Is Disney Promoting Violence in Our Society?

Disney Theme Parks has opened and is opening soon, in Florida, a Star Wars-themed area in the Hollywood Studios park.  A relative of ours will work there, and so he and his mother got to preview the features of the park as part of the cast-members only days prior to full park opening.

As a part of his and her experience, they got to build a $350.00 lightsaber.  Since the lightsaber is a death-dealing weapon when welded by Jedi, isn't Disney promoting the violence of the Jedi as a force in the empire?

How can this be allowed by the progressive forces seeking an all-powerful empire?

It Will Always Be About the Narrative

It amazes me how thoroughly the left’s indoctrination of its partisan supporters is.  It is almost as if they have universally decided to surrender their free will to the collective.  I use this as an example.  After the President spoke about the shootings in El Paso, TX and Dayton, OH the New York Times published this headline.  “TRUMP URGES UNITY VS. RACISM.”   Seems pretty fair, but not to the left. 

The Twitterverse, led by prominent Democratic politicians, went bat-shit crazy over how the New York Times is now a Trump supporter.  Consequently the “Gray Lady” changed its headline in subsequent editions in an effort to appease its real support on the left.  Its next effort was “ASSAILING HATE BUT NOT GUNS” and from what I’ve seen the left still isn’t too happy with that.

The Times can’t get back to Trump-bashing fast enough to appease its followers.

It is funny how quickly the story of the Dayton shooting is slipping down from the front page.  Once it came out that the shooter was a Democrat who supported gun control and liked Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren it quickly moved to a side story.  Even though even CNN was forced to report those facts they managed to do so just as they were going to commercial and without comment regarding earlier speculation.

Of course, fund-raising is always important for Presidential candidates.  That’s probably why so many campaign e-mails came out talking about how important it was to send money to candidates in response to the shootings.  As one political strategist once noted, “never let a good crisis go to waste.”

It Really Does Take Two.

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There is an old truth.  It takes two to have a fight.  As we look at the outrage over the shootings in El Paso and Dayton it amazes me how so many are so willing to lay 100% of this at the feet of the President, while accepting 0% of the responsibility themselves.  This includes all our celebrity moralists, our liberal talking heads in the news media, and of course every Democratic Party politician able to grab a mike from someone.  This is not unusual for them.  It is the pattern they chose to establish after Hillary lost the election.

Three years ago, as I evaluated the probable candidates for the general election it became quite clear neither party was going to field a decent human being.  On the one side we had a narcissist billionaire and on the other a self-serving opportunist who had a trail of convenient dead bodies, and a deep state government behind her.  For the first time in my life, I saw zero viable candidates on the ballot, and voted my conscience, casting a write-in vote for “none of the above.”

Since that election, the left has done their utmost to vilify President Trump, and of course, he has responded to every slight.  We are a year away from entering the real Presidential race, but I have to say I still don’t see a George Washington rising up to save the union.  That said, my choice this coming election will be far easier.  I have three years of experience with what the economy has looked like as the President undoes the socialist policies of his predecessor and I am good with that. 

I’ve come to appreciate the hypocrisy of the left and that too weighs into my choice.  I’m tired of being called a racist, by people who have no idea who I am.  I’m tired of watching liberals undermine the President.  Finally, I am tired of a Congress that refused to fix the immigration problems and make life better for all, when they would much rather use it as some sort of club to beat the opposition party.

I think 2020 is shaping up to be an easy choice for the middle-class people like me, and will undoubtedly bring tears to those who believe themselves better than the rest of us.

Why Reason has Become Unreasonable

Nobody gets their face in front of a camera these days if they seek a middle ground, or attempt to wait for the facts of an issue before making a statement.  By the time the facts come out a half dozen or so news cycles have come and gone, and the networks have moved on to some other tragedy.

A review of recent history shows it is far better for those who want their faces postered all over the media to push some knee jerk reaction that is seen by a couple of million people and then maybe have to offer a retraction seen by a few hundred or so, then to wait and be factual on the first try. 

Another Uninformed Opinion

Uninformed opinions seem to be the order of the day as we deal with more lethal violence in El Paso, TX and Dayton, OH.  So here is one more.

I am reminded of a line from the movie Casablanca where Claude Raines, playing Police Captain Louis Renault, tells his deputy “Round up the usual suspects.”  It doesn’t take a genius to know that will be the same thing now.  We will have those who demand we prohibit guns and those who demand we not.  Fundamentally, I tend to come down on the side of those who would not prohibit guns. 

It’s not so much that I believe we need them to stop the government from imposing some autocratic and dictatorial regime for if that happens it will be too late and more than half of us will have voted them into office.  Nor do I believe the second amendment was etched in stone and carried down from Mount Rushmore by George Washington.  Rather, I am unconvinced it is possible to prohibit firearms and even if we did, it would not change the dynamics that are, in my opinion, the true sources of this violence.

What I hear from those who demand we eliminate guns is the angry rhetoric, opinions voiced by those who live protected lives, and little discussion of the social dynamics that cause mostly young angry men to kill others.  What I don’t hear is how a prohibition of guns would be different than the last prohibition we tried. 

You remember that one, don’t you?  Started by the progressive temperance movement in the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries, the passage of the 18^th Amendment in 1919 issued in the age of illegal alcohol.  Its beginnings held the loftiest of ideals.  It would end poverty, child abuse, domestic violence and a whole card deck full of things caused by the evils of alcohol.  What it actually accomplished was the creation of vast networks of organized crime and civil disobedience that led consumers to disregard the laws. It was so unsuccessful it led the Democratic party to make its repeal a plank in the party's platform for the 1932 elections.  Within two years of FDR's election, the 21^st Amendment was ratified. Officially ending the short-lived social experiment.  Unfortunately, the unintended consequences or by-products of prohibition still remain with us.

What would those who wish to end this violence really be willing to do?  Since those in the social sciences seem unwilling to consider the total dynamics of a changing society, and those who vote on whatever changes we need to make, communicate in little more than 15-second sound bites it seems increasingly unlikely our federal government will ever develop an effective strategy that a majority of the population can support.  It is almost as if we are playing chess with the human lives and each side is down to having only a king and a queen.  We are in a state of perpetual check but will never achieve a checkmate.  Smart players would call it a draw and start a new game, but that's not for us.

Justice and Social Justice

That's a Bold Move Cotton, Let's See How it Works Out

Disclaimer:  I hate political debates and find very little useful insight from watching. 
That said, I review a number of reports where I can read their words and watch selected excerpts to form my opinion on their policies.  In looking at a variety of reviews it seems when a candidate was faced with a question he/she didn't want to answer they would claim it to be a Republican talking point and suggest the moderators move on to a "real question."
In looking at the issues they avoided it seems to me most of the Republican talking points were pretty mainstream concerns for the middle class.  If the strategy for the DNC is to avoid discussing them, it will be interesting to see how the mainstream middle class responds come time for the election.