Instead of learning a single lesson from Donald Trump’s upset victory in November, the American left has strapped on vagina hats and marched in the street, calling Trump supporters Nazis and ridiculing people of faith. The media has been positively enamored with it all and continues to refuse even to learn how to relate to the people who voted for Trump.
I have a friend on Facebook. He, his friends, and I had an interesting exchange last week. He claimed to not understand how people could vote for Trump. I explained it and he still didn’t understand it. They could have voted third-party— like I did— he claimed. He could not see voting Trump, in any case, better than voting not Trump.
You have to live for the next four years with those that voted for Trump. Just like they have to live with you. Calling your opponents Nazis and insulting their religion is not how you heal America. It’s not how you end divisiveness. How about, instead of stonewalling half of America and saying you cannot understand them while you have your fingers in your ears, you shut up and try.
During Tom Price’s confirmation hearing on Wednesday, Bernie Sanders rebuked his claim that we are a compassionate society.
“No, we are not a compassionate society,” Sanders said. “In terms of our relationship with poor and working people, our record is worse than virtually any other country on earth.”
This has been repeated over and over in the last decade. Rand Paul’s response to Sanders was a thing of beauty.
“One of the things that’s extraordinary about our country is just two years ago, in 2014, we gave away $400 billion — privately, not the government, individually — to churches and to charities,” Paul said. “We’re an incredibly compassionate society. This was misplaced in sort of the wonky numbers of this number and that number within health care how much we do help each other.”
“Not only do we help each other within our own county, I’d bet you most — half the physicians in my community in Bowling Green have gone on international trips and done international charity work and all that is lost in saying that we’re this heartless, terrible country, and I would just argue the opposite,” Paul continued. “I think the greatness of our country and the greatness in the compassion of our country — we give away more than the gross domestic product of most of these socialized countries around the world.”
There is a huge difference in what Sanders and Paul/Price are saying. Rand Paul’s expectation is that the government is small and that it taxes the people reasonably little. The people then, not the government, can choose to do with their money how they desire. Sanders, on the other hand, expects the government to provide services to the people, and to do so requires large amounts of taxes and government structure.
When Sanders, on Wednesday, makes the claim that we lack compassion for the working people and the poor, he is saying that the government doesn’t do enough for these individuals. When Paul and Price say that we are compassionate, they point to all the individuals and private institutions do and give to society.
If it is your expectation that the government should provide for the people, you would be right to think we don’t care. But then look at the $400 billion given to church's and charities that goes to help the people you think the government isn’t doing enough for. Maybe, instead of demanding that the government take more money from your fellow citizens, give your own money to these causes and make a difference.
I’m supportive of protests, however this particular protest exposes ignorance. What?! Liberals, ignorant? Yes, it’s true. You see – this protest demonstrates that these people believe there are only two options – Obamacare and going back to the way things were before Obamacare. The reality is that Republicans have released several thoughts on what the best replacement plan might be – yes that’s right, replacement plan – as in not going back to the pre-Obamacare years. It’s no secret there were issues with healthcare – no one is denying that.
This goes back to the echo chambers that we build around ourselves, whether on Facebook, Twitter, or the news we read. For the conservative, it is hard to live in a self-confirming echo chamber. All major news sources have a liberal lean outside of Fox and even if you watch television, liberal concepts and priorities are pushed very heavily.
For the liberal, the opposite is true. Outside of Fox, Last Man Standing, and a number of online publications, almost all news and media content from Hollywood is self-confirming. Breaking the echo chamber has to be intentional.
Ignorance of your opponents is what is driving people to declare everyone that voted Trump to be racist, misogynist, bigots. I regularly ready articles from the New York Times, Washington Post, and even HuffPo. Why? Because hearing about something from multiple worldviews is important and makes it harder for me to stereotype the Left.
So back to healthcare, the article above gives some insight into the Republican reform of healthcare that is coming this year under Trump. We don’t want to go back to how things were before Obama. I don’t know anyone that does. So read that and ask questions of conservatives in your life. If you don’t know any conservatives, this is a good year to start.
Great article on CSS support, making everything look the same everywhere, and more. This line, though, stood out to me. It’s an argument I frequently find myself in. Everyone knows that I hate Bootstrap. The why is what they don’t often understand. That line sums it up.
All too often I see “JavaScript” developers that cannot write a single line of vanilla JavaScript. Front-end developers that struggle outside of Bootstrap. That don’t know what the browser is capable of without Angular.
Have you outsourced your understanding of the basic languages to a framework?
Written by K. A. Applegate and her husband Michael Grant, the Animorphs books first hit shelves two decades ago. The beloved 1990s series told the story of five human kids — Jake, Cassie, Rachel, Marco, and Tobias — who stumble upon a dying alien prince and are recruited into saving the Earth from the Yeerks, a parasitic alien species taking over peoples’ brains.
These books were a critical part of my childhood. I have every book on my bookshelves at my parent’s home. If you want to know my secret origin as a web developer, it is in these books.
I first encountered the Internet at a friend’s house in the mid-90’s. The first thing I did was search for Animorphs. I remember the crappy website that was so cool. When we eventually got access at our house, I got active in the online community around Animorphs. I drew characters and uploaded them to fan art sites, I even launched my own site for a while. Then, as the series ended in 2001 on a cliffhanger, I started writing my own continuation series.
After Animorphs, having been part of the online community for years, K. A. Applegate launched the short-lived Remnants book series. I built my first fully PHP-driven community with forum, fan art, fan fiction, and more.
It’s hard to believe that it has been twenty years since the first Animorphs book. If you have memories about these books, drop them in the comments below.
There are many dorm room Voltaires, many privileged rebels. But here’s the thing: there are fewer atheists in the ER. Life has a way of humbling you.
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But it is not only suffering that often pries open the human heart. Whatever took place in Zuckerberg’s heart and mind, the gift of children is a little worldview in itself, albeit one that comes to you with tightly-shut little eyes and a feeble cry. Though you may reject this discovery, having a child introduces you to a world beyond yourself. Suddenly, in a vigorous and unopposable coup carried out by a 7-pound baby, you are dethroned. You no longer have control of your life; you don’t get to be served by others; you can’t claim to be the priority of those closest to you.
Mark Zuckerberg, like Steve Jobs, falls into a Myers-Briggs personality type of INTJ. I have read much about these two men because I too fall into that personality type. INTJs are one of the most rational, analytical types. Rational types are often least likely to find religion. INTJs are, I believe, the least likely.
This is why my faith, while radical and odd to many not in my head, is very rational and intellectually-driven.
But Zuckerberg has always been an outspoken atheist. Until Christmas, when he posted that “religion is very important”. Having a child can do that to you.
We’ve been told that we’re just all flesh and blood, atoms colliding in a purposeless dance. But that’s not what you feel—in your bones, in your heart—when you look at your sleeping child. That’s not what you sense when your tiny loved one is hurt or sick. That’s not why you get out of bed in the middle of the night to calm your two-year-old experiencing night terrors. It’s not because of atoms colliding. It’s not because of chance. It’s not because of chaos theory. It’s because of love. It’s because your heart has opened to another.
There is so much immaterial. So much that cannot be understood with science. What's more, science often tries to explain the most radically unscientific concepts with theories that are just cold and illogical.
Seeing my daughter’s face for the first time over two years ago stopped time. I only know two women that have caused time to cease. When I hear beneath the sound of our television our daughter cry out “Daddy, help!” from her bedroom upstairs, I’m often on my feet before I can think.
A jury has sentenced to death the man who murdered nine people in a Charleston church basement in 2015.
The twelve jurors deliberated for about three hours before sentencing Dylann Roof, 22, to die. To impose the death penalty, they had to reach a unanimous decision.
It is fundamentally understood among Man that those that shed the blood of men deserve death themselves. No matter liberal, progressive, or conservative, we all recognize that Dylann Roof deserves death for his murderous rampage. It will not bring the men and women that he killed back, but it will bring justice for the families left behind.
The looming Trump presidency is their legacy, launched largely via backlash against their pseudo-religion of political correctness. Not to mention all their dumb colleagues that have wreaked havoc in our inner cities, presided over the systemic collapse of the nuclear family, and turned our schools into self-esteem parlors for the criminally mind-numbed.
For when you mistake, misconstrue, or malign your so-called countrymen with condescending labels of “ill-equipped” and “systematic racism,” simply because of the color of their skin, the only system that needs changing is yours.
I’ve continued to see my liberal Facebook friends call all those in flyover country racist, bigoted, misogynists. Maybe it didn’t sting as much when I lived within an hour of Chicago. While still a conservative, maybe they weren’t talking about me. But the condescending elite has even forced me to get behind much of Trump’s rhetoric. I’m sick of it.
When we, erroneously, stereotype the urbanites, we get reamed by the mainstream media, but shouting racist, bigot, and worse today is praised and honored.
A bully is a bully. No matter if it’s President-elect Trump or Derrick Rollins Jr.