Random Thoughts for March 2019

Random Thoughts for March 2019

By Robert A. Hall

Feel free to post or forward.  

"Après nous, le déluge"

The people who made “Honor” an object of ridicule now complain constantly that we are governed by self-interested, corrupt liars and frauds. As ye sow…

I’m an old-fashioned conservative Republican. I believe, unlike most of my party today, that character counts.

The price of civilization is the blood of warriors. Western civilization is becoming unwilling to pay the price, which will kill civilization. Then we will go back to the 20,000 years of tribal barbarism that preceded the development of the rule of law, free markets and democracy, which has lifted much of the world out of the grinding poverty, starvation and slavery that existed since the dawn of history. And that we will return to without Western Civilization.

Do you want to make yourself a great deal happier?  Develop a positive attitude. Be nice to people. Help other people whenever you can. Be cheerful all the time. Stop complaining to others. You will notice that all these things are within your control regardless of external factors. And that no one is perfect in them. Or anything.

We all live one phone call away from Code Red.

“The free market is the greatest anti-poverty program in all of human history. In a very real sense, it is the only anti-poverty program in all of human history.” --Jonah Goldberg, Suicide of the West.

Modern curse: “May you burn in the bowels of the bureaucracy.”

Some people seem to enjoy living in the sewers of society, despite good upbringings. But sometimes their children crawl out.

American politicians have now weaponized vileness, as Stalin, Mao, Hitler, Pol Pot, Castro and others did in their countries. Can oppression and violence be far behind?

She gives fruitcakes a bad name.

On hyphenated immigrants: “Any man who carries a hyphen around with him carries a dagger he is ready to plunge into the vitals of this republic whenever he gets the chance.” Progressive President Woodrow Wilson.

I see that female Democrat reps wore all white to the SOTU speech. Take that, Black Lives Matter! 

Waiting for a haircut, I was reading the advice column for the local paper. A woman complained that whenever her mother-in-law came over, she set to “cleaning like a maniac.”  I don’t see the problem. Just send her to our house twice a month.

“If you lack the courage to fail, you lack the courage to succeed.” --Rabbi Jonathon Sacks

Age is just a number. But in my case, it’s a pretty big number.

Things are not as they should be. They never have been. They are always as they are. Each of us can have an impact, but it’s small, like one man in China with a shovel working on digging a 1,000-mile canal. Maybe he thinks it’s not worth doing, but if there were no men with shovels, no canal.

Perhaps the reason you have increasing aches, pain and misery as you get old is to make you less afraid of death.

All men were created equal. But the progressives made some better than the rest of us on the basis of race, gender or religion. “Merit” is racist. Except for black football players.

If you are being admitted to the hospital, be sure to leave your dignity at home. And don’t expect to get much rest.

A little OCD is functional. It helps keep you organized, lets you complete small tasks and means you are likely to be on time.

Churchill said: “Never, never, never believe any war will be smooth and easy, or that anyone who embarks on the strange voyage can measure the tides and hurricanes he will encounter.”

Bernie Sanders had a wealthy friend and potential donor that he wanted to impress. First, he took him to the couple’s Washington home for drinks. Then they flew up to Vermont where they stopped at the Sanders’ home in Burlington, then drove to their $600,000 beachfront vacation home on Vermont’s Lake Champlain Islands for a long weekend. “So, what do you think?” He asked his friend. “Very impressive, Senator. But what will you do if the socialists get in power?”

Two proverbs on punctuality from my friend Alison: We count the faults of those who keep us waiting. Punctuality is the politeness of kings.

If it wasn’t for nonsense, the hard left and hard right would have no sense at all. Not that the center always has a lot.

The number of people who die of ass-holism is growing alarmingly.

Note to haters left and right: “Darkness cannot drive out darkness, only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that.” --Martin Luther King.

It’s hard to take you seriously in the real world if you are over 25 and your clothes, tattoos and piercings make you look like an unsupervised teenager who got into someone’s marijuana stash.

“Absolute power is like getting a wish from a genie: the first thing you wish for is more wishes.” --Jonah Goldberg, Suicide of the West.

Authenticity can be faked. On the left, “authenticity” is everything. Thus Obama, with one white parent, is “authentically” black, while Justice Clarence Thomas, Sen. Tim Scott, Dr. Thomas Sowell and Dr. Walter Williams, all with two black parents, are not. Rachel Dolezal, the woman who has two white parents, who headed an NAACP chapter, is thus “authentically black.” People with penises and XY chromosomes who claim to be female are “authentically” women. Women who support Trump are not. All this proves that the left is authentically challenged.

Glory comes to those who deserve glory, not to those who seek it. Though Hollywood and the media try to manufacture undeserved glory.

Yes, there are exceptions. There are always exceptions.

Most people get all their historical knowledge from Hollywood. So, it is terribly flawed, agenda-driven knowledge. It’s like learning to drive by watching the car chase scene in an action movie.

The heart of progessivism is wanting to feel good with someone else bearing the costs.

Occasionally a progressive will trip over a fact, but they soon recover and rush on, bound for utopia.

We grow old slowly, but once we are old, it seems to have happened overnight.

You can now be hounded out of a job, punished, and made a social pariah because it has come to light that something you did or said 30 or 40 years ago, ever as a teen, is offensive by today’s standards to one of the victim groups making up the Democrat coalition. There is no statute of limitations.

Building someone up doesn’t make you smaller. It makes you bigger.

I meet a lot of old men who have, or have had, a drug or alcohol problem. I’m an old man with a book problem. Show me a history book at Goodwill, and it goes on my five shelves of unread books. Never mind that I just winnowed out two boxes on unread books to take to the VA, and don’t have enough years left to read the books I have.

Note to demagogues left and right. Being for the right values is more important than “winning.” Being kind, decent and fair is more important than being “strong.”

There’s now a politician with a sign on her desk that says, “Trust your crazy ideas.” Guess which party. Wasn’t that what Hitler, Mao, Stalin and Uncle Ho did?

If you discover something negative about a left-wing politician, within weeks the medias will be referring to your discovery as “discredited.”

If you are checking your smart phone when walking, when in the elevator, when having a meal with others, you are an addict just like a heroin addict or cigarette addict.

Foresight and wisdom are not the same thing.

There’s no need for the government to ban books. In 30 years there will be nobody who wants to read them.

If you don’t know the three branches of government, what freedoms are protected in the Bill of Rights, when the Civil War took place and why, can’t name any of the founders, and are ignorant of other basic facts about our form of government and history, why the hell should  people be imploring you to get out and vote?

“The government can improve your net worth with a check, but it cannot improve your self worth.” --Jonah Goldberg, Suicide of the West.

People now identify and cheer for political parties the way they do for NFL and other sports teams. This tribalism isn’t healthy.

No Obama, no Hillary? No Trump.

The Tea Parties were the only protests that cleaned up after themselves. No wonder the left hated them and the media demonized them.

It’s kind of touching that you want to be right so badly that you actually believe what you are saying.

If it’s a robo call, it’s not worth listening to.

Neither the Dems nor Trump cares about the impact of policy on real people so long as they “win.”

The defense of marijuana is that it’s not as bad as smoking. The defense of being stabbed is that it’s not as bad as being shot.

“An empty head is not really empty; it is stuffed with rubbish. Hence the difficulty of forcing anything into an empty head.” – Eric Hoffer

The difference between now and when I was young is that then folks ignored 20-something twits.

Clean? You can eat off the floor at our house. You’ll die in agony, but you can eat off the floor.

One can only look at the last 25 years and say, “Mistakes were made.”

When God gives you a mission, you don’t say no.

When I was a kid, they said anyone can grow up to be president. Turns out it’s true.

If they want to become citizens and vote, immigrants have to pass a basic citizenship test. Illegal immigrants don’t. Neither, alas, do people born here, most of whom can’t tell you the three branches of government, or name the rights protected in the Bill of Rights. Any of them. (I wonder if Rep. AOC could pass. Or others.)

Today’s Democrats are about as Democratic as a one-party “Democratic Socialist Republic.” And they hope to have that level of repression for “the people’s good.”

The “Green New Deal” is just the Old Red Deal.

If there’s one thing I’m sick of its “improvements” to the computer programs I use so I can no longer do things I did and want to do.

For many years, some conservatives have said the left and Democrats were socialist. They called it a hysterical lie. But now we learn the truth, when they think it’s safe to come out of hiding.

Remember folks, there are no lifeguards at the gene pool... Todd R.

Liberals want the NRA to stop killing kids. Because, after all, that’s Planned Parenthood’s job.

I read in the paper that the US currently has 7.3 million job opening, the most in the two decades since records have been kept. Not to worry, the Green New Deal will take care of that. And more.

Saw a good meme on Facebook: “Welcome to your 60s. If you have not already developed a mystery aliment, one will be assigned shortly.”

Now days if you wrote a novel about slavery, the slave owners would have to call their slaves “African Americans” of you’d be pilloried.

Hitler tried to exterminate Jews and Slaves in the east as “Useless Eaters.” After the Green New Deal, first they will come for the cows, but at some point, they will come for the “Useless Farters.” That’s you, my friend.

All you can do in this world is pray and bail. And be kind to those bailing next to you.

I pray every day, but sometimes I wonder if it’s not blasphemy, telling God his job and trying to keep him on task.

Kaepernick has joined Bowe Bergdahl, Chelsea Manning, Monica Witt and many others in the progressives’ pantheon of anti-American heroes. Can the rehabilitation of Benedict Arnold be far away?

The California Progressives lauded High Speed Rail as the wave of the future, ignoring, as they always do, the math. Now that it has collapsed, will California voters throw out the politicians who pissed away billions of their tax dollars? Nah, they will reelect them hoping that next time reality won’t bite them in the ass.

From Facebook: “You can vote your way into socialism, but you have to shoot your way out.”

Remember when “journalist” and “propagandist” meant two different things? Good times.

As gaseous as I am from age and meds, it’s a wonder AOC hasn’t declared me public enemy #1.

With all the far-left candidates running for the Democrat nomination, it’s a shame Stalin’s not alive. He could clear the field.

Get the collection! My “Random Thoughts” from 2009 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 twelve 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. He currently works part-time as a writer-editor in the My Life, My Story program as the Madison VA hospital, interviewing vets and writing up their life histories.