Just a quick thought that I wanted to bookmark here, in case I decide to expand upon this thought in a later post (no promises.)

Starting about 10 years ago, I lost my desire to go out and socialize, and much prefer just hanging out at home.  I've attributed this to various factors.  Mostly I attribute it to just getting old.  (A number of people seem to have the same experience--they lose the desire to go out and party when they reach their late 30s.)

I also attribute it to me finally just embracing my introversion.  For years I was young and insecure, and I was ashamed of being an introvert.  Now that I'm older and settled into myself, I am not ashamed to be introverted any more.  Yes, I'd rather stay home and read a book than go to a party.  I've accepted this about myself.  I'm not going to try to force myself to be social when I don't feel like it.

I feel like I'm done trying to fit in.  I've spend my whole youth trying to fit in, and convince myself that I could (eventually) be one of the cool kids, but now I just want to stay home and read my book.

But, actually, am I actually staying home and reading a book?  Or do I spend 10 minutes reading my book, and then spend 2 hours on the Internet?  Am I an introvert, or am I really an Internet addict?

I want to envision myself as an intellectual--someone who would prefer to read than party--but is it books that are keeping me occupied at home, or is it the Internet.  If I'm honest with myself, it's the latter.

And actually, now that I think about it, when I stopped going out and socializing about 10 years ago, that was also the same time that I was finally living in an apartment that had cable TV and free Internet.  (Prior to this, I usually didn't have Internet hooked up in most of the apartments I had been living in.  For various reasons--one reason being I didn't trust myself.)

When I was teaching in Vietnam, I was teaching a lot of teenagers, and I was suprised by how many of them were identifying as introverts.  But I also noticed that a lot of them were permanently glued to their smart phones, and I was also beginning to suspect that a lot of them were hiding behind the label of "introvert" as a way to justify their various digital addictions. (Gaming addictions, tik-tok addictions, smart phone addictions, etc).

To what degree is it healthy to embrace an introvert lifestyle, and to what degree should we introverts still be pushing ourselves to get out there and socialize?  

And is being an introvert an immutable personality trait that we get from birth, or is the Internet turning more people into introverts who might actually be extroverts.

Anyways, this Tweet appeared in my feed a couple weeks ago, and I can't stop thinking about it, so I'm going to leave it here to bookmark it for myself: 

Like everything ⁦@jburnmurdoch⁩ makes, this chart is amazing.

The sharp decline in conscientiousness and rise in neuroticism among young people is astonishing.

But also of note: literally every age group has gotten less extroverted in the age of the smartphone pic.twitter.com/C4QrZlRjwM

— Derek Thompson (@DKThomp) August 8, 2025

It's apparently from this article here, which I haven't read because it's behind a paywall.

Like I said, I may come back to this idea in a future post, or I may not, but for now I'm just bookmarking it for myself.

Addendum: Actually looking at the replies to this Tweet, a lot of people seem to be taking issue with the methodology behind these graphs.  Perhaps this isn't really accurate, and perhaps I'm wasting my time by linking to it.  I don't know.

The Sheer Depravity is Astounding

For the past several years, whenever I am conversing about current events, I often find myself starting out by stating , "I know at this point nothing should shock me anymore, and yet..."

And so, when it comes to the deportation of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, I have to say, "I know at this point nothing should shock me anymore, and yet... 

...and yet, how is this happening?

A man without a criminal record, and with court-ordered protected status, is sent to a torture prison in El Salvadore due to an administrative error.  This man is a father, and was taken away from his family, including a 5-year-old austic son who he was caring for.  Then the court orders the Trump administration to facilitate his return, and the Trump administration refuses to do it.

As far as moral conundrums go, this is one of the easy ones.  Just return the wrongly imprisoned father to his wife and son.  This doesn't have to be political.  This doesn't have to be a left/right issue.  Just do the obviously right thing.  Please.  This is one of the easy ones.

And yet, they won't do it.

And then I thought to myself, "How are we as a country allowing this to happen?  Why are we not flooding the streets and demanding Kilmar Abrego Garcia be returned?  Have we gotten to a point where we are so complacent and so desensitived that we can just read this in our news feeds and then go on to read something else?"

And that's when I realized, I could no longer stay silent.

The past few years, I've been trying to reinvent myself as apolitical (see here and here).  I had become embarrased of my youthful political advocacy, for a number of reasons (in my youth, I had been arrogant, annoying, certain that I was always right, dismissive of other views, tribalistic, I had uncritically adopted the opinions of the thought leaders of the Left, etc.).  Now that I'm middle-aged, I wanted to just be quiet and respectable and normal.

So that's why I wrote a few months ago: I'm (Mostly) Going to be Keeping Mute on Political Events.

I also, although I did not state it at the time, really wanted to keep this blog politically neutral, because I'm currently on the job hunt, and I figured employers would view a politically outspoken blog as a liability.

But how can you keep silent when this stuff is going on?  

The deportation of Kilmar Abrego Garcia is as blatant a miscarriage of justice as you could ask for. If we as a society can accept this, then we as a society can accept anything.  

And I know that statistically Kilmar Abrego Garcia is just one person, but the way he's being treated is an indication of what our society will tolerate.  When future historians write about Kilmar Abrego Garcia, what are they going to say about how the American public reacted to his case?

And if we stay silent when this type of thing happens, then, what really is the point of being alive?  We're only on this earth for a few years.  We have to at least do a little bit to confront the injustices of our time.

In a previous post I had said 

if I have nothing to offer other than stating the obvious (i.e. "this obviously really bad thing is obviously really bad"), then I'm just going to stay quiet

... but I take it back.  Sometimes there's value in stating that something is bad and that you disapprove of it.  If we get to a point where people stop doing this, if people are no longer outraged by blatant injustice, then we as a society have lost our morality.

I'm also going to be contacting my local representatives to let them know who I feel about the deportation of Kilmar Abrego Garcia.

And, I guess maybe I'll be doing more political posts on this blog after all.  I didn't want to, but... well, to quote from The Fellowship of the Ring:

“I wish it need not have happened in my time,” said Frodo. 

“So do I,” said Gandalf, “and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”

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Bonus Links: A Tale of Two Men: Look at MAGA family values, in all its repellent splendor.

see also this tweet: 

Oh really, @StephenM? "The leftist media"?

Does that include your Solicitor General, who admitted to the Supreme Court that you made a mistake in deporting Garcia?

Does that include all nine Supreme Court justices, who wrote that the District Court order "properly requires… https://t.co/OwcuM6U5Gi

— Jon Favreau (@jonfavs) April 14, 2025

Political Labels are Meaningless

Dear reader,

in my youth, I have spent a lot of time getting into political debates about different ideologies.  And over the years, I have learned a few things which, had I only known them years ago, would have saved me a lot of time.  I now wish to impart my wisdom onto you in the hopes that you can also redeem some of your time which would otherwise be spent squabbling about politics.  And that wisdom is:

1) Most political debates are actual semantic debates.  (e.g. calling Obama's tax plan socialist or calling Trump's immigration policy fascist will quickly lead into a discussion about what "socialism" or "fascism" really means.)

2) Political labels have no agreed upon definition.

3) Therefore, most political debates are a waste of time.

Remember this the next time you are tempted to get into a political debate on Twitter or Facebook.  It will save you a lot of time and energy.

I actually realized a long time ago that most political debates were actually semantic debates.

For example, I remember once, over 20 years ago, when I was at a party and I got to a long political debate with someone about whether capitalism or socialism was the worse system, and we both attempted to use China to illustrate our point.  I cited China as an example of the problems with capitalism, and he cited China as an example of the problems with communism, and then we realized we were having this big long debate, and we didn't even agree on our terms.

"China has privately controlled corporations," I said.  "Of course it's capitalist."

"China is ruled by a one-party system," he countered.  "Of course it's communist."

That's just one example that sticks out in my mind, but I've had countless experiences like this over the years--experiences where halfway through a big long political debate, I realized my opponent and I were simply talking past each other, because we had completely different ideas of what "capitalism" and "socialism" actually meant.  I'm sure you've had countless experiences like this as well.

I should have learned a lesson from this, but I didn't.  Like a lot of arrogant people, I just assumed that I knew exactly what these words meant, and everyone else was wrong.  (I was a political science minor back in college, so I had the illusion that I knew this stuff.)

* "capitalism" refers to a recent economic development in human history, emerging in the 19th century, in which the economy is dominated by corporations, and the corporations are privately owned by stockholders.  Anyone who used the term to simply refer to buying and selling was wrong.  

* "socialism" refers to the workers controlling the factories (as opposed to the stockholders).  Anyone who used the term to refer to high taxes or welfare programs was wrong.  That's welfare capitalism, not socialism.

* "anarchism" refers to the anti-authoritarian wing of the socialist movement.   (Of course that's not the literal definition of anarchism--the word literally means "no government"--but the literal meaning doesn't matter, because it's the historical use of the word that's more important).  Anyone who attempted to use the literal definition of anarchism was wrong.

* "fascism" was authoritarianism from the right.  Anyone who attempted to use it to describe the left (like Jonah Goldberg) was historically ignorant.  

* "Nazism" was fascism plus racism.  Anyone who used the terms interchangeably was being imprecise.

* "democracy" referred to a system of government in which the people voted on the laws directly, a la ancient Athens.  Anyone who used the term "democracy" to refer to the United States was being imprecise.  The United States is a republic.

So, you see, I thought I knew what I was talking about.  But I was wrong, wrong wrong!  The truth is that none of these words have any agreed upon meaning.

First of all, even among political scientists, there is widespread disagreement about what these words actually mean.  But even if the experts could all agree, it still wouldn't matter.  As any linguist can tell you, words don't actually mean what the dictionary says they mean.  Words get their meaning from the way that they're used in real life.  If enough ordinary people think that socialism means higher tax rates, then that is what the word means now--at least in one sense. 

************************************************************

I have a memory or reading a linguistic textbook about 10 years ago, and coming across the section where the authors were discussing how words are paired with their meanings.  And the authors said that most people don't really understand how unstable the nature of meaning often is.  As an example, they mentioned how many people passionately talk about terms like "democracy" and "socialism" without ever realizing that there are no agreed upon definitions for these words.

And I remember looking up from the book and thinking to myself: "This linguistic textbook has just taught me more about politics than all the political science courses I ever took."  

I really wish I still had that linguistic textbook with me now, because I would love to quote that passage out exactly.  I think it was from An Introduction to Language by Victoria Fromkin, Robert Rodman, Peter Collins, and David Blair*, but I've been searching the Internet for it, and I can't find that passage associated with that book anywhere.

What does turn up when I do a Google search for "linguistic textbook people talk about terms like democracy as if everyone agrees on the meaning" is  Politics and the English Language by George Orwell.  And I read Orwell's essays at about the same time (both books I read in 2014).  So now I'm wondering if my memory has just gotten the two books mixed up?  Or maybe both books touched on the same topic?

At any rate, Orwell says it eloquently, so I'm just going to quote him:

Many political words are similarly abused. The word Fascism has now no meaning except in so far as it signifies “something not desirable.” The words democracy, socialism, freedom, patriotic, realistic, justice have each of them several different meanings which cannot be reconciled with one another. In the case of a word like democracy, not only is there no agreed definition, but the attempt to make one is resisted from all sides. It is almost universally felt that when we call a country democratic we are praising it: consequently the defenders of every kind of regime claim that it is a democracy, and fear that they might have to stop using that word if it were tied down to any one meaning. (full essay here)

I Was Wrong

Let's get some mea culpas out of the way.  Here are my apologies for every time I've tried to insist upon an exact definition for a political label

* My 2000 political test

* My 2005 post in which I insisted on the difference between democracy and republicanism

* My 2013 post, in which I criticized Michael Moore for confusing capitalism with mercantilism. **

* My 2016 post explaining fascism

* My 2019 vlog in which I tried to define anarchism

(...and no doubt I've made other posts over the past 20 years  which I'm just not remembering.)

In each of these posts I was wrong for trying to insist that there was some sort of correct definition of the word which the general public was just not getting.  Apologies to everyone.

Also, while recently listening to Revolutions Season 7: The Revolutions of 1848 by Mike Duncan, I've been learning about the history of socialism, and I've learned that historically the word had a very broad meaning.  Historically, a "socialist" was just anyone who was concerned with "the social question"--that is, the question about what to do about the problems of poverty accompanying the industrial revolution.  The means, methods and solutions that the early socialist thinkers advocated differed tremendously from each other, but if they were at all engaged in trying to solve the social question, then they were socialists.

For years I've been telling people: "Socialism means the workers control the means of production, and if you use that term to refer to anything else, you're wrong."  But it turns out I was wrong.  The term has a very broad history.

Note to Self: Always Remember This

Having achieved middle-age, I think I've largely lost the urge to endlessly debate politics.  (Having long political discussions that stretch into the night is something you only do in your 20s, right?)
But, as the above list of links show, I can still get sucked into the temptation to try to define political terms.  So I'm writing this post for myself as much as for anyone else.

Always remember--political labels are meaningless.  Don't get sucked into the trap of trying to define them.  Don't try to debate them.  

If you have to debate politics, talk about the effects of individual policies instead.  Don't say "Obama's tax policies are socialist".  Pretend the word "socialist" doesn't exist and then talk about why you don't like Obama's tax policies.

Similarly, don't talk about Trump's fascist policies. Just talk about why you believe Trump's policies will have bad effects.

And for god's sake, I'm begging you, don't get sucked into an argument about whether or not China or North Korea or anywhere else represents a genuine communist state.

Notes:

* In this 2016 post on Fascism, I attributed that quote to An Introduction to Language.  

** In my mind at the time, I thought "mercantilism" meant an economy of exchanging goods for money--i.e. the system that pre-dated capitalism.  But a trip over to Wikipedia indicates that I myself was misusing the term mercantilism. 

Our Strange Fascination with Guns

So, there have been a few things in the news I've been thinking about lately. First, as everyone knows, there was yet another school shooting.  Then, just days later, a Republican congressman posing with his family and their guns, "Merry Christmas! ps. Santa, please bring ammo"  

Merry Christmas! 🎄
ps. Santa, please bring ammo. 🎁 pic.twitter.com/NVawULhCNr

— Thomas Massie (@RepThomasMassie) December 4, 2021

Which, to those of us on the left, seemed to signal a failure of human decency

Today's @GOP: "We're not even pretending we're not abysmal human beings any more. What are you going to do about it?" https://t.co/sByVxbVL6E

— Prof Michael E. Mann (@MichaelEMann) December 4, 2021

But then (stay with me on this), I saw the new trailer for the new Matrix film, and was struck by how cool the good guys looked with their guns--running down hallways, jumping, shooting, posing dramatically with a gun turned sideways.

And it made me remember how the Columbine killers had been reportedly influenced by the original Matrix.

Now, for years and years, I've argued that violent media has no effect on violence in real life.  Partly this has been a knee-jerk reaction against my conservative upbringing, in which (to my great resentment) my media viewing was severely restricted because of the beliefs from parents and Christian school teachers that violence in Hollywood movies was the root of all the current social problems.  So I developed beliefs that went in the exact opposite direction.

However, in the last few years, in my ongoing effort to become a better person, I've been trying to reduce the amount of unexamined personal dogma that I carry around with me.  Do I know for sure that violence in media has no effect?  Have I carefully studied all the research?  Have I read all the books?  Or was this just a bias that I developed in my teens, based on a knee-jerk reaction, and have never carefully examined?

The obvious argument against violent media leading to school shootings is the one that I've argued on this blog numerous times before (HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE,  HERE etc).  Hollywood movies are watched in every country on earth, and yet only America has a repeated problem with school shootings. Japan, for example, consumes all the same violent media we do (and more), but they never have a problem with school shootings.  The problem is clearly the easy access to guns, not the movies.

...but do movies make the problem even worse?  Given a population in which every disturbed teenager already has easy access to guns, do we really need movies that show how cool it is to jump around and fire guns?

I don't think we can ever get rid of violence in the media.  There is some sort of primeval male fascination with violence--for whatever reason--some genetic predisposition probably explained by our ape brains and evolutionary psychology.   If there's no violence, the movie won't be interesting to a lot of young male viewers.

But, does it have to be gun violence?  Or can we get the same thrill by showing the heroes jumping around and doing fist fights?  Or swinging around on ropes and swashbuckling with swords?

I myself (primitive ape brain that I am), often get thrills from watching gun fights and explosions on the screen.  But then, I ask myself, why do I find this so thrilling?  What is so exciting about watching someone point a gun and pull the trigger?  I mean, at least with the old-fashioned swashbuckling (fist fights, sword fights, martial arts, etc), you can kind of explain it to yourself by saying that there's an appreciation of watching a man use pure athleticism and agility to best his opponents in a fair fight.  But why do we idolize men who can simply point a metal device and squeeze a trigger?

I can think of several action movies where the big manly hero does very little in the way of fighting other than to point a metal object and move his finger on the trigger.  (The Expendables 2 being the most obvious example from the movies I've reviewed on this blog.)  Why do we even like this stuff?  Don't get me wrong, I liked it.  I found it as entertaining as the next guy.  But why?

Where does our strange fascination with guns come from?

Update: Just in the hour since I published this post, another congressperson has jumped on the "guns and family and Christmas" bandwagon

The Boeberts have your six, @RepThomasMassie!

(No spare ammo for you, though) pic.twitter.com/EnDYuXaHDF

— Lauren Boebert (@laurenboebert) December 8, 2021

I am, needless to say, revolted by this. But to try to be fair here (and also to state the obvious) I believe the Republican cult of gun fetishization has less to do with devotion to guns themselves, and more of a cultural tribalism signifier.  That is, they are posting this stuff precisely because they know it will upset liberals, and less because of an actual devotion to guns.

(Although, actually... is that really a defense, or does that just make it worse?  I mean, at a certain point, you've got to aspire to have more written on your tombstone than, "I did my best to increase cultural divisions during my short time on this earth.")

I've been following Ayaan Hirsi Ali on Twitter now for a while.  For no particular reason, other than I thought she was cool, and I like to follow cool people on Twitter to see what they have to say.  

I have to confess, I didn't know a ton about her.  I knew she was a feminist, and championed women's rights in the Middle East.  

I knew Christopher Hitchens really liked her, so during my Christopher Hitchens phase I was inclined to think positively of her.  

And I'd seen her on TV before (Daily Show, Real Time, etc) and thought I liked what she had to say.

I had heard some people say she was part of the Islamophobic group, but given her biography I thought she had earned her right to be critical of Islam. 

But... she tweeted out something the other day that I thought was just insane.

If sea levels rise, then what? Apocalypse?
No, the situation is called the Netherlands.
Perhaps, we should all learn how to build dikes.
Next climate summit and all climate summits after that should be held in Holland. Proost!

— Ayaan Hirsi Ali (@Ayaan) November 8, 2021

This is insane for all the obvious reasons I probably don't even need to point out.  Rising sea levels is only one of many problems that we are going to be facing under climate change--food shortages, fresh water shortages,  natural disasters, killer heat waves, etc.

But, even assuming that you accept Aayan Hirsi Ali's presumption that all we need to do is build more dikes to combat climate change, it still doesn't make sense.  How about we just stop climate change, so we don't have to build all those dykes?  I mean, it's got to be way cheaper to solve the problem now than just deal with it later, right?

So I chimed in.

Or... we could cut emissions so that the sea levels don't rise. It would require some investment, but it would be a lot cheaper than having every coastal city in the world learn how to build dikes.

— Joel Swagman (@JoelswagmanJoel) November 8, 2021

And of course, because I had chimed in on a famous person's twiter feed, I got the usual crazies responding.

“We” could cut emissions. You first.

— vernon farquhar (@vernonfarquhar2) November 8, 2021

Hobbit

— Piet Roorda-📷🎨 (@pietroorda) November 8, 2021

But then I started looking at Aayan Hirsi Ali's tweets. (Despite having followed her for years, I haven't been seeing her tweets. Must be something to do with the Twitter algorithm.) And a quick glance through indicates she's full on into this conservative culture war grift.  

This is how to defeat CRT: through the ballot box.

— Ayaan Hirsi Ali (@Ayaan) November 3, 2021

This one was also in her Twitter feed because she retweeted it:

.@AsraNomani is an American hero. https://t.co/J3NglQaeFR

— Abigail Shrier (@AbigailShrier) November 2, 2021

But to me it looks really dodgy.

"Are these books that are in our classrooms here in Virginia?" "They are in Virginia."
...but, not in the classrooms, right?

— Joel Swagman (@JoelswagmanJoel) November 9, 2021

Looking at her bio on Wikipedia, it looks like she's been associated with Right-Wing nuts for a long time. It was on me for not knowing more about her I guess.

Limbaugh and the Medal of Freedom

Let me state at the outset that there has been some hyperbolic language about Rush  Limbaugh on the left.  I'm willing to grant that Limbaugh is not the worst person ever.

But, what he is is a polemicist and a party hack.  He's spent his whole career exploiting and exacerbating the divisions in American society.  He's consistently peddled the narrative that Americans on one half of the political divide are on the side of good, and Americans on the other half of the political divide are bad.  And he's consistently manipulated or distorted the facts in order to serve this narrative.

Via Wikipedia:

The July–August 1994 issue of Extra!, a publication of Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR), alleges 50 different inaccuracies and distortions in Limbaugh's commentary.^[171][172] Comedian Al Franken, who later became a Senator, wrote a satirical book (Rush Limbaugh Is a Big Fat Idiot and Other Observations) in which he accused Limbaugh of distorting facts to serve his own political biases.^[173]Of Limbaugh's controversial statements and allegations they have investigated, Politifact has rated 84% as ranging from "Mostly False" to "Pants-On-Fire" (a signification for extremely false), with 5% of Limbaugh's contested statements rising to the level of "Mostly True" and 0% rated "True".^[6] These debunked allegations by Limbaugh include suggestions that the existence of gorillas disproves the theory of evolution, that Ted Kennedy sent a letter to Soviet General Secretary Yuri Andropov seeking to undercut President Reagan, that a recent lack of hurricanes disproves climate change, and that President Obama wanted to mandate circumcision.^{[174][175][176][177]}Limbaugh has been criticized for inaccuracies by the Environmental Defense Fund. A defense fund report authored by Princeton University endowed geoscience professor Michael Oppenheimer and professor of biology David Wilcove lists 14 significant scientific facts that, the authors allege, Limbaugh misrepresented in his book The Way Things Ought to Be.^[178] The authors conclude that "Rush Limbaugh ... allows his political bias to distort the truth about a whole range of important scientific issues."

In other words, he does not deserve the Presidential Medal of Freedom, an award which is designed to:

recognize those people who have made "an especially meritorious contribution to the security or national interests of the United States, world peace, cultural or other significant public or private endeavors".^[2]

...unless, of course, we've entered some strange new reality in which our government is now unable to distinguish between what is serving the national interests of the United States and what is serving the interests of the Republican party.
Which apparently we have.

I know in the past 4 years there have been so many new lows that nothing seems to shock us anymore.  I read the news of Donald Trump giving Rush Limbaugh the medal of Freedom, and I thought, "Oh, of course, that's just the kind of thing Donald Trump would do."
But it's still worth being shocked and outraged about this. Every new time our institutions are corrupted, we should be outraged.

Healthy functioning republican governments do not claim that someone who is serving the partisan political agenda of one party is providing a great service to the nation.  This is yet another sign that our republic is changing into something else.

Bonus video:
Limbaugh Calls 12 Year Old Chelsea Clinton a Dog

I've been on twitter recently, and I've been noticing that some people are getting a little bit too jubilant about this impeachment. 
So let's keep this in perspective.
Whatever happens, Trump has won.  You can mock him for being only the 3rd President to ever get impeached if you want, but he is still a U.S. President.
It's like if the Hamburglar got impeached.  Sure, you can be happy about the fact that the Hamburglar's getting impeached, but Geez Louise how did we ever get to a point where the Hamburglar is President?
Now, don't get me wrong, as I've said before, impeachment needed to be done.  Even if it is doomed to fail in the Senate, it needed to be done.  Some sort of message needed to be sent that this kind of behavior is unacceptable.
But, if it fails in the Senate (and all indications are that it will) then this will not materially affect Trump in any way. 
Also, the fact that not one Republican supported impeachment is a real worrying sign of just how bad things have gotten.
So what is everyone so happy about?  If this is treated as just some sort of symbolic victory to gloat about to the Republicans, then it will just get them madder and increase polarization in this country, and will likely increase Trump supporter's turnout in 2020. 
To re-iterate: I'm not saying (like some strategists have) that impeachment shouldn't have been done because it will increase Trump's 2020 chance.  Impeachment needed to be done.  But it should be treated as a solemn affair, not as an opportunity to dunk on Republicans or gloat about the misfortunes of our political rivals.

Nihilism

I grow increasingly depressed every day.

********************************************************

So the President's son has published a book called “Triggered: How the Left Thrives on Hate and Wants to Silence Us”.  This is the President's son, accusing half the country of thriving on hate and wanting to silence the other half.  Besides being blatantly untrue, this is the kind of rhetoric designed to divide the country and set us at each other's throats.  And the President is promoting it on twitter.

My son, @DonaldJTrumpJr is coming out with a new book, “Triggered: How the Left Thrives on Hate and Wants to Silence Us” – available tomorrow, November 5th! A great new book that I highly recommend for ALL to read. Go order it today!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 4, 2019

In some alternate universe somewhere, people are shocked that the President of the United States could engage in such divisive rhetoric instead of promoting a shared sense of civic virtue.  But of course it's not shocking. It's the new normal.

In other news, day after day more and more solid evidence is coming out that President Trump has engaged in blatant corruption and abuse of power.  All this mountain of evidence has done nothing to break the faith of Donald Trump's core supporters.  Donald Trump still enjoys the support of the Republican party, and conventional wisdom is that the Republican controlled Senate will never vote to impeach him.  So it looks like he's just going to get away with it.

From the New York Times:

Ninety-nine percent of white evangelicals and 98 percent of Republicans who rely on Fox News as their primary news source do not believe Mr. Trump should be impeached and removed, the survey found, compared with 94 percent of Republicans over all.

And I know we now live in a world in which different political groups now live in different realities, so very little facts are agreed upon.  Which makes discourse impossible.  But you can't tell me that Donald Trump's supporters believe that he is good for the country as a whole.  What they know is that politics is us against them, and that they view Donald Trump as one of "us" and he is hurting the "them", and that's more important than what is good for the country.

In other news, the U.S. is pulling out of the Paris Climate Agreement.  It's difficult to overstate how devastating this is.  This, quite literary, could mean that the human race will not survive to the end of the century.
On CNN today: 11,000 scientists warn of 'untold suffering' caused by climate change

Even if everyone agreed on the need to take urgent action, it would still be difficult to beat the clock on the climate change apocalypse.  But we can't even agree that this is a crisis.

***************************************

In Brazil, the rainforest crisis continues.  Indigenous people who try to protect their rainforest are ambushed and gunned down by loggers.

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In New Delhi, the air has (once again) become so bad that the charts can not even measure it.  It is literally killing people to breathe the air.

The causes are a combination of traffic, farmers burning their crops, and fireworks set off for the Diwali festival.  

An Indian friend tells me that the government in the past had tried to ban fireworks for the Diwali festival, but the outcry from Hindus was so great that the government had to relent.  The fireworks must be set off, even if it means choking the people of New Delhi.

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In Saigon (where I live now) the air pollution is regularly at unsafe levels.  Yesterday on the expats Facebook page, someone posted the air quality number.  The comments were filled with surly people (both expats and Vietnamese) telling him to stop posting this, what was the point?  We all had to live in this pollution anyway, so why complain about it? One of the Vietnamese commenters wrote in a proverb: "You can't run from the sun"

In my apartment, I always worry about the baby.  We have the windows shut and the air-filter on constantly.  Our attempt to purify the air, however, is undercut by our Korean neighbor, who smokes in the hallway right outside our door.

I can some days hear him coughing--hacking--very loudly.  He sounds in pain.  But he keeps smoking.

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A college friend of mine--someone highly educated (a lawyer)--posted this to his Facebook page:

Dan SheaApril 6, 2016 · McGregor, FL, United States
From a Florida ER doctor:
Today I had a 25-year old with 8 kids - that's right 8, all Illegal Anchor Babies and she had the nicest nails, cell phone, hand bag, clothing, etc. She makes about $1,500 monthly for each; you do the math. I used to say, "We are the dumbest nation on earth," Now I must say and sadly admit: WE are the dumbest people on earth (that includes ME) For we Elected the Idiot Ideologues who have passed the Bills that allow this.
Sorry, but we need a Revolution, If the Illegal Immigrant is over 65, they can apply for SSI and Medicaid and get more than a woman on Social Security, who worked from 1944 until 2004. She is only getting $791 per month because she was born in 1924 and there's a 'catch 22' (notch) for her. It is interesting that the Federal Government provides a single refugee with a monthly allowance of $1,890. Each can also obtain an additional $580 in Social Assistance, for a total of $2,470 a month. This compares to a single pensioner, who after contributing to the growth and development of America for 40 to 50 years, can only receive a monthly maximum of $1,012 in Old Age Pension and Guaranteed Income Supplement.
Maybe our Pensioners should apply as Refugees! Consider sending this to all your American friends, so we can all be ticked off and maybe get the Refugees cut back to $1,012 and the Pensioners up to $2,470. Then we can enjoy some of the money we were forced to submit to the Government over the last 40 or 50 or 60 years.
PLEASE SHOW THIS TO EVERY AMERICAN TAXPAYER YOU KNOW

Right off the bat, anyone with any common sense should be able to tell this is ridiculous.  $1,500 for each kid?
But even if common sense weren't enough to make you suspicious, a simple Google search will find numerous sites debunking this.
Factcheck: A Mythical Florida Mom (And Other False Claims About Immigrants) 
and Snopes.com

But the post must have confirmed what my friend wanted to believe about immigrants--that they are all lazy, awful people sucking away our tax dollars, and so we are justified in hating them--and so he posted it without bothering to check it.

I posted the link to the factchecking sites in the comments of my friend's post.  He left the post up on his Facebook page anyway.

Snopes traces this urban legend through various iterations.  It started out as a Canadian story, then got changed through the years as various people added more and more exaggerations to it.

In September 2017, an April 2016 Facebook iteration of the rumor shared by Dan Shea began circulating once again. As of 13 September 2017, it had been shared well more than a quarter of a million times:

Actually it's up to 1.4 million shares now.

All by people who didn't bother to check if this was true, or didn't care.

Dan Shea, who created this rumor, obviously knew he was fabricating it since he added in some of his own flourishes from the original.  And if he didn't know before, he knows now, because his Facebook page is filled with people commenting and either politely factchecking him, or angrily telling him that this isn't real.  He seems to glorify in the notoriety rather than show any contrition.

And that's not even counting all the other websites this story is showing up at.  A simple Google search of "Today I had a 25-year old with 8 kids" will show this story popping up again and again and again.  It's obviously been making a lot of rounds.

From a Florida ER doctor:
Today I had a 25-year old with 8 kids - that's right 8, all Illegal Anchor Babies and she had the nicest nails, cell phone, hand bag, clothing, etc. She makes about $1,500 monthly for each; you do the math.u

— Julie Converses🇺🇸 ⭐⭐⭐ (@jat1020) April 11, 2019

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What has happened to people's civic virtue?  To the idea of community?  To the idea of all working together for the greater good?  To the idea of sacrificing your own self-interest for the benefit of society?

That sentiment existed at one time, right? 

Can we go back to that?

We are in danger of succumbing to nihilism.  In order to turn around from this, we need to think positively.  Value life.  Take care of your body.  Eat healthy.  Stop drinking. Stop smoking.  Take care of the environment.  Think about what is good for the country as a whole, not what is just good for your faction.  Think about what is good for the world as a whole.  Try to help other people, not to harm them.  Bring good into the world, not hate.

We can do this.  We can change things.  But first we need to stop the way we're currently living.  We can't survive like this.

My Two Cents on the Martin Scorsese/ Francis Ford Coppola Controversy

For anyone who hasn't been keeping up, see these links:
From The Guardian: Martin Scorsese says Marvel movies are 'not cinema'
And Francis Ford Coppola: Scorsese was being kind – Marvel movies are despicable

A brief history of Cinema:
The 1930s




The 1940s




The 1950s




The 1960s





1970s




1980s





1990s





...and many, many, many more examples, which you could probably think of yourself just as well as I could.

Which is, of course, not to say that Marvel Cinematic Universe Movies are at any way on the same level as Taxi Driver or The Godfather.  They're not, and no one should argue that they are.  You're improving your mind by watching The Godfather.  Marvel Movies are, on the other hand, simply a pleasant waste of time and nothing more.

But the obvious point is that we've always had mindless low-brow trashy movies.  Arguably if you look at the history of cinema, this is the medium's default form, and the more intellectual films of Scorsese and Coppola are the exception.

The way to evaluate the Marvel movies is not to compare them to The Godfather.  The way to evaluate them is to compare them against other movies in their genre.  And for my money, movies like Captain America: Civil War, Thor Ragnarok, and Infinity War are looking pretty good compared to the usual super-hero movies.

(Note: I'm rehashing arguments I've made once before in a previous post HERE).

The Fascism Issue--Revisited

It will be interesting to see how things develop the next few days.  But there have been a lot of worrying signs.
In addition to all the shocking news coming out about how Trump has been breaking the law (which is pretty shocking in and of itself), there's been the disturbing news about how Trump has been reacting to the investigation.

Donald Trump's tweet alleging a coup:
As I learn more and more each day, I am coming to the conclusion that what is taking place is not an impeachment, it is a COUP, intended to take away the Power of the....
....People, their VOTE, their Freedoms, their Second Amendment, Religion, Military, Border Wall, and their God-given rights as a Citizen of The United States of America!

As I learn more and more each day, I am coming to the conclusion that what is taking place is not an impeachment, it is a COUP, intended to take away the Power of the....

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 1, 2019

And his tweet threatening civil war:

....If the Democrats are successful in removing the President from office (which they will never be), it will cause a Civil War like fracture in this Nation from which our Country will never heal.” Pastor Robert Jeffress

....If the Democrats are successful in removing the President from office (which they will never be), it will cause a Civil War like fracture in this Nation from which our Country will never heal.” Pastor Robert Jeffress, @FoxNews

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 30, 2019

And his comments suggesting that the Whistle Blower should be executed:
“I want to know who’s the person, who’s the person who gave the whistleblower the information? Because that’s close to a spy. You know what we used to do in the old days when we were smart? Right? The spies and treason, we used to handle it a little differently than we do now,”

This is not how someone talks who wants to respect the democratic process.  

But, as with everything else that has happened the past 3 years, the worrying thing is not just the fact that Donald Trump has said this.  The worrying thing is that this has not been universally condemned by people across the political spectrum. Donald Trump is still supported by the Republican Senate.  He still has the support of a large percentage of Republican voters.  

How did we get to this point?  If a significant portion of the population can't recognize this as dangerously unstable language, then our democracy is no longer functioning.  

So, then, what are we evolving towards?

That, ultimately, remains to be seen.  But there was another piece of news today which may give some indication of a possible direction.  From the BBC:

Donald Trump 'suggested shooting migrants in the legs'

According to an excerpt, the president privately suggested to aides that soldiers shoot migrants in the legs, but he was told it would be illegal.
Previously, Mr Trump had made a public statement suggesting soldiers shoot migrants who throw rocks.
Mr Trump suggested other extreme measures, according to the book.
"Privately, the president had often talked about fortifying a border wall with a water-filled trench, stocked with snakes or alligators, prompting aides to seek a cost estimate. He wanted the wall electrified, with spikes on top that could pierce human flesh," reads the extract.

So we have a President who is not only showing dictatorial tenancies, but who also wants to shoot migrants.

This is no time to mince words, so I'll just say it: This is fascist.

...and yes, I know this word has gotten over-used a lot.  And yes, I know we're all sick of people using the word "fascist" on their blog posts to describe their political opponents.

But this combination of a desire to destroy the democratic process mixed with this desire for increasing violence... what would you call this if not fascist?
I'm not saying we're a fascist society yet.  But what I am saying is that we have a fascist president. 

Now again, the problem is not only Trump himself.  In theory, there are checks and balances in the United States constitution to prevent someone like this from becoming a dictator.  But those checks and balances require the political will to act. And at this point in time, it will require the Republicans to put their country ahead of their own political party.

All the current predictions are that the Republican Senate will never vote to impeach Trump.  I guess we'll see.  Maybe things will change.  But it's shocking to me we've even gotten to this point.  How could it not be obvious to everyone at this point that Donald Trump needs to go?

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I just don't understand how things could possibly have gotten to this point.

I guess I've been living abroad for so long, maybe I never realized how much America was changing while I was away.

I don't recognize America anymore.  This isn't the country I grew up in.  I don't understand how this could be happening now.

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Back on November 16, 2016, I wrote a blog post entitled: Obligatory Post Election Blog Post: Part 7--The Fascism Issue.  I concluded by saying

Donald Trump's campaign may definitely have courted elements of Fascism, but (to repeat what I said earlier) I believe the institutions of American government are stable enough to withstand this.  There are enough checks and balances in the American system to prevent any one group from getting too powerful.  And as long as a lot of people still oppose Donald Trump (and a lot of people still do) then we won't be seeing a rapid conversion to a Fascist state anytime soon.

I may have to take back those words.

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With Donald Trump, the eternal question has always been: Are we supposed to take him seriously, or not?
After all, he's not a traditional politician.  He's an Internet Troll who got elected as President.  He delights in saying deliberately provocative things just to get a reaction from people, and he doesn't intend to follow through on most of what he says.  Half of what he says today will be forgotten by tomorrow anyway.
And it's working for him.  He's worn us all down to the point that we've become used to it.  His  supporters now expect it as part of his game.  And the rest of us are not really shocked anymore when he says outrageous things.

That's the only explanation I can think of for why everyone hasn't turned on him yet.  Maybe no one is worried about this threats of civil war, because no one ever took him seriously?

But these comments would be unacceptable if anyone else said them.  And Donald Trump shouldn't be getting away with them either.

The Left Shoots Itself in the Foot Again

I'm a few days late writing this, but since it appears to be an ongoing problem, I'm going to give my two cents here.

The recent protests at Berkeley and New York City are not only wrong, but they are extremely counter-productive.

First of all, everyone has freedom of speech.  To quote Noam Chomsky: "If we don't believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don't believe in it at all."

But even more than that, this is tactically a huge error.

It was incredibly predictable how this would all play out.  As soon as I saw the headlines about how protesters had prevented Milo Yiannopoulos from speaking in Berkeley, I already knew how the conservative media would frame the issue.  I didn't even have to check Fox news to know that the talking point for the next few days would be about how the Left was against free speech.

And sure enough, when I got on Facebook, all my conservative friends were having a hey-day over this.
To them, this proved that it was the Left that had been against freedom of expression all along, and that they were the ones who were defending liberty.

This comes at a time when the Left is already losing.  We can not afford this.  We have to bring more people over to our side to stop Trump.  Alienating people from our cause is the worst thing we can do now.

That's not to say that Milo Yiannopoulos is not despicable.  But he's managed to completely play the Left on this issue.
If he had been allowed to speak, at worst he would simply have gone unnoticed by the most of the country.  At best, the Left could have used his speech as propaganda to show the country exactly what kind of hateful people are in league with Trump.
Now, Milo Yiannopoulos has managed to completely control the national dialogue, by portraying himself as the poor little victim of bullying Leftists, and made himself out into a martyr for free speech.

And then in NYC the same thing happened with another controversial right-wing speaker Gavin McInnes. To the same result.

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On Facebook this past week, I've encountered my fellow Leftists making the following argument why it was good that  Milo Yiannopoulos speech was stopped:

1) He's so ridiculously hateful that there's no use debating him
2) The government didn't shut him down, private citizens did, so we don't need to be worried about protection of freedom of speech
3) The first amendment doesn't protect all speech
4) Milo Yiannopoulos was going to use his platform to out certain students

I'll briefly address why I find these arguments unconvincing

1) He's so ridiculously hateful that there's no use debating him

Either we take Milo Yiannopoulos's ideas seriously, or we do not.  If we take  them seriously, then we can debate him.  If we think his ideas are so ridiculous that it's no use to debate him, then what's the harm of letting him speak?

The only reason to shut down a speaker is if you are worried that he will make converts with his ideas.  But if his ideas are powerful enough to convince people, then there must be counter-arguments to his ideas that can be used.

2) The government didn't shut him down, private citizens did, so we don't need to be worried about protection of freedom of speech

From a strictly legalistic perspective, I'll grant that there's a distinction here.  But in a free and open society, everyone would respect the ideal of free speech, and not just the legal technicalities.  Plus, it would be better if Milo was shut down in a debate, rather than shut down by force.  

3) The first amendment doesn't protect all speech

First of all, the actual text of the first amendment itself does not include any exceptions.  What people mean by this is that over the years the Supreme Court has made legal precedent for certain kinds of speech being unprotected.

But these kind of legal technicalities do not impress anyone who is not a lawyer.  The point is that all forms of speech should be protected.

4) Milo Yiannopoulos was going to use his platform to out certain students

I've heard two different versions of this.  One version was that Milo was going to use his platform to publicly out transsexual students, and then encourage everyone to harass them.

The other version is that he was planning to out undocumented immigrants.

The fact that there are different versions of this story give me pause as to their authenticity, but for the sake of argument I'll assume that one of these was authentic.

This is the most serious argument, and, if true, the only argument that made me almost reverse my position and side with the protesters.

But ultimately, it's no good shutting down Milo's right to free speech.  It just acts like propaganda for Milo, because then he can go and point to protesters shutting down his speech.

I suspect Milo is deliberately playing the Left.  He comes up with a speech topic that he knows they can't allow him to talk about, then he waits for them to riot and shut down his talk, and then he goes on Fox News and complains about how the Left doesn't respect free speech.   He's got this down to an art form, and the Left falls right into his trap.

If we want to defeat Trump in 2018 and 2020, we can not afford to fall into these kind of traps.  

It's better to let Milo speak, and then work to change laws and attitudes to protect transsexual students and undocumented immigrants.

The problem, after all, is not that Milo is going around naming names.  The problem is that we live in a society where someone can create this kind of harm simply by identifying another human being as transsexual or undocumented.  

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Also worth watching:

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My own rule of thumb for ethical protesting (which I've tried to be consistent on over the years):

It's okay to protest government officials for what they have done, but not okay to protest ideologues for what they have said.  

So, for example, when Media Mouse protested Ann Coulter coming to Grand Rapids, I said on this blog that I didn't agree with that protest.  But, when Media Mouse protested Henry Kissinger coming to Grand Rapids, I joined in.

Link of the Day

Propaganda and Public Control (Noam Chomsky)