Both of my young adult children were Bernie fans. My oldest HATED Trump with a passion. I had always hoped that the attraction to Bernie, which for my kids was based on utter disgust of Hillary, would translate into an awakening at some point. They have since, at least, taken a closer look at the Venezuela thing and are over their infatuation with socialism, if they ever even understood that's what Bernie is/was about in the first place.
My husband and I voted for Trump over Hillary gladly. I thought he was hilarious during the primaries but confess that he did worry me a little bit, might be a little to "out there." Still, I was a supporter and the Never Trumpers' failure to see Hillary as an existential threat was maddening to me. But I only truly began to see Trump's genius after the CNN wrestling thing. At first I thought, "Why in the world does he do that shit just when people are starting to think he can be normal?" And then I watched CNN and the MSM, generally, self inflict nearly mortal wounds. The light bulb went off big time and I realized, OMG, this guy's a fucking genius. My kids, especially my older son who is pretty polite (unlike his mother, clearly), at that point in time still cannot stand him. He believed the dossier peeing on the bed thing instantly. I said at the time, "you watch, it is a set up. I'll bet you a thousand dollars. Let's revisit this in a year and see where it is."
Time goes by and as a lawyer, I become obsessed with this FISA abuse stuff. Conspiracy Shmearacy my ass, I'm thinking to myself, because I am actually reading a 99 page FISA abuse court opinion and other court documents that can be pulled straight off of PACER. Reading reading reading leads me to this Q person that everyone seems to keep mentioning in the comments section of places like CTH. Open rabbit hole, insert. We all know what that journey is like. Wanting to be sure my kids and husband understand the gravity of what is going on, I start trying to talk to them about it all. My husband was skeptical at first, but sadly, as lawyers we are both far too used to the corruption and at this stage of the game are pretty hard to shock. He's sold after a few Praying Medic videos. My younger son I think was sincerely worried about my sanity when I started to talk about Pizzagate. Older son at the time still sees red anytime I mention Trump. So I backed off and left it alone for awhile.
My kids are both away at college but from time to time, I would send them a text with a link to something, and then just leave it, such as the Andy Spade mouse mask article. BTW for anyone interested, I ABSOLUTELY LOVE that thing for opening people's eyes. I sent a link to the article with a comment from me that said, "I don't care what anyone says, this is not normal behavior, even for a man in mourning." It's so bizarre that I find that anyone I ever mention or show that to seems really perplexed and their interest piqued. It sticks with them and nags at their brain, like "What IS that about?" Less is more in this situation as Q has taught us all. Beg the question, and people will look for the answer. Instead of saying too much or trying to persuade, I say "I assume it has something to do with the bizarre taste in art that he shares with those creepy Podesta brothers. Or the weird similarities between the posts on his Twitter and Instagram accounts and guys like Anthony Bourdain. I guess it could just be a coincidence, but it seems like they have a lot of the same proclivities." Even Google will take you straight into the madness that your eyes can never unsee.
Life goes on and my kids are in college so when we talk its about school, family, new babies on the cousin side, etc. Then, I was talking to my older son about things generally and said, "I know you don't like Trump and that's fine, but I do think you will see at the very least that the MSM needs to be brought down because it's corrupt as can be. We are talking about the people who gave Hillary the debate questions. And I know you don't believe it, but he really is cleaning out the corruption in government." I never made him ante up on the dossier bet, but I felt okay about that when he responded to my comment with, "I still don't like his style, but I could learn to live with it if he put some of those people in jail." WHAT? Shut up Mom, just shut up, I said to myself. And I did.
Fast forward to again to yesterday. My oldest is at the University of Missouri (I know but I didn't know and at the time and thought "It's Missouri, it HAS to be better than the University of Illinois"), so I start teasing him about whether he was going to the rally. Beyond my wildest imagination he says to me, "I really wanted to go, but with my job and the stuff I have due next week I just couldn't get it together." It's good we weren't on SKYPE because I'm sure the look on my face would have given me away. You all need to be proud of my restraint, because instead of over doing it I said, "well love him or not, it's still historic." "Yeah, it's historic for sure" he says.
So what does it all mean? It's getting through to even the most Trump resistant people out there. The drip drip drip of what really happened inside the DOJ/FBI is becoming impossible for people to ignore. The Kavanaugh hearing was essentially Trump defamation on steroids, and gave sideways validation of the oft-repeated "witch hunt" phrase. I'd love to believe my kids are coming around out of deference and respect for their very wise mother. But that ain't it. We come from a family of free thinkers, and they have no qualms about disagreeing with me or anyone else. What's happening is the truth is seeping into the collective consciousness of the nation. There's no way my son was planning to maybe go to that rally alone. He had to have friends that were talking about going. At the Black Lives Matter University of Missouri, no less. Many of my my son's friends at Mizzou, BTW, are actually from Chicago. All of the above is absolutely huge in terms of what is happening nationally. People that hated Trump are beginning to have a grudging respect for him. People that liked him are starting to love him. People that were afraid to say they liked him are coming out of the closet. More importantly, people that are being turned are being welcomed into the fold. The last thing is the most important. We must welcome anyone coming from the dark into the light, into the fold, without ridicule or I told you so's. It's easy for me, these are my children. And because they are my children I am empathetic about their reasons for seeing things the way they did. Many of the Bernie supporters were more anti-corruption than anything, IMO. It's difficult for just about anyone to admit that they were wrong. And if and when good people find out about the depths of the depravity surrounding people they wholeheartedly supported, it is going to be very disillusioning and in some ways heartbreaking. I'm still pissed off about fond memories of Mickey Mouse and Disney World being ruined forever. But the good news is this. I was as sad about GWB as many of my friends will be when they find out the truth about Obama (and Hillary but c'mon, by now most of them know). And in that we can unite and console, and move on to something so much better. Something we could never have imagined even a year ago. This Great Awakening will make these times the most glorious. I can feel it in my bones.
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14804429? ago
Oh my, I can relate to that! Our daughter is a Bernie lover, voted for Hillary though because she couldn't get herself to vote for Trump. The Pussy comment was too much for her and she just won't get over it. She just hates him. She knows about Hillary/Bill being pedos, knows about the Lolita Express (she found out on her own). Still, she hates Trump like the plague. She thinks socialism is okay. I grew up in socialism and no matter what I said, she still supported it because she figured "they" would get it (socialism) right this time, LOL. She goes to college and works at a hair salon on the side. We were talking about customers being cheap with their tips etc. and she says "Yeah, but imagine I worked at a salon where they pool all the tips and then divide them evenly among the hair designers. How is that supposed to encourage anyone to do their best?" And there it was: she couldn't have laid it out any better for me to jump in and say "Uh, yes, that would be socialism. You wouldn't want that!" and I left it at that. I could hear the gears in her head turning. It was the end of the conversation but I know she walked away from it thinking and she will remember it every time she puts her tips in her pocket instead of sharing them with someone that didn't do the work. It will take a while longer but she WILL SEE THE LIGHT.
14804520? ago
There's a famous story about a professor asking his A students to share the wealth so no one had to get a D or whatever. It's hilarious. The other is the beer story. I am going to look for them. Here:
The professor then said, “OK, we will have an experiment in this class on Obama’s plan”. All grades will be averaged and everyone will receive the same grade so no one will fail and no one will receive an A (substituting grades for dollars – something closer to home and more readily understood by all). After the first test, the grades were averaged and everyone got a B. The students who studied hard were upset and the students who studied little were happy.As the second test rolled around, the students who studied little had studied even less and the ones who studied hard decided they wanted a free ride too so they studied little.The second test average was a D! No one was happy.When the third test rolled around, the average was an F.As the tests proceeded, the scores never increased as bickering, blame and name-calling all resulted in hard feelings and no one would study for the benefit of anyone else. To their great surprise, all failed and the professor told them that socialism would also ultimately fail because when the reward is great, the effort to succeed is great, but when government takes all the reward away, no one will try or want to succeed. It could not be any simpler than that.
Second one is actually more about taxes:
Suppose that every day, ten men go out for beer and the bill for all ten comes to $100.
If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something like this: The first four men (the poorest) would pay nothing. The fifth would pay $1. The sixth would pay $3. The seventh would pay $7. The eighth would pay $12. The ninth would pay $18. The tenth man (the richest) would pay $59. So, that's what they decided to do. The ten men drank in the bar every day and seemed quite happy with the arrangement, until one day, the owner threw them a curve. "Since you are all such good customers," he said, "I'm going to reduce the cost of your daily beer by $20." Drinks for the ten now cost just $80.
The group still wanted to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes so the first four men were unaffected. They would still drink for free. But what about the other six men - the paying customers? How could they divide the $20 windfall so that everyone would get his 'fair share?' They realized that $20 divided by six is $3.33. But if they subtracted that from everybody's share, then the fifth man and the sixth man would each end up being paid to drink his beer. So, the bar owner suggested that it would be fair to reduce each man's bill by roughly the same amount, and he proceeded to work out the amounts each should pay. And so - the fifth man, like the first four, now paid nothing (100% savings). The sixth now paid $2 instead of $3 (33%savings). The seventh now pay $5 instead of $7 (28%savings). The eighth now paid $9 instead of $12 (25% savings). The ninth now paid $14 instead of $18 (22% savings). The tenth now paid $49 instead of $59 (16% savings). Each of the six was better off than before. And the first four continued to drink for free.
But once outside the restaurant, the men began to compare their savings. "I only got a dollar out of the $20," declared the sixth man. He pointed to the tenth man, "but he got $10!" "Yeah, that's right," exclaimed the fifth man. "I only saved a dollar, too. It's unfair that he got ten times more than I!" "That's true!!" shouted the seventh man. "Why should he get $10 back when I got only two? The wealthy get all the breaks!" "Wait a minute," yelled the first four men in unison. "We didn't get anything at all. The system exploits the poor!" The nine men surrounded the tenth and beat him up. The next night the tenth man didn't show up for drinks, so the nine sat down and had beers without him. But when it came time to pay the bill, they discovered something important. They didn't have enough money between all of them for even half of the bill! And that, boys and girls, journalists and college professors, is how our tax system works. The people who pay the highest taxes get the most benefit from a tax reduction. Tax them too much, attack them for being wealthy, and they just may not show up anymore. In fact, they might start drinking overseas where the atmosphere is somewhat friendlier."
14813186? ago
But tax them not at all and there will be problems too. Goldilocks Tax!
And when one man owns the world and everyone else has to pay rent to him, the rent had better be reasonable and fair.
The drinkers must have been totally pissed to have been so totally pissed off. Irrational. But people do cut off their noses to spite their face at perceived unfairness and injustice - may not be rational.
The Shepherd should look after his flock and the sheep should expect to be shorn - but killed and sacrificed to God - or merely eaten?? Not fair, not reasonable.
Exponential growth and how we're not designed to understand it and its consequences https://youtu.be/fiCKf7hfagk?t=1087 American Bread & Circus (Hidden Secrets Of Money Ep 10) [The end is nigh!]
we're surrounded by exponential growth it's in our economy it's in our monetary numbers it's in our debt numbers
it's in environmental statistics it's in how rapidly we're depleting things in an inverse exponential decay it's in everywhere we were surrounded by
so understanding is really critical so I have a couple examples to help people understand what exponential growth is and why it's so hard
https://youtu.be/fiCKf7hfagk?t=1266
from all of human history until 1962 put the first three billion people on the planet and then just 40 years to put the next three billion people on the planet
and this is important because the earth is our stadium and we're living through one of the most extraordinary periods of human history not just American history not just in our personal lifetime history but human history because you and I will be alive during a time when human population will have fully tripled from roughly three billion to nine billion if we live to ripe old ages
it's extraordinary it's putting pressure on everything and that exponential human growth is putting the curve on all those charts we just talked about how fast were depleting oil how much food we have to grow airline miles traveled loss of tuna from the oceans how much money has to be created
all of that is being driven by this exponential process and so something I really like to be able to communicate to people is that exponential processes speed up at the end
A couple of notices
Senior civil servants in Victorian times were ranked by the carpet in their office. Top dogs got fully carpeted, lesser got carpet up to one foot from the wall and lower orders got just a rug. There were also honours - gongs. So people can be motivated by status.
Somewhere along the line [Margaret Thatcher] the only status that mattered was the amount of money in one's bank account. It was probably always thus.
The top hunter in prehistoric times provided for their village - they got first choice of food and women - that was the "understanding".
For whosoever hath, to him shall be given, and he shall have more abundance: but whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken away even that he hath. Mark 4:12 [Always seemed unChristian to me]
https://biblehub.com/kjv/matthew/13.htm https://biblehub.com/kjv/matthew/25.htm
With the parable of the talents, in different circumstances, the "prudent" man who buried his talent may have been have been the only one with anything left if the others had lost theirs in unwise or unlucky business ventures - if their ships had not come in...
Then he that had received the five talents went and traded with the same, and made them other five talents. 17And likewise he that had received two, he also gained other two. 18But he that had received one went and digged in the earth, and hid his lord's money. Luke 19:16
Also, if you have much capital you can afford to take greater risks as failure may not lead to starvation or destitution. Risk some and keep the rest for security.
Of course, if you have nothing to lose, there is a different risk calculation. Not everyone is driven by fame or fortune.
@Silverlining
14826254? ago
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