According to the dictionary, a bulwark is a defensive wall-sort of like the wall President Trump wants to build on the southern border to prevent illegal immigration. Hadrian's Wall and the Great Wall of China are probably the two best known examples of bulwarks constructed in an attempt to halt the advance of an invading army. The Bulwark is a website that curiously describes itself as “a news network launched in 2018 dedicated to providing political analysis and reporting free of the constraints of partisan loyalties or tribal prejudices.” Which really means The Bulwark probably ought to be called The Bulls##t instead, because they are full of it. Question: do podcasts count as televised news programs? These people certainly are not competing with Fox News or even CNN for viewers. Founded by former conservative, former radio host Charlie Sykes, The Bullwark employs Never Trumpers such as Bill Kristol, Sykes’ former boss at The Weekly Standard, and Mona Charen, the theoretically conservative author of propaganda such as “How a Democrat Can Win Over a Never-Trumper”, published at Politico. They are the closest thing resembling conservatives that this alleged “news network” employs. Most of the other writers seem to be pure liberals with credentials as contributors to CNN and MSNBC, or members of Common Cause, which is currently raising money and advocating for mail-in voting. Tim Miller is described as “senior adviser to the anti-Trump Our Principles PAC”, whatever that’s supposed to be. This might explain why the website hasn't become more popular…I remained … [Read more...]
A glimpse into the mind of a Bernie Bro
My personal policy on Facebook is to accept friend requests from almost everyone who asks. As a result, I’ve become social media “friends” with a very wide cross-section of society with friends who range from evangelical Christians to atheists, with representatives of every faith welcome as well, but only up to a point. On the political spectrum my friends range from transgender conservative to fairly radical liberals. No two people think exactly alike. My personal opinion is that it's impossible to learn if you never listen to people who disagree with you. I’m a firm believer in open dialog and listening to what the other side has to say. Up to a point. The price of my willingness to listen to a contrary or even disturbing argument is the opportunity for me to speak in turn. Sometimes I find out the door of friendship was left a little too open to virtual strangers, and a raving lunatic reveals himself. It usually doesn't take very long. In fairness, I already knew the Bernie Bro in this conversation was considerably more liberal in his philosophical worldview than me, but this conversation I'm about to share revealed exactly how insane these people are. I cleaned up his grammar and spelling only as necessary to maintain readability. The content has not been altered. The conversation begins as the Bernie Bro's comments on a parody article from the Babylon Bee. In other words, this all started with his response to a JOKE, proving that socialists are humor-impaired. Bernie Bro (BB): Show me (where) Bernie (is) promoting for violence. Show me what … [Read more...]
Mass shootings and the media
Keanon Lowe Can we have a reasonable conversation about the problem of mass murder in our society? If we're going to try, input from the mainstream media must be excluded from the discussion. The media solution is always "more gun control!" However, only a fool would believe that more laws would prevent future violence. Private gun ownership is basically illegal in Chicago, and yet an astonishing number of people are nevertheless murdered by criminals and gang members using illegal firearms. According to gun control advocates, the problem is that criminals still have access to illegal weapons because gun ownership remains legal in other areas nearby. Like Pavlov's dogs, the media's conditioned response to such tragedy is the inevitable call for more legislation to regulate the sale and ownership of guns. People don't kill people, only guns kill people. However, simple logic and raw statistics argue otherwise. The problem wasn't that these mass shooters had access to weapons, because everybody has access to something that can be used as a weapon. The problem was that his twenty victims were defenseless. If only one of the good guys had been carrying a gun as well, lives could have been saved. Frankly, if you don't understand what the Founding Fathers were thinking about when they wrote the 2nd Amendment, all you have to do is read current headlines about the growing crisis in Hong Kong. But what do these recent mass murderers who used guns and the Tsarnaev brothers (Boston Marathon terrorists) have in common? Not much, really-- except the desire to kill. Yet … [Read more...]
A slight change of plans
It's all good. Well, okay, it's only mostly good. There was that whole yellow jacket incident. The past 72 hours or so have been very interesting. Almost nothing has gone according to plan, but the best explanation for that is that I didn't really have a well-developed plan in the first place, just a convicted thought about needing to improve my productivity. For a guy who spends most of his time writing, I don't get nearly enough real work accomplished. I had the initial impulse to permanently delete my Facebook account primarily because of my own lack of discipline, as far as productive work is concerned. I announced this decision to the general public before discussing it with my wife, which rarely works out for the best because she's not as quick to jump to hasty conclusions. In case you haven't figured it out yet, she's the real brains in our family. Lisa's first concerns were the pictures of the grandkids our daughter posts on Facebook all the time. Didn't I still want to see them? She then asked, what about your high school English teacher and the friends you've made in Australia, and those connections you truly care about? She reminded me the problem with Facebook isn't the people as much as how I've been using the medium. I'll admit that I was more than a little surprised that her reaction wasn't anything but, "Thank God!" Changes had to be made, though, and changes have already occurred. Changes NEEDED to be made because I just can't spend the rest of my life arguing with idiots on Facebook. It doesn't produce income. Liberals and atheists tend to … [Read more...]
Liberal aggression
It's gotten to the point where I don't really like writing about politics because there is plenty of division and hate burning in America without my throwing any gasoline on the fire. If I publish this article and post a link on Facebook, I expect there will be some people perfectly willing to defend horrible behavior, as if the end can be justified by the means. Sigh. When I do post something on my blog with a political slant, you can rest assured that I felt like I have no choice but to write it. As much as I'd rather be working on a novel, a short story, or even watching paint dry than arguing about politics, occasionally I'll see something that makes me stop what I'm doing to press both hands over my ears in order to keep my brains from leaking out. And then I'll have to write another article like this one I'm writing now, because I can't witness evil in action and remain silent. Please watch this short video. It's truly astonishing. https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=75&v=3Qoc4ZVsS1M I really don't want to get into the pro-life versus pro-choice debate at the moment, because it's much more important to focus on the mindset of our social justice warrior, the "star" in this video. It's quite disturbing to realize this young liberal thinks his behavior won't have adverse consequences. He's stealing private property on camera, in broad daylight. The exchange caught my attention early, when an off camera pro-life person pointed out that stealing their personal property was illegal and the liberal's sarcastic response showed nothing but contempt … [Read more...]
