What Makes America Exceptional
It occurs to me that when other countries talk about their greatest men, it helps expose how different our nation is from all the rest.
It occurs to me that when other countries talk about their greatest men, it helps expose how different our nation is from all the rest.
For instance, Germany will point to its composers and generals. Greece and China revere their philosophers; Spain, its sea-faring explorers; Russia, its writers and despots; France, its poets and chefs; Italy, its painters and Sophia Loren; Latin America, Xavier Cugat and Carmen Miranda; Canada, I suppose its hockey players.
But our greatest figures didn’t paint our nation’s greatest paintings or write out greatest books; instead, they devoted their genius to creating the nation itself.
As someone who has devoted many of his 77 years on earth to observing and commenting on the bizarre foibles of so-called progressives, I have to confess that they have often mystified me. But I may have stumbled on a clue.
Why is it, I have often asked myself, that the very same people who have sung the praises of Stalin, Mao, Castro, Che and Chavez, making iconic figures of butchers, have shown Donald Trump nothing but contempt? They call him a dictator who has no respect for the rule of law and human rights. But surely, they must recognize that description far better describes their heroes.
I know it sounds crazy, but I think the reason they despise Trump is because down deep they view him as a phony, a wannabe, a pretend dictator; all hat and no cattle, as they say in Texas. After all, he’s said some boorish things, but he hasn’t spilled a single drop of innocent blood.
If Trump ever hopes to win them over, I’m afraid he’s going to have to open a few concentration camps; establish half a dozen gulags in North Dakota, our own Siberia; and start assassinating his political foes.
Liberals, to their shame, can’t even be consistent when it comes to identity politics. Although they are always prepared to defend illegal aliens so long as they’re Hispanics and go to the mat on behalf of urban blacks, including the criminal class and generational welfare recipients, it’s a whole other matter when it comes to Asians. It doesn’t matter to them in the least that Asians, who have experienced exclusionary laws and even been imprisoned in FDR’s concentration camps, are discriminated against when it comes to enrollment at our most prestigious colleges, including Harvard and Cal Berkeley.
As they see it, it is justice that those least qualified scholastically to attend college should somehow be shoe-horned in, while those who rank at the top, academically, should be victimized for their superior scholarship.
Only a liberal could consider those facts, nod and say, “So, what’s the problem?”
Mea culpa: I recently referred to a take-off on the poster for the 1998 movie, “Saving Private Ryan,” that changed the casting from Tom Hanks, Matt Damon and Ted Sizemore to Caitlyn Jenner, Kristin Beck and Chelsea Manning. So far, so good. But then I went and said the new title was “Changing Ryan’s Parts,” thus stepping on the joke. It was supposed to be “Changing Ryan’s Privates.”
In the wake of the kerfuffle over whether transgenders should be allowed to serve in the Military, a statement has gone viral on the Internet. It has at times been attributed to Rep. Trey Gowdy. He is a very smart fellow, but I think it is more likely to have been shared by a certain Sgt. Robert Brown of the U.S. Army. But whoever it was, I feel, is entitled to have the last word on the matter.
“Nobody has a ‘right’ to serve in the military. Nobody. What makes anyone think the Military is an equal opportunity employer? Very far from it. The Military uses prejudice regularly and consistently to deny citizens from joining for being too old or too young, too fat or too skinny, too tall or too short.
"Citizens are denied for having flat feet or for missing fingers. Poor eyesight will disqualify you, as well as bad teeth. Malnourished? Drug addiction? Bad back? Criminal history? Low IQ? Anxiety? Phobias? Hearing loss? Hear voices in your head? Self-identify as a unicorn? Need a special ramp for your wheelchair? Can’t run the required course in the required time? Can’t do the required number of pushups? Not really a ‘morning person’ and refuse to get out of bed before noon?
"All can be reasons for denial. The Military has one job. Winning wars. Anything else is a distraction and a liability. Did someone just scream ‘That isn’t fair? War is very unfair, there are no exceptions for being special or challenged or socially wonderful.
"You change to meet Military standards. Not the other way around.”
I agree with everything Sgt. Brown said, except for the part about winning wars. We haven’t won one since 1945, unless you want to mention the historical Battle of Grenada.
The truth is, if there were suddenly a surge in transgender enlistments, it would only be due to the fact that Congress, full of individuals whose own gender is open to question, voted to subsidize sex-change operations for members of the Military.
Believe me, if the Military ever raised the age limit, I can assure you that millions of seniors in need of hip replacements and cataract surgery would rush to sign up.
Recently, while thinking about the changes that have taken place in society over the years, it occurred to me that in my own lifetime, I have seen medical care go from having doctors making house calls to a system where it is commonplace for sick people having a 10 a.m. appointment to still be sitting in the waiting room clutching a six-month old copy of Time magazine, wondering if veterans really do have it worse over at the V.A.
It wasn’t even all that long ago that when you drove into a service station, the attendant would not only pump your gas, but check your oil and tires, and wash your windows, all the while smiling and wishing you a good day.
But even when it comes to repairmen and technicians, the not too distant past seems like ancient times. Can you imagine if in the past, a plumber or some other service person said he’d show up either between 8 and noon or two and six, allowing himself a four-hour window, leaving you to stew in your own juice? He’d have been out of business in a week.
Speaking of out of business, I have come up with another plan to remove Kim Jong-un from the world. It calls for kidnapping Dennis Rodman and surgically planting a bomb inside his body and then hypnotizing him so that he has no memory of the event. Then the next time, his BBF invites him back to Pyongyang for some Korean style barbecue, someone at Langley flips a switch and the two freaks go boom.
Stephen Miller, a member of President Trump’s brain trust, earned himself a place in the Pantheon of conservatives for the tongue-lashing he gave CNN’s prima donna, James Acosta. Acosta, in case you missed it, had suggested during a press briefing that by placing a premium on English-speaking immigrants, Trump was trying to limit newcomers to those from Great Britain and Australia. Miller not only called him stupid, pointing out that people all over the world speak English, but held him up as a prime example of what he called “cosmopolitan bias.”
Even other members of the White House Press Corps must have slunk a little lower in their seats, realizing that they were equally guilty of class bias, equally guilty of dismissing those of us who voted for and continue to support Donald Trump as yahoos and deplorables.
Being in a philosophical mood the other day, I realized that when something bad occurs, we tend to think we wouldn’t have been, say, in a car accident if only we’d left five seconds earlier or later, or we’d have been the millionth person to enter a business and won a thousand-dollar prize if only we had walked a little slower or faster.
But, of course, we don’t sit around and dwell on all the calamities we must have avoided through the years by leaving exactly when we did or walked at our normal rate of speed.
I think the exceptions are those of us whose parents or grandparents left places like Russia in the 20s, Germany in the 30s, Cuba in the 60s and Iran in the 70s, thus keeping us out of the clutches of various demons and devils.
Because I’m only too aware of the fact that some of you only put up with me because I might be serving a joke for dessert, here is one from Sam Hiserman, the pride of Modesto, California.
A Jewish businessman decided to send his son to Israel to absorb some of its history and culture. But upon his son’s return, the youngster broke the news that he had converted to Christianity.
The man decided to share his heartbreak with his best friend, Jacob. But Jacob had his own problems. His son had also gone to Israel as part of a student tour, and he, too, had returned as a convert to Christianity.
They decided to take it up with their rabbi. But. Rabbi Mandelbaum could only commiserate. His own son had also converted in the Holy Land.
The three of them decided to take their question to God.
But when they did, a voice from on high said, “Funny you should mention it.”
