Tag Archives: conservative

greta Thunberg

A Defense* of Greta Thunberg

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By: Chris Warren.

It’s easy to be sympathetic to the concerns of children. They don’t have the maturity and experience to address problems the way older people do. But what about when children are forced (or coerced) into an adult world? How much blame, if any, should we then assign to them when they find themselves in over their head? The case of teen climate activist Greta Thunberg stretches the question of who to blame to an extreme, and the fault lies in places no one is talking about.

For those who have been living in a cave for the last few months, sixteen year old Greta Thunberg became a celebrity by starting “climate strikes” at her school. These protests have spread worldwide, and Ms. Thunberg is the face of the movement…for now. I say “for now” because she is being exploited by the climate change alarmist industry. Thunberg doesn’t know it yet, but the day will come when she is no longer useful, at which time she will be kicked to the curb.

Although I hardly ever agree with liberals, this time they got it right: It is wrong to trash talk children.

I don’t intend any of the following as an insult or a put-down. I’m just stating some plain truths: Greta Thunberg is not a scientist or engineer. She has no advanced training or professional expertise in any field. She has not invented, discovered, or researched anything, nor solved any major problem. She’s an authority on nothing. On the issue of climate change, she has yet to utter even one single original thought. Everything she says has been said before, which leads any honest person to conclude that she’s just an actress, memorizing and reciting a script prepared by others. This is fitting since both her parents are in show business.

So why are the climate change disciples gushing over this literal know-nothing? Quite simply, Greta Thunberg is the latest shiny object. And that’s where I defend her. Here in the United States, the Democrats and the left are livid with the Republicans and the right for, among many things, conservatives’ verbal abuse of this child. Although I hardly ever agree with liberals, this time they got it right: It is wrong to trash talk children. Kids have enough problems with bullying in their own peer group; adults should know better.

But liberals are not the heroes in this story. Actually they’re more at fault than the conservatives. Greta Thunberg’s defenders are quick to point out that she has Aspergers Syndrome and is on the autism spectrum and is therefore deserving of special treatment. Ok, I’m on board with that. But here comes the obvious question no one is asking: Why is a person with a neurological/cognitive disability in addition the the usual immaturity and lack of judgement that goes with teenagerhood being thrust into this role in the first place? Couldn’t they find a more stable patron saint?

If Greta Thunberg is an innocent special needs child who should be protected, then her adult handlers should not be placing her in highly stressful public situations where she’s not anywhere near prepared to cope.

Conversely, if she’s a fearless visionary with a wisdom & maturity far beyond her years, then she and her followers should toughen up and learn a very adult lesson: If you put yourself out there for controversial causes, it’s expected that people are going to tear you apart. Big kids play by big kid rules, and the rules are not always fair.

She can’t have it both ways. Thunberg either needs to drop out of public life and return home to get the kind of help and attention that people like her need, or forge ahead and take the knocks as they come knowing that the real world does not cut any breaks. I do not believe she is capable of making that decision right now. That’s why there is an asterisk * in the title of this article. I’ll defend her, but it’s conditional.

While I’m not thrilled with the conservatives who are harassing her, I’m far more disgusted with the liberals who, knowing full well of her neurological issues, are exploiting her as a throwaway pawn and don’t concern themselves with how this experience will effect her long term well being. The climate change movement is guilty of a high form of child abuse.

To the left: Stop brainwashing her! To the right: Stop picking on her! To her parents: What the hell were you thinking!? Until it’s decided whether Greta Thunberg is a delicate flower or lionhearted heroine, can we just think about what’s best for her, not what’s best for our respective causes, and call a truce?

annoying

Annoying Things, Political Edition.

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By Chris Warren.

Ok, so call me a dork but I follow politics the way some people follow sports: I know most of the players, what position they play, and all that geeky stuff. Like sports, the scene changes day by day and sometimes even moment to moment. In my observations I’ve noticed that political figures have some profoundly annoying habits that never change. I doubt I’ll put an end to it here, but I must have my say.

With the division and vitriol of today’s politics, a comprehensive list of things I truly don’t like would not fit in the entire internet. For now, I’m not painting with a broad brush. I’ll leave that to the media, which has become a one-trick pony that can only turn left. In no particular order, here are the annoying bad habits political figures and their non-elected surrogates constantly use:

“The fact of the matter is…” This statement is uttered so often that it should be a vowel. And the funny part is, whatever comes after it is almost never a quantifiable fact, like 2+2=4, but rather a half-truth or slanted partisan talking point. The world of politics is by design built on a foundation of fuzzy statements purposely designed to allow lots of wiggle room (the official term for this is plausible deniability). With the system rigged so there is very little actual black and white truth, the annoying politicians graciously teach us unsophisticated plebeians what the “facts” are.

Asking a question, then answering it. This is probably at the top of my list of annoying politician habits. Instead of simply stating, “I think we should lower taxes; it would be good for the economy” they will instead throw out something like this: “Would I like to lower taxes? Yes, I think lower taxes would be good for the economy.” What the heck is that? Are these people interviewing themselves? Next time you’re watching the news, listen for it. Maybe we should just get rid of reporters. They are all biased hacks anyway, and the politicians seem quite adept at working both sides of an interview. Seriously, what regular person talks like this?

“We should not rush to judgement…” I propose that the federal government create a brand new Department Of Not Clear On The Concept because every time there is a terrorist attack, or a scandal, or a high profile arrest, or any other major event where the details are not clear, annoying politicians will fall over themselves to calmly say that no one should jump to conclusions until more information is available. This normally would be a perfectly rational and level-headed attitude, except that the very next thing they do is go into a lengthy postulation about the same issue that moments before they admitted they did not know much about.

The annoying news media does this too. CNN in particular is an accomplished expert at openly saying they don’t yet have the full story and then spending the next hour or more trotting out experts and analysts who will gladly talk at length about the story they do not fully have.

With all the serious issues facing our society and the overall lack of confidence that our political system will solve them, I admit my rants here are near the petty end of the scale. Yet, poor communications skills are not inconsequential. They do say something about the speaker’s ability to convey a cogent idea. And if you can’t express an idea without annoying the hell out of your audience, then you’re not really getting your message across. Politicians and political analysts are coached in great detail what to say and how to act while making public statements, yet somehow these behaviors go uncorrected. Do I believe these annoying traits will ever change? No, but we should not rush to judgement because the fact of the matter is that someday, somewhere, a blinding flash of the obvious may fill them with good sense and clear ideas.

deplorables-2

My Fellow Deplorables…

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By Chris Warren.

My Fellow Deplorables, I know it’s hard not to answer back to the flood of snipes and insults from the “tolerant & accepting” liberals, but please hold your fire. What they thought would be a yuge blue tidal wave left Democrats going into 2017 with less than than they’ve had in decades, and the 2018 mid term election map strongly indicates that they probably have not hit bottom yet. “Liking” and “sharing” insipid Facebook memes and walking around chanting while wearing childish pink kitty hats is all liberals have left. Let them think it will matter; let them pout and whine like the little sissy-bitches they are. None of it changes the end result. We still won.

My Fellow Deplorables, instead of counter arguing, encourage dead end theories that Hillary Clinton lost the election because of the Russians, the electoral college, the FBI, or whatever. Pretend to agree with the left! Affirm their delusions and denials! The last thing we want is for them to get a clue. The more liberals embrace straw man arguments, the more likely it is they will lose again and again and again.

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My Fellow Deplorables, offer no rebuttal to Hillary supporters when they say Donald Trump is the most incompetent buffoon ever to be elected President. Staying out of this debate forces liberals into the untenable position of rationalizing what Trump’s buffoonery says about the abilities of their candidate, who lost to him. Winners never have to justify their success, nor are losers entitled to an explanation. The losers will likely default back to blaming the Russians, the FBI, blah, blah, blah. Again, don’t interrupt them. Don’t give away the answers to the test. Don’t say or do anything to steer them towards a real solution. Let the liberals keep talking in circles even if it means taking some verbal abuse ourselves.

My Fellow Deplorables, take liberal showmanship for the absurd comedy that it is. I too laughed my ass off at their infantile YouTube meltdowns. Don’t feel guilty while you belittle the hysterical liberal screeching. It is hilarious entertainment! Yes, I know it’s not nice to mock and gloat, but etiquette is voided the moment anyone puts their manufactured outrage on the internet for all to see. It’s a zero-sum game: They have Saturday Night Live and Bill Maher; we have millions of Hillary voters who can’t keep their finger off the “post” button. In what can only be an irony so beautiful that even Shakespeare could not have crafted it, the Democrats have the nerve to beat up on Trump over his Twitter addiction. At least Trump can say he won.

My fellow Deplorables, stay focused on why you voted the way you did and give a wide berth for the liberals to have hissy fits and chase shiny objects. The Democrats are covered in their own shit while insisting that it’s everyone else who stinks. Let them keep thinking that. Besides the big win, which is the only end result that really matters, Deplorables collect an added bonus: Getting the last laugh on liberals who don’t even know that they are the joke.

flag burning

The Reason We Shouldn’t Is Because We Can.

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By Chris Warren

There are a lot of ways to identify a blubbering idiot.  The most common is when someone announces that they have the “right” to do or say something, then proceeds to make a big dramatic spectacle of doing it. At that point the odds are very good that they are in blubbering idiot territory.

Flag burning as a form of protest has seen something of a renaissance lately. The self absorbed, mostly millennial-aged activists represent a huge buffet of causes and think they are being edgy and progressive, but we of more vintage know that flag burning is an old trope that goes back to the Vietnam era. I presume one of the protesters’ goals is to convince others to join their cause; apparently they have not figured out that flag burning  is appealing to no one except those who were already on their side in the first place.

Burning the American flag is an offense far beyond any single cause because it is the symbol of all just causes. The average protester does not have enough brain cells to understand the irony of destroying the very symbol of what protects their freedom to protest, or that it reflects the protesters’ own weakness and lack of courage.

They don’t burn the flag to advance their cause. They burn the flag for the shock value and to be hurtful. That’s really what this is all about. They’re like a recalcitrant angry child screaming “Mommy I hate you!”. Their immaturity does not allow them to express themselves in any reasonable way, so they lash out with the only weapon they have–inflicting emotional pain.

When a protester is asked why they are protesting, the answer is almost always some nebulous statement about “rights,” either theirs or someone else’s. I do agree that burning the American flag is a Constitutionally protected First Amendment right, even as I personally find it deeply offensive. But my individual sensibilities are not a basis for a legal or moral system.

I’m sure the flag-burners are likewise offended that I exercise my Second Amendment rights by packing a gun everywhere I go. The difference of course is that I do not carry a gun for the sole purpose of upsetting anyone, although it does not bother me at all if someone is. No one has the right not to be offended, and that concept is a two way street. One could fill many gigabytes of computer memory discussing the contradictions and double-standards that revolve around the flag.

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One sign of maturity and wisdom is the ability to accept an opinion you disagree with and not take it as a personal affront. The flip side to this is mature people do not deliberately inflict emotional pain as part of, or in many cases in lieu of, making their point.

The other day a television news channel featured a story about protesters protesting the recent US Presidential election by burning an American flag. Unfortunately for the protesters, the coverage was almost totally devoted to the flag burning. Barely any mention was made about what they were actually protesting against.

And so it is with such childish and disrespectful overtures. The flag burning becomes the issue and no one pays much attention to whatever the hell it is they are complaining about.

I suggest that the best response to flag burning is to be passive and let it go. I know it is difficult, but not all wrongdoing is worthy of intervention. Anti-flag burners do not want to descend into a state where they think everything that offends them should be eradicated from the Earth. If that sentiment sounds familiar, it’s because we already have an entire generation of runny-nosed milquetoasts who need puppies and Play-Doh just to get through the “trauma” of an election that offended them, but apparently not enough for most of them to participate in.

Burning the American flag is Constitutionally acceptable (albeit offensive) free speech. Honorable men and women have fought and died for our rights, and that includes the right to be a blubbering flag-burning idiot. I have no confidence that someday the idiots will see their foolish former selves immortalized forever on YouTube and be embarrassed enough to join the ranks of we who understand that the reason you shouldn’t is because you can.

politics-pizza

Stale Bread vs. Burned Pizza

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Have you ever opened the refrigerator, pulled out everything you need to make a great sandwich, only to discover the last two slices of bread are stale and dry and old? You make the sandwich anyway. It’s still reasonably edible, but only because you’re desperate and hungry.

And have you ever popped a frozen pizza in the oven, then got distracted by a phone call or something on TV, only to catch your oversight right before it turns into a flaming platter of charcoal? The pizza is a mess but not a total loss. You were soooo looking forward to it that you salvage what’s left and try to convince yourself that it really isn’t that bad.

Well wow, the election is over. The far right is gloating, the far left is crying, and the rest are just glad that the drama of a high-tension election has passed. That’s not to say there isn’t more drama coming; it just means the big banana question of who will be our next President has been answered. Buried in the mind numbing details is what will happen to the two major parties, and who will be steering the ship? We have drifted into a world of bizarro politics  where the only items on the menu are stale bread and burned pizza.

It will take historians of politics many years to determine how Hillary Clinton came to be so out of touch that she lost the working middle class vote –badly– to an old money billionaire who craps in gold plated toilets. I’ll offer a hint: Middle class America can’t relate to a pathologically dishonest stale bread candidate who, after thirty years in government, could not come up with any solutions more original than tax the rich and solar panels. I’m also willing to bet that trotting out all those pleading celebrities, smug university academics, and even a sitting President who possibly had more to lose than the candidate he was endorsing did not score even one single new vote for Clinton.

Proving that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result, the Democrats are about to re-elect Nancy Pelosi as their congressional minority leader. As someone who is more stale bread-ish than Hillary, Pelosi would be the de facto new-old face of the party and the highest ranking Democrat in the land. They inexplicably think that the San Francisco liberal who brought us transgender bathrooms and condoms for twelve year olds is the missing link needed to connect with farmer’s wives in Iowa and laid off steelworkers in Pennsylvania.

The same historians of politics who can’t figure out Clinton’s loss are likewise baffled over Donald Trump’s win. Admittedly, it’s hard to see how conservatives managed to elect a guy who spent his entire life as one of the east coast liberal elites Republicans love to deride, then at the age of 70 had a great epiphany that inspired his newfound love for Ronald Reagan and the Second Amendment.

Donald Trump’s penchant for choosing unnecessarily coarse words both in his past and in his politics came to a rolling boil just in time for the Republicans to come down with a case of moral amnesia. Suddenly, “locker room talk” was a catch-all excuse for every crude reference to female anatomy. Politics does odd things to people. I’m sure Bill Clinton was relieved that at last the conservatives were talking about someone else’s indiscretions.

No matter what Donald Trump may have done (real or perceived) to disqualify himself from politics, it didn’t seem to matter because he did after all win the election. One cannot argue with success. Republicans accept him as the the burned pizza candidate: Messy and imperfect, but lacking any better options, it will have to be acceptable.

It’s baffling that in the most powerful, most skilled, most promising nation that has ever existed, a land of so many brilliant minds, the best we could come up with is stale bread and burned pizza. My fellow Americans, can we order out next time?

donald trump

Revenge of the Deplorables.

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By Chris Warren.

The world’s oldest functioning democracy has spoken and we are getting President Donald Trump. It was quixotic long shot that blindsided the world, but sometimes long shots actually succeed. The pundits and experts and analysts will spend years picking this election apart to study Donald Trump’s breathtaking smackdown of not just the liberal establishment, but also the media, the polling industry, and the entire Washington plutocracy. Not one of the political science wizards can interpret the 2016 election as well as I, because I am the reason Donald Trump won and liberalism not only failed, but was utterly vanquished.

This story is not mine alone. What follows are the thoughts and feelings of millions.

For at least a generation, and especially in the last eight years, the average everyday conservative Christian white guy has been maligned and beaten. Everything we said and did was twisted into “hate speech” and “intolerance”.

The idea of honest work and paying your own way in this world has morphed into an attitude of entitlement where one has a “right” to pretty much everything, and stick someone else with the bill. That “someone else” was me, and last Tuesday, I raised a big middle finger and spit in the faces of liberal elite.

The simmering pot of conservative retribution has been in the slow cooker for decades, and now dinner is served!

Donald Trump was the only Presidential candidate in my lifetime to understand the average everyday conservative Christian working white guy in any real depth. Strangely, Trump being a silver spoon billionaire with a weak record of conservatism doesn’t matter. I don’t need a President to agree with or be like me. I just want a President who doesn’t hate me.

While I still have a problem with Donald Trump’s sometimes crude decorum and attitudes, when the pablum and crudity is scraped away he “gets it”. He can and does earnestly place himself in the shoes of the average everyday conservative Christian white guy, and that’s why he’s good enough for me.

Hillary Clinton, who has never worked a real job in her entire life and does not say anything unless it is tested in a focus group and cleared by a half dozen paid consultants, is a labyrinth of contradictions and double standards. To paraphrase one conservative commentator, Clinton is so pathologically dishonest, she lies even when she does not have to.

Admittedly, Donald Trump is unnecessarily rough in his manner, but he’s not maliciously deceptive. I would not believe Hillary Clinton if she told me the sun was going to rise tomorrow. Given the choice between a creep or a crook, I’ll take the former.

When liberals are in power they  talk in gentle tones about compromise and working together. What this really means is they believe they know what is best, so go along or be accused of waging a “war on fill in the blank” or branded with a derogatory noun ending with the suffix -ist or -phobe. Now that the tables have been turned, I’m not interested in compromise. I’m not interested in unity or working together. I’m not interested in being friends. The Democrats did not want my friendship then, and I don’t want theirs now.

Simply winning an election was not good enough for me. I also voted for the failure of the Democratic party and intend on using my newfound advantage to demoralize liberals, openly mock, deride, and humiliate them, destroy their policies and legislation, and call them out for the sanctimonious piles of shit that they are. The simmering pot of conservative retribution has been in the slow cooker for decades, and now dinner is served! Believe it.

The party of tolerance and acceptance dismissed us as rednecks from flyover country, bumpkins, NASCAR dolts, hillbillies, white trash, and ignorant xenophobic rubes clinging to guns and religion. They belittled our faith, our values, our communities, and even the trucks we drive. We just kept chugging along in quiet dignity, doing the best we can with what we had. It’s time to settle the score.

What comes around, goes around; the revenge of the pissed off deplorable has come to fruition. Life as a liberal in the USA is about to get very unpleasant, and I’m gleefully looking forward to being one of the reasons why. Last Tuesday’s election was only the beginning; we are going to screw them over every chance we get. Can you hear me now?

Take that Hope & Change and shove it straight up your ass.

earth day 2016

Earth Day 2016.

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Editor’s note: This article was originally posted on April 19, 2014. We are recycing it for Earth Day 2016 with a few edits and updates.

I’m going to say up front that today’s blog article is not going to be a conservative hit piece on Earth Day 2016, nor will it be a sappy New Age love song about windmills and composting. As someone who has been a strict vegetarian for close to three decades, incorporates numerous meaningful green practices into his life, and is gun-toting, flag-waving Libertarian (which is not the same as a liberal), I feel I have an understanding of Earth Day 2016 that belies the absolute left and right attitudes that define it.

April 22 is Earth Day 2016, and for political liberals, leftover hippies, and various eco-activist groups, it’s a High Holy Day. Started by flower children in 1970 on the momentum of anti-Vietnam counterculture, Earth Day has evolved into a slick, professionally organized international media spectacle complete with its own website and corporate sponsors. Like all things liberal, Earth Day is heavy on shallow sentimentality, squishy platitudes, and calls for “investments” (taxescoughtaxes) in green projects. The real message: We simpletons need big government liberalism to save us from our own stupid. And like all things conservative, Earth Day is an opportunity for overt mockery and to dismiss environmentalism out of hand, because in the Orthodox Church of “drill, baby, drill!” it’s apostasy to even hint that the green movement has a legitimate point buried in there somewhere, especially if it interferes with making a lot of money.

Years before recycling became fashionable, I was lugging magazines and aluminum cans down from my 12th floor college dorm to a recycling center on the other side of campus.

I absolutely do believe in a clean environment and the premise behind Earth Day 2016. I also have a big issue with advancing the cause via rules and edicts that make for good press releases but never achieve their intended goal. I’ve spent a lot of time arguing with myself over how to resolve my conviction that we need to stop trashing the planet against my conservative sensibilities of resisting at every chance an egalitarian nanny state that, especially regarding environmental policy, regulates our lives down to the ridiculous, up to and including federal standards for…shower heads?

Years before recycling became fashionable, I was lugging magazines and aluminum cans down from my 12th floor college dorm to a recycling center on the other side of campus. Back then, recycling required considerable dedication and muscle. As one can guess, hardly anyone bothered. Today, recycling is as straightforward as placing recyclables at the curb where they are picked up along with garbage. My neighborhood even has entrepreneurially-minded scrappers who will scoop up discarded appliances, hot water heaters, bikes, BBQ grills, and whatever metallic waste suburbia tosses away. I don’t know how much money they make, but it must be pretty good because there are more than one of them patrolling the streets competing for junk every week. In many locales, recycling has developed to the point that there aren’t any good excuses not to do it.

Renewable energy is one area that has made considerable progress but is still a long way from being a real game changer. Even with tax incentives and subsidies (which I have a problem with), the bang for the buck is just not there. I will be well into retirement before my roof full of solar panels pay themselves off. Fortunately for me, my motivations are not solely about money. For most, the start up costs of green energy for individual use is well beyond the budget. Germany is often held up as a proud example of a “successful” national renewable energy program, but the rationalization works only if affordability is taken out of the equation.

For the Germans, solar energy may be an environmental win but it is collapsing as a business model due in no small part to regulatory overreach and meddling. Progressives here in the United states have been trying for years, but they cannot come up with a talking point that gets them over the mountain of government incompetence. Green energy will never evolve beyond the fringe unless it becomes cost effective, and it will never be cost effective without free market-based energy policy. The environmental movement will never, ever embrace this simple truth. They run their mouths about how the US should emulate Germany’s example while completely blowing off the ugly fact that it is breaking the bank.

A recurring theme in my blog is making fun of the left for doing things just to feel good. It’s not an unfair criticism: A major piece of liberal dogma is that good intentions and feelings are a valid substitute for reality and actual results. But here’s where I split with conservatives: While liberals are all about being warm and happy even if nothing gets done, conservatives seem to be of the attitude that the value of something is proportional to the amount of difficulty and sacrifice needed to do it. Or to put it another way, if something is enjoyable it’s either not worth doing or you are not working hard enough. Some of the most pissed off, bitter people I know are conservative, possibly because they have forgotten that life can’t always be about that hard journey going for the gold. But what if I can do something that really does produce results and I can feel good about it…what’s wrong with that?

Unfortunately, most of what passes as “environmentalism” is really just fluff. Earth Day 2016 will have plenty of celebrity appearances and petition signings and resurrected Joni Mitchell songs. Within twenty four hours everyone will go back to what they were doing before. They have conned themselves into thinking they are environmentalists because they plop a blue bin full of junk mail at the end of the driveway every week. Toss in an annual one day feel good retro hippy trip and they are completely sold on the hustle. I don’t know what’s worse: Liberals who pretend to be environmentalists with their hollow showmanship or conservatives who never claimed to care in the first place.

I no longer accept the idealism of my youth that had me thinking I could singlehandedly save the world one aluminum can at a time. But doing nothing is also unacceptable. Decades out of college dorm life, I’m still recycling. I’ve also been on solar panels for a while. They aren’t enough to run the whole house, but I can produce a significant chunk of my electricity with them.

When I switched to a vegetarian diet 29 years ago, it was not for environmental reasons. Since then I’ve learned a lot about how dirty and energy-intensive meat production really is, and how many thousands of gallons of water are needed to produce just one pound of beef. I work only a little over a mile from where I live; some weeks I rack up less than 25 miles on my vehicles. When the weather is good I get around on a motorcycle. These are things I do all the time, not just for display purposes. I don’t wear my environmentalism on my sleeve and people who do annoy the hell out of me, especially since most of them are pretenders.

Those of us who live our lives as if every day were Earth Day 2016 are a little vexed about the concept of waiting for a special occasion to take positive action towards keeping the planet clean, nor do we feel a need to show off how “green” we are. True Earth Day practitioners divorce themselves from the fad of environmentalism and go quietly about their eco-friendly business. It’s a lifestyle, not a hobby or a holiday. Conservatives will be pleased to know that when done properly it requires effort and is often a challenge; liberals can be assured that in the end, yes, it feels good. In a truly honorable world, there would be no need to reserve a spot on the calendar to commemorate what everyone should have been doing the whole time anyway.

pope francis

Pope Francis Preaches From The Wrong Side Of The Morality Border.

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By: Chris Warren.

Pope Francis has done a lot to bring a message of decency and peace to a world that seriously needs it. This blog has said nice things about His Holiness before, and nothing has happened since then to change that sentiment. Still, respect is not blind, nor open-ended. Pope Francis may be infallible in Church matters but for all other things he’s just another guy with an opinion like the rest of us. That’s why l was disappointed and even a little offended when during a visit to Mexico Pope Francis was critical, or more accurately, hypocritical, towards American immigration policy.

Aided and abetted by the Pope, the political left wants to make the issue much more complicated than it really is, but the bottom line goal of building a wall along the US-Mexico border is for the United States to control who comes and goes. It’s not “racist” or “xenophobic” to build a border wall any more than it’s “racist” or “xenophobic” to have a locking door on your house.

A country without a border is not really a country. Pope Francis should know, because there is a very large, centuries-old wall surrounding the Vatican. The Vatican is recognized as an independent sovereign nation where (surprise!) legal immigration is almost impossible. Tourists are welcome to visit, but they better be back on the other side of the gate at closing time. If Francis has a problem with walls & barriers, then he can start by tearing down the one around his own patch of dirt.

What offends me is that Pope Francis stood on the Mexico side literally a few feet from the border and wagged his finger in admonishment at the United States because of American attitudes towards the very controversial but yet very legitimate issue of illegal immigration. And again, I must stress that it’s “controversial” only because the liberal left makes it so.

It was almost as if His Holiness did not want to see that the United States cheerfully takes in millions of legal immigrants every year. As a religious (not political) figure, he has a little more wiggle room to say things. Yet, wiggle room is not a license to forego discretion and context. He knows damn well the USA is more generous and giving than any nation on Earth. When there is any kind of humanitarian crisis or natural disaster anywhere on the globe, no one calls the Vatican for help. They call the United States, and rightly so: The entire world knows Americans can always be depended on to come through.

When Pope Francis visited the United States last fall, I was personally uplifted and encouraged by his being here and he said many words of comfort that touched millions of Americans. Of greater import is what he did not say. I would like to know why he did not go to the American side of the border and give a morality sermon towards Mexico about all the drugs and problems they send over here. Why didn’t he insist that Mexico fix all the internal social dysfunction that motivates illegal border crossings in the first place? Why didn’t Pope Francis tell Mexico, “The Americans have been very, very kind to you. Stop taking advantage of them!”?

I’m not going to be too rough on Pope Francis. In spite of my disagreements with his approach to some issues, I do think he’s a great man and a net-positive for Roman Catholics and the world. But standing literally within earshot of a nation’s border and criticizing that nation’s political process (which, by the way, is the most free and democratic in the world) is in extremely poor taste.

As a Christian and an American, I forgive Pope Francis for his offense. I hope he visits the USA again soon and takes some time to see for himself that a wall may define a country’s physical border, but not the spiritual limits of its generosity and goodwill.

Revisiting Progressive Fairness.

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By: Chris Warren.

Back in February 2014 my second post on the then brand new Twenty First Summer was about fairness (click here to go to the original article). Since that time, the attitudes I expressed in that article have not changed, but a lot of world events that drive those attitudes has. It’s perfect time to revisit the concept of fairness.

“Each side will claim the other is lying. Each side has a vested interest in keeping the concept of fairness as blurry as possible,” I said back then. That part is still glaringly true. What is different is that one side is more invested in blurring the lines of fairness than the other. I’m not sure what fairness exactly is, but I do know what it isn’t.

Fairness is not taking assets from those who earned them and giving them to those who did not. Where does it say that everyone has a divine cosmic “right” to housing, a college education, childcare, and on and on…regardless of one’s ability to pay?

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While we’re on the subject of fairness, it’s also worthwhile to mix in the issue of “rights” because the two concepts are closely related. We The People have a right to many things. Yet, it does not automatically follow that having a right to something means others must provide it for you: I have a right to speak my mind. Should someone else be compelled to host my blog or set me up with a podcast for free?

If it’s not fair that I should get free web hosting, then I need someone from the political left to explain why. After all, they believe fairness equals the right to make someone else pay for my medical bills, my rent, my education, and pretty much my entire lifestyle. I want to know why the same line of thinking does not conclude that my free speech should be, literally, free.

Here in the United States we have the Second Amendment of the Constitution asserting our right to bear arms. While the liberal left is busy insisting that “fairness” means taxpayer funded sex change operations for convicts and fifteen dollars an hour for people stupid enough to think shoveling french fries is a lifetime vocation (none of this is in the Constitution, by the way), they should stay true to their philosophy and demand that the government issue a gun to every citizen who wants one. After all, it’s my “right,” isn’t it? Liberal logic should have no problem with my request for a 9 millimeter semiautomatic chunk of fairness. And I want someone else to pay for it so I don’t have to.

For American Progressives, Europe has been the role model of egalitarian fairness for two generations. Like all things liberal, the European version of fairness wholly depends on taking from those who earn and giving to those who don’t. Europe is now living up to the late great British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s quip about running out of other people’s money.

The Euro Zone which Thatcher strongly warned against is failing, as it deserves to, and Great Britain is seriously considering hitting the eject button from the European Union, an act known as the Brexit in economics-speak. It’s a bit of historic irony when the country that didn’t want the American colonists to have independence nearly 250 years ago is now itself contemplating what without question would be a very messy economic and political divorce from the rest of Europe. I say go for it England, before all that EU fairness sucks the life out of your great and proud land.

That brings me to my last question for American liberals: If European democratic socialism is so awesome, why is it failing? More precisely, why is your version of fairness failing? I’m sure the answer will be at least as blurry and evasive as the excuses for implementing it in the first place.

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Refugees Are Unwitting Economics Teachers For A Self Indulgent Europe.

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By: Chris Warren

A little less than a year ago I wrote an article about African and middle eastern war refugees escaping to Europe and the difficult and often deadly journey they risked. At the time, I knew a positive outcome would be difficult; I also knew that the Europeans have a hard time accepting that there is a practical limit to generosity, even for refugees in life and death situations. I did not predict that it would become so obvious so soon.

To truly understand this issue one first has to rewind back three generations. That’s roughly how long Europe has overindulged itself in a cradle-to-grave nanny state where nearly everything is a government entitlement. For most of this time it was all paid for, sort of. By “sort of” I mean that the system was financially solvent on paper but only because of massive taxation, fuzzy accounting protocols, and constant debt deferment and restructuring. Financial doomsday has already hit Greece and is seeping out across the continent like The Plague of the 1340s-1350s. It’s the macroeconomic equivalent of transferring balances between maxed out credit cards.

When hundreds of thousands of middle eastern war refugees started arriving at the borders of Europe, Europe’s initial reaction was to accommodate them. There were grand pronouncements of generosity from government officials and a wave of social media love. Everyone, it seems, was gushing with refugee support.

Europeans will be all about doing whatever it takes to help the refugees until a collective epiphany (which has already begun here and here) makes them see that “it” is going to impact them individually. I wonder how many British or German or Greek citizens will still be Tweeting #refugeeswelcome when their kids’ school class sizes increase or the wait times for their rationed state healthcare systems becomes longer because of all the middle eastern castaways they so altruistically took in.

In what could be Europe’s very first ever introduction to economic reality, entire nations that less then a month ago were preaching humanitarianism across the internet are suddenly reconsidering after realizing that they will have to give up a sizable chunk of their money and standard of living to provide for the glut of hundreds of thousands of people who will take far more out of the government entitlement systems than they put into them. Wow, what a difference a few weeks makes.

The liberal left here in the United States, who think moral obligation never has a spending limit and all problems would be solved if only everyone gave more money to the government, has long envied European socialism. Yet, no one on the American left is speaking in support of their European cousins’ sudden change of heart. To do so would be to imply that their cherished entitlement system isn’t working.

The subtext of the very real and very sad plight of the refugees is the failure of big government liberalism and its two-faced supporters who embrace the the idea of helping refugees, but only if at the expense and inconvenience of others. As Twenty First Summer has discussed before, the political left was, is, and always will be grounded in two related basic tenets: Appearances and feelings are just as good as actual results, and a good cause is made better when the expense can be pushed off on others.

That is why Europeans continue to embrace collectivism. That is why they think they can hashtag their way to a better world. That is why after three generations of lavishing themselves in an egalitarian culture of “free” stuff, there are, as former US Presidential candidate Mitt Romney once famously quipped, too many people riding the cart and not enough people pulling it. And that was before the refugees showed up at the gate. The refugees have unwittingly exposed European socialism for the crock of sanctimonious shit that it is: Everything is free, until the bill comes due.