What Are We Opposing Again?

There was a great article on The Federalist website last week about how the Trump administration has given birth to so many "movements" in Washington and throughout politics that it's becoming impossible to figure out who is on what "team" anymore. 

For starters, you have the "Trumpers"--the 23-percent or so of Americans that got the President elected and who still support him--and who likely believe that he is the "victim" of the greatest political witch hunt in history.  Then you have the Anti-Trump camp.  They are the ones who believe that the President can do absolutely nothing right and that all of his proposals must be opposed in the most vocal way possible.  Every Democrat and celebrity would fall into this category.

The rise of the "Anti-Trump" movement then birthed the "Anti-Anti-Trump" group.  This is the safe haven for conservatives and Republicans that don't like Trump either--but who don't want liberal ideologies normalized either.  The "Anti-Anti-Trumpers" don't directly criticize the President--but instead take those who are criticizing him to task for either the tone of their message, the conspiracy theories they expound or the ludicrous alternatives they propose.  A lot of GOP members of Congress and pretty much everybody at Fox News Channel are on this "team".

When the "Anti-Anti-Trump" campaign started making itself heard, those on the left had to fight back with their own counter-movement--giving birth to the "Anti-Anti-Anti-Trump" group.  These are the folks that accuse those attacking Trump's attackers of being "supporters" of the President by proxy.  To them, a lack of full denouncement of everything coming out of the White House is to be considered tacit support for what is going on--and that too must be opposed at all costs.  MSNBC is leading the charge for this group.

And that has now brought us to the rise of the "Anti-Anti-Anti-Anti-Trump" campaign--which again are people not enthused with the behavior and leadership style of the President, but who realize that it is possible to oppose those who oppose him--without supporting him in any way shape or form.  This is the realm of the deeper political thinkers who don't boil down all politics to just sound bites and news channel panels speaking party talking points over and over and over again.

Can we extend this out even further?  Can there be an "Anti-Anti-Anti-Anti-Anti-Trump" movement?  By that point you'd almost be reaching calls for taking up arms against not just the President, but his supporters, the people who oppose his opposition, and those who think the opposition-opposers can still not support the President.  And if that happened, you would need a lot of different army colors just to tell everyone apart on the battlefield.

Parting is Such Sweet Sorrow

My wife and I are going through all of the boxes in our basement in preparation for a rummage sale--and to just get rid of a bunch of stuff that we haven't looked at in ages.  We are nowhere near the kinds of messes you see on Hoarders but there are some things that are very hard to get rid of--even if they serve no meaningful purpose anymore.

Let me first say that NONE of my sports trophies will ever leave the Man Cave.  Those were all earned by being on winning teams--not like the participation trophies that clutter the rooms of today's kids.  If I'm ever put in an assisted living facility or a nursing home, I want all of those surrounding my deathbed too.  After I'm gone, THEN you can throw them away.

What's actually been the hardest to part with has been books.  For some reason, we believe that books hold some intrinsic value that should never warrant being thrown in the trash or the recycling bin.  Some you just like to have on the shelf to make yourself look intelligent.  I've got several large history volumes and a bunch of Russian literary classics like that.  Some of my books are autographed or inscribed by the author or the athlete that wrote them--and I think that makes them even more valuable.  A few I bought overseas and I've never seen them in bookstores here--so I think they are somehow "rare" and might be worth big bucks some day.

But even the most ragged-eared paperback is difficult to throw in the trash.  "Some kid might want a low-cost copy of Hamlet or Tom Sawyer for a school reading assignment" I think, as I put the 35-year old edition in the "donate" box.  I should realize that kids no longer read "the classics" because they were all written by white people about white people and therefore are not "inclusive enough" for today's classroom.  I'd probably be doing society a favor by burning those books--especially The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn--in the street to show how "tolerant" I am.

I know that most kids grew up reading their Harry Potter books in actual print form--but the Kindle and tablet computers continues to encroach upon the printed words reach in society.  Perhaps a middle-aged man 30-years from now will be struggling with the decision to delete downloads from his adolescence because his wife wants more memory space.

The Name Game

I know that we are all excited to hear what the name of the new Milwaukee Bucks G-League team in Oshkosh is going to be—but expect to be a bit disappointed.  Those of you that worked so hard on alliterative names like the Oshkosh Osprey or the Oshkosh Otters—or those that tried to go Hip Hop Cool with something like the O-Town Flyers—you never had a chance to win.  You see, there is no way the name of this team is going to include “Oshkosh”.

For starters “Oshkosh” conjures up an immediate “small town” reaction.  And compared to the other host cities in the league, we certainly are.  While it may be quaint, that is not how the G-League wants to market itself—as some third rate minor league with teams in towns you never heard of.  What’s more, when fans in other cities hear “Oshkosh” they immediately assume that the team is going to come out in blue and white striped bib overalls.

There is a local reason for foregoing “Oshkosh” in the team name—and that is the incredible parochialism that still exists in this area.  I’ve heard from so many local business owners that “people in Fond du Lac and Appleton don’t drive to Oshkosh for anything”.  And I tend to agree.  When I do ask folks in Appleton or Fondy if there is a place they like to eat in Oshkosh, they almost always say “I don’t think we’ve ever gone there to eat”. 

And that is why the name unveiled on Friday will almost certainly use the more-generic “Fox Valley” and not “Oshkosh”.  Since its inception, the group behind the team has called it “Fox Valley Basketball” because they know there will be more buy in by taking a regional approach—instead of one specific city.  Will it convince people from Appleton and Kimberly and Kaukauna to come to Oshkosh to watch games on a regular basis?  We’ll see.  Hopefully they won’t be irritated by the countless roundabouts and east-west streets that require you to zig-zag at every intersection because of the left-turn lanes.

Or the team may go with the even more generic “Wisconsin” title.  It has certainly worked for the baseball Timber Rattlers—who left the “Appleton” designation behind when they moved to their nice stadium along Interstate 41 with relatively easy access.  You may have noticed that the Bucks themselves have been hitting the “Wisconsin’s Team” promotional message the last couple of years—hoping to convince outstate folks that absolutely refuse to venture into downtown Milwaukee to give them a chance.  They even have a secondary logo with the word “Bucks” across an outline of the state.

So don’t take it personally when the team sends out the emails to those that registered on their website—rather than holding a splashy press conference for the media to cover and promote—and “Oshkosh” is nowhere to be found. 

Apparently They Don't Know

I was shocked to hear last week that the University of Wisconsin system is seeing an increase in applications from international students.  Overseas applications are up 14-percent this year--which is a sharp departure from the narrative that we hear when it comes to the UW System and society in general.

I mean, the kids hoping to attend school here must not know about the "devastating impact" Governor Scott Walker's budget cuts are having on the UW.  They are apparently unaware that they will be arriving to a university that is " a shell of its former self"--and that their professors will have to spend more time teaching them in the classroom than taking time off to write books or do their "research".  Maybe the state Democratic Party needs to send their press releases to the schools in these other countries to warn the kids thinking about a UW education.

And don't these students know that the United States is full of xenophobic racists?  Aren't they afraid that Ann Coulter or Ben Shapiro (people they have never heard of) might come to the campus to speak about enforcing immigration laws (in events that those foreign students wouldn't even know were being held--until activist student groups block entry to the lecture hall to those who want to attend and then clash with campus police turning it into a major news story)?  Perhaps MSNBC isn't carried on the satellite or cable TV services in those other countries.

Let's not forget that there are lawmakers that want to allow concealed guns on campus too.  How could those students coming from countries where private gun ownership is expressly banned or the government keeps lists of those that own guns possibly feel safe knowing that anyone in their classroom or dorm has a firearm?  Wouldn't they want to stay in all of those other countries where everyone dies a peaceful death and police with batons are required to take on armed terrorists?

But what baffles me the most is why these kids would want to spend tens of thousands of dollars to get their college degrees here?  Don't they know it's a "basic human right" to get free secondary education?  Some of these applicants live in countries where all they have to do is show up asking to take classes and they won't be charged a Euro--that must make it the best possible education you can get, right?  Apparently, Bernie Sanders' speeches don't get as much attention over there as they did here for awhile.

So welcome international students to one of our UW campuses.  This is sure to be the worst experience of your life--which is why so many others want to share it as well.

They Still Won't Listen

Before they decided to stick with the same leadership that got them into the smallest minority in Legislative representation in 60-years and a loss in the race for President for the first time in 32-years, Wisconsin Democrats talked a lot about "listening to people" in the run up to their state convention over the weekend.  Glendale Mayor Bryan Kennedy was the most vocal of the Chairperson candidates saying that party members had to actually go out to areas where the Democrats have suffered the greatest losses and talk to those people about what has turned them off to voting Democrat.  That strategy was rejected by delegates--who decided to keep Martha Lanning as Chair--and her strategy of "blame everyone else for our problems".

While Mayor Kennedy may have had good intentions in trying outreach to disaffected voters across the state--and not just serving up platitudes for the hard-core liberals of Dane and Milwaukee counties--nobody in his party is interested in hearing what the majority of Wisconsin residents elsewhere have to say.  And I know that by the efforts that have been put in by liberals to discredit the beliefs and opinions of anyone not involved in their groupthink.

One of the main strategies of the Left in recent years has been to control the language of all debates on issues.  "Debates" may actually be an exaggeration of common political discourse today--as liberals have developed one- or two-word 'shut downs" of any opposing views.  Personally, I speak from a position of "white privilege" in the discussion of any and all social matters.  My thoughts on gender issues are discredited by "male privilege".  My believe in enforcement of immigration laws is "racism".  My desire to fight terrorism is "Islamophobia".  Questioning tax increases, student loan forgiveness, using health insurance as a subsidy program and myriad other economic issues is just plain "greed".

So why would the party that his built its entire platform on discrediting all beliefs other than those held by its most hard-core members want to actually come out and talk to people like me?  Especially when it feels so much better to just lecture us on our "ignorance and intolerance".  I'd love to have a good old-fashioned conversation about topics--instead of being "shut down" after two sentences.  I really enjoy watching our recent college graduates struggle to tell me what they consider to be the ideal global mean temperature to maintain as part of our "climate change prevention efforts".  Or to have people that work in education fumble to come up with the spending per pupil level that would "fix our schools".  Or to help a "concerned citizen" realize that the taxes that they raised to pay for "health care for all" they had already spent on "free college education for all" just a few sentences ago.

But alas, the idea of "listen to the people" was rejected in Madison over the weekend.  I guess they are just going to try "it's the white guy's fault" for another election cycle.

If You Need an Accord, Buy a Honda

Remember a couple of years ago when members of the Oshkosh Common Council wanted to spend around 20-thousand dollars to have the new City Garage LEED certified?  They thought it was sooooo important to have a certificate saying their new building was as "green" as possible.  Fortunately, the majority of the Council rejected the waste of taxpayer dollars. 

I did a My Two Cents back then comparing the debate to a scene from the movie Searching For Bobby Fischer in which the chess prodigy Max becomes petulant because his teacher won't give him a Grandmaster Certificate.  The teacher then produces hundreds of certificates and throws then all over the table and the floor to prove a point to Max: it's not the certificate that's important--it's actually doing the work that counts.  And whether the building was LEED Certified or not--it was still going to be just as "eco-friendly".

I flashed back to that Two Cents yesterday as I heard the Climate Alarmists expressing their anger and despair after President Trump announced that he is "withdrawing" from the Paris Climate Accord.  That announcement yesterday is "ceremonial" at best.  You see, the Paris Climate Accord (and it is an "accord" not a treaty because treaties require actual Senate approval here in the US and President Obama knew there was no way such an agreement was ever going to be approved) is strictly voluntary.  Each country set its own "goals" for carbon reduction and there was not a "global climate police force" that would be able to enforce it.  President Trump could have just as easily "stayed in" the Accord but just announced that the new US goals are going to be zero percent reductions in carbon emissions for the next ten years--and we would still be "in compliance".  Or he could have made no effort to actually meet the reductions that President Obama promised--and again, we would still be one of the "190 countries that belong".

When they weren't wiping their tears away or lashing themselves with switches, a number of Mayors and Governors took to social media yesterday to say that they were "still going to abide by the Paris Accord despite what the President says".  And you know what?  They have every right to!  Unlike enforcement of illegal immigration laws, there is nothing on the books that says cities and states cant' establish their own carbon emission standards.  In his speech yesterday, the President didn't say that he was going to require state and cities to build coal-fired power plants or drill for oil or buy diesel buses.

Califorinia always brags about how they have the "seventh largest economy in the world".  If their
governor and their mayors all want to keep with renewable energy production goals, they alone should provide a great market for all of the renewable energy firms that now face a loss of substantial government subsidies (which is really all those on the left cared about yesterday).  And those cities and states can tax their own residents to subsidize any clean industries that want to locate there.

The United States can still easily abide by the terms of the Paris Climate Accord without actually being a part of the Paris Climate Accord (and paying a billion dollars to the unaccountable "Green Fund").  It's just a piece of paper--not the actual actions that so many are apparently still willing to take.  If those folks need an Accord so bad--maybe they should visit their local Honda dealer and buy one.

Welcome Back My Friends to the Show That Never Ends

As a public service, I'd like to remind you that the NBA Playoffs are still going on.  You probably needed that reminder since it has been a week since anybody has played a game.  I guess the two teams involved in the Finals are to blame for that.  Golden State swept San Antonio in the Western Conference Finals--so they haven't played in 8-days.  Cleveland beat Boston in the East in five games--leaving them with nothing to do for 7-days.  You would think that the NBA would move up the start of the Finals so that both teams could stay sharp and maintain momentum--but ABC gets the final say on scheduling matters now--and they wanted a specific date to promote for the start of the Finals and June 1st became the "set in stone" day.

Of course, it's not like the two teams are going to face a grueling schedule now that the series is finally getting underway.  After tonight's game one, there will be two off days before game two is played on Sunday night.  That will be followed by two more days off as the series shifts to Cleveland for game three next Wednesday.  That makes me wonder if the teams are traveling by covered wagon or steam train that they need two days to get from Oakland to Cleveland.

Hopefully the Cavs and Warriors can handle just one day off between games three and four--which is scheduled for next Friday.  Fortunately, they won't have to worry about playing any of next weekend--those are "travel days" as the series heads back to Oakland--again by mule team.  Game five is followed by two off days again--as is game six.  That means game seven--if necessary (and knowing the NBA's reputation for "controlling the action", it likely will be)--will be played on Sunday, June 18th.

To put that into perspective, it will take 18-days to play just seven games of a championship series.  The last Summer Olympics in Rio, Brazil took just 16-days to complete competition in hundreds of sports.  When your championship takes longer to play than the Olympics, you may want to reconsider how you are scheduling your games.

Now, I probably won't watch much of the Finals--because most of the games will tip off at 8:00 our time--and I'm usually in bed less than an hour after that.  That's a 9:00 start time for the East Coast--meaning kids still in school won't see much of those contests either.  That's a great way to build your sport's popularity!  But it will still affect me because the convoluted schedule also results in the NHL Stanley Cup Final being dragged out as well.  NBC has no interest in having a Cup Final game on the same night as LeBron and Steph Curry are playing--so the back half of the hockey series is also being staggered to avoid potential TV conflict.  (However, the way Nashville is playing, they are likely going to be swept out of the series by Monday night.)  Still, we don't need hockey on June 14th.

While we are on the subject, I may as well make a bold prediction on the NBA series.  I'll take Golden State in overtime on the 18th day of the series.  No sense in deciding a winner too quickly.