Playground Bully for President - 2016

The more I read comments by Trump supporters (especially self-identified "Evangelical" Christians and conservatives) explaining their support of the man, the more I'm convinced it's time to move away from the cities into rural hideaways and start building the old end-of-the-world bunker.  

And I'm not really kidding here.

People who should know better are flocking to get behind a candidate who is essentially a playground bully, hoping he will do for them what they lack the will or access to power to do for themselves. It's sad to watch people who claim to support the Constitution and the Bill of Rights hand the reins of power to a man whose business "experience" is a sickening record of strong-arming competitors, bullying partners and stiffing those who trusted him. Trump has historically been long on hubris and confident promises and short on delivering on those promises (save the promise he made to himself to make himself richer).

I'm sorry, but however much you think Trump will protect us from the ravening hordes of Muslims and Mexicans, that "protection" will come at a price. If you seek safety and protection from a casino and strip club owning shady real estate developer who is up on racketeering charges and has ties to the Mob, you are no better than those who seek peace and safety from a mythical altruistic socialist elite who promise to give you free stuff. Don't forget how it works in the real world for those who pay for safety and protection from powerful thugs.  

First you pay for protection from outside enemies and then you pay for protection from your "protector". As in medieval times when armored feudal barons "protected" groups of serfs and peasants, those who are strong enough to protect you are also strong enough to enslave you. Like Trump, the ancient nobles were "beholden to no one". If that's what you like about Trump, that he's so rich he is beholding to no one, then you should not be at all surprised when, once he is in power, he isn't beholden to you either.

Attack dogs may give a few burglars pause, but if they have no reason to obey you, they make very poor masters. It's like Ronald Reagan and Winston Churchill both said. Depending on appeasing a bully or waiting for someone else to make things go right for you is like feeding the crocodile hoping it will eat you last. 

That doesn't always work so well.

Just sayin'.

Tom King © 2016

The Trumperor Has No Clothes

What does Donald Trump have to do to shock his supporters back to reality - grow a toothbrush moustache and sing Trumpster, Trumpster Uber Alles? He recently said his followers are so loyal he could shoot someone dead in the middle of the street and not lose a single vote.

I'm beginning to fear that he is correct.

Supposedly, Trump speaks for mainstream American conservatism. Okay let's look at his record.

1. Conservative?  Trump has been alternately a Democrat, Libertarian, Republican and Independent, depending on the shifting political winds. He's poured millions into the campaigns of both Clintons and Obama. He claims the economy does better under Democrats.
2. Family Values?  Trump is on his third wife. He's a serial philanderer, owns strip clubs and casinos, and has an ego the size of Texas.
3. Business Acumen? Trump has bankrupted 4 businesses leaving hundreds of investors in the lurch. His resort management company was ousted by business partners in Panama for massive misdirection of funds into Trump's other holdings leaving the partners in the lurch. Hundreds of small investors lost funds in his Mexican land deals AND his "Trump Academy" business school up on racketeering charges.
4. Belief in Smaller Government? Trump is a big fan of the use of imminent domain to seize property from private individuals to give to wealthy land developers. Uses it frequently. Says he won't be beholden to business lobbyists?  Well no, because he IS one. The Donald prefers complex government because it gives billionaires a distinct advantage in the market over small business and the poor schmucks he skins out of their money. He's a dealer alright and big government is like crack for people who love to deal.

That's just the surface of this incredibly corrupt egomaniac. How anyone can assume The Donald can be trusted any farther than a 4 year-old little girl could throw him is beyond me.  Apparently if you are on reality TV and go on TV every chance you get to tell people how wonderful you are, that's all you have to do. Dangle a shiny promise or play a pleasing tune on your flute in front of some people and they wander after you like rats after the Pied Piper. What are they teaching in schools these days.

God help us if it's come to that. I pray that Americans wake up. I fear that they will not.

Tom King © 2016

Free Racism for All - It's Easy If You Try

Racism? Doesn't that have something to do with treating
people like they are less than human? (Burundi)

In my morning reading I came across a bizarre statement. It's not the first time I've seen it, but it is no less bizarre for being repeated. The writer made the astonishing claim that black persons, in fact, all persons of color cannot be "racists". 

I weep for the children. As C.S. Lewis' Professor Digory once said, "What ARE they teaching in schools these days?" It's certainly not logic and history by all accounts.

The whole idea that a particular brand of human beings categorically cannot be racist is preposterous both in terms of its logical foundation as well as its historical accuracy. Logically, the concept that a person cannot be racist if they possess a certain skin color is, in and of itself a racist idea. Such an idea posits that there is a fundamental difference between persons of color and persons of another color which exists because of the person's race (white by the way is a color - check your crayon box). You cannot claim there is no fundamental difference between persons based on their skin color and then turn right around and claim that there actually is a fundamental difference in that persons of a certain color are congenitally unable to be racists. The ability to be or not to be a racist is a pretty fundamental difference. As to the Marxist theory that certain classes of oppressed people cannot be oppressors themselves has been shown to be a flying load of hoodoo, or would be if anyone bothered to read a non-sanitized history book anymore. Stalin's communist workers party did rather a lot of oppressing in their day as did Chairman Mao's People's Party. Several hundred million folks could tell you that if they were alive to do so (which they are not).

Hitler wasn't the only one to bury
folks in ditches (Rwanda).

The idea that black people can't be racist is a logical fallacy. For proof one need only visit the recent history of racist violence between Hutus and Tutsis in in Africa in which the protagonists took as an unquestioned truth that one tribe was racially inferior to the other and possessed of inherent evil tendencies - essentially racist beliefs.

The only problem with taking the time to explain all of this is that the Twitter generation quit reading this post back at about 140 characters. Too bad. They will miss my favorite Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. quote.  The good Doctor, whose holiday we celebrated just a few weeks ago, famously said, "I look to a day when people will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character."

Me too, Doc.  Me too.

Tom King
© 2016