Random Musings #10

It's been a few months since putting up a post of this type, so before I list today's goings on, here are some random thoughts and reaction to recent events from yours truly.
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The Democratic party seems to be in a dilemma that might partially be of its own making.  According to a particular left-wing rule of race relations, a white person who criticizes a non-white person commits an act of racism, regardless of the substance of the criticism.  Thus, the base of the party, which is mainly white liberals, can be called "racist" if they criticize the four far-left freshman congresscritters collectively known as the "Squad".  On the other hand, if they don't criticize the "Squad", they're basically letting the "Squad" run the show.

I've come to realize that gun control is similar to Islamophobia.  (I refer to the real Islamophobia, which is an irrational fear of Muslims or animus toward them, not to the falsely charged Islamophobia, which can consist of nothing more than pointing out unpleasant facts about Islam, its laws, or its prophet.)  Gun control and Islamophobia are directed at people from whom we have nothing to fear, because of the actions of a tiny subset of the much larger group.  In New Zealand, these two phenomena came together.  After the Christchurch mosque shooting, which was clearly an Islamophobic act, the New Zealand government acted to curtail the gun rights of its people, even though the shooter is an Australian.  In other words, innocent New Zealanders were punished for the actions of someone who wasn't even one of their own.

In the debate over immigration, both legal and illegal, a line from the Emma Lazarus poem The New Colossus, which is on the Statue of Liberty, is often invoked.  The line has the statue saying "Give me your tired, your poor....", but in a previously line, the statue says something very different.  "Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!", she says, apparently referring to the elites of the Old World.  In other words, she's saying "I want your common people, not your elites."

The recent proposal to exclude immigrants who are likely to become public charges dates back to a law passed in 1882.  Perhaps the people whom Liberty calls to America are "tired" because they've been working, and it thus might make sense to admit people who are willing to work.

In the last line of the above-mentioned poem, Liberty lifts her lamp "beside the golden door".  This got me to realize something.  In order to be functional, a door needs to be part of a wall.  Seriously, have you ever seen a free-standing door with nothing on either side of it?  Although it's been a while since the Statue of Liberty was constructed, America still has a door.  It's call "legal immigration".  That's how immigrants are supposed to enter.  Don't try to climb the wall, dig a tunnel, or barge in through window.  Don't make like Santa Claus and climb down the chimney.  Go to the front door and knock.  You might have to wait in line for a while, but at least you've found the correct way to enter America and eventually become one of us.

Due to the way Israel is regarded by the Arab world, I've come to realize that if someone hates you for what you are or regards your very existence as illegitimate, there is no way to modify your own behavior which will satisfy or lessen that someone's grievance or complaints against you.

The left's favorite line in the Bible seems to be "do not judge" (Matthew 7:1, Luke 6:37).  One aspect of judgment that I think has been overlooked is that it can be constitute approval of someone's actions just as much as it can constitute disapproval.  So if "do not judge" means that I can't call someone's behavior wrong, could it also mean that I can't call it right or good, either?  Ironically, the left themselves do quite a bit of judging when they call someone "hateful", "sexist", "homophobic", "racist" or "Islamophobic".  And we on the right have our own judgments, too.

Some of asked if America can survive another four years of President Trump.  I think that we can, but the real question should be whether we can survive four more years of anti-Trump hysteria.

Back when George Bush the Younger was president, I had the idea that at some future date, history students could produce masters theses by comparing him to the media's and the left's portrayal of him.  I'm now convinced that the same will be true regarding President Trump.  In fact, the way things are going, I think that Trump and his portrayal could be the subject of doctoral dissertations.

While an object called Oumuamua was passing through our solar system, astronomers determined that it came from outside of it.  While there's been some speculation as to what it is, I could see that it might be a type of object that we don't have in our own system.

A mirror can be a handy device.  It helps Black Lives Matter locate racists, Antifa locate fascists, and President Trump find the one person who can cause him to lose the 2020 presidential election.

I'm pretty sure that most of what we call "bull[bleep]" is from men.  If it mostly came from women, we'd call it "cow[bleep]".

Have you offended anyone lately?  Good.  It means that you've actually said something.