And yes, by popular demand, we bring to you a feature from Kimblogs passim, Dr. Kim.
Obligatory warning for stupid people: Dr. Kim isn’t a doctor, doesn’t play one on TV (but has been known to do so with unsuspecting women on an ad-hoc basis). His advice should be taken with a metric tonne of salt and two metric tonnes of humor, and should be followed with extreme care. Dr. Kim takes no responsibility for outcomes of separation, violence, divorce or strange diseases stemming from the adoption of his advice.
“Dear Dr. Kim: Ever since the election of 2016 and Donald Trump’s victory, a strange thing has happened to me. Some of the people in my social circle seem to have gone quite nuts about Trump, and about his administration. In the past, we were a mix of liberals and conservatives, but we all got along quite well. Now, however, things have changed, and a few of them have made it clear that any kind of support for President Trump is a barrier to friendship. Is friendship worth losing over silly politics?” — A Friend In Need Of Advice
Dear Friend: The problem is that it’s no longer “silly politics”. What we have in the U.S. today is an irreconcilable difference as to how our country should exist — a republic as envisaged by the Founding Fathers where freedom of the individual is paramount, or a modern-day Western state where the government decides how people should best live their lives. Ultimately, you have to decide whether friendship is worth this conflict, but I think the answer is simple.
History — that would be the actual history of the world, not that bullshit peddled by Howard Zinn and Simon Schama — has proved that our Constitution has created a vastly better system of government than has, say, Marx’s Communist Manifesto. For recent proof of how socialism / communism / progressivism sucks, one has only to look at the difference between the car industries of West Germany (Mercedes, BMW, Porsche) and the former East Germany (Trabant). Same people, same engineering acumen, but different political philosophies and a totally different outcome. Your liberal friends would prefer to live in a state like, say, modern-day France — where daycare is free but where until very recently the government regulated the names which one could give one’s children — rather than under the Donald Trump administration, which is doing its best to reduce the number of annoying government regulations. So here’s my advice.
Refuse to be friends with stupid people who think that socialism is cool, guns are evil, high taxes are fine, big government is okay, political correctness should run our colleges, and that “diversity” is a viable social option. Why should you indulge their childish, moronic fantasies when the only outcome is death and ruin?
You will be the better for it, and so will the United States.
— Dr. Kim
Hi Kim, while judging people as stupid is easy, there are many things Trump has said that are problematic.
I think Scott Adams is doing a great job on the “two movies” idea that our realities are seen differently.
http://blog.dilbert.com/post/157149611381/good-example-of-our-two-movie-reality
The point is that, if Trump is NOT Hitler, this will become more clear over time. Just as a huge part of the Trump supporters were actually more anti-Hillary, many Dems are more anti-Trump than pro-socialist.
For the Trump-haters, “this, too, shall pass”. So better to pause the friendship for a couple of months, rather than ending it.
I agree about “friends”. It gets harder when it happens to be a family member – a brother, a sister, or a parent.
Sometimes you just have to agree to disagree and make politics a taboo subject for discussion.
At least part of the problem is what is meant by ‘diversity’. Is it meant as a ‘broader ingredient list’ for the melting pot? Or it meant as a longer list of balkanised groups – that can be played off of one another for political gain?
I don’t mind people with differing ethnic backgrounds, differing views (when they can be discussed and/or argued civilly), differing pigmentation of skin, eyes, or hair, and I certainly enjoy the difference in genders.
What I do mind is having people that are openly and actively opposed to the things that have allowed Western Culture to exist and grow, and most especially I mind those that oppose the founding principles of these United States.
Recognize it or not, like it or not – we are at war (culturally, and more) with both those within our borders and and those without. There are those would would destroy this experiment in self governance, either for their own power gains (while claiming it’s ‘for the people’), or for the glory of their religion – and would ultimately replace or alter until it’s unrecognizable our Declaration of Independence and Constitution, to the detriment of our Liberty for us and our progeny.
It’s time for those of us that are still principled enough to stand up and say: Not On My Watch!
One of the things that I miss from the ‘old blog’ is some of the material that helps outline the ‘Western Canon’, for those of use who’d like a reading list for ourselves or our progeny, and of course – many of your essays. They provided much food for thought, and arguments for pushing back the darkness.
Any chance of eventually including an archive section to the blog, to revive any of these tidbits?
Quick answer: yes. Real answer, it’ll take a while, because Tech Support v.2 has decided to get married this coming weekend (the inconsiderate bugger), and so it may be a while before he can do anything more than just help me check comments. Some people…
It means “not white.” All of the rest is handwaving.
90% of success in life is ignoring all the handwaving.
I’m of the “this too shall pass” opinion. When the Trumpenjugen don’t appear to herd undesirables into prison camps as per Dem propaganda, and life pretty much continues as before, most normal, regular people will let their TDS drop to a normal background level, and relationships can resume or continue.
However, some people will get serious cases of TDS, and will become more and more hysterical. These people will hunt up the worst, most slanted stories to post on Bookface to confirm President Trump’s Literally Hitler status. With this lot, best to cut them off, as they’re probably not going to get any better.