The News is Exhausting and Depressing

I suppose it all stems from two bases in global history:  (i) Greed and a hunger for power is the paramount driver for people who shape history and (ii) religion can be co-opted to support those who want to shape history in their vision.

The west has been fighting global jihad for over 20 years now.  I see us as being no closer to defeating it now than we were then.  We are perhaps safer because of vigilance, but no amount of vigilance can protect 100% of the people 100% of the time.  And the root cause of that jihad is based in faulty societies of the areas outlined in a great book about the rotten leadership wherever Islam abuts Christianity and Judaism.  It didn't have a solution and I see no solution until leaders in Africa, the Middle East and Middle Asia figure out a way to lead fair societies that treat everyone fairly.  It is a lack of fairness that creates people willing to be terrorists, although we have yet to see why the man in Las Vegas thought he was being treated unfairly.

So the NRA doesn't want bump stocks, but they still want everyone to own a semi-automatic gun.  And now I have seen people actually justifying the 2nd Amendment as a Constitutional Right to have fun with guns, not hunt or defend the country.   Well, I have fun driving 100 miles per hour in rural areas on interstate highways, but I will get a ticket if I do that.  Should I seek a Constitutional Amendment allowing that?

Meanwhile, the GOP Congress has to deal with their failure of leadership and lies to the base that the things they said would happen cannot happen because they were based upon lies.  And the reaction of the base is to elect even crazier people into office.

I saw an article today that the Christian Right will not give up on Trump because they truly believe that their religious beliefs give them a Constitutional right not have to sell products or treat people fairly if they are gay or transgender.  And they see Trump and his people, Sessions/Gorsuch as protecting those rights.  I cannot for the life of me understand how anybody who wants to be treated fairly for their beliefs would see that right as allowing them to treat others unfairly by not dealing with them in business transactions.  And it is that fundamental thought that drives these religious people to support Trump irrespective of all his other Un-Presidental actions.

Meanwhile, the GOP doesn't see income inequality and a fiscal deficit as an issue for them.  Rather they prefer to pursue policies that increase income inequality and the fiscal deficit.

It's enough to make me want to get highly intoxicated each night but I have decided alcohol is the reason I cannot lose weight, so I am cutting back on my imbibing.