LIBERALS ARE MISERABLE PEOPLE

LIBERALS ARE MISERABLE PEOPLE

BY STEVEN HAYWARD IN CONSERVATISM, LEFTISM, LIBERALS

They say misery loves company, and that may be why liberals always want to extend their control over everyone and everything—because they are miserable people. Thomas Byrne Edsall covers some of the survey evidence about the misery and unhappiness of liberals in a New York Times article back in October:

Conservatives Are Happier Than Liberals. Discuss.

Two similarly titled papers with markedly disparate conclusions illustrate the range of disagreement on this subject. “Why Are Conservatives Happier Than Liberals?” by Jaime Napier of N.Y.U. in Abu Dhabi and John Jost of N.Y.U., and “Conservatives Are Happier Than Liberals, but Why?” by Barry R. Schlenker and John Chambers, both of the University of Florida, and Bonnie Le of the University of Rochester.

Using nationally representative samples from the United States and nine other countries, Napier and Jost note that they

consistently found conservatives (or right-wingers) are happier than liberals (or left-wingers). This ideological gap in happiness is not accounted for by demographic differences or by differences in cognitive style. We did find, however, that the rationalization of inequality — a core component of conservative ideology — helps to explain why conservatives are, on average, happier than liberals.

Napier and Jost contend that their determinations are “consistent with system justification theory, which posits that viewing the status quo (with its attendant degree of inequality) as fair and legitimate serves a palliative function.”

Need I point out that Napier and Jost are far-left? Thus we shouldn’t be surprised that the issue of “inequality” shows up for heavy work here. I suppose it makes some sense, given how the super rich are skewing left these days, and must be unhappy with guilt about this.

But let’s continue with a paper less enslaved (see what I did there?) to leftist ideology:

A very different view of conservatives and the political right emerges in Schlenker, Chambers and Le’s paper:

Conservatives score higher than liberals on personality and attitude measures that are traditionally associated with positive adjustment and mental health, including personal agency, positive outlook, transcendent moral beliefs, and generalized belief in fairness. These constructs, in turn, can account for why conservatives are happier than liberals and have declined less in happiness in recent decades.

In contrast to Napier and Jost’s “view that conservatives are generally fearful, low in self-esteem, and rationalize away social inequality,” Schlenker, Chambers and Le argue:

Conservatives are more satisfied with their lives, in general and in specific domains (e.g., marriage, job, residence), report better mental health and fewer mental and emotional problems, and view social justice in ways that are consistent with binding moral foundations, such as by emphasizing personal agency and equity.

There’s a lot more in Edsall’s long survey of academic literature on this subject, and as a liberal himself Edsall resists drawing the sensible conclusion that conservatives are generally much happier than liberals because of their conservatism.

But if you want to see a great example of the essential miserableness of liberals, take in this piece of work from MSNBC:

NORAD’s Christmas Eve Santa Claus tracker needs to end

By Hayes Brown, MSNBC Opinion Columnist

I’d prefer we end the tradition because it’s about time that we decoupled St. Nick from the world’s most powerful military. American culture is saturated with a desire to associate the military with the saccharine. We get videos of soldiers returning home to their pets or children but never questions about why they were deployed for so long or what threat they were fighting; military jets flying over NFL games give us an injection of jingoist testosterone before more regionally focused battles of testosterone are played on the field; and we get the Netflix movie “Operation Christmas Drop,” a seasonally themed rom-com that cheerfully seeks to boost approval for America’s military base in Guam. . .

I suppose we should be glad that between the existential threat of climate change, which is urgent, and the threat to democracy from the “insurrectionist” right that nearly toppled our Constitution on January 6, some liberals still have the bandwidth to worry about NORAD’s Santa tracker.

Must be a cheerful life.

https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2021/12/liberals-are-miserable-people.php

Black Lives Matter launches Christmas campaign against 'white-supremacist capitalism'

Black Lives Matter launches Christmas campaign against 'white-supremacist capitalism'

Twitter tirade follows attack on Thanksgiving as a holiday celebrated on "stolen lands" with "dry turkey."

By Madeleine Hubbard

Black Lives Matter (BLM) is attacking two of America's most revered holidays, accusing Americans of "eating dry turkey and overcooked stuffing on stolen land" on Thanksgiving and promoting "white-supremacist capitalism" with Christmas.

The official Twitter account of the self-described "collective of liberators" posted, "YOU ARE ON STOLEN LAND" (original emphasis), with the subheading "Colonization never ended, it just became normalized."

BLM posted a series of Tweets on Thanksgiving about its ideology. 

For example, one tweet said, "This #Thanksgiving we send our deepest love to families whose loved ones were stolen by state-sanctioned violence and white-supremacy. 

May we offer a special prayer for those who will forever have an #EmptySeatAtTheTable."

"Colonization never ended," another tweet from the social justice organization stated. "It just became normalized. This nation was built on the stolen land of Indigenous people and the stolen labor and lives of our African Ancestors." The tweet directed users to a website showing where native tribes once lived across the world.

The day after Thanksgiving, BLM put up its virtual Christmas decoration, a Black Xmas profile picture. 

Elaborating on Black Xmas, BLM posted Saturday: "For 7 years #BlackLivesMatter has been drawing connections between white-supremacist-capitalism & police violence with our #BlackXmas campaign." The tweet included a link to an article in the Los Angeles Sentinel about Black Xmas by Dr. Melina Abdullah, a professor of pan-African studies at California State University, Los Angeles, and a "womanist scholar-activist."

In her article, Abdullah began by lamenting the Rittenhouse verdict. She then explained her vision for the future. "Now is when we must renew our commitment to struggle — not simply against white-supremacist-capitalism, but towards imagining and building new visions for the world and for Black people," Abdullah wrote.

For seven years, Black Lives Matter has encouraged people to "dream of a Black Xmas," according to Abdullah. This means "#BuildBlack (invest in Black-led, Black-serving organizations), #BuyBlack (spend exclusively with Black-owned businesses from Black Friday through New Year), and #BankBlack (move our money from white corporate banks to Black-owned ones).

"#BlackXmas is about being self-determined and felling existing structures by building new, and more viable, beneficial ones ... in the names of our mightiest and most righteous warrior Ancestors, in the names of those stolen by police violence, in honor of our community, and as a commitment to the generations to come."

Last week, Just the News reported that BLM activist Vaun Mayes of Wisconsin came under fire for saying that the Waukesha Christmas parade attack "sounds like the revolution has started."

Franklin Graham Blocked on Facebook for 2016 Post on Transgender Bathroom Bill

Franklin Graham Blocked on Facebook for 2016 Post on Transgender Bathroom Bill

 

BY TYLER O'NEIL 

On Christmas week, Facebook suspended the account of Christian evangelist and philanthropist Franklin Graham — son of the late evangelical giant Billy Graham — for a 2016 post about North Carolina's bathroom bill. Facebook blocked him for 24 hours, but rescinded the ban and apologized. Even so, the action is likely to spark an uproar across the Christian community.

"I think it was a personal attack toward me," Graham, president of both the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association (BGEA) and Samaritan's Purse, told Fox News on Sunday morning. He noted that the post in question was defending North Carolina's House Bill 2, "a good law to protect women and children." The bill would have prevented men from masquerading as transgender to access women's spaces — but transgender activists claimed it would have violated the rights of transgender people.

"If you disagree with their position on sexual orientation, you can be classified as [having posted] hate speech or that you are a racist," Graham declared.

"Facebook's a private company and they can certainly do what they want," the evangelist added. "But the president of the company, Mark Zuckerberg, when he spoke before Congress — I think it was in April — he said Facebook is a platform for all ideas. Well, it's obvious his staff hasn't got that memo."

Graham encouraged Facebook to "have a standard that doesn't move."

When asked for the Christian response to this censorship, the evangelist jumped immediately to forgiveness.

"First of all, I accept Facebook’s apology and I appreciate them stepping up and doing that," Graham said. "But I think as Christians we stand up and we don’t back down and we don’t change who we are and what we say and what we do. We represent the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords Jesus Christ, and Jesus said I am the way the Truth and the Life and no man comes to the father but by me. All truth is in the Lord Jesus Christ, and I would encourage Facebook and Christians to stand on God’s word and His truth."

"I’m certainly against hate speech," Graham insisted. He clarified, "I’m certainly against people using Facebook to incite violence against somebody, that’s terrible. But just having a different opinion other than somebody at Facebook, and then to be labeled as hate speech… that's sad."

SPLC Leads Soros-Funded Groups in 'Orwellian' Attempt to Ban 'Hate Speech' on Social Media

Facebook defines "hate speech" as "a direct attack on people based on what we call protected characteristics," including gender identity.

Graham's original post responded to Bruce Springsteen's decision to cancel his North Carolina concert over the notorious "bathroom bill" H.B.2. "Bruce Springsteen, a long-time gay rights activist, has cancelled his North Carolina concert. He says the NC law #HB2 to prevent men from being able to use women’s restrooms and locker rooms is going 'backwards'… Well, to be honest, we need to go back! Back to God," Graham posted.

Graham being blocked over this specific post seems rather odd, since he did not attack anyone in particular for "protected characteristics." He merely defended a law, H.B.2, that transgender activists opposed. While the law prevented men who identify as women from using public restrooms and locker rooms, it did in fact also prevent perverted men from doing so. Graham did not suggest that men who suffer from gender dysphoria are perverts — he did not discuss "transgender women" at all.

Facebook rightly apologized for the ban. "A page admin for Franklin Graham’s Facebook page did receive a 24-hour feature block after we removed a post for violating our hate speech policies," the company said in a statement. "Upon re-reviewing this content, we identified that the post does not violate our hate speech policy and has been restored."

Organizations like the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) have encouraged tech companies like Facebook to define "hate speech" as broadly as possible, to push all "hate" off the Internet. The SPLC is notorious for branding mainstream conservative and Christian organizations "hate groups" if they disagree with progressive teaching on issues from sex and gender to immigration and Islam's relation to terrorism. Their "hate group" labels inspired at least one terrorist attack in 2012.

Redefining "hate speech" along the new Orwellian lines that speech is violence can lead tech companies to silence anyone — even an evangelist as prominent as Franklin Graham, whose page has 7.5 million "likes" on Facebook.

This is not the first time prominent Christians have been blocked on the site. Jenna Lynn Ellis, a spokeswoman for the James Dobson Family Institute, had her article removed from Facebook "because it looks like spam and doesn't follow our Community Standards." Robert Gagnon, a prominent scholar of Bible sexuality, has been blocked numerous times because he espouses traditional Christian doctrine on sexuality.

In August, Facebook deleted videos posted by the conservative video nonprofit PragerU and "shadow banned" the organization's page. While Facebook later apologized, the employee who personally carried out the censorship was given a slap on the wrist.

Responding to these and many other episodes, National Religious Broadcasters President Jerry Johnson sent an ultimatum to big tech companies. Unless Apple, Facebook, Google, and Twitter adopt a free speech charter and stop censoring conservative and Christian voices by December 31, 2018, he pledged to lead his 60-million-strong Christian organization to pressure Congress to drop Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, unleashing a torrent of lawsuits.

The Inside Story About Facebook's Censorship of PragerU

In the wake of Franklin Graham's suspension, Johnson is almost certain to follow through on this, and even more.

This episode should open the eyes of all Christians everywhere, but it should also chill non-believers and anyone else who prizes a platform on social media. If someone as mainstream as Franklin Graham can be blocked for a post two years in the past, no one is safe. Facebook may be censoring Christians and conservatives today, but who's to say they won't be censoring LGBT activists tomorrow? Indeed, many on the far Left have also complained about censorship.

Watch Graham's interview below.

Follow the author of this article on Twitter at @Tyler2ONeil.

60-Million-Strong Christian Group to Big Tech: Stop Censorship or Face Torrent of Lawsuits

It’s Not That Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Knows Nothing . . .

It’s Not That Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Knows Nothing . . .

By Chris Buskirk| 

As tragedy struck an acquaintance this week, I was reminded today of the fleeting nature of life. The Psalmist begged God, “O Lord, make me know my end and what is the measure of my days; let me know how fleeting I am!” What can one say to that but, Amen! As important and precious as our lives are, they are fleeting, delicate, ephemeral.

But Christmas is a season when we pause to remember and to honor the advent of the Creator who took on human vesture, as the Liturgy of St. James so memorably puts it, and in doing so we catch a glimpse of the eternal. Politics, though important, gets put into perspective.

Yet Christmas was also the day I was reminded of how quickly and perversely even the highest things are misused for low purposes. I realized almost immediately that I had made a mistake when, out of sheer habit, I looked at Twitter on Christmas morning. Within moments I happened upon a tweet from the Bronx’s newest congresswoman, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

It began cheerfully enough: “Joy to the world.”  Wonderful. “Merry Christmas everyone.” And a Merry Christmas to you, too! I thought. Look, per Rodney King, we can all just get along if only for a morning. The congresswoman-elect continued: “. . . here’s to a holiday filled with happiness, family, and love . . .” Lovely. Sounds like just the way to spend Christmas.

But just after this bit things started to get dicey. What she actually said was, “. . . here’s to a holiday filled with happiness, family, and love for all people.” And just after the period was an earth emoji. My antennae were now on high alert. I know where this leads and it isn’t good. It’s not that I am opposed to happiness, family, love for all people, or even the earth. Far from it! The apostle Johnwrote, “We (Christians) love because he (God) first loved us.”

No, I was on alert because I have seen this movie before and I know how it ends. Progressives open with the Bible (Joy to the world!) and close with whatever ill-advised talking point tops their current agenda. And Ocasio-Cortez did not disappoint. When she said, “all people” and added the little earth emoji, that was a signal—or what the Left likes to call a “dog whistle.” It meant, America isn’t just for Americans, it’s the common property of the whole world and you selfish, backward, deplorable boobs who think otherwise are just delaying our entry into the progressive utopia that’s always just a day away.

As expected, she lowered the boom after the emoji by adding, “(including refugee babies in mangers + their parents.)” The syntax is a bit awkward, I don’t think there were many (any?) refugee babies in mangers in the United States this year. Surely if there were, they would have been located by some intrepid CNN reporter and a headline would have blared, “Trump Detains Children In Barns For Christmas.” Rather, she was smuggling her political agenda into a Christmas message and using rhetorical sleight of hand to conflate the two.

She’s wrong on several counts, the least of which is her biblical illiteracy.

She wants you to believe that Jesus, the incarnate Lord, was a refugee, as he lay in the manger in Bethlehem. He was not. Luke tells us that Joseph and Mary had traveled there to be counted in a census.

Worse though, is the implication that if Americans believe they have a right to control their borders, control who and what goes in and out of the country, and, most important, who becomes a citizen and thus has a say in governing the country, that those people are somehow guilty of denying the Lord or that they would have denied the Lord 2,000 years ago. It is a shameful mischaracterization of the Gospel and attempt to manipulate people using their Christian faith for transient political ends.

It is particularly vexing that it comes from a woman of the Left as it is the Left that wages open war on Christianity, that a century ago forsook the Gospel of Christ for the social gospel. It is what Princeton theologian J. Gresham Machencalled “the type of religion which rejoices in the pious sound of traditional phrases” but which is, in fact, a “modern non-redemptive religion called ‘modernism’ or ‘liberalism.’” It is also a gross act of bad faith and is a cancer on our politics.

I will respectfully disagree with many on the Right who say that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is a Millennial know-nothing. That’s not true. It’s just that nearly everything she thinks she knows is wrong.

But she is not alone. I won’t make a political point here. Rather, I’ll follow the Psalmist once again, who reminded us that “man is like a breath; his days are like a passing shadow.” A gravestone at the church of St. Martin’s in the Fields in London captures it nicely:

Remember, Man as thou goes by
As thou are Now, so Once was I
As I am Now, so must thou be
Prepare thyself to follow me

https://amgreatness.com/2018/12/28/its-not-that-alexandria-ocasio-cortez-knows-nothing/

THE REAL WAR ON CHRISTMAS

BY JOHN HINDERAKER IN ISLAM, TERRORISM

Mark Steyn wrote on Wednesday about the terrorist attack on the Christmas market in Strasbourg:

Yesterday, the usual “known wolf” – that’s to say, known to the highest levels of the French security apparatus – killed three [A fourth victim has died and a fifth is brain dead.] and wounded a dozen more in this year’s first attack on a Christmas market – in Strasbourg. The jihadist yelled …oh, go on, take a wild guess: Joyeux Noël? Bonnes Fêtes? No, he stuck to the traditional greeting.

Allahu Akbar.

Just over two years ago, in the summer of 2016, I met a delightful German lady who lives just across the border from Strasbourg and whose husband, in fact, was born and raised there. Along with her child, my friend, as I put it, “had found herself on the receiving end of some vibrant multicultural outreach from one of Mutti Merkel’s boy charmers”:

As a result, she no longer goes out after dark. She had also decided – with reluctance, because she enjoyed it – to cancel her participation in a local Christmas market, where she’d sung carols every year – in broad daylight.

‘Why would you do that?’ I asked.

‘Because it’s Christmas,’ she said, ‘and I’m worried Christmas will be a target.’

Since then, Christmas has been targeted more than once, and European Christmas markets are often protected by diversity bollards.

Following Tuesday’s terrorist attack, ISIS has gotten into the act:

As Strasbourg’s Christmas market reopens today following Tuesday’s deadly attack, an ISIS-supporting media group disseminated an image of Santa riddled with bullets in the city’s center.

The poster shows a nighttime depiction of Place Kléber, the central square in Strasbourg, France, as a jihadist with a rifle propped against his shoulder surveys the scene. A Christmas tree is in flames behind the body of Santa.

“Beat him violently,” says the text in French. “Be sure to inflict the greatest losses on the enemy.”

Terrorist supporters have threatened Christmas observations in other cities as well:

Two weeks ago, an ISIS-supporting media group depicted a hoodie-clad, knife-wielding jihadist approaching a Christmas-decorated Toronto shopping and entertainment district.

The image showed Yonge-Dundas Square lit up at night, with the Christmas tree outside of the Dundas subway station entrance. Photoshopped at the base of the Christmas tree were two grenades, sticks of dynamite with a timer, and a blood-spattered backpack.
***
Soon after that, the same group released an image of the angel Christmas lights stretching over Regent Street in London. Blood-spattered gunshot wounds were photoshopped onto the angel in the forefront, as a rifle-wielding jihadist looked on.

“Terrorize them in their lands and kill them wherever you find them,” said the text.

We walked down Regent Street last week.

Every politician should be asked how he or she proposes to prevent such attacks on Christmas celebrations, several of which have already occurred in the U.S. More diversity bollards is not an acceptable answer.

https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2018/12/the-real-war-on-christmas.php

Why Haven’t SJW Bullies Destroyed A Christmas Story Yet?

Why Haven’t SJW Bullies Destroyed A Christmas Story Yet?

By A.J. Rice

Itriple-dog-dare social justice warriors to sit through the 1983 classic “A Christmas Story” this holiday season. The movie about a kid at Christmas, his 1940s family, and a fragile but sexy leg of lamp is so perfect that Hollywood would not make it today. Hollywood could not make this film today, and it’s only a matter of time before its banished from TV.

First, the film’s subject is politically incorrect. It’s not about “the holidays” or myths of elves or Grinches. It’s not socially conscious. There is no preening and no one is “woke.” Two key songs bookend the story in the film. The first in the opening sequence is “Go Tell it On the Mountain,” the next line of which says “that Jesus Christ is born.” Today, “Jesus Christ” is a movie swear word, or he’s removed from his own birthday all together. The film closes with “Silent Night,” another song explicitly about the meaning of the season. Without irony, “A Christmas Story” is really about Christmas.

Also without irony, the film is about a healthy, intact family. Ralphie Parker, played by Peter Billingsley, and his suburban midwestern family have a pretty good life in the 1940s Rust Belt, which has since been decimated by international trade deals and unchecked immigration.

The Parkers are average working-class folk living on the Indiana side of the Chicago suburbs in postwar America. Ralphie’s parents are happily married, and neither is an idiot, a cheater, or a crook. Having returned from the war, “Old Man” Parker (the father is never named and played impeccably by the great Darren McGavin) has a job, owns a home in a good neighborhood, raises his family, profanely battles the furnace, and is always in search of a way to make life better. Mom loves him and dotes on their boys. The parents are not human helicopters—the Parker kids are free-range boys who walk themselves to school without being tracked by Mom with a smartphone GPS app.

Ralphie is about 9 years old. His fondest Christmas wish is—brace yourself—a gun. Specifically, a Red Ryder Carbine Action 200-shot Range Model air rifle. Can you say raging “toxic masculinity”? Someone call the liberal arts department! We need a class to explain why someone would want a BB gun for Christmas.

Wait, it gets worse. “A Christmas Story” isn’t all sunshine and light. It has a dark side, thanks in part to director Bob Clark. He used his success on a very different film, “Porky’s,” to lift “A Christmas Story” to the big screen.

Ralphie is a victim of a big, mean bully. This isn’t some misunderstood kid or anti-hero, he’s a typical nasty neighborhood bully named Scut Farkus and an ever-present menace. He mocks, threatens, and beats up on everybody, even his own lackey sidekick. One day, Ralphie has had enough and gives the bully a serious bloody-nosed beatdown. It’s epic, and handled perfectly in the film. You want that bully to get his due, and when he does, it’s satisfying.

After the battle, amazing things happen. No police are called. No charges are filed. No one is suspended from school. There’s no hate crime investigation. No two week breathless discussion on CNN. In fact, Ralphie’s mom seems proud of him, and when she tells the old man Ralphie was in a fight, he seems to be aware of it and proud of him, too. But not so proud they make a big deal about it. Everybody doesn’t get a trophy, even after a TKO.

This was America before the anti-bullying campaigns that seem to put bullies in control of today’s schools. Dads used to tell their sons to stand up for themselves. Dads even said they would back their boys up if it came to all that. Punching your bully was a rite of passage. That’s the America the ’60s radicals and today’s SJWs hate—the America of the Greatest Generation. It’s gone now, like so much more in the world of “A Christmas Story.” Bullies of the past got handled by a street code, now they just hang out on Twitter.

Seen through the father’s eyes, life on Cleveland Street is near perfect. It’s peaceful. Old Man Parker has time to read the newspaper, provide for his family at the office, and be home at night. He actually knows his children and how to give them good gifts, despite the widespread fear that Ralphie will ‘shoot his eye out’ with the BB gun. He’s a good dad, likes the Chicago Bears, can change a tire, and wants a bowling ball for Christmas.

How terribly bourgeois! In today’s Hollywood, the father would be the first to go. Today’s Hollywood would make him an abusive drunk, or an absentee loser or a dunce, or a racist or . . . you get the picture. Norman Rockwell’s America never existed and must be destroyed! But that’s not the story Jean Shepherd, whose book and radio tales on which the movie is based, wanted to tell. Hollywood would twist his beautifully written story now.

The Old Man Parkers of America undoubtedly turned out for Trump in 2016. Yes, they still exist, quiet and sometimes forgotten, working their asses off to provide for their families.

Seen through Ralphie’s and the audience’s eyes, Christmas is still Christmas. It’s literally the most wonderful time of the year, a time of meaningful songs in the background when a boy hopes to get his hands on his first gun. And he does, thanks to his father. This was once normal in America. An America Hollywood no longer understands, let alone celebrates. It was the Parkers and their neighbors the Bumpuses with their 785 smelly hound dogs that made America great.

So go ahead, SJWs, take a couple hours away from Kwanzaa celebrations this year and watch “A Christmas Story” on your iPad. Twitter awaits your rage. You’ll give the rest of America a good laugh.

https://amgreatness.com/2018/12/04/why-havent-sjw-bullies-destroyed-a-christmas-story-yet/

Christmas Is the Perfect Time to Mock Liberals, and Other Random Thoughts

Kurt Schlichter

When we gather together this Christmas, it’s going to be super-awkward since everybody is dead because Donald Trump pulled out of the Paris Climate Scam, repealed net neutrality, and cut taxes. The depredations of Genghis Khan, the Black Plague, and the repeal of the Obamacare mandate – these are pretty much the same thing. Santa Claus and all of our dreams are dead too.

On the plus side, since we are all dead there’s no one to make egg nog, which is the worst of all possible nogs.

No. Whoever invented egg nog is the second grossest human being ever who is not Lena Dunham, exceeded in grossness only by the first person being who thought, “Look, an oyster! I know. I’ll put that slimy thing in my mouth.”

The Democrats are the egg nog of American politics. Discuss.

Santa stuffed coal into the Democrats’ fishnet stockings this year, as well as all sorts of other fossil fuels. The President turned on the Keystone pipeline, unleashed our miners, and told the environmentalist whiners to go frack themselves. Growing up near San Francisco, a town memorably described by (I believe) comedian Bobby Slayton as “The city that makes its own gravy,” I got used to goateed, over-tatted progressive doofuses who imagined that the electricity that powered their iPads and automatic bongs came from magical windmills that didn’t ever dice n’ slice bald eagles. Of course, chopping up symbols of U.S. strength would probably be a plus in their beady, bloodshot eyes.


But the point is that liberals were never really about “clean power” – they were about outsourcing the dirty messy icky work of generating power to those lesser mortals out there in Real America. That is, until they realized that those lesser mortals out there in Real America were happy and prospering thanks to the energy industry, and we sure can’t have red staters being happy and prosperous. Heck, if you work and support yourself, you don’t need coastal liberals’ largesse, guidance, and control. Hence their hatred of fossil fuels, which is really their hatred of normal Americans. The progressives try to disguise the fact that environmentalism is really just a way to stick it to the red rubes by wrapping their carbonophobia in the sacred doctrines of their Weird Weather Cult.

Yeah, 2017 has been a terrible year for Gaia. But she struck back with hurricanes and fires, which are totally the result of global warming. Of course, the recent run of years where there were no big hurricanes or fires were not indicative of a lack of global warming because you hate science, or something.

And 2017 has also been a bad year for the entertainment wing of the Democrat Party, Hollywood. Remember movies, those fun things you would see for a few bucks in the theater? I saw Star Wars: Damn, Have They Aged Badly the other day – don’t worry, there will be no spoilers because I don’t really remember it. After tickets, popcorn, and my Bombay Sapphire and tonic – do you really think I’m going to watch Spock and the space orc knights use laser swords to battle characters with names like “Snorke” and “Zuub Chudloogie” without a stiff belt? – this exercise in mediocrity cost me about $100. Look, the movie didn’t retroactively ruin my childhood, as so many internet nerds have complained. It was just kind of “Meh.” It tried to do some lib suckerpunching (as John Notle calls it), but it hit limply, like a puny Never Trumper. For example, in that screen crawl at the beginning, “THE RESISTENCE” is in all-caps. I’m guessing that’s some sort of clever Hollywood zinger at Donald Trump, which some producer probably came up with in his hot tub surrounded by moist, glistening interns.


Take that, Donald Trump. TAKE THAT!

Luckily, there’s awesome conservative action and adventure out there for normals who like their heroes red and the bad guys/gals/gender-nonconforming beings blue. But if you dig lib propaganda, there’s a new Steven Spielberg movie about – really – how the Washington Post was heroic for publishing classified military documents fifty years ago. Last spring, libs were having a collective self-wetting because The Donald allegedly let slip “highly classified” info to some Russian guy during a meeting – it’s probably tough to recall this particular THIS IS THE WORST THING TRUMP EVER DID! freakoutrage among all the hundreds of other THIS IS THE WORST THING TRUMP EVER DID! freakoutrages – and now these same libs are going to give a bushel-full of Oscars to a movie about the WaPo doing just that. BTW, if you love irony, follow that link back to see the name of the news organization with its journopanties in a bunch about Trump disclosing “highly classified” info.


Hypocrisy, thy name is liberal.

Oh, this movie stars Meryl Streep, the same woman who led the standing ovation for Roman Polanski and covered for Harvey Weinstein and who came out at one of those festivals of movie industry onanism to chide President Trump for his moral shortcomings. Well, she’d know about moral shortcomings. Meryl’s Choice was her career.

And speaking of hypocritical weasels, the Democrats wisely declined their progressive wing’s demand to use the DACA fight to restage the Alamo, probably because this time the Americans would have won. Instead, they kicked the budget can down the road to January and fled town, not particularly wanting to compound their stinging defeat on tax reform with one on illegal aliens. Yeah, a government shutdown over the holidays because the Democrats won’t play unless Republicans let a couple million illegal aliens become citizens is a bad visual. Around the Christmas table, even that annoying sophomore nephew who is home from Gumbo State for Kwanzaa will kind of have a problem arguing, “But we should totally cut off vital services for Americans in order to let MS-13 members be rewarded with our precious citizenship!”


Now, as your late family gathers together, all dead because of Trump’s authoritarian reign of terror, try to remember that in the spirit of the season, you should mock your liberal friends and family unmercifully. It’s a painful time for them. The economy is booming, ISIS has been beheaded, and Mueller hasn’t found Schiff. That’s why it’s so, so very important to kick them when they are down. Because Christmas is a time where we celebrate giving, so give them grief. Because it’s the only way they’ll ever learn.

https://townhall.com/columnists/kurtschlichter/2017/12/25/christmas-is-the-perfect-time-to-mock-liberals-and-other-random-thoughts-n2426746