Happy New Year!

Euphoria or A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The White House

I guess the biggest story of 2016 has been the election of Donald Trump to the Presidency.  He was not my first choice but the man does have flair and brings a somewhat different approach then what has been the norm for the past 75 years.  I have my doubts about how successful he will be but I recognize that something had to be done to stop or even just slow down the flow of lifeblood from this once great land.  He should be given a chance to stabilize the ship of state.  The wailing of the left is only a cover for the fact that their candidate ran a horrible campaign.  But was it the candidate or the message?   While Clinton was without a doubt the worst campaigner in recent memory I contend that it was the democrat party and it’s message that was totally rejected by the voters across the Nation.  The years of disdain that the democrat party shows for anything traditionally American and the bullying nature of political correctness were the catalyst for the election of a man like Trump.  The democrat party will never admit this; instead they blame the “inherent” racism that resides in the hearts of everything white or the Russians.  They continue to double down on their failed message.  Like their so called rivals in the GOP they were exposed by Donald Trump and for that fact alone the man deserves our lasting thanks. 

I don’t know what Trumps Presidency will look like but I know what a Clinton Presidency would have looked like and the further harm it would have done to all Americans.  She is a disaster and failed at every public endeavor she undertook; the latest not counting being the Democrat nominee was the running of the State Department.   The two things that were the catalyst for her failure in the election was her belief that she is above the law and believing her own press.  Throughout her life both personal and especially public she has believed and acted like the law was for the rest of us.  It culminated in her State Department fiasco with her private server.   If hackers from WikiLeaks, Russia, China or Patagonia could hack the DNC what chance could her private server have?  If any of us – the average schleps in this country did that we would have been prosecuted and seen jail time.  Which leads to the second reason; her believing her own press.  The press (who were even bigger losers in this election) have been derelict in their position that our society places upon them with our “free” press rights.  By not holding her and the democrats feet to the fire they have fostered a sense of invulnerability.  Public accountability may be slow but eventually it comes.  Our founders knew this and showed faith in the American electorate but they also recognized the need for tempering the public’s temperament and developed the Electoral College.  That is why we are a Republic and not a Democracy.  Now if Trump can get both houses of Congress to reclaim their responsibilities as Legislatures and refrain from the use of “Executive Orders” that has been misused by Presidents of both political parties we will be back on the correct path.

Donald Trump is not a racist or any of the derogatory names that are tossed his way.  The temper tantrum that the left of center has thrown shows how much they are off center.  It is really very amusing to watch and I marvel how so many of them do not see how silly they appear to America and the world.  At some point they will grow tired, grab their blankee, put their thumb in their mouth and go to sleep but until then we will have to continue being amused.  Hopefully they will have matured by the time they wake up.  Doubt it though.

Good luck President Trump.

Getting Old

It is a natural occurrence that happens to everyone.  I have known all along that it was going to happen to me and in many respects I was looking forward to it.  What I didn’t expect and don’t appreciate how it happened all at once.  Oh, it came just as fast as it has for everyone – a second followed by another second –  but the passing of time is only a small aspect of the disease.  The awareness, the point when your mind finally sees what everybody else sees is the more dominant and in some cases more devastating part of aging.  I have found myself becoming angrier faster, being less tolerant of idiots who profess to be what they are not and scared for the future for my kids and grandchildren.  I look back and see the mistakes that I and society have made and realize the harm that it either caused or could have caused if a Higher Authority hadn’t intervened. 

Forgiveness of others has become easier though, with two exceptions.  I hold myself and those in authority to higher standards and I have a very hard time in forgiving either.   Personal slights aimed my way have no effect and I can shrug them off and let them go easily.  But let me see a wrong committed by a manager, a company, a government bureaucrat or politician or myself and I am angry instantly and brood about it for a long time;  I do not forgive and never forget.  At times I fear I am becoming a crotchety old man.  You know the type – the “get off my lawn you little s.o.b” type guy who neighbors avoid and children make up horror stories about and egg your house at Halloween.  But as I get older I see wisdom in that way also.  Some neighbors you do want to avoid and kids will be kids anyway.

If you view life as a long road that you travel, ageing is a series of forks in the road that you take along the way.  The fork you take, while not dependent on the direction taken previously is influenced by the previous decision and it becomes easier to just keep meandering down the road feeling comfortable and smug.  Then one day you look around and wonder how the hell you ended up in Terre Haute.  What happens then ?  Your level of crotchetiness is dependent on your level of acceptance of how you got there.  Being my own worse enemy, I have a growing sense of crotchetiness.  There were so many things I thought I wanted to do but the fact that I barely pursued them tells me that I guess I really didn’t want them enough but I now look back in irritation with myself for what might have been.  That does not mean that I do not appreciate what I have now.  The girl I met when I was 15 is still with me and I find myself loving her more everyday.  We have 4 grown children and 3 beautiful grandkids, so how can I not be appreciative?  I have had two bouts of cancer in the past six years which I have come through scarred but still intact.  There are many I consider friends but only a few that I see as being close friends.  My faith in God has deepened as my understanding has grown.  So why and how can I be a crotchety old man?

Because of all those things listed above.   I see my failures and mistakes I have made and I know that those things while they are my failures they impact those who surround me.  I could have been a better provider over the years to my family.  I could have been a better husband and father.  I could have been a much better friend.  And I am fully aware of my sins that are mine alone.  I understand that God is a forgiving God but as I said earlier – I do not forgive myself for my failures or sins.  And I am at my most crotchetiness when I ruminate on my life and I always end up in Terre Haute.

So what will 2017 bring for me?  Maybe this stupid mick will make some right choices.  Maybe I will “let it go” (God how I despise that song – but my grand daughters love it) and forget about my screw-ups.  It could happen, who knows?  In the meantime however – stay off my lawn.

2017

All I read in the social media pages and hear from people is how horrible 2016 has been and how 2017 will be different; they hope.  It must be my cheery outlook on life but I don’t understand what made 2016 any worse than 2015 or 2014 or, well you get the picture.  Some if not most is driven by the shock of a President Trump.  The media had themselves and one of the candidates convinced that Trump was in for an epic ass kicking.  Fortunately, the voters were convinced otherwise.  The shock to their system has been tremendous and watching their slow recovery was fun in the beginning but is now bordering on tedious.   The unthinking voter who fully expected the Clintons to once again get their grubby, sticky fingers on the White House silverware set can not understand how this could have happened.  Prior to the election the democrats were on their high horse and trying to force Trump to announce that he would accept the vote and not contest the outcome.  Prior to the election Obama stated that the thought that the Russians could hack the election was ludicrous.  What a difference an election makes!  Like the leaked emails of the DNC, the actions of the out of touch democrat party post election show a low value, corrupt, elitist group of self indulgent elitist who will do anything to maintain power in order to bully their ways on the rest of us.  It goes without saying that the Republican Party is only slightly better outside of the DC establishment.

I do not see much improvement in our lives in 2017. in fact an economic downturn will probably be upon us by summer.  Of course Trump will be blamed and the establishment politicians and the leftist press will attack him and anything Republican.  Our economy has been on life support for years as the focus has been on stock prices and corporate profits.  Capitalism has been replaced by corporatism under the guise of being “free market”.  The large corporations that exert far more power politically than they should (small corporations and small individual businesses employ more people and pay the bulk of the taxes) happily deal with crony socialism.  I do not see a President Trump attacking the system they have developed but I do think that he will bring the focus back to America and as much as the rest of the world and many Americans hate the thought; as America goes so goes the world. Much like Reagan’s first year and a half when we suffered through a nasty recession that was a continuation of Carter’s inept handling of the economy we will continue in the recession/depression that we have been in since 2006/07.  I did not vote for Reagan either times as I felt his rhetoric while good was just that and he would not be able to change much.  Government grew at an unprecedented rate under his Presidency but he must be given credit for the change in the attitude and demeanor of America.  I do remember how psychologically beaten down the average American was after Carter and Reagan turned that around.  It was at that time though that corporatism really took hold and the focus of business started to shift.  I see Trump in a similar position as Reagan with one exception; the Democrat Party is much more solidly leftist in its positions.  They are less willing to compromise and with the press backing them a large portion of the citizens are misinformed as to the outcome of many policies that are promoted by the Democrat Party.

 Do not look at the stock market and believe that is the economy.  It is only a segment of the economy and the heavy focus on it has distorted it’s importance to the detriment of the rest of the economy.  CEO’s and corporate managers all rely on the stock price for their bonuses and income and base their business decisions on what is distorted figures.  Upturns/downturns are a natural occurrence and the length of the upturn and depth of the downturn are directly related to interference in the market by outside forces and the biggest outside force there is; the government. And I do not think that even if Trump was inclined to do so, he could not change the direction of the economy the degree necessary.

Hopefully Trump will be able to get as many constitutional minded judges in place as possible as quickly as possible while he has the majority in both Houses.  That is where the battle for our liberty will take place.   Judges that see the Constitution as a limiting factor to governmental encroachment to our individual liberty are vital at this point in our history and it will be a fast two years before the mid-term elections eat into his majority.