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I'm really not hostile to the idea of secession. Once one state successfully does it, there will be a mad rush for the door. The Union would be over. Unlike 1860, I guarantee Federal government will not take part in a war to stop a state from doing it. There might be one within the state and then the Federal government *would* step in. But if they had a referendum a clear mandate... they'd probably pull it off. Especially a big state like California, Texas, or New York. But I don't think people recognize what an temporary economic catastrophe it would be. We have a lot of national debt, but most of it is held by Americans. That Federal debt counts as an asset for a lot people and organizations. If the Union dissolved those assets vanish from the economy. Destroyed. Social Security, Medicare, Disability... these are all personal assets. True, they are drawing those assets from their great grand children and beyond. It's a Ponzi scheme. But people can't see that at

On Trump There is no conservative or libertarian case for voting for Trump. There's no Republican case for it either. He's never been conservative and he represents a screw-you to the Republicans. A President Trump would represent the end of the Republican Party as we know it and he'll probably spend the next 4 years running against Republican Congressmen and Senators. He would not be comfortable with the party until it were re-branded as a channel for his twitters. But... although it might be bad for conservatives and Republicans, a President Trump might be good for America. You see, Trump will never have the full support of his party and will always have full opposition of the Democrats. He will always be one major scandal away from impeachment. This is good. A democracy is not well served by high-trust in the government or leaders. It is very possible that starting in February 2017 or earlier, the Republicans and Democrats will unify to lock away the considerable too

If you aren't fairly familiar with the Bible (Torah, Writings, New Testament) you will be face-blind to the whole of Western history, philosophy, and literature before about 100 years ago. By the same token, if you aren't handy with the peaks and feel of Westerns, you will not understand cinema before the 1980s or cinema by people who came to love film during that time.  Westerns pre-80s were just a vehicle for all the other genres of the time. There were kitchen table dramas, romances, cultural-political examinations/commentaries, detective stories, revenge stories, bright lights big city stories. It would be more reasonable to lump Star Wars and Gattaca together as "two common examples of SciFi" than to willy-nilly lump any movies with a horse in them as a "Western". All Westerns share a similar stereotypical setting: They are set at a time  before the pre-eminence of the automobile (City Slickers isn't a "Western") and in a place west of t

Sally Hemmings of course, was the slave and (candidly) baby-mama of six children by Thomas Jefferson, four of whom survived until adulthood. The two oldest, simply left Monticello when they became adults and moved to Washington DC where they disappeared from the historical record. The oldest, Harriet, passed as a white woman. The two youngest, who were not 21 when Jefferson died, were freed in his will. But since Jefferson's estate was heavily in debt, it took an actual act of the Virginia congress to ultimately pull it off. It turns out that being Jefferson's child wasn't all bad. (That's sarcasm.) That issue of  Harriet "passing as a white woman" is quite ironic and reveals how pernicious and corrupting was the system of racial slavery in the US. Harriet was legally a slave and "negro" because her great-grandmother was an African slave who had had at least one child (Harriet's grandmother) with a white sea captain. The captain allegedly tri

A message to the Fighting in the War Room podcast . Maybe my last. It's a trilogy. Hmm #1 Why would your conservative listeners prefer you didn't inject politics into your discussions? Possibly because, at best, you end up talking about them like they belong in a zoo (you guys know that half the country voted for Romney, right?). I mean you've run across a conservative or two and it was nice, but not the *crazy* ones! (Given your attitude, do you think they'd tell you what they really think?) Because you laugh at how conservatives are blacklisted in Hollywood and Journalism because progressives are so intolerant - especially toward social conservatives. Ha ha! Lighten up, everyone! Have you considered that your conservatives listeners kinda like you and would prefer you didn't portray yourselves in that light? #2 Why is it painful for conservatives to listen to you guys mix politics and pop culture since Joanna has a token conservative friend with whom she e