Giving Credit

Dear followers of my blog, below is a comment that I felt that was in need of a response. I do not know this particular individual, but it was part of a thread of a long time friend. My friend also got a response.

Credit for what. Saying the virus would “go away”?Taking children away from their parents and putting them in cages? Giving credence to white supremacy? Making fun of disabled people?  Calling Latino people rapists? Torching foreign relationships?  Encouraging violence?Making fun of war heroes? Paying off porn stars that he f****d while his wife had an infant at home?  Denigrated the free press?  Pretended to be a Christian while never going to church or following the teachings of Jesus?I will give him credit for all of that. But no gratitude. 

Wow, where to begin. While some of the stuff you said here has a kernel of truth a good portion of it was pure garbage, regurgitated claptrap from the main stream media. If you wish to read my response, which is too long for this forum, click the link. 

The virus will go away. They always do, eventually. There is no cure, for ANY virus. Only treatment after the fact. Or a vaccine, which almost never gives 100% protection. Flu vaccines, which are developed prior to the "flu season" are hit and miss. Some years, they are effective. Other years they nearly completely useless. The developers of flu vaccines try to predict what strain of flu will pop up during the next flu season. They have lots of data and knowledge on which to make this prediction. They also have time. But even with this time and knowledge, they are often wrong, and the vaccine is totally worthless. Work on the flu vaccine for the next flu season begins during the current season. If the Chinese GOVERNMENT had been more forthcoming about the virus, could pharmaceutical companies gotten a quicker start on the development of a vaccine? What we do know is by mid Mar pharmaceutical companies had been tasked to develop a vaccine under circumstances that weren't normal. No time, and little knowledge, initially. The biggest player in the eradication of a virus is immunity.

He never called Latinos rapists. He said there were unsavory elements coming across our border, which included rapists. There are also gang members, drug dealers/runners, and folks that aren't even from the western hemisphere. There is FBI data to back that up. Were there rapists of Latino decent crossing the border? Without a doubt. Were there MS-13 members crossing the border? Without a doubt. Were there drugs and drug mules crossing the border? Without a doubt. Were there also people crossing the border who were searching for something better? Without a doubt. The common denominator here is they ALL committed an illegal act. Crossing our sovereign border without permission. By the way, if Trump was calling all Latinos rapists, as you implied, would you care to explain how he received the largest share of Latino votes than any previous Republican candidate?

I wonder if you are down on former President Bill Clinton? Slick Willy had his issue with women too. For goodness sake, he convinced a young intern to "service" him in the freakin Oval Office. And he cheated on HRC at least three other times. So unless you are willing to call out Clinton for his extramarital affairs with the same gusto, this is not point you should be hanging your hat on. At least Trump's liaison was consensual. And profitable for the woman involved. I wonder what Juanita Broderick would say to you if you asked her if her encounter with Clinton was consensual. And while you're at it, ask Tara Reade if she thinks her encounter with former VP Biden was also consensual.

Do you know what is in his heart? Do you personally know whether Trump has a personal relationship with Jesus? I don't, and I assume you don't either. And it is not your place, or mine, to judge him. Scripture is quite clear on who has the power of judgement. And one area where he has been head and shoulders above every President is abortion. He was actually willing to stand side by side with those who believe the unborn have the right to live. I'd have to say Trump, unlike many presidents before him, is following Christ's teachings on this particular matter.

You are aware the separation of children from their "families" was an Clinton program and ramped up under Obama, right? And this program was put in place because "coyotes" were smuggling children across the border, not accompanied by the parents. Once the border Patrol determines that the children and the adults are actually family, they are no longer separated. In fact, there are still nearly 500 children in detention centers along the borders whose parents who are still south of the border have refused to claim them.

The "making fun of war heroes" was so thoroughly debunked as to not even merit more than that as a response. But I'll do it anyways. 14 separate witnesses, several of them no fans of Trump (like John Bolton), have stated unequivocally the "losers" statement never happened. Note that The Atlantic author never trotted out his sources. Don't give me "they feared retaliation" bull. And he didn't cancel the flight, the military did. You don't fly the President of the United States into bad weather unless ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY. This I can speak directly about since I was a weather forecaster in the Air Force, who was tasked to provide support to Air Force One. As a former member of the military I can say with no hesitation whatsoever his respect for those who serve and have served rings true. 

If you are referring to the spat between Trump and McCain, don't forget that McCain was the one who started the whole thing. Trump just fired back. Was it indelicate? Was it ill advised? Yep on both counts. It was all the more shocking because Trump responded to attacks with attacks. That is just not how things have been done, especially to someone who held an exalted position in American politics such as McCain did. Trump feels, as do any Americans, that exalted positions shouldn't shield you from critics. Many in our ruling class feel they are just that; The Ruling Class. They shouldn't have to suffer the slings and arrows, especially from those they view as beneath them. I didn't agree with what Trump said (McCain was a hero for his actions while a POW), but did agree McCain was not so high and mighty that he was free to say what he wanted without getting it back.

How many times does Trump have to disavow people associated with white supremacy and the movement for you to believe it? He stated it during the presidential debate, he said it at least twice on previous appearances with Chris Wallace. And there are other examples if you care to look. One issue that boggles the mind of free thinking people is how someone who has been in the public eye for at least 50 years would suddenly be a racist only after deciding to run for President as a Republican. While controversy has always swirled around Trump in varying degrees, there has never been even a whisper of an allegation of racism against him. In fact, both Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton have praised him in the past for his work in minority communities.

As for Charlottesville, which seems to be what every progressive refers to when accusing Trump of supporting white supremacy, here is what he said:

"Yes, I think there's blame on both sides. If you look at both sides, I think there's blame on both sides. And I have no doubt about it, and you don't have any doubt about it either. And if you reported it accurately, you would say.

Reporter interrupts...

"Excuse me, excuse me. They didn't put themselves and you had some very bad people in that group, but you also had very fine people, on both sides. You had people in that group. Excuse me, excuse me. I saw the same pictures as you did. You had people in that group that were there to protest the taking down of, to them, a very, very important statue and the renaming of a park from Robert E. Lee to another name."

The conversation goes on from there. Key in on the emphasised. For some strange reason that I can't quite place my finger on, whenever the press reported on this, the first half of that statement for some reason always seems to be omitted. Hmmm....

And what he said was truthful. There was blame to be given to both sides. Those that were wanting the Lee statue torn down actually started the violence by physically attacking those who wanted the Lee statue to stay. That is indisputable. Was it right for the neo-nazi to run over Heather Heyer, killing her. Of course not, and no sane thinking person believes otherwise. And that racist pig will spend the rest of his life in prison, and deservedly so.

Denigrating the free press? Only a progressive would say we have a "free press". The main stream media long ago lost any credibility. The Dan Rather episode from 2000 cemented that lack of credibility for most. But the lack of trust had begun years before. For a press to be free, they have to be credible and without bias. The main stream media is ohh for two. He is only giving voice to how a large majority of Americans feel regarding the press. There is only one profession that is viewed more unfavorably than journalists; lawyers. That is pretty lousy company.

Trump doesn't play by the normal political rules established. He's an upsurper. And a lot of folks don't like that. As someone who has been politically aware since the early 70's I had a hard time adjusting to his brashness. I gueas you could say I was a VERY reluctant member of the establishment GOP. There been a long set of rules; the democrats (and media lapdogs) attacked, attacked, and attacked. The Republicans tried to counter with nice. For the most part it worked. For some reason attitudes amongst progressives took a dramatic turn during the second term of Bush. As democrats became more and more vicious in their attacks on anyone the disagreed with, the Republican leadership shrank further and further into their hidey holes. This begat McCain and Romney. 

While Obama was an historic candidate, he was beatable in 2008 due to his complete lack of any worthwhile experience. But McCain was nice, never really attempting to exploit this lack of experience, mostly likely because he feared being branded a racist, which was very real. Why, we never really understood. Lack of experience is lack of experience no matter your race, sex, etc. Four years later the Republicans ran Mittens. Again, Obama was beatable. Not due to lack of experience, but lack of accomplishments. The economy was stagnant and it was already obvious that Obama care was going to be an utter failure. Yet Romney was able to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Nothing shows this better than the "1980's want their foriegn policy back" comment during the second debate. Romney could have pushed back. He is one of the ultimate policy wonks in politics. He had that hot mic comment in his back pocket, but didn't use it. He could have easily crushed Obama at that moment, but chose not to, to the complete disgust of the Republican rank and file. Obama didn't beat Romney in 2012, Romney lost because Republican voters stayed home in droves, not willing to support such a weak candidate. 

Eventually the rank and file became frustrated with this. This frustration turned to anger. And that anger turned to action. Along comes Trump. In him we saw someone who was going to tell the progressives to go pound sand. And he was going to give as good as he got. And we loved it. Finally, somebody who understood we were tired of being called racist. Tired of being called bigots. Tired of being considered second class citizens by our ruling elite. We had grown tired of being led by namby pamby swamp rats. Tired of not having our leadership fight for the things we held dear. Tired of watching our beloved Constitution and Bill of Rights being ground into dust.

In an indirect way, progressive have only themselves to blame for the rise of Trump. If progressives had decided that the "other" 50% were worthy human beings, who just happened to have different viewpoints, then maybe the steps that led to Trump could have been avoided. Maybe if progressives hadn't decided to treat their fellow Americans as less than human, maybe Trump would still be a real estate mogul. Maybe if progressives had decided that some conservative ideas were worthy of consideration rather than with complete contempt, maybe Trump would be still out on his golf course. Maybe if progressives didn't feel they were so superior to most Americans and that only their enlightened guidance was legitimate, maybe Trump would be still be running his hotel in New York. But compromise was not part of the progressives' plan, so you got Trump.

One more thing. Maybe credit and gratitude are in order for the strongest economy we have ever seen. Never before has the USA ever experienced that many consecutive quarters with a GPD at +3%. Shouldn't Trump get some credit for that kind of growth? Maybe some credit for unemployment rates across EVERY SINGLE demographic being at historic lows. Maybe some gratitude for some of the lowest tax rates across the board we have ever experienced. Maybe show a little gratitude that real income, especially for those in lower income brackets, grew for the first time in over 15 years. How about a little credit for pulling the military out of endless wars in places that don't have any gratitude for the sacrifices our young men and women have made over the past 20 years. Maybe the Israelis are grateful that Trump has recognized Jerusalem as the true capital of Israel. And maybe the world should be grateful that Middle East peace agreements are being signed across the region. Did you know that Hanukkah was actually celebrated this year in Dubai for the first time in, like, forever? And maybe we should be grateful that Trump took not a penny of his salary, instead donating it to charities and government agencies.

I will close out by saying I am very much aware most of the above arguments will fall on deaf ears. So be it. One can only try.