Random Thoughts for November, 2017.
By Robert A. Hall
Feel free to post or forward.
When driving, keep a sharp eye out for the "Smart Phone" Zombies.
From my friend, Todd Ranke: People will believe just about anything if you begin the sentence with "Surveys say."
Also from Todd: Only YOU Can Prevent Forest Fires! Which is good, because I have stuff to do.
Hollywood views history the way cannibals view missionaries.
Coping with problems as they come up is good. But taking positive action to prevent them from coming up in the future is much better.
Amid all the protests, we should all remember that slavery was a great stain on America, as it was on all past societies. We can tell the protesters that we agree that America would be a far better place if slavery never existed and not one slave was brought to these shores in chains.
Being a jerk and being a genius are not mutually exclusive.
Progressive. n. A person who is willing to put other people to any degree of trouble and financial pain if it makes him feel good about himself. a. A policy or position that is supposed to make things better but ends up making them worse for almost everybody.
The voices in my head don't like you....
Here come the progressives, with tolerance in their words and hate in their hearts.
Brain work usually pays better than muscle work. And it's easier to do when you are older.
We are all weird in our own way.
Healthcare is inexorably tied to dollars. If you would pay for it, the drug chains would offer rabies vaccinations.
Note to BLM and other liberals. The word "coffle" for a line of slaves chained or tied together to be taken someplace comes from the Arab word kafica. "Slave" of course comes from "Slav," because so many white, Slavs were made slaves in Europe, long before Europe had good transportation to Africa. At that time, the African slave trade was almost entirely other Africans enslaving blacks, though they were often sold to Muslim slave traders who brought caravans down to the sub-Sahara, taking back slaves in long coffles. No one knows how many tens of thousands died crossing the desert.
There are a lot of fields that pay you enough to get by, but not enough to get ahead.
It is not "inconvenient truths" that rule politics, but, on both sides, "convenient fictions" that allow politicians to mobilize the credulous base.
Hate speech is in the eye of the beholder. A black friend agrees with me that the firefighter who said he'd rather save a dog than a million niggers was engaging in hate speech and deserved to be fired. But she thinks Kaepernick is using his platform to make a point. I find his and the other players' actions to be highly offensive hate speech against the flag, the country and the veterans for fought and died for it.
Let he who is without typos trow the first tone!
About 1680, the English writer Henry Neville observed that since ancient times, empires were brought down by "ceremonious follies."
Recently we had dinner at Perkins. Leaving, we noticed two cop cars stopped on East Washington Avenue. My wife wondered what they were doing. Dale, our five-year-old grandson piped up, "Maybe they're taking a doughnut break."
If you assume that other people will do what you would do in the same circumstances, you are in for some unpleasant surprises.
There is a graduation speech on YouTube, "The smartest man I ever met was a third grade dropout." Find it and watch it. From the speech: "Ego is the anesthesia that deadens the pain of stupidity."
And I'd say that, "Hate is the narcotic that makes envy bearable."
Black leaders and politicians often bemoan that blacks are incarcerated at a far higher rate than whites. They never seem to bemoan that blacks commit crimes, especially murder (mostly of other blacks) at far higher rates than whites. Black lives don't matter to them if they were killed by blacks.
I like laying down for a nap a lot more than getting up from one.
Comment on my blog: "Please build a wall around California and make them secede from the Union!"
Bill O'Reilly's next book: "Killing my Career."
"There is no crime, absolutely none, that cannot be condoned when 'our' side commits it." --George Orwell
Liberalism: Discovering new rights and destroying old ones.
The liberal judge's mantra: Whatever I don't like is unconstitutional. Whatever I like is.
If the members of PETA were sincere, they wouldn't spray to kill roaches, or take antibiotics to kill the bugs in their systems.
Republicans condemn things in Democrats they would overlook in other Republicans. Democrats condemn things in Republicans they would overlook in other Democrats. Hypocrisy, thy name is politics.
One thing about getting older--I went as me on Halloween and scared up a lot of candy. Too bad I can't eat it.
There is a difference between being lazy and being a procrastinator. Procrastinators work twice as hard as other folks, because it's a lot more work catching up on piles of things than doing them as you go along.
Where is Charles Martell, Prince of the Franks, Don John of Austria, Charles, Duke of Lorraine, or Prince Eugene of Savoy now that we desperately need them?
People move to the country to get away from the crime, corruption and congestion of the city...and bring it with them.
Note to millennials: "Today is the first day of the rest of your pathetic life." Might make a good tee shirt.
A friend told me her brother calls the College of Liberal Arts at his university the College of Lost Ambitions.
You know you're old when your childhood toys are now expensive collectibles.
"Bureaucracy leads to government on the Department of Motor Vehicles model, with patronage jobs, wire pulling, and a hack of a political boss." --P. J. O'Rourke
It won't be long until newspapers start articles with, "Trigger Warning! This article contains facts that may not fit your world view." And some movies will be rated NSS. (Not Suitable for Snowflakes.)
I've become a bag man. Not for the mob. For the dog.
Caution is often more risky than boldness.
Some people treat the Bible as though it was gospel...
Loving people doesn't mean being blind to their faults.
I don't worry about GMOs because, as we all know, the communist plot to put fluoride n our drinking water is going to kill us years ago.
"When the person, be he scholar or average person, speaks with unswerving faith in his generalization, he has abandoned the attitude of caution that characterize the scientist at work...the words "ever" and "always" do not appear in the vocabulary of the scientist." --John C. Condon, Jr. Semantics and Communication, 1985.
Also by Condon: "Adhering to official policies, fitting each unique case into a fixed set of categories, the bureaucrat is spared the necessity of coming up with fresh ideas."
There is no longer a center in American politics. Consistency does not exist--if it ever did. Trump "conservatives" are not conservative, and the anti-Trump "liberals" are not liberal. "Tolerance" exists only as an advertising slogan, a "glittering generality" like "new and improved." There is only "our side" which can do no wrong, and "their side" which can do no right. And one who tries to present a balanced view is denounced as a traitor.
"Men can only be highly civilized while other men, invariably less civilized, are there to guard and feed them." --George Orwell
Heard on TV: "Racism is the slander of last resort."
If you find that rarest of things, a tolerant liberal, cherish his or her friendship.
Keats oft-quoted empty aphorism, "Truth is Beauty, Beauty Truth" is demonstrably false. Many things that are reflect truth are also very ugly - combat, disease, abortion, famine, crime, violence - which is why many folks balk at facing them.
Why don't I see ads for Christian Science Veterinarians? You take your cat in and they pray it doesn't claw the furniture.
The first rule of security for government websites: You are required to create a password so complex no one could remember it, so you write it on a sticky note and paste it to your computer so anyone can read it. In case you are able to memorize your password, they make you change it every three months, to one you never used before.
Some people think that if they haven't committed a felony today, they deserve an award for community service.
There is a difference between wishing and praying. I may wish to win the lottery. But I only pray to express thanks, and to ask God to grant blessings, health and protection to me and to folks (a long list) who I care about.
Many people are more loyal to their pro sports team than to their country. They care more about the over-paid, hired thugs in sports than about the troops protecting them.
There is a "cost of business" to having a job, just as businesses pay taxes, etc. It costs money to earn money. But not having a job means poverty and living off other people. Sometimes circumstances create it, but to be avoided if you can.
The average difference in lifetime earnings between a college graduate and a high school graduate is about a million dollars. For high school drop outs, it's worse. And not getting better. But that's average. It depends on what you major in. If you chose, sociology, psychology (unless you get a PhD), increasingly education (as the birth rate falls) or anything ending in studies, you won't do as well. I've never seen a job ad that said, "Degree in ______ studies required."
"What if governing is a skill that requires practice, and that one gets better at it with experience?" --Jin Geraghty
You can tell it's a bad novel when no noun is allowed to go out unless accompanied by a bodyguard of adjectives.
In eight years, Obama wiped out the Democrat party. The midterms will tell us if Trump is going to do the same thing to the GOP.
I don't believe in doing my share. I believe in doing more than my share. And I've had a long, happy and successful life. People who try to do as little as possible usually have sad lives. Which they blame on other people.
You know how the NFL sells it's name? Like "The Official Truck/Beer/Hot Dog of the NFL"? Soon I expect to see the Official Brain Trauma Center of the NFL, followed by the Official Drug and Alcohol Treatment Center of the NFL and the Official Domestic Violence Prevention Group of the NFL.
Note to teenagers. You know how much you changed between the age of ten and the age of 18? You will change at least as much between the age of 18 and the age of 26, so that you will be a completely different person. Which is why studies show that teenage marriages are two to three times more likely to end in divorce than are marriages between people 25 years of age and older. When I was 18, I was an uncertain Marine recruit who, according to my DI, couldn't even make a bed right. At 26 I was a Massachusetts State Senator. But the Senator was an entirely different, more competent and more confident person than that hapless recruit.
Both Trump and Obama--and many other politicians--mainline approbation.
Get the collection! My “Random Thoughts” from 2008 through July, 2013 are collected in this book: The Old Jarhead's Journal: Random Thoughts on Life, Liberty, and Leadership by Robert A. Hall
The Old Jarhead’s Journal is a collection of Random Thoughts on politics and life and Conservative Political Essays, mostly published on the author’s blog, including the essay “I’m Tired” which went viral on the Internet in 2009, “The Hall Platform,” “This I Believe,” and “Why I’m a Republican.” While they will be of interest to conservative thinkers, they are collected here in book form as a service to readers who wish to give a copy to favorite liberals and watch their heads explode. All royalti
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