Random Thoughts for May, 2016

Random Thoughts for May, 2016. By Robert A. Hall

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On April 15th, I turned 70. No birthday has ever bothered me, but I used to think that 70 would. 70 is old. But given the events of the last few years, I'm now delighted to still be here for 70, despite my ongoing complications and the time it takes to manage my lung transplant, about 40 hours a week, plus 70 hours of sleep at least.

On April 30, I was 166.9 lbs, four lbs. lower than April 1, and 14.5 lbs. lower than April 30, 2015!

The fact is that for as long as I have known about Donald Trump, I have held him in contempt and disdain. In my book he is a bloviating, coprophagic fustilarian. And always will be. I could never vote for him and still consider myself a person of integrity.

Donald Trump, who as I write has won 37% of he GOP vote and received 45% of the GOP delegates, continues to whine about how unfair, corrupt and dirty the system is.

Unlike Christianity or Judaism, the left protects Islam from any investigation, discussion or criticism. But Islam has a strong fundamentalist faction which is intolerant of other view points (much, I guess, like the left), misogynistic to women, and willing to do violence and murder towards anyone who disagrees. For example, all major Islamic Schools of Jurisprudence, four Sunni and the major Shi'a school, on which Muslim countries draw to establish civil and religious law, proscribe the death penalty for any Muslim who leaves Islam. Pointing this out gets one labeled "Islamophobic," as though noticing and saying the truth is a mental disease. Maybe if Christianity reverted to their medieval views and murdered heretics, the left would suddenly value Christians as well.

I am now supporting Sen. Ted Cruz for president. But let's be clear--if he is nominated the battle against Hillary or Bernie will be uphill. Hillary will have the machine, the money and the media behind her. The electoral college math tilts against any Republican candidate. If Cruz loses to Hillary, the Donaldcrats will say, "I told you so!," ignoring the fact that Cruz does about ten points better than Trump against her.  Jonah Goldberg pointed out the principled conservatives will not vote for Trump (I'm #Never Trump guy), while the Donaldcrats will not vote for anyone else. He said, "This ends in tears no matter what. Get over it and pick a side." A full 36% of Wisconsin Republicans say they will not vote for Trump if he is the nominee. With Cruz, even if we lose, there will be less down-ballot disaster for conservatives. Trump will, I believe, lose huge and take the Senate with him--and maybe the House. With Cruz we may--may I said--be able to save the Senate.

When the left says it supports free speech, it means free speech for those who never deviate from the left's dogma. Anyone else will be intimidated into silence. "Speech codes" are intended to silence anyone with a different point of view from speaking out. Today's universities, or should I say "Today's adult child day-care centers," support every possible diversity except the one that matters most--diversity of thought.

The Trump campaign is going to be the graveyard of political reputations. A Trump Presidency ever more so.

Christian groups are forced off campus if they don't believe in gay marriage. Muslim groups who support Shari'a Law, under which being gay is punishable by death, are celebrated and welcomed on campus.

If Trump promised he was going to teach everyone to fly like birds, the Donaldcrats would say, "See, none of the other candidates will do that." It's why he can get away with promising to build up the military, cut taxes, and eliminate the deficit and much of the debt all at the same time. They think if he says he will repeal the law of gravity, that he will do it. They will be disillusioned if he loses, but exponentially more disillusioned if he wins.

One of the Iron Laws of Economics, of which so many people are ignorant, is that if you increase the cost of something, people buy less of it. If you lower the cost, they buy more. The government proved this once again in the 1980s-90s, when they decided to highly tax high-end pleasure boats. The boat market dropped sharply, workers who built boats were laid off, and less overall tax was collected. They repealed the tax, but never apologized to the workers who lost their jobs. It works the same way for labor. If you raise the cost of unskilled labor through increases in the minimum wage, people hire fewer unskilled workers. But the fairy-dust politicians never tire of promising they can repeal this economic law. Might as well try to repeal the law of gravity.

People who invested up to $35k in Trump University, based on the lie that he was going to handpick the instructors, got burned. People who were creditors of Trump Airlines, Trump Taj Mahal Casino (3 times), Trump Mortgage, Trump Network, Trump Steaks, and Trump vodka got burned. People who invest in "Trump the President" are going to get burned, if he doesn't get the nomination, if he does, but is crushed by Hillary as the polls show, or, worse, if some black swan event makes him president and he brings his know nothing, bullying, crude, insulting, no-core-values approach to managing the country.

Hillary and The Donald get away with lies because their supporters have politely, silently among themselves agreed not to notice.

Shouting down speakers so that their views cannot be heard is an old fascist tactic, now usually used by the illiberal left.

I expect any day for Trump to announce that he is changing all his positions--again--to whatever you want to hear.

If the military can't discriminate in the combat arms on the basis of sex, why can fraternities and sororities on college campuses do so in membership?

Trump was apparently out-maneuvered in Louisiana and Colorado by the Cruz people because, arrogant as ever, he didn't bother to learn the rules. When I was in the Massachusetts Senate, I figured out that, despite being in a minority of seven out of forty, I could have more power if I knew the rules, so I learned them. When I had been there a year, I had three and four term senators asking me about the Senate rules.

The forced integration of women into Marine combat infantry, regardless of differences in physiology, will mean dead Marines, male and female. The blood will be on Obama's hands, but by then he will be making millions on the book and speaking circuit and will escape all responsibility.

I have a lot of good male friends, especially Marine buddies. But I've never had a "bromance." What the hell is up with that silliness?

If you don't like Trump's position on a particular issue, check in tomorrow--it will have likely changed.

Saw an obit for a guy who was born in Smackover, Arkansas. Sounds like my kind of place.

A fervent desire for the unattainable is a solid foundation for misery.

Remember when student radicals in the 1960s were demanding free speech and saying power to the people, instead of wanting to limit speech they find offensive through speech codes and power over people? Good times, huh?

Many universities now have free speech zones. So what are the rest of the university? Anti-free-speech fascist zones?

For years now, any Republican who has varied from the party line on any issue has been a RINO. Of course, Donald Trump has varied from Republican Principles on everything during his career, but that apparently just makes him a smart businessman. Recently a Trump supporter said that I "was part of the Republican Establishment." I guess because once I was in Massachusetts, where I was Republican Whip in the State Senate 35 years ago--not that I had many people to whip! So if you are among the majority of GOP voters so far who have voted against Trump, welcome to the establishment. Cocktails at 6, dinner at 7.

Sacrifice is very popular. Almost everyone is in favor of other people making sacrifices of living standards, convenience or even life to improve the world.

College students who believe in socialism: Starry-eyed and stupid.

I hate that magazines send you renewals years in advance to try to increase their cash flow. I once found that, since I pay bills as they come in, I was almost three years ahead with one magazine. Last check I ever wrote to them.

Our country is like a besieged city in the Middle Ages--think Constantinople--where the population is sure everything will be okay, but the leaders and people who can see ahead know that no help is coming, that food and weapons are running low, the walls are being pounded, and the enemy will eventually take the city by storm. Then the attackers will rape the women, loot the city, sell the children and surviving women into slavery, and put the men to the sword. Facing that, the only choice is to fight on, make them pay dearly, and pray for divine intervention.

If you want to keep something confidential, do not put it on a computer attached to the Internet.

The Republican Establishment: Anyone who doesn't like Trump's record as a life-long liberal with an aversion to transparency, a contempt for the truth and a past record of shady dealings.

Trump's policies are based on wishful thinking and ex-cathedra pronouncements, rather than on facts and reality.

In cases involving leftist sacred-cow talking points, like the existence of a "rape culture" that means one in five college women will be raped in college, an accused person is guilty until proven innocent beyond a reasonable doubt. And maybe still then. It is a legal standard recognizable in every totalitarian system, from the National Socialists to the Russian and Chinese Communists, from the Ancien Régime to Cuba's rounding up hundreds of thought-crime dissidents so Obama's visit wouldn't be marred by facts.

Feminists from college students to Hillary say that when a women alleges rape she must be believed. Funny how that standard didn't apply to Juanita Broderick and other accusers of Bill Clinton.

If you wish to be a journalist or an academic today, you'd better be a card-carrying member of the lock-step left. It doesn't matter how liberal or progressive your positions have been, one slight deviation from the left's agenda, one thought-crime, will get you instantly demonized, dehumanized, and delegitimized, shamed with racial and sexist slurs if possible, and barred from employment, tenure or advancement. Conform or perish.

One good thing about Trump, he's not really a racist as some have said. He thinks everyone, regardless or race, gender, religion or ethnicity, is inferior to him.

If gun-free zones work, let's make Congress a corruption-free zone.

Trump's wall is of course doable, if the nation wants to pay the cost. Trying to make Mexico pay for it by stopping out-of-country money transfers would do as much damage to our economy as Mexico's. The thing about a barrier like a wall or barbed wire fence, or minefield is that it must be backed by troops to hold it, otherwise it is worthless. People find ways through. So we'd have to pull divisions now facing the threats in Iraq, China, N. Korea, etc. and put them on the border. Even manned, it may be worthless, see the Maginot or Siegfried Lines in WWII. You'd think Trump, who says he got more military training in boarding school than I got in the Marines, would know that.

Tying to get someone fired because you disagree with him/her on a political issue is fascism. Period.

Donald Trump running for president as the liberal caricature of what a "conservative" is, after decades of being a strong liberal on all issues, is as laughable as would be Hillary suddenly running as a "conservative." If you wouldn't believe her, why believe him.

At the Madison Gun Show, one dealer was selling a Ma Deuce--a 50 cal machine gun that had been modified to shoot only semi-auto, thus making it legal. $2,000 plus over $3 per round. Be fun to drive around with it mounted on a jeep, though I suspect the police would take some convincing that it was legal...

People who think they would like to live in the more romantic, simpler past, say pre-1950 back to medieval times are not well read in the history of what individual lives were like. The further back, the worse. The average poor person in America today has better healthcare, nutrition, food choices and entertainment choices that kings did 200 years ago. And far better than much of the "middle class" in the Third World today. Poverty is relative.

I notice that the people who say they will leave the country if this or that candidate is elected are usually going to Canada or some western society with the rule of law, contract enforcement and property rights. Almost never do they say the are going to Mexico, which is advanced in the Third World. And never to a Muslim majority country or one of the sub-Saharan African countries.

Donald Trump is a perfect example of the old adage, "What's bad for the country is good for the news media."

I wish it was as easy to lose ten pounds as it is to gain twenty.

A man's education cannot be considered complete until someone has seriously tried to kill him.

Like Obama, Trump's many weaknesses do not include being hobbled by excessive modesty.

In today's world, you are far more likely to be fired for telling the truth than or lying.

My brother Mark, who lives with us, drives my vehicle to work. It's as you might expect, it's festooned with conservative political and Marine Corps bumper stickers--in the People's Republic of Madison. He came out of work recently to find this polite note on the windshield: "I saw your bumper stickers. If you served in the military thank you for your service to our country! Now I hope you become "enlightened." I had no problem with this, the left here usually feel justified in doing damage to convince you that you should be PC. In 2004, for example, my wife's car with a Bush bumper sticker was keyed. Cars around her with Kerry stickers or no stickers were untouched.

The kids who wear "Che" tee-shirts are the same mentality as those who wear swastikas.

Wisdom from the past: "Mr. President, it is natural to man to indulge in the illusions of hope. We are apt to shut our eyes against a painful truth, and listen to the song of that siren till she transforms us into beasts. Is this the part of wise men, engaged in a great and arduous struggle for liberty? Are we disposed to be of the number of those who, having eyes, see not, and, having ears, hear not, the things which so nearly concern their temporal salvation? For my part, whatever anguish of spirit it may cost, I am willing to know the whole truth; to know the worst, and to provide for it." --Patrick Henry, March 23, 1775. (The "Liberty or Death" speech. I memorized it--1,228 words if I recall--in high school over a weekend on a $2 bet. Only recall bits of it now. ~Bob)

If it weren't for people's blind stupidity, life would be a lot less exciting and interesting.

Internet inquiry: Why are there no voices calling for implementing a minimum wage in developing countries to take them out of poverty?

Elections often come down to who can assemble the largest coalition by making the most impossible-to-keep promises to the credulous who are unable or unwilling to figure out step two. Which is why government is so often in fiscal crisis.

Some folks feel they must answer every email. But if everyone did, an email chain would never stop, and we'd quickly be dealing with 10,000 a day. Before we murdered the computer.

Employees quitting and leaving are a small problem. Employees quitting and staying are a BIG problem.

A growing number of cute girls are getting ugly tattoos, with no thought that they will be even uglier when they are 50 or 60. Makes me glad my roving days were mostly before this fad. I went out with two girls with tattoos. One date each.

When I see one of those roadside memorials with a cross, plastic flowers, stuffed animals, etc., I often think they should include empty beer, wine or booze bottles in cases, probably a majority, where alcohol was involved.

If they are nominated, both Clinton and Trump are going to say many very nasty things about each other. And both will be right.

A little touch of OCD can make your life more efficient. But it's like salt--too much spoils the meal and is hard to take out.

Pro Tip: If you don't wish to be treated with contempt, don't act in a contemptible way.

Trump's Secret Service code name is "Mogul." But I think it should be "Jupiter." Not for the god, for the planet, a gas giant. My brother Mark suggested "Uranus," also a gas giant and with an almost-eponymous name.

I have a bachelors degree in government and a master's in history. I served as a Marine, including Vietnam and for five terms in the Massachusetts Senate. I have 31 years management experience in the private sector, and am sure I have read more than a thousand books on history, politics, economics and foreign affairs. That doesn't begin to prepare me for the presidency. But it does mean I'm about ten times more prepared than Donald Trump.

A friend tells me her church does give-aways to strangers coming by to show that God loves them: Lemonade, cupcakes, flower bulbs. I suggested ammo.

If a person harbors an "inner jerk," there is nothing like fame and fortune to bring it out.

Today's universities are bastions of physical diversity and mental conformity.

I have had a couple of people ask to be removed from my blog mailing list because I have expressed my decades-old contempt and disdain for Donald Trump. I refunded their full subscription fee.

I hate it that, at 70, I'm probably going to die fairly soon. I'd like to find out what ridiculous rights the left comes up with in the future which, all of a sudden, you agree with or are a bigot and a social outcast.

In the name of "social justice," the unruly and undisciplined students are allowed to disrupt the education of the kids who want to learn. Where is the justice for those kids?

If a Muslim terrorist shoots at you, and you duck, is that Islamophobic?

My wife has bean on a rampage lately, turning any of my undershirts with fraying or a hole into dust rages. After a couple of decades of marriage, you learn to accept such cruel devastation of veteran underwear as part of life. Of course, if I see one in the wash first, I hide it at the bottom of the drawer. Rather like the Danes hiding Jews in the attic during WWII.

The Democrats, who are running two far-left candidates, have their panties in a bunch over how conservative Cruz is. Of course, compared to Trump, Bernie and Hillary, who isn't far right?

Figuring out how to spend money is easy. Figuring out how to get it is hard. Just ask Congress.

Short term interest often abrogate long-held principles. Thus Europe, hungry for Iran's oil, pushes aside what an Iran who can provide nuclear weapons to terrorists might mean for Paris, Brussels or Berlin in ten years.

It's not true, as some conservatives say, that Democrats don't have principles. For example, one principle, strongly held by most Democrats, is that the security of the nation and a strong military should never take priority over wealth transfers to Democrat interest groups.

Lets start a petition to cut off foreign aid to and trade with any country that makes being gay illegal.

Will Bernie Sanders make Trump University tuition free so no more students will get ripped off?

Some people compare Trump to Hitler, but that's wrong. He's more like Mussolini. He even re-tweeted one of Mussolini's quotes; il Duce was an incompetent, narcissistic braggart, a bully who often mistreated women, a "leader" who encouraged his followers to beat up the opposition to silence them. And he led his country to ruin.

Liberals think there are too many blacks in prison. Conservatives think there are too many blacks committing crimes--mostly against other blacks.

People who see the world through rose colored glasses are a problem. But a worse problem is people like Obama, Clinton and Sanders who view the world through red colored glasses.

We often drive around the Amish areas in Wisconsin, shop at their stores and enjoy the scenery. I don't get Amish theology at all, but I admire their work ethic, their craftsmanship and their dedication to their faith.

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

http://www.amazon.com/Old-Jarheads-Journal-Thoughts-Leadership/dp/1490500162/ref=sr_1_1?s=booksandie=UTF8andqid=1373907206andsr=1-1andkeywords=Old+Jarhead%27s+Journal

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.