(11-03-2019 09:40 AM)GoodOwl Wrote:  

(11-02-2019 01:47 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  

(11-02-2019 12:48 PM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  I heard an interesting analogy last night.

This liberal journalist went to a small town in the Texas panhandle, reputedly the most pro-Trump town in the nation. he was surprised by what he he found - nice people, being nice to each other and taking care of their own business.

One of them tried to explain to him why so many of them supported Trump despite not liking his tweeting and bluster and other things about him.

"When your house is overrun with cockroaches, and the exterminator who comes is crude and loudmouthed and his butt crack is showing, you go with the exterminator who will get rid of the roaches and not worry about if he is presentable or not".


Kind of sums up my attitude and probably the attitude of many others - I don't care {as much, as it would be nicer if he wasn't} about how crass he is, I care about results, and the results are good.

I always wonder why some of yall think exaggerating the size of his inauguration or his hands trumps (little t) highest minority employment in decades or any of the other good things. Sometimes I think you don't care about economic prosperity if you can just put one of your people in power.

I am in a somewhat different position. I am not quite as happy with all his results. I agree with the balance of trade problem, but I don't think the tariffs are the right solution. That's just trying to impose a band-aid instead of fixing the underlying problems. And I favor more legal immigration while eliminating illegal immigration. I would have traded the wall for a rational immigration policy.

But while I am not totally happy with the results, I am quite certain that the results under any of the current crop of democrat contenders would be catastrophic. At least, as long as they elected supermajorities in both houses and--unilke Obama--were actually able to work with people to get things done. One big difference--a fair portion of the supermajority that Obama had to work with were blue dogs who at least had some sense, but they got purged over Obamacare, and what's left on the donk side are wild-eyed radical collectivists/socialists/communists.

I think this is one of OptimisticOwls' best posts ever. It succinctly explains the divide in our country right now.

I don't mind President Trump's approach to trade with China and others, as I understand he is trying to regain some levearge that has been given away for decades in order to force them to come to the table with some real concessions instead of platitudes. As with weightlifting: no pain, no gain. The pain will be worth it in the long run, and it is a longer term strategy he is pursuing in these areas, which is refreshing to see from a President.

I am in favor of fixing our immigration problems, but unlike you I am in favor of less immigration overall: zero illegal immigration, and less legal immigration. We need a break from relying on outside, as we have more than enough people here that if we focused on empowering our weakest links we would have a much stronger nation that always seeking to import cheap solutions in this area that seem to always leave our problems with our weaker citizens festering. To wit: there would be less crime and drug use if we focused more on the root causes of those problems, that lead directly to the economic and societal problems concentrated (but by no means exclusive to) our current lower classes.

One big remedy would be to fix the American family, as it is the instability, selfishness and waste caused by no-fault divorce laws that has greatly exaggerated the supposed need for bigger government, and has led directly to the increased crime and drug use that steals so many of our resources and requires so much unnecessary intervention. The basic flaw in progressivism, socialism and communism is that they at their heart seek to replace the responsibilities of intact families that function more or less normally with the divisive government programs, authorities and inequalities that lead directly to societal dysfunction. Divorce rates in this country around the turn of the previous century (1900) were only around 10%. Presently we are near 50-55%, depending on the particular study. Something close to 75-78% of black children grow up in broken or non-existent families. They also happen to make up the majority of the prison population. Not a coincidence.

Taking fathers out of families by incentivising single motherhood or by discouraging the value of marriage and family stability overall was and is the one big mistake that has lead directly to the over-expansion of failing government. At least with respect to where children of the parents are involved, we should seek to require grounds for divorce, at the same time we concurrently strengthen the incentives to get and stay married by expanding (doubling or tripling) the tax benefits for being in a stable and long-term marriage to the same partner). Perhaps having bonus tax-credits for being married to the same person at the 10, 20, 30, 40 50 and 60 years marks. It has taken generations and half a century of a downward-spiraling futility to create the mess where we are at, so overnight it won't magically change, but with this one idea, in just a few generations, Americans of all backgrounds and classes could again be the strongest on earth.

As someone once famously said: "if you don't know where you're going, the path of least resistance will get you there." The Great Society was a fallacy and a mistake, no-fault divorce should only be reserved for childless couples who have made a mistake. Where there are children involved, there should be a requirement of responsibility and to take the agreement seriously, as all other agreements are enforced where the one who breaches is the one who bears the cost. "Family" Courts should be dissolved and moved back into the civil court system, and marriages should be registered as fully enforceable contracts with whatever terms between two adults they wish. (eg "I marry you for a term of three years as long as you wear your orange shirt every Tuesday afternoon from 3-4pm" would be just fine as an enforceable agreement as long as both parties agree to it in advance.) Most of the problems in our country, and the need for greater "security" come from taking away the basic rights and responsibilities of intact, married families, and the serial marriages and divorces that teach younger generations of children that promises and responsibilities don;t matter, so do whatever you want 'cause the gub'ment will bail you out somehow, which is a complete lie, and not what this country was ever founded to be. The new slaves are just as much the left-behind spouses and their offspring who inevitably are 60-70% more likely to be involved in our worst societal problems: the #1 common denominator in prisons today is coming from a divorced or non-existent family, not race, not social class, not religion, not education. Lets' fix it, reduce the size and cost of government by 50-60% as we won't need all the extra garbage that just wastes valuable people and resources. Then we also won't need to try to import others to do what we all should be doing for ourselves.

I think this is one of GoodOwl's best posts ever. Good to hear from somebody on my right.

Agree about the trade policy. As an importer, I hate the idea of tariffs. But with Trump, I think he uses them as a tool to get what he wants, what we need, not as an end-goal in themselves. If everybody gets in line with Trump's goals, the tariffs will disappear.

Agree that we need to correct the immigration problems brought about by decades of turning a blind eye.

I think it is too late to save the families.

Good to hear from ya, GO.