Alarming News: I like Morgan Freeberg. A lot.
American Digest: And I like this from "The Blog That Nobody Reads", because it is -- mostly -- about me. What can I say? I'm on an ego trip today. It won't last.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: We were following a trackback and thinking "hmmm... this is a bloody excellent post!", and then we realized that it was just part III of, well, three...Damn. I wish I'd written those.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: ...I just remembered that I found a new blog a short while ago, House of Eratosthenes, that I really like. I like his common sense approach and his curiosity when it comes to why people believe what they believe rather than just what they believe.
Brutally Honest: Morgan Freeberg is brilliant.
Dr. Melissa Clouthier: Morgan Freeberg at House of Eratosthenes (pftthats a mouthful) honors big boned women in skimpy clothing. The picture there is priceless--keep scrolling down.
Exile in Portales: Via Gerard: Morgan Freeberg, a guy with a lot to say. And he speaks The Truth...and it's fascinating stuff. Worth a read, or three. Or six.
Just Muttering: Two nice pieces at House of Eratosthenes, one about a perhaps unintended effect of the Enron mess, and one on the Gore-y environ-movie.
Mein Blogovault: Make "the Blog that No One Reads" one of your daily reads.
The Virginian: I know this post will offend some people, but the author makes some good points.
Poetic Justice: Cletus! Ah gots a laiv one fer yew...
Let’s discuss this with honesty: #MAGA stands for Make America Great Again. This is offensive to many.
They are not offended because they think America was already great, although many of them have said so. They are not offended because America has never been great; many have said that. These would be two irreconcilable factions, fighting with each other, if they meant what they had been saying. They never did. We never saw them fight with each other and there’s a resaon for that. These were dishonest cosmetic statements lacking any matching underlying sentiment.
It’s offensive because greatness is decision-based. If you’re some slacker living in your mom’s basement with no job, and you wake up this morning and say “This stops now” and you mean it, you’re already great. The resulting education, job, saving, marriage, house etc. are merely following through on the awakening, like the position of a boat following a new bearing. If the boat is following a bearing of greatness, the boat is great already. That’s how people are. That’s how communities are. That’s how societies are.
Similarly, if you’re a nation and you’re the world’s superpower, but you let a bunch of commie filth design your school curricula and your government policies and your big budget entertainment and your evening news and your late night comedy; you have given away your greatness. If you build “sanctuary cities” in which you reward lawbreakers and you pass progressive income taxes and unlimited property taxes and lawn watering restrictions and silly little laws against plastic bags and straws, just to screw with the people who work hard and follow the law and let them know their place; you have given away your greatness. It doesn’t matter if the resulting decline in standard of living takes decades or a century.
#MAGA means: Let our nation conduct itself the way truly positive and spiritual people conduct themselves, not like these poor miserable hot messes you might meet late at night in a bar who you end up marrying right before they run up your cards and take off with all your stuff. It means to embrace standards rather than to abnegate them. It means recognize greatness in each other, where it exists, and to reward it rather than punish it. Stop finding excuses to fail at things before we’ve even tried.
It means, when some among us succeed at something, GO AHEAD AND CONGRATULATE them. Skip this little decision-point we’ve been reaching. You know the one…well now wait a minute, is there an opportunity for ME ME ME to do some virtue signaling here? Is he an amputee or special needs? Gay? Black? Female? If none of the above, then let’s peck at him like jealous chickens in a barnyard, make him step back and let a designated-oppressed person take his place because it’s all about ME ME ME. No. It’s not about you. Being great means recognizing greatness. It doesn’t mean to punish mediocrity and it doesn’t mean to pretend mediocrity is great. It means to inspire the mediocre.
Treat greatness…like greatness.
Don’t punish it or displace it to make room for another. Study it.
Treat friends as friends. Make it easy for people to be your friend.
Treat enemies as enemies. Don’t destroy them right away. First give them reasons to stop being an enemy, and consider becoming friends. If that doesn’t work, then by all means light ’em up.
But it should be easy and rewarding to be our friend, and difficult and expensive to be our enemy. Not the other way around!
In short, greatness means acting like we have some business being on the planet. Like we belong here.
Our country has spent the better part of a century going the other way. Too much apologizing…not for an ugly history or anything like that, but merely for existing. We’re discussing this honestly, remember. And honestly, if it wasn’t for the legacy of slavery, it would be something else. Negative, ungrateful people always look for a subject of complaint, and they ALWAYS find it.
And that is why #MAGA is controversial. Greatness means, ultimately, depriving hostile, negative, ankle-biting wounded incomplete people of their voice, until such time as they make up their minds to become positive people who treat friends as friends and enemies as enemies, and stop behaving like bar trash.
Because once you go down that road, the conversion is hard.
Not impossible. It’s doable. Others have done it.
That’s why it’s scary.
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