Category Archives: Politics

Politics

Critique: 5 Reasons why MAGA Never Made Any Sense

2 Comments

As I said in my most recent blog post over a month ago (ha), I intended to be much more active in getting my ideas in text. Off to a rough start as I’m minutes away from February already.

Today (actually yesterday now that it’s 1:35am) I stumbled on this op-ed by Paul Starr, titled “5 reasons Why MAGA Conservatism Has Never Made Any Sense”. Instead of doing a grand analysis of the piece as a whole, or even point by point, I’m doing it line by line. I’ve found that when trying to critique most pieces, you hit the big points but you gloss right over some of the smaller, jagged points. Little sub-textual cues, rhetorical wizardry, that most people consciously ignore but are subconsciously suggested by due to the sly nature of the wording itself. The only way to address this is to compartmentalize each point and address it one on one. Let’s start from the very beginning.

“MAGA hats have become a symbol of support not just for Donald Trump but for a return to a lost world of white privilege.”

Direct quote. We’re only one sentence into this piece at Mr. Starr has already revealed his hand, failing to resist the urge to conflate MAGA- Trump-what-have-you with white privilege, and by extension, racism. Not even MAGA, specifically MAGA hats. He says this as if it’s an objective fact, as if that’s simply what the hat means, as opposed to subjective interpretation – what the hat means to some people. Neither MAGA nor MAGA hats are a symbol of white privilege to me, and I’m Hispanic. I doubt most of the people who wear the hats themselves imbue them with that kind of symbolism. I doubt any of the non-white individuals in these photos think that’s what it means.

We’re only one sentence in… this is going to be a doozy.

Mr. Starr continues…

In the slogan “Make America Great Again,” the operative word is “again.” The slogan points vaguely to a time in the past when things were “great,” when white men were free to push black people, women, and immigrants around

My above argument applies here too, however I do want to expand on this, and it’s a point I have often thought about but never thought that it needed articulation as it always seemed so obvious to me. Speaking as a MAGA supporter myself, I never thought of one specific time or aspect of our country when things we’re all around better, that I wanted to capture again. When I think of making American great again, it’s more of a collage, a collection of various aspects of the America of old which I like, melded together. A little of this, a little of that. They need not be mutually exclusive, they need not even be political, or even on a national scale.

I’m from San Diego and I remember a time when even during rush hour you could zip to any part of town and your speed would never dip below 55 mph. Now, even on Tuesday at 1pm the freeways feel sluggish. My neighborhood was once peaceful, quaint, quiet, and clean. The past several years have brought an uptick in crime, litter, graffiti, loitering, cars blasting music at all hours, vehicles speeding through the neighborhood where they used to cruise at a respectful pace. Recollecting back, my community used to be great. Maybe less so now, and I’d like to make it great again. Halloweens used to be be a revolving door of kids yelling TRICK’R TREAT! and even in our early twenties my college roommates and I we’re happy to hand out candy to youngsters (given the 31st didn’t land on a Friday or Saturday night). Now, October 31st is a sad, pathetic affair. I want to make Halloween great again! We used to be able to drink on the beach in San Diego, and that was made illegal, I’d like to make summers great again! These aren’t things Trump can fix, but I want to illustrate how when people say MAGA, they aren’t talking about one thing, one time, that’d they’d like to wind the clocks back to and set it on Groundhog Day mode.

But, for the sake of argument, let’s admit the possibility of a more generous interpretation. In the wake of the Great Depression, many Americans during the mid-20th century—white Americans chiefly—experienced greater social mobility and economic security than at any time since. In the generous interpretation, “Make America Great Again” could mean let’s rebuild an America with that high level of opportunity and security. On its face, it could even mean let’s create those conditions for all Americans today.

But that generous view runs into a problem. The kinds of policies Trump and his party favor won’t bring back those conditions even for whites who are voting Republican, much less for everyone. 

… even when he’s being generous he just can’t help but take a jab at white people. This is truly going to be a grueling one. On to the meat and potatoes.

Here are five reasons why make-America-great conservatism has never made any sense on its own terms.
1. If we want to make America great, we need an updated understanding of the economy. The jobs of the future aren’t going to come from industries that belong to a fading past. Trump’s promises to revive coal and protect steel reflect an image of the economy and sources of employment that comes from a half-century ago. Coal is in the midst of an inexorable decline because of technological change, quite apart from environmental regulation

What I find particularly interesting is how Mr. Starr, and many others, seem to suggest that certain industries belong in the past. As if this is written in the stars somewhere and we’re all obliged to follow some prescribed blueprint for society. Who says certain industries belong in the past? I don’t know much about the coal industry, but is it still profitable? If so, I would argue that, as an industry, it very much belongs in the present. And if it declines because of natural market forces, then so be it, the end of the coal industry it is. No tears from me. But is it the role of third parties to dictate which industries should thrive, and which should fail?

The left does this with many things. He makes too much money. She isn’t paid enough. Starting ideas with everyone should… instead of I would prefer it if people did... These claims all revolve around the concept that they, and they alone hold the answers to all of life’s riddles, as opposed to simply having and being entitled to an opinion like everyone else.

slapping tariffs on imported steel raises the price of inputs for other manufacturers and makes their goods less competitive. As the minor modifications Trump negotiated in NAFTA show, he was never going to reverse America’s interdependent trade relationships and bring significant numbers of high-paying jobs back that way.

Except many of those jobs have indeed come back. Read this piece from Chuck DeVore, a contributor at Forbes that talks about the Trump manufacturing job boom.

All the false hopes he has aroused have mainly served as cover for the one major economic policy the Republicans have passed—the 2017 tax legislation, with its giveaways to the rich.

This barely merits a response. Allowing people to keep more of their own money is not giving away anything. By Mr. Starr’s logic, I have given away millions of dollars by not robbing banks.

2. If we want to make America great, we need to avoid a declining and aging population. Child-bearing in the United States has fallen below the replacement rate; in 26 states, there are more deaths than births among the white population. In that light, you’d think conservatives would recognize the need for policies to reduce the costs to families of raising children.

Reducing the cost of living for Americans is a good thing. I think that much Mr. Starr and I can agree on. What is unclear in this statement, and take note that Mr. Starr specifically didn’t touch on the issue, is whether or not he is arguing that reducing the costs of raising kids will incentivize Americans to have more kids, and therefore avoid a declining population, to use his words. Basically, does he think people will have more kids if they have more money? I’ll wager that he intentionally left this out, because the numbers say that no, more money doesn’t mean more kids. In fact, numbers suggest the opposite.

Birth rate in the United States in 2015, by household income

The movie Idiocracy brushed up on this concept in it’s introduction, where the less intelligent presumably economically under-performing Clevon spawned several litters, while the hyper intelligent, very well-to-do Carol and Trevor died childless and alone.


  • Scene from Idiocracy
  • Scene from Idiocracy

That would mean providing public support for child care and paid family leave; it would mean help for families with housing costs and college costs.

The jokes write themselves these days.

Who doesn’t have housing costs? Who are these lucky people? Conservatives actually do try to address this, and it’s a great place to start. For most Americans, especially those in Democrat strongholds where real estate prices are the highest, housing costs are a family’s single greatest expense. You can cut coupons, get energy saving light bulbs, and bike to work to lower your food, utility, and transportation expenses respectively, but rent/mortgage is inescapable. So it should be something we try to address, and we have, in efforts to curtail rent control, which actually has an adverse effect on many tenants. Yes, rent control inadvertently results in rents going up, or more correctly, transfers the cost of rent from one group of renters to another. In San Francisco, these groups were usually cost shifts from older renters to younger renters, or in other words, from people without kids and without colleges costs, to those more likely to have one, the other, or both. Read more about the study conducted by Stanford.

Their opposition to immigration compounds the danger. 

Yahtzee! There it is. I smelled this coming around the bend before I got to it. I’ll spoil the movie for you. “Americans, have more abortions, even late term abortions! What’s this? Americans aren’t breeding enough? It must be because of conservative policies. Lets import people!” Americans are reproducing. Left leaning people… not so much. I won’t bore you with the details, so read here, here, and here (2006). Considering 50% of conceived black children in New York (Democrat stronghold) are aborted, I think we have very confidently identified the solution to avoiding a declining and aging population. Democrats, stop killing your babies.

Deporting millions of undocumented here would create an immediate economic crisis; businesses would go bust, and whole towns would die off. The higher birth rate among immigrants is a blessing; it helps counteract the falling birth rate of the native born. 

Maybe deporting them all at once would hurt. But done so gradually, over say, the course of 5 years, I think would do this country wonders. Just a couple sentences ago Mr. Starr mentioned housing costs. Lets talk about the relationship between population size and rent rates in any given area, since the two are very closely tied together (learn, learn more). The San Diego Union Tribune reported that San Diego is home to 170,000 illegal immigrants as of 2014 – which roughly translates into 1 in 20 residents of the county, or 5% of the population. Imagine if these 170,000 people were no longer in the country, and all their housing units we’re freed up. For the sake of argument, lets pretend these are large families averaging 7 per household, that works out to about 24,285 housing units these people occupy. Imagine if these 24,000 houses/apartments were freed up. How would that affect rents in San Diego? For the 19/20 other San Diegans, it would be greatly reduced rents. Imagine 24,000 new homes built in San Diego, without the added traffic that normally accompanies it. Then factor in the impact on school crowding, traffic, infrastructure, health care and emergency services, and the benefits to legal Americans is great.

How would businesses go bust? After all, isn’t it illegal to hire illegal aliens? We know of course some businesses still do, and in the absence of sub-minimum wage workers, those businesses would be forced to hire legal Americans, and pay legal, higher wages. Leftists like Mr. Starr can’t argue that this would be bad for the economy, because this is the very argument they use in justification and defense of raising the minimum wage. Check mate. Oh, and Mr. Starr, since you mentioned earlier that reduced housing costs would help families with kids and college costs, you win twice brother!

MAGA supporters ought to recognize that they will need enough workers to pay into Social Security while they’re collecting it. So if for no other reason they should favor immigration reforms that legalize the status of the undocumented who have long been here and that welcome immigrants in the future.

Legalizing illegal activity incentivizes more illegal activity. Imagine if you robbed a store, and the government just decided to “legalize” the stolen property, everyone is square, it would motivate people to do it again realizing that eventually once the problem hit critical mass, there would be another round of legalization.

We’re finally to point 3!

3. If we want to make America great, we need to support science and the universities, not undermine them. The conservative antagonism to knowledge-producing institutions makes no sense from the standpoint even of people who will never set foot in them.

I’m going to use my crystal ball here and guess that this is a jab at climate change. Let’s set that to the side for a second and continue. I’m giddy with anticipation. Conservatives aren’t against “knowledge-producing institutions” but my concern is that many on the left seem to think that the only such places worth their while are liberal arts colleges. I went to such a college, San Diego State University, and got a Bachelors of Science. I’m not knocking college, but to act as though the options are college or jail, as Bernie Sanders put it, is a false dichotomy, and misguided advice that has resulted in millions of young Americans falling into the trap of student debt. I’ll try to dedicate a separate piece about why college is so expensive in the United States but let’s all just agree that for what ever reason, it is expensive. There are plenty of other careers paths towards financial security (and economic prosperity for the country) that don’t involve going to college. Vocational and technical schools, trade schools, military, firefighting, and law enforcement, to name a few. I know a good many realtors and loan officers who make six figures and then some without a college degree. I know many successful business owners with no degree, who also do very well for themselves. In hindsight I wonder if I had started my current career sooner in lieu of college, I may very well be retired by now at the ripe age of 32. The point I am trying to make is college is not the end all, be all of success. For many people, it has spelled financial ruin, and for others college has worked beautifully. As far as the antagonism goes, it probably doesn’t help when academics in their ivory towers choose to be condescending to those “who will never set foot in them”.

There is no economic alternative to investing in advanced research and education. That’s true not only for the familiar reason: new knowledge will be the basis for future growth. It’s true also because new knowledge is needed to regulate emerging technologies in the public interest.

I think I know what he’s trying to say here, but damn if that doesn’t wreak of Orwellian intent.

4. If we want to make America great, we have to face up to environmental realities. Denying climate change won’t stop it from happening, but it is blocking us from making necessary adjustments in our way of life and necessary investments to limit global warming and prepare for changes that can no longer be averted. 

This is another one of those things, where leading messaging is baked in. It assumes that we all really know that anthropogenic climate change is real, but some of us just pretend it isn’t. I used to be on the climate change train, and as I have read more I’ve become sort of agnostic on the issue, but to claim that people who are skeptical of something simply aren’t facing up to reality is a slap in the face. I won’t get into climate change here, but how exactly are MAGA hats “blocking us from making necessary adjustments in our way of life”? Want a Prius? Drive a Prius. Want to bike to work, do that. Telecommute, carpool, vanpool, hold e-meetings, use skype, install solar panels, insulate your attic, take shorter showers, buy used clothes, recycle. To the best of my knowledge all of these activities are still very much legal in spite of whatever opinions people hold. What Mr. Starr seems to be implying here is that if the government doesn’t do it, it can’t be done.


5. If we want to make America great, we need partners in the rest of the world. MAGA conservatism is not only backward-looking but inward-looking. It assumes that the United States was once great because it could push other countries around. But the real greatness came from alliances and cooperation. Globalism isn’t a conspiracy; it’s a necessity in a world with highly integrated economies, facing climate change, and trying to contain the risks from nuclear weapons and terrorism. 

MAGA conservatism isn’t anti alliances, or anti partner. It is about taking a second look at some of those alliances and partnerships to make sure that they are equitable, not lopsided. A line from the greatest rom-com Christmas movie ever, Love Actually, comes to mind. Prime Minister Hugh Grant said “I love that word “relationship”. Covers all manner of sins, doesn’t it? I fear that this has become a bad relationship. A relationship based on the President taking exactly what he wants and casually ignoring all those things that really matter to Britain. […] And a friend who bullies us is no longer a friend. And since bullies only respond to strength, from now onward, I will be prepared to be much stronger.”

In that line, Grant wasn’t saying that the U.S. and the U.K. we’re no longer allies, but was inferring that the relationship had soured, and that things needed to change in order to improve said alliance. It wasn’t introversion, it wasn’t escapism, or isolationism, but it was in the interest of self preservation. The notion that because someone is our friend, we must allow them to take advantage of us, is silly. Other nations cannot be faulted for doing what they can to get terms most desirable for it’s own people – that is exactly what a nation’s leaders are supposed to do – at our expense. In some areas, U.S. foreign policy and trade policy needed a little re-calibrating to bring things back to a level paying field, and that’s what MAGA conservatism is advocating.

I’ve met many MAGA enthusiasts from across the country, from all walks of life, races, religions, and all two genders. Their view of MAGA and Trump couldn’t be further from what the opposition and individuals like Mr. Starr think of it. The notes Trump hits resonates with a lot of people, and falls on deaf ears or even deafens others. I think a lot of that is due in part to the fact that there was a media blitz that started in 2015 and continues to this day to paint everything MAGA, everything Trump as sinister, backwards, and stupid. Trump’s style of communication admittedly isn’t for everyone. However I also think that some of these misgivings of MAGA conservatism, or conservatism in general can be alleviated by trying to have civil conversations with members of the MAGA crowd instead of instinctively writing them off as ugly, blind, inward-looking, backward-looking, conspiring, denying, beholden, antagonizing, undermining, fading, and nonsensical – all borrowed words from Mr. Starr’s writing.

The truth is, I don’t think most leftists, liberals, Democrats – pick your word – are evil, or racist, or stupid as I have been called before on many occasions simply for my political bend. I think they are people with their own experiences, who have been exposed to things and simply had a different take away from it. I also truly believe that if they picked the minds of people like myself, some of them might be persuaded that MAGA conservatism actually does make sense.

Politics

Trump, Clinton, the Election, and the Inauguration

Leave a comment

We’ve got less than an hour and the time I started writing this, so I’ll make this quick.

This has been one hell of a roller coaster. The primaries were insane. The general election was insane. Election night was something else entirely. The post-election response was unprecedented and unruly. And the path from election night to inauguration day has been anything but a peaceful transition of power.

I want to rattle off some quick points before Trump takes the oath.

Trump

Building a wall is not racist. America is our home. I have a home, and my home has a fence around the property line between my house and my neighbors’ house. It’s not racist. It’s intended to keep people out who don’t have permission to be on my property. A wall around a country is no different. And let’s not forget that we already have a large metal fence on the southern border which is traversed regularly.

Trump talked about people coming over the border and raping and killing. And he was right. Do ALL of them rape? No. Did Trump say that ALL of them rape? No. So what’s the big deal? We know for fact people come into this country illegally through Mexico from Mexico and other countries in Central and South America. Do we know that some of the people here illegally and raped and/or murdered Americans? Yes we do. So again, these remarks from Trump weren’t racist. They were factual.

Talking crap about some women is not the same as thinking all women are inferior. A lot of people have made the claim that Trump is a sexist because he’s called some women disgusting, or other insults. Again, saying that about one woman, or multiple individual women, is not the same as an insult against all women.

Yeah, the grabbing a pussy remark was raunchy. But I find the outrage from the left more than comical considering all the filthy, raunchy, overtly sexual stuff peddled by liberals in the cinematic and television industry. Lefties chide conservatives and religions people for being too prudish, to sexual reserved, no sterile. So it’s rich that the residents of New Sodom are taken aback by someone talking about sexually groping someone. Also, the context amazingly enough, does matter. Anyone with half a brain knows Trump doesn’t (or didn’t mean that he) walks around town and grabs women’s crotches at Starbucks. But a billionaire party boy like him probably hung out in circles and parties where that kind of stuff wouldn’t have been out of the norm. If you went to a swingers party or one of those filthy nightclubs in Vegas, doing certain things there might be perfectly normal whereas they would be taboo and entirely unacceptable in public.

Clinton Losing and the Blame Game

The Democrats lost, but instead of simply conceding, they have blamed nearly everything under the sun. To name a few, they blamed:

  • Racism
  • Sexism
  • Islamophobia
  • Transphobia
  • Media Bias (that’s rich coming from Democrats)
  • James Comey and the FBI
  • Julian Assange and Wikileaks
  • Huma Abedin
  • Bill Clinton
  • And finally, Russia though there has been no concrete proof this happened

They have blamed everyone but themselves for picking a politician that the majority of Americans on both sides of the political aisle consider to be corrupt and dishonest. They never stopped to blame the Democrat establishment for choosing their candidate, and running a horrible campaign. Clinton took for granted blue states and assumed she had their votes in the bag. That arrogance cost her marginalized voters in blue states that had been hit economically.

The Inauguration

It’s childish for so many Democrats in office to not attend the inauguration. Do they have the right to do it? Yeah, duh. But is it immature? Yeah. And then there was the Project Veritas video showing Democrat citizens planning to basically perform an act of terrorism by putting acid in the sprinkler system. I hope this 5 year old style of temper tantrums doesn’t continue for too long.

It is incredibly praiseworthy that Hilary Clinton and her husband came to the inauguration. Same goes for Barrack and Michelle Obama, and both former first ladies look fantastic.

It’s cool to see Bush and Carter at the event. There are going to be five U.S. presidents in one place, and that is pretty epic.

Alright, we’ll the inauguration is official starting so I’m gonna blast this post, typos and all, and watch this go down.

Politics

Trump Voters, Don’t Get Survivor’s Guilt

Leave a comment

The election is over, but I still have plenty left to say.

For the most part it feels as if the two halves of the country just got done kicking the snot out of each other. After a long, hard fought battle, Team Trump has emerged victorious. We won the fight. And now it seems as though many Trump voters have taken on a sort of survivor’s guilt. We’ll don’t. Don’t feel bad for winning.

Just a few days ago I wrote this blog about gloating just a little. And just yesterday I wrote another blog about how in spite of the difference of opinion, we are still one country. But don’t mistake what I said in “We Are Still America”. I am not sorry that Trump won. I am not sorry that I voted for him. I am a little bit disheartened that so many people have reacted to the results so critically.

In light of the five day long consecutive violent protests from Democrats, and on the continued outpouring of anti-Trump doomsday rhetoric reporting from the left media, many on the right are wondering, was it worth it? Yes. Yes, it was.

Let’s play a little game here and put ourselves back in the election cycle. Let us dig up all the grievances and concerns people had against Trump and really dissect it now that we are removed from the fog of political war.

Concern: Was a Trump victory worth it in light of the protests?

Yes, yes it was!

Back in May 2016 I wrote a blog about a Trump rally I had been to on May 27. That rally in San Diego did have its fair share of anti-Trump protestors. But relative to protests in other parts of the country like Los Angeles, or Albuquerque, ours was child splay. Elsewhere in the nation, Clinton and Sanders supporters were attacking men, women, and children. They were burning down cop cars. Vandalizing random cars, businesses, and homes that just happened to be in their path. They littered, and left a scene comparable to a war torn nation in their wake. And of course what would a Democrat led protest be without attacking law enforcement? In light of all this nonsense I joked: If this how anti-Trumpers are behaving when the primaries are still going on, imagine what they’d do if Trump became the Republican nominee. Better yet, imagine what they would do if he won the election

Well… now we know. Act like a bunch of little whiny bitches.

These are the people we beat. These are the people who would be determining the path of our country had they won.

And who is to say it would have turned out any different if another Republican had won, say, Ted Cruz? Democrats are not protesting because Trump won. They are protesting because Clinton lost, and for that we cannot be apologetic. Raiders fans are incapable of losing (or winning for that matter) a football game without stabbing at least three people. Does this mean every other team should forfeit the game to avoid the tantrum that follows their defeat? Of course not.

Grievance: Trump Isn’t Presidential Enough

I heard this one a lot. “He doesn’t have the temperament of a president” “He doesn’t act presidential” “He’s hot headed”. So if you were to swallow what the liberals are feeding you, they’d have us believe that if only Trump had been more presidential, that might have changed their minds. Really? Maybe they would have disliked him a little less, but would it have been enough to make them vote for him?

No.

Remember back in 2012 when Mitt Romney ran for president? That guy was as presidential as it got. Romney was practically Mr. Presidential. The guy never cussed, never drank, never did drugs, never spoke ill of someone else. He had been married once to the same woman forever. He was clean shaven, well groomed, well spoken, and it looks as though he had been born in a suit and tie. He was a red governor in a historically blue state so clearly he could play well with others. Any yet Romney lost by a hell of a greater margin than Trump won by. Mitt Romney’s cool and calm demeanor, his business aptitude, his politeness, his charm, his temperament, none of it fucking mattered to Democrats in 2012. Why would it matter now? Democrats say they want someone more presidential and they got it with Romney and they laughed him out of town by a landslide. Don’t feel bad about how Trump behaved. It was a tactical move to get elected, and it worked.

Retrospect: Democrats say they liked John Kasich

Louis C.K., one of the least funny comedians ever, went on some tirade about how he really liked John Kasich. John Kasich is A-OK. Oh, John Kasich, he’s just the bee’s knees. You Republicans really ought to get behind this guy. That’s probably the only funny thing Louis CK has ever said because no one else seemed to like Kasich. Here is a clip from the New York Times with the final primary delegate count of the four last standing Republican candidates.

2016-republican-primary-results

Remember Marco Rubio, the guy who no one that you knew voted for in the primaries? Well Kasich got less delegates than him. In fact, the only state he managed to take a majority in was his home state of Ohio. So let me get this straight. Louis CK wanted Republicans to put our three legged horse in the race of a life time? Yeah, no shit. I bet he did. Because had we supported Kasich, the general electoral map would have looked like a naked Smurf wearing red gloves.

Electoral map of the 2016 presidential election if John Kasich was the Republican nominee.
Electoral map of the 2016 presidential election if John Kasich was the Republican nominee.

Grievance: Trump was supported by racists

And? We cannot help who we are supported by. Trump denounced the support he got from the KKK in the 2016 election and he denounced Donald Duke back in 2000 well before he had any formal political ambitions, but Democrats seemed to have forgotten that.

Democrats also only consider white racists. They don’t consider black racists, or Hispanic racists, or pretty much the fact that everyone, including non-whites, is capable of racism.

Never mind all of this garbage being propagated on Twitter and social media calling for white genocide, raping white women, and killing police officers.

http://www.breitbart.com/tech/2016/07/08/black-lives-matter-supporters-celebrate-police-deaths-twitter/

These are the people who support BLM and of the two candidates, which do you think they voted for? So if we’re going to go down the path of judging a candidate by their supporters, can we at least not be hypocrites?

For all the allegations of Trumps supporters being old, white, straight, Christian males, how many non-white people do you know that voted for Trump? How many blacks, Hispanics, Asians? How many Jews, Catholics, an atheists? My experiences may be anecdotal, but I do know people from all of these camps that voted for Trump. People I know firsthand, that I went to school with, worked with, including myself.

Trump won three times as many black votes as Romney did in 2012. He won more Hispanics that Romney did. He won more young voters than Romney did. In fact, I think the only category he slipped in was a 1 point drop in the white women vote from Romney.

For Republicans this may very well be the first step in a long awaited paradigm shift the party has needed, towards a more diverse constituency.

My Advice: Republicans, grow some balls

Conservatives out there, we did it! But in spite of our victory, some still seemed unsure of their victory. Like a Chargers lead in the first half, we keep wondering if we’re going to choke and throw the game in the 4th quarter. Some of my friends are acting like Eeyore in spite of this amazing victory. “Do you really think he can do it?” Yeah, I do. I wouldn’t have voted for the guy if I didn’t think he could deliver, and neither would you.

We won the presidency. We have a majority in the house and senate. Within a few short months, we’ll get to appoint a Supreme Court Justice. By this time next year we’ll have virtual control of all three branches of government; executive, legislative, and judicial.

So why be so timid? We won, act like it. Grow some balls. I’m not professional poker player but one thing I know is that when you’re the big stack, the chip leader at the table, you make big moves to knock out the competition or you’ll get chipped away piece by piece in a battle of attrition and eventually lose. We have two years minimum to get what we want done with minimal interference from Democrats.

Now is not the time to stall at the start line. Now is the time to sprint for the finish line and not look back. If we don’t do a political blitz now on issues like gun rights, we’ll assuredly cede them to Democrats forever.

This election was the culmination of decades of Republicans caving on issues of importance. We allowed Democrats and liberals to control the vernacular, the terminology, and the narrative. When you control the language, you control the ideas. When the term ‘progressive’ is used exclusively to define leftist ideas, regardless of how shitty they are, you become indoctrinated into thinking anything else is wrong. Republicans have held on tenaciously in an echo chamber of liberal bullshit for decades, and despite retaining their sanity, some are on the edge of losing their spine. They’re war torn and battle broken. We’ve heard so much liberal media bullshit and propaganda for so long that we’ve started to commiserate with it, even if we don’t out right believe it.

Liberals haven’t shown an ounce of restraint pushing their agenda, and imposing their views on everyone else. From gun rights, to punitive taxation, death penalties, to how much soda you can buy, what kind of cars you can drive, or fast food restaurants giving toys with kid’s meals. Liberal high school principals have suspended students for wearing American flag shirts on Cinco de Mayo. In my hometown of San Diego, liberals have vehemently been against the Mount Soledad cross even after a private organization bought the land the cross was on from the government. It’s not that they didn’t want the cross on public property, it’s that they didn’t want the cross to be featured prominently anywhere. The fuckery must end. And Trump is the one to end it. Liberals haven’t been shy about pushing their politics, and neither should we.

Don’t let the liberal media win by succumbing. Be resolute. Have the courage of your convictions. And grow some fucking balls.

After the Storm

The storm will pass. The skies will clear. The protestors will eventually empty the streets when their bosses finally call them and say “Dude, I know you aren’t sick. I saw you throwing rocks at police on CNN last night. Get your ass to work or you’re fired.”

Republicans, keep your heads down like we do. Keep up the good work making sure the cogs of society continue to turn. Good job not meeting stupidity with stupidity by counter protesting, that would only inflame the situation.

This fire will burn out on its own so long as the media doesn’t continue to put fire on it.

Do not feel bad that we won. Do not stomp swinging now that we’ve knocked out Clinton. Keep up the fight and don’t let up!

Politics, Society

We Are Still America

2 Comments

This isn’t a gloat piece. This isn’t a puff piece. This is from the heart. From my heart. I know these are tumultuous times. Divisive times. But just stomach through this. This wasn’t written for one person, one party, one side. This is for everyone.

For years I avoided the news. I would try to keep up with certain local news, but the media at large was always so negative. The world, it seemed, was also going to hell. Crime, corruption, politics, wars, traffic, accidents, and generally just people being horrible to one another. Add on top of that the occasional natural disaster, disease, localized catastrophic event or pollution. I eventually cut cables entirely, and would avoid the news like the plague. It’s not that I didn’t want to know what was going on or that I thought it was nothing but propaganda. I’m sure a lot of it was. But I would hear and read about these horrible things happening around the world, of which I had virtually no control, only to get saddened, angry, stressed, and dismayed. It cannot possibly be good for ones health to be surrounded by that kind of negativity, all the time.

The election cycle didn’t change the news too much. Still incredibly negative. But social media has certainly changed or at least I finally noticed it change during this most recent election cycle. Social media is also something that for years I have tried to actively avoid but I couldn’t resist the allure of Facebook these past couple months as the political season heated up and finally culminated in the election. As I scroll through Facebook what I see bothers me more than what used to bother me when I used to watch the news: Rampant negativity. But instead of coming from a handful of news networks, this negativity was coming from dozens, hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands of people.

There are a lot of scared people out there. Worried and fearful. Afraid that the sky around them will start falling. As far as they are concerned, there was a tectonic shift beneath their feet.

It takes a lot to genuinely upset me. Namely watching Disney’s Fox and the Hound. But the one sure thing that gets me is the idea or presence of hopelessness. That someone can be so downtrodden that there is no light at the end of their tunnel. No path out of perdition. As I see the posts of friends and family members hurting right now, it breaks my heart. It truly does.

I get that there are concerns about a spike in racism, or sexism, or any other ism. That there is or will be a spike in hatred, or bigotry. There isn’t. And there won’t be. This may not come as much solace from someone who voted for Trump, but it just might. Maybe a little.

Listen, I don’t hate gays. I don’t hate women. I don’t hate Mexicans (I’m half). I don’t hate non-whites, or Muslims. I don’t hate the poor. I don’t hate people on government subsidies. There are a couple billion people in this world and I maybe hate one person, and no, it’s not Hilary Clinton.

The assholes out there were assholes before November 8th. The racists out there were already racists. Those inclined to burn down buildings and vandalize police cars weren’t born on November 9th. Some people are just shitty, and they don’t need a very good reason to shit all over everything and everyone else. To the people out there whose candidate of choice didn’t win, I feel for you. I really do. But I want to reassure you that the sky isn’t going to fall. You are not less safe now than you were on November 7th.

We need to remember that most people don’t wake up wondering how they can make other peoples’ lives miserable. It doesn’t matter who you are or where you are from, we wish for the same things. Health, food on our plate, a roof over our head, a safe neighborhood for our children, all children, to play in. We want jobs, pride of workmanship, good communities, and good schools. We want the next generation to have a better life than we had. I don’t think it matters who you voted for, we can agree that we want the same things, it’s just that no two of us can agree on the best way for everyone to accomplish these things. But just because we can’t agree, doesn’t mean we can’t get along.

Trump won the election. He didn’t win the country. This country is still all of ours. It belongs to each of us, even those who feel disenfranchised, ignored, abandoned, or marginalized.

For all the squabbles, and bitter disagreements, we are still America. One America. Sink or swim, fail or fly, whatever we do we’re going to do it together. The person in the cubicle next to you that voted for the other candidate, they are still human. They were a decent human being before the election and they are the same person now that the election is over.

Thanksgiving is coming up and hopefully you have a large, loving family or group of friends to spend the holiday with. Some of those people you may not have seen in a very long time. Don’t botch the holidays over an election. Don’t lose a friend or sour a family event because of a political grievance.

I have my opinions but this specific post is not going to be me telling you how to think, or what to think. This isn’t a political op ed. It doesn’t matter if you are Democrat or Republican, liberal or conservative, socialist, green, independent, or if you voted for Trump or Clinton or wrote in Mickey Mouse. United, we truly do stand, and divided we will most certainly fall. Each one of us is a tiny red, white, or blue thread in the fabric of this great flag, and if we start tearing apart at the seams this entire thing will fall apart. Lets not allow that to happen.

flag-unravel

Fret not. Even if I disagree with you, I still want the best for you. We are still America.

Personal, Politics

Trump Won, and I’m gloating just a little

2 Comments

Ordinarily I would not gloat about Trump winning. No, really. I’m not usually a sore loser or a sore winner. But I’ve taken a lot of shit from people, friends and family and strangers alike this election cycle because of the candidate, and even the party I supported.

I’ve never referred to a candidate by one of those monikers like Obummer, McSame, McLame, McBush, Killery, Hitlery, etc but certain people just couldn’t help themselves when posting on my wall about Drumpf, Dump, and Cheeto, whatever that means.

I’ve never messed with anyone’s property because of a political sticker. Never peeled it off, never put a sticker over it, never keyed their car. Nada, zilch. I had my Trump yard sign vandalized twice. Someone came on to my property, my home, to disrespect and intimidate me out of supporting a candidate. Is that not voter intimidation on a micro scale? And it’s happened across the country, people getting their signs stolen, their car set on fire because they had a Trump sticker, getting pulled out of their cars and attacked because of a Trump sticker. At the insistence of my girlfriend, and parents, I removed my sign because I didn’t want to risk someone doing something malicious to me, my property, or worse yet, someone I cared about.

I’ve never threatened to leave this country if someone I didn’t like got elected. But I can’t even count how many friends and family members I’ve seen say or hint at this, of course, always democrats. And I’ve seen celebrities say the same thing, of course, always democrats.

I’ve never insulted someone for their political opinions. I have challenged them, sure. I have argued, and debated, and for unknown reasons wasted hours of my life writing nauseatingly long responses on social media that no one probably read. But I have not insulted them. I have not said anything akin to “wow I can’t believe you would vote for Hilary, I just thought so much better of you than that”. But I have had dozens of people insult me in this election cycle, not just alluding or insinuating, but calling me racist, sexist, xenophobic, bigoted, et al. The usual democrat fare. I had one ‘friend’ comment on a blog I shared “I always tell people there are some smart Trump supporters out there” when I posted something he actually agreed with me on that wasn’t even Trump related, basically making it known that in the dozen years I’ve known this person he thought I was a idiot, and that prior to me writing some random blog, he thought all Trump supporters were idiots.

I’ve never trolled anyone because of their political beliefs. But I have had select people systematically troll my social media just so they can shit on every political or opinionated thing I post regarding this election cycle. These people are nowhere to be found when I post a picture of my dog, or a beautiful scene while hiking, or share a photo or blog post about a vacation I took to Hawaii. These people don’t even bother to wish me happy birthday. These trolls are all but non-existent when I post neutral, non-political things. But I can’t take a fucking shit without these trolls commenting on how bad it smells. I can’t post a selfie with my Trump shirt without them shitting all over it, making fun of it with sarcastic, underhanded comments if not out right insults or provocations. The moment I posted something “pro Trump”, I was lambasted, insulted, mocked, and bombarded with a mile long counter post about why I’m basically a human piece of shit.

I’ve never threatened to unfriend someone because of the candidate or party they support. But I have seen about a dozen friends on social media claim they would, and each and every one of them were democrat. One even unfriended me. And I am certain one chose not to do business with me when they learned of my political standing.

I’ve never cried because my candidate won, or lost. But last night before the results were even finalized, I scrolled down my feed and saw about 6 or 7 friends of mine talking about how sad they were, and how they cried, and how they are terrified, and the whole sob fest. I didn’t cry when Obama won, TWICE, and has royally fucked over a ton of people I know, yours truly included. Trump hasn’t even done anything yet except win. He hasn’t even been sworn in. But cry if and when his policies result in your fucking health insurance premiums quadrupling in 5 years. Cry when you lose your job because the entire industry no longer exists. When something tangible happens that adversely affects your life, then maybe you can cry and I’ll give a shit.

I’ve said for years, and especially the last year and a half, that the media is full of shit, and the polls are full of shit. And it turns out I was right.

So I have been threatened. I have been insulted. I have been trolled. I have been marginalized. I have been unfriended. I have been mocked. And you know what? I am gonna fucking gloat a little bit. Because I put up with alllllll that shit, and won. Trump put up with much more than that, and he still won. The mainstream media was against him. The democrat and republican establishment were against him. Celebrities were against him. Democrats would burn down cop cars and buildings and threaten and attack people with toddlers, and women, and the elderly just because Trump was giving a nearby speech or hosting a rally.

So you know what.

Trump won. Ha, ha, HA. IN YOUR FACE. Donald Drumpf won. The Cheeto won. This guy you’ve been shitting on for a year just took the wind right out of your sails. You threw everything you had at him and he juggernauted his way through like champ. And I am thoroughly enjoying watching all these rude people I’ve been seeing the last year eat their words.

President Trump. Get comfortable hearing those words because you’re going to be hearing them a lot for the next 4 years. 48 long months. One thousand four hundred and sixty excruciatingly long days.

So please forgive the shit eating grin on my face.

And if you still plan on leaving America, give me a call. I’ll help you pack.

Politics, Society

Colin Kaepernick is… not necessarily unpatriotic

3 Comments

You’ve no doubt seen the deadlines lately. Long story short Colin Kaepernick didn’t stand up during the National Anthem because reasons and now everyone is in a big stink over it. I say reasons instead of actually providing a description because I don’t want to misrepresent what it is CK is protesting or oversimplify his thoughts on the issue. I’m not too big on the whole BLM thing so I would probably do it a disservice, but if I had to sum it up, he’s protesting police brutality and systemic oppression of black people in America.

People are calling him unpatriotic, and calling for him to be kicked off the team, and demanding things from the NFL, and the laundry list of usual demands that Americans of all stripes are quick to shout out over every single perceived slight.

People got mad when that crazy BLM supporter killed a bunch of police officers, and rightfully so. It was horrible.

People get mad when BLM supporters riot in the streets and burn shit down and vandalize communities because it’s idiotic and destructive.

People get mad when BLM supporters shut down a free way to make a point like they did on the 15 freeway in San Diego just a few weeks ago.

But Kaepernick didn’t do any of this. He didn’t kill anyone, didn’t injure anyone, didn’t destroy any property, and didn’t inconvenience anyone. He didn’t stand on a flag, burn a flag, defile a flag. He didn’t even hang one upside down. All he did was… well, nothing. He’s getting flak for not doing something. All the stupid shit BLM and cohorts have done in the past year or so that pisses everyone off – Kaepernick didn’t do.

So I honestly feel like this is people grasping at straws, trying to make something out of nothing. Anyone that knows me knows I’m not on the BLM bandwagon, but let’s be real here. This fervor over Kaepernick is about frustration over not being able to silence dissenting opinions and actions.

It’s easy to dismiss BLM and it’s supporters when they do stupid shit like the burn down buildings. But it’s much harder to brush it aside when they aren’t being unruly. It’s as if people thought that the only way BLM could possibly get attention to their cause was to act like idiots, and now someone comes along and doesn’t do anything illegal or violent and still manages to draw attention to the issue on a national level. Touché. Kaepernick scored a hit and there really isn’t anything to be said about it. Nothing legitimate anyway.

In the absence of any complaints of merit, Colin’s critics have gone with the low blow insult of being unpatriotic. The left has their own list of low blow, cry wolf insults like accusing someone of being racist, or homophobic, or a bigot, or xenophobic. I’ve heard it all, been called it all. And the right has just dusted off their nuclear insult, the brand of being unpatriotic. Easy to hurl, hard to catch, it’s the perfect weapon of choice as a last ditch effort when all else has failed.

The objective of such an insult isn’t to get Kaepernick to find a more constructive way of expressing his opinions. At this point, it’s intended to just shut him up. The proof is in the pudding. He’s a quarterback for an NFL team, so now people are demanding he be fired so that they can take away his podium to silence him on an issue they hope to sweep under the rug quietly.

To many, the National Anthem, or the American Flag are symbols of America. But before we get mad about this, lets stop and thing about what these things really symbolize, and what Colin is protesting.

I won’t go all philosophical on you. I’ll go literal on you. America isn’t just one thing. America is a million things. American is the country. America is the people. America is the land. America is the government. America is our senators and congressmen. America is our president. America is the constitution. America is our military. America is our tax payers. America is our culture. And America is our systems. See what I mean?

I love our troops, I love our police and firefighters, but I sure don’t have many nice words for the people on Capitol Hill.

I love our constitution, but I don’t have an IRS flag waving in my front yard.

When you look at it from a different angle, it’s easy to see how you can love this country so much, but also be fed up by certain parts of it.

Anyone who says that Colin Kaepernick was disrespecting the armed services is being disingenuous because you know for fact that’s not what he meant. He has a very specific grievance against once aspect of this great country and he protested in the most polite, effective way he could think to do. I don’t advocate for BLM but if anyone can name even one way he could have expressed his feelings as effectively that wouldn’t have pissed everyone and their mom off, I would honestly be interested in hearing it. I mean really. What would you have the guy do? Something entirely useless like change his Facebook profile picture and share an angry post? Write a blog? Tweet something?

My dad served in the military for 20 years. Three of my grandpas served in the military and fought in several wars. I have an uncle in the Border Patrol. I have countless friends, and childhood mentors who were in the service. If I honestly thought that what Kaepernick did was an offense to those loved ones of mine, I wouldn’t be defending him. But here I am.

I’m not gonna offer up some moral equivalency argument “well if you think that’s unpatriotic, then you should be even more upset about the blah blah blah statistic from wikipedia blah blah”. Because again, I don’t entirely see eye to eye with Kaepernick on the issue he’s protesting, so I’m not defending his position of protest, just defending the way he’s protesting.

Let me share with you a true story. A couple years ago I was driving through my neighborhood as part of my then regular route, and I saw an American flag waving from a flag pole… upside down. I thought it was weird and it certainly caught my attention. I drove by the house again the next day, and the flag was still upside down. Day after day I drive past this house and each day, the flag is upside down. But at night, the flag is taken down and the pole sits idle and bare.

Finally after about a week, I was curious so rather than drive past the house, this time I drove to it. I parked my car and walked up the driveway towards the front door of a very pretty house in this nice, serine suburban neighborhood.  A car was parked in the driveway with a Marine Corp sticker on the back window. Odd. I knock on the door and sure enough someone answers. The door slowly opens to reveal a senior freakin’ citizen. Not the 22 year old, zulu plug adorned college kid with a Che Guevara t-shirt I would have suspected. No, it was some 70 year old white guy in khakis and a tucked in polo shirt. I ask the guy what’s up with the flag and if he knew that it was upside down. He explains that he was unhappy with the direction the country was going in, and had turned the flag upside down as a sign of protest. He told me about having served in the Marines, and we chatted for about 10 minutes about politics and things we’d heard about on the news. Hmm. Here was this old, white, conservative, veteran, male hanging the flag upside down in a conservative neighborhood as a sign of distress for the condition of our country. Who would have thought? I thanked him for his time, (naturally handed him a business card,) and went on about my way and that was that.

It never once occurred to me this man was unpatriotic or hated America or was disrespecting the police or our armed forces. And I don’t see how what Colin Kaepernick did the other day was any different.

Politics

Trump Rally San Diego May 2016

2 Comments

Two days ago on Friday, May 27, 2016 I attended a Donald Trump presidential rally in San Diego, California at the Convention Center. It was a big deal for me because although this will be the fourth presidential election I’ll have had the opportunity to vote in, this is the first time I have ever done something remotely political aside from express my views online. None of the other elections really mattered to me like this one does, and I was surprised to find out that in this regard, I was not alone.

I’m 29 going on 30 this October, and almost none of my friends had ever been to a presidential rally, or political rally or protest, including my friend Brett who invited me and is the same age as me. That’s not so shocking. But I was shocked that people twice my age had never been to one. A guy I spoke to at the trolley station was in his mid 50’s and this Trump rally was the first time he’d ever ‘gotten involved’ in politics if you would call it that. A dozen or so other people I chitchatted with while I was in line shared a similar experience. Something about this election has awoken a sleeping populace of people who normally would be content to stay in the bleachers, but this time around felt inclined to get on the field.

The media narrative is that republicans are all white, racist, straight men. This is the narrative I’ve been told for years and even thought I always considered it bull, it’s been drilled into me for so long that I can’t help but admit I’ve come to believe the lies the media propagates, even the one’s they’ve said about me. So I will again admit I was surprised at the diversity of the crowd at and around the Trump rally and people donning Trump gear. I saw signs depicting Veterans for Trump, Hispanics for Trump, Women for Trump, Gays for Trump, Chinese Americans (heart) Trump. I knew I should have brought my “Secular Jews for Trump” sign, damnit!  I saw (what my bigot eyes believed to be where) a lot of Hispanics, Asians, Filipinos, whites, women, young adults, and seniors. Admittedly not a lot of black people but there were some. Granted, San Diego is only like 6% black.

Security was super tight. SDPD and the San Diego Sheriff’s Department had one hell of a show of force outside the convention center. We had to show our tickets to, and go through three levels of security before even being let into the building. Once inside the building we had to wait in line once more, this time going through a metal detector, with security being performed by the Secret Service and TSA.

Side note here, and please excuse my French: Here’s a big FUCK YOU to the mustached, douchebag, fat shit of a TSA agent who was a total asshole to me when I was emptying my pockets before going through the metal detector.

While I was waiting in line and once we got into the main event I got the tail end of Sarah Palin giving some speech about who knows what. I am not a huge Sarah Palin fan. She kind of reminds me of a 4 year old dressing in their parents clothes pretending to be a grown up, and her speech was no better. I had no idea what she was talking about. Something about snakes and lions and boots up asses. She kind of sounded like a seagull. Listen to her screech of a speech here.

There were A LOT of people inside. About 15,000. There were a couple rabble rousers but they were quickly ousted. Most of Trump’s speech was pretty on beat with his normal stuff, except for about 30 minutes where he droned on and on about some lawsuit he’s involved with right now concerning Trump University. I started to doze off. But aside from that I really enjoyed his speech. I can see how it’s a little easier for Trump to wander off topic than past presidential candidates. One has to remember that he is really the only big ticket candidate in decades who has a great deal of business going on outside the world of politics.  Hilary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, John McCain, George W. Bush, Jeb Bush, Ted Cruz, these are all people who at the time of running were pretty much, solely politicians. When all you do is eat, drink, breath, and bleed politics it’s probably pretty easy to keep the conversation to politics. But remember, Trump isn’t a politician and other aspects of his professional life are bound to occasionally seep through in his speeches.

One of the things I liked about Trump’s speech is despite that fact that he might not have the favor of everyone in the country I get the vibe he legitimately wants to help everyone in the country, not simply his constituency. I feel like the typical left pander tactic is “vote for me and I’ll tax the shit out people who voted for the other guy and use their money to fund things my constituents care about”, whereas Trump plays more to the tune that our nation as a whole – and everyone in it – is getting taken advantage of on a global scale, with the exception of the political elite on both sides who have rigged the system.

Trump was quick to call attention to the media booth and rally scorn and boos in their direction. Which I kind of liked. He called out a federal judge by name. He called out other politicians and wheels of the system. He doesn’t allow people to hide behind their position, or their title, or the party, or their affiliations or status or prestige or privilege. He is not afraid to point fingers and name names. I loved it, but others consider it un-presidential. The irony is that for years and years the same people have done nothing but complain about how Washington politics are corrupt, how both political parties are in cahoots and playing the American public for fools, how we’re tired of these career politicians who have been in office for decades. And America got what it asked for. Someone with no political experience, who isn’t beholden to any political party and low and behold, he isn’t particularly presidential. Unlike most of us he has actually changed his registered political party several times over the past couple of decades showing that he votes according to issues, not according to party.

Once the event was over, organizers purposefully had the Trump attendees exit from the north end of the convention center to direct them away from the group of Anti Trump protestors at the south end, in an attempt to curtail any inter-group commotion.

I will admit that I was a little curious about the prospect of there being a counter rally. For months now I’ve heard of anti-Trump groups creating disturbance and inciting violence at or around Trump rallies. Just a few days prior to the San Diego rally, things got pretty out of control in Anaheim, another Southern California city just a hopscotch a way from San Diego. Just as I had never been to a political rally before, I also had never firsthand seen a riot or protest, and certainly never seen civil unrest. It definitely crossed my mind that something might go down.

Local law enforcement had different plans. Unlike me they had no interest in seeing any uncivil commotion and pretty much had the area surrounding the convention center on lock down well in advance of the event itself. Law enforcement closed all roads immediately in front of the convention center as well as several trolley tracks. This was coupled with hundreds of those portable event fences that link together, and those large orange traffic barricades. There were members of the San Diego Police Department as well as the Sheriff’s Department. In terms of actual manpower, I think there were in the neighborhood of 150 SDPD, and another 50-70 from the Sheriff’s department.

The SDPD were wearing their signature all black uniforms. While some were in street attire with modest equipment like batons, others were in riot gear, with the riot helmets, riot vest, shin guards, zip-tie cuffs, and the occasional AR-type rifle. The Sheriff’s department in their version of OD green was almost entirely decked out in full battle rattle. A couple of them had those paintball guns with the chili powder balls.

To the left, San Diego Sheriff’s Department in green. To the right, San Diego Police Department (SDPD) in black.

I’ll admit I was kiiiiinda looking forward to seeing some crazed protestor hop the fence and get pelted just for the novelty of the experience. I suppose if I want to see that I need to go to LA County.

The next day when I read the news online, there were reports saying there were 1,000+ violent protestors. Uhhhh. The most I spotted were like 120 people crammed into an area the size of my 1400 square foot house, right before the event started, and they were totally outnumbered by the pro-Trump people. Perhaps we missed some action while we were inside the event itself. It was actually pretty pathetic and a bit of a let down. I wanted to see some action!

The authorities had the place on lock down from the get go – the really nipped any plans for violent protest in the bud. There were still a couple dozen or so protestors but at least while I was street side it was pretty harmless. They were so severely outnumbered by the pro-Trump rally members that even their chants were drowned out by the opposing pedestrians. Proving what we already knew, that San Diego is still America’s finest city.

All in all it was a fun experience. I am glad I did it. I can certainly see how going to these types of things is energizing. You can feel the excitement in the air as people waited to see him. The organizers did a fantastic job with security and herding the crowds around the event. Law enforcement did an amazing job keeping the peace. Trump’s performance was routine, and as expected. If Trump gets elected this will be the first time I ever saw a U.S. president. I’ve never seen Obama in person, or Bush, or anyone else for that matter so this might turn out to be quite the experience.

Business and Finance, Politics, Society

College Isn’t All That

4 Comments

Over the last couple of years with the rise of ‘Democratic Socialism’, aka Socialists masquerading as Democrats, the idea of free college has been making a lot of headlines and gaining some traction within certain circles.

Although entirely flawed, the premises for this idea is as follows: There isn’t enough job opportunity without college degrees, which has resulted in unemployed and underemployed Americans, and the only remedy to this is to get more kids into college. Because without a college degree, people become criminals. But we can’t send more kids to college because it’s too expensive. Rather than finding ways to make college tuition itself less expensive, let’s simply pay an exorbitant amount of money to send everyone to college ‘for free’.

So that’s the idea. That horribly flawed chain of thought has led to the popularity of Bernie Sanders. In fact, Bernie said:

Implying that if you don’t go to college, you’ll go to jail, which is the roundabout way of accusing anyone opposed to jacking up taxes to pay for every kid to go to college as a heartless person who wants to see more minorities end up prison. Essentially.

But the fact is that college isn’t all that. There are plenty of ways to become successful without a college degree.

What has me annoyed and disgusted the most with this whole notion of free college for everyone is that it’s based on a series of false notions, it presents a false dichotomy, it attacks symptoms rather than root causes, it’s redundant, and it would in fact have the opposite effect as intended – meaning it would cause tuition to increase thus making college even less affordable, all of which I will explain below and back up with logic.

Camp Kool-Aid

These days most colleges are simply liberal indoctrination camps. I think a huge part of the reason for Democrat’s wanting more of America’s youth to go to college is to drink the liberal kool-aid and eventually join the ranks of the Democratic party. With their anti-free speech safe spaces, pro-Hamas antisemitism rallies, and trying to oust ROTC and Border Patrol kiosks from campuses and job fairs, you can see how today’s American college campus is the perfect breeding grounds for American liberalism.

Many college campuses are now not only anti second amendment, they are also anti first amendment with students and faculty being suspended, expelled, or fired for expressing things considered to be offensive.

False Dichotomy

Forget for a moment the political posturing related to the free college discussion, and lets circle back to what caused it in the first place. If you ask Bernie Sanders, we need to send kids to college because if we don’t they’ll likely end up in prison. That’s the false dichotomy being presented by the liberal left to America’s youth today: Get a college degree or fail at life.

In response to a like remark made by Sanders, television personality Mike Row had some very interesting things to say where he gives myriad ways to become successful without college, include his personal experience.

Neither my mom nor dad have college degrees, but both are very successful. But what about my generation? Some friends my age, who I went to high school with and who don’t have college degrees are also very successful. I know a handful of people who have college degrees and aren’t successful. And there are people like myself (I consider myself successful) who have a degree and don’t use it in the slightest bit. Had I known I could make as much money as I do without a college degree, I would have never gone to college and started out in my career five years earlier. Just don’t tell my mom.

The always-and-only-college mentality has left a huge blind spot in the American workforce. We’re actually experiencing a shortage of much needed occupations such as plumbers, electricians, mechanics, and other blue collar and vocational related trades. Despite the fact that one can make a good living without working at a desk from 9-5, certain occupations have been framed by society as being lowly, which is a shame.

College Isn’t for Everyone

It’s a waste of money to effectively give every student free education because many of those students will end up pissing away the money we spend on sending them to school. Not every person is made for college. This isn’t to say they are stupid, but that college is a very specific model that isn’t compatible with how everyone learns and thrives.

I have a close friend that has been in college for well over eight years without any measurable progress.  A relative of mine has been in college for 11 years without any degrees to show for it. No bachelor’s degree. No associate’s degree. I love both of them, but they are real life Van Wilder’s, and I think it’s safe to say neither of them will get a college degree.

I certainly don’t think it would have been a good idea to subsidize their education with anyone’s tax dollars because it is clearly working out to be a poor investment. My friend and relative are just two people out of nation of millions. Imagine how many other students would find themselves in similar predicaments, and how much tax payer money would be wasted on a large scale if we sent everyone to college.

Musical Chairs

Taking the previous point and expanding on it, aside from the cost factor of sending incompatible students to college, doing so would also make it increasingly difficult for students who legitimately could benefit from college. As it stands, most US colleges are already impacted. Kids with 4.0 GPAs and all the right motivation have a hard enough time as it is getting into the college of their choice, and the class and programs needed to complete their curriculum. And that’s with tuition costs being as astronomical as they are. If we lowered the bar so much that anyone with a pulse could join college on a whim, imagine how much the current problem would be exacerbated.

Cause and Effect

I don’t think too many ‘Berners’ have really put any thought into why college tuition costs are as high as they are – the root causes. Instead, all their efforts are focused on the ‘evil banks’ that finance student loans, – the symptoms – but for some reason they don’t have the same animosity towards the genuinely evil college system that charges such exorbitant rates in the first place.

After all, if colleges weren’t ripping students off with such high tuition, the student debt problem wouldn’t be so much of an issue. And if colleges are being such douche bags and ripping off students, why are parents so hell bent on sending their kids there? How can a liberal dominated college system be both the cause and solution to all of your financial woes?

Pro-college people argue that you need to go to college to get a good job to make money. And these same people are the ones reeling from hundreds of thousands of dollars of student loan debt accumulated during their stint at liberal colleges. So what is college? Plague or panacea?

Another relative of mine posted the following image on Facebook back in February that shows the tuition change at Yale from 1970 to 2014, against the federal minimum wage of the time. Oddly, the image’s point is to use higher tuition costs as justification for increasing the minimum wage, as opposed to attempting to simply lower tuition costs, which are arbitrarily set.

yale college tuition minium wage
This image is incredibly misleading if for no other reason than Yale is in Connecticut where the state minimum wage in 2014 was actually $8.70 per hour, and it was $8.00 per hour in neighboring New York, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island. Well above the federal minimum wage of $7.25.

I did some homework. Let’s say this image is accurate and that the tuition at Yale went from $2,550 in 1970 to $45,800 in 2014. That is 17.96 times higher, or a 1696% increase.

We’ll yeah Andrew, it’s called inflation! Duh! Just one minute though…

If we take that 1696% and divide it by the time span in years to get an average tuition percentage change per year, we get 1696 / 44 years = a 38.54% annual increase in tuition.

Compare that with the average US inflation rate of 3.22% over the last century, or even the average US inflation rate over that same period of time (1970 through 2014) of 4.08% (sources). Using these historical figures, Yale’s tuition grows nine times faster than inflation.

Basically, if Yale’s tuition moved at the rate of inflation, that $2,550 tuition in 1970 would have been about $14,815 in 2014. So why was it $45,800 instead? Maybe the problem here isn’t the banks financing the tuition. Maybe the problem is the universities who set the tuition. And perhaps supporters of more affordable college need to be scrutinizing the universities they hold in such high esteem.

Gateway to Extortion

The irony of this whole thing is that there is no surer way to increase college tuitions costs than by giving everyone free college. Liberals are determined to get free college for all at any cost, and they might succeed in ways they didn’t hope to.

If colleges around the country know that the US Government is writing blank checks to cover college tuition, what do you think is going to happen to tuition? It’s going to skyrocket. And it doesn’t matter what kind of clever legislation our politicians throw into the mix, the colleges are cleverer, and somehow, someway, they’ll find a way to take advantage of the situation and rip off the taxpayers.

Frugal Alternatives

These days, those of the left persuasion believe that the solution to any problem is to throw more money at it. This has led to the false belief that if you spend a ton of money on college as opposed to less money on technical or vocational school, it will always translate into higher pay. Or that a degree from an expensive, prestigious university will provide for better job opportunities post college.

Both of these myths have been largely debunked, and even in the rare instances where say a degree from Harvard will earn you higher income than a degree from SDSU, the extra income is negligible, and actually comes at a loss when taking into account the net difference between post-graduate pay and overall college expenses. If you spend 2x more on tuition, and make even 5% more per year after college, it would take you 20 years of working to justify (earn back) the higher tuition cost.

Many students want to go to the college of their dreams. And while following your dreams sounds, well, dreamy, when dreams start to conflict with reality there’s a problem. These students insist on attending some far away university, where they’ll get strapped with significantly higher out of state tuition costs, plus the added expense of room and board. All of which they could have avoided by simply going to a local, in state university and living with their parents for at least a portion of their college career.

Ultimately, college is a financial decision. Not an emotional one. So students, and more importantly their parents, need to start looking at college options closer to home where they can take advantage of the lower in state tuition. Take it a step further and consider attending a community college for as many semesters as possible and students can save tens of thousands of dollars per year on their education.

My freshman, sophomore and junior years were spent at Grossmont Community College where my cost per semester was about $600 (with books) as opposed to the $5,000-$7,000 it would have cost me at SDSU. I transferred to SDSU in my senior year where I finished my bachelors degree and graduated in the spring of 2009 alongside all my friends who went there for all five years, but in the processed I managed to save about $30,000.

We all want to have our dream house, our dream car, our dream vacation, our dream wedding, and go to our dream college, but the simple truth is that those things are often times cost prohibitive and well beyond our budget. It’s stupid to spend $50,000 on a BMW when you can only afford a $25,000 car, and it is just as stupid to attend an expensive college when you can get a degree every bit as good for a quarter of the cost. Some community colleges are also beginning to offer bachelor’s degrees of their own, negating the need for costly universities altogether.

Borrow Wisely

Another problem is that many students simply borrow when they don’t have to. Student loans should be used to cover tuition and books, and not much else. However a lot of students will finance everything they purchase while in college, from housing, to food, to luxury items like recreational spending and even overseas vacations.

This is unwise for a number of reasons. The whole point of a student loan is to pay off an expense you otherwise would not have had: college. However whether you attend college or not, everyone has food costs, housing costs, clothing costs. Just because you are in college, doesn’t mean your breakfast while in college is a college expense. It’s a living expense. Everyone has to eat. Students make the mistake of financing things they would have had to pay for even if they hadn’t gone to college. The result is that when they graduate you aren’t simply paying off five years of deferred tuition, they’re paying off five years of deferred life.

Additionally, students should actually start paying off, or saving to pay off, their debt while they are still in college. When you consider that student loans are basically the only loans in which the borrower is not charged interest for up to half a decade, student loans are actually the most relaxed form of lending on the market. You have 0% financing for 60 months! Don’t wait until graduation to start paying off your debt. Start on Day 1 of freshman year.

Reinventing the Wheel

The other hilarious thing about this recent sensation is that programs already exist to get college loans paid off easier, quicker, and so inexpensive that it is essentially debt forgiveness. About ten months ago I posted a blog written by my cousin-in-law Chris Johnson titled “The Truth About Federal Student Loans” in which he describes in amazing detail the government programs that have existed for decades to help alleviate student debt, and how such programs are alive and well today. It’s funny because democrats are crying for something that already exists.

In Conclusion

Liberals want to send more kids to college to be brainwashed into becoming liberals themselves.

There are many pathways to success, many of which do not included college. College is not a requisite for success.

Not every kid would do well in college, therefore giving every student free tuition would be a gross waste of money.

Because schools and courses are already impacted, sending ill-suited kids to college would jeopardize the education of students who actually are suited for college, by making it even harder for them to enroll in the classes needed for their degree and by spreading professors thin.

Yes, college tuition is high, but don’t blame the banks for student debt. Blame the universities for ripping-off the American public. Colleges across the country have routinely increased their tuition at a rate much higher than inflation would account for. Colleges need to be brought to task, not the lending institutions.

High tuition costs are avoidable though. By attending state universities and taking your general education requirements at a community college students can cut the cost of college in half.

Only finance college costs. Do not finance general living expenses. Students and parents should start paying off, or saving to pay off student loans from the very beginning. That debt should not be ignored simply because it is not yet due.

This is the truth behind, and the solution to the United States current student loan crisis. The fact is, college isn’t all that.

Culture, Politics, Religion

Avenge Brussels

Leave a comment

Earlier, President Obama said this about the Brussels terrorist attack…

“But as I said just a few months ago, and I said a few months before that, and I said each time we see one of these Islamic terrorist attacks, our thoughts and prayers are not enough. It’s not enough. It does not capture the heartache and grief and anger that we should feel. And it does nothing to prevent this carnage from being inflicted someplace else in the world — next week, or a couple of months from now.

We don’t yet know why this individual did what he did. And it’s fair to say that anybody who does this has a sickness in their minds, regardless of what they think their motivations may be.

Earlier this year, I answered a question in an interview by saying, “The world is and advanced place but we do not have sufficient common-sense anti terrorism measures — even in the face of repeated mass killings.” And later that day, there was a terrorist attack somewhere in the world. That day! Somehow this has become routine. The reporting is routine. My response here at this podium ends up being routine. The conversation in the aftermath of it. We’ve become numb to this.”

Oh, no wait, sorry.

I took a speech he gave about the supposed epidemic of mass shootings back on Oct 1, 2015 and replaced ‘mass shooting’ with ‘terrorist attack’.

Seriously though, this sucks. But Obama was right about shootings and our apathy, and it is true for these attacks today. I’m praying, but prayers are not enough. I’m saddened, but sorrow is not enough. I am angry, but anger is not enough.

Action is required. Not half measures. Let’s not ‘bring anyone to justice’. Let’s find and kill some mother fuckers.

Let’s not bring anyone to justice. Let’s find and kill some mother fuckers.

This is not a war that will be won by keeping our hands clean. These are not people who respond to diplomacy, or reason. You cannot, should not, negotiation with them. If you give them an inch, they will take a mile. Look what happened with Iran regarding the sanctions, the ICBMs, and their recent tests in violations of those sanctions and agreements.

These people only know and understand fear, and today we must bring fear. We must teach these aggressors that if they kill one of ours, we will kill 100 of theirs. I honestly mean that. This isn’t me using rhetoric, or standing on ceremony. And it also isn’t war mongering. Americans have no more stomach for war.  As quickly as we called for heads on stakes after 9/11, we grew weary of our engagements in the Middle East. Most Americans do not want to risk another war. It’s too expensive they say. It’ll create enemies they say. It is not worth the risk… they say. However, to quote Aragorn from Lord of the Rings, “war is upon you whether you would risk it or not”.

War is upon you whether you would risk it or not

The West has a problem with gradations and scales… we either don’t believe in them or we think they are linear. Black or White. Right or Wrong. Good or Bad. Heaven and Hell. Democrat or Republican. The belief in mutually exclusive polar opposites. The belief that you cannot do something bad for the sake of good. And this leads to the misconception that war is the opposite of peace. Peace can only exist if it is mutually agreed upon. War on the other hand can be thrust upon the peaceful. The difference between war and slaughter, is whether both sides are fighting.

We will not stop Islamic terrorism by being peaceful. We will not stop these attacks by caving to their every demand. The West’s involvement in the Middle East is not to blame for these attacks. Cartoonist’s drawings are not to blame for these attacks. Movies depicting Mohammad are not to blame for these attacks.

Across the globe we don’t just see Americans being attacked. We don’t just see Westerners or Europeans being attacked. We see Islamic terrorism in Europe yes, but also in the Middle East, in Asian, in Oceania, in Africa. We see Muslims attacking Christians. Muslims attacking Jews in Israel.  We see Muslims attacking Hindus in India and Pakistan. We see Muslims attacking Muslims damn near everywhere. And did all these groups, all these nations invade the Middle East? The the Philippines invade Iraq? Did Malaysia invade Afghanistan? Are Atheists being accused of creating an ‘apartheid’ state?

We need to stop asking “why did the attackers do this?”

We are no more to blame for being attacked, than rape victims are to be blamed for being raped. This is not something we did to ourselves. This is something being forced upon us.  We need to stop asking “why did the attackers do this?” It is counterproductive and insulting to ask why something happened, when the answer makes no difference, when there is no justification. Would you care to ask “Well why did this guy molest this child?” ? Would it matter? Would ANY answer to that question make you go “Ohhhhhh, well in that case.”  Of course not. It matters not why lunatics and sickos do what they do. It matters not why people attack us. It matters not what drives people to commit terrorist attacks.

Peace has failed.

Diplomacy has failed. Negotiations have failed. Sanctions have failed. Training and arming militias have failed (and backfired). Empathy has failed. Concessions have failed. Peace has failed.  We must bring the fight to the enemy. We must label the enemy. We must put the fear of God into the enemy. This is strategy. This is winning. This is about keeping your boot on the back of the neck of the person trying to kill you. If you ease up even a little, if you back off for even a second, they will get up and resume trying to kill you.

We must do everything we can to demoralize them, to scare them shitless. We must use their fears and religion and superstitions against them. We must make it known that an attack against us has a cost far greater than they are willing to pay.