The SPLC’s “Hate Crime” Hoaxes . . . .

[redcliffsw]

Well said. 

[Wake-up!]

How am I seeing it? Uh-oh, I'm going to get windy.

What's going to happen? Using 2013 numbers (latest I quickly found), there were 105,862,000 full time workers, including 16,685,000 government workers. There were also 109,631,000 welfare recipients. I consider all the government workers to be welfare recipients because 1) they live off coerced tax money and 2) we do not have a yardstick to know if their services would be in demand in a free market society. So I look at the numbers this way:

-  We have 88,997,000 full time workers (minus gov't workers). These are the MAKERS,nthey keep society afloat.
    These people support the TAKERS.
-  We have 126,316,000 (gov't workers added) welfare recipients. These are the TAKERS. They are the burden
    society bears.

That's 1.42 TAKERS for every MAKER, a pretty poor example of a functional society. And I realize the numbers need to flex because there are many, many people on Medicaid (for example) who also work full time (I don't understand why, but that's a separate issue). The numbers also need to flex because millions of those workers are employed by corporations working under federal contracts, receiving coerced tax dollars. But the trend is obvious. America has millions more TAKERS than MAKERS. That needs to change, MAKERS need to increase and TAKERS need to decrease. To be fair, a healthy society can bear the burden of TAKERS to a degree. And that burden should be reserved for those in very dire need (and, in my opinion, should be supported by non-coerced dollars).

Trump has the animosity of the TAKERS. They voted against him, and for Hillary. They will fight him throughout his Presidency, as we see them already doing. The mainstream media is on the side of the TAKERS. The MSM believes they are policy makers as best I can tell. Fools be they. Bigger fools be the Americans who listen to them.

Trump can be successful with policies that increase the MAKERS, his jobs programs, his revamping of the tax code to favor business, savings, and investment, and possibly his reduction of regulation, environmental and otherwise, that make it difficult to start and expand businesses. But, there are enough TAKER supporters in both parties to deny any reductions in the number of TAKERS. So I don't expect much change in the amount of entitlements paid out. Maybe he can reduce the trend slightly and, of course, egotistically claim it a great victory. He will do so with any victory he gets, major or minor.

And I haven't even touched on the money spent on 'defense'. It's much better described as money spent on war, isn't it? With psychopaths like John McCain in government, Trump has little chance of altering America's policing the world. He will need something of shock value there to absolutely ruin the neo-cons day. And I believe he is intelligent enough to know that. What would the McCains of congress and the pentagon do if Trump sat with Putin, Israel, Palestine, Egypt, and Iran, and hand shook on a complete peace package? I won't say it's possible, or impossible, but the man may have something like that up his sleeve, already in the works. And it might all be coupled to an international job and trade deal using the business and bank cronies he's nominated to his cabinet to pull it off. Headlines: "International Consortium of Companies from Nine Nations Broker Peace Deal". Could it happen? Certainly not with the status quo; the status quo makes too much money from war. I don't think Trump's a loose canon like Diane does, but he does think outside the box. And I hope he stuns DC with his thinking.

I'm after much, much smaller government than he will realize. But I always love a broomstick in the hornets nest! Isn't it amazing and sobering to live in America the Great, a country that has become so needy thanks to central government policies that five million new jobs is a drop in the bucket relative to what is needed? That ten million is?

[Diane Amberg]

As I said before, I don't trust someone whose goal it is to constantly change direction and verbally skewer people and keep everyone off balance. I would agree with some of his ideas, but will he flip around and change them with the turn of the wind? I can't imagine how even his cabinet will work with him based on how we see him acting now. He is trying to shut down free speech and won't tolerate anyone who has a differing point of view, even on small things. I also am very skeptical of his recent announcements about his businesses. Very slippery.I don't mind Trump thinking outside the box...that can be a very good thing, but can there at least BE a box?

[Wake-up!]

I'm comfortable for now with the businessmen joining his cabinet. What has me worried are folks like Tillerson and Mattis. Even Pompeo is echoing Cheney and Rumsfeld. The folks at Antiwar.com were pretty positive about Trump during the campaign. They, and I, saw reason to expect a bit of international detente, except for chasing down 'terrorists'. But with these appointments, it seems like a continuation of war throughout the world. Maybe Trump will be a master of political theatre. I don't believe his actions are 'willy-nilly' (where did that expression come from?), I'm pretty sure he has a direction to everything he says. Obama had been sending troops to the Russian border lately, I think in Poland. It will be interesting to see what Trump does with those troops once he's sworn in.

I think the First Amendment is pretty well secured. So I'm not worried about censorship. Do you have specifics that bother you? You've mentioned it several times. If he tosses some arrogant, loud-mouth reporters from his press conference, all the more power to him. I'd call it a lesson in manners, not censorship.

[Diane Amberg]

His tendency to sue anybody for anything better not carry to the white House.He has many people convinced he understands the average middle class American, but I think he sees them as fodder, not Patriots.
Remember he's the one who would cook up reasons not to honor contracts and pay his workers. He came from huge money and has been very successful, in some very sleazy ways. I'm afraid he sees all this as a big joke and just a game he plans to win.  Can you imagine him actually charging for his"friends" to go to a party ?We'll see what he DOES when the time comes. he knows all sorts of ways to back charge the Gov't.  for all kinds of things. I don't believe for a minute he'll actually divest himself of his wealth unless he has already figured out ways to hide it all. People of that kind of wealth don't even think like flesh and blood humans do...that don't have to.
We have/had the Duponts here. Tons of money, but deeply caring too.They had money to do whatever they wanted, but were very altruistic too.
Trump has never been not known for his good works. Now he is known for juvenile, nasty, revenge tweets. Is that what we want representing us in the world?
As I said, I'll be willing to wait and see and hope we don't have The Monkey's Paw story about to unfold. Remember that one?

[Wake-up!]

D- You have me there. I've never heard of The Monkey'a Paw, literature being way down my list, education-wise. I did download it and read it. And I'm still in the dark, I'm not sure what the author's point of the story was, so I haven't a clue how your referencing it to Trump's presidency. But I'm all ears.

[Diane Amberg]

It's a creepy old story about  a magical dried monkey's paw that gives wishes to whomever owns it. But there is a catch. For every wish answered, something bad happens to equal the score so nobody ever comes out ahead. There was also something about it being hard to get rid of, but I forgotten that detail.
I'm hoping once Trump becomes President he will do some things will actually benefit people, even if he stays in the background and has his advisors run things.
I'm still a skeptic and it has nothing to do with politics. It's his constant engaging in tweet battles that really bothers me. That is SO rich man's immaturity! He doesn't seem to have any sort of moral compass either. I'm afraid an awful lot of people have fallen for his well refined boardwalk huckter speech. We'll see, and I do hope I'm wrong.

[Wake-up!]

I can only add that I haven't seen a leader of this country with a moral compass since Jimmy Carter. And it didn't make him an effective leader. A nice guy, yea. And probably a great next door neighbor, unlike Trump, Clinton, and the Bushes.