Let's Talk Politics

Now you're starting to get it.

Things I heard from one of my now-former subcontractors yesterday:

1. Masks are like trying to contain a tornado with chicken-wire. (This one even though he had already tried it out on me and I had rejected it like Hakeem Olajuwon.)
2. The company we were working for only insisted that we wear masked because they are Chinese and feel guilty.
3. When I pointed out that our hosts were Japanese-owned he said, "they all wear masks and they don't even have the damn thing."
4. When I suggested the possibility of a correlation between them wearing masks and not having the damn thing he siad it was because they followed Trump and banned travel from Japan.

That was all in 15 minutes in the parking lot. He kept his mouth shut as we worked through the morning.

At lunch:

1. George Floyd was a drug user (so is he, just different drugs), jailbird, racist, counterfeiter, arrest resister...but the cop was wrong killing him. (That last part is what allows him to keep his status as a non-racist, I guess.)
2. Black Lives Matter is stupid.
3. Blacks should be protesting black on black murder. Don't nobody talk about that.
4. Tearing down monuments is horrible and there's no reason for blacks to resent them.
5. They've got monuments in Auschwitz, why not Richmond. (No response to the question "Is there a monument to Goebels in Auschwitz? Because that would be a more apt comparison")
6. They don't teach "White History" in schools. Why should they teach Black History? (The same blank stare when I remind him that what we learned IS White History.)
7. None of us owned slaves.

on and on.

I didn't really have a choice but to let him finish the day, but I now need a new sub for that skill.

NO ROOM FOR RACISM!!!

Biden called Trump a whiney bit*ch

New laws went into effect today in Virginia.

In addition to me being able to smoke a fatty on the streets for a $25 fine, the City of Richmond now have control over most of the statues on Monument Avenue.

My son lives near there and called to tell me that a contractor has already begun removing the stature of Stonewall Jackson.

Free at last, free at last!

They'd better hurry. Mayor Stoney is bringing them down fast.

I hope they will put up plaques with pictures of the old statues with historical context of the repression they represented and beautiful new fountains in the pedestals that remain.

More likely, we will argue about who is going to replace our great heros for so long that the pedestals will crumble and have to be removed.

The argument against amnesty. I would like to see one of you elucidate it. I think it might rest on the policy decisions. Who gets to decide the policies of the nation? But that was the argument against women's suffrage. Is it the undercutting of wages that immigrants cause by upping the labor supply leading to the decline in wages? Is that a legit complaint? Sounds like good capitalism to me. I want to hear someone make a solid argument against amnesty and defend it, all the better if you don't agree with the arguments but you make a case that still makes a person think.

You should always try to interpret the arguments if those you are arguing with in the best light or with the best possibility of defeating your objections.