Boy, this really IS a good morning!
(The warm-up may rely a bit more on links and quotes than usual…as Bob Cratchit tells Scrooge, “I was making rather merry yesterday.”)
1. Breaking News: Jimmy Carter is right! Former President Jimmy Carter, now 94, has injected himself into the Georgia governor’s race by asking Republican candidate Brian Kemp to resign as secretary of state. Carter’s argument is that there is an appearance of impropriety in his being officially responsible for an election in which he is a candidate, and that his resignation is essential to preserve public confidence in the outcome of Kemp’s race against Democrat Stacey Abrams. Carter’s made the request in an Oct. 22 letter .
“One of the key requirements for a fair and trusted process is that there be a nonbiased supervision of the electoral process,” Carter wrote, explaining that stepping aside “would be a sign that you recognize the importance of this key democratic principle and want to ensure the confidence of our citizens in the outcome.”
When he’s right, he’s right. Kemp should resign, and his lamer than lame rationalization for not doing so, that it isn’t really he who supervises the election but his staff, would be sufficient reason not to vote for him in the gubernatorial election.
2. Ethics Dunce: Red Sox owner John Henry. You would think the progressive owner of the Boston Globe could restrain himself from blatant virtue-signaling while his team was celebrating its historic season and World Series victory, but no. Henry saluted his team for being “diverse” in his post-game remarks. Nobody sane cares how diverse, whatever that means (Where were the women, John? Where were the Asians? The differently-abled? Muslims? LGBT representatives?), a pro sports team is as long as it wins, and if it doesn’t win, its check-offs on an EEOC form won’t make it any better or its losing more palatable. The 2018 Red Sox were assembled according to the skills and talents of its personnel, with race and ethnicity a non-factor. What mattered is that the team’s manager (he’s Puerto Rican, and I don’t care) proved himself a natural leader who created a selfless, courageous, professional culture on his team, none of whom mentioned race, religion or creed all season, and properly so.
The compulsion to spurt progressive cant at every opportunity is pathological.
3. Speaking of pathological: from the “Have they no decency?” files…The effort by pundits and democrats to try to blame President Trump for the synagogue shooting is so transparently unfair and election-driven that it’s hard to believe it won’t backfire. The Trump Administration has been ostentatiously pro-Israel, and the crazed shooter’s online rants were anti-Trump. David Harsanyi (in part):
It was ironic to see many of the same liberals…who had long rationalized, romanticized, and excused the Jew-killing terror organization of the Middle East were now blaming the existence of the evil, anti-Semitic Pittsburgh shooter on Republicans. The same Pod bros whose echo chamber deployed anti-Semitic dual-loyalty tropes to smear critics of the Iran deal were now incredibly concerned about the Jewish community….For those who confuse progressivism with Judaism — which is to say many — it might be difficult to understand that undermining the Democratic Party isn’t an act of anti-Semitism. The Trump administration, in fact, has been the most pro-Jewish in memory.
Every Jew who’s ever prayed understands the importance of Jerusalem in our faith, culture, and history. It was President Trump, not any of the other presidents who promised the same, who recognized Jerusalem as the undisputed Jewish capital, putting an end to the fiction that it’s a shared city. It was Trump who withdrew from the Iran deal and once again isolated the single most dangerous threat to Jewish lives in the world, the Holocaust-denying theocrats of the Islamic Republic.
It was Trump who cut more than $200 million in aid to a Palestinian government that was not only inciting terrorists… but also rewarded the killers’ families. It was his administration that kicked the Palestine Liberation Organization, the most successful Jewish-civilian murdering organization of the past 60 years, out of DC. It was the Trump administration that cut funding to the anti-Semitic U.N. Relief and Works Agency. It was also the Trump administration that turned around the unique Obama-era legacy of standing against Israel at the United Nations. And it is his administration that cracked down on anti-Semitism on college campuses and that deported one of the last real-life Nazis.
…If you think Trump should bring down the temperature, you have a point. If you think Trump should turn down the temperature but you fail to mention that a progressive yelling about “health care” tried to assassinate the entire GOP leadership on a baseball field, you don’t really care about the temperature. If you fail to mention that Democrats have been accusing Republicans of wanting to the kill the poor and young, of trying to destroy the planet, of being “terrorists” after every school shooting, you don’t care about the temperature. If you rationalize mob behavior every time you don’t get your way in the electoral process, you don’t care about the temperature. And if your first instinct is to play politics with tragedy for partisan gain, you are part of the problem.
Yup.
4. Here’s Andrew Sullivan on “the caravan,” also known as “the mob of non-Americans determined to force themselves into our country illegally”:
What do we do when the caravan gets here? And more saliently: What do we do if many more caravans show up behind it? This is not an abstract question. It’s a pressing, practical, and in some ways existential one. It cuts to the core of whether the United States has to choose between being inhumane to the point of betraying some core moral principles and remaining a sovereign nation in control of who joins its population. . . .Without this issue, Donald Trump would not be president. As we can see right now in front of our eyes, elections can turn on this. Which is why Trump is hyping this caravan story to the heavens — and why, perhaps, the last few weeks have seemed less promising for a “blue wave.” David Frum is right: “If liberals insist that only fascists will defend borders, then voters will hire fascists to do the job liberals will not do.” And unless the Democrats get a grip on this question, and win back the trust of the voters on it, their chance of regaining the presidency is minimal….
Andrew betrays his biases by using “hyping.” The President correctly points to the “caravan” because irresponsible progressive rhetoric extolling illegal immigrants are the reason for the caravan, and the issue crystallizes all the reasons not to trust the Democratic Party and its leadership. It is not hyping to point to the inevitable and disastrous consequences of a political party rejecting sovereignty, the interests of citizens and the rule of law in order to achieve power. Indeed, the issue can’t be hyped, because it as important an issue as there is or can be.
5. More on ethical choices by self-driving cars. I wrote about “the trolley problem” a while back, and nothing has changed. However, there has been another outbreak of analysis and study of the problem, as with this Scientific American article.
My take: ethical analysis is not assisted by online polls.
6. What do you mean “work”? This headline proved to be misleading: “Codes of ethics probably don’t work.”
They often don’t “work,” in fact, because all they can do is lay out a profession’s values: if an individual doesn’t comprehend ethics or ethical decision-making, a Code, which by definition can only be starting point for analysis, has as much value to that individual as a book of calculus to an Irish Setter. Codes exist to make the ethics alarms go off, but there have to be ethics alarms to ring. The article is only about engineers, however. Of course codes don’t work for engineers: they are trained in a specific and rigid form of coldly logical, results-based problem-solving and analysis. The answer is the answer. Values are static.
Ethics Alarms 
#6. Jack wrote, “…they are trained in a specific and rigid form of coldly logical, results-based problem-solving and analysis. The answer is the answer. Values are static.”
I resemble that in many ways.
I wondered about that, too. Jack is correct: When engineers stray from the cold, logical analysis, things go wrong, and often spectacularly. This was witnessed by the explosion of the Challenger over the Florida coastline. O-rings failed in the cooling temperatures, resulting in a catastrophic loss of life.
jvb
You mean when engineers’ cold logical analysis is overruled by a politically motivated bureaucrat. That also happened with Columbia. In both cases, the problem was deemed ‘inconvenient’ and the bureaucrat ordered everyone to carry on as if the problem didn’t exist. Hmmm…kinda sounds like Detroit, and Chicago, and California…
Yes. Precisely. Thanks for clarifying.
jvb
#1 Couldn’t Kemp take a formal leave of absence from the position and literally have nothing to do with it for the duration of the election process?
At very least.
Agreed. But like they say its a job interview. Recusal or leave of absence eliminates the issue and he should resign only if he wins and has time remaining in his term.
All government employees should take leave when standing for election whether or not the position they want to be elected for is related to the job they are currently doing.
#3. It doesn’t matter if the blame is appropriately or inappropriately placed in Trumps lap, the emotional anti-Trump response they are trying to generate as a result of the tragedy will linger in the psyche of voters regardless of truth. That’s how emotional based psychological propaganda works.
Will it backfire – maybe, maybe not.
#4 The closer the caravan(s) get to the United States border the more emotional the arguments from the political left will become. Progressives don’t give a flying f**k about our immigration laws, as long as they can smear Trump and the political right their just fine with trashing the rule of law.
The Houston branch of ABC news sent Art Rascón to México to report on the caravan’s progress. It is an interesting mixture of reporting facts and emotion. Here is his latest installment:
https://abc13.com/politics/migrant-caravan-halfway-through-journey-to-us/4574407/
I find it interesting the Mexico’s out-going (meaning, he’s leaving office) offered the Caravaners refugee status, work visas, housing, asylum status, and a whole host of other things. The offers were soundly and roundly rejected. They want to come to the US. But, I thought we were anti-immigrant, racist, xenophobes. Huh. Whoddathunk?
jvb
johnburger2013 wrote, “I find it interesting the Mexico’s out-going (meaning, he’s leaving office) offered the Caravaners refugee status, work visas, housing, asylum status, and a whole host of other things. The offers were soundly and roundly rejected.”
If that’s true then any migrant in the caravan that approaches the United States border claiming some kind of refugee status or asylum should be immediately rejected and told they were already offered that by Mexico.
I totally agree. Refugee/asylum status essentially says that you have nowhere else to go and your home country won’t protect you. But, Mexico has offered safe harbor. In the immortal words of Mike (my sardonic next door neighbor: “Take gun. Point at foot. Pull trigger. Have a nice day.”
jvb
Mexico enforces their agreements and laws. The MS-13 thugs and ISIS members know they can melt into the population in the US, avoiding all process and law.
Where would you want to go?
“The compulsion to spurt progressive cant at every opportunity is pathological.” Is it pathological, or is it programming? The NPC meme strikes again.
Had to laugh. I guess a baseball team is supposed to “look like America.” So, no more than 13 percent African American, minimal Hispanic. So where are all the missing white guys, Mr. Henry? Shouldn’t the team be over sixty percent white?
Actual count (40 man roster plus injury list):
29 white
1 Asian
6 blacks
8 Hispanic
How do we count black Hispanics? Dutch black guys? South Florida Cuban HIspanics who don’t really care much for the Castro brothers and probably vote Republican?
Also, starting defensive lineup is predominantly Afro-American and Afro-Caribbean and Hispanic.
Best answer: don’t count them at all. They are baseball players.
Let’s have Rogers Hornsby hired as chief diversity officer for MLB: “When you’re a ballplayer, there ain’t much to bein’ a ballplayer.” Perhaps my favorite quote of all time.
Reminds me of some ‘fifties professional touring golfer (Doug Sanders?) saying, when asked if golfers were athletes, “I’m not an athlete, I’m a golfer!”
Some unsavory thoughts by the resident Free Thinker . . . 🙂
No. 3:
Oh boy. What language! This language itself is skewed. And America’s (pardon the reference to *America is if it were a person*) is very problematic. And in the end the moral quandary, and the moral errors, will backfire. And in Jewish history this has always been disastrous for Jews. One must remember that *history has not ended*.
The undeniable and unavoidable truth about the Jewish return to Palestine (sorry to use the old name but …) conceals a rather outstanding crime. Crimes. unfortunately, have the tendency to fester under the surface of appearances and, at one moment of other, must be reckoned with. One might think of it as ‘karma’ which comes from without, or a kind of inner putrescence that wells up from inside. You could call it ‘social sickness’ or ‘the sins of the fathers visited upon the sons’.
The return to Israel involved a land-robbery and a harm done to those who lived and live in that land. Israel, like it or not, is an occupier, and carrying out its occupation has involved it in crimes harms-done that will not go away because someone hopes they will. That is the problem.
America’s collusion in creating a monster-state — I only mean to say a hyper-militarized state — will backfire on America. It seems a glorious identification, doesn’t it? to ally oneself within a Biblical Narrative of the noble return to Judea of the abused Jews of Europe. But Jewish history, and Jewish identity, is constructed around Exile. And from a religious point-of-view the Exile itself was brought upon the Jews by God. I mean, if you believe that sort of thing.
If you believe in God — and you believe in the stories and narratives that are part of that system of belief — the Jewish Return in the 20th century has to be (at least) questioned. It was achieved, overall, by atheists and against the better judgment of religious Jews. Still today, most of the Orthodox cannot recognize Israel as ‘legitimate’. And so, in this phase of history, Israel (I mean the *people of Israel*) have entered into a dangerous phase, and not the cove of safety that was imagined.
Israel is hated in the region for very good and also logical reasons. It represents, and it clearly is, a neo-colonial outpost, a military intrusion essentially, into the lands of Middle Eastern peoples. And what? you expect Israelis to be loved?
This is all part of an elaborate and a complex game of appearances: to play the Biblical role of the returning Jew, truly devastated by the unfortunate European events, but a game that conceals some of the most outrageous and really brutal terrorizing of the residents of Palestine and, by extension — as Israel pursues its real agenda — a complete remodel of the Middle East. And unfortunately for America, America has become and allowed itself to be Israel’s tool. If you understand anything about Jewish history, you will understand that there has never, not ever, occurred an historical situation similar to what has been attained by Jews in America. Jerusalem may be the spiritual capital, and may now become the political capital, but it is America that has become the axis of a New Jewish power in the world.
These are just facts. No particular judgment is applied to them.
Confused people, confused America, cannot work its way through such complex political and moral issues. And in this situation one ends up duping oneself. One fails to get to the core of the ethical or moral issue and relies instead on concocted stories. These are in their way *political phantasies* yet they are phantasies with consequences.
The festering situation will continue to fester, though in a given moment there will appear to be some *progress*, but it stands to reason — and it is intuitively obvious — that there is more yet to come.
This is true, completley and 100% true! and one aspect of that *faith* is the understanding of the tragic dimension for Jews of having that faith. The obedient vs the disobedient is what it comes down to in the Biblical narratives. In essence being a Jew.
That is one aspect. The other aspect is everything that revolves around the religious notion of Exile. It was not man that brought it about, it was (according to faith and prayer and the tenets of the religious understanding) punishment by the transcendental God. Therefor, one means to escape the punishment is to deny that there is a God who metes out punishment. You see how this works?
Thus, if you abandon the *faith* and make your return against, shall we say, the ‘will of God’, you have effectively denied the God that meted out your history. That history is invalidated. Turned into a sort of mistake of perception which was corrected by the Herzlian (Theodor Herzl is considered the founder of the Modern Zionist movement) will. And around that expression of will there is only military and economic power and rather brute force.
It propels the Jew (Israel, the people of Israel) into a very dangerous spiral. To achieve power, to achieve a nation, to gain a footing in an unstable world (that never had any positive feelings about Jews and nearly zero friends). It propels Judea into open grabbing for power and the use of *any means necessary* to achieve it.
And — though I am sure this is a shocking statement for many, yet it is true: as true as rain — America is the main tool of this strange and questionable historic adventure.
This problem is a compound of problems. A group of problems that function together in ever-increasing problematicalness (sorry for the bizarre neologism). But this is par-for-the-course in our present. Knots and ‘trainwrecks’ of problems stacked on other constellations of problems.
“But Jewish history, and Jewish identity, is constructed around Exile. And from a religious point-of-view the Exile itself was brought upon the Jews by God. I mean, if you believe that sort of thing.
If you believe in God — and you believe in the stories and narratives that are part of that system of belief — the Jewish Return in the 20th century has to be (at least) questioned. It was achieved, overall, by atheists and against the better judgment of religious Jews. ”
And, per the Narrative, the Exile was brought about by God using pagan countries and their armies. Could the Narrative not also read that God used pagan countries to bring about the Return? That is, if you believe in that sort of thing?
I suppose that it could. But I tend to think that if one really stayed within the *story* or the myth itself, one would conclude that the means by which this came about, and the conditions under which it occurred, and the present tendencies brought about by this event, point in a different direction. I certainly agree that American evangelicals and some Catholics follow the sense that you have indicated, and certainly some Israelis. But far from all.
The return to Israel involved a land-robbery and a harm done to those who lived and live in that land. Israel, like it or not, is an occupier, and carrying out its occupation has involved it in crimes harms-done that will not go away because someone hopes they will. That is the problem.
Ahistoric and anti-semitic nonsense. No doubt, the residents of Palestine were used by the world to pay a debt to the Jews, but the debt was real, and the Palestinians have had multiple opportunities to resolve the situation with maximum benefits and minimal conflict for both sides. The decision to reject an imperfect solution in favor of non-stop violence and a permanently warped culture was beyond stupid, and at this point, probably irreversible. But that was a choice. Ethics requires being realistic.
It may be wrong, or misinformed, but it is not in-and-of-itself antisemitic. It is a view held by many Israelis and also many Jews. For just one example, Miko Peled:
[ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1DNRIa3aEc ]
Many others have commented on the bulk of your other assertions. And by ‘others’ I could refer only to Jews and Israelis.
My point is not to open and get into the details of such conversations (they largely become completely impossible) but to express my general sense about many different things: that the truth about things seems to me shrouded in layers upon layers of lies, deceptions and partial truths.
I feel that I am dismantling lies but I do not achieve comfort by doing so.
It’s wrong. And willfully wrong, almost like denying the Holocaust, because the history is hardly ambiguous or obscure. Then you can explain to me how making rationalizations for a culture that is pledged to wipe Israel and its populace off the face of the Earth isn’t anti-Semitic. “We want you all dead, but it’s not personal”?
I used to have what I think is your view. I no longer have that view. The view I have is more similar to that one expressed by Miko Peled (and many others). If they are wilfully wrong, then I must be wilfully wrong along with them. I am not sure what more could be said on that point.
The course of action chosen and the establishment of the State of Israel under those conditions (political Zionism) — if you really want to know the inner dimension of my own sense or intuition — has itself brought about the conditions of conflict that plague Israel. That is my view. It might have been handled differently, it could have been handled differently. But it wasn’t. And one thing follows another . . .
History is long, and very strange, and I am not myself sure that the present course of the State of Israel will result in the safety and happiness it seeks. I think that what I say (what I see) is actually reasonable. But it is also disconcerting I suppose.
Yup, they are also wrong.
It is important to respond to what you just said. With respect of course.
One has to start with a preamble of sorts: right now, in our world, there are idea-wars going on that deal with who gets to see to define to say and have access to a the audience. Who gets to *frame* what is seen and how it is seen and what it means. This is an issue of power.
Those people I mentioned are not *wrong*. They work and perceive with different sets of criteria. They also approach moral questions and ethical issues from differing perspectives.
I have no problem at all that you believe that they are wrong. And I have no doubt you can mount a defense of your ideas and views. But you cannot make an absolute statement about who is wrong, nor of course who is right.
You do often recognize ‘ethical train-wrecks’ and I have come to understand that as situations of such compounded error, and with so many levels of wrong, and such confusion, that perhaps they will never get solved.
But the larger question here is not that you and I will agree on this specific point, but more in my view that we can all pay attention to how POWER is now just beginning to rev up very sophisticated engines, and to engage more intensively in the declared *idea-war*. I notice this now — immediately — in the tone of the NY Time’s articles and editorials.
It is time to ‘nip things in the bud’ as they have recently said.
They think that the various *platforms* where ideas are expressed are failing in their purpose because they are out of (their) control, and now they will begin to really go to work to shut down communication of ideas that they don’t like.
They declare that they hold the truth, and they know who is right and who is wrong.
My view is that everything is going to come out into the open in very stark and raw terms.
Yours truly,
Cassandra 🙂
It is no more inhumane for the United States to keeo the caravan out of its land, than it is for a girl to keep a boy’s penis out of her vagina.
May I quote you. Great quote.
Indeed.
The incel movement is criticized for being based on male entitlement to women’s bodies.
While one has the power to control ones borders it is clearly rational to do so. But is this anything to do with ‘ethics’ – the world of fundamental ‘rights’ and ‘wrongs’? It is certainly convenient, and I will vigorously assert my ‘right’ to my land and my country, while I have the power to do so. But it seems to me hypocritical and unnecessary to argue that the caravan folk and their supporters are being ‘unethical’. This is purely about power.
If they think they have the right to just enter the country without consent, they are as ethical as Elliot Rodger.
My ancestors did quite a lot of ‘entering other countries without getting permission’ ’ and it generally worked out quite well for them. (I’m originally English.)
Quiz: Identify the logical fallacies and rationalizations in that argument.
“My ancestors did quite a lot of ‘entering other countries without getting permission’ ’ and it generally worked out quite well for them. (I’m originally English.)”
The situations you refer to are acts of war, and as such are outside the practice of ethics. But your assertion leads to two interpretations of your statement.
First, an invasion without being war is unethical, as it breaks the laws of the country being invaded. Thus unethical on its face. Therefore the caravan is unethical.
Second, if this invasion IS an act of war, then we are justified resisting it using all means necessary. Is that what you meant to say?
Where to start? The great advantage of ‘ethics’ is you can make it up as you go along. Your ethics, my ethics and Jack’s ethics don’t have to be the same and there is no ultimate undisputed text. But I still hold it is worthwhile to have some consistent framework for thinking, for deciding what to do and who to vote for.
You draw a line and say acts of war are ‘outside the practice of ethics’. Well they aren’t for my ethics. Being unnecessarily cruel in war for instance feels unambiguously unethical. Seeking to minimise civilian casualties in war feels ethically positive.
You draw a parallel between ‘law’ and ‘ethics’ in saying ‘an invasion without being war is ‘unethical as it breaks the laws ….’. Well I don’t hold that there is such a fixed tie between ‘law’ and ‘ethics’. Most of the time breaking the law is unethical, but in my view ethics exists above law as some ‘ultimate framework of right and wrong’. There is a lot of activity which is clearly not illegal, but in my view is certainly unethical. Some illegal activity could conceivably be argued as ‘ethical’.
No, for a number of reasons I can’t see the ‘caravan’ as being ‘unethical’, at least not yet. At the least significant level the caravanners haven’t done anything wrong. Applying for asylum can’t be illegal and it is hard to see how the act of travelling with the intention of applying could be ‘unethical’.
But moving on in your note you say ‘if this invasion is an act of war we are justified in resisting it …’. I don’t have any problem in you ‘resisting (invasion) with all means necessary’. But I don’t see here any framework of ethics as being useful. As I said previously, this is all about power. You are more than justified in using force to defend your borders simply because you can. More difficult however, I ponder whether the caravanners would be ethically justified in storming the border if they could? This of course is quite hypothetical (given they can’t).
My ancestors ( and yours I guess) stormed a lot of borders all over the world, largely because they could. The history of the world would be very different if they hadn’t. ( I am currently in China and the Opium Wars are top of mind.)
There are established, verified, workable systems of ethics that have proven their value as guidelines for human conduct over thousands of years (and others posited that simply don’t work.) It’s a discipline, not a matter of taste, and you can’t “make it up as you go along.”
You are not practicing ethics: you are emoting about what feels right to you personally. This is the opposite of ethics.
Jack has covered most of the rationalizations you just wrote: the one that sticks in my craw is where you suggest that breaking laws is ethical. Change the law if it is unethical, but choosing what laws to follow destroys ‘equal protection under the law’ and undermines justice. These are core American values upon which our society was built.
You really are suggesting that we destroy our society.
Did not Rosa Parks choose which laws to follow?
Civil disobedience. Different topic.
Oh …. Slickwilly … please unstick your craw. I only said that ‘some illegal activity could conceivably be argued as ethical’. If your craw is still stuck I suggest thinking about conscientious objectors. I haven’t been one but I certainly wouldn’t condemn all such action as necessarly ‘unethical’. Would you?
I follow Jack / ethicsalarms for a ‘moral philosophy’ pitch on ‘ethics’ not for instruction on US civics. Encouragement to think and to interact re issues of ‘right and wrong’ is vital for civilised life. There should be more of it.
And I am honestly dumbstruck you could interpret me as “suggesting that we (Americans) destroy our society”!!
Your ethics, mine and Jack’s are all different and that is ok. It would be truly silly to claim to be the sole repository of ‘truth’.
Your reference to ‘core American values’ reveals much of your focus – and that is fine. I am Australian and British so you may want to ignore me as irrelevant, and that is ok too. The foundations of moral philosophy of course predate the establishment of the US by well over a thousand years. That may or may not interest you.
I am honestly curious about how you think about ‘the caravan” and much else. ‘Core American values’ must surely include Thomas Jefferson’s wonderfully inspiring words : “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.“. I don’t hear him excluding ‘caravanners’.
I am very much committed to the strong control of our borders in my homeland Australia. We have to face considerable moral dilemmas as to our stance on refugees and asylum seekers who arrive by boat, including regular condemnation by the UN refugee agencies and others. I have no comfort to offer. We stop them settling here because we can. It would however be wrong and unnecessarily cruel to condemn them (who can’t) as ‘unethical’. It would also be incredible for most of us Australians to claim any great moral authority for our residence, given we or our very recent ancestors have been here for such a short time. We, or our ancestors, came because we could. Personally I am very glad we did.
(As you may know in Australia we send uninvited boat arrivals to offshore processing centres like Nauru, regularly reported by the leftish press as ‘hell holes’ We do however have a very large stream of regulated immigrants.)
You are entitled to you opinions, of course. Just don’t confuse them with ethics. If each person determines their ethics, there are no ethics.
Have a great day down under!
#1. The extremely thick propaganda rhetoric from the political left surrounding the Georgia gubernatorial election is being setup so that if Abrams doesn’t win the election the political left in Georgia and the media will explode. I have friends in Georgia on both sides of the political spectrum and it is quite obvious to me that the political left is priming their supporters with propaganda. The supporters of the political left in Georgia have blindly swallowed all the lefts’ propaganda and they have swallowed it whole, the construction of a mob is underway and mob mentality will rule. I’m reading/hearing things coming from the mouths of previously laid-back Liberal/Progressive friends in Georgia that I didn’t think was possible. I think the political left is deliberately using the Georgia gubernatorial election as a litmus test to test the waters and see how the political left and the public at large is going to react to their propaganda rhetoric building up to the 2020 Presidential election.
Everyone should keep a very close eye on what happens in the political left after the Georgia gubernatorial election is over regardless of who wins. Win or lose, the political left in Georgia is highly motivated to action the only question is how is the political left going to use that motivation.
My Liberal/Progressives friends in Georgia started to get unhinged about 10:00pm CST last night. Accusations of voter suppression, conspiracy to suppress the Democratic votes in general, and specifically claiming racist voter suppression, I’ve even heard one already say that Kemp’s win is not legitimate and calling for a federal investigation into vote tampering.
I have an idea: let’s investigate ALL states for vote tampering.
Seems to me Democrats would not want such an investigation…
Oh my, it get’s worse as the hours pass! My Georgia Liberal/Progressives friends are off their rocker, how dare I challenge your statements with facts. I know your statements were intended for the eyes and ears of your echo chamber but there is a great big world out there and not all of it agrees with you. The personal ad hominem attacks have begin.
I predict that I’m likely going to lose a couple of Facebook friends that I’ve known since the mid 1960’s just because I presented a fact or two that directly contradict their false statements and unsupportable accusations.
Watch Georgia folks.
Didn’t Atlanta burn once already?
One Georgia friend unfriended me so far. He went out of his way to go out with a loud rhetorical personally insulting “bang” and one of our common friends in neighboring Tennessee also didn’t like actual facts and proceeded to unfriended and block me. Two friends for over 50 years, once lost friends for a period of time, found again, shared fond memories of our shared youth, made many happy new memories, and now gone again in the blink of an eye all because a couple of actual facts got their intellectual “I can’t be wrong” ire up. It’s sad to loose friends over this kind of thing but I’ve made my choice to be done with their utter nonsense.
Yes, the United States political left has been permanently radicalized.
One of these days that fragile echo chamber contained by the political left’s ideologically-pure crystal ball of intellectual pompousness is going to shatter into a million pieces and their psyche is going to come crashing down with it. If that crash is followed by a stunning moment of self-awareness “I’m the bad guy? How did that happen?” I’ll be happy because it’ll mean that real change is forthcoming.
What will tomorrow bring?