the period of greatest global warming. 

 Seven billion people produce 5 trillion watt-hrs of energy. Who hasn’t sat in a crowded auditorium  and felt the heat produced by the people? Our bodies are little furnaces, burning fuel to maintain a constant temperature of 98.6 deg. The energy required to move us, feed us, and keep us warm or cool all seeps into the environment.  

So one conclusion is the planet will continue to warm up if the population continues to increase, despite all attempts to reduce warming.  Another interesting point is a warmer planet will have more land and a longer growing season that is  capable of  producing more food.  More availability of food means happier people. Happier people will grow the population. So we have this positive feedback loop accelerating global warming.

As the population continues to increase there will be more competition for land that will create conflicts of ideology that historically may have sustained a separate, but peaceful existence in the past. There will also be greater competition for natural resources. Both will be catalysts for larger, longer and more deadly  wars. Wars for control of oil have already happened. 

Ultimately, we could face a doomsday war of cataclysmic proportions. This could be a way of curbing population growth, reducing pollution, and reducing the rate of global warming. 

Another more humane, but authoritarian way to curb global warming would be to limit all families to one child. This could be done by sterilization. Over a few generations we would be back to a climate happy population of 1  billion people.  

A third, but less effective way to reduce the global warming could be deliberate negative economic growth over a long period of time.  This is death by a thousand cuts- a deliberate process of consuming less than we are capable of (consumer rationing) would create world famine and wars on a continuous basis. Alas, we will probably continue down this morbid path.

Given these choices  world sterilization doesn't sound too bad.  Wow!  Now tell me global warming isn’t a problem!

Herr Trump- Aufhören so dumm!

As the political theater rolls along toward our NH primary, one must wonder how long Donald Trump and Ben Carson can sustain a campaign fueled by un-Christian behavior, prejudice and disregard for our Constitution. Both Trump and Carson would be happy to the toss the Constitution in the trash. 

Trump would register all Muslims (Is sewing a Green Crescent on their clothing next?). Carson doesn’t think they should be allowed to run for president. Trump would monitor all Islamic Temples. I can not believe that ordinary Americans are not outraged and not speaking out against these outlandish Hilteresk ideas!

In the latest red meat speech Trump went way overboard, saying he saw “...thousands and thousands of people in Jersey City cheering...” when the Twin Towers came down on 911. In this modern age of everything being caught on video, the news media came up empty trying to find the thousands of people Trump said he saw. Trump slithered over to  Fox News for refuge and when asked about it he still would not back down, and even claimed the news media censored it! Carson quietly agreed, then waffled the next day, but never called him out on the big lie. The other Republicans were equally mute on the issue.

At his speech in Alabama one black protester spoke out, and rather than handling the disruption like an adult (or a presidential candidate), Trump encouraged the crowd to a frenzy, where upon the protester was kicked and beaten to the ground by six or seven Trump fans while he egged them on them repeatedly saying “get him out of here, get him out , get him out of here...”. 

I can understand the behavior of the Alabama people. After all, Alabama is one of the most racist, bigoted populations in the country. But for Trump to incite them to violence like some KKK Grand Wizard is not only behavior unworthy of a presidential candidate, it is un-American. If the Republicans persist in sustaining their campaigns based on fear, hatred, and bigotry with total disregard for our Constitution, we have nobody to blame but ourselves if they are successful. 

Who Would Save a Drowning Person- Hillary or Bernie?

Let's pretend a person is drowning in a pond. Bernie Sanders comes along, and seeing the person,  Bernie  makes the difficult decision to jump in to save the drowning man immediately. 

Now let's pretend Hillary encounters the poor soul drowning in the pond. She would likely stand on the shore, ruminate on her chances of success,  look around to see if anybody notices her, finding no one, stands there while the victim struggles close enough to shore for her to lend a hand, only then would she reach out and offer help, and afterward take credit for saving a life. 

Yet if the poor soul drowned she would probably say the time was not  right for her to jump in. She would reassure us that  in the future she is resolved to save a drowning person without hesitation. 

For Bernie, only making the right decision matters, regardless of how politically unpopular it may be. I trust Bernie to make those tough decisions in the future-- the first time-- when it matters, not the second or third time.

McCarthy Wants Fresh Faces, but not Fresh Ideas

As Kevin McCarthy stepped out of the race for Speaker he said the GOP needs a fresh face. Not true. They need fresh ideas. Ideas that make common sense. 

Ignoring gun violence, playing doctor with women, creating jobs overseas, giving money to billionaires, killing unions, denying fair wages, opposing equal rights for all, retrenching  old Jim Crowe tactics in the south to disenfranchise minorities, and voting to repeal Obamacare on a weekly basis isn't working out too well for all but the fringe elements of the party. 

The fact that John Boehner is considered too liberal for these Tea Party wackos speaks volumes about their misguided ideology.

Even  Saint Ronald would be tossed on the street today. He provided amnesty to illegal immigrants and increased government spending more than any of his predecessors. He also brought down the Soviet Union with diplomacy, not war. Yep. Even Reagan was a liberal by today's goofball yardstick. 

NYTImes Update

Buying a Gun Should be as Difficult as Getting an Abortion

We should treat every young man who wants to buy a gun like every woman who wants to get an abortion:  impose a mandatory 48 hr waiting period, require parental permission, obtain a note from his doctor proving he understands what he is about to do, be forced to watch about the effects of gun violence, undergo an embarrassing ultrasound wand in one of his orifices (just because). 

We should close down all but one gun shop in every state and make him travel hundreds of miles, take time off work without pay, and stay overnight in a strange town alone. 

Make him walk through a gauntlet of people holding photos of loved ones who were killed by gun, and have people call him a murderer and beg him to turn around and  go home.

  Both abortion and gun ownership are rights confided to us in the Constitution as interpreted by SCOTUS, yet the obstacles imposed on women are far more severe than buying a gun-  and no woman who ever had an abortion killed a room full of people in seconds. Buying and carrying a gun with the ability to kill someone should be at least as difficult as getting an abortion.

Thoughts and prayers are not enough. We need radical legislation to curb gun murder. 

Syria Choices- Root Canal or Slam your Hand in the Car Door?

Deciding what to do in Syria is like choosing between having a root canal and slamming your hand in the car door. Why, in heavens name, would we want to do either?  OK, Assad is a ruthless dictator.  Yet, for many years we have supported ruthless dictators all over the world- but mostly in the Arab countries. For a brief period, it looked as though the Arab Spring would save us from this mess we are confronted with today. If only Assad could’ve kept his chemical weapons in the depot- we’d still be on the sidelines. But damn, he had to call us out, and now we’re on the verge another war. Like Obama said, “... our military doesn’t do pin pricks...” and once the shooting starts all the plans go out the window.

I’m reminded of Lincoln’s advisors who insisted that our Civil War would be over in a matter of weeks. Well-to-do aristocrats picnicked on the hillside to watch the battle of Bull Run, hoping to catch a glimpse of the war before it was all over. They had no idea it was only the beginning and a half a million lives would be lost.

Johnson used a trumped up, fake crisis, the Gulf of Tonkin incident, to get Congress to authorize unlimited military force in Vietnam. Prior to that, Kennedy had only sent “advisors” - no boots on the ground. What one president promises doesn’t mean anything to another president.

America was exhausted from fighting WWII with every man in the country in uniform and every woman in a factory making the equipment of war. Peace had just begun to settle in; GIs were going to college, getting married, buying that dream house and making families. Neither Congress or the President had the stomach to go to war, so Korea became a “conflict”, so as to lessen the pain and win support for action. America hated Korea. Ike ran for president on a platform of getting us out, which he did ( although we still have 50,000 troops in Korea today, 60 years later!) . So weary of war was our greatest twentieth century general, he  managed to avoid it for  all eight years of his presidency. He knew hell, he had been there, and he did everything to avoid it.

If we do help the rebels overthrow the Assad regime, what are left with? Militant, Al-Qaeda sympathizers are sprinkled throughout the rebel organization. We could be just trading one bad dictator for another equally bad outcome.

Which all leads me back to my question. Why do we really want to get involved at all?  If Eisenhower could avoid war, Obama should be able to too. He should check his “red line” ego at the door and get on with a peaceful solution.

Syrian Crisis- Brinkmanship or Accidental Diplomacy?

Every president makes off the cuff remarks they regret.  Every once in a while these remarks  shape our history.  They reveal both the humanity and the conscience  of presidents. Can every statement a president says instantly and accurately pass through the filter of being consistent with policy, partisan platform, popular opinion, constitutional and international law,  personal judgement and morally right? Hardly.  

In the old days, presidents would meet with reporters and declare statements to be “off the record and not attributable”. Roosevelt was famous for confiding in the press and at the same time controlling what they reported. Those old days of presidents controlling the press  are long gone (thankfully). Yet, Obama’s “red line” comment was off the cuff, not a prepared policy statement.  The civilized world abhors indiscriminate killing with chemical weapons.

The President said what he believed to be the morally right thing to deter their use. The problem, of course is obvious; his comment instantly became policy of a world power with all the trimmings of honor, commitment, and worldly expectations;   the proverbial chip on the shoulder of a school yard bully flicked off before the eyes of the world. 

Presidents are usually pretty good at sticking to the script (they’re all politicians, that’s what they do), and they avoid letting policy statements  be trumped by personal conscience. When they do, it’s usually news!   They’re human.  And sometimes it shapes history. 

 Now another off the cuff remark, this time from Kerry, may have opened the door to avert a calamity. Kerry’s remark sounded more like a personal response of  moral conscience than policy, and he quickly caught himself in real-time as he was speaking by ending his sentence with the  political proviso that “of course it can’t be done”. 

Yet now a diplomatic solution (stalled  for years) appears to be feasible-- probably only because we are on the brink of military action ......... 24 hours after Kerry’s remark most politicians who were in favor of taking military action are now falling all over themselves in support of a diplomatic solution.  

But the real force in this crisis was the voice of America, screaming for a diplomatic solution. Obama even admitted, “the American people aren’t with me on this”.... and now he’s hopeful of a diplomatic solution. The conservative newspaper, Union Leader’s own poll (at last count) shows 81% of respondents do not support military action.  Military action is dead. 

The president will speak tonight. Yet, he's caught in a Twitter world where events move as quickly as tweets, and world opinion and policy is shaped in hours- not days or weeks! The President is no doubt re-writing his speech today. Originally  scheduled to win public approval for military action, rather than cancel the time slot, he will now most likely make an international policy statement of the diplomatic process to handover Syria’s chemical weapons to international control.  Let's hope the speech he writes this afternoon is still relevant tonight. These are interesting times!