Big Lies

[pbrower2a]

(12-18-2016, 12:48 AM)Classic-Xer Wrote:

(12-17-2016, 11:19 PM)Bob Butler 54 Wrote:

(12-17-2016, 11:14 PM)Classic-Xer Wrote: My most valuable tools are all vehicles of some sort. I've spent the bulk of my life making the types of decisions that either avoid suffering or sharply reduces the amount of time that must be spent suffering. I don't know what gives the impression that I come from/represent a mindless, joyless world that's focused/fixated more on suffering than love.

Try reading your stuff objectively, for emotional content rather than political memes.  You come across as hostile and confrontational, dissatisfied.  This might not be your intent, but I can quite understand where the impression comes from.

 Objectively speaking, you should be able to figure out/ understand why I come across to you and other blues as someone who can be that way.  I get the impression that blues aren't used to being the ones who are on the front line, so to speak.

I was not discussing tools; I was discussing the reality of living in an Empire which tolerates certain behavior. It is unlikely that a Trump Administration will curtail the right to travel within America because such a right is necessary for the smooth functioning of the economy. But if Donald Trump and his political stooges choose to clamp down on political speech hostile to crony capitalism, then being able to travel from Phoenix to Philadelphia easily will not help one. It is not you, but Donald Trump and other Republicans, whom I distrust with the responsibility to avoid imposing upon Americans the norm of mindless, joyless life in which love means little more than the willingness to suffer for economic elites just to do avoid harm to loved ones.

Relocation has never been cheap. Even in the days of covered wagons the journey West to 'new' farmland recently stolen from the First peoples has involved purchase of land or property and an arduous and often dangerous travel. The reality of being cash-poor and object-rich is the norm of American life because we Americans have found such safe. Moving is cheap if one can put all one's possessions (or at least those that one most needs) in a suitcase while going from a furnished apartment in Fort Wayne to Fort Worth. Relocating even from Austin to San Antonio is costly if one has the usual accoutrements of middle-class life, even if a trip between the two cities by car is inexpensive.

You just do not understand why someone as liberal as I can find the bigoted rhetoric, sheer nonsense, tyrannical tone, and dodgy language of Donald Trump can so put me off. Bigots have never fostered concord, but they have certainly imposed pointless suffering. Objective reality is the fundamental tool (and in that sense more metaphoric than tangible) of making wise decisions that work for multitudes on issues from effective schools to environmental quality. I have seen plenty of footage of tyrannical government and the predictable harm that it does; I see more in common between Donald Trump and Benito Mussolini than between him and Ronald Reagan, and I dread an American who praises foreign tyrants. I may have never served in the Armed Forces, but I am satisfied that the honor code (the wording is different between the Academies differs, but it means the same) of the Service Academies is a good standard for people with responsibilities for the dignity, safety, and prosperity of others applies:

Do not lie, cheat, or steal; do not tolerate lying, cheating, or stealing by others.

So 'low' a profession as school-teaching, in which a teacher has responsibility for the welfare of children makes such mandatory. This applies to police, fire-fighters, engineers, pharmacists, dentists, accountants, physicians, attorneys, and research scientists. Of course it is not enough, but it is necessary if not sufficient to avoid creating worse problems than those that one solves by some shady fait accompli. Deceit, chicanery, and theft always create problems that require even more dishonesty to cover up.

OK, one is not lying if one tells something that one firmly believes yet is utterly untrue (as with the garden-variety racist or religious bigot) or if one is brainwashed. But it is up to us as responsible adults to recognize that something contrary to our base of knowledge is unsupportable.

Do I trust Donald Trump with anything that I cherish? No. In view of what he has said of women, I would not want my daughter or grand-daughter to participate in a pageant in which he has a presence. I would not want to do business with him. Warren Buffett? T. Boone Pickens? Bill Gates? Sure.

With Donald Trump as President I expect nothing but trouble. We will soon have a contrast between him and Barack Obama, who was honest (if secretive) instead of dishonest and flamboyant as Donald Trump is, and by 2020 we Americans will want a President who promises the integrity and competence of Barack Obama. The problem with Donald Trump isn't his economic or social agenda; a new Administration with a co-operative Congress can undo the administrative and legislative damage. The problem is with an insane foreign policy and a willingness to short-circuit the checks and balances of our political heritage.