Ouch!

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I made a mistake.

I flog my blog in social media (some might call that “trolling”) both to advertise it and to get more discussion going. This week, I wrote the come-on, “That’s just another day in the life of a police officer. So is the Liberal cry to Kill the Pigs.”

The piece itself doesn’t make much of a connection between Liberals and the slogan but I did.

“Liberals don’t want to ‘kill the pigs’,” my friend Dangerous Bill replied. “They want to see the justice system working the way it was meant to.”

If liberals don’t want to ‘kill the pigs,’ who are all those outsiders at the protest riots? I wondered.

If liberals don’t want to ‘kill the pigs,’ who posted that saying on Facebook?

If liberals don’t want to ‘kill the pigs,’ who is buying all the t-shirts?

Dangerous Bill brought me up short. “Angry people,” he said but “not necessarily ‘liberal’ in the Fox News sense of the word.”

Fox News has a sense that is different from yours and mine?

“Yes. It’s anyone who deviates in any way from teabagger ideology.” [emphasis added]

And that’s the mistake I made.

Dangerous Bill and others blame all things that Liberals hate on teabaggers and the teabagger ideology.

I want to overthrow Obamacare. I must be a “teabagger.”

I want government to stop spending my great-great-great-great-grandchildren’s inheritance. I must be a “teabagger.”

I want the Administration to obey the law. I must be a “teabagger.”

And, see, that’s the problem. Plenty of people who believe those ideals are indeed in the Tea Party but millions of Americans believe those ideals and are found in every other political persuasion.

Like Dangerous Bill, I blame all the bad things that Liberals do on liberals and the Liberal ideology.

It may be too broad a brush.

I’ve never met anyone but a liberal who would say “Kill the Pigs” and mean it, but I’ve met many, many Liberals who would never do so. And most of those decry anyone who would.

So.

I’ve now learned not to tar all Liberals with that “teabagger” brush some liberals wield.

 

Kill the Pigs

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[please note that the title has nothing gekko’s porcine potluck provisioning poast.]

Neighbors shot it out in Liberty City yesterday. Again. A 3-year old girl was caught in the crossfire. The shooting started as a dispute between neighbors when bullets started flying. She was outside playing with her brother and friends when she was hit. Cops and paramedics rushed in. The little girl will be OK.

That’s just another day in the life of a police officer. It might have included a traffic stop (will they shoot me or spit on me?), a crash with injuries (will an innocent die?), a next of kin notification (how can they do that?), a burglary (is there a perp with a gun in the house?), a mob of looters (is that a brick or a stolen radio or a ham sandwich?), or a shoot out in Liberty City.

All of those incidents are adrenalin-rich but they may feel less dangerous than walking down the street to the cop on the beat who knows there could be a sniper in a shelter or a bomber with a backpack or a criminal on crank increasing his pressure on the trigger right now.

My daughter found this public troll on Facebook. She reproduced it with her own comment:

Somebody Needs to Kill Them All

“This is a posting from someone who lives in Vermont just five minutes from my house. For the purposes of this lesson, I removed the identity of the owner of the post; however, I was able to see the post without ‘friending’ him.

“The anger is real and it is on our doorstep. As the wife of a police officer, these are troubling times. Simply being a police officer makes a person ‘guilty by association.’

“We need to stand up for our police officers. I’m ready for a picket line in support of our officers. It’s about time.

I’d walk that line, too, but it will take more than that. See, this isn’t the first time — even in Vermont — for some nincompoop to put a target on the men and women who serve.

Kill the Pigs
In this case, our Vermont poster could well be the idiot offspring of a 60s flower child who chanted the title phrase in San Francisco before moving east.

Those seminal protesters weren’t so original after all. Cecil Adams at
StraightDope tell us, “If you thought the term pig arose in the 1960s, you’re in for a surprise.

“The OED cites an 1811 reference to a ‘pig’ as a Bow Street Runner–the early police force, named after the location of their headquarters, before Sir Robert Peel and the Metropolitan Police Force. Before that, the term ‘pig’ had been used as early as the mid-1500s to refer to a person who is heartily disliked.”

For the record, I’ve yet to meet a liberal who liked being called “pissylittledramaqueen” or a police officer who liked being called “pig.”

Did you ever wonder why that cop looked you over — twice — when you walked past?

Did you ever wonder if it were the fact that cultured, ivy league you just screamed “Kill the pigs” and he wondered whether you meant to do it right now?

I don’t wonder about how we raise protesters. This country was founded by protesters.

I do wonder how we raise people who can praise burning down their town, praise looting my store, and praise murdering all the cops all while they condemn a cop for killing a likely lawbreaker.

Who will save your butt:
Remember that the “talk down, not take down” proponents are the ones who run away from the flying bullets and that police officers run toward them.

 

Gruber Was … Right?

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“If you’re allergic to Farxiga…”

The most annoying ads on television, now that the political circus has moved back inside the beltway, include a phrase straight from Jonathan Gruber’s playbook.

That annoys me. I’m smarter than most fourth graders. I’m pretty sure you are, too.

• “Do not take if allergic to Farxiga,” the upbeat announcer tells us 38 seconds into the ad.

Maybe Mr. Gruber was right.

Maybe Americans have proven their stupidity.

The FDA has regulated prescription drug advertising since the 1962 Kefauver amendments of the Food and Drug Act of 1938. AstraZenica wouldn’t put almost a minute of caveats into this ad without regulations.

Or maybe We the Overtaxed People aren’t smart enough to know not to take a drug we’re allergic to. More likely the lawyers included the Do not take if allergic line to keep us from noticing the This stuff can kill you line.

There’s plenty of stupid to go around.

• The Unaffordable Care Act requires each and every one of us to have health insurance. It’s a tax. It’s the law. Which makes me wonder about the radio ad running here in South Puffin: “Thank goodness for Urgent Care! I don’t have insurance…”

Hello? ObamaDon’tCare? I’m thinking a provider maybe shouldn’t advertise that people are still not covered.

Or maybe We the Overtaxed People aren’t smart enough to notice.

• And we’re now in the “open enrollment” period for health insurance. Americans with employer-supplied health insurance can freely join or change plans. Americans with ObamaDon’tCare can freely join or change plans. Americans with Medicare can freely join or change plans.

Whichever category is yours, your premiums are going up.

Premiums for coverage under the Unaffordable Care Act will increase dramatically in the Florida Keys for 2015. A 52 year-old Marathon man in with a Florida Blue “gold” plan paid $645 per month for his insurance last year. Florida Blue will raise his 2015 premium to $879 per month. That’s 36% even with common core arithmetic.

It’s bad on Medicare, too. A 71 year-old woman in Vermont with a United Health Care Medicare Advantage plan paid $0 per month last year. UHC will raise her 2015 premium to $43 per month. That’s a gazillion%. A 66 year-old man in Vermont with a Blue Cross Medigap “Plan F” paid $140.70 per month last year. Blue Cross will raise his 2015 premium to $155 per month. That’s “only” 10%.

By jeezum, the Federal Bureau of Living Management says the cost-of-living has risen just 1.7%. Have any of the MSM nightly news broadcasts reported how wrong that one is?

Dammit. Jonathan Gruber was right.

ObamaDon’tCare had the chance to fix all this. We had hope. He promised change. He really could have changed the health care system. Instead, We the Overtaxed People got the Unaffordable Care Act. Some Americans voted for this. Some Americans approved this. And now all Americans are paying for it.

Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.
 

Giving Thanks

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Today is America’s primary pagan festival again, celebrated to show love to the gods for a bountiful harvest on a New England day in which fields are now mostly covered in snow and which George Washington proclaimed as a day of thanks as a national remembrance.

Whereas it is the duty of all Nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey his will, to be grateful for His benefits, and humbly to implore His protection and favor, and Whereas both Houses of Congress have by their joint Committee requested me ‘to recommend to the People of the United States a day of public thanksgiving and prayer to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many signal favors of Almighty God, especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness’.”

While it is easy for this curmudgeonly writer to kvetch about the corruption and thievery stretching from here to Washington or to fret about the desk I write at, those are just everyday irritants and (thankfully) I know how to fix them.

I am thankful my grandfather at age 94 decided to live out his very good life in the Keys.

I am thankful I have the ability, the tools, and the wherewithall to fix the roof of the house my grandfather and parents lived out their very good lives in the Keys in.

I am thankful I started my life as an engineer and am now spending some of it as an artist.

I am thankful that Anu reminded me of a word and a writer (The Tontine by Thomas B. Costain) I have enjoyed since I started eating turkey at the grownup table.

I am thankful we will have friends here today.

I am thankful my children, my grandchildren, and my great-grandchildren are happy, healthy, and will be well fed again today.

I am thankful Anne is here today and will be here tomorrow.

I am thankful for Anne and for Nancy, two loving, caring, beautiful ladies. I am blessed.

And I have pah!

This column mostly appeared last year because being thankful goes on year round. The original Thanksgiving Perspective is here.