Intolerance must be tolerated!

A funny thing happened on the way to... well, no where.  A funny thing did also happen when people began using that spongy thing inside of their skulls to contemplate the attempt at a T.rump rally in Chicago though. Anyone reading this probably already knows what happened but for those of you who've just returned from drinking your own piss on Mars with Matt Damon, here it is: our future fuhrer T.rump tried to hold a rally on at the University of Illinois at Chicago Pavilion (because it was totally reasonable for trumpets to believe this to be friendly turf) and a large assortment of Bernie Sanders supporters/#BlackLivesMatter activists/people who detest racism and bigotry first infiltrated the audience to the degree that they outnumbered the trumpets themselves, then engaged trumpet violence by meeting it in kind.

The most thought-provoking part, at least for me, happened the following day.  Trumpets, and people who claim not to support such nonsense while supporting such nonsense, began crying about free speech. They claim T.rump's right to it was violated, that Sanders, Obama and Clinton orchestrated it, that protesters are "thugs" (code for the N-word of course), and all manner of other heinous things.  Stripping away the layers upon layers of bullshit that wraps just about everything these people say and do, their argument is this: we must be tolerant of their views, even though the views and beliefs they espouse are that of intolerance.  They believe all Muslims are terrorists, all Mexicans are rapists, all Central American unaccompanied child immigrants are here to steal their jobs, gays getting married are a mortal threat to their religion, unions exist solely to take their money, Bernie Sanders is a communist, all black people are definitely racist against whites but white racism ended long ago, so on and so forth.  They simply refuse to tolerate this erosion of their idea of American values, that Jesus Christ himself the whitest person in history personally founded the United States so Christians can be free of anything and anyone they don't like save for those people they chose to own, and anyone who disagrees is definitely a member of the unholy alliance of the Gay Soviet Islamic Black Power State.

Did you know that civil disobedience is not a thing?  Gandhi and Martin Luther King are definitely not the kind of people for whom you name streets and holidays. Of course this is all complete nonsense.  It takes a special kind of delusion to go out and say that you utterly refuse to believe that terrorism perpetrated by a small group of assholes who will use their own delusions to attach demonstrably wrong concepts of Islam to them are anything more than just that: a small group of assholes with an incorrect interpretation of their religion.  I don't understand how some of the people who will say "yeah Donald, Mexicans definitely are all rapists" will happily pay their daughters' plane tickets to Spring Break in Cancun.  "But wait, because it's over there I don't have to see Mexicans here".  This is what they really mean, for the few who haven't already understood that.  But what can we do?

Tell them how dumb they are, to their faces.  Take their intolerance and....well, don't tolerate it.

Podcast 3/13/2016: Super-Duper Tuesday Predictions, Violence on the Trump Circuit, and Rahm Emanuel Needing the Cersei Lannister Treatment

Better late than never.

In this episode, Vinny and I make some terrible predictions regarding super-duper Tuesday, discuss the weather, Trump's white power rallies, and more.

http://www.podbean.com/media/share/pb-d4tin-5da0bd/download

Notes:

• I bring up a demographic stat at one point that I can't place a name to.  I still couldn't find it.  I'll keep looking.
• https://www.yahoo.com/politics/trump-challenged-over-ties-to-mob-linked-gambler-100050602.html Trump and the mob.
• Operation Linebacker II http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/ops/linebacker-2.htm

NSFW

*Music is brought to you by Bensound.com

On Occasion, the Hitler Comparisons are Valid

I rarely refer to people I disagree with as Nazis or compare them to Adolf Hitler.  Usually, those comparisons are hyperbolic and not all that analogous.  Today an exception will be made: There are legitimate parallels to be drawn between Donald Trump and Hitler.

Trump has repeatedly cultivated the support of white supremacists.  He re-tweets them with alarming frequency, including glaringly inaccurate crime statistics that cater to the worst prejudices of white people with a sense of victimization.

Much like Hitler, who played to nationalist sympathies promising to restore Germany to former glory, Trump is promising to "make America great again".

Trump is undoubtedly an authoritarian.  He has openly advocated the commission of war crimes in debates, advocating for torture and the killing of terrorists' families.  He has cheered on violence at his rallies and casually suggested that he wished he could "rough up" journalists.  He has even quoted Mussolini.

For Hitler, the demonized outsiders were Jews, democratic socialists, homosexuals, communists, and the mentally retarded amongst others.  For Trump, the "others" are Muslims and immigrants saying:

"When Mexico sends its people, they're not sending their best," he said. "They're sending people that have lots of problems...they're bringing drugs, they're bringing crime. They're rapists. And some, I assume, are good people."

Trump is often laughed at and not taken particularly seriously (including by myself).  Here's the thing:  Hitler wasn't taken very seriously either.  From my Western Civilization textbook, "...To most, Hitler was simply a right-wing rabble-rouser whose views were not worth taking seriously (p924 Nobel et. al.)."

Podcast 3/6/2016: Democratic Debate Color Commentary and Tuesday Predictions

On this episode, Vinny and I give the play by play on Sunday's Democratic debate.

We apologize for the quality of the audio.

http://www.podbean.com/media/share/pb-np3pc-5d5389/download

NSFW

*Music is brought to you by Bensound.com

Podcast 3/5/2016: Super Tuesday Review, Preview of Saturday and Sunday Primaries/Caucuses

On this episode Vinny and I review our Super Tuesday predictions.  How wrong were we?

We'll also preview this weekend's primaries and caucuses.

http://www.podbean.com/media/share/pb-ycchc-5d4501/download

*Music is brought to you by Bensound.com

Podcast 2/29/2016: SC(D) Recap, Super Tuesday Preview, Drunkenness, Syria, and Gasoline Huffing

On this episode Vinny and I discuss our terrible SC predictions, our new Super Tuesday predictions, drunkenness in history, the Syrian conflict, gasoline huffing, and more.

http://www.podbean.com/media/share/pb-wkt9g-5d2484/download

Notes:

• Hillary Clinton served as a Senator from January 2001-January 2009.

NSFW

*Music is brought to you by Bensound.com

Realism for One

One of the things that irritates me the most about the upcoming election is that the media's line of questioning only seems to treat one candidate's policy proposals as though they're actually serious. Bernie Sanders is routinely questioned as though his proposals are crazy and unrealistic despite the fact that he's basically advocating for what every other western democracy already has.  I have no problem with asking Sanders tough questions like how he plans to pay for universal education or how he would get massive overhaul of the health care system through congress.  What I do have a problem with, is why other candidates are not subject to the same level of scrutiny.

Hillary Clinton has proposed a number of "reasonable" policies that under the current congress, where Obama could nominate Robert Bork and still not get him through confirmation in the Senate, would stand absolutely no chance of passing.  Clinton routinely talks about how she "would get stuff done" despite not offering any actual evidence of it.  The only things I see Clinton actually able to do given the current political climate, is work together with the Republicans to get bad free-trade deals and deeper involvement in wars we can't possibly win.

I don't hear how Clinton would pay for her policies.  Sanders at least has the decency to tell us that his "free stuff" would result in higher taxes and not just for the super-rich.  I never hear Clinton questioned on whether her "reasonable" and "technocratic" health care or education policies would create a massive amount of paperwork and bureaucracy for ordinary citizens to navigate.  I haven't heard anything about how these means-tested policies would be extraordinarily easy for congress to remove precisely because they don't apply to everyone.