Conservative Fact-based Government vs Progressive Feel Good Opposition

First -- A very Happy Lincoln's Birthday to everyone. • Things aren't looking up for the mainstream media and Progressive Democrats. • • • LATEST POLLS SHOW ANTI-MSM ATTITUDES. An Emerson College poll found last week that 49% of US voters believe the Donald Trump administration is “truthful,” while only 39% feel that way about the news media. And, 53 % of those surveyed describe the media as “untruthful.” The nationwide poll, conducted February 5-6 and released last Tuesday, also show that 48% of registered voters approve of the job that President Trump is doing, as opposed to 47% who disapprove. But, the poll shows a deep partisan divide, noting that 89% of Republicans approve of the job President Trump's doing, while 81% of Democrats disapprove. According to the poll, Trump’s “failure to pass the 50% threshold” for approval is due to his 52% disapproval rating among independents. And, 89% of Republicans call the Trump administration truthful, while 77% of Democrats find it untruthful. And, 69% of Democrats find the news media truthful (which is "quite low" according to the survey, considering the news media's almost overwhelming leftward tilt), while 91% of Republicans consider them untruthful. Again, independents are split -- 42% call the Trump administration untruthful and 45% say the news media is truthful. Conclusion?? America doesn't trust the mainstream media but the GOP - Prog-Dem divide is wide. We wonder if the MSM will try to improve its image with the "deplorables" or if it will double down on the Prog-Dem la-la land. • • • FACT VS FEELING. One thing that separates Prog-Dems from Deplorables is their approach to fact vs feeling. Deplorables, i.e., traditional Americans, are often guided by "common sense." But, since World War II, universities, and their growing influence on American education, have sold the notion that "facts" are too complicated, too technical, too sophisticated for ordinary Americans to grasp, and so the intellectual elites have taken to selling feelings -- the conclusions that they say are the "obvious" result of their ivory-tower analyses. It is no longer required or acceptable for ordinary citizens or their children to delve into the facts on any topic or issue. It is far safer, and more politically correct, according the the intellectual elites, to take their word for what the facts are and to accept their interpretationn of facts. This has led to education, from K-1 to PhD, being full of feel-good banalities that ill-prepare Americans to either think for themselves or to be the informed citizens the Founders anticipated when they drafted the Constitution. This pervasive 'Feel Good' approach to education has come home to roost -- universities are replete with students who equate Republicans with racism, who see climate change not as a scientific possibility but as a creed, and who support Black Lives Matter's professionally-led rioting and agree with its position that Israel is the demon of the Middle East. These children-students-citizens are neither prepared to discuss nor to analyze nor to vote on any of the weighty matters facing America. But, they do vote and their Feel-Good rejection of factual analysis -- taught to them and to many of their parents by the Progressive intellectual elites -- will, if not countered by a return to fact-based education, lead them to destory the Republic. • The most glaring example of this Good Feeling educaiton is the use by young Prog-Dems and their elders of the word "fascist." Indeed, American Prog-Dems call all their foes “fascist." It was George Orwell, in his 1946 essay, “Politics and the English Language,” who said that “the word fascism now has no meaning except in so far as it signifies ‘something not desirable.’” Google now defines "fascism" as a right-wing political belief. If today’s Left, and especially American Prog-Dems, do not like someone -- George W. Bush or Donald Trump -- or something -- the Republican Party or conservatism -- they mindlessly tar that person or thing with the epither 'fascist,' and hope others will know that the tarred individual or entity is "deplorable." It is an example of the sloppy thinking that plagues our public dialogue, just as the other F-word plagues our "culture," turning films, popular music, TV and literature into a vocabulary-poor attempt to express social thought without having the knowledge that a fact-based education provides. • Words are ideas, and like ideas, they have consequences. The great American conservative philosopher George Santayana -- who after de Tocqueville is regarded as the most insightful observer and defender of American individualism -- said that historical ignorance has serious consequences. The failure to be armed with the full range of ideas, and the words that represent them, debases civil discourse, turning it into the hurling of single-syllable epithets at the opposition. You cannot have a civil conversation, let alone a serious social or political debate – all of which are essential to republican government – with those who rely solely on Feel Good claims that reveal only their ignorance of the facts. • • • THE TRUMP EDUCATION REVOLUTION. One of the most profound benefits of having elected President Trump is his determined effort to roll back these feeling-based socialist ideas about what the American constitutional Republic should be and replacing them with fact-based ideas for renewing the American Republic. "Make America Great Again" is not just a jingoist campaign motto; it is a call to replace all the Feel Good fuzziness that has degraded American culture and politics with ideas informed by educated Americans. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos is seen as dangerous by the Prog-Dem Left because she has actually promised to educate American children. That is the greatest legacy Donald Trump can bequeathe to America. • TRUMP'S TERRORIST REVOLUTION. Another Trump revolution that is being fought tooth and nail by the Prog-Dem Left is islamic terrorism. Feel Good politics makes the description of terrorists as "islamic" anathema because they believe all religion everywhere is protected by the First Amendment. That is a vastly too broad statement about the First Amendment, and what the Prog-Dem opposition to Trump's EO is trying to do is reject his fact-based assertion that terrorists are entering the US to do harm to Americans wiht their Feel Good religion argument. Trump's Department of Justice was amiss not to anwser the 9th Circuit assertion during the oral argument that the President's immigration EO was not based on facts. Presumably, when the case shifts back ot the Seattle district court, that omission will be corrected because there are facts aplenty. The 2017 terrorism forecast for the United States and the rate at which Americans are being radicalized at home is “alarming,” according to a monthly assessment by the House Homeland Security Committee. Citing an “unprecedented spike in the homegrown terror threat, primarily driven by the rise of the Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL)," the House committee’s Terror Threat Snapshot for February warns that, “at this rate, the forecast for 2017 looks alarming.” The House Committee report states : "Authorities continue to track a high number of homegrown terror plots in the United States, and the number of cases since 9/11 is nearing a historic milestone : There have been nearly 200 total homegrown jihadist cases in the United States since 9/11 (the figure currently stands at 193), a majority having taken place in just the past few years." The monthly assessment says the alarming rise in the terror threat is caused by the pressure ISIS is facing “in its key safe havens,” noting that the jihadist organization’s “external operations plotting appears undiminished.” The report cites 39 homegrown jihadist plots or attacks across 19 US states since the beginning of 2016. In July 2016, FBI Director James Comey predicted that, as ISIS came closer to defeat in its home areas of Iraq and Syria, the number of terrorist attacks against the US and other Western countries would increase. Michael McCaul, chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, agrees with Comey, saying in a statement : "I am very encouraged that the Trump Administration is preparing to put greater pressure on jihadists in their safe havens throughout the world. But as they do, we can expect to see militants returning to the West to build new networks and to plot more deadly operations. I look forward to working with the new Administration on shutting down terror pathways in America. We must also remain vigilant here at home, because Americans are being radicalized at an alarming rate." • The Terror Threat Snapshot report notes that the jihadist threat against Europe has also increased dramatically : “European nations are moving forward with counterterrorism reforms designed to cope with the surging terror threat. Yet despite improvements, the continent still suffers from major security weaknesses that make European countries more vulnerable to attack and put US interests overseas at risk.” The report states that since 2014, there have been 166 reported ISIS-linked plots or attacks against Western targets, including 69 in Europe, 36 in the US, and 61 targeting Westerners outside those two regions. • There is solid fact-based reason for President Trump to issue his EO on immigration, but the dangerous Feel Good Left is hoping to repudiate Trump's EO by a deliberate attack on the facts. • • • DEAR READERS, in another fact-based action, even before the 9th Circuit refused to allow Trump's immigration EO go forward, there was a congressional move to break up the 9th Circuit. Fox News reports that Republican Senators Jeff Flake and John McCain of Arizona introduced legislation in January to carve six states out of the San Francisco-based 9th Circuit and create a brand new 12th Circuit. The Senators argue that the 9th Circuit is too big, too liberal and too slow resolving cases. If they succeed, only California, Oregon, Hawaii and two island districts would remain within the 9th Circuit’s judicial reach. Right now, Flake said, the Circuit is far too sprawling : “It represents 20% of the population -- and 40% of the land mass is in that jurisdiction. It’s just too big. We have a bedrock principle of swift justice and if you live in Arizona or anywhere in the 9th Circuit, you just don’t have it....The problem is the judges in the 9th Circuit, particularly the liberal judges, don’t want to give up any of their jurisdiction.” Flake noted that it typically takes the court 15 months to hand down a decision : “It’s far too long." And, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals has a reputation as one of the most liberal in the country, in large part because of its makeup. Eighteen of the court’s 25 active judges were appointed by Democrats. Former President George W. Bush appointed six justices, while former President Barack Obama appointed seven. The Daily Caller reports : “Eight of out of 10 cases from the 9th Circuit reviewed by the Supreme Court are overruled, according to a 2010 analysis published by the American Bar Association....In just about any other field, a 20% success rate would be unacceptable." But, the out-of-step, ignore-the-law 9th Circuit decisions make its Prog-Dem forum shoppers Feel Good -- until the Supreme Court steps in with legal fact-based decisions. • Senator Ted Cruz talked to Newsmax TV last week about Senate Democrats : "I mean, they are right now filled with rage and fury -- and they're in a state of denial over the election. They're really angry at the voters. They're angry at the American people for voting for a Republican president, a Republican Senate, a Republican House -- and they're lashing out." Senator Cruz mentioned another Feel Good word used by Prog-Dems to rally their followers -- "racist." Cruz said : "Unfortunately, Democrats -- when they get desperate -- their most-often recourse is just to throw around accusations of racism." • Fascists -- Racists -- Deplorables. A little education would go a long way to neutralizing the power these epithets exert when hurled at Republicans and conservatives by under-educated, brainwashed Americans. It may seem too simple to suggest sorting out the political and social turmoil in today's United States by separating Fact from Feeling, but if we try to focus on issues and media reports as either "fact-based" or "feel good" -- the result will almost always be to separate the Progressive Democrat no-holds-barred attacks on the rule of law and the Constitution intended to make their followers "Feel Good" from the conservative Republican position that political and all other social dialogue and decisions must be "fact-based" and in support of the Constitution. Education is the key. Never trust your children to any education system without standing guard on its curriculum, its objectives, its motives and its political agenda. As Santayana said : " A child educated only at school is an uneducated child." It could be that education will finally save the Republic.