we caved

I don't go along with Beagles' Trumpist sentiments that it's us or them.  As long as people have that attitude there will be more racial tension than there would be otherwise and our nation is weaker for it.


Last morning I decided that I needed an indigo watercolor pencil before I could complete my latest masterpiece, and when I returned with it and tuned in CNN I heard that the showdown was over.  Surely my side had won, and what we'd gotten was a promise from Mitch McConnell.  A promise from Mitch McConnell???  Well Durbin was for it and they had formed some centrist partisan anti-crazy faction in that senate, so maybe there was more there, but it turns out there wasn't.  All they had was a promise from McConnell to bring it to a vote by February 8th.  Even if he comes across there is no way the House will bring it up, and Trump is already adding things to the list he wants before he will sign it, and even if he gets that list, he will keep adding on things, the art of the deal.

Well fuck, why did we give in so easily?  I haven't read all the pundits, but the most likely theory is that the red state dems got cold feet.  Well shit, Schumer should have known they would before he launched the shut down, a black eye for the dems.  Off with his head I say.  But probably not.  Maybe we can get something out of this centrist anti-partisan faction.  I doubt  it, but it's all we have.


Colonial powers when they partition their conquests make a point of mixing the ethnic groups in the partitions so that they squabble among themselves and not with their conquerors.  Of course in Germany you had ein volk and ein reich and they all got behind ein fuhrer.


I looked up moral particularism and what I got out of it is that it rejects generalized rules of morality in favor of weighing each situation individually.  In my highly unpopular example of giving a bum a buck, this would mean instead of handing them out on the principle of oh, the golden rule, every time you came across a bum you would have to decide, like court cases I guess.  Sounds a little odd, but then when I look into these philosophical schools to any depth, I just get lost.