Hi (name withheld - well known Air Force General)
How have you been? Well I hope. That's always the first question I ask people as old as me . . . ; < )
You didn't like it when I said I'm smarter. In some realms I am smarter. You didn't try to understand or want to understand which goes on my list of surprises from you. You made wrong assumptions.
I apologized - I provided two apology explanations - maybe you didn't receive them.
You definitely have blind spots at best, Trey, as in sociology, effective management of people / leadership of organizations for long term effectiveness and efficiency (getting your Space agenda pushed thru in short term doesn't always mean success - this country needs another 100 years, not 10-20 years of decline from the impact of Trumpism), and human rights / humanity / empathy (when I say guns are a crisis that killed 40,000 people, you select out suicides and say emotional / mental illness is not part of the gun problem?! Who says that?).
You seem to have decided you are smart in everything so you halted writing, arguing.
We need to wait for the final evidence on President Trump's performance. I think it bodes ill for the USA, you think all is well. It's good for both of us to wait out time, and even if Trump is re-elected, HIS time is limited.
As you've said, the truth comes with time. We Americans tend to want instant "gratification," in simplistic solutions, easy black and white answers, self-centered choices, and we suffer for it as a nation and as our culture degrades.
I'll list the things you say that surprise me. This list contains things you wrote with very suspect logic. I never expected you to use weak "facts" and logic.
Arguments I have with you is your use of false equivalency, like if a proposal is "Socialist" it takes us immediately to Venezuela or Communism or Russia, which is just silly, you use the practiced hypocrisy of evangelicals on abortion (protect the baby even if it kills the mother, or puts the mother AND THE CHILD in poverty forever, then you endorse a soulless gov choosing to provide NO help to the baby and mother after birth when needed.
I would not be surprised if you think gays are not good parents while heterosexuals are arrested daily for child abuse.
I read echo chamber thinking from you that Socialism will always fail which is silly. Norway is best example of successful implementation of socialism. Your stating my partial list of social programs from our government of roughly 76 "social" programs is NOT socialism is silly. You play word games to blind yourself to US socialism and defend our modified capitalism as fair to everyone despite the fact it is clearly NOT fair to everyone.
You argue against ANY NEW social program the Dems propose is Socialism, ignoring Trump's billions in farm and Corporate subsidies. Trump says tariffs will work given enough time, but that is never true of tariffs. Tariffs kill markets. Trump has to help farmers forever as tariffs hurt them and end markets they once enjoyed. The tax cuts he loves will benefit HIM directly! That's called kleptocracy.
Your support for the Confederate memorabilia, statues, generals, and their "cause" despite the truth no country ever honored rebellious forces as they are traitors, using the weak rationale of "states rights" which is really seeking to continue to use human as slaves in the most dehumanizing way possible (no slavery in history has every been as dehumanizing as the US version - a fact).
Your failure to recognize and acknowledge that the CORRUPT kleptocracy and violent attitudes promoted in the White House is disappointing. The lies are not fake news, and not spin. There are mistakes and sloppy works, but very few intentional lies. You ignore and / or defend Trump's theft, cruelty, and lies carelessly. While the media is sloppy, biased, and foolish, even offer silly opinions at times, the majority of media is not lying like Trump lies.
Trump refuses to press against Russia hacking our election.
"Trump joking with Putin over eliminating journalists is a betrayal of America. So is ignoring it."
https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/trumps-jokes-with-putin-over-eliminating-journalists-is-a-betrayal-of-america-so-is-ignoring-it/2019/06/28/b7ada93a-99be-11e9-916d-9c61607d8190_story.html?utm_term=.d7a026370351&wpisrc=nl_most&wpmm=1
Our US democracy is very weak today, and may disappear entirely. Yet you defend this course as though Democrats are an army of villains. How can you dismiss our democracy only because you do not like liberals? That is crazy thinking.
You assert the English health care system is reviled by every Englishman based on a narrow sampling of data while other reports clearly state the English would never give up their health care system; when Trump comments appeared to threaten their system when he recently visited England the English soundly rejected the idea. In general, every health care system in every country has flaws, people complain, yet, in general, granting delays in some procedures occur as people que up, the English want to keep their version of "Medicare for All." In fact, some who lived in France have the opposite opinion of their health care system as your experience. As I said, every health care system has its failure, but the entire system is not at fault.
You say it is great Trump beats up NATO and Allies as you talk to select military leaders and now we have few Allies willing to work with us on the Iran issue and spending more on weapons, preferably USA made weapons. You have forgotten everything you learned about management 401, leadership 101, zero-sum / win-lose tactics failure in negotiations, and the fact Trump dodged the draft with fake bone spurs and disrespects a dead American war hero.
After 20-25 years in the Air Force rising thru the ranks to Lt. General you still do not understand the traits and REQUIRMENS of a true leader as you support Donald "Tweety." Amazing! Admittedly I knew a few generals who were dumber than dirt and rose to high "office" via politics and ass kissing, leaving them at the pinnacle with no sills to lead.
Leadership, easy and simple, very basic, includes these traits in different proportions, and used in different situations.
effective leader/follower: emotionally mature, patient, ethical, humble, admits flaws, recognizes/accountable for mistakes, skillful/analytical reader, comprehends history, a teacher, stable/consistent, never bullies or loses temper, yet strong, enjoys humor, humble, not arrogant, has fun, compassionate, unifies team to maximize results
You ignore the obvious, for the sake of the dubious.
You cherry pick details on how good the economy is, ignoring weakness, unfairness, income inequality, subsidies by Trump to make up for his mistakes, and his record pace of deficit growth. The deficit may not matter if we keep interest rates low, but the burgeoning deficit can do great harm in rates go up. The tax cut is NOT paying for itself.
You see one state law on abortion as representative of all liberals, a sad generalization by an otherwise smart man. An indictment of all abortion proposals by all liberals based on a law you do not like is very weak logic.
Your awareness of the Black person's experience, and Black Lives Matter, for example, is vacuous at best. You see protest words as equivalent to bullets and death. Any time a police officer kills an unarmed person, any color, it is negligent manslaughter. I know the Supreme Court supports the police saying, if police fear for their life, they can shoot to kill - 16 bullets, for example, in a teenager with a knife. The SCOTUS is wrong to give the police a way too easy excuse to kill people: IT IS NEGLIGENT HOMICIDE.
I'm curious how you feel about the Trevor martin death in FL a few years ago. Zimmerman, you might recall, was a pseudo-security guard looking for suspicious people near a retirement community. I have friends who are conservative like you who say Zimmerman did the right thing despite the fact he was told by the police to stand down, and do nothing. What say you? My Florida friends said we Yankees get different news and do not know the real facts. Who says that?
There are bits of truth in your ideas on immigration and crime and gun deaths, but you provide your argument inside pre-package conservative hate modules to make your point. Much of what you offer is propaganda you have accepted.
Maybe you are just very busy making big bucks selling lasers? Got anything for Saudi Arabia? Send them some nukes, see how that works out; oh, Trump already did that (Trump is facilitating the nuclear power in Saudi A.) lol!
I've been busy lowering my golf handicap.
Norway Is Far More Socialist Than Venezuela
Matt Bruenig January 27, 2019
https://www.peoplespolicyproject.org/2019/01/27/norway-is-far-more-socialist-than-venezuela/
"Venezuela and Norway both have abnormally large oil sectors, nationalized oil reserves, and nationalized oil companies.
In Norway, the surplus from the oil boom has been used to build a $1 trillion collectively-owned capital fund with the return on that capital going to finance general government spending, including the country’s large welfare state. This capital fund is even colorfully described by the Norwegian government as “the people’s money, owned by everyone, divided equally and for generations to come.”
In Venezuela, the government appears to have used the surplus primarily to finance current social spending. This means that, on the thing most remarkable about the two countries, Norway comes away as more socialist. Norway uses its oil sector to build an enormous stock of collectively-owned capital, which then goes to fund social spending while Venezuela skips the middle step. Insofar as socialism is about collective ownership of the means of production, an objective observer would have to declare Norway the more socialist of the two.
Norway’s edge on Venezuela goes beyond the different ways the two countries have handled their nationalized oil sectors. Although Venezuelan data is a bit hard to come by, it is hard to imagine based on what information we do have that the Venezuelan government owns one-third of the country’s domestic corporate equity like Norway does. And the Venezuelan government for sure does not own 60 percent of the national wealth like Norway does. Even on indicators that are not strictly socialist but that people often conflate with socialism — such as government taxes, revenue and expenditure — Norway dominates."
