Uncommon Commentary #509: (GB Says) "PU" to the EU

I have not studied the reasons for what has become known by the imbecilic coinage “Brexit”, but the decision to leave the European Union (EU) is probably correct.  I’m in favor of cooperation between countries, but the degree of cooperation mandated by the EU seems excessive; many economists, for instance, have ridiculed the idea that a common market has need of a common currency such as the “Euro” (another stupid name).  And then there’s the EU’s policy of maintaining open borders between member states, which is a reason why the refugee problem in Europe is at crisis level.  (If none of the preceding confirms the wisdom of the UK’s departure, consider also that Obama is opposed to it!)

Uncommon Commentary #508: Trump Towers Over Democrats

Do you recall that Obama told everyone that a vote for McCain would be a vote for a third term for President Bush?  Trump ought to tell everyone that a vote for Hillary [sic] is a vote for a third term for Obama!

Uncommon Commentary #507: Were the Founders Bounders?

The average person is conservative, by which I mean not that he is right-wing but that he resists change; people tend to assume that the way things are is the way that things ought to be, and so, in the 1700’s, the fact that slavery had been legal for as long as anyone could remember meant that people in general did not question whether it were right or wrong.  The USA’s Founding Fathers, being revolutionaries, might be expected not to have shared in the conservative attitude to which I have referred, but, among them, slaveholding was at least widespread and perhaps universal.  Ownership of a fellow human being certainly is difficult to reconcile with the ideas that all men are created equal and that they have a right to “liberty”, but being a hypocrite is not the same as being a monster.

Uncommon Commentary #506: As a Boxer, He Was More of a Mutt!

When “Muhammad Ali”, i.e., Cassius Clay—It’s rather ironic that he discarded his baptismal name, which he shared with a Nineteenth-Century abolitionist, and adopted a name that he shared with a Nineteenth-Century ruler of Egypt, who was a slaver—proclaimed “I am the greatest”, he ought to have added the word “egotist” to the end of his statement. (He was also a hypocrite who based his refusal to serve in the military on the pretext that his Muslim religion forbad violence, even though he was a professional fighter.)

Uncommon Commentary #505: Why Can’t She Be Satisfied with Having Been Co-President in Bill’s Administration?

Bernie Sanders is wrong on nearly every issue of concern to the USA, but he, at least, is not known to deliberately misstate facts, i.e., lie.  It is therefore not Senator Sanders but Dunghillary (see UC #462) who ought to withdraw from the race/contest for the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination, for the good not of the party but of the country.

Uncommon Commentary #504: (My Answer to) Incarceration Consternation

A better idea than what people are calling “criminal justice reform”: greatly increase the number of crimes that are punished by death rather than by imprisonment.  This would lower our incarceration rate (because history has demonstrated that increases in the severity of punishment drive crime rates down, and because an executed person obviously no longer occupies a prison cell, nor has he ever the opportunity to commit another offense), and would also help move criminals to repentance, since nothing’s better than imminent death for making someone think about the destination of his soul.

Miscellaneous Musing #81: It Would Be Another Miracle if Ignorant People Would Shut Up

As an island state, one that needs to keep the sea lanes open for commerce in order to feed its high population, and one whose people have traditionally feared the ability of an army to seize a government (which a navy cannot do), Great Britain has always emphasized naval over land-based power; it therefore maintained quite a small army (equating to, in the words of one history book, a “colonial police force”) for a country of its importance, even before disarmament diminished its strength through the 1920’s and 1930’s.  In 1940, then, when their ally France quickly terminated resistance to the Blitzkrieg, the British knew that they could not hold territory on the European mainland; they consequently decided upon the long-respected practice of a strategic withdrawal, viz., removing one’s troops to a more easily defensible position, which, in this case, was behind Great Britain’s “moat”, the English Channel.  Anyone who thinks that the evacuation from Dunkirk was a catastrophe doesn’t know much about military strategy; unfortunately, though, public opinion has often been formed by persons who have no expertise in the subject that they are discussing.