The good ol’ “America–love it or leave it” sentiment from the Vietnam era has come back from the grave, with all the vitriol and stupidity (plus some) that it had in its first incarnation.
To most of us, loving America remains re-establishing rule of law, and using it to remove Trump from office and replacing him with a sane and honest individual, who actually cares about the wellbeing of the common citizen.
Even when all this stupidity is over, our experience with ICE kidnapping and violations of due process will remain forever as one of the world history’s most monstrous acts.
To me, it’s easy to sympathize with the facilities people working at the White House, even the guy who bulldozed the East Wing.
You’re following orders that do not result in any person’s physical injury or death, and anything you do can be undone when Trump leaves office.
No. Not at all.
There is a great deal of speculation as to how and why this is possible. Some say that the level of embarrassment one must feel in admitting that one was duped makes this extremely unlikely to happen.
Here at 2GreenEnergy, we talk a great deal about “externalities,” a term economists use to mean costs or benefits (usually costs) that affect a third party not directly involved in an economic activity.
The first thing that comes to mind when we think of our dependence on oil is the fact that the fossil fuel industry is immensely profitable, but only because they are able to use the Earth’s atmosphere as their own private sewer. The costs of reversing climate change, as an example, are overwhelming, but they’re being completely ignored.
Suggested at left is the concept that another important externality of Big Oil is war. The U.S. defense budget is nearing $1 trillion annually, which enables us to destroy anyone or anything that may impede ExxonMobil and the rest from accessing oil anywhere in the world.
To answer the question at left, I wouldn’t say “all” respect.
Trump supporters have profound intellectual and moral defects, and so I’m saddened to learn that an acquaintance lives in that space.
But we all have defects, just as we all have virtues.
I’m also sensitive to the fact that, to a large degree, a great deal of the way we see the world around us is out of our control; it appears that our brains are somehow “wired” in certain ways that force us to interpret certain signals in pre-scripted ways. At this point, science believes that epigenetics plays a huge role here.
Just as we don’t hate people for being left-handed, or red-headed, or gay, it’s not right to hate Trump supporters for their inability to process the world the way most of us do.
The United States seems to be unique in the world for the way it rejects science and thus makes political issues out of factual matters.
The Earth actually is getting hotter, and the consequences will be horrific if we can’t bring a halt to this process.
Vaccinations actually are safe and effective.
Our educational system actually is failing, and ignorant people make very poor citizens.
The list goes on …
When I first came across the click-bait garbage at left, I was reminded of an earlier post I wrote on the subject of the history of this form of energy storage.
Various countries in Europe began using the potential energy of masses that have been lifted against the force of gravity to generate electricity since the 19th Century. Michael Faraday discovered the relationship between electricity and magnetism in the 1830s, and the commercialization of electricity started in the early 1880s.
Interestingly, this form of energy storage started long before electricity came on the scene. Perhaps a thousand years before, the folks of the day converted this stored potential energy into mechanical energy to grind corn, pump water, mill wheat, etc.
In a way, we could say that astrology was the precursor to all the anti-science conspiracy theories of today, including climate denial, anti-vax, and the flat Earth.
That wouldn’t be a problem if these people couldn’t vote, but sadly, this isn’t the case.
This ignorance is what gave us Donald Trump, with all the destruction of our health, educational system, environmental stability, and so forth, not to mention the lies, corruption, and other forms of criminality that have made the United States regarded with such disdain and ridicule by the other nations of the Earth.
At left are the observations of Barbara McQuade, an American lawyer who served as the United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan from 2010 to 2017. As part of President Donald Trump’s 2017 dismissal of U.S. attorneys, she stepped down in March 2017.
I would say that she’s nailed this. Trump and his thugs are tearing this country to shreds. It will take decades to repair the damage–if it can be done at all.
