I Don't Do Peace

Inspired by another thread, the thrust of which is the old trope that you make peace with enemies, not friends.

Let me make it clear: I don't believe in making peace, and certainly, not for the sake of peace.

I believe in building bridges, overcoming differences, bringing in mutual understanding, connecting through shared values, and creating valuable networks, relationships, and alliances over common issues.

I don't believe in making pointless sacrifices for the sake of the other side agreeing not to kill you in exchange.

None of my work, nothing I do, is ever about making peace. I do not make peace with human rights violations, I do not make peace with the denial of my identity and dignity, I do not make peace with bad ideas.

I am working towards victory of life affirming values over destructive ones, and of good ideas over bad ones.

I am not a peacemaker; there's nothing peaceful about me.

And the people who matter will respect me for my dedication to my goals and to my values and to the identity that makes me strong much more so than they will ever respect me for begging for crumbs of peace on their terms.

Wishful Thinking

Please stop posting quite so much blatant propaganda, and by that I mean, clearly fake or hyperbolized stories, from fringe sources (likely Russian or Macedonian or whatever) that appear to support your POV or give you what you really wish to be true... but that clearly isn't. Also stop falling for agitprop from "anonymous sources", not just from the White House, but from foreign countries about seemingly sensational events. Trump has not yet cut off all foreign aid to the countries that have voted against US on the embassy. Stop reposting that crap! If and when he does it, you will know from reputable sources. And yes, I'm well aware the leftist MSM tends to cover up whatever makes Obama look bad and Trump look good. Do your due diligence; there are great investigative reporters on the right, and their work is worth reposting. No need to stoop to the garbage fed to you by troll factories.

Trump and the Grid

Trump and the grid:

As excited as I was about the concept of the grid actually being protected and prioritized in our NSS, I'm not sure that it will actually happen. Because, based on reports from Bloomberg and other sources, the career officials at the Department of Energy, and elsewhere, are still doing everything possible to derail this administration's agenda, and Trump still has not appointed people who would kick the bureaus inside those agencies in gear. Rick Perry may give orders, but enforcement of implementation ends up falling to the career people, who, so far, have shown little gusto for doing the work, and on some things, downright put up obstacles or lied about doing it.

That is why I do not have high hopes for anything infrastructure-related. This would have been the case to some extent with any Republican president, but will be particularly bad with Trump.

Oh well. At least, just like with the embassy, he set an example of what should be a national security priority, and perhaps in the future, someone else will actually get it done.

Voter ID and Crime Prevention

On voter ID fraud:

Let's, for the sake of argument, assume that there is no evidence readily available for truly massive voter ID fraud, likely because voter ID lists are not public.

But it's very easy to see how a system with NO voter ID requirements could be abused.

As with anything else, including cybersecurity, if you know of a vulnerability, why not patch it up, before bad guys take advantage of it and a crime is committed? What is the argument for opposing crime prevention?

Net Neutrality Discussion Fail

I have yet to see a single net neutrality advocate in good faith explain to me how my life as an individual user was seriously affected before 2015 (because the only issue in discussion right now is Obama's order), and why the world will suddenly change to substantially worse than pre-2015 with the current repeal. The arguments by Net Neutralians that have been presented so far have nothing to do with the specifics of the actual regulation being repealed, but are rather theoretical worst-case scenario of the early days of discussion on net neutrality in academic settings. Republicans, by the way, as usual did a terrible job, by and large, presenting a public argument of how the repeal is limited to a very narrow regulation, which had very little with the larger argument of net neutrality to begin with.

Taking One For the Team

In a year fraught with sex scandals, sophomoric election jokes about "pulling it off" and "pulling it out", just write themselves...

That's why I will never be anyone serious in politics.

Alabama: Incredibly Loud and Extremely Close

Alabama: An extremely close race is now called for Doug Jones (D).

It takes real effort for a Republican to lose Alabama, but doggone it, Roy Moore managed this difficult task.

Doug Jones is no better than Moore and I'm not celebrating.

I think it's a loss over all that the state was stuck with two such horrific candidates, and one of them is going to a US senator for the next two years, impeding any good that the Republicans may try to accomplish. And he's a rabid pro-abortion advocate, so in my view, also a deeply immoral person.
The only good news here is that the GOP is not stuck with the extremely awkward choice of what to do with Roy Moore, and will not have that legacy hanging over its head two years from now.
Let's hope Republicans learn a lesson from this and will nominate people who are not so repulsive that they turn off more than half of their own party in the deepest of deep red states.