THIS GUY'S THE LIMIT – Drawing the Line On Tyranny

 

To any Trump-supporter who feels his/her opinions can withstand a bit of critical thinking:

If you fit the mold of the reality-show president’s base, it seems you have no trouble at all drawing a  line in the sand on what’s acceptable behavior from people you don’t know — political rivals, folks with different beliefs and lifestyles, immigrants, educated people, uppity women…

And I assume that, because you value authority so highly, you let your kids and others in your own families know where their line is. Right?

So where do you draw the line on the behavior of the man you helped put in charge of the sacred trust that is our democracy? In whose hands rest the integrity of our precious democratic institutions; our reputation as a (mostly) honorable, generous, visionary world leader; accountability by corporations for the safety and reliability of things we consume; the habitability of our natural environment for generations to come; and the aspirations of a generation of young people hungry for decent, positive role models?

You are witnessing…no, you are condoning…this man’s systematic desecration and dismantling of one democratic institution, one piece of the moral bedrock of our country, after another. Blatant nepotism and cronyism, self-enrichment, elections tampering, abuse of power, obstruction of justice, benign acceptance of interference by our nation’s adversaries…not to mention adolescent judgement, petty vindictiveness, pathological lying…and other daily — sometimes hourly — offenses of both commission and omission. All to compensate for his wild insecurity and feed an insatiable ego.

Donald Trump has accomplished very little in his fools-gold lifetime without lying, cheating and intimidation. And you expected somehow he'd rise to the occasion to lead our country competently? Nope, he's done the only thing he knows how to do; he's dragged the office of the Presidency and our country down to his pathetic level.

And all you can do is put on your little red caps and shout for more of the same. What are you thinking? Or have you decided that somehow thinking about the behavior of a man who demands blind allegiance is now blasphemous?

(I’ve heard some of you say that, even if we abhor the man, we still must respect the office of the presidency. How utterly absurd. That’s like saying you’ll overlook your doctor’s incompetence because he’s a doctor.)

You are not president Trump’s children; you are not his subjects. In this democracy you are his constituents, the touchstone of his authority. In this democracy we elect representatives to oversee and maintain limits on that authority.

By not asserting this responsibility, you belittle both yourself and our country.

Nor is Donald Trump your goon, some hit man you hired to exact revenge on all your countrymen you complain have somehow discredited you. To protect you from all those thieving rapists swarming into our country just to impregnate your women, steal your stuff and use up all the resources you thought were yours alone to over-consume.

You, your fears and your sense of entitlement — yes, that’s exactly what it is — are what have opened the door to a despot’s plundering our country. You are what has kept him in power for three years, flaunting the boundaries the Constitution sets down for just such abuses, edging ever-closer to the status he knows better than to proclaim in so many words, but so desperately craves (Supreme Leader for Life).

If you can’t…or won’t…say where that line between right and wrong, integrity and corruption, democracy and oligarchy lies, you dishonor the very “American Values” and “Christian Values” you claim to be defending, and you spit in the faces all those soldiers and other brave defenders of freedom you claim so ardently to support.

DEAR JOHN – My Rebuttal to an Avid Trump Supporter's Facebook Comment

JOHN'S ORIGINAL COMMENT:

I take umbrage at your referencing our ship of state from what you seem to think is a nautical perspective. Particularly from my point of view as former member of the US Navy in Viet Nam while you were draft dodging your way thru college at the same time I was serving this great nation. Oh by the way while putting my ass on the line everyday never once did I complain that I was in combat on behalf of Kennedy or Johnson............both former naval officers with whom I shared no political ideology.

I served, never bitched and after I was finished I started another adventure in this thing called life.

As to your aspersions that our president has no experience as the captian of the ship of state would you be so kind as to enumerate what quaifcations Obama had prior to assuming the presidency.

Did he ever sign a payroll check for the employees of a company he built?

Did he ever deal with budgets, deadlines, bureaucratic red tape, or anything similar before bcoming a useless (I vote "Present") US senator?

Did he ever pay 132 million dollars in federal taxes in 1 year?

The guy is a jerk, could have done so much for the black people and people of color in our fantastic country, yet he choose to do nothing and destroy the hard work of those preceeding him. You truly have no idea what these issues are about because you live in your lily white world and white bread community and have never, ever spent any reasonable time (years) like I have and see it fr what it really is!

He like most of the rest of the world decided to play Ostrich and ingnore the Islamic nations who want to take over the world and kill people like me and you! Now our current president has to deal with the problems Obama created.

Trump has been in office less than 180 days and if you had your way you would have had him tarred and feathered already and run out of town on a rail.

Just stay under the bell jar Willus, keep looking out at the world with your rose colored glasses and when the going gets tough throw stones and then put your head back in the ground.

I would like to write more but I have a life to live and frankly wasting time on hypocrite bigots like you isn't worth my valuable time.

JOHN'S SUBSEQUENT REBUTTAL:

I hate no one. Nor do I judge anyone,. I just call them the way I see them. My solace in all of this is that someday we will all leave this mortal coil and stand before our God!. Let see how God sorts it all out.

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John, it’s hard to take you seriously when you start your rebuttal with a lie. You have most certainly judged me -- presuming to know my service record, lumping me into your despised “liberal elite,” calling me a “hypocrite bigot.”

Though I shouldn’t presume to know you as well as you do me, I suspect, from all the fear and anger you reveal, that you are a man of limited faith. Oh, you have a great deal of it in yourself, your buddies, and certainly in your beliefs. But, despite playing the patriotic veteran card, you demonstrate very little faith in your country.

Instead of believing as I do that the USA can -- and should - be leading the world into the future, you’re going to bat for a man whose every decision, every action has been a cowardly retreat into our own safe, secure, self-important little shell. This man you think is such a great deal maker, has already dealt this country out of the game. That’s not my idea of “great”-ness.

You say I’m the one with my head in the sand? Supporters of this imbecile have demonstrated a degree of self-deception unparalleled in my lifetime. He’s blatantly serving the interests of big business -- including his own business interests -- over those of working-class Americans, families and a clean, healthy environment. He’s making a fool of you…and you choose, incredibly, to let him do it.

You say he’s only been at it 180 days? Apparently not enough time to accomplish much at all in a positive vein. But it’s sure been enough time to do considerable damage. Through not just his blundering policy efforts, but by his treasonous opening of himself and his representatives to manipulation at the hands of our sworn enemies, and by his shameful personal behavior, he’s already put U.S. prestige and the very integrity of our democratic process on the brink of collapse.

In just 180 days, Trump has made the US the pariah, the laughing stock, of the world. If you’re so proud of our country, how can you support someone abusing it’s time-honored values so badly?

And don’t even get me going on the self-professed “Christian” values espoused by so many in your camp. Very little of what this administration has done anything to do with the values I hold dear as a Christian. Love thy neighbor? Yeah, as long as he’s just exactly like you.

You say Obama was weak on confronting our country’s enemies? This from a guy whose chosen flag-bearer talks tough about our enemies, but has proven he’ll sleep with them as long as they keep telling him how big his…hands are?

I guess you simply don’t care how bad it gets. Much worse health care; the truly needy shoved under the bus; consumers at the mercy of business, higher threat of war; more and more natural disasters, a dysfunctional government, and a dispirited people with no vision for the future… It doesn’t matter; you’ll still call it a victory.

It seems all you care about is that someone -- anyone -- sticks it to that big, bad “liberal elite” who pretends to be so smart. (By the way, John, they are smart about a lot of stuff, and they can prove it -- with facts, not just beliefs.)

Finally, John, while you’re so enraged over my self-righteousness, you demonstrate your own version of the same shortcoming. The difference, as I see it, is that my version aims high. Yours -- the one that believes this egotistical, small-minded little prick is going to save you and your defensive, unimaginative notion of American values -- appears to aim quite low.