Month: August 2016

Think there are no good choices in the election? Does that say more about ‘your’ candidate than it does about the election in general? Probably.

On By Derek DanielsIn 2016 Election, Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, How I see the world, politics2 Comments

My Facebook feed is full of people who are dissatisfied with the election options. Meme after meme pokes fun at the candidates and the options the voters have this presidential election cycle. “I don’t think America should elect any president in 2016. We need to be single for a few years and find ourselves,” is one that I find amusing.

I find this one is a bit more offensive, but I get the point.

Here’s my problem with all of this: It doesn’t matter what anybody thinks of BOTH candidates. What matters the most is what each person thinks of one of them. That is ALL that matters.

Continue reading “Think there are no good choices in the election? Does that say more about ‘your’ candidate than it does about the election in general? Probably.” →

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Will we have our fourth “illegitimate” president in a row?

On By Derek DanielsIn 2016 Election, Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, How I see the world, politics3 Comments

I’m not a historian, and I don’t know one well enough to ask, but it seems like the illegitimate president is a modern trend. Even if we’ve had one or two before, my guess is that we haven’t had three, could be four, in a row. What do I mean by an illegitimate president? A president who a large swath of Americans reject as the legitimate president because of one thing or another. Clinton, failed to get a majority of the vote. Bush, had a presidency that was decided by a Supreme Court case (which, in my non-legal expert opinion, was decided against the ideology of  every single Justice on the bench). Obama’s citizenship, or fraudulent citizenship, made him illegitimate, and now, the election is rigged, so if Clinton wins, her presidency will have the illegitimate label also. Let’s look at each of these in a rational manner.

Continue reading “Will we have our fourth “illegitimate” president in a row?” →

A safe world? With lots of flight? How are both true?

On By Derek DanielsIn How I see the world, society, Terrorism, World eventsLeave a comment

On Point, from wbur radio (broadcast on NPR stations), had a segment yesterday that created a bit of a conflict for me. The story was about migration (of people) and the dangers of migrating through particular parts of the world. On the show, Leonard Doyle, from the International Organization For Migration, described the present time as being in the midst of a boom in migration. The segment starts with the host reading a statistic:

…sixty five million people are now in flight because of war or persecution or terror. It’s considered the largest displacement in human history.”

The guest confirms this to be true, and continues to paint a picture of humans being at a time of mass movement, all because of war or persecution or terror. I don’t doubt that these numbers are true at all, but I have a hard time reconciling them with something I wrote about earlier: that deaths from war, worldwide, are remarkably low these days.

I don’t have an answer for this inconsistency, but, looking at both stories, it appears that people are fleeing their homes at a very high rate (historically), even though combat deaths are markedly low. That makes me think there is some other factor at play. Perhaps it’s the increased communication and awareness of the rest of the world. Perhaps more people see what other cities look like, and are more willing to uproot and try to reach them. I don’t know, but conflicts like these excite me. Maybe I’ll get an answer someday…or I’ll forget all about it by this afternoon.

Demonizing Hillary

On By Derek DanielsIn 2016 Election, Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, How I see the world, politicsLeave a comment

My wife has enormous influence on me. I listen to whatever she says, and am often convinced to change my view, at least slightly, because of something she said. On the twentieth anniversary of our marriage (today, August 3rd, 2016), it is, therefore, appropriate to write a brief note about a recent change in my thinking about the 2016 elections.

This change is a good one; good in the sense that it lets me live my life feeling less disgust for other people. That makes me happy, because feeling disgust for anything is not pleasant in any way. So what changed? My view of Trump voters.

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A delayed response (at least here)

On By Derek DanielsIn 2016 Election, How I see the world, politics, societyLeave a comment

Eugene Slaven wrote a piece at the American Thinker that set me off, big time. I ranted about it on Facebook  a few days ago, and intended to cross-post it here, but never got around to it. Better late than never.

The piece, “Since when does the American left believe America is great?” incited this rant from me, that, in hindsight, wasn’t even harsh enough.

This. This is the kind of shit that makes me so angry. Rush Limbaugh and his kin like to talk about angry liberals…if he’s talking about people like me, we’re only angry because of bullshit like this.

Continue reading “A delayed response (at least here)” →