More about Trump Derangement Syndrome and its effects

Three blog articles caught my eye in recent days, and I'd like to share them with you.

The first should make your blood boil.  It appears that Comcast (or at least a local unit thereof - I don't know about the company as a whole) actually authorized its employees to participate in an anti-Trump demonstration . . . and then fired one of them who chose to counter-demonstrate.  I'm not going to steal the author's thunder;  I'll simply urge you to read his entire post for yourself.  Personally, I hope he sues the heck out of Comcast for its obvious and blatant discrimination.

(I can still hardly believe that a supposedly non-political company, trying to sell its products and services to all Americans, would willingly give its employees paid time off to demonstrate on a partisan political issue.  That's bound to bounce back on Comcast's head sooner or later . . . hopefully sooner.  I imagine that about half the country, on reading that article, will think very hard - and look for alternatives - before giving their hard-earned dollars and cents to Comcast.  I know I will.)

The second article is by my friend in meatspace and cyberspace, DaddyBear, writing about the apparent willingness on both sides of our political divide to propose violent revolution.  He's 'been there', as have I, and speaks from experience.  Here's an excerpt.

The one thing I think both sides are saying is that violent revolution, no matter who starts it, will be quick, clean, and productive.

They’re both wrong.  If we continue down this road, both rhetorically and politically, what we will create will make the Civil War of the 1860’s look like a rather unpleasant dust-up.

There is no “North/South” or “Free/Slave” geographic dichotomy.  Densely populated liberal counties are sprinkled across the continent.  Granted, they are more prevalent along the periphery of the country, but they aren’t remotely as contiguous as the Confederacy ever was.

In other words, enemy territory just might be a couple of blocks over for much of the country.  There will likely be no true safe areas, no matter how red or blue they are.

. . .

I doubt that we will get many Gettysburgs, but I guarantee that we will get a bushel full of Srebrenica’s and Beslans.  Our war against each other will more closely resemble The Troubles than The Wilderness.  If you think abuse of civil rights is bad now, just wait until middle America is worried that some jerk is going to throw a molotov cocktail in the foyer of their kids’ school. In the end, it will rend our nation apart.

There's more at the link.  I endorse his every word.  Go read the whole thing.

The third is by another friend, Cedar Sanderson.  In a guest post at Sarah Hoyt's place, she discusses the meaning of the term 'illegal' and how that applies to immigrants and immigration.  Her article is excellent in itself, but the over 400 comments that follow it are also well worth your time.  They lay out the ramifications of the issue very well.  Here's a brief excerpt from her article.

The word illegal is frequently used in discourse, and it means just what it means. It is not an optional modifier that you can discard when you’re tired of typing and don’t want to lift a finger to say what you actually mean. Illegal immigrants are breaking the law. Period, stop, end. Immigrants? Are working very hard to stay within the law, and should be justifiably pissed to be lumped in with the people who are smearing their good name by flouting immigration laws.

They are not the same. And no, you cannot say that they are. Legality makes a difference. If they choose to break one law, why wouldn’t they choose to break another? Ours is a nation that functions under rule of law, and if you want to come here and stay here, you need to learn what that means. It doesn’t mean that you can claim victimhood and wave that around as a get-out-of-jail-free card. It certainly doesn’t mean that you can come into our great nation, decide you don’t like our laws, so you’re only going to follow the ones you brought with you. Nope.

I’m all out of patience with memetic morons. If you can’t wrap your mind around more than the shortest possible message, you may want to rethink your life. Seriously.

Again, more at the link.  (As a legal immigrant myself, I endorse her sentiments wholeheartedly.)

As for the comments to Cedar's article, to give you an example, here's what 'Kirk' had to say:

Since we have so many Mexican citizens here in the US already, why not ask the question of the various Mexican states “Why don’t you guys just accept reality, recognize that your federal government in Mexico City is dominated by oligarchs not acting in your interest, and join the huge chunk of your citizenry as de facto Americans?”. Offer reasonable terms for the transition from Mexican statehood to American, and then watch heads explode in both Mexican and Canadian federal government.

I mean, hell… So many Mexicans apparently want to be American citizens, why don’t we just take America to them, instead? It would be cheaper, and a lot more cost-effective, in the end…

I’m thinking that the ensuing panic that would induce in the Mexican government would do more to get the illegal immigration problem under control than anything overt that we could do. And, the reaction would be priceless… “Well, gee… Since so many Mexicans are here in the US, why don’t we just make their home states in Mexico American…?”.

The Schadenfreude would be absolutely delicious. I bet they’d have the border patrolled by the Mexican Army with shoot-to-kill orders so quickly that your head would spin, and they’d start begging to run involuntary repatriation programs on our territory.

That would be schadenfreude indeed - an overdose thereof!  Again, go read the whole article, and the comments.  Some of them are thoughtful, some are over the top and go too far, but others are highly amusing.

Peter