Force Of Habit
By Mitch Berg
Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:
A local lawyer of my acquaintance wants to be a judge in the worst way. He’s applied several times, never got an interview, thinks maybe he needs to network, find someone to put in a good word with the Judicial Selection Committee.
Dude, you’re playing the game under the Old Rules. It’s not gonna work.
You’re a 49-year-old straight White Male, married with two kids, Christian, not a veteran, not handicapped. You get no diversity points; in fact, you’re the guy we’re trying to replace by giving Everybody Else diversity points.
You’re a party-line Democrat but only in the voting booth; you’re not tight with Senators Amy or Al, Mayor Chris or Governor Dayton’s puppeteers so nobody is willing to move your resume to the top of the pile.
A bunch of kids in his children’s school are sick. He’s certain it’s because of those damned right-wing kook anti-vaccine people. Maybe. Or maybe they’re unaccompanied illegal immigrants that Obama caught, released and disbursed all over the country to spread exotic South American diseases throughout a population that’s not inoculated against them. Gee, sorry your kid is sick but it was an entirely foreseeable consequence of a policy adopted for the Greater Social Good. Gotta break a few eggs, you know, and one of them is yours.
He’s also setting aside money in a 529 Educational Savings plan that Obama wants to tax so other people’s kids can go to college free.
See what being a dutiful Liberal gets you? Not a damned thing. In fact, the exact policies he supports For A Better Society are the ones holding him back. He’s like that guy in the Sprint commercial wanting to “stick it to the man” except it turns out, he is The Man. I believe the French expression is: hoist on your own petard.
I keep waiting for the scales to fall from his eyes and a new Conservative to be born. Any day now . . . .
And the left calls Christians “faith-based”…
February 9th, 2015 at 6:06 am
Well, the European immigrants killed off most of the indigenous population of the American continent with disease. I’m worried about miss–informed citizens spreading disease.
February 9th, 2015 at 6:17 am
Got a news flash for ya’ Emery. The liberat academicians announced years ago, that the “indigenous people” 49 of the states, migrated here from Asia.
Under the “hoisted on their own petard” category, I would also add that millions of middle class minions of the DFL, will be getting a huge surprise this tax season for getting more of a subsidy for their Obamacare than they were entitled to. Many will either not get refunds, which will be confiscated by the regime, or they will have a tax bill to pay.
Ah! The uneducated masses that still think that the Democraps are on their side.
February 9th, 2015 at 6:45 am
Fear and ignorance are widespread. There is no understanding of just what is dangerous and what is not. The disease can be contained; I don’t know if the panic can.
February 9th, 2015 at 7:35 am
Emery, if Zheng He had turned east instead of west in his explorations and found the Isthmus of Panama instead of the Horn of Africa, the resultant disease driven decimation of the 15th century populations of the Americas would have been just as assured and just as intentional.
February 9th, 2015 at 7:43 am
Check your privilege, Emery. Next time you go to court, even if it’s something as simple as probating your parent’s Will, the judge will be a Woman of Color who got the job not for grades or experience but for affirmative action boxes checked and political strings pulled. She won’t know the law but hey, that’s what your lawyer is for, right, to educate her? Except she doesn’t want to hear any mansplaining from a privileged cracker, she can see your sex and your color and that’s all she needs to know to make her Wise Latina ruling. What could possibly go wrong?
February 9th, 2015 at 10:29 am
Joe, remind your friend that the first anti-vaxxers to get any traction are kook, left wing Hollywood (and music) celebrities, and their children attend hoity toity private schools with vaccine rates in the low single digits (per the lesser radio station). Also, try calling the anarcho-libertarian anti-vaxxers “right wing” and see how long their “nonaggression principle” lasts.
The position I hear from the “kook” right wingers is, barring known complicating factors, vaccinate your kid, but we sure as hell don’t think that the government should mandate it. There are also plenty of other “right wingers” that do want to mandate vaccines. Ben Carson comes to mind (another nail in the coffin for Carson 2016).
February 9th, 2015 at 10:34 am
It’s worth noting that most of the pestilence that destroyed native american populations occurred before Louis Pasteur discovered how contagious diseases were spread. Just sayin’.
And the poor lawyer? Must have gone to law school because he couldn’t do math. I became a conservative when I saw how small my first paycheck was because of income taxes and FICA.
February 9th, 2015 at 12:24 pm
Interesting thought. That somehow there would have been no travel between the old world and the Americas for 3 additional centuries. Until White male Christians invented modern medicine, including vacinations.
I am in the process of looking for a new job, and one application actually asked me if I am a homosexual. They say it is only for statistical reasons. I have to wonder if I have to pretend to like a little gay action in order to get a good job in Minneapolis-St Paul.
February 9th, 2015 at 12:44 pm
There are also plenty of other “right wingers” that do want to mandate vaccines.
Polio, measels, etc were not eradciated by making vaccinations voluntary. It was done by education and reality of living with the desease. Education and Reality are what is currently missing from crowd consciousness. Not everything should be voluntary. This is why Os IS the most despicable Trulbert character.
February 9th, 2015 at 2:18 pm
When I was a kid, we lined up in the gym for shots administered by nurses who waved the needle through a flame to cleanse it between doses. No permission slips needed because all of society believed Doctors were Scientists who Did No Harm.
Doesn’t work as well now because parents lack personal fear of iron lungs, but are better educated, Question Authority and have watched Scientific Concensus shift from Global Cooling to Global Warming without missing a beat. A lab coat no longer grants the God-like power of a priest’s robe.
And yet, Liberals cling to the other 1950’s ideals even as they vote for politicians devoted to destroying them. Like the White Male who still believes he can grow up to be judge someday, if he only keeps his nose clean and plays by the rules.
February 9th, 2015 at 2:55 pm
JPA: Oddly enough, I believe we agree. Ask any of the polio survivors if they think vaccines are a bad idea. Vaccination is a numbers game. The rate of morbidity and mortality is lower among the vaccinated than those not vaccinated. There is still a morbidity and mortality rate among the vaccinated, including side effects, but it’s lower than that among those not vaccinated. The anti-vaccine crowd apparently can’t do simple arithmetic and don’t understand that reality is a dangerous place.
February 9th, 2015 at 3:18 pm
Being the data of six kids who have had almost the full vaccination schedule, I’ve consistently been less than impressed with the papers we’ve been given regarding the efficacy of vaccines. It’s more or less “do this or you’re stupid” along the lines of the idiotic “click it or ticket” ads for seatbelt use. And if you don’t present the evidence, don’t be surprised when people don’t make the decision you have in mind.
A good illustration is the kerfuffle about Gardasil. The CDC and state legislatures immediately put it on the schedule to be given at age 11 when they’d tested its effectiveness out to five years. Average age of sexual initiation in the U.S. is 17-18 years, so more or less they were telling people to take a vaccine that might not be at all useful by the time the child was actually at risk for contracting HPV.
So my family is waiting until it’s actually plausible for our children to become at risk in the ensuing five years, and there is a huge bonus. Gardasil now covers more strains of HPV, and we’ve got over five years of data indicating its safety.
Public health officials really need to come to grips with this sort of thing and provide the data the proves what they’re trying to say instead of trying to pull yet another “scared straight” scenario.
February 9th, 2015 at 3:58 pm
Bammy needs to send crews down to Guatemala, El Salvidor & Honduras to get the kiddies vaccinated before they hit the trail of tears that leads to Obamnesty.
February 9th, 2015 at 4:01 pm
It’s more or less “do this or you’re stupid” along the lines of the idiotic “click it or ticket” ads for seatbelt use.
Because Big Ed gears everything to the lowest common denominator. It does not appeal to intellect. And so does Big Med. You treat your audience like idiots, you beget idiots.
February 9th, 2015 at 4:46 pm
Sure wish I could argue with you on that one, JPA. As I’m sure, so do you. :^)
February 18th, 2015 at 10:15 am
Leftists are both for un inventing vaccines and open borders so I say A Pox Upon Their Houses.
Infecting the Indians with smallpox was not intentional, in fact it had a 30% mortality rate for whites so it would be stupid to spread. The bubonic plague was spread on purpose by catapulting dead bodies over European walls.