Sunday, January 31, 2016

Random Thoughts for February

Random Thoughts for February 2016. By Robert A. Hall
Feel free to post or forward.

Well, after Monday the Iowa Circuses will be over until 2020.

When I was the age of today's college students, if I wanted a "safe space" I had to dig it myself. And be prepared to defend it.

2015 will be remembered as the year when Donald Trump (after decades of supporting Bill and Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi and liberal causes such as the illegal immigrant Dreamers, universal and single-payer healthcare, big government and crony capitalism, the Iran Deal, and abortion, plus bashing George Bush and Reagan) became a conservative. At least he said he did. But them he also once said Oprah would be a great vice president.

If Trump is the nominee, what will be his response when the Democrat runs ads with clips of Trump saying how great Obama is and that Hillary would be a great president?

I don't want you to think that the campaign has made me tired of Donald Trump. I was tired of the narcissistic, progressive, Clinton-loving blowhard decades ago.

No matter who is elected president in 2016, within six months people on the far left or on the far right will be calling for impeachment.

If Sanders really wants to beat Clinton, he should self-identify as black. Seriously, the left accepts Caitlin Jenner as a woman, and Rachel Dolezal as black because they say their are. So if Bernie said he was black, they'd have to accept it. After all, black leaders sided with Rachel. Then he could take a lot of the black vote from Clinton, and lock up the nomination, maybe the presidency.

There are things in life worth fighting for. For example to protect our families or the freedoms--all of them--in the Bill of Rights. Whose sports team is best is not among the things worth fighting for. Not even close.

In 1972, I was elected to the Massachusetts Senate, defeating an incumbent by 9 votes out of 60,000 in a 4-1 Democrat district. In 1974, the pols and pundits assumed I was a fluke and would be gone. But I won by 10,000 votes and carried every city and town in the district, including Ward Five, which the Democrat represented on the Fitchburg City Council. Oh, yes, his name was Bernie.

Liberals suffer from ADHD. "Addled Democrat Hillary Disorder."

I'm surprised Bernie Sanders hasn't adopted "16 to 1" as a slogan. (Extra credit if you get it.)

You have to be a little crazy to stay sane in today's world.

You can say this about Obama. ISIS, Al Qaeda, Iran, Syria and Putin never humiliated him. He built that himself.

Pushing the elevator button several times will not make the elevator come faster. Turning the thermostat past the temperature you want the place at will not make it get warmer or cooler any faster. Oh, and those little arrows? They tell you which way the elevator is going. Mechanical things respond not at all to magical thinking.

The only thing consistent in politics is inconsistency.

If "Gun Free Zone" signs work, how come you never see liberals putting one up in front of their homes?

If Obama had been president in 1860, he would have refused to wage war on the South for fear of civilian casualties and environmental damage. The US would have become two countries, one the free Republican North and the other the Slave Democrat south. Slavery would have persisted in North America until perhaps 1900. And if the Confederate army had taken Washington, Obama and his family might have died in slavery.

When people say, "Everybody knows," they are usually building walls to protect a lie.

My wife's health insurance premium just went up $90 a month. She's 64. Thank you, Obamacare.

Why don't Democrats want blacks and Hispanics to fly? Well, they are putting in even tougher ID requirements at airports and all the liberals tell us that minorities are not competent enough to get ID, so...

Iowa and NH voters have a lot of power as the first primary states. And they are states with relatively few minority voters. Time for a #BlackVotesMatter movement?

Being retired I don't get snow days. Well, maybe I can skip rehab if it's bad....

I'm not a perfectionist. I don't think perfection is achievable, even if you knew what it was. But I'm an improvementist. I believe that every individual and every organization can improve every day.

People say that you should have routine checkups with your primary healthcare provider. Scary idea. Do you know how many people are dead with something that started with a "routine checkup"?

A lot of people believe you should, "live in the moment." But people who live mostly "in the moment" find their moments getting steadily worse. They can't delay gratification, making sacrifices now to have a better future. Then they are surprised when the future comes and it is harsh and poor. This they call "bad luck."

From an academic blog reader the day before the SOTU: I just turned down a ticket to sit on the stage with President Obama tomorrow. "After I'm Gone," to quote the song by Joey Feek, I want anyone who happens to remember me to think, "He lived by his Wyatt Earp Code."

People keep trying to sanitize the past according to their lights of what is correct today. New Orleans takes down statutes of Confederate Leaders, ISIS blows up ancient temples, the Taliban destroy the priceless statutes of Buddha, Mount McKinley is renamed "The High One".... Soon the Washington Redskins will be the Washington Sniveling Bureaucrats...

A progressive revolution usually only means different folks standing in front of the firing squad or holding the rifles.

The media long ago gave up speaking truth to power. They now are on the progressive PC leash and speak opinions as facts and spoon-fed talking points as gospel.

Too many people suffer from LLDD: Liberal Logic-Deficit Disorder.

From the Internet: The media seems to think that Allah Akbar is Arabic for "Nothing to do with Islam."

Remember that in America, you are innocent until the media convicts you. Ask Darren Wilson.

Since the Supreme Court has made Gay Marriage legal in all states, we shouldn't admit any refugees who oppose it. Or who opposes equal rights for women.

Narcissism is the root of all evil. But to run for public office, especially president, you must be at least a little narcissistic. Hopefully not with an incurable case like that of Obama and Trump.

Obama has stopped our military from bombing the ISIS oil trucks for fear of civilian casualties and environmental damage. Of course, ISIS depends on oil money to buy guns and explosives and to pay their terrorists, so letting them sell the oil results in far more civilian deaths and environmental damage. And eventually to dead Americans. But you can't expect him to think that far ahead.

95% of the people who watch debates are already solidly for one of the candidates, and watch to cheer for their team, not to get educated.

There is a debate over whether Mexican drug lord El Chapo should stay in Mexico or go to the US. Given his record of murder, I think there's a third choice--he could go straight to hell.

Women who dress immodestly deserve to be raped, and Gays deserve to be killed. And if you don't agree, you are Islamophobic, despised by all liberals for not accepting Muslim culture and welcoming refugees.

I miss disco. Actually, I don't really know what disco was except some type of dance music. But it kept the vacuous busy attacking or defending it.

When I point out Trump's long history of liberalism, such as supporting single-payer healthcare, the "dreamers," and big government taking private property to give it to his business, or saying Hilary would make a great president and would be able to handle Iran, or contributing to Hillary, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, the Trumpeters say, "That was just business; he didn't mean it, he just needed to do it to be successful." What makes them think he isn't lying now about his beliefs just to be successful in the campaign?

I would like the epitaph on my grave to be, "I told you so!"

Don't worry, when Obama's hundred thousand Muslim refugees get here, Michelle Obama and the girls are protected by the Secret Service, so are in no danger. Your family is protected by...you.

I think that electing Hillary Clinton, or Bernie Sanders or Donald Trump president would be disastrous for the country, each in different ways. But Trump has an additional problem. Electing him will destroy the conservative movement as his manifest flaws throw sand in the gears and he is held up by liberals for decades as the "conservative" bogyman.

To be fair to Sean Penn in the El Chapo affair, you can see why he would look at the contemporary media and think that all you need to be a famous journalist is a huge ego, a PC tilt to the left, and alack of sound judgment.

I think the Madison weatherman should just say, "There's a wind chill advisory in effect until May..."

Liberals wanted a black in the White House, any black who could win, regardless of experience, competence or integrity. Now they want a woman in the White House on the same terms. Plumbing trumps integrity. 

What Obama calls "diplomacy" for getting our people released by Iran should really be called "paying the ransom money" to kidnappers, so they can buy arms to kill more innocent folks.

Failing to plan is not self-confidence. It is hubris. (Or lazy stupidity.)

Once you get to know them well, every family is dysfunctional in some way.

Don't know why there are not Bumper Stickers saying, "Donald Trump: The pro-Obama, pro-Clinton, anti-Tea Party candidate."

Jim Geraghty about Democrats: "Sanders is closer to what the base wants, Clinton is closer to what the elites want."

I believe strongly that if Trump is the nominee, Clinton or Sanders will be the next President. I could not vote to make any of the three President.

One thing you can say about the liberal elites--they've shown us that fighting for the poor is a great way to get rich.

If you poison millions and murder thousands to get rich, you too can score an interview with Sean Penn.

For people without self-discipline, "Just this once" becomes everyday.

Britain voting to ban Donald Trump is a political gift to him, which will, unfortunately, help his campaign.

Sarah Palin endorsing Trump didn't move me an inch in his direction. It made me suspect that my liberal friends were right about her.

I may be almost 70, but I want you to know I still have the fantasies of a twenty-year-old.

Humiliating people--especially subordinates--is not leadership.

Isn't it funny that Martin Luther King never talked about "White Privilege" or asked for segregated safe spaces for blacks.

Everyone talks about "Area 51." But I notice the government has kept a tight wrap of silence on "Area One through Area Fifty." What are they hiding?

Charisma is fine for getting you there, but once you get there you need competence. Without that, your charisma will be rapidly consumed in the fire of disaster.

If today's progressives were around in the 1943, they would have said, "We can't condemn Nazis for the Holocaust--its their culture and all cultures are equally valid."

Easy prediction. The Trump supporters are going to be bitterly disappointed. Especially if he is elected.

There's nothing like a candlelight vigil after a shooting to make the fuzzy-headed feel like they are doing something.

They say, "There is no use worrying about things you can't control." They are right. But I and probably everyone else worries anyway.

When you live in Wisconsin or points north, you take global warming as a promise, not a threat. And you fear it's going to be a promise like, "If you like your (health) plan, you can keep your plan. Period."

"I'm at as bad as a lot of people," sounds like a pretty hollow argument when talking to God. Or to a judge.

I was disappointed with the "The Revenant" movie. When friends told me there was a great bear scene, I naturally assumed...

Vindictiveness is a sword as likely to wound the wielder as the target. See "Bridgegate."

The refusal of the media and the government to name the ethnicity of Muslims, blacks and Hispanics involved in robbery, rape and murder doesn't reduce racism. It increases it as people read between the lines, word leaks out anyway, and the general public assumes the problem is worse than it is because they believe there is a massive cover-up. We saw this with the New Year's sex assaults in Germany which the media and officials tried to hide.

Cynical person that I am, I doubt the folks selling various exercise equipment on TV got their perfect bodies from that particular piece of equipment.

Name calling is not an argument. It is, however, the first of the seven recognized propaganda techniques.

Trump is a liberal in conservative talking points.

Hillary has been concerned with the "one percent" throughout her career. Concerned with getting Bill and herself into it that is.

Bumper Sticker Suggestion: "Rump is a TRINO!"

If you are going to eliminate references to slavery from history, you must eliminate all history, as every society, including black ones, practiced slavery. I have read that white slaves were being sold in Cairo as late as the 1800s. And Dr. Thomas Sowell writes, in "The real history of slavery," that during the period when 500,000 black slaves were brought to north America, 1,000,000 white slaves were kidnapped in Europe and taken into Muslim lands in north Africa.

People do not spend millions on advertising because they have your best interests at heart. The best you can hope for is that your interests coincide with their interest in making money.

I don't think Bloomberg is going to run. But then, I didn't think Trump was going to run either.

From my friend, Tom on Clinton vs. Trump vs. Sanders: "A dishonest, morally corrupt wanna-be hereditary aristocrat who would use the govt to feather her nest and crush all opponents v. a dishonest, venial crony-capitalist blowhard who would use govt to crush all opponents vs. a feather headed dreamer whose economic views are obsolete by nearly 1000 years, who would use the govt. to impoverish everyone. Did I miss anything?"

The favorite tactic of the left is to refer to Republicans as extremists or fanatics. Much as was said about abolitionists before the Civil war.

It used to be said that vulnerable people "wore their hearts on their sleeves." Now they ware them on Facebook.

Get the collection! My “Random Thoughts” from 2008 through July, 2013 are collected in this book: The Old Jarhead's Journal: Random Thoughts on Life, Liberty, and Leadership by Robert A. Hall
The Old Jarhead’s Journal is a collection of Random Thoughts on politics and life and Conservative Political Essays, mostly published on the author’s blog, including the essay “I’m Tired” which went viral on the Internet in 2009, “The Hall Platform,” “This I Believe,” and “Why I’m a Republican.” While they will be of interest to conservative thinkers, they are collected here in book form as a service to readers who wish to give a copy to favorite liberals and watch their heads explode. All royalties are donated to the Injured Marine Semper Fi Fund.

*****


Robert A. Hall is a Marine Vietnam Veteran who served five terms in the Massachusetts State Senate. He is the author of The Coming Collapse of the American Republic. http://www.amazon.com/Coming-Collapse-American-Republic-prevent/dp/1461122538/ref=sr_1_5?s=booksandie=UTF8andqid=1304815980andsr=1-5 For a free PDF of Collapse, e-mail him at tartanmarine(at)gmail.com. Hall’s eleven books are listed here: http://tartanmarine.blogspot.com/2010/07/new-book-published.html. His blog of political news and conservative comment is www.tartanmarine.blogspot.com.

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