Trump reaction

Note: this section will not be G-Rated … Not even PG … it will be at least R …

WARNING: There will be obscenities and profane language past this point. I have been politic; you have been warned!

WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON! America (especially in its national media) is going fucking bonkers because one of its political leadership candidates talks of bawdy things (in a younger iteration) and shows that he is a God-damn, arrogant, loud-mouthed, profane, self-centered, self-absorbed, ruthless, son-of-a-bitch … so what else is new. Get the fuck over it. It ain’t the first time it has happened.

People are going ape-shit crazy calling him to withdraw his candidacy because he told some broadcast flunky off mic that he likes to fondle pretty women … what a bunch of fucking hypocrites. Damn, if there is a male in the room over, let’s say, 45 who hasn’t engaged in bowdlerized, locker-room talk about women and braggadocio about what they would like to do … excepting possibly those men who are gayer that the three-dollar bill … I probably would call them a liar and be right. I can’t say much about people younger than that because I haven’t sat in on many of their conversations, but what I have heard makes me think they aren’t much different.

Folks, take a fucking chill pill. The God-damned politically correct shit has to stop.

The problem with Trump is that he actually talks like he is one of the plebeians … you know, us common folks who actually worked for a God-damn living and not made a living getting paid by the government/state for a career.

I find all this faux-horror at Trump’s tax returns, his sexually explicit talks with people (especially those with recording devices, which is stupid, but then, what the hell, we live in a gotcha by the balls society these days), so freakingly fucking hypocritical that it sort of makes me want to stage a French Revolution here in the US? Trot out the guillotine for the “aristocracy”!!!!

Where is the Red Queen when we need her? Off with their fucking heads! 

I guess I have fallen a long way from my perch among the elites of the world as a college graduate who was the editor of one of the 1600 daily newspapers (at the time) in the USofA, assistant editor at another, editor at a three-times a week paper, and editor of four different weekly newspapers, not including a weekly and an every-other-day newspaper I produced in a war zone.

I no longer have much patience with progressives and those who education or position places them above the fucking masses. I am reminded to tell them, despite your fucking smarts, or God-damn worthless pieces of paper, social, economic or political positions, you stupid over-educated dumbshit assholes, you still put your panties on one leg at a time just like the rest of us idiots.

You know the people you find deplorable may be crude and rude, but they are people. They might not have high-fluting degrees or education, or even money or wealth, but they still are functioning human beings, who can – when called upon – actually have a thought or two in their head … and those thoughts just might be worth listening to. A lot may be stupid or silly thoughts, but given the facts, their common sense will usually win out.

So, Trump is a ruthless, fucking billionaire (or just a multi-millionaire, what does it matter) corporate slob of a businessman, that has never stopped such people from running and serving in public office before. Cue the damn Virginia planter class or the fucking Ivy League country club shit heads

The question you really should be asking yourself, you fucking dumbbells, is has he broken the law? How did he make those billions? By himself or surrounding himself and delegating to a vast corps of really competent deplorables?   I really don’t think he did it selling favors, like a former Senator from New York and Secretary of State, along with her sexually obsessed husband who is an ex-president now, who actually did “it” with a God-damn intern in the Oval Office … or was it her oval orifice … shit, I don’t even know any more ... much less really give a shit.

How many laws, lies, and other shit does Trump’s leading opponent have to break, say and do before you get the message that she really is a bunch of crappola. Do you really want that crappola? Do you really want the fucking status quo candidate to keep things running down the same God-damn track we have been going for the last 10 or so years … so be it … vote for the piece of shit.

Another question: Why is the “establishment” fucking going freaking ape-shit over the possibility of Trump being president? What is it they really are so fucking scared-shitless about? Do they know something about the checks and balances built into our system of governance that we don’t know that makes them think we can’t survive a loose-cannon? What is it that we have had for the last 25 fucking years? Cannons lashed down so tight their pussies squeak? I think they are just afraid he will upset the status quo and maybe, just maybe, fucking change the way things have been run in our fucking capital for that last shitting century or so. Maybe that is the change we need, fucking stupid America.

Now I am not saying anybody should vote for the jerk Trump, or anyone else, but I am saying look at what they say they want to do … ask yourself if those things are what you really want done or if they really are sustainable or just pipe dreams … or just products of your own envy of those who have shit you don’t. … then reach down and vote for the candidate who can win AND do the least amount damage to what freedoms you, as an individual, still have in this country.

One last point, a historical one: The last time the elite was in this much of an uproar, I think, was 1828. You know when that rude, crude and obscene Tennessean Andrew Jackson was elected and the Virginia planter class and the New England lawyers had a hissy fit over this frontier braggart capturing the White House. He was a populist too, if I remember my history correctly and really changed the course of politics and the shape of the American democratic republic. Is that what they are so afraid of?

Anyway, I apologize for my fucking profanity, but I am becoming more and more like the old fucking grunt soldier I was part time, rather than the urbane, cosmopolitan, liberal arts college-educated elite journalist I once was.

Still, I raise my rye on the rocks to all of you who are a) Americans and b) deign to read this rant. (tonight is was Canadian rye, tomorrow night it will be my Gordon’s vodka … I alternate nights on which poison I drink on the rocks).

May you all find your path blessed by the Divine, and you have the strength and courage to endure whatever travails may lie ahead of you personally and (if it so applies) as an American.

 

Footnote: This is a succinct summation why I don't give a fucking rat's ass about Trump's "hot-mic moment". OK, I am done

Philosophy 101–Essay 1

First in a series

I have been challenging myself, of late; challenging my own world views by trying to answer questions about them. Given the state of politics in my native United States, it probably should be understandable. Well, it has been an interesting experience.

Those who know me know that I am an inveterate, voracious and somewhat eclectic reader. As I say, it broadens one’s horizons.

Well, between reading articles on the internet and from my again-growing personal library (both physical and e-book), I find myself asking questions about the world as we see it today. I am trying to challenge my assumptions and compare them to more than six decades of observation of the human condition.

Who is right? Am I wrong? Heck, I think I am a big enough person that I can admit that I can be wrong or that I even have made a mistake (or two – or a whole bunch, because I have and still do). I even have admitted when problems are bigger than I am and asked for help. However, having said that, I wonder if my perceptions of the world are indeed correct. I am beginning to suspect that I have been more prescient than I have ever realized. So, I decided I would compose a series of essays on my philosophy, my beliefs, and my assumptions. I will leave it to you, my reader, to judge whether my views have any merit or not. I am merely sharing them.

The problem, I fear, is where to start and that is the most difficult question to answer because anywhere I start, I feel as if I am jumping in mid-stream of my thought processes and trying to decide which bank I want to swim for. However, I guess a good place to start is to start with a series of definitions. I do this, so that we all are on the same sheet of music when I delve into my digressions and views on philosophy.

When you are talking about humans and their world, what is the basic element? To me it is the role of the individual human in that world. It doesn’t matter whether we are talking about a family, a clan, a tribe, a community, a city, a state, a nation or any other subdivision of human activity, the basic element in each is the activities and choices of the individual.

So, what makes up an individual human being? Philosophically or biologically? The challenge already is laid down.

What is a human being? Is it merely a collection of protoplasmic cells that through some mysterious process has developed the ability to rationalize its existence? Is it that ability to synthesize perceptions into a belief structure and the bag of bones and water that carry that ability irrelevant? Who was the philosopher who posed “I think, therefore I am.” (It was the French philosopher, René Descartes.)

Ok, let me define the individual as a human being who has the ability to think, rationalize, essentially to think abstractly, to imagine things that aren’t and to solve problems. An individual is capable of making choices that can affect not only the individual’s life but others around them.

But then that begs the question that when does the individual become capable of doing all those things and what do we do with the individual prior to that point? So, maybe my definition isn’t so good after all.

My beautiful wife makes a very compelling argument that a human individual is created at conception and implantation in the mother’s womb. I won’t delve into all her points, but the basic one is that once the embryo begins to divide and grow there is, and can be, only one result and that is a human being that will – with the passage of time – meet all the requisites of my definition. Now, I know that one could digress into viability, the obligations of one individual to another, from parent to child, and all the other issues that surround the debate about the rectitude of permitting abortions, but I choose not to go that route right now.

So, if we take that individual, what else can we say about him or her? Well, for one thing, each one is practically unique. Yes, twins do have identical DNA but they are burdened with different life experiences and exposures and hence there are differences between them.

Next, does that individual have a free will? In other words, does the individual have the capability and ability to make choices? Then we have to answer how much responsibility can be laid to the individual over the choices they make? That is a more difficult question, it seems.

It revolves around the issue, it seems, that which controls a person more: Their nature or how they were nurtured? Neither, it seems to me is adequate to account for the diversity of people and what they do. Yes, genetics does play a major role in what a person will become, how they view the world and how they make their way in the world.

We all are born with different physical and mental attributes, talents and abilities. We see that every day, so to deny it is to deny reality.

By the same token we see that the environment people are raised in, the expectations and values that are taught to them from the time they are born make a tremendous impact on each and every individual. Often we can see incredible changes in individuals when, for whatever reason, they change their values or their expectations about whom they are or what they can accomplish.

So, we have to accept and admit that nurturing, or the lack thereof, plays a very important role in the development of a human individual. It is that realization that leads me to want to write this series of essays. If words and individual acts can make a difference, then I chose to try to make a difference.

We are all individuals. We are all different. We are all free, in my mind, to chart our own path through the world and our lives. It is the choices that we make and the expectations we have of others in the choices that they make that ultimately determine our fates – so to speak – in a world that truly is chaotic and without boundaries.

I hope this gives you food for thought before we progress on.

Nuff said.

Presidential discretion

Prosecutorial discretion: A definition and discussion

Perils of selective prosecution

The president of the United States, in the context of enforcing various laws passed by Congress and rules and regulations (with the force of law) written by various regulatory agencies of the Executive Branch, has cited “prosecutorial discretion” as the source of his power to basically say: Yes, that is the law, but I don’t like it so I am going to ignore the law and I am going to tell my agents in the executive branch not to enforce it.”

Question: Does prosecutorial discretion really give the president the right to ignore the law?

Where is the justice if the law is selectively enforced? Is it not more fair if the law is applied equally to all citizens, especially the same law?

The problems I have with President Barack Obama’s declaration that segments of his Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare or the ACA) will not be enforced because his allies and administration failed to anticipate a host of unintended consequences (well, we are being generous here and assuming they are unintended) that have accompanied the rollout of the President’s signature legislature are legion.

I won’t go into the convoluted definitions and such that make it constitutional, or the cynical calculations that have gone into exempting this class or that group from the dictates of the Congressional legislation that was passed on a strictly party-line vote (i.e. no attempt at consensus). I am just dealing with the perception that this administration likes to favor one political faction over another. In other words, it is all about votes and maintaining political power for a favored few. That is wrong. The government should be bound to apply the law. The president is not king, nor an elected dictator like Caesar.

I know that is an idealistic view for me to take, but unfortunately, even the evil Wikipedia points out that selective prosecutions based on selective prosecutorial discretion is subject to unbelievable abuse.

Wikidpedia on Selective Discretion

“Selective enforcement is the ability that executors of the law (such as police officers or administrative agencies, in some cases) have to select those against whom they want to enforce the law. The use of enforcement discretion in an arbitrary way is referred to as selective enforcement or selective prosecution.

Selective enforcement in practice

Historically, selective enforcement is recognized as a sign of tyranny, and an abuse of power, because it violates the Rule of Law, allowing those in authority to apply justice only when they choose. Aside from this being inherently unjust, this almost inevitably leads to favoritism and extortion, with those empowered to choose being able to help their friends, take bribes, and threaten those from whom they desire favors.”

Yes, folks, this violates the basic principles of the U.S. Constitution and particularly the 4th, 5th, 6th, 76h, 8th and 14th Amendments.

Now, all you legal beagles out there can argue the picayune minutia of the ins and outs of  its application, but the concept of equal protection and equality before the law is the bedrock of the American concept of the “rule of law.” Without the protection of the rule of law, then what are we left with?

The President, it seems – whether it is enforcement of immigration law, voter intimidation, or his prized Obamacare law – seems to be saying: It doesn’t matter what the law says. It is what I say that matters.

Unfortunately, in many respects, he is correct. He is the one who is charged with enforcing the law, and his minions have a broad discretion as to how to go about it.

Now, I may not like it. You may not like it. A lot of people may not like it. However, it still may be within his power as the chief enforcer of the provisions of the Constitution, the statutory laws passed by Congress and all the administrative rules and regulations (i.e. laws) put in place by all the various governmental agencies to enforce vague laws passed by Congress, to decide how aggressive he will tell the agents of the government to enforce said legal issues.

In the case of Obamacare, he sounds like the fan of a losing sports team: Wait until next year to see anything done.

Deferring enforcement of unpopular laws, and vowing to veto attempts to repeal said laws, rules and regulations, is a way to try to game the system. I think that is wrong. Congress wrote the mess, it needs to correct it. And it can start by repealing the rules and regulations enacted by the regulatory agencies to enforce it.

Unfortunately, the incompetence of this administration all too often is overwhelmed by the incompetence and ineptitude of the loyal opposition. Maybe that is an expression of how truly our house is divided.

For America is a house divided, these days. There are those who see government as the solution and those who see the government as the problem … and never the twain shall meet.

IF one is to take election results at their face value then the divide is almost straight down the middle, give or take 2 or 3 percent on either side. That is why the White House was gained by a slim majority, the Senate is controlled by one party by a majority that can’t steamroll the opposition and the House is controlled by the loyal (or disloyal, depending on how partisan you want to be) opposition.

What the American people seem to be hungering for are consensus solutions to the problems that we are facing. Unfortunately, that consensus is eluding us because those who are in the position to do so have decided that it is not in their interest to compromise. Pox on all their houses.

Consensus maybe needed but the basis of our republic, our union, is that the rule of law shall prevail and that the citizen can expect that it will be enforced without preference or prejudice. It rarely is, but that is the standard we should demand.

This administration, however, apparently seems to be intent on casting away even the fig leaves used by its immediate predecessor, in its bid to establish an imperial presidency that ignores the rule of law in favor of its own interpretations.

Please, will someone stand up and start yelling that the emperor has no clothes on? Will someone inside the beltway at least try to invoke the checks and balances so carefully weighed by those disparate dead white men of property who designed the American constitutional system? It really is an incredible piece of work that we seem to to want to flush away in fit of 21st Century hubris.

Nuff said … I through ranting now (for the moment)

Lesson to be learned

Typhoon highlights fragile infrastructure

Sometimes, I think, we forget just how precarious our lives are. I would hope that storms like Hurricane Sandy and Typhoon Haiyan would be reminders that would bring us back to reality.

No, I am not talking about global warming or climate change (anthropomorphological), but the simple fact that natural events on earth are far more powerful than us humans. We seem to forget that.

It is tragic (and whatever else you want to use to describe terrible, horrible, unimaginable) what happened in the Philippines when the typhoon hit. I am not saying anything to diminish that.

But I will bet that the earth has seen larger events and will so again … it is just that humans were not in a position to record or measure them in the past.

Still, that is not my point. My point is how close we are, even in the US and other developed countries, to seeing the trappings of civilization stripped away from us.

Folks, no matter where you live, you are only hours (or minutes and definitely only days) away from reverting to a world that resembles one that only the most primitive societies left on the planet can conceive.

To me it is a terrifying thought, not that I spend much time worrying about it. Still, stop and think what life in North America would be like if the power went off for more than a few days. Think of the chaos, the mayhem, the struggles that we would face as we tried to reconfigure our world.

In microcosms, the impact of Sandy, Katrina, Ike, and now Haiyan give us inklings of what we might face.

For those whose memory does not stretch back beyond 1989, that is what those of us who did live through the years 1946 to 1989 faced in the nightmares of the world we were in. Unfortunately, while that particular threat has receded, it is not gone and could return in new and different forms.

I think most people are content to ignore that reality that Nature and our own folly can overturn practically in an instant the last 500 years of progress in the world.

It is not a thought that should consume us, but it is something that we should remember … and if nothing else, be thankful for the shoulders of the people who raised us to the level that we currently living on and realize that we are teetering on such a thin veneer of civilization.

I guess, in a way, it is a way to tell people that we need to be ready to assume total responsibility for our own existences, if we haven’t already, and think about how we can preserve what we have and that which is around us. The infrastructure that we expect from government to provide for us really is so fragile … and most likely in a crisis will be inadequate.

Just a little food for thought there.

Obama still doesn’t get it.

I am not responsible. I am sorry, but it was not really my fault

 

President Barack Obama gave an televised interview this week where he said he was sorry that his actions led to thousands, if not millions, losing the health care insurance policies they liked after he had repeatedly promised they wouldn’t.

See, scream the liberals, progressives and his supporters, he apologized. Now everything is hunky dory. He didn’t mean for it to happen.

Folks, the road to hell is paved with good intentions and the intentions here, it would seem obvious, were not necessarily good.

First, according to the New York Times “Mr. Obama said he had not purposely misled anyone. He said it was always his intention that no one should lose a plan he wanted to keep.”

If that was true, then the caveats and codicils that got tucked away in the law and its resulting regulations would not have made policies that administration minions decided were not good enough for people to have had to be dropped if they changed one twit after a certain date would not have been written. But they were and that was with malice aforethought. It became a way to get the insurance companies to drop current “inadequate” policies and replace them with the politically acceptable policies mandated by the administration.

IF the president didn’t know this was going to happen, then folks, he is a dolt. Either that or his staff is about the most incompetent group of yahoos that have ever worked on Pennsylvania Avenue.  It is not like years ago, people in the various executive branch departments were not saying: “Oh, yeah, and large percentages of existing policies are going to go away when we put this new stuff into effect.”

Did he just turn a deaf ear to these reports, or did his staff shield him from them? I don’t know, but in either case, he screwed up as a leader and that is what we hired him for (well, at least some of voted to hire him).

That there are a whole lot of incompetent senior executive service people still holding their jobs is really telling. The president is saying, admitting, that there is no accountability in his administration (and we thought Dubya was bad).

I hope that management and leadership programs across the nation are taking copious notes on how NOT to be a leader. Unfortunately for the United States, our president is giving a lesson in how to do that.

Next logical step

Here comes polyamory ... or is that polygamy?

Well, Katy bar the windows, they are coming through the doors.

The above story is about polyamory, a domestic living arrangement that permits multiple partners. Without being coy about it, we are talking about polygamy under a different name. Literally, from its Latin roots, “polyamory” should mean “many love” (poly = many, amor = love).

Well, once we condoned homosexual relationships and decided they were acceptable, then multiple relationships was the next obvious step.

It is not that either is unnatural, because they aren’t. Homosexuality has been less accepted in human societies, but polygamous and polyamorous relationships have been and still are acceptable in a good number of societies around the world.

Now, given that we living in an instantaneous communication and gratification society, it is no small surprise that coming so quickly on the heels of acceptance of homosexuality as a positive norm that the next logical step to multiple, multi-sexual relations be advocated for acceptance. I mean we see a form of polygamy exercised in our culture in the serial marriages in the lives of our opinion makers and cultural leaders, if not just serial relationships and to heck with the institution of marriage.

Of course, those who wish to see the overthrow of all traditions will greet this development with open arms. It frees them up to focus on their satisfaction, regardless of the consequences to society.

Therein, I propose, is the problem. You see, change is not necessarily bad. Far from it, actually. Change is a natural part of the evolution of human existence. However, uncontrolled change can create havoc and conflict as those who are comfortable with the status quo seek to protect its status.

So, I am not opposed to change (although a lot of people seem to think I am) but I always question the necessity and rational for any changes and often ask troublesome questions like “What if … ?”

It is all well and good to want to change society, to change social structure, change the way we do things or the way we are governed. But one must be wary when proposing grand sweeping changes because the law of unintended consequences (as President Obama’s signature Patient Protection  and Affordable Care Act is providing ample illustrations) has not been repealed.

I was just reading the fall news letter from my local state senator (a Democrat in a state where the Democrats control both houses of the state legislature and a Republican sits as governor) where he was lamenting the fact that government gridlock was limiting changes to small incremental things (with special interest groups of all shapes and sizes doing all they could to protect their vision of the status quo). He was hoping that there could be broad and sweeping revisions and change. To me, that man is dangerous.

He may tout bipartisanship, but broad changes usually are only reflective on one world view (Much like the PPACA) and not of a consensus.

Governing by consensus, rather than just majority rule, usually is slower, but it usually brings with it less strife … and less hate and discontent among those being forced to accept the changes being imposed by those whose vision of the world and how society is different from those who are being asked to accept the changes.

It is something I think Americans would do well to ponder as we look around the world and see the fruits of rapid and uncontrolled changes. Is that what we want? I don’t think so. It is not our style.

I hope it gives you something to think about.

Nuff Said.