You won, now get over it …

Donald Trump has many faults. 

A big one is that he doesn’t know when to put a sock in it.  There are too many times he gets carried away and says some stupid crap he’s sure to regret.  Most often it’s when he’s goaded by the press to comment on what’s obviously a gotcha question.  He should know when to STFU.  

But the one that makes me most nuts is his inability to get over the last election. 

Hey Donald, you won.  You’re the President.  It’s over. 

Why he keeps going back to his victory is baffling.  Sure, there are a lot of Democrats, establishment Republicans, and folks on the left who wish he hadn’t won. There are the whiners who claim he didn’t really win because Hillary got more of the popular vote.

The fact of the matter is, he got elected. He got inaugurated. He’s the President.

We all know that. Even his fiercest critics concede it.

It’s long past time for him to still be a sore winner. Give it up.  Move on.  Constantly revisiting why Hillary lost is demeaning and petty. Hammering on and on about her 33,000 missing e-mails and why the FBI cut her a break – which clearly they did – doesn’t accomplish anything. 

It’s all irrelevant now. The election’s over. 

Everyone understands why Trump hates the Mueller probe.  It's a cloud over his Presidency; but only because Trump keeps obsessing over it.  By now it’s pretty clear there will be no evidence of collusion between his campaign and the Russians.There's also no case for obstruction; he was well within his rights to fire Comey.  He should simply let it go. 

On the other thrust of the probe – whether Russia tried to meddle in the past election – does anyone with half a brain think they didn’t? Seriously?  Is there any doubt at all? Of course they tried to influence our election; they always try to influence other countries’ elections, as do we.  That’s nothing out of the ordinary. Anyone who thinks it’s something new is either hopelessly naïve or downright stupid. 

Did the Russians change a single vote? Nope. Even the FBI and DOJ concede that. 

That’s why there’s not a lot to the Mueller probe anymore.    

Yet Trump can’t resist beating the same dead horse and conflating the collusion issue with the Russian meddling.  He constantly attacks Mueller’s investigation, and especially Mueller’s team. That keeps the probe in the spotlight for no good reason. 

As one Republican said, if you’re innocent, act like it.  Trump needs to take that advice.  He needs to separate the obvious Russian meddling from the issue of collusion.

Acknowledge the former; ignore the latter. 

Everyone knows the Russians meddled so go with it. And despite the manufactured frenzy on the left and in the media, everyone else – including Mueller and his team, I suspect – knows the collusion thing is dead. Let it lie. 

Also, stop trying to keep the FBI treatment of Hillary, her server and e-mails on the front burner. Tell Republicans in the House and Senate to call off the dogs.  Yes, FBI officials sandbagged the original investigation. Yes, there was bias from investigators.

Yes, Hillary got a pass. 

Everyone knows all this.  It doesn’t make any difference now. 

Because she lost. You won.  Get over it.  

Gaslighting the American public ...

The verb “gaslight” comes from a 1940s movie by the same name.  The villain artfully manipulates events and situations to make his victim doubt her sanity. Near the end she’s not certain what’s real and what isn’t because he’s controlled her perception of reality.

I think the media and the left are trying to do the same to the American public. 

They are actively trying to make us question what’s real and accept their alternate reality.

In that alternate reality, Trump is a racist, a bigot, sexist, a misogynist, a xenophobe, and a homophobe. He’s doing the bidding of Vladimir Putin by dismantling NATO, criticizing our European allies, and constantly attacking the integrity of the FBI and our other intelligence agencies.  He may also be a Russian agent since 1987.   

Trump colluded with Russians to steal the last election, which he really didn’t win anyway.  He hates all Muslims. He hates all people of color, especially brown and black people.  He uses ICE to terrorize illegal immigrants by breaking down their doors, raiding their workplaces, and deporting them, often ripping families apart.  He also favors tearing babies from the arms of their mothers at the border to discourage other possible illegal immigrants from trying to come here.

He’s nominating people chosen by powerful alt-right extremists to the SCOTUS who will repeal Roe v. Wade, rollback voting rights and civil rights for minorities, take away protections and rights for the LGBTQ community, put women in prison for having abortions, let corporations poison the environment, and turn America into a police state.    

Of course, none of that is true. There’s no proof at all.  Not a scrap.   

Trust me, if there was I’d know about it. I’m a news junkie. Every day I read the hard copy of the Wall Street Journal – Monday through Saturday, check out everything online on Fox News, CNN, and MSNBC for balance, and sometimes go to Snopes to check things, as well as do my own research. I’ve been doing all this every day for years to validate what’s real and what isn’t. 

If there were any “proof” of any of the above, somebody would have shown it by now. It would be the scoop of the century.  You have to believe thousands have been desperately trying to find something, anything, substantive to support any of these allegations.  

The best anyone has come up with is that various reports and rumors “suggest” these might be true, which is a clever way to get around admitting you don’t have any hard evidence.  

You can’t prove a negative hypothesis – you can’t prove something will never happen.  But you sure as Hell can prove something has happened, especially when it’s by someone as extensively scrutinized for decades like Trump, if, in fact, it ever did. 

The truth is, it’s all made up nonsense. At best it’s speculation about what he might have done or might do, but again, there’s nothing to indicate he has or will or even wants to.  If anything, there’s a mountain of evidence that supports the exact opposite conclusion. 

However, the media won’t ever report that.  Even when facts are staring them in the face and readily available to anyone who cares to look.  It’s not what the left and the Democrats want. 

Instead they’ll all continue to push their alternate reality and hope we fall for it.

It’s called gaslighting. And they are all gaslighting the American public. 

Not who we are as a country ...

We hear that a lot these days.

Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, loads of Democrats, and of course the talking heads in the media, say this constantly. And always in a preachy, accusatory manner.    

Which prompts me to ask, just who are we as a country? 

Well, that depends largely on where you live and which media outlets you trust. 

Outside our biggest cities and their close-in suburbs, and excluding college towns, we are essentially a right-of-center country – more traditional and conservative, in other words, than more urban areas and the liberal pockets around colleges. This America is quite a different place – politically and philosophically – than the America routinely portrayed by our media. 

This other America transcends state lines and geographic constraints. It’s in every part of the country, including what are called deep-blue states such as California and New York. Just view the map of the US below showing which counties voted for Trump (red) or Hillary (blue) in the last election: it’s a sea of red across the country with isolated pockets of blue. 

The biggest surprise is that it’s pretty normal.  It’s more representative of the country as a whole than the picture painted by the media.  It’s not overwhelmingly rural, not populated mainly by illiterate rednecks, gun nuts, racists, white supremacists, religious fanatics, and bigots, and certainly not extreme.  In fact, it abhors extremists of any stripe, whether that’s Antifa, neo-Nazis, Black Lives Matter, white supremacists, or any group that relies on bullying, intimidation, or the threat of violence to advance their agenda.   

It’s often baffled by what the national media choose to cover. Not that it doesn’t understand what’s reported; it’s more why things of so little consequence to them and their neighbors are made out to be such a big deal. Like whoever is protesting in the streets over whatever, who had sex with whom a decade ago, who once groped whom, and whatever Trump tweets at 3AM.

What this America actually worries about is putting food on the table, soaring healthcare and prescription drug costs, a good education for their kids, and keeping their families safe. Pretty basic stuff – and the same stuff they’ve worried about for years. The national media don’t spend much time on those issues; the media would rather obsess over the plight of illegal immigrant kids and made-for-TV manufactured outrage over something Trump said at a rally somewhere. 

The opinions of the national media don't carry the same weight here as in the blue dots. 

Most career politicians and bureaucrats are not admired in this America, either.  Nor is there great affinity for public sector employee unions.

The prevailing thought is that many in government are increasingly out of touch with ordinary citizens and operate in a virtual vacuum, which makes them oblivious at times to what’s happening outside that vacuum.  They have little in common with ordinary working citizens – they are paid better, get better benefits, get more time off with pay, worry less about losing their jobs, and are protected from facing the consequences even when they commit serious misdeeds. 

This sense of a disconnect between the governed and those who govern and regulate them comes not from jealousy, but a sincere belief that it’s no longer a government of the people, by the people, for the people, but becoming a government for the people of the government, including politicians. In short, a new political aristocracy is being created, seemingly above the laws that apply to everyone else, and many citizens in this America don’t like that.  

The last Presidential election reflected this. An absolute outsider – not a former member of Congress, not a a former bureaucrat, and not a former politician on any level – carried this other America, despite opposition from practically every establishment party politician, practically every labor union including the public-sector unions, and the majority of pundits and the media.

Or perhaps he won because of their opposition.

This terrified the country – those blue dots – Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer represent.  At the same time it gave new hope to this other America.  And this other America is not a bad place.     

Like most other Americans in the blue dots, there’s genuine admiration for immigrants who come here legally – often with very little – work hard and build a good life for themselves and their families. But there’s little sympathy among virtually all racial and ethnic groups – including native born and naturalized Hispanics – for immigrants who come here illegally, take jobs from citizens, fraudulently obtain benefits, and commit other crimes.   

This other America wants laws to be applied equally to all by an objective, impartial legal system based on the laws on the books and the actual text of the Constitution. Someone’s immigration status, religion, race, ethnicity, gender, or sexual orientation should have no bearing on how existing laws are applied to them – that’s what equal justice under the law is all about to them. 

This America sees our country as a force for good in the world, an extraordinarily generous country, and one of the rare places on Earth where who your parents were, or where you went to school, matters less than what you make of yourself.  Here you can start with nothing and become successful by your own labors – they’ve seen it happen again and again – so they have no animus toward anyone who does that and becomes rich in the process, regardless of their race, religion or ethnicity.

That’s the American Dream, after all.  And they believe it’s real. For everyone. 

So this America is not opposed to legal immigration.  It believes in equal justice under the law for everyone. It thinks most politicians, public service employees, and government bureaucrats are more concerned with helping themselves and keeping their own jobs than helping ordinary citizens. And it still believes we are the land of opportunity for anyone willing to work hard and play by the rules. 

It’s a pretty good place with pretty decent people.  There’s no other place in the world like it. 

I believe this is really who we are as a country.     

When hate is all you’ve got …

 A lot of people hate Donald Trump. I get it. They’ve made that abundantly clear. 

But hate’s not enough to win people over; that is, if those who hate even care to win over others. And there’s nothing to show they do.

Their hate is apparently designed simply to intimidate, not persuade.  That’s all I can see.

Some people hated Obama, too, when he was in office.  Still, I don’t remember the Obama haters going to the extremes Trump haters are.

Obama haters didn’t target Obama Administration officials and harass them and their families in restaurants and at their homes. Nor did anyone burn the carcass of a decapitated animal outside someone’s home. Nor did anyone shoot at members of Congress playing baseball just because they were in the same political party as the President they hate.  

There have always been nutjobs among us.  There are more today; it’s a function of the law of big numbers.  If the crazies are always a fixed percentage of the population, then the absolute number increases as the populations grows. 

Believe it or not, bad behavior and threats of violence against politicians and their families by nut-case leftists wasn’t always praised by Democrat party leaders, Hollywood types, and the media. Now it is, except when it doesn’t suit their narrative – then it’s buried. Any bad behavior by anyone on the right, however, makes headline news for weeks.    

When Democrat Gabby Giffords was shot the media raced to pin the blame on far-right extremists; when it turned out the shooter was actually a leftist loon the media quickly forgot about the politics.  A Sanders-supporter nutjob exclusively targeted Republicans and their staffs practicing for an annual baseball game with Democrats, and seriously wounded Republican Steve Scalise; the media downplayed the political aspect. 

A crackpot white supremacist – with no ties to Trump or Republicans – crashed his car into protestors at Charlottesville killing and maiming people; the media and Democrats quickly blamed the politics of Trump and Republicans for encouraging and condoning right-wing violence. 

There seems to be no limit to the hypocrisy. Or available proof.  Democrats and the media seem to forget that in this digital age, there’s always a video record of everything.  

Not that many years ago, prominent Democrats Chuck Schumer, Nancy Pelosi, Hillary Clinton and even President Obama railed against illegal immigration, and supported securing our borders to keep out illegals.  They saw illegal immigrants as criminals and a threat to jobs and wages for American citizens. Now, stopping illegal immigration and securing our borders are a crime against humanity because these same Democrats sense it’s a good political issue to work.

Democrats and the media were also on the bandwagon for more “civility” and respect for the office of the President throughout Obama’s term. When one Republican Congressman interrupted then-President Obama’s address to Congress by shouting “You lie” when Obama said illegals wouldn’t be covered under ObamaCare, the left and the media were outraged.       

Now, however, the media is perfectly fine with Democrats in Congress taking to the air waves to denounce this current President as a liar, a racist, a fascist, and a clone of Hitler.  One compared Trump’s policy on separating minors from illegal immigrant adults at our border to Nazi tactics at Auschwitz.  So much for civility and respect for the office of President. 

The hatred on the left is all consuming.   

When a train carrying Republicans and their families to a retreat derailed, causing multiple injuries and the death of a truck driver, there were celebrities and also talking heads in the media who suggested the derailment was divine intervention to punish Republicans. Seriously.

In fairness, civility in American politics is a ship that sailed long ago. 

Also in fairness, Trump himself doesn’t help matters. 

A major part of the current horrific behavior on the left is because they don’t have any reasonable alternatives to Trump’s policies. More importantly, they are seeing for the first time that a significant portion of America – perhaps even a majority at times – doesn’t support the left’s and the Democrats’ agenda. Rather than adjust their position to match popular sentiment, they are resorting to bullying tactics. They don’t have anything else.

And that’s clearly not working.  Which makes them even crazier.   

No matter how many times the media tries to make the case for them, that’s failing, too.  The public is simply not buying it anymore. 

In terms of the dust up over minors detained for illegal immigration, the public doesn’t blame our immigration laws for the troubles at the border – it blames the parents who brought those minors, and especially those who put their kids in the hands of human traffickers to get here. 

While the public has sympathy for the children, it still generally supports cracking down and deporting people coming here illegally.  It doesn’t think minors should be separated from their parents, but it’s okay with detaining and then deporting the parents and their kids together. In terms of unaccompanied illegal immigrant minors, it thinks we’re doing the best we can.

The public doesn’t want open borders; Democrats and the left do.  The public wants to tighten security and enforcement at our borders; Democrats and the left don’t. Democrats and the left support allowing sanctuary cities to shield illegal immigrant criminals from deportation; the public doesn't. Now Democrats and the left want to abolish ICE, the agency responsible for enforcing immigration laws and deporting illegal immigrant criminals; most Americans don't.    

The Democrats hated the Trump tax cuts; the public liked getting more money back.  Democrats and the left claimed these would only make greedy corporate executives richer and do nothing for the common working people; many corporations and small businesses instead gave bonuses and raises to their employees, and pumped up their 401(k)s, which those employees appreciated. 

When Democrats held control, Harry Reid changed the rules on confirming Federal court appointments to stop Republicans from using filibusters to delay approval of left-leaning judges. Now Trump has the opportunity to use the same “nuclear option” once again to replace Anthony Kennedy with a conservative Justice.  Democrats and the left are beside themselves with outrage. The public, not so much. 

Here’s the worst part for Democrats and the left: the public may not like Trump as a person, but the public generally approves of what he’s accomplished. For the first time in many years, most Americans think the country is headed in the right direction.  Unemployment is down, wages are up, and the economy is booming, which should never have happened according to the Democrats, the left, the media, and the never-Trumpers.  That’s a complete repudiation of the progressive agenda favored by Democrats and the left, and the dogma of establishment Republicans as well.

So with the mid-terms approaching, Democrats and the left are apoplectic.  

They can bash Trump, harass his people all they want, and ridicule his behavior, but what Trump is doing, what he’s accomplishing, is more important to the public than whether he is the type of person you want your kids to grow up to emulate. 

Talking heads and pundits say the problem is simply that Democrats and the left haven’t clearly articulated their message to the public. 

In truth they have. It’s the opposite of whatever Trump favors, no matter what that is. And they hate Trump, hate his policies, hate the people in his administration, and hate his supporters.  

They’ve done an exceptional job of getting that message out.    

They’re working with the only thing they’ve got: irrational hate.   

Running out of invectives and bad words …

I’ve noted many times that all humans have a point of diminishing astonishment.

The more pervasive something becomes, the less impact it has.  The surprise, any shock value, and any reaction to whatever it is diminishes the more you see of it. 

It then has to move a whole magnitude to be noticeable. But some things have a finite limit; there’s no way to move another magnitude.  Incremental moves simply don’t cut it.   

That’s the big problem with name calling and cursing.  There are only so many horrible things to call someone before you run out of stuff. And only so many bad words, too. 

It’s like hearing a three-year-old say “asshole”; at first you’re shocked, but then you realize people say that all the time – now even on shows running on basic cable. Maybe once it was a bad word, yet now, not so much. It’s lost its impact.    

In today’s political environment, the principle is the same.

Those on the left, in particular, are desperately searching for new things to disparage people they hate.  They already used up homophobe, xenophobe, and misogynist early on.  Now, however, they’ve overused bigot, racist, white supremacist, fascist, and Nazi, to the point that where these once had real meanings and emotional impact, they’re just words today.

Someone uses those today and you think: what a clueless asshole. 

They’ve also run the ever-popular “anti” into the ground:  anti-gay, anti-women, anti-poor, anti-children, anti-science, anti-immigrant, and whatever else they can attach an “anti” to.

That’s just way too many “anti” whatevers to keep track of; the result is a collective yawn as it all becomes just more white noise.  Especially when they can’t defend any of these charges with concrete proof – it’s just more name calling.  And just more of what everyone’s heard already.

So the left and their pals in Hollywood and the media moved on to bad words in their latest campaigns of shock and awe.    

George Carlin, years ago, had a great bit: “The Seven Words You Can Never Say On Television.” While they’ve not exhausted all those quite yet, they're off to a good start.  

They've skipped past "mother******" probably because that would be be seen as cultural appropriation. I've noticed they've also not used "c***sucker" (although Stephen Colbert came close), maybe because that would be considered disparaging to some of their base.    

Let's go with “shit,” one of the basic building blocks of cursing. 

There was a time, believe it or not, when you never heard that word on TV, except for movies and series running on cable networks. Sure, you said it when you stubbed your toe or hit your thumb with a hammer, but that was you, not some network anchor on live TV. 

However, after Trump in a meeting used the phrase “shitholes” to describe – accurately, I might add – certain countries around the less-developed world, shit was everywhere on cable news and opinion shows. Talking heads couldn’t wait to say shit on air as often as possible. Like little kids.  

Now, nobody gives a shit about hearing someone say shit on TV.   

   

The gold standard for bad words used to be fuck.  And, of course, its derivatives.

A few years back liberals and Democrats were aghast when Dick Cheney told Patrick Leahy “go fuck yourself.” (Which was well deserved.) Now we have Robert De Niro at an awards ceremony proudly and repeatedly saying “fuck Trump” to the cheers of the audience. 

Democrat Senator Kirstin Gillibrand may have set a new record for her use of fuck and its derivatives in a speech not long ago.  And most recently, some unnamed Congressional intern shouted “Mr. President, fuck you!” in the hallway as Trump passed by on his way to a meeting.

Fuck is now on its way to losing its shock value.  That’s sad.  But overuse does that. 

So the left is forced to plumb new depths.  They are doing so eagerly.  Comedians and celebrities are now exploring the infamous four-letter “c” word as an alternative. Unfortunately for them, that one can only be applied properly to women. Nonetheless, there’s been a outbreak of the c-word being applied to women like Melania Trump and others deemed horrible humans by the left.

This from folks who claim to be the champions for treating women with respect.   

My, my. How times have changed. 

At some point, the left will have to reboot the invectives and bad words and start over. They’ve worn out the usual ones. They’ll have to go back to the basics.   

Maybe calling someone stinky-butt or a poopy-head is poised for a comeback. Might as well, since these are about as meaningful as what the left is using today. 

A brutally honest conversation about illegal immigration …

We have a legal right to decide who gets to come into our country. Much less stay. It’s not a civil-rights issue. It’s not a question of international law. 

And we’re not legally required to adhere to a poem on the Statue of Liberty.  I find it rich that many advocates for illegal immigrants quote that poem as if it has the weight of law.

It’s a poem, for God’s sake.

Even more disingenuous are those who quote the Bible to claim we have a moral obligation to give a free pass to illegal immigrants. 

Spare me the pontificating.  Especially when many of the same people openly ridicule and revile anyone else who uses the Bible as a guide to how they should conduct themselves. Then when they act on their beliefs, what’s in the Bible doesn’t matter at all. 

Ask the folks at Chick-fil-A. Or Hobby Lobby. Or the Little Sisters of the Poor.  Or the bakers in Colorado.  Or just about anyone else these nouveau-righteous prigs have attacked. 

Hypocrites. No, I take that back – assholes.  But I digress.        

It makes me crazy when Democrats, liberals, and their pals in the media – all of whom couldn't otherwise care less about “morality” most of the time – claim the whole question of what to do about illegal immigration is one of morality. 

Keeping would-be illegal immigrants out is immoral; kicking out those here illegally already is also immoral. Yet protecting violent illegal immigrant criminals from deportation is moral. 

Talk about selective morality. 

Then there’s their Orwellian use of weasel words like “undocumented” to describe people here illegally. As if being here illegally is simply a matter of missing the proper papers.

By their standards, I can call myself an “undocumented” airline pilot and be allowed to pilot a 747, even though I have no formal training, have no pilot’s license, and no legal right to do so.  But hey, it’s just a matter of paperwork, right? Merely a technicality. 

Calling illegal immigrants simply “undocumented” is dishonest. They didn’t lose their paperwork. Their dog didn’t eat their immigration forms. And their documents aren’t still sitting somewhere, left behind by accident. So stop pretending their illegality is just a technicality.

They are here illegally. That makes them criminals, regardless of why they came here.  Building a border wall is akin to locking your doors to keep other criminals out. When our law enforcement catches a criminal, they arrest them and then prosecute them. I fail to see why illegal immigrants should be treated any differently.      

That’s why I have such a hard time with the whole immigration debate.  If I felt that illegal immigrants crossed our border not knowing they were committing a crime, I might feel different. But the hard truth is they know they are committing a crime; they just hope to get away with it.  That’s no different than a run-of-the-mill criminal.  So why do they expect special treatment? 

The media can show all the tear-jerker videos of illegals being deported and leaving behind their bawling broods. They can tell stories about someone who has never broken any other laws, but because they came here illegally years ago is afraid of being deported.  They can go on and on about the plight of children brought here illegally by their parents.  They can show caravans of migrants hoping to gain asylum, including the mothers hoping to drop their anchor baby here instead of Mexico.      

I don’t care. 

I have lost any sympathy whatsoever those already here illegally. If someone has been living and working here for years and never applied for US citizenship, time’s up. Get out.

I especially abhor many of those now using their kids, or some kid that may or may not be theirs, as a get-in-the-US-for-free card. Make no mistake: that was their plan from the get-go.  They counted on politicians and our media to make the case for them, using kids as hostages.       

Democrats and the media are doing their part to further these immigrants’ plan. Both are publicly horrified we’re separating those same kids from their parents – or someone claiming to be their parents – when they try to breach our borders. We’re obviously monsters.   

How can we be so cruel? How can we be so heartless? After all these kids have been through to get here: the hardships, the life-threatening travel, the scrounging for food, water and shelter, the dangers they faced – how can we possibly take them away from the adults they traveled with?

Simple. Those adults put those children in danger. They don’t deserve to have custody of any kids anymore. They’ve shown they are clearly irresponsible. When anyone is that negligent of the welfare of children, possibly even their own, they can’t be trusted.

If they weren’t illegal immigrants trying to get in, and just another ordinary American parent, Child Services agencies across the country would take those kids away from them, too, for putting children through all that. Think about that for a moment.   

Those adults knew perfectly well what they were doing and therefore should be held solely responsible for the consequences. They knew the peril they put the children in to get here. They knew what would happen when they got to our border. And they didn’t care. They hoped they could use a child as a shield to bypass our border enforcement laws. 

It was callous and calculated.  Just as it is now when Democrats and the media make it seem that Maria and Pepe had no idea they would be separated from the kids they brought. I’m sorry for the children caught up in this, but the adults who brought them are entirely to blame.  

The adults knew the law. All of them did before they started trekking toward our border.

There are few innocent adults here in all this – just people trying to use children as pawns. We can’t allow anyone to use children that way.  Forget the sob stories and the made-up propaganda about “child prisons” and realize what many of these people really are: hostage takers. 

If we send a message that it’s okay, we’ll put more innocent children at risk. As it is, the threat of separating children from the adults they’re travelling with should be a powerful deterrent to anyone who cares about the welfare and safety of those children. 

We should not be afraid to continue the practice.  Separating those children from those adults may make for heart-wrenching video, but it’s often in the best interests of the children. 

The bigger problem is continually waffling on how we enforce our immigration laws. It’s the perpetual ambiguity that encourages more illegal immigration.      

As harsh as this sounds, highly publicized zero tolerance is the only answer.

We can’t leave any doubt about what will happen. It needs to be crystal clear that you simply can’t cross our border illegally.  I say turn back at the border anyone trying to cross illegally – adults with children, pregnant mothers, unaccompanied minors, whoever – and particularly anyone faking demands for asylum when they’ve already been offered asylum elsewhere. 

Like Mexico. Which many of them were.    

Illegals already here screwed the pooch and diminished any compassion I might have had. 

They’ve done this by demanding rights they don’t have and don’t deserve. They’ve forged documents to get benefits to which they are not entitled. They’ve belied their real feelings about assimilating into America by insisting we must adapt to them, not they to us.  

They see no need to learn English, or to follow our laws, and many of them publicly and openly mock us for thinking we can ever kick them out. That's chutzpah. 

Which prompts me to ask: Who the Hell do they think they are? 

Spineless Republicans are too afraid to deal with this. They’re afraid Hispanics will not vote for them if we actually enforce our immigration laws. 

Hispanics here illegally won’t, of course. 

But maybe Republicans should talk to Hispanics other than bullshit-artist activists like Jorge Ramos, Congressman Luis V. Gutiérrez, the propagandists in the media, and others.

Any number of recent polls show that a majority of Hispanics here legally, especially immigrants who went through the legal process to become citizens, are opposed to illegal immigration and amnesty for illegal immigrants, and support cracking down on illegal immigration. Almost 74% are opposed to sanctuary city laws that protect violent illegals from deportation. 

And here’s why: they think too many illegal immigrants are gaming the system, burdening public schools, draining public assistance programs, reducing wages, and taking jobs away from citizens. They can’t understand why people who come here illegally should be praised and given a pass for no other reason than they refused to respect and follow our immigration laws.

Doubt this? Talk to some Hispanics who are US citizens or in the process of becoming one. They’re fed up, too.  Many want the border wall as much as Trump and a lot of other Americans, for many of the same reasons. 

It’s not about race, to them; it’s about fairness and equal justice under the law.  

We need to fix our immigration system, that’s true. But when we start the process, we need to put the priority on equal justice and fairness to our own citizens first. 

There’s absolutely no reason to give preferential treatment to any illegal immigrants. 

The paradox of tolerance ...

I recently read something so apparent yet overlooked.

An author discussed his view of the conflict between relativism and tolerance, in the context of our current society. (Bear with me, this will go somewhere.)  

Relativism – grossly oversimplified – asserts that morality and what’s right or wrong are only artificial constructs relative to specific cultures and societies and are often based on circumstances unique to each. Therefore, anybody’s interpretation of morality, for example, largely depends on who they are as a product of their specific culture or society.

In essence, all mature cultures and societies have evolved their own set of rules and taboos over time that work for the people within them. What’s acceptable and the norm in one may be anathema to others, while what’s acceptable and the norm in others may be anathema to them. It’s a mistake to judge another’s culture and values solely by those of your own, in other words. 

Tolerance, greatly simplified, promotes the acceptance of the validity of differing beliefs and values without judging these solely against your own beliefs and values. Validity does not necessarily mean agreement; it just implies others’ beliefs and values should be respected.    

The two seem complimentary.  And haven’t both been taught as cultural ideals to us generation after generation?  Especially tolerance for people from other cultures, and people with beliefs that differ from your own?  If you don’t you’re a bigot, right?

But what happens when tolerance is not a two-way street? 

What if a person’s concept of intolerance is shaped only by their own values and their personal beliefs? What happens when one side refuses to accept or even acknowledge the possible validity of another’s values?  Does that make them the intolerant one? 

I think it does. Tolerance too often becomes simply a matter of perspective: I’m tolerant because my beliefs and values are right; you’re intolerant because you don’t agree with me.        

This is precisely how extreme intolerance under the guise of tolerance can rear its ugly head.  That’s when the name-calling and sometimes violence start. 

That’s why those fighting so hard – sometimes violently – to oppose anyone spreading “intolerance” seem to be the ones far more intolerant than the people they’re attacking.

We see that in our politics all too often these days. Nobody seems willing to entertain the possibility other views might be valid or should be respected at all. Some don’t even want those views to be publicly expressed, much less discussed rationally, because those views have already been judged wrong by them, according to their standards. 

We’re in an era where we’ve divided ourselves into what might be called microcultures – each with its own value system that transcends our broader traditional American culture.  

Consequently, tolerance or intolerance are increasingly in the eye of the beholder, dependent on what their microculture dictates.  Cultural and racial diversity might be the popular cause these days, but diversity of opinions – or even the tolerance of diverse opinions, is becoming less and less welcome among many of these microcultures.  Their opinions must be right and righteous because everyone in their microculture agrees on them; therefore, anyone who disagrees is wrong and possibly evil.    

So much for relativism. And so much for accepting the possible validity of differing beliefs and values without judging these solely against your own beliefs and values.

Within certain microcultures, supporting existing laws that prohibit illegal immigration is intolerant; opposing enforcing those same laws exhibits tolerance.  Sheltering and protecting from deportation violent criminals here illegally is tolerant; favoring deportation of those same violent criminals is intolerant. Encouraging the immigration of people from cultures and religions that support female genital mutilation, the killing of homosexuals, the killing of Christians and Jews, and forced marriages of children to adult men, is a sign of tolerance; anyone who simply questions why we’d want to bring in those people whose values are so alien to ours, is intolerant.

It’s all been decided. So shut up. 

This is just nuts. This is one-way tolerance. 

There is real, objective intolerance in the world everyone can agree on.  Nobody disagrees that neo-Nazis and white supremacists are intolerant. Nobody wants to listen to their hateful rhetoric against Jews, blacks, homosexuals, immigrants, or whomever.  But they have a legal right under our Constitution to express their views as long as they are not inciting violence.   

Yet when they are physically attacked by armed protestors who want to silence them in the name of fighting intolerance, who are the intolerant?

Shift scenarios for a moment.  At the rally in DC following Trump’s inauguration, those opposed to Trump talked about blowing up the White House. Later, an actor mused about assassinating Trump.  A comedian held up an image of her holding a severed head intended to look like Trump. They said Trump deserved it because of his intolerance toward women, blacks, immigrants, Muslims, homosexuals, the transgendered, single mothers, and the poor, among others.

They said they were standing up against his intolerance.        

People who hated Trump – including the media – didn’t see a problem. By their standards, within their own microculture, this was all fair game.  Yet nobody physically attacked them to prevent them from expressing those hateful and clearly intolerant opinions, did they? If someone had, they would have been crucified for being intolerant of perfectly acceptable views.        

What is tolerance and what isn’t shouldn’t depend entirely on your own values. When someone uses opposition to intolerance as a weapon for their own intolerance, it’s wrong. 

      

Consider the antifa movement. Black-clad anarchists emerge to prevent anyone hearing any message they find intolerant. But who are they to decide what’s acceptable and what isn’t?  Who made them the sole arbiter of what’s allowed and what isn’t?

They gave themselves that role. Supporters of Black Lives Matter have done the same.

Antifa and BLM aren’t alone in deciding what is right and what is wrong. In the name of tolerance, there are now speech codes and prohibited words on college campuses. Administrators and activist groups are shutting down speakers who question open borders, transgender rights, identity politics, and of course racial or gender quotas, among other things. 

Those speakers are deemed “haters” and intolerant. And to protect their students and others from hearing a view that may differ from their own, they are not allowed on campus. 

Speakers have been prevented from fulfilling speaking engagements because they might espouse “intolerant” views. Riots have happened with property damage, assaults on police, and physical attacks on speakers in the name of supporting tolerance.

Meanwhile, speakers who openly promote assassinating police, are in favor of segregating dormitories for black students, support banning whites from certain campus events solely on the basis of their race, blame Jews for all the problems in the Middle East, and cheer for Islamic terrorists who kill innocent women and children, are welcomed with open arms.

Because that’s what tolerance is all about.       

This is positively Orwellian. 

And that, in a nutshell, is the paradox of tolerance.