Oh my, the internet is on FIRE today.  Nasty political name calling is rampant.   It seems like we're on the verge of a coast-to-coast cage match.

From a slightly different perspective, let me ask you this:  Eventually Special Counsel Robert Mueller will come back with the findings of his year-long investigation.  If you're a PRO-Trumper, and the news comes back saying there WAS collusion between the Trump camp and Russia, will you accept the findings, after a trial by jury?  And if you're an ANTI-Trumper, and the news comes back saying there was NO collusion between the Trump camp and Russia, will you accept the findings?

Regardless of your preference, if you say you will NOT accept the findings of a thorough investigation (pending a proper trial if applicable) if it goes against your preferred outcome, then I contend you're an ANARCHIST.  You're not a patriot, or a loyal American, but a traitor to the principles our country was founded on. You're an ANARCHIST.  

Of course you can have an opinion, and you can bemoan a decision that goes against how you personally believe.  But if enough of you no longer care about democracy and the rule of law, then America is finished.   FINIS!  Turn out the lights....

So then what?  Is it every man for himself?  Do our AR-15's suddenly become useful for more than just "recreation"? And if the United States of America someday disintegrates, who's the big winner?  Who will be the world's BIG DOG still standing?  Think about that.

I say we'd best come back to reality, take a deep breath, and work together for the good of the country.  

Country over politics!

S

I'll get the coat hangers, you get the marshmallows

I think many of us are scared to look over our shoulder, afraid of what we might see.  And as more evidence of the denial we are in (IMO), here's what nobody dares say out loud:  Our country is crumbling before our very eyes.  And worse, violence may not be far behind.

Things are near a boiling point.  For years the approval rating of Congress has been less than 10%.  Republicans and Democrats will almost never sit down and find common ground.  Republicans say "no" to President Obama before even hearing what he has to say, and if a President Trump is in our future, I'm sure Democrats will treat him the same.

African Americans feel they are being profiled and abused by the police, and many are quick to take to the streets.  The Donald has said, and apparently many agree, that Mexicans are thieves and murderers and rapists and should be kept out by a tall wall.  The threat of Islamic terrorism has us willingly (?) giving up our civil liberties.  Remember the Occupy Wall Street movement? 

Police are ambushed and killed somewhere almost every day.  It is becoming increasingly difficult for them to protect us when they must first think of protecting themselves.  There is little respect left for "law and order".  "Patriots" are occupying Federal property at gunpoint in Oregon.  The Second Amendment is sacred; guns are bad, blah, blah, blah.  There is no tolerance, and the chasm is getting wider.

Americans don't normally think in terms of armed revolutions.  Those things only happen in Argentina, Eastern Europe, and some of those far-away countries that end in "stan".  We're above all that, right?

I say "don't be so sure."

"Oh Scott, you're paranoid.  You watch too much TV, and you know how the media sensationalizes."

Really?  I live in Ted Cruz country, where 1.2 million people voted for him just yesterday.  He's brilliant and totally without scruples, I don't care how much Scripture he quotes.  I'm around many of his believers every day, and I can tell you that far too many of them are pissed-off knuckle-dragging zealots.  They are emblematic of the underlying anger simmering everywhere.

While it might be good politics to preach love and tolerance, it's unlikely to dissuade the guy hurling a Molotov cocktail at you or taking pot-shots at your car.

Sure, most of us just put in our 40 hours at work, watch a little TV, and coach the kids little league team.  We're not the problem.  But there seems to be no shortage of anger across the country, and it doesn't take many malcontents to set a few fires, randomly kill a few innocents, and intimidate the majority to send our society into a tailspin.  (Then multiply by 10 when you figure in the copycats and the publicity sicko's.)  That's what mobs do, and it works!

I'm just advising you to stay alert and take nothing for granted.   And hope I'm wrong.

S

I'm not feelin' the love

Remember my recent post about the creeping anarchy I saw around the world?  I'm not so sure it's "creeping".  Seems to me it's about to break into a jog, if not a sprint.  Consider this:

Mid East meets West

Unless you live under a rock you'll know that the Mid East is currently in turmoil.  Really, really deep doo-doo, actually.  It's their normal state of affairs.  Literally millions of refugees have fled the wars in Syria and Iraq, and now are trying to escape the barbarism of ISIS, too.  Many hundreds of thousands have made their way to Europe, looking for a better, or at least safer, life.

According to EU rules, open borders theoretically allow those in any EU country to move freely around and into any other EU country.  This is now being challenged, and strained.  It's really a sad situation.  All these migrants want is to not be shot at, to work, to provide food for their families and a roof over their heads.  It's something we can all sympathize with. 

Here's the problem:  Germans, possibly because of their lingering national guilt due to their dark WWII-years, have been surprisingly accommodating to these refugees, while many other countries have not been.  Germany expects 900,000 to arrive just this year.  (To put this into context, it would be like 3,000,000 refugees arriving in the US in just one year.)  That's quite a social burden to take on.  Most of the rest of Europe can't or won't, and it's threatening the cohesion of Europe, such as it is. Yet the migrants keep coming.

Things are getting more tense and desperate by the day, which historically will lead to an eventual breaking point.  And every terrorist attack, such as the French train shooting a few weeks ago, strengthens the case of the anti-immigrant factions who see in every refugee a latent terrorist. 

So when is this breaking point going to be reached, and when it happens, what form will it take?   Beats me.  All I know is that the Europeans are being re-active, and not pro-active.  They fell behind the curve early and will probably never make up the lost ground....a situation that anarchists dream of.

Remember reading of those days when having big 'ol oceans around us kept us isolated from all those pesky foreign problems?  No more.  We're no longer immune from the wars in the Mid East, the stock market crash in China, or pollution originating anywhere in the world.  All those problems will find us, too, probably sooner rather than later. 

In retrospect, do you think maybe we should have left Iraq, and Libya, and Syria, and all the rest of that blighted region alone?  They were in a bad situation for sure, but are things any better today after all our meddling?  We were told the goal was to get the bad guys over there before they could get to us here, but I fear the opposite....we've only accelerated the process.  

Yes, I'm a political science nerd.  It's gonna be interesting (for me at least) to see how all this eventually shakes out.  Keep your powder dry.

S

He who bullies the most wins?

Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders being scolded by a Black Lives Matter supporter, even though Bernie is very sympathetic to their position.

The "Black Lives Matter" movement is beginning to bother me.  I completely understand where their indignation comes from.  I really do.  But the direction this movement is taking, along with many, many other signs I'm seeing every day here in the US and around the world leads me to believe anarchy is beginning to gain a solid foothold.  Example:

Several weeks ago an Arlington, TX (DFW suburb) trainee police officer shot and killed an unarmed black youth, Christian Taylor.  Here's what we actually know at this time:  The youth stepped over the barricade at a new car dealership and vandalized several cars.  He then got back into his car and drove through the locked barricade and rammed into the dealership showroom, then went inside on foot.  An "officer-in-training" arrived on scene and walked into the dealership.  We know all this because it was on the dealership video surveillance tapes and aired on TV.

But within just a few days a gentleman who identified himself as part of the Black Lives Matter movement was demanding that the officer be fired and charged with murder.  His quote was, "The officer entered the building with his gun drawn with the intent of killing Mr. Taylor."  And the crowd gathered around him nodded their enthusiastic approval.

With the intent?  How does he know what the intent of the officer was?  Until an investigation is complete, how do any of us know what the intent of the officer was?  Lots of evidence needs to be analyzed first.  The CSI-types will determine who's story is corroborated and who's is contradicted.  Shouldn't we find out the facts before we decide whether to prosecute or not?

And of course during all this the "hang 'em high" crowd was saying Mr. Taylor "got what he deserved."  Since when is vandalizing cars a capital offense?  All this hysteria from both sides before any facts have been determined is to me an early sign of anarchy.

More?

Just last night police in St. Louis shot and killed a black youth who they said pointed a gun at them.  The scene quickly grew into a riotous crowd, with police reinforcements being called in.  Whoa...whoa.  Was the youth armed or not?  Did he point a gun at police or not?  Shouldn't these questions be answered first before the riots begin?  Knee-jerk reactions seldom work out well.

Now protestors have taken over the microphones of several legitimate presidential candidates, both Democrat and Republican, driving them off their podium.  Shameful!  Seems to me BOTH sides should have the right to free speech.  But now apparently only the loudest has that right.  Creeping anarchy?

Ordinary people everywhere seem to be fed up with the status quo (including me).  Look at who the polls say are our leading presidential candidates so far:  Donald Trump, with the establishment Hillary Clinton stalled-to-fading (with a majority unfavorable rating) and the rebel / independent Bernie Sanders gaining ground.  How big a step is it from being "fed up" to jumping into anarchy feet first?  Look at the pro-anti gay rights, pro-anti abortion, pro-anti gun control, pro-anti Occupy Wall Street, etc crowds.  Sentiment is nasty and getting more tense by the day it seems.  I can only imagine how far things might deteriorate by election day, 2016.

And it isn't just here in the US.  Look at the extreme anti-establishment parties now on firm footing in Europe in places like Greece, Spain, Portugal, Denmark, and elsewhere.  Like our own Tea Party, these very vocal disenchanted political parties are intimidating the majority into doing things their way.  Study your history....the National Socialists (Nazi's) never achieved actual electoral majority in pre-war Germany.  They gained absolute power by bullying the silent, docile majority.  The comparison is eye-opening (although I'm not at all suggesting any of these will ever resort to the barbarism of the Nazi's in WWII).

And then there's the Mid East.  Oh, Dear God!  What a dysfunctional, anarchical mob they are!  Hello....Al Qaida?  ISIS?  Muslim Brotherhood?  I even saw in the news this morning that one group claiming responsibility for a deadly bombing in Cairo, Egypt was the Black Bloc, a militant, anti-Islamic group of soccer fans.  Soccer fans?  Really?  Who's next, the Crazed Stamp Collectors Society?

Many are now predicting that Iraq and Syria, and probably Libya, too, will never again function as legitimate homogenous countries.  You might as well throw in Somalia, Yemen, Lebanon, and a few others, also.

So, am I being paranoid?  Am I a "Doom and Gloom"-er?  Ummm....I don't think so.  I'm just a person, a realist, who pays attention.  And what I see is creeping anarchy.  

S