Essential

Must-reads from the Bubbler

Hate: the appeal of Democrats

What is it that unifies Democrats? What draws people to the Democrat Party? Why do people vote for them? Sometimes I wonder if the biggest draw to the Democrat Party isn’t stopping conservatives. Democrats spend so much time demonizing conservatives as being evil, racist, bigoted, sexist, domestic terrorist conspiracy theorists, that I can’t help but wonder just how deliberate of a strategy is it really? Do the party leaders truly see this as the path to growing the base and voting out conservatives? How many people who identify as a Democrat or vote for Democrat candidates are motivated by…

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Ignorance is not hate

While channel-surfing recently, I came across a story on ESPN about the Nebraska women’s golf team. A Muslim woman had recently made the team, and that was the first exposure for many of the team’s women to a Muslim. In the brief time I was watching, the coach was talking about how many of the women on the team were from Nebraska or neighboring states and had never met a Muslim before. She mentioned there were many questions, and the team was learning a lot about their new teammate. I noticed that the coach didn’t mention the team all…

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An act of beauty

This week, I watched as a nursing home nurse did everything she could to make a man in hospice care feel not only comfortable, but understood and cared for. I’ve been told by a few nurses with nursing home experience that the default assumption of most nurses in that environment is that the residents suffer some form of dementia. They didn’t say that lightly, or that it means they care less than they may otherwise. It just speaks to how they approach the conversation and how much they take a residents word for anything. But in this case, the…

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What if we’ve overcorrected?

According to organizations like Black Lives Matter and it’s supporters, this country is rife with systemic racism, including a police force that hunts and kills innocent black men and women, an election system that prevents blacks from voting, and a social undercurrent of distrust for black people on the street. If this is true, then by gosh, we need to solve it immediately. That means we can’t wait for nature to take its course. We can’t wait for racists to die away. We can’t let the empirical evidence of more and more blacks working, owning homes, owning businesses, and…

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Following the science?

The Milwaukee Brewers open their 2021 season today in a day game against the Minnesota Twins. Fans will be back in attendance, as stadium officials are allowing 25% of capacity. If you look at the Brewers website, you will see a list of COVID protocols. One of them is as follows: “American Family Field is certified by the Global Biorisk Advisory Council “GBAC”, a comprehensive system of cleaning, disinfection, and infectious disease prevention.” (I know, it’s an awkward sentence, but I didn’t write or edit it.) Growing up, we were allowed and encouraged to go play and get into…

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Failure to comply

Is it me, or is “failure to comply” simply a phrase no one from the US government should ever utter…? I was in the airport and an pre-recorded announcement told me I had to wear my mask. “Failure to comply” would be met with really bad things that only a large, arrogant, and bloated government could do to someone. In the United States, where the government works for the people, it seems like “failure to comply” is a phrase best left off the messaging.

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Why don’t people film when someone is nice to a black person

It seems like we can’t go a few weeks without someone using their phone to film some out of context horrible thing happening to a black person. People see the video and the outrage starts again. The premise is that this is news. When something is news, it’s unusual. We don’t watch the news to see what normal routine things happened that day. We turn to watch outstanding events. One of the narratives about black people is that police are out there shooting innocent black men every day, just for being black. It is through that lens that we’re…

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There’s no such thing as federal money

For some, this is a reminder. For others, this may be a revelation. The only money government has is our money. We are coerced into giving it to them. If they decide they want more of our money, they take it. If they want to make commitments that tie up our money in perpetuity, like the current debt, they do it. Then they spend our money on whatever they decide. They don’t seek our permission (though one might argue our vote is our permission). Most of us don’t pay enough attention to how our money is getting spent. We…

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Trump, Biden, and the vaccine

When Donald Trump was President, he essentially removed the bureaucracy of the FDA out of the way (which is another way of saying, “moved heaven and earth,”) to make it possible to get not one, but multiple COVID vaccines on the market. Regardless of whatever credit Joe Biden claims, the fact is he received one of those very same vaccinations while Donald Trump was President. Trump supporters are very quick to spy when someone is giving Joe Biden credit and make sure Trump receives his due for everything he did to make it possible. Now that the vaccines are…

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Nation of consumers

A few weeks ago, I was stuck in an airport. Usually, I love airports. It’s great people watching. I love to travel. And every airport experience is unique. But ever since airports became a government indoctrination center where I’m forced to watch CNN, no matter where I turn, I’ve come to think of it as “stuck.” On this given day, CNN was running one of their historical specials in which they interview their cadre of historians and talk about major events with film footage from the time. They were focused on the late 1940s and 1950s, and they kept…

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