11/30/24 – No, we don’t live under a rock, and, yes, we’re aware that many traditional immigrant communities might not support LGBTQ+ or abortion rights, especially to the degree that white liberals do. Not having a conversation about these kinds of issues does not work in a big, diverse country like ours, and it is ceding power to the right, which is exploiting it for…what else, tax cuts for the rich. This is always priority one, two and three….
You need to have a discussion so that the cultural thermometer can set itself, similar to the “invisible hand” metaphor, at a mutually comfortable level. We say this as people who do not have a dog in this fight. We are pretty laid-back. People say, these are my pronouns; we use those pronouns. The government says, wear a mask; we wear a mask. However, many people have strong feelings about being told to do things which with they disagree, and their way of being needs to be respected. Also, it’s the height of hypocrisy to say you’re so inclusive and all that, but you don’t actually include. You have to walk the walk. You have to at least try to understand where they are coming from and what their values are.
11/30/24 – Here’s an idea for the media. Instead of presenting everything – truly pretty much everything – from a white liberal perspective, maybe have a little curiosity and seek out people from other communities who make up our American family. For example, instead of writing about domestic responsibilities, such as cooking and cleaning, from a white liberal perspective, why not ask women from traditional cultures how they approach it, and if they have things they would like to share with other women who also have these roles, such as words of comfort or advice.
A word to the wise: when a woman who has a traditional role says something like I spent all weekend cooking and cleaning, instead of asking if her husband splits the duties with her, which highlights a difference in cultures or roles, say something like, I hope you still found time for yourself, or when I’m really busy I like to sneak in a break by [something wholesome], which highlights a commonality. This is really not hard.
11/30/24 – What is our charge? It is that racist white liberals are engaging in cultural imperialism and cultural hegemony. Clergy has almost no role in making this white liberal culture because white liberals tend to be atheists or “nones,” but let’s consider this tangentially related case from this perspective.
First question: Why is the priest punishing (technically, negative punishment, taking away something his parish wants) his parish, including American black people who he feels have been wronged, to accomplish a goal he seemed to have arrived at simply as an act of conscience (to take a gracious interpretation) without consulting black people? Typically, punishment/reinforcement is done to change the behavior of the party that is directly impacted by it.
Second question: Why should he get paid his full compensation or even remain employed at this position when he’s not fulfilling a critically important, arguably the most important, part of his job? Ultimately, the laity pays for the clergy’s compensation.
Third question (series of questions): How does his “communion fast,” imposed not just on himself but his entire flock, accomplish his stated goal of…? What was his stated goal? It was not articulated because he doesn’t know what it is. That’s a problem. If it’s to shame the Episcopal Church into more apologies or reparations, do the ends justify the means? And how are the means aligned with the ends? See the first question.
Lastly, the area of overlap with the charge above is that this seems to be about him. Perhaps he feels guilt, and this is his way of redeeming himself or purging himself of this unpleasant feeling. However, this is not about him. It’s supposed to be about the people he claims to care about, the descendants of slaves. Perhaps less ego, more discernment, more humility, and, well, actually asking the people he claims to care about what they need and want.
To oppose racism, a priest won’t lead Communion. He could be defrocked.
11/29/24 – At this point, our programming will switch to a rather dry subject. Since economics tends to be rather ideologically driven, this statement is necessary. We are not particularly ideological on much of anything, except fundamental values, such as protecting democracy. Again, we are not ideologues.
Many of our institutions are in need of reform, and arguably none more so than the Federal Reserve. The Fed was created to be the lender-of-last-resort, but it was not created to be the perpetuator of moral hazard. This is an inherent contradiction that it has been navigating poorly.
Ben Bernanke was a scholar of the Great Depression, and this academic background informed his decisions during the financial crisis of 2008. It was not received well by the American people even then. Since then, moral hazard has gotten much worse, and the government’s interventions have gotten less transparent. Before, there was at least an attempt at accountability. Now, there is an assumption of “discretion,” meaning staying hidden from the American people.
There seems to be concern about a certain person’s possible unwillingness to respect the Fed’s independence as it relates to monetary policy. An arguably greater concern is his potential involvement to turn one of the most important institutions in the country into an arm for the impending kleptocracy.
11/29/24 – We have a suggestion for the elite liberal media. Maybe try an approach that doesn’t sound condescending. Instead of Dems need a strategy for low-information, low-knowledge voters, maybe Dems need a strategy to fix a toxic brand and the poor perception the American electorate seems to have of it. The question is why does the Democratic Party have these problems? Also, we don’t know why these voters have tuned out, and given the terrible turn our politics has taken, it’s understandable that they might not want to tune in.
The Perception Gap That Explains American Politics
11/29/24 – To the American left: If you are disappointed with the election results, your best option is to humble yourself and to actually try to convince your fellow Americans of the strength of your argument and your policy positions. What we saw and still see is a lot of bullying, cancelling, censoring, and other domineering tactics that are in one way or another undermining American citizens’ Constitutional rights, the integrity of our democracy or simply ineffective.
11/29/24 – The American people are always free to bring their case before our judicial system if they do not agree with the American voters. That is their right under our constitutional democracy and our rule of law. What we cannot have in our democracy is the subversion of the will of the people or minority rule, whether that is by the right or by the left. Minority rule undermines our entire system of government, and that is not a sacrifice worth making for anyone or anything. You can’t believe in or support democracy only when it works in your favor. It has to be a core tenet that you defend no matter the outcome.
11/29/24 – Since there seems to be considerable confusion on both the right and the left, we would like to remind our fellow Americans how democracy works. People vote with ballots and with their feet. Now, we understand that some on the right think that when they lose, the election was rigged and that they must rise up in an insurrection to overturn the legitimate results. No, the candidate just lost in a free and fair election. Accept it, and move on. Now, we understand that some on the left think that even when they lose, they can strong-arm a liberal-biased legacy media, which has already lost credibility and viewership, to push their cultural preferences and policies. No, the American people as a whole – in our great diversity – create our culture and inform our policies, not advocacy groups and not the biased elite liberal media.
The Democrats lost in spectacular fashion because they stopped listening to their voters. The blue states are also losing Congressional seats because voters are moving out of them. At this rate, it is going to be hard for the Democratic Party to recapture the House and even more so the Senate. This same principle can be applied to more local settings. What happens when school districts do not listen to all of their stakeholders and instead allow a vocal minority or racist white liberals to dominate their policies? The families vote with their feet and transfer their children to a different school district.
In both of these cases, economics likely plays a role, but it tends to be overstated. A common blindspot is thinking one is practicing inclusivity when they are not. If you’re losing voters or families, you need to ask yourself a basic question: Am I alienating members of the most diverse group of people assembled in the world – the American family? We cannot be inclusive in this country when extreme policies dominate. We are far too diverse a nation for that approach to work. Therefore, inclusivity will almost always involve listening to all voices and some level of compromise. If you don’t understand this, then you don’t understand how our democracy actually works.
The racist white liberals need to come to terms with the fact that there is a glaring inconsistency in how they view themselves and how they are viewed by our diverse electorate. For example, Ilhan Omar, who has no principles except remaining elected, was booed off the stage at an event with a large, predominantly Somali crowd, you know, black immigrants. Why? Because they view her progressive politics as inconsistent with their conservative values. Racist white liberals hide behind the demographic profile of this subpar politician to push an agenda that is at odds with the conservative values of many or maybe even all of their immigrant communities. It is a cynical game of pretending to be inclusive when in reality they are ignoring or overruling the voices of the minorities living in their own communities. Well, the game is up. Listen to the people, or feel the wrath of the vote.
11/29/24 – Instead of buying a bunch of stuff you don’t need, we encourage you to donate money to organizations that support the homeless, address food scarcity, help the persecuted church and the poorest people in the poorest countries around the world, and protect endangered animals and our planet.
Barnabas Aid
Global Christian Relief
We also encourage people to donate to and to buy merch to support Ukraine. See below for some very cool gift ideas.
United 24
Kyiv Independent
Saint Javelin
11/28/24 – On this Thanksgiving, we are grateful for God’s gift of life and our divine spark. He created us to be free and to be independent thinkers. We are also thankful for our Constitutional rights, particularly our First Amendment rights. On both the right and the left, there are propaganda outlets that are trying to indoctrinate us with their agenda, whether MAGA or “woke.” On both sides, there are militant racists and extremists who are trying to cancel people who are unwilling to adopt their extremist policies and values and to dominate a free people – the American people.
The American Experiment depends on ordinary citizens exercising their God-given and Constitutional rights, which our Founding Fathers and countless ordinary citizens fought and died for us to have. We honor them by remembering them and exercising these rights. We owe it to them and to ourselves to refuse to yield to the pressures from either side. They do not rule us. We rule ourselves in this democracy, in this country that we love. We also love God, and we owe it to our creator to be committed to the truth and to speak it – no matter the cost. God’s will be done. God bless America.
11/27/24 – The Washington Post’s left-wing propaganda versus X’s right-wing propaganda: Two billionaire-owned platforms competing to win America’s “culture wars” is exactly what the country needs.
11/27/24 – On this Thanksgiving Eve, we’re going to say Happy Thanksgiving (in advance), even though we’re not happy. In fact, we’re rather annoyed and unhappy. This is a sad state of affairs. God blessed us. We are a wealthy country, with immense human talent and natural riches – and these are our choices. Both sides are terrible. Our culture, our political options and their governance do not do justice to our people and the patriots who sacrificed for our great country. It’s a national disgrace.
All that said, we’ve always gone into every election clear-eyed about the chances but also hoping our side would win. Why not form a cynical carapace around one’s heart? Because that would change who we are in ways we don’t like. We would rather feel sad and disappointed when the outcome doesn’t go our way to be able to feel hopeful going into it…and coming out of it.
Following the Jewish tradition, Christianity asks you to do many things you don’t want to do. Arguably, love and forgiveness being the hardest among them. But it asks them for good reason. It’s better for you, your relationship with God, and your relationship with each other. So, you might not be feeling a lot of positive things right now for many justified reasons. But often, the best thing, the right thing to do is to feel them anyway because if you allow yourself to stop feeling them, you will change in ways that don’t do justice to yourself and your divine spark, and our world depends on you feeling them anyway.
11/26/24 – If the Democratic Party wants to continue losing, it will listen to the likes of Ilhan Omar, who one Minneapolis/St. Paul metro-area Democratic voter (they exist outside of the 5th), called “a complete idiot.” Happy Tuesday!
11/25/24 – To be clear, this is not about denigrating public schools. We are big supporters of free public schools and quality public education. Many rural communities value their public schools, and this can be true even in urban centers that have considerable challenges. We want the broader culture to improve so that schools can function better because they won’t have to try to compensate for a dysfunctional society. Schools don’t exist in a cultural vacuum, and many of the challenges they are facing reflect societal problems that are beyond their control.
This is the way to improve public schools – not with vouchers. They get voted down for a reason. The people don’t like them. However, we do need to be a nation about excellence, including academic excellence. We want our public schools to be the envy of the world. There is no reason why we can’t get them there if we can improve the culture.
We are also not fans of book bans. Of course, books need to be appropriate for the grade level and, more generally, suitable for children, but we want teenagers to think hard and read challenging material. This material can be a bit subversive because great authors tend to challenge the existing cultures and thinking of their time. That’s OK. You know what else is subversive – Christianity. We also want students to learn the unvarnished truth about our country’s history, but they should also be taught to be patriotic. We need to love our country while we work to improve it.
11/25/24 – The reason why Asians have been more successful than other minority groups has nothing to do with any genetic superiority. That’s a myth. It has to with the retention of their Asian cultures within the dominant American white liberal culture. This is easier to do when they are more recent immigrants compared with the indigenous people who’ve been here since the beginning or black people whose ancestors were brought here many centuries ago as slaves.
When white liberals promote indiscipline, their liberal excesses and such, it benefits them and their children. They are wealthier, and they can provide their children with a safety net and resources that poor and/or immigrant minorities don’t have. They have the luxury of their children failing forward. Meanwhile these racist white liberals flatter themselves with their white saviorism, labeling themselves as inclusive, racially unbiased, culturally tolerant, and such. It’s a lie. In reality, they expect everybody to adopt their values and their culture even when it is not to minorities’ benefit. What it is really about is racist white liberals virtue signaling and stroking their egos at the expense of the very people they claim to care about.
11/25/24 – Uncle Tom has a lot to say. This is the same person who discarded the religious black community that helped him become successful and in full expression of the internalization of self-loathing that was instilled in him by the racist white liberals married a white woman and adopted white liberal culture.
11/25/24 – The racist white liberals don’t understand humility or pluralism. All they understand is themselves. They live in an echo chamber of self-glorification and self-love.
11/25/24 – This is all good advice, but the cultural imperialists, also known as the racist white liberals, don’t think they have anything to learn from anybody. They already know everything. They already have all the answers. Everything is rational. Everything has been answered by science, with nice, clear answers that they can copy from each other’s tweets to signal their intellectual, social and moral superiority. There are no unanswerable questions. They have all been answered by their white gods: themselves, with their precious white skin, and, of course, science.
All that is left is to realize their cultural hegemony, to indoctrinate and dominate everybody else, especially the nonwhite people in the world who have different ways of being, different cultures, social norms, and beliefs. This applies to Egypt, China, India, the Middle East, and smaller indigenous groups throughout the world, ancient civilizations with long-standing religious and spiritual traditions.
Among all of these religious/ethnic groups and civilizations, the racist white liberals are most determined to dominate one group with their cultural hegemony – the Jewish people who have grappled with these questions arguably as long as or longer than any other religious/ethnic group in the world and whose legacy in this regard is indisputable and extensive. This is part of the reason why the bigoted white liberals have a particular hatred of the Jewish people, in addition to, of course, the jealousy of the Jewish people’s success, which in part is due to the benefits of their religion and the hard, often unanswerable, questions it has asked them to ponder for millennia.
Three Ways to Become a Deeper Thinker
11/24/24 – We don’t want or need the left to save us with their cultural hegemony, and we don’t want or need the right to save us with their wannabe dictator. We don’t want or need a savior or a king of this world. We already have one of another world, Jesus Christ. Double Happy Sunday!
11/24/24 – Remember: They believe in science, science, science…. Well, science is observation. It’s not there.
11/24/24 – The most racist people in the world today are white liberals, the white saviors who need to save nonwhite people from themselves. They need to show the rest of the world what cultural values to have, how to raise their children and run their schools, basically do anything and everything, because they know everything. They are superior, after all. They are so much better than the antiquated black, brown, yellow, whatever people with their outdated ways of being, their stupid traditions, their value for religion and basic social mores, such as respectful, dignified conduct, and their appreciation for their ancestors. We should all be revering the white saviors – the liberal, superior white gods. The only glaring problem is that the proof is in the pudding, and the proof is not there. Their children behave much worse on almost every metric than the nonwhite children in all other parts of the world or the ones who maintain traditional parenting and culture while living in the west. Hard truth. Happy Sunday!
11/23/24 – When Europeans, not exactly a bastion of conservatism, say that Americans are too permissive (and they have), you might want to listen. Many of their policies are more conservative than American policies. Liberal Americans are just not aware of it, and the pseudo-intellectual quacks and hacks in the liberal American media refuse to bear any responsibility for the perverse culture that they have created.
11/23/24 – On a linguistic note, the Romance languages also have two forms of “you,” one formal and for adults or people you don’t know, and one informal and for children or people you know. American parenting and, more generally, the culture is garbage, and it needs to be fixed.
11/23/24 – The first on the “DOGE” chopping block should be the entire DNI.
11/23/24 – This is all true, but let’s focus on this statement: “He wears down our standards to the point where vulgarity and crudeness and criminality and incompetence all just become part of our daily life.” You know who else has done this? The left. Remember way back when in the 1980s, when the actual conservatives, who are practically nonexistent anymore, would take issue with vulgarity, crudeness, criminality and incompetence? The left said they were societal progress and cool. They popularized them in the culture and mocked the religious right for being prudish and old-fashioned.
Look at the music. It went from Michael Jackson and Prince to all kinds of foul language, violence and misogyny in hip hop. It’s really cool, right? It made gang violence and mistreating women cool.
Some parents’ kids call them by their first name or, as heard recently, “dude.” This might seem trivial by comparison, but it’s not. It’s undermining an authority structure that even Europeans observe.
Many years ago when I lived in France, I saw a young boy, around eight-years-old, keeping open the door to the apartment building I was living in. In his other hand, he was holding a jug of milk that his mom had likely asked him to buy from the corner store. When I got to the door, he said with perfect Parisian politesse, “Bonjour Madame.” I replied with “Bonjour, merci beaucoup.” Do you remember the last time you saw an American child behave with this level of formality and decorum?
It’s not just France. You can find children behaving this way everywhere in the world – except the United States of America. American Exceptionalism. In schools, they call you, “bro,” or “teach,” or, on a fun day, maybe “b—t”. This is kids being kids, right? It’s cool. It’s progress. Watch the movie “Kids” or read the book, “Lord of the Flies.” The reason you maintain boundaries and authority with kids is because they need it, and society needs it.
Regarding incompetence, see the post below on the elite scam institutions and their fraudulent professors. So, it’s quite easy to blame a certain person, MAGA, or whatever on the right, but really, this started with the left, and it’s degradation of societal norms from the 1960s until the present.
What Pete Hegseth’s Nomination Is Really About
11/21/24 – It’s hard to say if a certain person’s policies will be more recessionary or inflationary. If they are more recessionary, to the degree that unemployment rises enough, the Fed will have to cut rates. If they are more inflationary, the Fed will have to raise rates. They could end up being both, which would be exactly what the American people voted for. Happy Thursday!
11/19/24 – The elites: they are all so smart and superior. You silly plebs with your honest day’s work, you nobodies with your nobody jobs that actually make a difference in the world, if only in small ways, just don’t understand their brilliant scientific minds and papers, how very important they are, and of course, how morally superior they are. They also have pedigree. You have, well, nothing. It’s quite sad for you. Silly little people with your community college or state university degrees from nowhere. They have Wharton or other fancy schools.
For the record, there have been many of these articles and often no repercussions to the “researchers,” the very important people with pedigree and prestigious positions. It’s also a rampant problem throughout academia that remains under-reported. Why, you might ask, are there no repercussions? Because the elites, whether it’s a certain person who intends to become an autocrat or liberal academic frauds, are con-men and con-women, and the institutions are a scam. That’s why.
Let’s close on an optimistic note, shall we.
“Maybe the situation in her field would eventually improve, she said. ‘The optimistic point is, in the long arc of things, we’ll self-correct, even if we have no incentive to retract or take responsibility.’
‘Do you believe that?’ I asked.
‘On my optimistic days, I believe it.’
‘Is today an optimistic day?’
‘Not really.’”
The Business-School Scandal That Just Keeps Getting Bigger
11/18/24 – It isn’t just Japan that has “conservative,” what is actually just normal, family values and educational structures. It’s all of Asia, including all of India. It’s all of Africa. It’s all of the Middle East (where both sexes can go to school). To a somewhat lesser extent, it’s Latin America. Even Europe and the rest of the New World is more normal – with one notable exception, the United States of America. American Exceptionalism.
In every single one of these areas, Asia, Africa and the Middle East, children are expected to contribute to their families and their society. They also don’t end up with entitled, disrespectful crap heads because they know how to raise their children.
In a lot of countries, one’s personal fulfillment is much less important than maintaining one’s family’s respectability. Is this old-fashioned? OK, we’ll be old-fashioned then. Our ancestors sacrificed for us. We will sacrifice for them.
Instruments of a Beating Heart
11/18/24 – What liberals who claim to be so open-minded yet don’t seem to understand anybody else but other liberals who think like they do don’t understand is that their way of viewing children’s behavior does not match the vast majority of the world. They view their kids’ disrespect as “autonomy” and “curiosity” or some s—t like that, generally positively or at least neutrally. The rest of the world views it correctly, negatively, as disrespectful and shameful, and they do not tolerate it. In many countries, parents are also judged negatively when their kids behave like that. The society views it as parental failure because it usually is. If liberals can’t understand this, what can they understand?
11/18/24 – Exactly. Liberal media bias is hurting Democrats and the liberal media. It’s bizarre that they continue down this path.
Liberal media bias is hurting Democrats. Really
11/18/24 – Can conservatives fix this situation regarding families and schools because liberals are not going to do anything that’s helpful? In fact, everything they do seems harmful. There is a vaping and drug crisis playing out in rural and urban schools. It’s beyond any partisan divide, and it desperately needs attention and to be fixed.
11/18/24 – Without a doubt, conservatives are better at raising families and managing schools. Although many of them lack the same challenges and difficulties that public schools face, which are considerable, the parochial schools do a much better job getting students to behave better because they are not afraid to discipline. American conservatives are also much better at raising their children for the same reason. However, other more conservative countries are still better at raising children than American conservatives. If all we were voting on were these two issues, we would vote conservative every time. We don’t like the liberal weirdness. The kids run the show. The parents do nothing resembling parenting, and the schools can’t control their students.
11/18/24 – Although we’re sick of reading post-mortems, this was a very good analysis. From what we can tell, neither the dumb Democrats nor the obtuse and dysfunctional media are learning anything. Instead of addressing their disintegrated “coalition,” which was never as solid as they assumed, the Democrats seem to just be hoping that a certain person’s administration and governance will be so bad that they can win back the White House. Two points: the first for the Dems, and the second for the media. 1. That’s not a good strategy, and even after his stupid childless cat lady comments, Vance is impressive – even to Democratic voters. 2. People are sick of following politics, especially a certain person, and they are checking out. Happy Monday!
The Democrats weren’t stupid or crazy — just wrong
11/17/24 – Resilience is a posture to the world that says, no matter what you throw at me, world, I have enough adaptability, positivity and determination to turn it to my advantage. Bad things will happen. More often than not, you can’t control them. So instead of living in a state of anxiety or fear about what will happen next, what shoe will fall next, know certain things about yourself. Build up that level of confidence in yourself by practicing resilience. It is a skill like anything else. Nothing is more helpful to me than my faith. I love God, and I know that God loves me. Because of God’s infinite love and grace, we can overcome anything, even death itself. Just know this. Do not be afraid. God loves you.
11/17/24 – American parenting is the worst parenting in the world. Fix it. Happy Sunday!
11/16/24 – In addition to the good and the bad habits we talked about below that parents model for their children, which are, generally speaking, the single most important factor for any child’s development, we would like to address the points made in this Atlantic article from 2016. First though, let’s talk about the pandemic. It is a convenient scapegoat to blame teachers’ unions for keeping schools closed too long. In retrospect, they could have opened earlier, and they should have. But a more important question, and from what we can tell, one that has not been asked is: What happened at home?
When children came back from the pandemic lockdown, their social emotional learning was really negatively impacted, arguably more so than their intellectual development. It should never be the case that when children spend more time with their parents, they are terribly impacted in this way. One could look at this from the opposite perspective and argue that the pandemic was a bonding opportunity for parents and children that they normally do not get.
However, instead of happy, well-adjusted children, they came back to school totally wild, even more ill-behaved and disrespectful than they normally are. In general, public schools were not and are still not as important a factor to children’s development as their own families, which is even truer in less developed parts of the world. Yet you do not see this terrible self-regulation with children in many other parts of the world, with greater levels of trauma and poverty, nor would you have seen it in earlier periods in American history, which were also periods of greater trauma and poverty.
This point deserves assertion: Parents are responsible for proper parenting – not teachers. This is the foundation of a child’s development. Parents need to take this responsibility seriously and behave accordingly. Although some political players, especially on the right, are eager to blame teachers, the pandemic was actually a referendum on American parents. When their children came back to school wild, it was as if they hadn’t gotten any developmental direction during that time, meaning they didn’t get any direction from their own parents.
It is also inconsistent to complain about public schools, but when kids are not going to them, such supposedly terrible places that they are, and are instead spending more time at home, somehow they were worse off. Are parents unable or unwilling to provide constructive feedback on their children’s behavior? Are parents incapable of creating social activities for their children? Do they not belong to religious institutions or other social institutions that can provide needed structure and socialization for their children? Not only would this have served as a substitute during the pandemic, but they should be providing this at all times since it is necessary for children’s development, not to mention the parents’ own well-being. (In a forthcoming post, we will elaborate on this point.)
To return to the article, most students who have studied psychology, myself included, are familiar with the punishment/reinforcement matrix to which the article refers. Our criminal justice system is the most prominent example of punishment, less obvious is schools. Ultimately, any good school, like any good parent, finds a balance between accountability and compassion.
Instead of punishment, we would like to see a more holistic approach to accountability. We don’t believe in lowering standards and allowing students to flout rules in the name of compassion. White liberals can be particularly guilty of this. White saviorism doesn’t benefit anybody but the white savior who wants to feel good about themselves. Simply put: if it’s not in the long-term interests of the student, it’s not compassion. It’s laziness and an abdication of one’s professional responsibilities.
This work falls primarily under the purview of education and psychology, and economically driven approaches are not helpful. They can even be harmful. Prosocial behaviors are strongest and most stable when they have been internalized. Economic incentives prevent this outcome as it is an external incentive. As the article points out, students need intrinsic motivations.
There needs to be a major cultural shift in how we view children and students:
1. Parents must be held accountable as the primary influence in their children’s lives. They are not their children’s friends. They are their parents. Schools need to provide support in the form of external resources and in-school events and activities to help them feel a greater sense of connection to their children’s academic lives.
2. Nobody develops in a vacuum, and we need to have a more community-oriented approach to helping young people develop. They need to have other connections in their communities, whether secular or religious, that aren’t about sports or similar activities but about promoting a sense of belonging, contribution and connection.
3. Schools need to assume that students have difficulties outside of their classrooms because they invariably do. It’s just a matter of degree. We need community schools that can help students develop holistically either by providing the other services in-house or by directing students to external resources. Related to this, schools and their staff need to be alert to abuse or neglect, which students often try to hide or are reluctant to share.
4. Schools need to make restorative practices a core and standard part of helping students develop what the article refers to as noncognitive skills. Although it would be helpful for teachers to have a background in restorative practices, in general, it is too hard for teachers to carve out this time in their classes. It should also be provided by professionals who are trained in psychology or social work and in these practices. Again, a sense of connection is important for students (and people more generally).
5. Don’t focus on test scores or grades. You’re reducing students to a number. Focus on helping them develop all of the critical skills they need to succeed and live a happy, productive life.
6. It is unlikely that there is only one best pedagogical approach. Instruction needs to be tailored to the cohort and the individual student where possible. Approaches should be varied as students need to be able to both work well with others and independently. Test-taking is done individually, and they need to work on this skill as well. Also, if students go on to college, lectures are a standard part of instruction, and they need to get used to listening attentively and taking notes for extended periods of time. Students also need time dedicated to intellectual processes without simultaneous social and emotional processes. Over time and with enough practice, the intellectual processes will feel less isolating and more liberating. You get to take a break from people and go into your own intellectual world that you control. Basically, keep the pedagogical approaches diverse and balanced.
7. All of this can be a hard process, and students might not like it or you sometimes or much of the time. You are not there to be their friend. You are there to help them, and often that will mean not saying or doing what they want. This is not about you, your feelings or how you feel about yourself. It’s about them. Be consistent. Be fair. Do your job!
How Kids Learn Resilience
11/15/24 – Does it seem to anyone else that by his national security nominations the evil one is planning to conspire with Russia to invade our country and enslave our people?
11/14/2024 – Social media is cocaine. Social media on your cellphone is crack. You have to change your relationship with your phone and end your relationship with social media. No ifs. No buts. No excuses. It is harming you, and if you have children, your children. Period.
11/14/24 – Let’s talk a little more about productive activities by talking about bad habits. We would argue that the single best thing you could do to improve the quality of your life is to eliminate your bad habit(s). For many people, it’s going to be an unhealthy relationship with their phone and/or social media. As we mentioned, we don’t use social media. Therefore, we don’t have it nor have we ever had it on our phones. That would be like choosing to try crack.
There are other bad habits: Eating unhealthy food or too much food. Playing video games or watching more than an average of one hour of TV, movies or sports per day in any given week, any amount of porn, any amount of substance abuse of any kind, including weed. (Yes, it’s a bad drug and a bad habit.) The occasional drink is fine, but anything more than that is not. If you can’t stop for yourself, do it for your children.
The single best way to help your children improve in all aspects of their lives, academically, socially, and emotionally, is to never expose them to any of these bad habits. Instead of having your children contact you on your cellphone, have them call your place of work or your home line. This will also allow your own brain to focus on productive activities without worrying about people, especially your children, not being able to get a hold of you.
I tell people that I am not a phone person because the expectation is that everyone is always on their phone. Well, I am not, so I now have to tell people something I never had to tell them before. People sometimes get irritated with me for not checking my phone. Although I apologize to keep the peace, frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn. There has yet to be an instance when whatever they desperately needed to get a hold of me about couldn’t just wait. I find being tethered to a phone very annoying. I can also concentrate for hours on end, day after day, often without being aware of it. It’s a good habit. The bad habit and the good habit are opposite sides of the same coin.
When I was growing up, my mom would watch several hours of TV, presumably to relax. I didn’t care for this. I viewed it as a waste of time and a bad habit, and lucky for me, I didn’t pick it up then or later in life. To this day, one of the things I dislike is feeling like I’m wasting my time. It’s my life, after all. Looking back, I was likely an exception. Many, if not most, kids pick up their parents’ bad habits or some related version of them.
Why don’t you observe yourselves for a week and record your activities and routines? When you do this carefully enough, you might notice something beyond the ridiculous amount of time wasted. You might notice that when you engage in these bad habits, it negatively impacts your own intellectual, social and emotional processes.
For children, this impact will be magnified and more damaging, especially on a long-term basis, because of their stage of human development. In other words, the reason why your children might not be realizing their personal talents might have little to do with their abilities or their schools but their unwillingness or inability to regulate unproductive activities. With your own bad behavior, you’re likely damaging your children’s development in the near and potentially long term. It is hard truth and one that must be spoken.
11/12/24 – We all need to rest, reflect and have some silence. We’ll keep this brief. Firstly, rank-and-file Democrats and other Americans did all we could do. We were democracy in action. We should feel proud of ourselves for this. We are so proud of and thankful for you.
When you’re ready, consider continuing to engage with your fellow Americans in all of their diversity in respectful conversations. Also, consider volunteering more to help people in need no matter who they are. It’s rewarding, and you can make new relationships.
Also, consider breaking habits that aren’t productive. We don’t do social media. To us, it has almost no benefits. Personally, I keep my life very simple. I love my profession. I take it seriously and find it rewarding. I like helping people. I enjoy spending time with different people, but also time by myself. I need a lot of time to myself. I love my spiritual life, nature, reading, gardening, the arts and many other things, more than I have time for. Consider making a simple list of the things that bring you joy and spend time on them instead of on bad habits or unhealthy activities.
Lastly, unlike the last time, we’re not giving the carnival and the carnival barker our lives or our joy. If he scares us too much or is too chaotic, we’ll check out, and the people who voted for him can deal with it. We’re going to hold them accountable. We’re also not going to let him dominate our otherwise lovely lives. Life’s too short for that.
But first, just rest and enjoy our beautiful planet. Continue being your lovely, happy selves. God bless you.
11/10/24 – Let’s take a break from politics and talk about something more important. In the midst of this exhausting and stressful week, I had a revelation that was uplifting at a moment when I really needed it. As an immigrant, I have had to adapt my entire life, and after practicing and practicing this skill, I realized that I had actually gotten somewhere. The one thing I really wanted to be able to do was feel entirely comfortable with a wide range of people. I wanted to feel that I could be myself, but also enjoy others’ company as they are. This week, I realized that I had achieved this goal. It felt like a personal triumph.
When I travel to other parts of our own country or to other countries, nothing makes me happier than when people invite me into their lives as they are: to share their food and drink, their culture, their values, their language, themselves as they are. This means I have to receive them without judgment and with the intention of genuine connection. I have to be myself, because nobody likes phonies, but also receive them as themselves. This can be challenging, and it’s not without conflict, but it’s always worth it.
I remember going to Italy several years ago and marveling that the Italians would continue speaking to me in Italian, a language I did not know at all at the time, simply because I was actually trying to respond to them in Italian. (I was basically speaking French with an Italian accent and changing some of the words to Italian if I knew them. Full disclosure: I have long had a fondness for Italy.)
I encourage everyone, no matter their identity or political affiliation, to set aside the politics and yourselves for a while. Instead, go into the world in this posture of: I want to understand you as you are. You will learn so much about others, about yourself, and it will be the richest possible experience you can have with your fellow human beings. When you couple this with a love of nature, you will understand God’s creation in its diversity, its complexity, and its infinite reward. Happy Sunday!
11/9/24 – To Democrats and other fellow Americans who supported Harris Walz, this was a hard loss. Many people worked hard for them. They gave of their time, talent and treasure, and they feel sad and disappointed. It is perfectly fine to feel what you feel. Personally, I’ve been following or involved in politics for a long time, and I’m a bit battle-hardened. I knew this outcome had real potential, and my personality is naturally strict with myself. I don’t really like dwelling on negative things, especially outcomes that were, in many respects, beyond my control. But many people need time to process their feelings. Please do so. Take time to spend with your loved ones, in nature, in simple pleasures, in your places of worship, etc. God loves us. We’ll be fine – no matter what. Just know that.
We also want to thank you for your grace and your dignity. We were naturally sad and disappointed, but we didn’t do what the other side did in 2020. We didn’t embarrass our country by rejecting the loss. Their election denial was a disgrace to the greatness of our nation and our democracy. In keeping with our tradition, we accepted it. Yes, we are frustrated and angry, many of us at the Democratic Party and others within it. However, this is a form of self-reflection and accountability. We can and should use this loss as an opportunity to grow, personally and as a country. Hold your head high because in the way you carried yourselves at a low point in our history, you showed some of our greatest strengths as a nation. You reminded the world to never discount our country. In the way you handled this loss, you sent a clear message to the world. Despite our individual and collective flaws, our people remain some of the finest in the world.
11/9/24 – There are well-governed blue states, and if you are lucky enough to live in one, it’s quite nice. However, New York State is not one of them. The corruption within its Democratic Party and its seeming inability to deliver for its people is a disgrace.
Democrats Deserved to Lose
11/9/24 – “Moments after North Carolina was called for Trump, Reid diagnosed what went wrong for Harris: White women, she said, didn’t come through; it was ‘the second opportunity that white women in this country have to change the way that they interact with the patriarchy,’ and they had failed the test again. On X, commentators immediately jumped on the blame-white-women bandwagon, as if it was an evergreen obituary they all had on file, ready to post within a moment’s notice.”
Do you know how many – white women – liberal, Democrats, in blue states have privately said to us that the “woke” people have lost their minds. That’s correct. They have protected their children from the “wokeness” because they want what is best for them, and the “woke” people were not offering that. These are people who are genuinely kind, compassionate, and inclusive, but they see this bulls—t for what it is. It is not about the people who these phony “progressives” are pretending to care about. It’s about the phonies themselves: their egos, their images and their own advancement.
We love our black sisters. Of course, there is sexism and racism, but the outcome of this race wasn’t ultimately about that. Don’t blame this loss on things that aren’t the main reason, especially when it damages your relationship with our compatriots. It’s not fair to them. You have to let that go, or you’re going to alienate people who are your friends and allies. We get it. You’re hurt and angry. People will show you grace because they are kind and understanding of the situation, but for your own relationships and mental health, try to manage those feelings in healthy and productive ways. Go hang out with some of your white friends, men and women. Nothing dispels irrational feelings like the rationality of love.
What the Left Keeps Getting Wrong
11/9/24 – Speaking of credibility, this is also true. It doesn’t just apply to the Democratic Party. It was insulting to the American people, who kept telling, in poll after poll, what it had accurately assessed about Biden and his decline, to be told that they were wrong, to shut up and fall in line with this nomination. (Remember our posts about Jennifer Rubin, and this bulls—t she was peddling. The media was also covering up for him.) They treated us like we are required to support him when we thought (and correctly so) that we live in a democracy. (See the middle finger the American people just gave the Democratic Party.) In some ways, Biden also effectively refused to leave office, as he clung to power even though he was incapable of governing.
Although we want to show people grace and be respectful of Biden’s years of service to our country and his humanity, it’s absurd to suggest to us that he would have won this election. He would have lost in even more catastrophic fashion. To the Biden people, please do STFU about this. It’s disgraceful, and you’re embarrassing yourselves.
It’s also appallingly insulting and morally wrong to have the Biden family, who by many accounts are too fixated on themselves, both Jill Biden (get over yourself) and Hunter Biden (get help), with strong narcissistic streaks and immoral tendencies, and whoever else in the administration run our country from behind the scenes. The progressives who took advantage of Biden’s senility to push through their agenda that the voters rejected are also complicit in this corruption of our democracy.
Also note these people’s hypocrisy because this was one of the same things that voters took issue with when a certain person was in power. This time around it’s even worse as Elon Musk is going to be inaugurated in a few months. We seem to be living through a bizarre period in American history where there is some front man who wins the presidential elections, but it’s not really the same person who’s governing. Instead, it’s some carnival of God knows who and why.
Trying to protect Biden, Democrats sacrificed their credibility
11/9/24 – NPR is still bad. Some other sites are improving, but there is still a long way to go. Much of the media is biased, and it needs to do a much better job of seeing and reporting things as they are. It didn’t report the truth about Biden’s decline. We have not forgotten that. We have not forgotten anything. Please stop treating the American people like we’re stupid because we don’t have your worthless “pedigree.” The media has to contend with these hard truths if it has any hope of repairing its relationship and credibility with the American people.
11/8/24 – The press needs to better educate itself. This is not a sustainable situation.
11/8/24 – No offense, but especially the opinion writers for the press can live in a liberal bubble within a liberal bubble. It’s like a Russian doll, and they can end up so insulated from the real world that it’s a little perplexing if not scary. These people also have a platform to broadcast this stuff. Look at how terribly wrong Jennifer Rubin has been, and yet people actually read her wrong ideas…. They are not necessarily bad people. They mean well. But if you’re consistently wrong, you’re consistently wrong. In part, they’re often wrong because they don’t seem to know or understand the world as it is.
Regarding the post below, India is a good example because it’s one of the oldest civilizations in the world, but there are many others. Even after all the centuries of colonization, India is so old that British rule was effectively a drop in the bucket of time. The ancientness that you see in these current images are not unique to Hinduism. It cuts across all of India’s many religions, and it’s part of its people, culture and history.
Look at the Middle East, Africa, Asia or even many parts of Latin America. They are not interested in losing their ancientness. It’s part of their national pride and identity. Many parts of the world also have no interest in being like European (or American) culture. They will take economic and quality of life advancements, and that’s it. They have civilizations that predate European civilization, and they want to preserve their traditions and identity.
PS For people who don’t understand religions, prostrating yourself is very common. Priests in the Catholic Church do it to this day on Good Friday. There is nothing weird about it. It’s an act of humility and reverence.
Tens of thousands of Hindu devotees flock to rivers for prayers to the sun god
11/8/24 – Dana Milbank, opinion writer with The Washington Post, writes, “Yes, progressives and Democrats will, over time, need to rethink their strategy for the future, in particular the belief that demographics, and the increasingly multiracial composition of America, would inevitably favor them. [If they have any sense at all, they will do this.] Latinos in particular appear to be following the Irish, Italians and other immigrant groups in becoming part of the dominant “White” culture. [Huh, what!] Democrats will need to find new ways to appeal to men, and they will need to reclaim their populism, somehow heisted by a billionaire who has given huge tax breaks to the rich. [If they have any sense at all, they will do this.]”
With respect, what is he talking about with this: “Latinos in particular appear to be following the Irish, Italians and other immigrant groups in becoming part of the dominant ‘White’ culture”? In what world is he living because it’s not in this one. Dana Milbank is not a bad person, but it’s these kinds of comments that make the rest of us go: they really don’t know anything about the world or its people.
Look at the world. Do you understand what an aberration “white culture” is? Other people do not act like or have the values that white people have. Conservative white people are in the minority in white dominant countries. The “dominant ‘White’ culture” is liberal! Go to Europe, and tell us what you see. This is part of the backlash that you’re seeing. Within the progressive movement, the part that appealed to both liberal and conservative Americans was not the cultural parts, it was the economic policies – to some degree. (Most Americans don’t want socialism.) The cultural part was off-putting in many respects to many people.
As a nonwhite immigrant myself, who comes from a conservative and traditional culture, his comment made no sense at all. We aren’t adopting the “dominant ‘White’ culture.” We are doing the opposite. We are rejecting it. We are remaining true to whatever extent to our own culture. It is what is infusing the dominant liberal white culture with conservatism, holding all else equal, meaning white, conservative Americans constant. Come on people, look at this thing objectively.
PS Rest and recovery should be a standard part of one’s life. It is not only necessary doing particularly stressful periods.
Retreat is not an option
11/8/24 – Although no American elected him to anything, we’d like to congratulate our new President and Vice President, Elon Musk and Elon Musk. America got double the Elon for zero the vote.
11/7/24 – In case you haven’t noticed, we don’t like wasting our time on things that aren’t worth our time. Don’t waste your time on: “who are we?” and all of that s—t. Don’t give this more than it deserves. The thing about politics is that almost always the psychology is more important than the policies. This is just how human beings are. Look at all of our previous posts about what is rational and irrational, etc. Human beings are complicated, as God designed us to be. We are way more complicated than animals, and it is not about our “intelligence,” however that’s defined.
As it relates to this election:
1. People – even well-educated people – don’t understand economics. We said this before. It’s just the way it is.
2. This was always going to be a tough election to win no matter the Democratic ticket because it was going to be against a demagogue, who already had a committed base of support. As we said way back when, Shapiro Whitmer would likely have been the strongest ticket because they are both governors from battleground states. However, winning would not have been guaranteed even with that ticket. It was always going to be hard. So, unless you’re a campaign strategist and this is your job, stop neurotically reconsidering the ticket or the campaign strategy. It’s a counterfactual, and it’s a moot point.
3. If you want to spend your time and energy somewhere, this is where to do so. Democrats insulted the voters because they didn’t listen to them. The elites insulted the voters because they didn’t listen to them. Americans are generally more conservative than Europeans; however, our institutions and our policies have become more liberal than Europe’s in many respects. This is untenable in a democracy. You have to reflect where the people are. Instead, liberals are trying to force their way of thinking and being in the world on people who keep rejecting it. We are a free people. That’s unacceptable to us. This is the hard truth that liberals need to accept, and if they have a kernel of intelligence and integrity, they will fix their party and the way they engage with the American people. (I, personally, will be remaining an Independent. I felt insulted because I was. I wanted a competitive primary. Instead, I got a bunch of arrogant, pseudo-intellectual quacks and hacks telling me what’s best for me and our country. That did not go over well.)
4. Although we agree with many frustrations that our fellow Americans feel, their approach to righting the ship is dangerous and morally wrong. It will backfire on them. It is not our responsibility to act as their protection once they’ve made their decision. We did have a duty to warn them. We fulfilled it. They need to own their decisions, and they will need to fix this mistake once it blows up in their faces.
In summary, stop brooding on the past. It’s done. Focus on protecting yourselves. Make a plan. And if you’re invested in the Democratic Party and elite institutions, they need major reform.
11/7/24 – Make a plan. Resistance is relocating. We warned them. They made their decision. They need to lie or die in the bed they made. Personal accountability is very important, or people don’t learn anything.
11/6/24 – We are surprised by the popular vote, but then again, the polls were misleading and unhelpful.
11/6/24 – To the brilliant people saying the Harris Walz campaign shouldn’t have told voters that a certain evil person is a fascist. Campaign strategy is not our thing. We are in the business of telling the truth as we see it, and that is the truth. We have a moral obligation to warn people of where things are heading. We care about all of our fellow Americans, and we are not going to withhold highly important information for some cynical political calculation. The Democratic Party made numerous mistakes, and once decisions have been made, you have to make the best of them to try to win the election against someone who is entirely unfit for the presidency. There are limits to this though. One of those red lines is withholding information about the dangers the other candidate poses. If the correct campaign strategy were to withhold this information, we still would have focused on it. Also, others can dissect the data, but from the exit polls, that message (protecting democracy) turned out her voters. It just wasn’t enough to convince the other voters who prioritized other things. You could sense that the Democrats were losing this battle, especially with certain segments of the electorate, if you paid any attention to voter sentiment, which the Democratic Party is really good at not doing.
11/6/24 – By the way, if your takeaway from this is, we really should have pandered more to progressives, you really are f—king stupid, and there is no help for you or the Democratic Party. I became an Independent because it refused to have any form of primary, effectively giving its voters the middle finger. Well, the country has given the Democratic Party the middle finger now, hasn’t it.
11/6/24 – This was a foolish decision for those who voted for a certain evil person. However, the Democratic Party and the liberals were not listening to the people. We told you this numerous times, in numerous ways. When moderates and centrists are telling you that your policies are liberal excess and that you should have a primary, and things like that, you really should listen. In any case, you might want to create a plan to leave. It will get that bad…. Or you can stay and fight. It’s obviously a personal choice. Don’t feel bad. You did what you could. The country might not make it, but God is always with us wherever we end up. God loves you. Keep the faith.
11/6/24 – Remember this article. It came out yesterday morning. It infuriated us, but we didn’t have a chance to respond to it, this line in particular: “Then there was the crowd demanding an ‘open process’ to pick the nominee once Biden stepped down. The idea was daft from the start.” We were one of the “daft” ones. We’re not going to say anything more about it because that would be cruel. It is what it is.
Ignoring bad advice is a key to winning
11/5/24 – The Democrats will likely lose the presidential race. It was going to be a very tough election for them to win no matter the ticket, but their original sin was to not have an actual competitive primary and also to allow the progressive wing to have as much influence as it did. Please tell us how daft we are. Good night.
11/5/24 – We’re ready for this election to wrap up. Everybody is exhausted and stressed out. To everyone who did anything to help Harris Walz, thank you! To the people who did a lot, thank you very much! No matter the outcome, we can all hold our heads high. We did what we could, and we did our best. We want to thank, in particular, Kamala Harris. She was put in a tough spot. She worked hard, which is all we could ask. We are proud of her. She is a patriot. Anybody who voted for Harris Walz, on this point, is also a patriot. Let’s pray that God saves us from the evil one. God’s will be done.
11/4/24 – On this eve before election day, our closing argument is this. Sacrifice is sacred. Self-sabotage is stupid. We also understand that there are those who think if they vote for a certain person, they will “own the libs.” We ask you to reconsider the wisdom and the virtue of this goal, and the projection of events to come. Many liberals are well-educated, highly skilled people who can find work elsewhere or withhold their labor or taxes and bring the country to its knees. You only have to look at the brain drain that has occurred throughout the world as their best and brightest fled authoritarian regimes. However, if you’re poorly educated, as much of MAGA is, by definition, you’re more vulnerable to macroeconomic developments, and a certain evil person, who you likely intend to vote for, is more able to enslave you. You might think you’re voting to “own the libs,” when in reality, you’re voting to be owned. For this act of betrayal to your fellow Americans, to our country and to yourselves, you’ll have no one to blame but yourselves. We did our duty as your fellow Americans, and we told you the truth. You were warned.
11/4/24 – To all of the supporters and voters of a certain evil person, we care about you, and we did everything we could to help you see the light. You own your decision for the rest of your lives. Here are a few more articles that you can read and/or listen to and, if you haven’t voted already, we hope will convince you to vote for Harris Walz. They are from people who love our country, and who care about it and all Americans – including you.
Let’s not pretend Democrats don’t engage in culture war issues. They do, and it detracts from the economic issues on which their sense of morality is generally clear and correct. Wealthy Democrats are more likely to vote for higher taxes on higher income earners than Republicans of any class. Why would these Democrats do this, especially when some of their taxes go to the very people who want to “own the libs”? Because they value a society that takes care of its people.
America’s Class Politics Have Turned Upside Down
Why are our brave and patriotic members of the military, who risk their lives to protect us, not suckers and losers, as a certain evil person thinks of them? Because they value a society that protects its people.
Trump: ‘I Need the Kind of Generals That Hitler Had’
Why are many conservatives unwilling to vote for a certain evil person, who has violated many if not all of their core tenets, and are even willing to vote for the presidential candidate of the opposing party? Because they value country over party.
How to Prevent the Worst from Happening
Sacrifice is sacred. Character takes on many forms, and a country is only as good as the character of its people.
11/3/24 – Democracy
They say democracy dies in darkness
Doublespeak with forked tongues in ancient rhymes
Beats into the hearts of misguided men
Foreign flags raised high, house roofbeams brought low
With broken glass, in hallowed halls there lies
Democracy defiled in broad daylight
From Cain and Abel to the end of time
Man cannot govern without divine light.
11/3/24 – The Second Coming
11/2/24 – Fascism
Turning and turning in the widening chasm
Americans cannot hear Americans
Things fall apart; the center cannot hold
Mere fascism is loosed upon the world
The flood of lies is loosed, and everywhere
The integrity of truth is drowned
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
11/2/24 – The American record continues: Clarence Thomas, traitor. Ginny Thomas, traitor. Samuel Alito, traitor.
11/2/24 – “Mr. Trump’s campaign rhetoric comes ever closer to a textbook definition of fascism, threatening to imprison political opponents and suggesting that unfriendly news outlets should have their broadcast licenses revoked. And as Ms. Cheney points out, the Supreme Court’s ruling earlier this summer that Mr. Trump is immune from criminal prosecution for certain official actions he took while in office may embolden him to test his powers further than he did in his first term.”
Why is the presidential election so close? Here are five reasons.
11/2/24 – Could someone calculate the bills that a certain evil person hasn’t paid? For example, what is the total that his campaign hasn’t paid to the cities in which he holds rallies? Understand what this is. It’s the security and other personnel, ordinary residents, who are not being paid for their labor. Let’s read this again: They are not being paid for their labor. It is a form of wage theft. Do you know why he feels that this is his right? Because a certain person has no value for human beings. He thinks of himself as a king, and he thinks of the rest of us as his peasants and subjects.
11/2/24 – Some supposedly widely cited meme from 2015: “‘I never thought leopards would eat MY face,’ sobs woman who voted for the Leopards Eating People’s Faces Party.” Krugman says, “It’s hard to explain why this is perfect, but it is.” It is perfect, but it’s not hard to explain. It’s obvious. You just have to use your eyes, your ears and the thing that sits in your skull.
Leopards Are Telling You That They Will Eat YOUR Face
11/2/24 – Some more examples of self-sabotage. Reasons? See below. It’s the same reasons over and over and over again. When you don’t have your priorities in order, you’re f—ked. Please do have a nice day.
Revenge Voting Over Gaza Is a Mistake
Muslim American Support for Trump Is Self-Sabotage
11/1/24 – Save our democracy. We’ll fix everything else after that. We will. As God designed it, in the long-run, nature tends toward balance. Have some faith.
11/1/24 – Some more truths. “In the past, I might have written this essay asking fellow faithful Catholics to examine their consciences and figure out how we can best align our voting choices with our values, but instead, I will say only this: As a Catholic, I simply cannot in good conscience vote for Donald Trump…. According to the Guttmacher Institute, the annual number of abortions actually went up by 11 percent from 2020 to 2023, the first full year after Roe v. Wade was overturned. So rather than protecting the unborn, I would argue that this Supreme Court has done more to protect Mr. Trump.” Ouch. “Focusing on a person’s dignity and well-being through access to health care and education helps families thrive and has a trickle-down effect on the unborn. I call it ‘supply-side pro-life!’… This faith calls us to care for the marginalized and to uphold the dignity of every person. It calls us to work for a future that is rooted in love and justice. It calls us to insist on leadership that aligns with the values we hold sacred. While we are going to continue to advocate for the dignity of the unborn, let’s admit Ms. Harris has Catholic cred on other important issues. Advocating for policies that support working families, a big deal in Catholic social teaching? Check. Affordable health care? Check. Family leave? Yes, please. Her focus on environmental issues aligns nicely with Pope Francis’ call to care for our common home in ‘Laudato Si’. And on immigration, even though her primary campaign message on this has been cracking down on asylum claims, she’s been firm about providing humane policies and a pathway to citizenship, which the Catholic Church has long supported.”
Jeannie Gaffigan: Harris isn’t perfect. But as a Catholic and a mom, I cannot vote for Trump.
11/1/24 – The dominance of white liberals in the Democratic Party is ruining it. Those people are out there for many people, especially almost all minorities, not just black people, who are generally more socially conservative. Also, the simmering gender wars need to stop. It’s counterproductive. Men need women, and women need men. We have different strengths and weaknesses, and we complement each other as God designed it. The way to court men, black, white, whoever, is simply to tell them the truth. They have value as men, and we need them as they are. The problem is that white liberals have lost touch with some fundamental aspects of reality and human beings, such as gender differences are real and also helpful as they are. Instead of the culture wars crap, which are often the luxuries of bored well-to-do white people who desperately need attention to be focused on their “fragility” while other people are genuinely struggling to survive, there should be more focus on “kitchen table” issues, such as economic policies tailored to poor and lower middle-class people of all races. This is a moral imperative. The culture wars are not.
11/1/24 – Let’s speak some truths, shall we. Let’s start with something simple – self-sabotage is stupid. Anybody who is not a favored kleptocrat and votes for a certain evil person is effectively engaging in an act of personal self-destruction, not to mention destruction of our democracy. This is obvious on its face since once you lose free and fair elections, you become an oppressed slave. So, they can all justify their votes with some mirage of, “He cares about people like me…,” or “I was better under…,” but they will regret that inaccurate assessment once they realize that they got conned. The only thing that really matters is that the evil one is, well, evil, a fascist and will destroy our democracy. Everything else is moot. That’s the truth, no matter its political resonance. Some truths that must be spoken might not register because people are too focused on stupid s—t, but they still need to be spoken. More examples of self-sabotage are to come.
Of Course Black Men Are Drifting Toward Trump