The Barbarians Among Us
When I see the hooligans and brutes trashing city streets and college campuses, I find myself wishing President Trump good luck with his reasonable plan to at least temporarily put a stop to people coming here from hot spots in the Middle East. But I know it’s already too late. The barbarians aren’t merely at the gate, they’re already inside and living next door to us. In some pathetic cases, in our basements.
When I see the hooligans and brutes trashing city streets and college campuses, I find myself wishing President Trump good luck with his reasonable plan to at least temporarily put a stop to people coming here from hot spots in the Middle East. But I know it’s already too late. The barbarians aren’t merely at the gate, they’re already inside and living next door to us. In some pathetic cases, in our basements.
They’re the young fools in college who would invalidate the First Amendment if they could, lest somebody say something that offends them, which includes everything that questions their left-wing dogma. They’re the wealthy female fascists in NOW, who equate being Pro-Life with being a Nazi. They’re the white wine spritzer crowd in Marin County and Beverly Hills, who pretend to devote every waking hour to fretting over what everyone else is doing to Mother Earth while they, themselves, motor about in limos and gas-guzzling SUVs, and flit around in private jets.
What the so-called mainstream media has intentionally chosen to ignore is that in the wake of the truly abominable decision by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, not a single riot was staged by conservative Americans. Not a single window was busted, not a single car was set ablaze, not a single police officer was attacked.
Can you imagine that would have been the case if for once in its farcical history the 9th Circuit had used the Constitution as its North Star, instead of basing its decision on the editorial page of the San Francisco Chronicle?
Can you picture those on George Soros’s payroll staying home and merely grumbling if the 9th Circuit had over-ruled the immigration activist judge in Seattle, James Robart, who decided it was well within his pay scale to over-rule the President on matters of national security? No, neither can I.
I make no claim to being a legal scholar, but how is it that the 29 judges on the 9th Circuit are reversed over 85% of the time by the Supreme Court and yet continue to draw big fat paychecks? It occurs to me that these doofuses must think “constitutional” merely refers to that outing they take their dogs on once or twice a day.
Although I occasionally hear from veterans who are perfectly happy with the medical attention they receive at their local V.A., I think, based on news reports and comments from other vets, it’s way past time to shut down the department and allow our warriors to see the doctors of their choosing. It would cut down on the bloated federal bureaucracy, save money and save lives.
The annual budget for the department is $152.7 billion. A tidy sum, considering there are only 18 million veterans in the entire country.
Perhaps when House Speaker Paul Ryan and his fellow Republicans get around to repealing and replacing the Affordable Care Act, they can take care of this problem at the same time.
There has always been a bit of confusion when it comes to discerning the difference between socialism and communism. If I were a college professor, I could probably devote several semesters to highlighting the differences. But in the hope of saving time, I think the easiest way to define them is to say that socialists believe that those who have should provide for those who have not. For their part, communists, being realists, understand that normal people only wish to share what they have with family and a few friends, and must be compelled at gunpoint to hand over the fruits of their labor to the government, leaving it to those in charge to dole out how much they like and to whom.
The fact is that even after such relatively recent examples of the way that communists distort the Golden Rule in the Soviet Union, Red China, North Korea, Cambodia, Cuba and Venezuela, there are some who continue to trumpet the virtues of communism. I’m afraid it merely goes to confirm that some people have their heads so far up their backsides they have to fart through their noses.
For those too young to remember, back in the late 30s and early 40s, there was a sizable group of Americans who fought to keep the U.S. out of World War II, even as Germany was steamrolling over most of Europe. They only changed their tune when Hitler double-crossed Stalin, trashing their mutual non-aggression pact by attacking the Soviet Union.
It was on that occasion that the pinheaded playwright, Lillian Hellman, rushed into a New York cocktail party full of communists and fellow-travelers to announce breathlessly: “We’ve been invaded.”
It has been suggested that in 2020, uberliberals Sen. Al Franken and 2016 presidential candidate Jill Stein join forces and run as FrankenStein. Not only would it be every bit as appealing a twosome as the far likelier ticket of Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, but the moniker would make it far more memorable and even more appropriate.
Some people just can’t get over the fact that Donald Trump is addicted to tweeting. There are even some Republicans who regard it as un-presidential. I’m afraid that ship sailed a long time ago.
As I recall, the public display of un-presidential behavior began back in the late 60s when, in a misguided attempt to come off as a regular guy, Richard Nixon went on “Laugh In” and delivered its inane signature line: “Sock it to me!”
Even before that, the media, already in the tank for the Democrats, kept it their little secret that Jack Kennedy, on his frequent visits to his brother-in-law, Peter Lawford’s, house, in Santa Monica, was rutting his way through half of Hollywood’s chippies. I suppose that might be regarded as presidential behavior if your yardstick happened to be Fidel Castro, Saddam Hussein or Vladimir Putin.
During the intervening years, we have witnessed Bill Clinton going on TV to blow a few toots on his saxophone and to share with the world what, previously, had only been known to the likes of Juanita Broaddrick, Kathleen Willey, Paula Jones, Monica Lewinsky and Gennifer Flowers – namely whether he wears jockeys or boxers.
Of course, by now, I’m sure most of the soccer moms in Chappaqua, New York, are well-aware of his preference in briefs.
Barack Obama showed what an ordinary Joe he was by conducting an interview with a black woman whose previous claim to fame was that she’d been the biggest flake in a bathtub filled with milk and breakfast cereal.
Frankly, given the choice, I’ll take a president who tweets.
Every so often, I hear syndicated radio talk show host Michael Medved take people to task for splurging a dollar or two-a-week on lottery tickets. Clearly, Medved makes a very handsome living with his radio show and his best-selling books. And, so, he feels quite comfortable telling others they should save those dollars and invest them. What’s more, the man is deadly serious, as I discovered when I had an email exchange with the fuddy-duddy a while back.
Invest those few dollars in what, I’d like to know, that would make the slightest bit of difference in anyone’s life? If he were promoting my subscriptions, I might cut him some slack. But how dare he deny poor people at least the outside hope of winning a million dollars!
In my own past, when I was gray-listed in the 1990s and couldn’t get a TV writing gig or even land an agent, I recall how much having even a twenty million-to-one shot of getting my head above the financial waters lapping at my chin meant to me. There are times, I can assure you, when hope can be more nourishing than a steak dinner.
The memory was brought back when I read a joke someone sent me:
Woman: Do you drink beer? Man: Yes.
Woman: How many beers a day? Man: Usually about three.
Woman: How much do you pay per beer? Man: Five dollars.
Woman: How long have you been drinking? Man: About 20 years.
Woman: So, a beer costs five dollars and you have three a day. That adds up to $450-a-month or $5,400-a-year. Over 20 years, not accounting for inflation, that means you’ve spent $108,000. Correct? Man: Correct.
Woman: Don’t you realize that if you didn’t drink beer, that money could have been placed in a step-up interest savings account, and with compound interest for 20 years, you could have bought an airplane? Man: Do you drink beer?
Woman: No. Man: So, where’s your airplane?
For the record, Michael Medved doesn’t have one, either.
