Here’s what the majority of anti-Trump voters honestly feel about Trump supporters en masse:

 A real question from a Trump supporter: ‘Why do liberals think Trump supporters are stupid?’

THE SERIOUS ANSWER: Here’s what the majority of anti-Trump voters honestly feel about Trump supporters en masse:

That when you saw a man who had owned a fraudulent University, intent on scamming poor people, you thought "Fine." (https://www.usatoday.com/.../trump-university.../502387002/)

That when you saw a man who had made it his business practice to stiff his creditors, you said, "Okay." (https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-hotel-paid-millions...)

That when you heard him proudly brag about his own history of sexual abuse, you said, "No problem." (https://abcnews.go.com/.../list-trumps-accusers.../story...)

That when he made up stories about seeing Muslim-Americans in the thousands cheering the destruction of the World Trade Center, you said, "Not an issue." (https://www.washingtonpost.com/.../donald-trumps.../)

That when you saw him brag that he could shoot a man on Fifth Avenue and you wouldn't care, you exclaimed, "He sure knows me." (https://www.usatoday.com/.../president-donald.../4073405002/)

That when you heard him relating a story of an elderly guest of his country club, an 80-year old man, who fell off a stage and hit his head, to Trump replied: “‘Oh my God, that’s disgusting,’ and I turned away. I couldn’t—you know, he was right in front of me, and I turned away. I didn’t want to touch him. He was bleeding all over the place. And I felt terrible, because it was a beautiful white marble floor, and now it had changed color. Became very red.” You said, "That's cool!" (https://www.gq.com/story/donald-trump-howard-stern-story)

That when you saw him mock the disabled, you thought it was the funniest thing you ever saw. (https://www.nbcnews.com/.../donald-trump-criticized-after...)

That when you heard him brag that he doesn't read books, you said, "Well, who has time?" (https://www.theatlantic.com/.../americas-first.../549794/)

That when the Central Park Five were compensated as innocent men convicted of a crime they didn't commit, and he angrily said that they should still be in prison, you said, "That makes sense." (https://www.usatoday.com/.../what-trump-has.../1501321001/)

That when you heard him tell his supporters to beat up protesters and that he would hire attorneys, you thought, "Yes!" (https://www.latimes.com/.../la-na-trump-campaign-protests...)

That when you heard him tell one rally to confiscate a man's coat before throwing him out into the freezing cold, you said, "What a great guy!" (https://www.independent.co.uk/.../donald-trump-orders...)

That you have watched the parade of neo-Nazis and white supremacists with whom he curries favor, while refusing to condemn outright Nazis, and you have said, "Thumbs up!" (https://www.theatlantic.com/.../why-cant-trump.../567320/)

That you hear him unable to talk to foreign dignitaries without insulting their countries and demanding that they praise his electoral win, you said, "That's the way I want my President to be." (https://www.huffpost.com/.../trump-insult-foreign...)

That you have watched him remove expertise from all layers of government in favor of people who make money off of eliminating protections in the industries they're supposed to be regulating and you have said, "What a genius!" (https://www.politico.com/.../138-trump-policy-changes...)

That you have heard him continue to profit from his businesses, in part by leveraging his position as President, to the point of overcharging the Secret Service for space in the properties he owns, and you have said, "That's smart!" (https://www.usnews.com/.../how-is-donald-trump-profiting...)

That you have heard him say that it was difficult to help Puerto Rico because it was in the middle of water and you have said, "That makes sense." (https://www.washingtonpost.com/.../the-very-big-ocean.../)

That you have seen him start fights with every country from Canada to New Zealand while praising Russia and quote, "falling in love" with the dictator of North Korea, and you have said, "That's statesmanship!" (https://www.cnn.com/.../donald-trump-dictators.../index.html)

That Trump separated children from their families and put them in cages, managed to lose track of 1500 kids, has opened a tent city incarceration camp in the desert in Texas - he explains that they’re just “animals” - and you say, “Well, OK then.” (https://www.nbcnews.com/.../more-5-400-children-split...)

That you have witnessed all the thousand and one other manifestations of corruption and low moral character and outright animalistic rudeness and contempt for you, the working American voter, and you still show up grinning and wearing your MAGA hats and threatening to beat up anybody who says otherwise. (https://www.americanprogress.org/.../confronting-cost.../)

What you don't get, Trump supporters, is that our succumbing to frustration and shaking our heads, thinking of you as stupid, may very well be wrong and unhelpful, but it's also... hear me... charitable.

Because if you're NOT stupid, we must turn to other explanations, and most of them are less flattering.

- Adam-Troy Castro

(To all who agree with its content, I ask that you PLEASE SHARE IT on your own post, and ENCOURAGE OTHERS to do the same.)

History repeating itself - i hope not.

 First you lie and instill fear in your own party. Next you select your judges at the supreme and federal courts. Then you appoint your loyalist into positions of power. You then fire the military generals and install those that are loyal to you and not the constitution. You try to deny those with natural born citizenship and allow those with over 5 million dollars to buy their way to citizenship. Finally, you want to control who can report on you and your administration by selecting those in the press that provide favorable light on your mis-deeds.

Anyone see anything wrong with this? One only needs to look back to what happened in Germany during the early 1930's to see the similarities.

Uncommon Sense was a Common Vice

Those with knowledge of the United States Marine Corps will recognize the irony of this title. I wish its words were not true, but as I write this, I believe they are.

Currently, there is an effort to cull a significant number of career Special Agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation. This is an unthinkable action that will gravely undermine the security of the nation well beyond what many of our citizens are aware. For those seeking to raise their awareness, I offer this vignette, free of political bias or moral judgment. It is not about any one person, but an amalgamation of multiple FBI Special Agents.

I am the coach of your child’s soccer team. I sit next to you on occasion in religious devotion. I am a member of the PTA. With friends, you celebrated my birthday. I collected your mail and took out your trash while you were away from home. I played a round of golf with you. I am a veteran. I am the average neighbor in your community. This is who you see and know. However, there is a part of my life that is a mystery to you, and prompts a natural curiosity about my profession.

This is the quiet side of me that you do not know: I orchestrated a clandestine operation to secure the release of an allied soldier held captive by the Taliban. I prevented an ISIS terrorist from boarding a commercial aircraft. I spent 3 months listening to phone intercepts in real time to gather evidence needed to dismantle a violent drug gang. I recruited a source to provide critical intelligence on Russian military activities in Africa. I rescued a citizen being tortured to near death by members of an Outlaw Motorcycle Gang. I interceded and stopped a juvenile planning to conduct a school shooting. I spent multiple years monitoring the activities of deep cover foreign intelligence officers, leading to their arrest and deportation. I endured extensive hardship to infiltrate a global child trafficking organization. I have been shot in the line of duty.

Something else about me, I was assigned to investigate a potential crime. Like all previous cases I have investigated, this one met every legal standard of predication and procedure. Without bias, I upheld my oath to this country and the Constitution and collected the facts. I collected the facts in a manner to neither prove innocence nor guilt, but to arrive at resolution.

I am now sitting in my home, listening to my children play and laugh in the backyard, oblivious to the prospect that their father may be fired in a few days. Fired for conducting a legally authorized investigation. Fired for doing the job that he was hired to do. I have to wonder, when I am gone, who will do the quiet work that is behind the facade of your average neighbor? -

Alt National Park Service Post

stupid - just stupid

 Oh my god! The horror and scaring that folks were exposed to before the these words were slated for removal. we have the orange tird to thank for this.

This is the list of 27 banned words distributed to NSA staff:
Anti-Racism
Racism
Allyship
Bias
DEI
Diversity
Diverse
Confirmation Bias
Equity
Equitableness
Feminism
Gender
Gender Identity
Inclusion
Inclusive
All-Inclusive
Inclusivity
Injustice
Intersectionality
Prejudice
Privilege
Racial Identity
Sexuality
Stereotypes
Pronouns
Transgender
Equality

https://tinyurl.com/yu5bnnbk

Don't Judge

 Not a big follower of the KC Chiefs but thought this was good post by their coach Andy Reid. That said, I stole this from the Daily Stoic email.

Don't Judge

Reid to explain why that was what he chose to put on his wall. As Reid explained, what those two words mean to him was,

“Don’t put people in a box. You never know once you open the box for ’em what’s going to pop out. So give them a chance. Give them a chance to dream a little bit…I tell our coaches to this day, ‘You never know what a player is going to surprise you to be able to do.’ … Don’t box people in. We have a tendency to do that as humans—we kind of put people in these boxes…That’s the approach I’ve tried to take throughout—we’re not afraid to open the package.”

Take Travis Kelce (a Daily Stoic reader, as it happens). Early in his career, Kelce had a reputation for being brash and undisciplined, and he’d had some behavioral issues in college. Reid could have judged him as a problem player, written him off as unfit for the structured teams he runs. Instead, he saw potential and possibility, giving Kelce the space to be creative while holding him accountable to certain “non-negotiables” (like being thirty minutes early to every meeting). The result? Kelce thrived, developing one of the best tight ends in NFL history, a future Hall of Famer who has set and broken multiple records…and won, a lot.

Reid’s “don’t judge” philosophy isn’t limited to sports. It’s a powerful mantra for life. As Marcus Aurelius writes in Meditations, “You always own the option of having no opinion.” Other people and their choices, behaviors, preferences, and dreams—“These things are not asking to be judged by you,” Marcus writes. The world doesn’t need more critics, it needs more coaches—people who see potential where others see problems, who open boxes instead of sealing them shut, and who give those ready to work the chance to dream bigger than before.

Calm down and relax a minute

 We live in a time of social upheaval. What work looks like has changed. What marriages look like has changed. How kids dress has changed. How we understand our history has changed. Our discussion about race is different. Even gender is fluid and up for debate in the modern world.

Taylor Swift’s advice to all of you who are freaking out about this or that is fitting: You need to calm down. You’re not going to stop progress by banning things—it never works. It does the opposite. It draws the people you’re trying to protect more strongly to the thing you’re trying to protect them from. If it succeeds at anything, it’s heaping shame and embarrassment on the people who ignorantly stood athwart history and shouted ‘Stop!’ It certainly doesn’t make a great case for the old values—which do have value—to present them as so fragile that they need protection by any means necessary, including tyranny or cruelty.

Focus on yourself. Mind your own business. Practice some empathy. Try to, you know, understand. Let people figure things out for themselves. Let them break new ground. Let them find themselves.

And while they’re doing that, focus on what you control, like being decent and kind and open-minded.

Leadership is hard at times

good read from today's "Daily Stoic" -

"Harry Truman was a tremendously unpopular president. Just look at the decisions he had to make during his tenure: dropping the Atomic Bomb. Twice. The Berlin Airlift. The Korean War. Desegregating the Armed Forces. Nationalizing steel mills during a labor strike. Firing corrupt IRS officials taking bribes.

As a leader, or as someone aspiring to leadership, it’s important to know this going in: You will not be showered with praise for doing the right thing; you will not be given the benefit of the doubt for making hard, but necessary, choices.

On the contrary, the knaves will twist your words to make a trap for fools. You will be attacked. You will have your motives questioned. You will not be appreciated. Not now, maybe not even until long after you’re gone (like Truman eventually was) or ever (as Marcus Aurelius underrated-ness attests).

But should this stop you? No, it should not. It cannot. Because you must do what is right, what is best. For you and for those who need your leadership.

We do what’s right because it’s right. Because we are the leader. Because it is our duty. The rest doesn’t matter."