I have written here before that following baseball and baseball commentary as a child formed the foundation of my interest in ethics and ethical virtues. This was made possible by my idealistic, lawyer, war hero father guiding me through various thickets of confusion and toxic rationalizations, but I worked a lot of it out myself. Boston sportswriting was famously full of fools and blow-hards back then, but at least there was seldom any political opining on the sports pages. I assume that responsible editors forbade it, since the typical sportswriter possessed the sophistication of the average eleven-year old. Sports was seen, correctly, as an often abstract metaphor for real life, where one could learn useful lessons about human nature and problem solving, but one which would curdle quickly once it was confused with the more complex issues that lay outside the stadiums, parks, fields and arenas.
An important book could be written about how politics spoiled, and perhaps even ruined, sports, and the negative effect of this on the rest of American society. I don’t have the time for that, and it’s outside of my area of expertise anyway. However, it seems clear that the politicization and progressive brain-washing that has perverted so much else today has infected sports, perhaps fatally, and that whatever value the topic may have had in conveying cultural values to our young has evaporated in the steam of empty wokeness and ruthless propaganda.
This week provided additional damning evidence. Monday was epic, as the sports page propagandists prepared us for the brain-twisting logic of the baseball Hall of Fame voters determining that Curt Schilling’s support for the previous President of the United States made him a worse pitcher. One Times article demonstrated just how devoid of critical thinking skills sports writers are by quoting with approval a supposedly astute baseball writer’s’ suggestion that “making transphobic comments” is a “much better” reason to keep a player out of the Hall of Fame than his steroid use. Incredible! The latter is cheating on the field. The former is the expression of an opinion, and has nothing to do with baseball at all.
But that wasn’t the worst of what Monday’s sportswriting wisdom brought us. The new primary sports columnist of the New York Times, Kurt Streeter, reflecting on the end of the NFL season, issued a screed celebrating—wait for it—Colin Kaepernick.
“Kap was right” the head exploding thing begins. No, in fact Kap wasn’t right, and what he first and foremost wasn’t right about was the appropriateness of a worker using the workplace to make grandstanding political statements having nothing to do with his job, what he was paid for, or the product his business’s customers were paying for. Streeter doesn’t even address this, the threshold reason Kaepernick’s stunt was wrong without even considering its message, garbled as it was.
Nor does the sportswriter, who is black (I guessed!), bother to remind us of what Kaepernick, who is, to quote what I wrote when he first started kneeling, an idiot, said was the reason for his unethical protest. Here is how he explained it in 2016,
“I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color.To me, this is bigger than football and it would be selfish on my part to look the other way. There are bodies in the street and people getting paid leave and getting away with murder.”
So what was he “right” about, Kurt?
Lots of things are “bigger than football,” but that doesn’t mean they belong on the football field. “There are bodies on the street” is a meaningless statement, emotion without context. At the time, the statement referred to the Ferguson police leaving Mike Brown’s body where it fell in order to investigate the shooting, which unscrupulous activists (and ignoramuses like Kaepernick) criticized as proof of the police’s disrespect for black bodies. There are also many, many bodies on the street that have been put there by black criminals, and police work to protect black communities from them.
“People getting paid leave” was a reference to the belief of Kaepernick and others who don’t know anything about the law, due process or basic fairness (or, in many cases, pretend those things don’t “matter”) that police officers in shooting incidents involving blacks should be presumed guilty and racist. They should lose their jobs without any determination of the facts. “Getting away with murder” is in the same incompetent category: Kaepernick was referring to the deaths of Trayvon Martin, Mike Brown and Eric Garner, none of whom were “murdered.”
Most of all, the United States doesn’t “oppress” blacks and people of color. From Ethics Alarms in 2016:
Regarding the latter, the U.S. allows over 11 million illegal immigrants, mostly “of color,” remain in this country although they are here illegally. Spanish speaking people of color are not required to learn the language, as they should. The schools must accommodate their children, when they fail their parental responsibility of teaching them English, by providing translations of written material and oral instruction. The United States has distorted almost every aspect of society in long-standing, expensive, divisive and often futile efforts to undo the cultural disadvantages inflicted by slavery and institutionalized racism. 41.6 % of black Americans receive government assistance in an average month; 36.4 percent of Hispanics; 17.8 % of Asians or Pacific Islanders, contrasted with 13.2 % of whites. That’s not oppression. Affirmative action, whereby blacks receive college admission preferences over whites with similar or better test scores and academic credentials, is still allowed by the courts (though it should not be) and is still employed in a majority of colleges. That’s not oppression. The current Justice Department and other federal agencies have enacted policies, many of them of dubious value, that have been aimed at assisting African-Americans, such as prohibitions on renters seeking information about past criminal convictions. That’s not oppression either. Most important of all, U.S. culture emphatically rejects and punishes open expressions of racism, as well as a lot of speech and opinion that isn’t racist at all, but is punished anyway, just to be safe. That often constitutes oppression on behalf of people of color, and it is all-American.
Kaepernick, meanwhile, was then playing football under a 6 year, $114,000,000 contract including a $12,328,766 signing bonus, with $61,000,000 guaranteed, and an average annual salary of $19,000,000. He certainly wasn’t being oppressed, especially since at the time of his protest, he also wasn’t a very good quarterback. So, so oppressed.
As Dorian Majied, an Army Ranger veteran who served in Iraq, responded to Kaepernick’s gesture of ingratitude and ignorance at the time,
“To disrespect the country that has afforded him the opportunities and fortunes he acquired is only made more offensive by the fact that his life is the personification of the ideals I see in the American flag and National Anthem: a biracial child, raised by white parents, and who has accomplished much despite his “oppression.” In how many more nations around the world can a story like that come to fruition?…Kaepernick was wrong in his delivery and protested the wrong symbols of America. The American flag and National Anthem represent the highest of American ideals, not the lowest ideals.”
So again, what was Colin Kaepernick right about? What did he demonstrate that, according to Streeter, “carried the profound weight of truth”? Get this…
We’ve seen the rise of white supremacy. The stream of police shootings. The killing of George Floyd. Protests, the coronavirus pandemic and the deadly storming of the Capitol. Kaepernick’s critique of America foretold it all.
There had been no “rise in white supremacy”…what does that even mean? A woman “of color” was just elected Vice-President based only on the fact that she was a woman of color, and little else. There has been no “stream of police shootings.” Police shootings have declined since Kaepernick’s stunt, and were already declining in 2015. “The killing of George Floyd” is now a cliche, but it has yet to be determined that Floyd was killed, and there is no evidence that racism had anything to do with it if he was. The protests were created by the racist organization that Kaepernick supports, Black Lives Matter, and fueled by disinformation like his. The riot at the Capitol had nothing to do with race whatsoever. (Note that Streeter calls that “deadly,” but not the “mostly peaceful” BLM protests, which killed far more.)
And Kaepernick foretold the pandemic?
Not only was Kaepernick not “right” about anything, Streeter is wrong about everything, and the Times editors were irresponsible to allow his disgraceful column to be published on the sports pages, not just because of its misrepresentations, but because of its pathetic lack of competent and objective analysis.
It is decent anti-American, progressive, Black Lives Matter propaganda, though. As sports coverage deteriorates in that direction, what was once a positive and uniting force in our culture becomes a poisonous one.
Ethics Alarms 
We’re already there, Jack. At this point anti-American, anti-white, and anti-male politics has seeped into everything. If I can fine an unoccupied Island somewhere, you and all the other white guys who are sick of it are welcome to join me in the new nation of New Albia.
Why would white males vote Democratic, at this point?
Maybe because they’re young and woke. Maybe because they’re members of the liberal gentry that have always voted Democratic. Maybe because they’re in the cult of Big Tech who can partner with the Democratic party. Maybe because they’re gay and see a better future with the Democratic party, at least as long as they are useful to them. Maybe because they have domineering significant others who will kick them out or divorce them if they don’t vote Democratic. Maybe because they are old and their daughters or granddaughters are pestering them to vote Democratic like in that stupid video that may or may not be real. Maybe because they are sick of Trump and think Biden is a senile buffoon who won’t last and can’t do that much damage. Maybe because they are Never Trumpers. There are any number of reasons, none of them good, because in the end a white man, especially a white, straight, believing man, who votes Democratic in the US is no different than the Chileans who voted for Allende or the Cubans who figured Castro couldn’t be that bad or the Cambodians who thought that at least Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge would bring peace. The Chilean military rose up to stop the excesses of the Allende socialist regime, but the tyranny that followed was just as bad if not worse. The Cubans thought they’d be ok…until the kepi-wearing enforcers showed up and said Castro’s changed his mind and you work for us now. Cambodia got the worst of it, as 1/3 of the population was exterminated.
Make no mistake of it, if you are a white, straight, believing male, you are now Schrodinger’s Terrorist as far as the Democratic Party is concerned. For those who don’t remember or don’t know, Schrodinger’s Rapist is the idea that underpins the belief that every man could be a rapist, so a woman should trust none of them, like you wouldn’t take a piece of candy from a box in which one might be potentially lethal. At this point, every white, straight, believing man, especially if he says anything vaguely conservative, is a potential domestic terrorist or white supremacist, so it’s best if the government trusts none of them. Maybe it would be better if they could round them all up and send them to reeducation (concentration) camps, to be reeducated until they are no longer judged a threat. However, that’s a tall order, since it would mean going into all the rural areas, where many white men are armed, don’t trust the government, and are likely not to go quietly. It’s not that far of a leap from some of what’s going on now to white men being asked to come in for interviews and never returning and black SUVs manned by newly minted black and brown Federal agents eager for revenge on the white man pulling up to farmhouses in the pre-dawn darkness to take away the white men and older boys on trumped-up charges of weapons possession or sedition, and not caring much if some get killed “while resisting arrest.”
Maybe because the Republicans have nothing to offer them, maybe white Democratic voters are rationally self interested enough from a financial perspective that they can overlook the vitriol towards their race.
This is something I’ve said before: Republicans should be very nervous right now, because for the last 20 years, even when a Republican wins the presidency, they’ve done it with a minority mandate. The Republican party needs to find a way to actually convince people to vote for them, because if their entire plan for future success is to make it harder for Democrats to vote (which, come on guys, happens), eventually they just disappear.
The American Dream is dead. You can’t just work hard and succeed anymore; Think about the differences in experience between a person exiting high school in 1960 vs 2020: The cost of education is so disproportionate it’s staggering. The cost of real estate, particularly in urban centers where most of the jobs requiring an education is unattainable. Taxation is higher, earnings are (adjusted for inflation) level or lower.
We’re telling kids “get an education, it’s the largest determinant of success” (which is true), but then they’re leaving school with six figure debt loads. If they can find a job in their feild, they might be able to pay that off in 15 years. Maybe at some point during that journey they want to buy a house, because “paying a mortgage is cheaper than rent, and it builds equity” (which is true) but post-subprime mortgage crisis, they’ll need at least a 10% down on their $200,000ish starter home… So figure out where that $20,000 plus closing costs comes from. Then you mortgage the home for what? 30 years? I’ve heard of 40 year mortgages. They’re still going to be bailing debt at 60.
And that’s if everything goes *right*. If they get sick, if they fail, if their industry disappears in the constantly changing landscape, if there’s a fire, if there’s a flood, if there’s an autowreck, if interest rates go up, if a sub prime bubble pops, if a pandemic hits, it at least shifts everything back, if not completely derailing everything. Forbes said that something like 50% of America isn’t prepared for an expense of $500. We talked about it, and their metrics are probably off, but I bet you that an expense of $2000 would probably do it. And it’s not hard to envision what $2000 looks like.
We can have high minded discussions on why those things are the way they are, and how alternatives could be better or worse, but at it’s core, a crapshoot where even when you do everything right, you can still crash and burn just isn’t an appealing message.
Young people on the ground are lied to by both the Republicans and the Democrats: We’ve just gone through the lie of the American dream, which is the Republican lie. The Democrat lie is that socialism or taxing the bejesus out of the rich will make their lives better. The difference between the two is that the Republican lie is falsifiable: They’re living it and they know it’s a lie. Worse, they’ve got to see in real time their parents get blown out by disaster after disaster after disaster. The Democrat lie still gives them hope.
You don’t need a high minded discussion as to why things are the way they are. Most of the non-service industry and government jobs were shipped overseas, and the job markets for the remaining jobs are being flooded using unchecked immigration. Globalism is the root cause, and political elites of both parties love it because it makes graft easy. Globalism shifts all the wealth from the people who work to get a paycheck to the people who already have money sitting in the stock market. There are very few good paying jobs in the United States anymore, and the political class is working hard to eliminate those. Doctors, accountants, programmers, scientists, and engineers all can be imported in high enough volume to kill the wages. There are no factory jobs left because slave labor is cheap in China. Energy jobs have recently been eliminated with the stroke of a pen. Neither party cares.
Housing prices are skyrocketing because housing is not allowed to be built and open borders is swamping the housing markets.
All the rest of the nonsense is to distract people from reality and get them screaming about stupid shit no one actually cares about.
People vote for it because they are brainwashed into thinking it makes them good people, have no access to legitimate news media, and aren’t smart enough to recognize for themselves the real root causes of their problems.
Some of that is just wrong…. The housing market for instance. You think that economic immigrants are increasing property values? That’s almost funny. No, what’s ballooning property values, particularly in urban centers, is mainly Chinese real estate investment firms, scooping up scads of property and leaving it vacant. The vacancy rate in some of those centers is approaching 20%.
But that’s beside the point. Let’s say you’re right. Spin that into a snappy political ad.
Like I said… This is a high minded discussion. There are two ways to explain things: Quick and wrong, or Nuanced and right. People, generally, have the attention span of a mayfly.
I think rapidly increasing the population without increasing the supply of housing increases the price of housing because supply is less than demand, yes.
Unskilled economic migrants need places to live, just like lower income Americans need places to live. Unskilled economic migrants compete with lower income Americans for housing and drive up prices in the lower end of the market.
Unskilled economic migrants are not the only economic migrants, however. I live in a tech hub, because I work in tech, and there are plenty of legal, skilled economic immigrants who make enough to afford higher priced housing. This decreases the supply of the higher priced housing and drives up the prices.
I live in one of those big cities you are talking about, because of the jobs in the big cities you mentioned, and I have seen it for myself.
Do I think unskilled economic migrants buy big fancy houses? Not that I am aware of. To the best of my knowledge, they generally live in apartments. Which makes the supply of cheaper apartments smaller. Which pushes everyone above them on the income scale into more expensive apartments, or into renting houses, which decreases the supply of houses you can buy because people are profiting off using them as investment properties. Higher population is higher demand for housing, across the income scale because people get pushed out of the scale they would normally be utilizing.
This could be fixed by increasing supply, but big cities like to regulate the construction of new housing out of existence.
So, supply stays the same, demand increases ever upward. Prices go up.
I would not be surprised to learn Chinese investment firms are tinkering with the markets, but that is not the root cause of high housing costs. High demand is the root cause.
So no snappy political ad then?
Like I said… We can have these conversations, they’re good conversations. We can disagree bitterly and state our cases. But the disproportionately poor, disproportionately young, disproportionately educated white people voting Democrats aren’t here having that conversation. You aren’t convincing anyone.
I am nowhere near diplomatic enough to run political ads. I have a bad habit of saying exactly what I think, which rules out political aspirations.
What is it you think people should be doing? Social media has banned non-communists from talking, and the harpy tornado on social media doesn’t allow for rational discussion anyways. I don’t use social media anyways, because I think it is an evil plot by big tech to conduct double blind placebo psychology studies on people, and I don’t want to be a human test subject.
Where should things be discussed? Is there a proper platform for convincing people?
Frankly, I don’t know.
I do know that the fart-huffingly hot take of “These kids are just stupid, because they believe all the woke nonsense being told to them.” Isn’t useful, even if it were true, you have no plan to explain to these kids in any terms why what they’re being told is wrong, nevermind terms they might accept.
Which, at best, puts you in the role of Don Quixote; fighting giants that do not exist in ways that will not defeat them.
What’s worse though, is that we don’t even try. Look at Bill’s comments in this thread; “Stop crying” and the like. These kids cannot do what he did and succeed, and he doesn’t even have the awareness to recognize it, nevermind the empathy to understand how he comes off.
What the hell do you expect from them? That they’ll completely disregard their own lived experience because some old guy told them to pick themselves up by non-existent bootstraps and do impossible things? That’ll win points for sure.
I suggest for snappy : “We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately”. — Benjamin Franklin
The longer version has to stress the collective over the individual. Deeply un American I know. Join a Union. Mate-ship. Fight corruption.
The concentration on individual rights rather than collective obligations is a gift to the already rich and powerful.
Another suggestion for ‘snappy’: “The love of money is the root of all evil”. ??
Short, to the point, and it is out of copyright …..?
HT, all those housing prices are in 2020 dollars, not 1960 dollars. Young people are getting paid in 2020 dollars. Those student loans are being repaid with 2020 dollars. If you get a degree in something people will pay you to do, you should be okay. In the 70s, I taught school for 6500 a year one year and 8000 the next. Our house cost 43,000. As an associate in a big firm (45 lawyers) in Phoenix in 1981, I started at 24,000. Our house cost 124,000. Two mortgages: 12% first, 14% second (“seller carryback”). I have no idea what teachers make these days and what a beginning associate makes in my (former) now 450 person law firm, but I’m sure they can afford a house just fine. Stop crying. Figure out a way to make more money. Get married to someone who can contribute. There are ways to skin various cats.
This is not really true. Yes, worthless degrees are a problem. Which jobs will people hire you to do, though? Lawyer and teacher? Not everyone can be a lawyer or a teacher. STEM career fields are flooded. New graduates have an extremely hard time breaking into the fields. People with experience can get jobs, but getting that first job can be near impossible. The low-level introductory positions are filled by international contracting firms who discriminate against Americans. They have been caught at it repeatedly, sued, found at fault, been slapped with tiny penalties for getting caught, and continue right on discriminating.
Not everyone is smart enough to do those kind of jobs, anyways. There used to be high paying factory jobs, but those are gone, and no field has replaced them. Where can a not-so-bright, hard-working person get a good paying these days? Working for the government? That is not ideal. Some people can do skilled labor jobs like plumbing or locksmithing or air conditioning repair, but there is only so many of those positions necessary, and flooding the fields just drives down wages so they aren’t good paying jobs anymore. Everyone is being pushed to go to college because good paying jobs for non-college-graduates have virtually disappeared. College is dumbed down to accommodate this fact, and now is the equivalent of a high school diploma, except it cost tens of thousands of dollars to obtain.
I’m not just complaining because I can’t get a good paying job and can’t pay off my loans. I have a good paying job and paid my loans off in 4 years. I’m the exception these days, though, not the rule.
Republicans should think about that unless they actually want young people to be democrats. Democrats pretend to care, even though they don’t. If republicans are going to go around saying outright they don’t care, they are not going to attract many voters.
Neither party actually cares, and that is a problem.
What’s the government policy solution, NP? Have Hunter Biden go to China and ask them to send all those manufacturing jobs back to the United States? John Kerry says all the Keystone XL workers can get jobs making solar panels. Thanks John, we’ll put solar panels on trucks and locomotives and freighters. Or maybe those laid off workers can get jobs in India and China building coal fired power plants over there.
Republicans need to stop worshiping at the alter of “free trade”. Free trade between countries is not a real thing, as other countries play the system to the benefit of their people, and the detriment of ours. Encourage manufacturers to operate in the United States by cutting regulation. Institute tax breaks for manufacturers who operate in the United States. Tariffs brought some jobs back, so that might be one option. Stop pretending solar and wind are viable energy sources, and invest in nuclear energy. There is no one silver bullet solution, and I’m sure people who study trade and economics know far better than me what policies would work.
Throwing your hands up and saying “oh well, those jobs are gone.” ignores and alienates the people who used to be employed in them.
Socialism is not the answer, but right now I see the republicans doing nothing but spouting platitudes about free trade, and shouting at democrats that they have bad ideas. That accomplishes nothing. Some of these big companies need to be broken up for anti-trust practices. There are 6 companies who own all the worlds agricultural production right now, and they fix prices on a global scale. There are a handful of tech companies with a stranglehold over the tech industry who buy out or force out any new entrants.
Promote small business instead of smothering it to death with regulation.
Republicans are all talk and no action, democrats are all bad action.
Bill….. You’re a posterchild for what the people we’re talking about should vote Democrat. You think that the fact that a junior lawyer can afford to buy a house matters? In what world? Lawyers are one of the highest paying jobs in America, that’s not the bottom. Worse, your information is two generations out of date, and you don’t have a clue.
My father didn’t graduate highschool. He got a job at Canada Post. My mother repaired watches at a jewelry store. On his wages, he was able to buy not one, not two, but five separate properties before he was 30, from which he started a real estate company. My parents owned 20 properties by the time I was 10. That’s what the American dream looked like: Work hard, marry young, have kids, save, work harder, succeed.
I was the first person in my family tree to get post secondary education, and I have a CPA designation. I worked as middle management in a grocery store chain for three years, saved up enough to put myself through school, graduated at 25, and immediately earned 50% more than my father ever did. I was 30 before I was able to scrape together my first down payment. It’s still possible to succeed, but the path is so different now it’s unrecognizable, and success is measured differently.
There is almost no way for someone who didn’t graduate from high school to have even my level of success, nevermind that of my father. And that might seem backwards, but it isn’t, I work in a significantly nicer office than my father, but I don’t see myself catching his net worth before I retire. I can’t stress this enough: He wasn’t a financial guru, he wasn’t even particularly lucky, but he was a hell of a hard worker. Those doors are closed, locked, barred, welded, put into a sealed chest and hurled into the ocean.
Do an exercise, Bill…. Make a five year budget. Pretend you’re an 18 year old kid starting from scratch, assume a perfect academic record, at a school of your choice, on the career path of your choice. Figure out tuition, cost of living, and student loan interest rates. Figure out how in debt you are when you graduate. Then, Google the average wage for the vocation of your choice, assume you get that job, and calculate how long until you can save up a down payment for a $200,000 starter home.
My guess is that reality will blow your socks off. and that’s not even taking into account that life is going to be more complicated than the budget you prepare.
Excellent comment, HT, with this reservation: elite degrees are credentials without substance. There is no reason to assume that a Harvard grad is more desirable as an employee, or as an executive, than an ambitious, intelligent hard working non-college grad. The insistence on a college degree now is a way to strangle the middle class. Demystify symbolic credentials, emphasize learning and education, which is not what colleges do, certainly not sufficiently to justify the time and expense.
Correct: the old road doesn’t work. But there are better roads available.
You’re right, of course, but I think the Ivy Leagues are a red herring. Most people don’t go to them. People are still more than able to amass crippling debt going to local universities or community colleges.
But HT, my point is, no matter the economic environment, you’ve got to buckle down and do it. A high school degree is absolutely essential. Why should the government have programs to help people who don’t even graduate from high school when you can go to high school for free? All you have to do is fucking show up and pay attention. And yes, kids starting out need parents to help them. Not government programs. Parents. Is that so hard? Not having kids unless you want to raise them with someone else? So our parents were able to thrive without a high school degree or even a college degree. Big deal. What can the government do to decrease house prices? Price control? That will work great. Forgive student loan debt? Brilliant. All I’m saying to young people is “Fucking DO something!” Maybe if you can’t become a managing partner at Goldman Sachs, you can achieve a decent life and maybe your kids or grandkids can. It can take more than a generation. Why should every generation expect to achieve a net worth beyond that of their prior generation? When has there ever been “income equality” in any society? And besides, who the hell is going to inherit your Dad’s net worth some day? The Canadian government if you’re not careful, so it can be redistributed to all the slugs out there, eh? Frankly, I find a lot of professionals in the forty to fifty year old range are pissed off about income inequality because they’re pissed off at Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates because they’re jealous, frankly. If you’re pissed off at Bill Gates, develop an operating system yourself. You know why young people should vote Republican? Because the business of America is business. If the economy doesn’t create jobs and if people don’t pay taxes, nothing, I repeat nothing, works. Vote for AOC or Bernie Sanders and all they have to do is print money. She’s said so herself. Weimar Republic here we come.
Cheers.
I think the old road can still work, but there are always ways to make a way for one’s self and one’s family. When my wife and I were little kids, did we think we’d have to become a computer programmer and a lawyer, respectively, to provide for our family in the way we thought necessary? Hell no. There was hardly any such thing as a computer when we were kids. I quit teaching and went to law school because I couldn’t see punishing my family while educating other people’s kids for peanuts. Did I want to be a lawyer of all God damned things? Hell no. But I did it for twenty years, and that was hard time. And we lived frugally and paid all our kids tuition through college, including paying off our daughter’s student debt. People just have to figure this stuff out for themselves, HT. Are your really in favor of forgiving student debt and shifting that burden to the taxpayers?
Funny how you equate those things, it makes one wonder who you consider American and who you don’t.
Not those who spew hate at white men and say this nation is irretrievably stained because of its history. There’s the airport, there’s Africa. If you don’t like it, feel free to leave.
Steve-o Thinks white men (but only republican ones I’m sure) are above criticism and anyone who feels differently should get out.
I’m shocked. Shocked.
Not so shocked.
Stop being racist to score digs at someone you disagree with. It isn’t cute.
Thanks for reminding people how to take a simple, true statement and equate it with something else. Policies that punish people due to their immutable characteristics and not their actions are anti-American. Hating groups of people just because of their race or their sex is un-American. Of course, you could be suggesting that it is required that SOME groups in America be hated just because.
Jack has posted on occasion a growing anti-white, anti-male sentiment among the Democratic Party spokesholes and rank-and-file.
Has anyone considered that the behaviors of so many who should be outraged by the constant barrage of claims of racism directed at them are not so different psychologically as those affected by the Stockholm Syndrome?
Why would anyone agree with these baseless allegations of increased threats from white supremacists or systemic racism and oppression of people of color? Why do elected leaders perpetuate such claims or is this a systematic method government is using to consolidate power by psychologically shifting the thinking of vast swaths of the population to believe that their captors know what is best for them – for they are the righteous.
Steve: Can that Island nation of New Albia be in the Carribean? I like warm tropical waters.
First suitable one we find.
Why should theuy be forced to leave their country?
why not fight back, like Michael Collins did?
Still always wise to have someplace to go if the war doesn’t go your way.
Nascent totalitarians always need a scapegoat on their march to power. The Nazis had the Jews; the Communists had the bourgeosie.
To confirm their narrative of a hopelessly racist society that has bigotry against blacks embedded in it, they must redefine words, airbrush history and create white supremacists.
“The latter is cheating on the field.”
Curious thing: instructions to Hall of Fame voters include: “Voting shall be based upon the player’s record, playing ability, integrity, sportsmanship, character, and contributions to the team(s) on which the player played.”
The Hall of Fame website has a page tracking rule changes through the years:
https://baseballhall.org/hall-of-famers/rules/voting-rules-history
That page says: “CHARACTER, INTEGRITY AND SPORTSMANSHIP
Implemented in 1945. Rule applies to how the game was played on the field, more so than character off the field. ”
That final sentence is the only explanatory note appended to any of the listed rule changes. It’s been there certainly for the better part of a decade, maybe longer. The note hasn’t been incorporated into the voting rules, and no one’s explained who inserted the note or why.
Works for me.
Anybody who thinks life is rational and humanity is perfectible, with the right government program, no less, is nuts.
At the risk of being slightly risque, Kaepernick should change his first name to Colon, because of what he is full of.
Colon Krappernick.
Worthy of Mark Levin…
Mark Levin is one of my heroes. He made up the insult “her thighness” for Hillary, although “Hilary Rotten Clinton” is probably more acceptable. I’d also use “Nancy Pickleosi”:
I prefer “Her Heinous” – for either politician
Other Bill wrote:
“Frankly, I find a lot of professionals in the forty to fifty year old range are pissed off about income inequality because they’re pissed off at Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates because they’re jealous, frankly. If you’re pissed off at Bill Gates, develop an operating system yourself.”
My own beef with Bill Gates has a lot more to do with his company acting as if they think my computer belongs to them, rather than to me, and putting a stupid amount of spyware that is of ZERO benefit to me into the operating system.
Also, I’m still waiting for Bill Gates to develop an operating system himself. The first one published by Microsoft was blatantly pirated, and the second major operating system (the NT line and everything after Windows 2000) was just a port of DEC’s VMS operating system to the Intel CPU.
–Dwayne