Weather or Not

Severe Outflow by R. Edwards

Better Choices than Woke Cult vs. Trump Cult?

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I have many friends, associates and colleagues whose relationships I value, and who also voted for Trump. I do not think less of any of them for it; in fact I respect and even agree with a lot of their reasoning. It’s also well-known that I did not and will not vote for him, ever, in any primary nor general election.

Mainly it’s his wanton selfishness, disturbing level of impulsiveness, intellectual vacuity, utter absence of statesmanlike dignity, demonstrated dishonesty, and shameless personal immorality—all of which together made and make him utterly unvotable to me. Even if (being very generous here) 90% of the crimes of which he is accused are completely bogus, the balance, combined with his historic moral and ethical problems, still leaves him wholly unsuitable in personal character to return to this nation’s highest office. I have a moral litmus test and he fails it, period. “Bigly!” [BTW, the same goes for the overwhelming majority of Democrats, including all D candidates on any of my ballots since 1990. I have voted for other Rs, as well as Ls and Is. Modern Ds have swung so radically far left that the very idea of their influence in powerful positions is thoroughly repugnant…and dangerous.]

I mean this in a concerned and caring way, not a derisive one, regarding my Trump-supporting friends, whom I value as God’s children and whose overall worldviews I otherwise relate to, strongly. What if you’re being played…by Trump and by the system, as a means to the end on a larger-scale game of divide and conquer? Please read this Twitter link carefully, stop for a few moments, and give it thought. If you do, you may see how he has betrayed all of us who care about liberty, fiscal responsibility, and personal moral bearing, in several ways (whether or not we voted for him).

What if Trump himself is controlled opposition? Dare I even ask? Is that too radical a concept to even consider? I am not positing any particular “conspiracy theory”, whatsoever, period. Instead I am asking questions, and posting questions and suggestions from others that are worth giving some thought.

Just as with the “woke justice” social-conformity cult on the opposite part of the spectrum, whose derangements I see infecting a lot of otherwise brilliant minds, what easily could be considered the personality cult of Trumpism has used legitimate (and legitimate-sounding) grievances to ensnare many, and appears to have blinded them to the internal inconsistencies, double standards, un-Christ-like behaviors, and direct deviances from the values we liberty-cherishing Christian conservatives share.

And if you still vote for him in the primary anyway, I will not insult you nor think less of you as a person. I might scratch or shake my head, however.
Here is the link again. Read thoughtfully.

R.I.P. Walter Williams

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The prominent economist, educator and socioeconomic commentator Walter E. Williams died a couple nights ago, apparently in his sleep, of causes yet known at this writing. His best friend and fellow longtime economist and columnist, Dr. Thomas Sowell, penned this brief tribute within a day.

I related well to him, though we were vastly different in looks and age. 🙂 Williams was raised in a rough area of Philadelphia, by a single mom, and understood poverty better than almost everybody else who ever talks about it on social media, simply because he had lived it. He saw, by plenty of good and bad examples and bad, first-hand (which is the best way), how to either succeed or fail in life. A late bloomer — college dropout and cab driver as a young adult — he ultimately chose the former.

The world should be grateful he did. Alas, too few will appreciate his brilliance, because he not only didn’t conform to the prevailing welfare-state advocacy orthodoxy, nor the ridiculous “woke” social-justice herd mentality, he actively and resoundingly refuted it. This was not despite, but because, he knew better from both his own academic study and, most importantly, seeing the effects of economic hardship directly.

When I found his columns and Sowell’s as a kid and young teen, it was as if I was reading future versions of myself (adapted to becoming an atmospheric scientist instead of economist, of course). They not only served a poor city kid like me by sharing their understanding on a weekly basis, but by life example.

Sure, I strayed for a few college-age years from capitalistic enthusiasm and economic conservatism, but then a combination of simple mental maturation and first-hand witnessing the deep inefficiencies of government bureaucracy set me straight. And there they still were: Williams, Sowell, and a few others, like old friends and mentors I’d never met, still conversing, teaching me again about economics, societal issues and writing, this time with even greater appreciation on my part.

Though they traveled different paths from childhood poverty to achieve their well-deserved intellectual accolades, it’s no wonder he and Sowell became best of friends. I didn’t realize until Sowell’s post-mortem tribute that Williams was slated to be Sowell’s literary executor (younger, but still in his 80s). Can you imagine some of the discussions they had over the decades? I’d love to be a fly on the wall for just any random few of them. Between casual pleasantries, imagine the deep socioeconomic insights from such powerful thinkers.

Here’s a snippet from one of Williams’s video appearances, on the counterintuitive impacts of minimum-wage laws:

Rest in peace Dr. Williams. Maybe someday, more will grasp the simple, truthful, real-life-tested, yet oft-slandered socioeconomic concepts that you have been teaching for decades.

I Told You So, Now Trump Must Go

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Fellow conservatives: except for a very few instances, I’ve been rather quiet on the new administration because I wanted to give it a chance to do right, and to carry the mantle of strong, traditional, foundational, home-and-hearth, middle American conservatism, rooted in both strength and humility, and most importantly, in the Word of God. I wanted Trump to succeed despite all the warning signs I saw and articulated to the contrary. Only four months in, and I’ve run out of all patience already. Enough!

The only substantial things he has done right were to choose Neil Gorsuch for the Supreme Court and James Mattis for Defense Secretary. All due credit there–somebody advised him well. However, all else has been a self-destructive circus sideshow and continual food source for the growing gaggle of stinking, howling, snarling, flea-bitten left-wing hyenas pouncing from every direction.

As you know, the greatest part of the reason I voted third party, and not for Trump, is because I did not trust him. His chronically and contemptibly immoral personal character (adultery, abusive personality, countless lies, etc.), wanton dishonesty, and faux-populist pandering to the least common denominator, were transparent as can be to me. As an old city-street rat, I’ve been around the block and can spot a con man miles away…and that’s exactly what he is. But some of you did not believe me.

I was on to his con game from the start (post from January 21…of last year!). And the true colors are showing. Instead of getting a swamp cleaner, he has become part of the swamp. He is a poser and a sellout, even more so than Obama was for some of the left-wing causes the latter championed before the 2008 election, then hypocritically abandoned.

Worse, Trump is going to hand our government over to the radical-leftist, tax-loving, debt-growing, social-engineering, Constitution-hating, moral-anarchist freakazoids, on a shiny silver platter, for decades to come, if he isn’t removed from office, and soon. This essay, “Donald Trump, Establishment Sellout“, articulates that fairly well. Excerpt:

    As a populist he’s a paper tiger, too lazy to figure out what policies he should champion and too incompetent and self-absorbed to fight for them.
    …he’s at war with the institutions that surround him because he behaves consistently erratically and inappropriately and dangerously, and perhaps criminally as well. Or perhaps not: All of this may still not rise to the level of impeachable offenses. But the conservatives rising to his defense need to recognize that there is no elite “counterrevolution” here for them to resist, because there is no Trump revolution in the first place.

As I predicted! And here we are, witnessing the most embarrassing, undignified, destructive, outrageous circus of incompetence the Presidency has seen, which is no small feat.

The sooner we conservatives realize that we’d be far better off with Pence in and Trump out, the better…if nothing else, to stop the hemorrhagic blood loss and temper damage to our cause for the future. I am not jumping off the Trump train at all–because I never was on it, and you know this. I’m simply stating: “I told you so.” That’s right, I told you, even before he took office and right after the election, that Trump was betraying you already. Excerpt:

    Instead we’ll get Trump’s own brand of banana-republic tomfoolery, which has begun in his highly disappointing selection of fringe nutjobs, Washington political insiders, and Wall Street oligarchs — the very people he seemed to oppose throughout the process. Trump is betraying you already, fellow conservatives who voted for him, and don’t say I did not warn you of this.

…and that has continued.

Now let’s encourage Congress to rid the Oval Office of this scourge once and for all, by either invoking the 25th Amendment (though there are good arguments against that) or impeaching him. Drain the biggest monster in the swamp, fast, before it consumes our once-great Republic!