Speechless in 2017 (On the Banks) - Bretigne Shaffer:
January 19, 2017 - "I’m a libertarian. I’ve been surrounded by people who don’t agree with me for as long as I can remember and it has never occurred to me to isolate myself from everyone because of our political differences.... To me, you’re all a bunch of fascists. But I’ve somehow learned to live with you.
"For me, watching people unravel over this election has been instructive.... I understand that a lot of people are worried, upset, even frightened over the prospect of a Trump presidency. Good. They should be. But they should have been worried eight years ago, or at the very least, four years ago.
"I was worried four years ago. And I was worried eight years ago. I tried in vain to get my Obama-supporting friends to see what I saw, but with very few exceptions (which I appreciated, thank you) I was met with silence, accused of mean-spiritedness or just told that I should 'give him a chance'....
So in case you (like some of my friends) somehow missed out on what’s been happening over the past eight years, let me catch you up:
"I love my friends. I share many of their concerns (or rather, it seems they have recently come to share some of mine) and I don’t think less of them because of our political differences. But after eight years of deafening silence about these concerns, their newly discovered outrage has no credibility with me."
Read more: http://bretigne.typepad.com/on_the_banks/2017/01/speechless-in-2017.html
'via Blog this'
January 19, 2017 - "I’m a libertarian. I’ve been surrounded by people who don’t agree with me for as long as I can remember and it has never occurred to me to isolate myself from everyone because of our political differences.... To me, you’re all a bunch of fascists. But I’ve somehow learned to live with you.
"For me, watching people unravel over this election has been instructive.... I understand that a lot of people are worried, upset, even frightened over the prospect of a Trump presidency. Good. They should be. But they should have been worried eight years ago, or at the very least, four years ago.
"I was worried four years ago. And I was worried eight years ago. I tried in vain to get my Obama-supporting friends to see what I saw, but with very few exceptions (which I appreciated, thank you) I was met with silence, accused of mean-spiritedness or just told that I should 'give him a chance'....
So in case you (like some of my friends) somehow missed out on what’s been happening over the past eight years, let me catch you up:
1. We no longer have a Fourth Amendment, nor the right of habeas corpus (you remember: it was kind of the foundation of our justice system). Yes, the demise of these fundamental protections has been a long time coming, but President Obama delivered the death blow when he gave himself (and all future presidents) the right to imprison indefinitely or even assassinate any human being on the planet with no due process whatsoever."Number One should be enough.... But, because I know it won’t be enough, I’ll continue…
2. Obama has bombed more countries than George W. Bush did, and his drone strikes have killed more than six times as many people as those under Bush, according to the Bureau of Investigative Journalism (killing unintended victims 90% of the time.)"So as I watch my friends and thousands of other Americans gather together to protest the inauguration, I find myself a little speechless. It cannot be that all of these people only see evil when it wears the other team’s uniform. It cannot be that they are more upset by offensive speech than by a man claiming the right to kill any human being on earth at his whim. These things simply cannot be. And yet it sure looks like they are.
3. He has given himself (and all future presidents) the power to wage war without Congressional approval.
4. He has greatly expanded the mass surveillance of American citizens.
5. He put in place a statist health insurance mandate that has sent insurance premiums skyrocketing.
6. He has continued the same brand of crony capitalism and debt expansion of the previous administration....
"I love my friends. I share many of their concerns (or rather, it seems they have recently come to share some of mine) and I don’t think less of them because of our political differences. But after eight years of deafening silence about these concerns, their newly discovered outrage has no credibility with me."
Read more: http://bretigne.typepad.com/on_the_banks/2017/01/speechless-in-2017.html
'via Blog this'
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