Things To Consider 1

If you don't read anything else, please read this item.  It is as thoughtful, insightful and honest a piece I have read in some time.  The author's assessment of the context of our times seems well grounded.  He explains well the rancor that possesses the powers that be with the rise of Trump. It's content is clear and cogent and among the most important and relevant I have read in a very long time.  Quote: "...  Liberalism, along with norms, rules, openness, and internationalism: these ostensibly define the postwar and post-Cold War tradition of American statecraft. Allow Trump to scrap that tradition and you can say farewell to what Stewart Patrick refers to as “the global community under the rule of law” that the United States has upheld for decades.  But what does this heartwarming perspective exclude? We can answer that question with a single word: history."  And,  "My point is not to charge à la Noam Chomsky that every action undertaken by the United States government is inherently nefarious. Rather, I am suggesting that to depict postwar U.S. policy in terms employed by the pundits quoted above is to whitewash the past. Whether their motive is to deceive or merely to evade discomfiting facts is beside the point. What they are peddling belongs to the universe of alt facts. To characterize American statecraft as “liberal internationalism” is akin to describing the business of Hollywood as “artistic excellence.”  And,  "Prior to Trump’s arrival on the scene, few members of the foreign-policy elite, now apparently smitten with norms, fancied that the United States was engaged in creating any such order. America’s purpose was not to promulgate rules but to police an informal empire that during the Cold War encompassed the “Free World” and became more expansive still once the Cold War ended. The pre-Trump Kagan, writing in 2012, neatly summarizes that view:  The existence of the American hegemon has forced all other powers to exercise unusual restraint, curb normal ambitions, and avoid actions that might lead to the formation of a U.S.-led coalition of the kind that defeated Germany twice, Japan once, and the Soviet Union, more peacefully, in the Cold War. Leave aside the dubious assertions and half-truths contained within that sentence and focus on its central claim: the United States as a hegemon that forces other nations to bend to its will. Strip away the blather about rules and norms and here you come to the essence of what troubles Kagan and others who purport to worry about the passing of “liberal internationalism.” Their concern is not that Trump won’t show adequate respect for rules and norms. What has them all in a lather is that he appears disinclined to perpetuate American hegemony."  And,  "The desperate exercise in historical revisionism that now credits the United States with having sought all along to create a global community under the rule of law represents that establishment’s response to the heresies Trump has been spouting (and tweeting) since his famous ride down the escalator at Trump Tower. Yet in reclassifying yesterday’s hegemon as today’s promulgator and respecter of norms, members of that establishment perpetrate a fraud. Whether Americans, notably gullible when it comes to history, will fall for this charade remains to be seen. Thus far at least, Trump himself, who probably knows a thing or two about snake-oil salesmen, shows little inclination to take the bait."  And,  "The world has changed in fundamental ways. So too has the United States. Those changes require that the principles guiding U.S. policy also change accordingly.  However ill-suited by intellect, temperament, and character for the office he holds, Trump has seemingly intuited the need for such change. In this regard, if in none other, I’m with the Donald.  But note the irony. Trump may come closer to full-fledged historical illiteracy than any president since Warren G. Harding. Small wonder then that his rejection of the mythic past long employed to preempt serious debate regarding U.S. policy gives fits to the perpetrators of those myths."   http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/the-global-order-myth/

This is what happens when leftists control governments.  They decide what is right and what is wrong and what and who to punish.  It has happened over and over again throughout history.  It starts small but grows to disastrous levels.  Quote: "According to German law, social media users face up to five years in prison for “inciting racial hatred,” even if no physical violence is committed. “Meanwhile, Islamists mow down people with cars and trucks at Christmas markets in Germany,” said Paul Nehlen, who recently announced he will challenge House Speaker Paul Ryan in Wisconsin’s 1st congressional district primary in 2018. “It’s madness. German authorities are backing their own citizens into a corner with these types of draconian measures. When did Germany become Cuba, jailing people for political dissent? I’ve heard some of the never-Trumper crowd in the U.S. and in Europe refer to German Chancellor Angela Merkel as the new leader of the free world. I wonder how those jailed German citizens living under Merkel’s jack-boot feel about her ‘free-world leadership.'”    http://www.wnd.com/2017/06/german-police-raid-36-homes-for-hateful-social-media-posts/     It is a well established fact that our political leftists are the ones inciting racial hatred (among other things) but accuse members of the political right as being the guilty parties.  That is picking and choosing using their own reasoning to create a class of unacceptable people who fail to meet liberal/progressive standards.  An example was when  Hillary Clinton declared during the presidential campaign that Trump followers were nothing but "a basket of irretrievable deplorables." This is a consequence of the long standing liberal/progressivism's political correctness movement, which is nothing more than their application of the Marxist tactic of creating the conditions for discontent by using propaganda to divide people into conflicting groups.  The purpose is to create chaos so they can declare they have the solutions to the problems people are demanding.  Problems they "claim" were created by those deplorables.  Their fix is nothing more than yet another run at applying their socialistic solutions which "always" end up in disaster. Venezuela is the latest example.  Having no understanding of history or evidence they go full bore with their "get rid of Trump movement" which is filled with hatred of people who do not agree with them and their socialistic ideals.  Consequently their goal is to get rid of him so they can "fix" the very problems their socialistic policies/programs have created over the past 100 years or so.   http://www.wnd.com/2017/06/german-police-raid-36-homes-for-hateful-social-media-posts/ 

This piece deals with hard core facts that some may for emotional reasons dispute but the facts are there and cannot be erased.  Quote: "I was not always sick of the misbehavior of blacks. In the now infinitely remote early Sixties, when I was a student in the last all-white class in Virginia’s rural King George High–graduated ‘64–integration was just beginning.  To the  extent that I thought about race, the question was abstract, a matter of moral principles, of  ideals and fairness, unrelated to an actual people with actual characteristics who might not integrate well. Blacks had been mistreated. If given the opportunity they would rise and join American civilization. That they might not occurred only to those with experience, which did not include me. When my parents, wiser than I–if it is possible to be wiser than a seventeen-year-old–said that integration would not work. I didn’t believe them.  Time went by, and it didn’t work. Trouble began. Blacks became hostile, demanding this and demanding that. Neighborhoods became dangerous. Schools, newly mixed, encountered The Gap, intractable and immortal, that is the heart and cause of our racial disaster.  The riots arrived. Racial attacks on whites became common, covered up by the media. This censorship possible in the days before the internet.  The country began, though I didn’t recognize it at the time, as neither did the country, treating blacks as a different category of humanity who could not be expected to obey the laws and rules or the expectations of civility."   And,  "Dependence on whites is the backbone of black culture. Free breakfast for their children, free lunches, subsidized housing, free housing, AFDC, affirmative action, racial quotas, waivers. Nobody, not blacks, not whites, not the most dewy-eyed liberal expects blacks ever to live without charity from whites. Don’t believe me? Ask an ardent civil-libertarian when he expects blacks to have caught up and not need affirmative action. Never. It is just another entitlement. Whah mah free stuff?  Political correctness ensures that we cannot even talk about the problem. If  you suggest that blacks stop shooting each other, you are a racist. If you suggest that they study, you are a racist. If you suggest they get married before reproducing, you are a racist. It will continue until either America slowly deflates or hell breaks loose."   https://www.theburningplatform.com/2017/06/15/oncoming-racial-doom-the-clash-of-cultures/    The truth in this piece will be denied by some progressive liberals and Democrats.  That is their reflexive emotions at work.  If only they would examine all the things done by the political left to "fix" the black "problem" they would see that they have actually made things worse.  Facts are there for all to see. The left's coddling efforts only made far too many blacks dependent on government support funded by taxpayers.  The truth is blacks never needed hand outs.  They needed respect and opportunity.  Blacks who have risen above the plight of dependence proves the political left/progressive policies have in effect enslaved blacks (and others too) to dependence on tax payer funded government "hand out" programs.  Those who rejected the hand outs and worked to make something of themselves have self pride and accomplishments to be proud of.  However, there is little incentive for those comfortable with and reliant on hand outs to develop pride or independence or accomplish anything. Why should they?  Government is there to take care of them.  Freebees have robbed far too many of the opportunity to be self sustaining and self respecting free individuals. Hence, the culture that has set in is that they have a "right" to the fruits of the labor of others. We owe them. How will they get food and shelter and meet their other needs if taxpayers via government mandates do not provide for them? That is their unfortunate mindset but nonetheless is a fact. The consequence is that we now have what we have, a permanent class of government dependents. A really big problem created by the political left's foolish array of freebee programs. Another fact is that cowardly members of both political parties afraid to upset members of the freebee community for political reasons sustained and even expanded the charade also for selfish political purposes, not caring about the harm done to both taxpayers and eventually to freebee recipients (when the freebees stop coming) .  The consequence?  Flawed good intentions resulted in a welfare state which now requires more "freebee" program funding each and every year to just keep the horribly mistaken and corrosive programs afloat. In the end the whole charade will collapse because tax payer ability to provide necessary funding will eventually end.  Chaos will ensue.