When 140 characters isn’t enough

So, I got into a twitter back and forth about the EPA earlier. To be clear, I am not supporting the destruction of the EPA, then doing nothing, rather, destroy what’s in place and build what we truly need. I cite one example, Alaska, for this premise. You see, it’s not just cold, but cold to the point of freezing to death in a matter of hours, in the winter there. What this means is that liquid or gas fuels freeze and become useless at those temperatures, leaving you with solid fuels. Coal is incredibly expensive for homes, as you’d use bags of the stuff in a night, so most people there burn wood, seeing as, you know, you just cut down trees, which Alaska has several of. Well, the EPA decided burning wood was ruining the air, and told Alaska residents to stop. Naturally, these folks chose staying alive over dying, and next the EPA fined them. Yes, the EPA fined Alaskan citizens for daring to choose to not die of hypothermia.

Well, this brings up the point of my conversation, the Paris Agreement and Kyoto Accords. Both of these target the US harshly, and in some cases, only. Tokyo and Bejing for example, have such bad air, that people have to wear a mask to go outside, but the U.S. was targeted with harsher restrictions. If you look at this list you’ll see another amazing thing, the U.S. isn’t on the list! When Macedonia makes the list but the U.S. doesn’t, that tells me we aren’t the horrible monster polluter the world is screaming that we are. Yes, pollution is bad, and yes, it should be addressed, but in a way that doesn’t look at a country’s GDP and target them over worse polluters, not in a way that tells people they fuel they have is bad and they’ll be fined, but ignores that fuel is the only option other than death.

We’ve been told for eight years that the U.S. is the most horrible country ever, that we’re racists for not blindly praising Obama, that we’re sexists for not praising the bitter diatribes of “feminists” calling for men to be killed, or we’re “homophobic” for suggesting that at a basic, biological level, homosexuality isn’t normal, simply because two men or two women cannot, on their own, create a child. I hold a degree in history, have heavily studied political science, and am certified to teach high school Social Studies (Government, Economics, History, Geography, etc) so I feel I know a thing or two about politics and such. In this instance, I argue that a government office, charged with protecting the environment, for the good of the people in the country that pays them, to tell citizens that they will be fined for using the only fuel that works, so they you know, don’t die over night, should be demolished and replaced. Much like the joke in Day After Tomorrow, when loading up books to burn to stay warm “Hey guys, there’s a whole section on tax law we can burn,” indicating a disdain for the IRS, any government agency that does not put the lives of U.S. citizens at the forefront of their thoughts when acting, should not be in place.

Yes, I want clean air and water, as I enjoy living and not having to stay inside, but I also want a government to be responsible and intelligent in how this is achieved. De Blasio saying that he’ll do all he can to ensure NYC stays compliant with the Paris Agreements is a political play, his way of saying “While Trump destroys the environment, I’m amazing and wonderful since I’m doing what he isn’t.” This is the crux of the matter, growing up and actually thinking, rather than just playing it up for the media. The Mayor of NYC should care more than my small town TX mayor about pollution, because it’s worse there, but if the Paris Agreement is the perfect fix, why is it that the list above isn’t the order in which countries are told to act? If the Kyoto Accords were so amazing, why did it focus so much on how much money the U.S. would end up paying out? It all comes back to attitudes and egos, no politician so far, who has presented any solution for air/water quality has done so for any reason other than to look good on the world stage. Now, with Trump in office, the world has decided his policy of America First is evil, because he’s actually putting America first, and not their countries. He’s calling on them to do the same thing though, to pay their NATO agreed amounts, which will help defend them, and to make their own countries better, he’s just not going to continue the policy of apologizing for America. His move on the EPA is the first step, but trust me, he’s not going to remove the EPA, then just say “Good luck staying alive now America,” there will be something that comes after, he’s just not saying what it will be, which is driving the media mad, because they can’t complain endlessly about his plans, but hey, lets keep focusing on non-existent collusion with Russia (there is absolutely no evidence of anything,) let’s ignore the DNC very likely having a man killed, and lets harp on minor things, rather than doing what Obama’s spokespeople said for 8 years “the election is over, it’s time we come together and work together for a better future.”

Shifting the blame

A running theme in movies for decades has been where the villain will tell the hero that all of the people who’ve died are because of the hero. Yes, they pull the trigger, throw them off a building, run over them, or otherwise commit the murder, but they almost always tell the hero that the death is actually the hero’s fault. Sadly, this plot line has moved into real life. We’ve seen thugs attack police, and after the police office defends their life, it’s the PD’s fault or the Jury’s fault that the town is destroyed by riots. Students at UC Berkeley have rioted more than once, over invitations to a speaker and when anyone asks them, we’re told that they are “just protesting hate speech.” At one point, someone was struck in the head with a bike lock, which could have killed that person, but these people maintain that it’s because a conservative group invited a speaker, so if that person had died, they’d lay all the blame on students who invited someone to campus, not the person who swung the lock, and this is what must change.

Sadly, with how pervasive the attitude of “it’s all your fault, I’m innocent in everything” is, this is a change that will take decades, but it is possible, if we’re willing to work for it, and can live with the whining. We start with the children, recently a group of middle school students refused to be in a photo with Paul Ryan. On the surface, this seems like nothing at all, as the photo was not required, but simply because Ryan doesn’t blindly support Obamacare and isn’t fighting to expand it, they call him evil, say they hate him, and worse. This leads to what we saw with VP Pence giving the commencement speech where a group of college students walked out of Commencement when he took the podium. While I wouldn’t advocate expulsion for the middle school students, I would hand out detentions or suspensions for anyone who did more than simply say “no thanks, no photo,” for the disrespect. For those who walked out on the sitting Vice President, no degree until you issue a public and sincere apology, meaning a video either tweeted, posted to Facebook or another public site. For eight years, conservatives were told “we won, get over it,” or from Valerie Jarret “it’s our turn now” and that Republicans had to go to “the back of the bus.” If anyone had even objected to Biden speaking at a college graduation (not walked out, just said they didn’t want to hear him,) or a DNC Senator came to a middle school and someone refused a photo, there would be screaming about “stop forcing your politics on others” but not now, and that’s what has to stop.

Parents will tell you it’s Ryan’s fault, the disrespectful students will say it’s Pence’s fault, and so on, just as the evil mastermind tells the hero that the deaths are on his hands because he didn’t give in, or wasn’t fast enough. Rather than just “not my fault” any more, the left actively blames the right for all of their actions. UCB students riot, it’s the conservative students’ fault for inviting such hateful people! People destroy a city rioting because a police officer wasn’t put in jail after defending his life? It’s because America is a horrible racist country! Only when we force responsible behavior from a young age, only when we hold people accountable for their own actions, and when we don’t give in when they cry about it not being fair that we expect them to be responsible for their actions, will we even stand a chance of turning this around. Yes, states like NY or CA will be last, and we’ll see them crying and hear the wailing about the “oppressive state of America,” where people who do bad things are punished for those bad things, but we’ll also have to listen to them crying about how their votes are suppressed by the rest of the country, because by that point, only NY and CA will likely be electing Democrats, which of course means that the GOP President is #nottheirpresident since the other 48 states “stole the election.” Although, we could also hope for a giant meteor to hit before then, and just make it so we don’t worry about anything any more, right?

Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!

It seems that, as unlikely as I would have said it was, Trump Derangement Syndrome is so much worse than Bush Derangement Syndrome as to make 2001 to 2009 look like the left loved life and Bush was the second coming of any deity you can imagine. President Donald Trump has, in the last 4 months or so, fulfilled a good number of his promises, and has been insulted and accused of everything up to and including treason for it.

Looking at this administrations first days, there are three items that pop into my mind as to the height of TDS, the temporary halt on issuing Visas, the wall, and the latest accusation, that President Trump shared “highly classified” information with “the Russians.”

Starting with the immigration issue, this is not a “muslim ban,” or is it a “ban” of any kind, rather, it’s a temporary freeze on any immigration from a handful of countries where terrorist attacks are so high, that we cannot currently weed out anyone bent on hurting Americans should they pose as a refugee. We’ve heard, for years now, that the refugees are women and children, but if you look at France, the Netherlands, Germany and any other European country taking refugees as fast as they show up, you see a huge difference, the “refugees” are almost all men between 18 and 45, the perfect age to be used as troops. Where are the “women and children who just want to escape a horrible situation?” The answer is simple, they’re still there, left behind by those who already have them subjugated, and wouldn’t let them go no matter what. This leads to one end, the stories we see coming out of Europe daily, rape epidemics, attacks on people who aren’t muslim, entire swaths of European cities declared muslim only zones, and more. The latest news from France, the election of Macron as President, will only spell the end of our once greatest ally, France will fall.

Keeping with immigration as a topic, President Trump also promised to build a wall on the US/Mexican border, and was immediately attacked as being racist. For this to be true, though, it would have to mean that no other race has or will enter the U.S. illegally via the Mexican border and we already know that a great number of middle eastern men have done just that. Add to this the demands from Mexican citizens in the south of that country for a wall to block illegal immigration from Guatemala, and the question I’ve asked for years is only made more poignant, why is the U.S. the only country on the planet that is racist for wanting our immigration laws to be enforced? U.S. citizens going to Mexico on vacation (meaning to spend a good deal of money) are harassed and worse on a daily basis. One man was in the wrong lane and begged to be allowed to turn around as he tried to explain he could not legally cross the border into Mexico, but was made to do so and jailed immediately, while a woman was jailed over simple OTC medication, which she was offered back at her release. It’s abundantly clear that Mexico not only hates the U.S. for our prosperity, but also covets that very thing, and is doing all they can to send as many citizens north as possible, or they were until January when that number started to drop, simply due to the possibility of a wall. Cute commercials of a man getting building materials to make a door in the wall (destruction of federal property) or lying about the heritage of a man responsible for starting a major U.S. business (Anheiser Busch,) we need to stop the hype and screaming, and go back to where we were only 40 years ago, when our border laws were enforced and our people were so much safer.

Finally, the recent story about President Trump sharing “highly classified” information with “the Russians.” Just a few years ago, Barack Obama told Putin “I’ll have a lot more leeway after the election,” such an ambiguous statement that we never found out what leeway he gained, but when President Trump does what he is legally allowed to do, the world goes insane. The Washington Post has named only one source, and that person has called them liars for their story, but no one seems to care. WaPo runs with a story based on anonymous sources, the three men in the room all deny the story has any truth to it, but no one cares. President Trump has said on more than one occasion, that we need to work with Russia on many things, and stopping the spread of terror groups is something that everyone should agree on, but the left screams about “Russian collusion” and “hacking” as if that makes it true. A Lt. General who wrote the book on standing up to civilian leadership, who knows how to stand up for his own worth, has stated the WaPo story is false, and the media just twists his words to say “he’s saying this tiny bit is false, so he must mean the rest is true.” When someone says “it did not happen” that means “it” as in the whole thing!

The solution to this entire mess is both simple and so complex that I wonder if we’ll ever see it even attempted. The media needs to find the medium between 2009 to 2017, where they praised Obama as the world’s only hope, and now, where they vilify President Trump as someone Satan would run in fear from, and just report fairly and honestly. The left needs to grow up and do what they demanded the right do for 8 years, accept the loss from November. Conservatives have been targeted by the IRS under Obama, told to go to the “back of the bus” by his officials, and screamed at for being racist for everything said about wanting criminals to be punished for assaulting Police officers and the like. Much like 2009, the election from the previous year is over, Hillary is not President, and no amount of screaming will change that. For eight years, liberals have demanded “tolerance” from conservatives, so it’s time to practice what you preach. If a student group invites a speaker you don’t agree with to speak to them, you do not have any right to assault them or damage school property in response. More than one hundred people are learning that due to their actions on Inauguration Day, as they destroyed property and committed assault, and are now being charged with those crimes. Only when the people who resort to these methods are held accountable for their actions, and no screaming of “I have a right to protest” or “you’re censoring me” stops the arrest for the crime committed, will we even have a chance of moving in the right direction.