Tribalism or Epiphany?

 

The setting is a little creek out west, where Wyatt Earp had just bested the bad guys in a gunfight that featured Wyatt taking cover from a hailstorm of enemy fire before deciding that he wasn’t going to die crouched behind some rock. The scene is from the movie Tombstone, wherein Earp opted instead to walk out in the open where he could see his targets, picking them off one by one in a display of what the brass in the Pentagon call “Extreme Valor,” (the rest of us grunts preferring a term of art that describes certain male body parts as being made of brass).

Referring to the shootings of Wyatt Earp’s brothers by the bad guys, Sherman McMasters says, “If they were my brothers, I’d want revenge too.” At which point Doc Holliday corrects him, saying, “Oh, make no mistake; it’s not revenge he’s looking for. It’s a reckoning.”

Which I suppose would compel Nebraska Senator Ben Sasse, among others, to simultaneously lament the rise of — and Wyatt Earp’s descent into — “tribalism;” a term which has come to embody the proposition that to get kicked around is noble, but to kick back against an aggressor is to succumb to more vulgar and primitive instincts.

In his recent Wall Street Journal piece, Senator Sasse performs a public service by isolating the proximate cause of a great deal of the loneliness we observe each day as those we love sit, surrounded by those who love them, unable or unwilling to lift their noses from their phones or divert their eyes from the television long enough to engage in a meaningful and prolonged exchange with people who have chosen to be present in flesh and blood to spend time with them. Senator Sasse writes:

The Harvard social scientist Robert Putnam chronicled the collapse of associational, neighborly America in his book “Bowling Alone” (2000). In the nearly two decades since, the smartphone has further undermined any sense of place by allowing us to mentally “escape” our homes and neighborhoods. We can instantly connect with the supposedly more exciting lives of others. These moments add up, until we’re in an almost permanent state of dissociation, punctuated only by the most urgent demands of life, to which we tend halfheartedly.

All of which rings quite true. The Senator’s diagnosis continues:

Humans are social, relational beings. We want and need to be in tribes. In our time, however, all of the traditional tribes that have sustained humans for millennia are simultaneously in collapse. Family, enduring friendship, meaningful shared work, local communities of worship—all have grown ever thinner. We are creating thicker, more vehement tribes around our political differences, I believe, because there is a growing vacuum at the heart of our shared (or increasingly, not so shared) everyday lives.

At this point, Senator Sasse’s analysis begins to show signs of arrested development. Are our political differences becoming more intractable and contentious because of a “growing vacuum” in the heart of our existence, or because politics insists on making deeper and deeper inroads into that existence? Perhaps it’s not an either/or proposition, but rather an unholy alliance of both. Still, it would have been helpful had Sasse at least acknowledged the role that government has played in the collapse of traditional community structures.

I offer as a shining example from Senator Sasse’s column his observation that, “More Republicans and Democrats are placing politics at the center of their lives,” and ask the good Senator pray tell, how can we do otherwise when politicians won’t leave us alone? From a Federal Register that numbers in the hundreds of thousands of pages from which blossom still more hundreds of thousands of regulations prescribing everything from how our toilets flush to what we may and may not do with puddles of water on our own property, I’d like nothing more than to relegate political matters to an inconsequential subcategory of life.

Alas, Senator Sasse’s contemporaries won’t oblige and a great many on his side of the aisle haven’t felt much like restraining them, so that we can’t even brush our teeth or change a lightbulb without running smack into circumstances about which we were warned by Alexis de Tocqueville when he described a government which:

…covers the surface of society with a network of small complicated rules, minute and uniform, through which the most original minds and the most energetic characters cannot penetrate, to rise above the crowd. The will of man is not shattered, but softened, bent, and guided; men are seldom forced by it to act, but they are constantly restrained from acting. Such a power does not destroy, but prevents existence; it does not tyrannize, but it compresses, enervates, extinguishes, and stupefies a people, till each nation is reduced to nothing better than a flock of timid and industrious animals, of which the government is the shepherd.

Speaking of Senator Sasse and others currently inveighing against the rise in tribalism, how vociferous were their anti-tribal concerns when the liberal tribal contingent was running roughshod over the right of citizens to go about their daily lives unharassed by the encroachments of the state? When people discovered that, no, they couldn’t keep their doctor or their health insurance under Obamacare, and they saw their premiums rise to the level of their mortgage, where were the op-eds decrying progressivism’s, “thicker, more vehement tribes?” When Barack Obama bypassed the people’s elected representatives and announced instead that he would rule by “pen and phone,” where were the lamentations over the ascendancy of “ferocious political tribalism?”

For that matter, does anyone recall reading or hearing of the dangers of this descent into tribalism when we were instructed, in no uncertain terms, that one particular group of lives mattered more than others and the police themselves became targets of assassination? When Eric Holder’s Justice Department undertook to investigate precisely those police departments battling hardest against the mayhem of the lawless, whose ambassadors blocked traffic, illegally detained motorists, plundered and vandalized businesses, and attacked the innocent, who was it exactly that admonished the left’s tribal tendencies?

Can someone explain why it is that at precisely the moment when those of us who have played by the rules and are vilified by the media and the left, announce that we’ve had enough of this nonsense and are doing something about it, that we find ourselves under an avalanche of anti-tribal recriminations and admonishments from our own side? Is the antithesis of “tribalism” defined as serial capitulations to the left’s agenda of dividing people into racial, economic, and gender categories in order to favor some over others via wealth redistribution and racial/gender spoils systems?

Thankfully, a few observant souls, such as Senator Lindsey Graham, have finally achieved mental clarity with respect to the progressive’s lust for power at all costs. The attempted wholesale destruction of Brett Kavanaugh, consisting as it did of lurid fact-free allegations of the worst kind, ultimately revealed itself to be nothing less than a desperate attempt to keep off of the Supreme Court anyone who might demonstrate fidelity to the Constitution as written. Unable to do so on the basis of legal philosophy, Democrat senators resorted to the sort of character assassination that would have made Teddy Kennedy proud.

When Kavanaugh’s senatorial executioners stated that his audacity in actually fighting back against their absurd allegations that he was a gang-rapist demonstrated poor judicial temperament, the scales at long last fell from Lindsey Graham’s eyes, and he would have no more. “If you wanted an FBI investigation, you could have come to us,” thundered the Senator whom I referred to years ago as John McCain’s sorority sister. “What you want to do,” he continued, “is destroy this guy’s life, hold this seat open and hope you win in 2020. You’ve said that, not me. …Boy, you all want power. God, I hope you never get it.”

“Both sides seem to believe that a grand solution to our political dysfunction can be found inside politics,” writes Senator Sasse, adding that, “If only we could vanquish those evil people waving a different banner, this thinking goes, we’d be on the road to national recovery.” The simplistic formulation of, “both sides,” calls to mind Bill Buckley’s rejoinder that an assumption of moral parity suggests that there is no substantive difference between the guy who pushes a little old lady out of the path of an oncoming bus and a guy who pushes a little old lady into the path of an oncoming bus — on the grounds that they are both guys who go around pushing little old ladies.

As I observed a while back, the suggestion that conservatives are merely fighting for their particular “banner,” as if in dumb allegiance to a specific-colored sports jersey, is a poorly conceived caricature of what is at stake and why it matters. One “side,” is waging an all-out assault on individual sovereignty, on the proposition that government exists to protect the rights and lives of its citizens rather than to lead them about as if they were born with rings through their noses, and on the proposition that proper government is limited to those functions actually enumerated in the Constitution. Our side seeks liberty. The other side seeks servitude to the state and its masterminds.

It’s not revenge. It’s not even a reckoning. It’s what generations of American patriots have fought for. If Senator Sasse and others can’t understand that, then they have precious little right to lecture the rest of us on questions of morality, tribal or not.

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  1. I Walton Member
    I Walton
    @IWalton

    Thanks.  The tribal narrative is just wrong, even when it comes from people I respect and who usually get such matters right.  Your excellent article is the best thing I’ve seen on this false and exaggerated narrative that the problem is that we’re sort of spontaneously dividing into tribes.  

     

    • #1
  2. Phil Turmel Inactive
    Phil Turmel
    @PhilTurmel

    What democrats cannot defeat with reasoned argument and facts, they destroy with insults and lies.  Would that more people understood.  Woke up, so to speak.

    • #2
  3. Marythefifth Inactive
    Marythefifth
    @Marythefifth

    Another winner, Dave. I wish I had even one tenth of your gift with language.

    • #3
  4. Dave Carter Podcaster
    Dave Carter
    @DaveCarter

    Marythefifth (View Comment):

    Another winner, Dave. I wish I had even one tenth of your gift with language.

    Thank you so very much!!  Caffeine helps.  A lot.  I mean….really.  

    • #4
  5. George Townsend Inactive
    George Townsend
    @GeorgeTownsend

    It’s a good column, Dave. And I did like it. But why are you picking on Sasse? Both sides are responsible. Conservatives less than the Left, I would agree. But why is Donald Trump always held to a different standard by some on our side? Why is talk radio overwhelmly inhabited by the Prager types, who will excuse anything Trump does, because we are in a “war”?

    I would argue that there were more conservatives speaking as Ben Shapiro does, or Jonah Goldberg – or myself for that matter – that things would be a lot better. We do hold both sides accountable.

    I would also say that Sasse is trying to say that it starts with the folk down in Bill’s Drugstore (or Ben’s, Jerry’s, or Mayra’s). Too many of use don’t argue enough that the gargarguan state should be pruned. And how is Trump helping? Along with Huckabee, he campaigned that we needn’t touch the entitlements. Yes, many politicians are cowardly. But they are so afraid that they will lose their jobs if they do prune back the state that they wait until the day comes when the people have had enough. I think Sasse is trying to say that the average person should say that now. Don’t shoot the Messenger, Dave.

    • #5
  6. Bob Thompson Member
    Bob Thompson
    @BobThompson

    Dave Carter: One “side,” is waging an all-out assault on individual sovereignty, on the proposition that government exists to protect the rights and lives of its citizens rather than to lead them about as if they were born with rings through their noses, and on the proposition that proper government is limited to those functions actually enumerated in the Constitution. Our side seeks liberty. 

    I was reading through and working on formulating some thoughts for comment, rereading the above passage and having trouble with it. Is it me?

    • #6
  7. iWe Coolidge
    iWe
    @iWe

    What a wonderful post!

    I wish I believed it – I wish that people on the right truly were ideologically driven by the desire for freedom, instead of mired in “us” versus “them.”

    I seek liberty. And so does Dave Carter. But most Americans, or even most Republican voters? If wishing made it so…

    • #7
  8. Instugator Thatcher
    Instugator
    @Instugator

    Bob Thompson (View Comment):

    Dave Carter: One “side,” is waging an all-out assault on individual sovereignty (on the proposition that government exists to protect the rights and lives of its citizens rather than to lead them about as if they were born with rings through their noses) and on the proposition that proper government is limited to those functions actually enumerated in the Constitution. Our side seeks liberty.

    I was reading through and working on formulating some thoughts for comment, rereading the above passage and having trouble with it. Is it me?

    I put in parentheticals to show the explanatory thought of the first clause.

    In short – Dave is saying that one side (them) is assaulting the truth that government exists to protect rights and that our government should restrict itself to the enumerated powers.

    Our side is the one that seeks to preserve those two functions.

     

    • #8
  9. Bob Thompson Member
    Bob Thompson
    @BobThompson

    George Townsend (View Comment):

    It’s a good column, Dave. And I did like it. But why are you picking on Sasse? Both sides are responsible. Conservatives less than the Left, I would agree. But why is Donald Trump always held to a different standard by some on our side? Why is talk radio overwhelmly inhabited by the Prager types, who will excuse anything Trump does, because we are in a “war”?

    I would argue that there were more conservatives speaking as Ben Shapiro does, or Jonah Goldberg – or myself for that matter – that things would be a lot better. We do hold both sides accountable.

    I would also say that Sasse is trying to say that it starts with the folk down in Bill’s Drugstore (or Ben’s, Jerry’s, or Mayra’s). Too many of use don’t argue enough that the gargarguan state should be pruned. And how is Trump helping? Along with Huckabee, he campaigned that we needn’t touch the entitlements. Yes, many politicians are cowardly. But they are so afraid that they will lose their jobs if they do prune back the state that they wait until the day comes when the people have had enough. I think Sasse is trying to say that the average person should say that now. Don’t shoot the Messenger, Dave.

    There is a divide on our side between those who think like you and Sasse, on the one hand, and those who think like Dave and me, on the other (I think). In an effort to preserve recognition of individual sovereignty as a foundational principle undergirding any legitimate governance of people formed into groups, Trump exists to prevent crossing a threshold which will necessitate revolution and restart. There was much discussion of the concept of a possible total loss of our Federated Republic in the debate about what electing Clinton would mean. We are fortunate to have the chance to test the recovery, rather than revolution, alternative. 

    • #9
  10. Bob Thompson Member
    Bob Thompson
    @BobThompson

    Instugator (View Comment):

    Bob Thompson (View Comment):

    Dave Carter: One “side,” is waging an all-out assault on individual sovereignty (on the proposition that government exists to protect the rights and lives of its citizens rather than to lead them about as if they were born with rings through their noses) and on the proposition that proper government is limited to those functions actually enumerated in the Constitution. Our side seeks liberty.

    I was reading through and working on formulating some thoughts for comment, rereading the above passage and having trouble with it. Is it me?

    I put in parentheticals to show the explanatory thought of the first clause.

    In short – Dave is saying that one side (them) is assaulting the truth that government exists to protect rights and that our government should restrict itself to the enumerated powers.

    Our side is the one that seeks to preserve those two functions.

     

    I think I was trying to get a comparative of two sides into the statement while it is a simple statement of an assault against our side.

    • #10
  11. Dave Carter Podcaster
    Dave Carter
    @DaveCarter

    Bob Thompson (View Comment):

    Instugator (View Comment):

    Bob Thompson (View Comment):

    Dave Carter: One “side,” is waging an all-out assault on individual sovereignty (on the proposition that government exists to protect the rights and lives of its citizens rather than to lead them about as if they were born with rings through their noses) and on the proposition that proper government is limited to those functions actually enumerated in the Constitution. Our side seeks liberty.

    I was reading through and working on formulating some thoughts for comment, rereading the above passage and having trouble with it. Is it me?

    I put in parentheticals to show the explanatory thought of the first clause.

    In short – Dave is saying that one side (them) is assaulting the truth that government exists to protect rights and that our government should restrict itself to the enumerated powers.

    Our side is the one that seeks to preserve those two functions.

     

    I think I was trying to get a comparative of two sides into the statement while it is a simple statement of an assault against our side.

    The party of the first part and first clause is waging an unhinged, unwarranted and decidedly unpleasant campaign against the party of the second part whose second clause is on the side of the angels.  Therefore, forthwith, and forsooth, I conclude my effort to make the phraseology in question even more confusing than before.  How’d I do?  

    Actually, the fact that it took such effort to unravel sentences in question means that I should have gone back to the drawing board on that one. But the voices in my head wouldn’t stop, so I rolled with it. Thanks for hanging in there long enough to decode the thing. 

    • #11
  12. George Townsend Inactive
    George Townsend
    @GeorgeTownsend

    Bob Thompson (View Comment):
    Trump exists to prevent crossing a threshold which will necessitate revolution and restart

    I certainly question that. He is a part of the problem. The only good thing about Donald Trump is that he has listened to those people inside his camp who insist that Reagan Conservatism is the way. In terms of policy, he has listened; in terms of character, not so much.

    I am proud to belong to that camp, along with Ben Sasse, in government; and, as I mentioned, Shapiro and Goldberg outside it.

    • #12
  13. Old Bathos Member
    Old Bathos
    @OldBathos

    I think that the left uses politics as a substitute for religion, personal identity and virtually all other traditional human bonds. 

    With the exception of a handful of alt-right loons, people on the right see politics as a means to protect that which politics is not supposed to touch.  Despite the significant qualitative difference, it does not prevent all of us from being drawn or driven into tribal camps.

    Sasse has no love of the left’s agenda but he has often expressed frustration that merely opposing that with ritualistic but action-free praise for conservative values is not only not progress but distracts from the real task at hand to define and address issues that are forward-looking and which matter.  There is little or no recognition in our current political debate that the continued dissolution of family and community and the end of single-career worklives in a future of accelerating economic and technological change and disruption is in fact a real problem. 

    A future in which almost everybody is hustling part-time, self-employed in ever-changing roles means (a) we need the support and solace of family, community, church and social ties even more at the same time these supports are crumbling.  I don’t know that Sasse has any solutions but he does have a pretty good grasp of the problem.

     

    • #13
  14. Bob Thompson Member
    Bob Thompson
    @BobThompson

    George Townsend (View Comment):
    And how is Trump helping? Along with Huckabee, he campaigned that we needn’t touch the entitlements. Yes, many politicians are cowardly. But they are so afraid that they will lose their jobs if they do prune back the state that they wait until the day comes when the people have had enough.

    Here is why I take Trump to be correct with regard to not touching entitlements. (Entitlements can wait, that’s all). Have you noticed the difficulty faced in getting Congress to do anything regarding immigration legislation. If Trump does anything through use of Executive Authority the Left goes after it in the Courts. (Entitlements can wait). Trump, with McConnell helping, is returning the Courts to the Constitution. And Trump continues to pursue his primary campaign promise to restore control on immigration. (Entitlements can wait). Fix immigration first.

    • #14
  15. Instugator Thatcher
    Instugator
    @Instugator

    George Townsend (View Comment):
    And how is Trump helping? Along with Huckabee, he campaigned that we needn’t touch the entitlements. Yes, many politicians are cowardly. But they are so afraid that they will lose their jobs if they do prune back the state that they wait until the day comes when the people have had enough.

    It is not that they will lose their jobs. It is that it isn’t important enough to them to lose their jobs over the issue. Plus, if they blink first, it has the effect of handing power to the very people who will abuse it once the fiscal cliff happens.

    Soon, single digit years from now, we will be spending more on interest on the debt than we will be on defense. At some point, low double digit years from now, the interest on the debt will crowd out all discretionary spending (that includes paying for Congress). At some point prior to that they will begin making tough choices on non-discretionary spending.

    Or they won’t.

    I go with Glenn Reynolds – “promises that can’t be kept won’t be. Plan accordingly.”

    • #15
  16. Bob Thompson Member
    Bob Thompson
    @BobThompson

    Old Bathos (View Comment):
    There is little or no recognition in our current political debate that the continued dissolution of family and community and the end of single-career worklives in a future of accelerating economic and technological change and disruption is in fact a real problem. 

    This may be a very important point. This may actually be why we need to control immigration so we can actually have a country of sovereign individuals who can, as a people, self-govern. It looks as if such will not exist anywhere else in this world.

    • #16
  17. George Townsend Inactive
    George Townsend
    @GeorgeTownsend

    Bob Thompson (View Comment):

    George Townsend (View Comment):
    And how is Trump helping? Along with Huckabee, he campaigned that we needn’t touch the entitlements. Yes, many politicians are cowardly. But they are so afraid that they will lose their jobs if they do prune back the state that they wait until the day comes when the people have had enough.

    Here is why I take Trump to be correct with regard to not touching entitlements. (Entitlements can wait, that’s all). Have you noticed the difficulty faced in getting Congress to do anything regarding immigration legislation. If Trump does anything through use of Executive Authority the Left goes after it in the Courts. (Entitlements can wait). Trump, with McConnell helping, is returning the Courts to the Constitution. And Trump continues to pursue his primary campaign promise to restore control on immigration. (Entitlements can wait). Fix immigration first.

    Repeating the phrase entitlements can wait over and over does not prove it. As The Gipper would have said, “If not now, when?” Entitlements are a real problem that have to be faced. As far as immigration goes, Trump is ruining any fix by his constant need to trash everyone who does idealize him.

    • #17
  18. George Townsend Inactive
    George Townsend
    @GeorgeTownsend

    Instugator (View Comment):

    George Townsend (View Comment):
    And how is Trump helping? Along with Huckabee, he campaigned that we needn’t touch the entitlements. Yes, many politicians are cowardly. But they are so afraid that they will lose their jobs if they do prune back the state that they wait until the day comes when the people have had enough.

    It is not that they will lose their jobs. It is that it isn’t important enough to them to lose their jobs over the issue. Plus, if they blink first, it has the effect of handing power to the very people who will abuse it once the fiscal cliff happens.

    Soon, single digit years from now, we will be spending more on interest on the debt than we will be on defense. At some point, low double digit years from now, the interest on the debt will crowd out all discretionary spending (that includes paying for Congress). At some point prior to that they will begin making tough choices on non-discretionary spending.

    Or they won’t.

    I go with Glenn Reynolds – “promises that can’t be kept won’t be. Plan accordingly.”

    I don’t get it. Are you saying you agree with me or not?

    • #18
  19. WI Con Member
    WI Con
    @WICon

    There have been several posts regarding the admonishment of “tribalism” by pundits, leaders and back seat drivers on ‘the Right’. Well I’ll take issue again with the term as its meant to attach some type of “primitive and uncivilized” motivation to those of us apparently being taking those sides in this cultural/political divide. 

    These same scolds didn’t accuse the base of being tribal when whoreing for votes and donations over the last 50 years. Weren’t “tribal” at all when they held their noses and supported Romney,  The Bush’s or McCain. 

    Let’s have some candor and honesty on our side. Seems like most Trump supporters acknowledge his faults and wish he dial them down.  We know Kristal and others here are ready to run a challenger (is that Tribal? Is that whining? Is take taking your ball or your Tribe’s ball and going home?).

    Which faction is actually guilty of not putting aside their differences for the greater good? I’d argue that a binary choice/parties indicates less tribalism and self interest. 

    • #19
  20. Rōnin Coolidge
    Rōnin
    @Ronin

    Good job Dave.  I hope everything is working out for you in your new career.

    • #20
  21. Ron Selander Member
    Ron Selander
    @RonSelander

    Marythefifth (View Comment):

    Another winner, Dave. I wish I had even one tenth of your gift with language.

    You and me both, Mary!!

    • #21
  22. Bob Thompson Member
    Bob Thompson
    @BobThompson

    George Townsend (View Comment):

    Bob Thompson (View Comment):

    George Townsend (View Comment):
    And how is Trump helping? Along with Huckabee, he campaigned that we needn’t touch the entitlements. Yes, many politicians are cowardly. But they are so afraid that they will lose their jobs if they do prune back the state that they wait until the day comes when the people have had enough.

    Here is why I take Trump to be correct with regard to not touching entitlements. (Entitlements can wait, that’s all). Have you noticed the difficulty faced in getting Congress to do anything regarding immigration legislation. If Trump does anything through use of Executive Authority the Left goes after it in the Courts. (Entitlements can wait). Trump, with McConnell helping, is returning the Courts to the Constitution. And Trump continues to pursue his primary campaign promise to restore control on immigration. (Entitlements can wait). Fix immigration first.

    Repeating the phrase entitlements can wait over and over does not prove it. As The Gipper would have said, “If not now, when?” Entitlements are a real problem that have to be faced. As far as immigration goes, Trump is ruining any fix by his constant need to trash everyone who does idealize him.

    So, I’ll say ‘entitlements will wait’.

    IIRC, President George W. Bush tried to deal with both immigration and entitlements during his tenure and got no results with either.

    • #22
  23. Columbo Inactive
    Columbo
    @Columbo

    Great post and thoughts Dave. You selected the perfect foil to illustrate on this … Ben Sasse.

    Ben does quickly begin to “show signs of arrested development” in his analysis. The sanctimonious, finger-wagging self-righteous Senator Ben sounds very similar to the pompous moralizing of former President Obama. Both sides are equally at fault my arse. It is only one Party that boos Gods and it is that same Party  that places politics at the very center of their lives. The rest of us prefer that Government leave us alone and cut down on the pages of that Federal Register. 

    It is my perception that Senator Sasse thinks very highly of himself. He has Oval Office ambitions. And his selected strategy is to own the “Kasich Wing” of the GOP (formerly known as the Bush Wing). I will delight in the upcoming purse fight over this voting block for 2020. Good luck with that Ben! Jeb! may even feel compelled on re-entry after you and John! embarrass yourselves.

    Meanwhile, Senators McConnell, Graham and Hatch are all lining up with the President.

    • #23
  24. Boss Mongo Member
    Boss Mongo
    @BossMongo

    Great job, Dave.  Nailed it.

    George Townsend (View Comment):
    Both sides are responsible.

    Disagree.  Vociferously.

    I’m pretty sure that ol’ Wyatt would’ve been happy keeping his wheel-gun holstered, sipping whisky and playing the occasional game of faro.  But Curly Bill and the boys wouldn’t let that happen, would they?  Wyatt, I submit, wasn’t pining away to be forted up in a dry gulch suffering a bullet swarm.

    And, too (hey, when Sensei Carter strums on the perfect metaphor, I’m riding it ’til it’s blown out), that Doc Holliday was just awful, wasn’t he?  Drinking, gambling, consorting with women of ill repute.  Just deplorable.  But if you’ve got to pull that smokewagon and get busy, you want anyone else on your side?

    • #24
  25. Bob Thompson Member
    Bob Thompson
    @BobThompson

    Boss Mongo (View Comment):

    Great job, Dave. Nailed it.

    Bob Thompson (View Comment):
    Both sides are responsible.

    Disagree. Vociferously.

    I’m pretty sure that ol’ Wyatt would’ve been happy keeping his wheel-gun holstered, sipping whisky and playing the occasional game of faro. But Curly Bill and the boys wouldn’t let that happen, would they? Wyatt, I submit, wasn’t pining away to be forted up in a dry gulch suffering a bullet swarm.

    And, too (hey, when Sensei Carter strums on the perfect metaphor, I’m riding it ’til it’s blown out), that Doc Holliday was just awful, wasn’t he? Drinking, gambling, consorting with women of ill repute. Just deplorable. But if you’ve got to pull that smokewagon and get busy, you want anyone else on your side?

     

    How’d you get me attached to that comment?

    • #25
  26. Boss Mongo Member
    Boss Mongo
    @BossMongo

    Bob Thompson (View Comment):
    How’d you get me attached to that comment?

    No idea.  I pulled it directly from comment #5.

    • #26
  27. Jager Coolidge
    Jager
    @Jager

    George Townsend (View Comment):

    Bob Thompson (View Comment):

    George Townsend (View Comment):
    And how is Trump helping? Along with Huckabee, he campaigned that we needn’t touch the entitlements. Yes, many politicians are cowardly. But they are so afraid that they will lose their jobs if they do prune back the state that they wait until the day comes when the people have had enough.

    Here is why I take Trump to be correct with regard to not touching entitlements. (Entitlements can wait, that’s all). Have you noticed the difficulty faced in getting Congress to do anything regarding immigration legislation. If Trump does anything through use of Executive Authority the Left goes after it in the Courts. (Entitlements can wait). Trump, with McConnell helping, is returning the Courts to the Constitution. And Trump continues to pursue his primary campaign promise to restore control on immigration. (Entitlements can wait). Fix immigration first.

    Repeating the phrase entitlements can wait over and over does not prove it. As The Gipper would have said, “If not now, when?” Entitlements are a real problem that have to be faced. As far as immigration goes, Trump is ruining any fix by his constant need to trash everyone who does idealize him.

    When? When you prove you can cut spending on anything. At one point not long ago the USDA spent tax payer money on a program to get people to buy dairy (milk and cheese) . At the same time they spent tax payer money on a program to get people to eat less dairy cause we were all getting fat. 

    Waste is every where, Coolidge might be the last President who spent less money than the year before. We simply don’t cut spending, ever on anything. Entitlements are money going directly to the people, you want them to accept less money? Show that you have tried everything else to balance the budget and it just doesn’t work. Start the cutting on entitlements, won’t ever pass. Won’t ever be popular and will be reversed within 4 years. 

    • #27
  28. Boss Mongo Member
    Boss Mongo
    @BossMongo

    Boss Mongo (View Comment):

    Bob Thompson (View Comment):
    How’d you get me attached to that comment?

    No idea. I pulled it directly from comment #5.

    Fixed it.  My mad Ricochet skills know no bounds.

    • #28
  29. George Townsend Inactive
    George Townsend
    @GeorgeTownsend

    Jager (View Comment):

    When? When you prove you can cut spending on anything. At one point not long ago the USDA spent tax payer money on a program to get people to buy dairy (milk and cheese) . At the same time they spent tax payer money on a program to get people to eat less dairy cause we were all getting fat. 

    Waste is every where, Coolidge might be the last President who spent less money than the year before. We simply don’t cut spending, ever on anything. Entitlements are money going directly to the people, you want them to accept less money? Show that you have tried everything else to balance the budget and it just doesn’t work. Start the cutting on entitlements, won’t ever pass. Won’t ever be popular and will be reversed within 4 years. 

    It is hard, granted, but President Trump doesn’t even try. Obama had a commission that recommended how to cut the budget. Of course he ignored it, and, of course, nobody called him on it. So, let Trump appoint a commission. Spending is important, and to ignore it because Trump is is just plain wrong. I don’t propose actually cutting if it can’t be done. But at least try it. And at least cut the growth.

    • #29
  30. Goldwaterwoman Thatcher
    Goldwaterwoman
    @goldwaterwoman

    iWe (View Comment):

    What a wonderful post!

    I wish I believed it – I wish that people on the right truly were ideologically driven by the desire for freedom, instead of mired in “us” versus “them.”

    I seek liberty. And so does Dave Carter. But most Americans, or even most Republican voters? If wishing made it so…

    I dare not speak for all Republicans but seriously believe that the erosion of the rights of individual states is at the core of many of our problems today. The increasing tendency to rely on a super power Washington DC to decide and regulate matters best left to the states can only result in  exactly what we have:  greedy politicians presiding over a cumbersome bureaucracy determined to make us a one-size-fits all country. The government closest to the  people serves the people best. 

    • #30
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