As Republicans defend President Trump's language once more, I stand over here as a conservative without a party. These fake, ambulance-chasing Republicans are trying to defend a sitting president using language we wouldn't want our children repeating. I said after the election that I couldn't vote for President Trump because "I couldn't explain that to my daughter". I can't agree with them. This language is inappropriate for a world leader to be using to describe our allies.
But the Left wants this— too— to be about racism. It has to be about one of their -isms or -phobias. It always has to be. Why? Is it because victim identity is the new sacred? Had he called Norway, a predominantly white nation, a shithole, would so many Leftists be offended? Would they think he's talking about race?
I don't agree that this is about race. No, I think this is a case of a man that lacks control of his tongue. He described a poor, third-world nation as a shithole. He described a nation, not the people. Yes, there are, to quote a tweet, brown-skinned people living there. But it's a nation that you see no one aside from missionaries choosing to spend their vacation days on.
So you might read the above and think I agree with the term as an adequate word to describe these nations, if one is not the President of the United States. And you might be right. But my church sends a lot of money to these nations, bringing food, water, and the Gospel of the Living God to these people. My God redeems prostitutes, dines with tax collectors, and makes the poor rich. The shitholes are just as much His as are the bastions of freedom and wealth.
In my opinion, is not our government's job to raise these people out of poverty, clothe them, feed them, and give them water. But, Christian, it is yours.
Roy Moore lost, not because Alabamans are stupid. Roy Moore lost because Roy Moore was a terrible candidate with child molestation allegations hanging round his neck. Moore should’ve been better vetted, one. But also abandoned when credible allegations came forth. Because it turns out some Republicans couldn’t stomach voting for a man accused of getting handsy with an underage girl. Yet this is somehow surprising to red-eyed morons convinced just being against the Democrats is a winning strategy. Roy Moore lost because too many egotistical Republicans in high places overestimated the power of tribalism: “Moore has an (R) after his name, ergo #MAGA and screw the libtards!”
Just “being against the other tribe” didn’t work in Alabama. It won’t work nationwide in 2018 either. Or 2020.
Conservatives, you had better hear this. I know many that voted for Roy Moore did so because of the two-party system, because of the “lesser of two evils”. But many more did so because he was a Republican. But running as a Republican shouldn’t be enough.
We are a party of ideas. We are a party of ideals. This man had heavy allegations hanging from his neck. Same with Trump. It’s why Trump was close to not winning. Literally anyone could have beat Hillary. But we picked the most polarizing, most offensive, worst candidate in recent history.
We need to learn to vet our candidates better and when shit comes out, we need to push them aside. Trump’s famous recording should have been that moment for him. These allegations, once credible, should have been the moment we pushed Roy aside.
We will lose in 2018 and 2020 if we do not get away from tribalism.
School choice is not really about freedom. Freedom, of course, is a bedrock American value. But the kind of "freedom" associated with the flight away from integration and toward racial isolation will never lead to a more truly free United States.
As a father, I want what is best for my daughter. As I’ve seen schools become more and more liberal, push liberal political doctrine, and sexual ethics— such as Illinois passing a few years back a new sexual education program that included teaching kindergarteners about masturbation— I’ve very much moved towards either homeschooling or private schooling my daughter.
Not once has it crossed my mind to do so to keep her from “children of color”. Not once has it been to keep her from other children at all. And I know many homeschool mothers and private school fathers out there that have never once thought this way. It has only ever been about her education.
This is a prime example of race-baiting. I want a better education for my daughter, so I’m a racist.
Just like God chose Saul. Just like God chose Caesar. Just like God chose Nero, and Stalin, and even Hitler. Our God is sovereign. Even when we don’t understand His choices, He is sovereign. It’s one of the comforts that comes with Christian faith.
But remember one thing: God can choose to punish as justly as God can choose to bless. Trump could be either. He could be neither. But God is sovereign no matter what.
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.
If you look at this like a sport. If you look at this like a battle against your neighbor, you’ll choose anything as a knife against the other side. And that itself is a—what’s the opposite of a virtue? … That’s a vice. Political divisiveness is a vice. But like a lot of vices, it’s super seductive. So you indulge in it, until it bites you. And then you go, oh, darn, the wages of sin is death. And it makes you question having indulged in a vice … Picking sides is a vice rather than picking ideas.
I have to say that Stephen Colbert has been a guilty pleasure of mine for some time. As a conservative, I have often been in the sights of his jokes. But, his humility and willingness to quote Scripture and scriptural concepts rank him highly in my book. This interview, all of it, is a great way to spend your Friday morning. I could share a half dozen quotes from this, but instead, I’ll tell you to watch it too, as his delivery of those quotes is just as important.
"Although they are adults, they're 18. Kids make stupid decisions -- I shouldn't call them kids; they're legally adults, but they're young adults, and they make stupid decisions," Duffin said.
What are these “stupid decisions” that Cmdr. Kevin Duffin is referring to? Kidnapping an 18-year-old man with special needs. Holding him for at least 24-48 hours. Physically assaulting him. Cutting his face and scalp. And streaming it live on Facebook.
The disturbing 30-minute video shows a man tied up and his mouth covered, cowering in the corner of a room. His attackers laugh and shout "f*ck Donald Trump" and "f*ck white people" as they kick and punch him.
The video shows someone cutting into his scalp with a knife, leaving a visibly bald patch.
Right, I didn’t mention that part about Donald Trump and white people. Specifically “fucking” them. The attackers were black and victim was white. Ordinarily, I would encourage that this doesn’t matter. See Michael Brown and Trayvon Martin, both cases where race didn’t matter. But here, we have a video where these assailants are shouting “fuck Donald Trump” and “fuck white people.”
So this is clearly a racially and politically motivated attack: a hate crime. And as the media has so loudly defended the victims of prior such hate crimes, we can expect them to very loudly defend the victim here, right?
"That certainly will be part of whether or not ... we seek a hate crime, to determine whether or not this is sincere or just stupid ranting and raving."
It's possible the racially charged statements were little more than people "ranting about something they think might make a headline," Chicago police Superintendent Eddie Johnson said.
He said he did not believe the attack was politically motivated.
It makes sense. Dylan Roof, a young and stupid-decision-making 21-year-old, most certainly thought that his racially charged murder of nine black churchgoers would “make a headline.”
That was hard to type.
These animalistic, inhuman attackers livestream themselves beating and cutting a man, screaming hate speech and not one report from the mainstream media is editorializing this. Not one. It’s barely front-page news. You could claim it was localized gang violence and not necessarily national news, but I would say that Trayvon Martin, a man that President Obama said could be his son, didn’t deserve national attention either. Or any number of the hate crimes committed by supposed Republican, Alt-Right wackos against Hillary Clinton supporters and minorities.
This case— involving two black men and two black women kidnapping, binding, and assaulting a white man— is the clearest cut hate crime since President-Elect Trump won in November. Video evidence and all. Yet the media has shown reservation unlike anything involving black victims.
This is, yet again, one of many reasons that Trump won.
As someone that follows hundreds of California progressives on Twitter and follows progressive news sources, I have been seeing for the last two weeks— since President-Elect Trump won the election— a tremendous amount of coverage for so-called hate crimes across our nation. The latest being that of Jordan Jackson in Louisiana, a young boy beat up by bullies telling him to go back to the cotton fields. These stories have been very disgusting and none of the conservative, Christian, or Trump-supporting friends of mine like seeing this and are very appalled at it. Every one of them would give their lives to protect a kid like Jordan. I was the guy in school that fought the bullies for kids like Jordan.
But here’s the thing. The Left is swinging this to be a problem on the Right:
This is real. Don’t look away. And next time you see that red election map, I want you to picture a gaping, bloody wound. America in 2016, bleeding out.
When, in fact, both sides are guilty of rioting, assaulting their opponents, and worse right now.
Four people have been charged after a man was punched and kicked as a crowd yelled, “Don’t vote Trump," a day after the presidential election, police said.
[…]
Wilcox said he was about to turn left from Kedzie Avenue to Roosevelt Road around 1 p.m. Nov. 9 when a black sedan pulled up and scraped the right side of his Pontiac Bonneville.
"I stopped and parked. And I asked if they had insurance, and the next thing that I knew they were beating the s--- out of me," Wilcox said.
Police said the four were identified as the people responsible for striking a man during a traffic altercation.
The man was then dragged as he held on to the window of the vehicle. He was taken to Mount Sinai Hospital and was treated and released, police said.
Those that were involved, which videoed the incident in pride, were arrested and are going to trial. This is justice. And just like with these young men that assaulted a man in Chicago, I want justice for the young boy Jordan in Louisiana. That’s how this works, justice. I don’t know a single person that wouldn’t want this young boy’s attackers to face punishment for their crime.
So, let’s cool down and stop the violence, no matter which side it comes from. We all agree that this is ugly and wrong. We are united on that front.
George Takai is fueling the flames of fear with divisive, partisan bullshit:
So when I hear Donald Trump’s transition advisors talk about building a registry of Muslims and his surrogates using the internment of Japanese-Americans as their model, I am outraged — because I remember the tears streaming down my mother’s face as we were torn away from our home. And I am resolved to raise my voice and say, loudly and clearly, that this is not who we are.
George is a man that had spent years of his youth in the absolutely deplorable internment camps of America. I hear his concern. Fortunately, it is completely unfounded in fact.
The statement in question was not made by a member of Trump’s transition team, but a spokesman for a pro-Trump super PAC. And he did not say that the internment of Japanese-Americans was a “model” — in fact, as even the New York Times reported, he said that he would not want to do it again.
Furthermore, there is no proposal to create a “registry” of Muslims, but to reinstate a post-9/11 policy from the George W. Bush and early Barack Obama administrations of tracking immigrants and visitors from certain foreign countries, including Muslim-majority countries, where terrorism is a concern.
The job of a government is to protect it’s citizens. Keeping track of immigrants and visitors from countries that have connections to terrorism is necessary to do so. But president-elect Donald Trump isn’t calling for a registry, internment, or deportation of Muslim American citizens.
We should hire three or four [African-American] ministers, preferably with social-service backgrounds, and with engaging personalities. The most successful educational approach to the [African-American] is through a religious appeal. We don’t want the word to go out that we want to exterminate the [African-American] population. And the minister is the man who can straighten out that idea if it ever occurs to any of their more rebellious members.
And:
Instead of decreasing and aiming to eliminate the stocks that are most detrimental to the future of the race and the world, it tends to render them to a menacing degree dominant … We are paying for, and even submitting to, the dictates of an ever-increasing, unceasingly spawning class of human beings who never should have been born at all.
But before you think those quotes came from a prominent, right-wing Trump supporter: those are from Margaret Sanger. The founder of Planned Parenthood. A woman that Hillary Clinton admired:
I admire Margaret Sanger enormously, her courage, her tenacity, her vision. I am really in awe of her, there are a lot of lessons we can learn from her life.
See, racism, no matter which side it comes from is evil. No matter if it is businesses offeringbonuses to not hirewhite men or a woman starting a business with the intent to eliminate the stocks (of blacks) or 200 white supremacists meeting in Washington. We need to remember to judge a man by the content of their character, not the color of their skin.