I remember watching from my computer the inauguration of Donald Trump as the 45th president of the United States. After the most contentious (if we’re being charitable) and horribly vitriolic and stupid (if we aren’t) election of my admittedly short lifetime, the inaugural was marked by the opposition effectively rioting, a now famous gif of someone yelling “Nooooo” at the moment of the Oath of Office and the kind of violence that still largely exists on the Left side of the spectrum. This was, if nothing else, going to be a new age of absurdity, emotional arguments and idiocy to rival any given college course you don’t really need for your major. Continue reading Two for Trump →

There is no doubt that identity politics has become a central tenet of the Progressive Left. It is thanks to them that we have trigger warnings, microagressions, hyper-sensitivity rivaling the old Moral Majority of the 90s and the idiotic encouragement of “speaking your truth” as a substitute for the objective one. In this world, comedy can’t be offensive, thought cannot be deep, and even if a white man speaks the absolute truth, his race will become the focal point of his opposition as a substitute for an argument. Truth now is such an inconvenience, that Donna Hughes, professor of Gender and Women’s Studies at the University of Rhode Island declares that “The scientific method is a tool for the construction and justification of dominance in the world…the new methodological techniques were invented by men who were interested in explaining the inheritance of traits in order to support their political ideology of natural human superiority and inferiority”. Continue reading Gaslight →

Trump is boring. The Left isn’t

I remember watching Donald Trump’s inauguration with a three conflicting thoughts

1: Oh my God, Donald-freakin-Trump is actually president. We have reached peak reality TV.

2: This is going to be interesting

3: This is going to be horrifying

To the first point, be honest, does saying “President Donald Trump”, regardless of your political party, STILL not feel a bit weird? Stay tuned for President Sean Hannity or President Samantha Bee, amirite?

No. No I am not right. God help us all if I am. Continue reading Wandering Mind 3 →

Government, taxes, tribalism and the circle of absurdity

Tribalism is a fun thing to watch, but I can’t imagine it’s a fun thing to be a part of. With the pro-abortion people ranting about constitutional rights, there are better than 2 to 1 odds that those same people are pro-gun control, and will engage in mental gymnastics to justify the dissonance. But I’m seeing a particularly fun strain of thought surface that goes a bit like this:

Democrats: Banning abortion is unconstitutional, besides, banning abortions won’t work. Also Democrats: We need to ban guns to protect innocent lives.

Meanwhile, we have the other side of the coin, but switch where you see abortion and guns. Republicans say banning guns won’t work but banning abortions Continue reading Wandering Mind 2 →

Last time, I had mentioned a fear about what’s coming because of the lack of depth in the national discourse. I’d like to explore the reckoning that is facing one of the main culprits in that shallowness a bit more, before leaving with a distant hope.

The primarily culprit of this shallowness is a public school system that once taught about Western Civilization, Greek and Latin, and now proudly offers algebra, an overview at history shallow enough to learn nothing from it and an exhaustive overview of the life cycle of a tree. Indeed, it seems the generation was almost set up for failure. We spent 60-70% of our formative years in a system that taught everything that didn’t matter, and were not encouraged to go pursue other opinions and ideas because they were old, boring, irrelevant or inferior. Every child comes out of 14 years of school knowing that they are all special, nobody’s perfect, Pythagoras had way too much time on his hands and the mitochondria is the power station of a cell. How will we do taxes, raise a family, consider the impact of voting for the leaders of the largest, richest, most powerful nation in the history of the planet based on policy and not charisma? Don’t worry about that because everything is going to be just fine in the end and people are basically good. Continue reading 1K: The Bubble →

At a community group with my church, and a small group with the CCO, there were conversations about relativism and the resurgent tribalism in America. Members of both who participated in the conversation were dreading the impending 2020 season, which starts before even Christmas decorations are up in stores.

The reason for this dread is simple: the vitriolic, destructive 2016 season which saw people break off years-long friendships because of who they voted for and in some cases, they stopped talking to family members as well. Oddly, exit polls demonstrate that neither candidate was actually well-liked. As Ben Shapiro elaborates in the introduction to his book The Right Side of History. “The exit polls show that on the day of the 2016 election, just 43 percent of voters had a favorable opinion of Hillary Clinton; 38 percent of voters had a favorable opinion of Donald Trump. Only 36 percent of voters thought Hillary was honest and trustworthy; 33 percent of voters thought Trump was. 53 percent of Americans said they would feel concerned or scared if Clinton won; 57 percent of Americans felt that way if Trump won.” Continue reading Climate Change →

It is, from one perspective exciting and another lamentable that the one universal truth we’re taking into the 2020 election is that truth and morality are relative, but “those other people” are indefensible bastards. 

It is easy to blame the political climate on Penny Arcade’s Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory, but at some point, it is incumbent on the people who are embracing it to cease being fuckwads.  For those who don’t know, the G.I.F.T. “is a postulate which asserts that normal, well-adjusted people may display psychopathic or antisocial behaviors when given both anonymity and a captive audience on the Internet.” 

Continue reading 1K: Fundraising →