Don't Trust Anyone Over Thirty

A blogger I've admired for over a decade (I think it's been that long; my memory might fail me) has recently decided to scrub the Internet of all of her old opinions. I know, I know, foolish quest. The Internet is forever. Anyway, she posits a new law: "Nobody should be allowed to put any of their dumbass thoughts or feels on the internet until at least 30."

When I was young, a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, the campus anti-war movement had a rallying cry, "Don't trust anyone over thirty." I'm well past that milestone now, but I still think there's a nugget of wisdom there.

Wars are still started by old men but fought and died for by young men.

National debt is still piled up by old men but inherited by the next generation.

And absolute gun rights are enshrined and defended by old men but we bury the child victims that result.

Don't trust anyone over thirty. Still sounds good.

Jade Helm 15 Redux

Remember Jade Helm 15? Maybe you don't, at least if you're a relatively sane American not given to conspiracy theories. To refresh your memory, Jade Helm 15 was a series of joint military exercises conducted in the US southwest in 2015. The right wing went batshit crazy accusing Barack Obama of all sorts of evil motives. According to Wikipedia,  

 

Jim Shea of the Hartford Courant's wrote that the conspiracy theories included: a "psychological operation aimed at getting people used to seeing military forces on the streets" so that they do not realize when an invasion actually takes place.

Well, Jade Helm 15 came and went without a military coup. You might think that the right wing crazies will be ever vigilant against any new signs of the US military on the streets. Just kidding. In fact, President Donald Trump now wants the US military to conduct a grand military parade down Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington DC. The generals are against it. The Democrats in Congress are against it. The Republicans in Congress are against it. The mainstream press is against it. You know who isn't against it? The right wing crazies. Apparently, being against military putsches isn't some kind of general principal with them, so important that they will protest the first signs of military on our streets. They are only against such operations if the black guy is in charge.