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Here's a great plan!! The Democrats want to impeach Trump before the inauguration. I can't think of anything that would unify the country more than impeaching the President again.

Here's a better plan. Just sit tight for a couple of weeks until the long Democrat nightmare is over.

Although I don't blame Trump for the storming of the Capitol, I was appalled when he started his statement by reiterating his claim that the election was stolen and that he had won by a landslide.

First, I am not certain about the stolen part, but the landslide part is a fantasy.

Second, there was absolutely nothing to gain from bringing it up. No one's mind would be changed. The message of peace was obscured. It gave Trump haters that much more excuse to express their hatred of him. It further revealed his self-absorbed nature. And it added one more excuse for "historians" to dimish his accomplishments.

I don't blame the Trump supporters who are abandoning him, especially since he has abandoned and/or chastised so many of them, including his foolish uber-criticism of the Governor and Secretary of State of Georgia. What a shame. I like most of what he did, but I don't like who he is.

This is a Greek tragedy -- hubris on steroids.

01/07/21 07:40 PM

#19876

Bob Fleming

HI David. I like this last post; we can have a debate about literature and not politics. Always to be preferred.

I propose we do some research on hubris as the Greeks understood it and as it has been passed down through our literature.

My starting point is that a man (with the Greeks it was men) with hubris is possessed of a fatal flaw or more accurately, a lack of knowledge, that ultimately undoes him - despite his best and honest efforts.

Like the poor fellow that blinded himself upon learning he had a sexual relationship with his mother..

In other words, he is otherwise well-intentioned and even noble or praiseworthy. But his deficiency is punished by Fate. Ultimately it is a flaw to which every man is susceptible. (A kind of original sin.),

In my mind, simple venality, narcissism, etc. does not qualify for us to say that a man is undone by his hubris.

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I think Trump is best described, not in the Greek sense, but the medieval (dare I say Christian) understanding of human nature.

He is defined and thoroughly captured by ALL of the 7 deadly sins. You know. Pride, Anger, Gluttony, Sloth, Envy, Greed, and Lust. Is this not so?

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I wish one of our classmates would give us a psychological profiIe of Trump but I know of now classmates in that profession. I suspect that the man right now is in deep psychological crisis and that in fact (though not in law) Mike Pence is President and Trump is in Perot's words "the crazy aunt in the basement/attic" watched over by a critical few. If he gives an order, everyone says, "Is that right, Mike?"

And one final thing. I think ALL that voted for Trump and ALL that oppose him continue (to use George W. Bush's great word) "mis-underestimate" the depths of his depravity.

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To understand Trump, you must go deeper. Deeper, much deeper. Our forebears had better phrases to describe such a man. Wreckage. A Shipwreck.

01/07/21 07:52 PM

#19877

Bob Fleming

Bob,

It seems you have the ability to channel some events in my life.

I had one occasion to interact with John Silber. Believe it or not he gave the first address to the freshamn class at Trinity University in 1969. If I remember correctly the connection was that he had been on faculty at Trinity in his youth for a year or two. Something like that. There was a connection somehow.

After his address, I had the temerity to be one of two people that asked him a question. (It was some freshman thing where I tried to contrast Platonic philosophy and existential philosophy or some stupidity. I was way over my head.

I am so grateful now that he said to me that he could see that I had listened to his speech and that I had read some things and he was happy to know that I was willing to learn and work. He then said I should come back and talk to him in 5 or 6 years! But not until then.

I was just young enough to take encouragement from the first and forget the second (until I got older and then and still do blush at the memory). I'm glad I escaped alive.

01/07/21 08:11 PM

#19878

Janalu Jeanes (Parchman)

David,

I also like a number of things he did, & one of the first, was targeting ISIS, getting them and their claimed territory on the map of the Middle East, off the TV every night. That huge expanding black smudge on the map each day, was down right scary to see continuously! Most people have forgetten that. Another accomplishment was his effort to bring Israel and several Mid-East countries together in trade agreements, which can lead to bigger and better achievements for the Middle East, as well as cooperation between those people, hopefully. I guess now, with this new administration, we will go back to promoting Palestinian wishes, and ignoring the Israeli people, for the most part. i remember that Obama didn't like the Israelis too much, and even put his efforts behind a competing opponent to Netanyahu, hoping Bibi would be defeated.

Also, like you, I don't believe that he encouraged his followers at yesterday's rally, to march down to the Capitol, and break in. Absolutely not! He merely wanted them to go there and allow the Congress members to see their numbers and hear that they were aggrieved at the way the voting was handled. Their beliefs WERE, that there was calculated mishandling of the ballots, beginning with the distribution of ballots in a "willy-nilly" manner, plus a large number of temporary gathering boxes, called ballot box substitute mailboxes, placed everywhere, with no supervision. (There should have been cameras monitoring those boxes!) Those substitute boxes allowed anything and everything, official or not, to be inserted, and allowed all manner of false manipulation nonsense to occur. Also, there were amendments made to state election procedures, illegally procurred by people who were not members of state legislatures, which SHOULD have happened (the changing of voting rules) by those official legislatures....changes were made months before the election was to begin, so as to affect the rules toward much leniency, rather than what SHOULD have been the case. Another derelict happening, was when Chief Justice John Roberts denied the Supreme Court the abilitiy to hear grievances submitted by American citizens,by way of their spokespeople speaking for them. He effectively denied those citizens their rightful voices be heard! That one ocurrance, was a misjudgement, in my opinion. John Roberts SHOULD have allowed hearings, so that folks could see and hear a reasonable answer to their grievances, but instead, "he punted." He seemed MORE concerned that the hearing of grievances(written as affidavits)... would ultimately lead to violence by anarchists in our country, which, in my opinion, SHOULD NOT have been his concern, because the hearing of citizen's voices should be the formost thought in his mind.

One other point I would like to make. THOSE OF US WHO VOTED FOR TRUMP, did not vote for him with any outstanding confidence of what he might bring to the office, we ONLY voted for him because he said he would support the Republican platform we prefer, but also, and MAINLY BECAUSE, he was NOT HILLARY, a person WE KNEW to be an absolute criminal, although she has been ALLOWED by the Democrats, to skate by with her crimes. AT LEAST, we voted!!!---which is "a far cry" from some woefully challenged American citizens who didn't have "the where-with-all" to make the effort to FULFILL their civic duty!!!!

01/07/21 08:17 PM

#19879

Conservatives. Be vigilant. This US is too big a ship to steer without hiccups. The sway will go the other way.

You have some new folks now who strike fear in the hearts of a very small democratic alliance.

It was an alliance which ONLY succeeded due to agreement to adhere together to accomplish one thing. Get Trump out of the presidency.

Now that is done, there will be infighting....splits....failures...it always happens. Can't keep everyone happy.

During the past four years I was convinced Trump would win again and be succeeded by Cruz. He is one cagey guy. I am or have been surpised by his riding the Trump coat tails.

So...Janalu, don't be too down heartened. We fear you as much as we fear ourselves.

01/07/21 08:25 PM

#19880

Janalu Jeanes (Parchman)

Why do you fear me, Lowell? What about me, scares you?

And please don't ignore my questions, as you usually do lately!

I truly want to hear your comments.

01/07/21 08:53 PM

#19881

Janalu I was writing rhetorically....conservatives fearing liaberals and visa versa...Sorry if my manner isn't clear.

You are correct about me not responding. I don't find it helpful to continue on and on on a subject. No one's minds have been changed....

01/07/21 09:06 PM

#19882

Janalu Jeanes (Parchman)

So who is trying to change minds, Lowell?

When I post, I post about what interests me. I hope to find people who are like-minded. If you don't like my posts, you are free to skip them.

By the way, you have no need to fear me. I'm no threat to anybody, least of all you, being a person set in your ways, I suspect. How do my thoughts affect you? Everyone has individual thoughts, yes?

When I wrote of what I feared, those were my fears. How did you feel threatened by my fears?

The Democrats scare me, because of what they say they have in their plans. Their plans are very frightening to a person who believes as I do, but I think you agree with what they espouse, so you have no fears at all, right?

I just heard on the news that Democrats are now 'Blacklisting Republicans', because they want to discriminate against us, not giving us jobs, and doing other things to put us in the spotlight of shame! How nice of them! Did we 'Blacklist' the people who were Obama supporters?

I don't think so! Such talk is why I am in fear, Lowell. Democrats are out for revenge against those who are not like them.. They don't want to accept us who have different thoughts that they don't have themselves.

You are not like that, are you Lowell?

Please respond if you will.... I'm desperate to hear of whether I need to fear you......

01/07/21 09:36 PM

#19883

Bob (Fleming)

You'd need a forsensic psychologist to profile Trump.

01/07/21 10:26 PM

#19884

Lowell,

Long before either forum and independent of them I've worked hard to build readership, an eye on maintaining and increasing. I think most writers would agree, every word, every nuance is subject is to ridicule; distortion; praise; scorn; praise; condemnation; admiration; interpretation; misinterpretation and microscopic examination. We write anyway.

Writers know there will always be someone thrilled to point out a misspelling; argue proper word usage; spot a syntax error; punctuation mistake or all three. We write anyway.

Writers know some love us, some do not; others, indifferent. We know among our followers are stable; instable; somewhere in between and card -carrying lunatics. We write anyway.

Trying to explain to explain rhetorical or humorous writing to only one or two people you can bet they're the only ones who didn't get it. They may not like it, but they were bright enough to get it. Keep writing. Your posts are among those helping maintain sanity.

01/07/21 11:41 PM

#19885

Bob (Fleming)

I have no business on these forums. Unlike my husband who's worked remote since Covid, I am altogether void of his discipline, his ability to ignore painters; jack hammering, buzz saws; hammer guns; sledge hammering; glass breaking; constant chattering, phones ringing; music blasting, apparently nherent to remodeling. Instead I spent the week escaping into forum insanity, enjoying every minute of it.

Among the highlights was your writing. It reminds me of Bob Davidson's: my cherished friend; trusted confidante; a man who fuels my wings; a man too humble to admit, much less agree, his sense of humor is better than mine could ever be. So is his politesse.

Hope you, too keep writing.

01/08/21 01:07 AM

#19886

One more thing.

Among my dearest friends, among them classmates, whose political opinions do not necessarily align mine.

From the beginning, unspoken was agreement nothing is worth risk of injury, much less destruction to the bond between us. Neither of us willing (or even remotely interested) in bastardizing religion in efforts to control and manipulate. Neither would it occur to either to word-bludgeon the other in frantic, desperate need to "be right."

From the beginning, unspoken too, was agreement to disagree and move on.

What's so difficult about that?

01/08/21 02:07 AM

#19887

Steve Keene

Bob D.,

I am really looking forward to President Biden's first White House Press Corp news conferences.

Jim Acosta: Mr. President, sir. Your hair looks especially nice today, Mr. President. Did you do something different?

President Biden: Yes, Jack. I had my wife comb my hair this morning because I could not decide which side I usually part it on.

Jim Acosta: That sure did work out well for you, Mr. President.

President Biden: You know John, she has loved my hair since the first day she saw it blowing in the wind as I was being arrested in my stroller while demanding fweedom for Nelson Gandhi in Leopoldville, Belgian Congo in 1927.

01/08/21 07:28 AM

#19888

Bob F. -- You said about Trump: "He is defined and thoroughly captured by ALL of the 7 deadly sins. You know. Pride, Anger, Gluttony, Sloth, Envy, Greed, and Lust. Is this not so?"

Well, I would argue that sloth doesn't fit for Trump. On the other hand, it increasingly applies to me. Actually, I think all of them apply to me. We can't all be Christ-like.

Meanwhile, the left's hatred of Trump blinds them to what he has accomplished, some of which Janalu listed. Much of that is due to his courage to take risks and put himself on the line. He has guts to the (perhaps over-) max. If I were in a tag-team match to the death, I'd rather have him on my team than Biden. He has fought for his vision regardless of odds and opposition, whether you like that vision or not. The Middle East negotiations are a very clear example.

After reading a bit about hubris, I will stand with my comment about Greek tragedy.

As for your clever comment about a psychologist, the only one who comes to mind has so thoroughly and repetitively expressed his hatred of Trump that he is incapable of rendering an unbiased professional analysis.

01/08/21 07:57 AM

#19889

Wayne Gary

Holly,

I have enjoyed your posts. I started throwing the Dallas Morning News in Jr Hi and continued until I graduated from RHS. The entire time at A&M I read the News and have always read it since. I probably read some of your articles in the News. I very seldom read teh "by line"

I always try to be kind in my dealings.

01/08/21 08:51 AM

#19890

Bob Fleming

I think, David, sloth as well. I know Trump has huge personal energy . . . but he was manifestly uninterested in learning his job and applying himself diligently to it. I stand by my suggestion to you - you give him much, much too much leeway in regards to his personal character.

As to his accomplishments, I didn't read or don't recall Janalu's list - but I agree he had some.

At the Meta- level, he broke an elite poliitcal consensus on a number of topics, most notably: collective and multi-lateral security arrangements; free trade and globalization; and immigration. probably others I am forgetting. All of these topics will have to be poitically "re-negotiated" and re-magined over the years.

Oh, most certainly he broke the consensus on how to deal with China and that too will have to be re-negotiated in the future.

I consider those to be ccomplishments and will be curioius to see how the issues are re-imagined.

He also had some negative accomplishments - most notably the destruction of comity and civility in politics and discourse as well as personal behavior. That is deeply regrettable and evident everywhere (including this forum). It also cost him politically . . . the Affordable Care Act would be no more if the man had not needlessly demonized John McCain who took his Revenge when Trump most needed his vote.

More concretely, though his overall managment of the pandemic was very poor; the roll-out of the vaccine was and is an initial success. And if am benefitting from it personally as my vaccine is scheduled for tomorrow (Saturday). I noticed that Biden has acknowledged this success, which is encouraging. Give credit where credit is due.

I know conservatives give Trump credit in regards to tax cuts and to filling Supreme Court vacancies and I concede that they are victories. I do point out though that ANY Republican President would have achieved these victories. Unlike the others, they are not unique to Trump.

In summary I would say that Trump's poitical talent is for destruction. Some of it necessary; most of it unnecessary. It will be left to others to pick-up and reconstruct the pieces.

Trump's accomplishment was in Destruction. It is well that he is a one term President. I don't believe he would have been able to begin tasks of Reconstruction. As I say . . . sloth, it's simply too much work.

This is the best I can do in regards to Trump, David. That's what I got for you.

I try to be conciliatory. The political group I belong to taught me the two great rules of politics long ago.

1. The other Side is not entirely wrong.

2. If the other side is not entirely worng; we are not entirely right.

This is the precise psychological space where politics is done.

The goal of politics is not to Vanquish the other side; but to understand them and try to find a basis for getting along and moving on.

Best wishes.

01/08/21 09:07 AM

#19891

Bf and DC

Hence, my reflectiion today is the two party system seems to be lacking.

A parlimentary form of gov't is attractive to me. Alliance between splintered organized groups to govern is more effective. More compromise or you get voted out.

How we would get their is merely a dream.

01/08/21 09:18 AM

#19892

Wayne Gary

On a history lesson away from what is going on today.

I bought a 68 documentary set of DVDs at Half Priced Books called "WWII The War that Changed the World".A varey interesting fact I had never heard before is that Franco of Spain signed a secret pact with Hitler agreeing to enter the war as a AXIS after Germany paid him a large sum of money and that Spain would have control of the French colonies in Africa. Germany did not make the payments and Italy lost in Africa so Spain stayed neutral.

I am very interested in WWII and I hav a lot of documentaries.

01/08/21 09:24 AM

#19893

Bob F.,

I agree that Trump doesn't show much in the way of intellectual curiosity, but if that be sloth, the same could be said for the vast majority of coal miners. Would we call them slothful?

I am pleased that you are close to receiving a vaccination, as you deserve to be high in the priority. But I have a different take on Trump's managment of the COVID-19 crisis.

You might recall that classmate Carla Peters Byrom caught COVID-19 last January. How? She was on a tour with a lot of visitors from Wuhan. Trump shut off transportation from Wuhan early-on.

The same bullying characteristic that you hate is the bullying characteristic that made the vaccine happen. No one except Trump thought it could be done in less than a year. He was universally mocked by the left. Yet here it is. Why? Because Trump wouldn't accept the bureaucratic norm. Of course, he had nothing to do with actual scientific work, much like Vince Lombardi did no blocking or tackling for the Packers.

By the way, I was very much psychologically distressed when I was 10 or 12 and read an article (with photos) about Thalidomide babies. That keeps tugging at me as I anticipate taking a vaccine that went from start to finish in so short a time.

Regarding unifying, the left would do well to look in the mirror. The Speaker of the House, with malice and premeditation, tore up the State of the Union Address right behind the President. The Russia hoax is one of the lowest examples of political suterfuge in our lifetimes. The impeachment was a disgrace. The current discussion about the 25th Amendment is beyond the pale. It has nothing to do with anything other than retribution, that is to say, raw, unbounded hatred.

But the left has no concern for the 75 million people who voted for Trump. To the left, unifying means consolidating power, not bringing in people different and even opposing views. The cancel culture is already threatening people who supported Trump. Off with their heads! That is an extreme form of separation, not unification.

01/08/21 09:28 AM

#19894

For three days in a row they have had articles from NY Times or W Post about how California is having a Covid 19 crises unprecedentd in the past 10 months

They post the stats and deaths and cases and generally are freaking out.

But, when I look at the case totals, death totals of California Vs Texas....ours is worse.

We have more deaths and a much lower population.

We have as many if not more cases.

I guess we just don't have a presence with the Covid 19 press corps

01/08/21 09:31 AM

#19895

Lowell,

I recall clearly a history course I took at UT in which the TA for my discussion section promoted the parliamentary system as being superior to our system. I was very disturbed by his comments. Anyway, I think I would rather stick with our version.

You make a good point though. I suspect that the the Dems will make hay while the sun shines. Hopefully, their likely overreach will return Republicans to the majority in the Senate, and maybe the house, in two years. Well, I hope, although I know you don't!

Separately, what the COVID-19 statistics don't capture is the collateral damage of the shutdowns, not just financial, but physical and psychological as well.

01/08/21 10:28 AM

#19896

Steve Keene

Lance,

I hope Wayne doesn't answer you as it is apparent you have fallen under an evil spell.

01/08/21 11:04 AM

#19897

Bob Davidson

Bob F -- John Silber is from San Antonio and went to Trinity as an undergraduate -- I don't think he taught there -- he went to Yale for divinity school, law school, and a Ph.D. in philosophy, where he specialized in Emmanuel Kant. He then taught philosophy there until UT hired him to chair its philosophy department in the mid 1950s. He hired three other junior professors from Yale and gave them tenure. He turned UT philosophy from typical medocre state u program to one of the top faculties in the world. (That Ronnie Dugger book Our Invaded Universities set all that out at length.)

At the time we were subject to his "intellectual boot camp" as the Plan II director called it (i.e., his mandatory class on knowledge and values for Plan II sophomores -- it included our classmates David, Tommy Thomas, Steve Gardner, Steve Alford, Donna Bate, and maybe someone else I don't specifically remember) my girlfriend was the babysitter for his 6 or 8 children. Her father and Silber were good friends from college -- Trinity -- where they played together on the tennis team. That particular girl was much more well-read than I was and she and her friends (who were the Marxist graduate students and faculty at UT -- this girl stood out amoung the commie frumps because she was drop-dead gorgeous in an affluent hippie chick way, like our lovely classmate Sarah Foster around the Rag staff) made me aware of how I was so shamefully ignorant (honestly for the first time in my life) that I went into a years-long reading frenzy so as not to feel so damn foolish around her and her fellow travelers. In some ways it was like being Robert Redford around Barbra Striesand in The Way We Were. Since she was a trust-fund Marxist, I wasted a lot of energy absorbing garbage social philosophy; the good thing is that I learned about it enough to understand how and why it is both seductive and poisonous in uniting budding toltalitarians and well-meaning do-gooder useful idiots.

Silber taught our class of maybe 180 students in a modern auditorium for 3 hours in the afternoon, using the law school Socratic method. He had a seating chart and called on a victim to answer questions, like an old-school law professor. The best portrayal of this in action is Kingsberry in Paper Chase. Many times he reduced students to sputtering incoherence or tears, or both.

One of the odd friendships I had at UT was with Plan II's nameless uber-sorority girl. She was uber enough to be able to hang around with a mutt like me and not diminish her status at the Tri-Delt house. (Around her sorority sisters I felt like Oliver Twist, as opposed to how middle-class WASP I felt around the reds.) We never dated, but were simpatico study buddies. At her sorority house, the snobs looked at me like they expected me to pick up a mop and start cleaning.

She was the daughter of a rich as Midas Houston oilman and said her mom was a Tri-Delt so she had to be one, too -- although she joked that her purpose was to boost the collective gpa. One of my former law partners went to high school with her -- Kathy the lawyer was a typical Rice girl ("I'm the smartest person in this room and you'd damn well better remember it.") and this girl was one her intellectual rivals back then, along with another Plan II girl who became a lawyer famous for her monthly column in the state bar journal -- the one several of us referred to as "speaking as a Jewish woman."

My friend was one of Silber's worst victims -- he essentially told her that if she really believed the position she was taking, that she had the morality of a prostitute. (Remember that day, David?) She was devistated, humilliated, and really, really hurt and cried to her dad about it. What she told me: Despite her begging him not to, he flew up to Austin the next morning, stormed into Silber's office, told him that he would kick his ass if he didn't apologize to his daugher, and when Silber blew him off and told him to get lost, went to Hackerman, the UT president to demand that Silber be fired. When ole Hack didn't give him satisfaction, he went to Erwin and the Board of Regents, his state senator, Bill Hobby, and Governor Smith (apparently he had given all of them enough money that they listened to him) complaining about Silber.

That is supposedly the root of Silber's apologizing for calling the student "stupid" or so a communist philosophy graduate student told me.

01/08/21 11:44 AM

#19898