@Quix @Sanguine @mystery-ak @HoustonSam @Bigun@Chosen Daughter @LegalAmerican You know it takes a special kind of stupid to go on a conservative political forum and start questioning people's patriotism.
Especially when there are so many on here that have served and in my case are still serving in the uniform of the U.S. Military.
I have noticed that your zingers are typically based on "spinning" the statements of others to make them sound really bad. On this very thread, in Post #108, for example, you lifted one of
@LegalAmerican’s positive but properly narrow comments about Trump (in her post #81)
out of context and
spun that comment to mock her with pretty savage accusations of monumental idolatry.
Now, in your post to me, you have pointedly insinuated that I am
stupid--and you have tried to justify that nasty zinger by saying that I have stupidly "questioned" the patriotism of other conservatives. Well, that zinger might make a few casual lurkers on this thread think that I must be a monster indeed, but your charge is bogus.
Those who go to the trouble of re-reading my post will quickly notice that I was being more thoughtful than you are willing to be. What I
said is that I believe our POTUS is actually a
stronger patriot than a lot of TBR members.
I will not backtrack on that, nor will I soften my comment. I will even double down by asserting that your knee-jerk charge against me is not careful enough to be honest (or, perhaps, not honest enough to be careful).
Let me elaborate on my counter-complaint: I don't presuppose that you are stupid, much less call you stupid. (I think I actually have somewhat more self-restraint than you have with your own “poison pen.â€) I prefer to assume that you
are actually smart enough to realize that there are different
degrees of patriotism. However, it would appear that you aren’t honest enough to acknowledge that simple premise in our public forum. (Sorry about my bluntness, but I am just to trying to be honest in expressing my concern that you aren’t a carefully honest debater. Fair enough?)
Ad hominem attacks, such as yours, are just designed to deflect criticism, even when it is well-deserved criticism (or, perhaps,
especially when the criticism is well-deserved). The funny thing is, I made a completely reasonable comment about patriotism, and you decided to come histrionically unglued. Pardon me for believing that you are just trying to fool lurkers into thinking I am a really bad guy and you’re America’s finest patriot.
***
Heck, Radioguy, it's patently
obvious that there are different
degrees of patriotism, and that is what I was talking about. It’s also axiomatic that TBR’s members will range all over the spectrum of patriotism (even if most will surely be in the top half).
Even America's population of military personnel displays considerable variability in this regard, and
you certainly cannot use your active-duty military status to immunize yourself against public concerns about your bad-mouthing attitude toward your own Commander-in-Chief and toward anyone who does respect what our President is trying to do for America.
(As an interesting aside, I was planning to join the US Navy Reserve as a Lieutenant Commander until Obama became President. I was convinced that he was an illegal Commander-in-Chief, and I did not want the UCMJ regs to stand in my way of complaining vigorously against the Usurper. Now, I wonder why you think it’s not very unseemly or even legally dangerous to mouth off so much about President Trump. It occurs to me that you may be committing court martial offenses that you have lightly, thoughtlessly dismissed, Patriot.
Just sayin.’ I am not a JAG officer bent on hassling you, and I don’t know the UCMJ precedents that might apply in a situation like yours; besides, I would never turn you in anyway. But I submit that you are being unseemly in the way you scoff at Trump and Trumpers. This simply doesn’t add up right to my satisfaction—even if I believe you love America to
some meaningful degree. The military guys and gals whom I happen to know keep their traps carefully shut when they don’t like a POTUS or his policies.)
***
Anyway, your claim that I am surely stupid (not to mention terribly hypocritical) in suggesting that some TBR members fall noticeably short of Trump’s patriotism is ridiculous. Your vitriolic complaint against my completely reasonable observation is just smug,
ad hominem trash. You deliberately glossed over what I actually said to try to smear me. (Hmmm….Where have we seen that stratagem before? CNN? MSNBC? Mainstream reportage all over the country?)
Lurkers, please keep reading.
Perhaps you should notice from all of this discussion that I am not trying to woo you to my position. I have better things to do. (I considered offering this serious but constructive criticism only in a PM to you, but I decided that a calm, public airing of the nastiness on this thread would be important for supporting my overall claim that the most zealous critics of Trump have gone off the beam of reasonableness--even if some pro-Trump guys and gals might have done so, too, on occasion.)
The truth is that our inarguably flawed POTUS is
spectacularly patriotic in defense of America. He is likely in the top 0.01 percentile of nationally prominent politicians in that specific regard—even if he is nowhere near that percentile ranking for moral character. President Trump has been willing to step through a political
minefield that could literally get him
murdered. My point here is that Trump is not another example of politics-as-usual. We are in a slash-and-burn
war right now—90% of which is being waged out of sight, mainly by U.S. military intelligence at this time. Right now, we have a kind of slash-and-burn POTUS as Commander-in-Chief who is actually doing a fairly good job against horrible odds. (According to a pretty credible report, Trump was recruited by high-ranking members of the U.S. military to run for POTUS all the way back in 2015. The military leaders supposedly appealed in desperation to Trump's patriotism--and their revelations of deadly, seditious corruptions
in America's government shocked Trump into a radical change in his lavishly naïve, raunchy billionaire's worldview. As soon as he ran for the White House, 88 Flag-level officers endorsed him in particular. They manifestly did not want someone like Ted Cruz. They wanted someone like George Patton.)
The most stubborn NeverTrumpers on TBR and in the GOPe have never been willing to acknowledge how courageously Trump is performing a crucial but often thankless role for rescuing America from unmitigated disaster, from the complete destruction of our beloved nation. Today’s worst NeverTrumpers are just harpies (that’s the harshest word I dare to use) who flatly refuse to respect their own President for
what he is doing for America right now. Those same too-ardent NeverTrumpers counter-productively snipe at Trump
whenever they can--mainly bringing up all of his peccadillos (and lies!) from his embarrassing
past--rather than following a more positive,
more fervently patriotic approach of supporting our President
whenever they can right now. The point I have repeatedly made on this forum is that I would prefer to have a better, more conspicuously moral gentleman in the White House, but our Creator nixed that for reasons of His Own. I am forced to assume that He has a wiser plan for answering our serious prayers that He would save our Republic. Maybe Trump (not Cruz, for example) is actually the best guy for the dirty and often thankless job of draining the Swamp.
No spiritually thoughtful person would regard Trump as America’s Messiah, but a spiritually thoughtful person should never second-guess the Providence of God—even when that Providence is inarguably strange (as it certainly has been for several decades). In my own case, when God in His Providence overruled my prayers, taking America in a direction that I initially found appalling, I repented of my complaining—recalling the Scriptures that remind us that God is oddly in control of everything in the Universe.
Remembering that, I chilled out--as I always do, eventually. I am perfectly happy to have God in ultimately full control of a spiritual war--and to take my marching orders from the Scriptures. (That set-up is the root of my patriotism.)
Notice from the above paragraph that I am ultimately saying that the highest
level of American patriotism, yet to be achieved by some TBR members, unfortunately, is loyalty to God, supreme loyalty to King Jesus. Considering the fact God has given us an extraordinarily wonderful Constitution and now has given us a flawed but serious POTUS who is evidently
on our side to reassert that blessed Constitutional government in the War Against the Deep State, I believe King Jesus demands that we act accordingly--i.e., expecting good things from God
even through a high-profile sinner like Trump.I have plenty of Biblical support for that position.
And you wonder why people attack you.
Attacking me? Like
you calling me
stupid and suggesting that I am supposedly just
insulting TBR's lovely, flawlessly patriotic conservatives?
My goodness, I
don't wonder why people attack me. I
know why they do. (Hint: I'm not stupid. [LOL])
Pot meet kettle. You get back exactly what you give on TBR. So maybe you need to take a long hard look in the mirror and fix yourself and how you talk to people on here before you go accusing others of how you're behaving.
LOL again. You are complaining about my comment that a lot of TBR members really are nasty, thoughtless jerks. Of course, I was correct, as our Moderators would quickly agree. But I have made a serious effort never to respond as nastily and thoughtlessly as those who have slammed me. (I'm not perfect, but I would point out that I even got along pretty well with my friend INVAR when he occasionally became incensed at me for daring to forgive Trump for all of his sins! [Full disclosure: I'm a Dan Bongino fan. I think he's the best guy on the radio. And I love his meme about Trump's lewd history and present political crassness--#IDontCare.)
