Frankenfreude

I, like many others, have been enjoying the torment and embarrassment of “Senator” Al Franken. There are few more disgusting and reprehensible people than he and he deserves every atom discomfort afflicting him. Please, Minnesotans, don’t vote for this guy next time.

Having said that, it has to be said that the reaction to the picture of him “sexually assaulting” or “sexually harassing” super-sexy Leeann Tweeden is overdone. It’s obviously a joke, whether Tweeden was in on it or not. A poor joke, yes; a bad idea for a joke, yep; but an attempt at humor. It helps to remember that Franken was at the time, a comedian. Obviously not a very good one.

He stinks at two jobs – comedian and senator.

Which brings me to a second thought. In our new, hyperpuritan* atmosphere the late, great Benny Hill would likely be Public Enemy #1. His leering, bald-faced, though impotent, sexual innuendo is clearly verboten these days. Plus, the various dolls prancing about on his show would be considered persona non grata with our modern self-appointed feminist-driven cultural commissars.

Along that same line I expect that Plautus, handfuls of Elizabethan and Restoration Comedy playwrights, along with innumerable French scribes, not to mention packs of more modern stage authors who tossed around sex just to shock, would seem to be destined for the new bonfires of vanities.

I’ll wind up on another point, this one on the current slaughter of various Hollywood and TV bulls. Here’s a typical story we’re hearing pert near every day. Something dawned on me as I read this piece.

This producer, now being read out of Hollywood’s more respectable environs (snort!), may not be so willing to simply go away.

It’s possible that a lot of these mighty entertainment titans aren’t going to go quietly into exile or retirement. They could easily start their own production companies and compete against the hypocritical pansies that fired them… Hollywood isn’t the monolithic, closely controlled business it used to be and new IP distribution models like Amazon, Netflix, etc., will allow them to bypass the PC gatekeepers and feed straight to an audience.

Content is desperately needed to feed the insatiable fires of consumers, especially youth. Many of these accused are very good at program and movie making. Short of pedophilia, necrophilia or murder, a lot of potential viewers are willing to look the other way in return for a little entertainment.

*By “hyperpuritan” I mean no disrespect to the original Puritans, a complicated but sincere people who are treated unjustly by pop history (and a number of professional historians as well).

Defacing

I was putting together a bloggie with this thought in mind but the inimitable VDH beat me to it and says it much better.

The predictable behavior of the left gets more and more obvious as it gets increasingly brazen and deranged. Like conquerors (or coup participants) they wish to exterminate all signs of their predecessors.

The one difference here is that the left hasn’t been a conqueror in the traditional sense. Their foes are still in the field, even occupying major political offices, yet the left increasingly tries to write their opponents out of history and society — as if they don’t exist.

Best Legs – Journalism-wise That Is

When I first heard about the mess down in Charlottesville, I said to myself, I bet this story has better legs than the attempted mass murder of Republican politicians and their staffers several weeks ago.

So far doesn’t look like I’ll lose my money.

A few thoughts…

Funny how quickly this story was labeled “terrorism” (8.6 seconds by my watch) but a guy shooting people or wielding a knife, yelling “Allahu akbar!” somehow must require months of deep investigation before it can be considered “terrorism.” And in the end it still might be dismissed as “workplace” violence. (How often do you see crimes categorized by the local rather than the nature of the act? Only when it suits lefties…)

It seems that the Charlottesville town government tried to prevent the “Alt-Right” from having their protest but may have approved the counterprotest. This sounds strange to normal people – a counterprotest without the protest it is countering – but in the liberal mind it makes perfect sense. It’s a warped form of virtue signaling. Liberals are often against things that don’t exist… but a great effort needs to be mustered to stamp them out!

Interestingly we’re now hearing that the local and state authorities, including our execrable governor former Clinton bagman Terry McAwful, were ordered to stay put as the bused in professional protesters, anarchists and the fascist “Anti-Fa” movement, and a few local provocateurs, made their move to create a story about violent right-wingers.

And, to some extent, that’s how the story has been played: Violent right-wingers attacking harmless counterprotesters though none of the videos posted so far show anything but lefties instigating conflict with the dimwitted “Alt-Right” meatheads.

“Alt-Right” is heard more about on the left than the “right.”

Lessee, it took about 20 minutes (by my watch) before the Dept. of Justice decided it needed to get a piece of the action and investigate “Civil Rights Violations.” By the way they were describing, they weren’t referring to the civil rights of the original protesters, whose rights were slightly violated, but rather those of the counterprotesters. I guess it is like someone demanding satisfaction after breaking their hand while breaking the jaw of someone else with their fist.

And that brings us to the “car attack,” a newly minted phrase from the MSM. So a knucklehead may have run someone over on purpose. Okee-doke, try him and let’s move on. We don’t need some kind of national spectacle where the left does nothing but beat its moral breast and a few Republicans try to hop on-board and share some of the limelight.

Martin Cothran makes some excellent observations in “Why Liberals Need David Duke.”

Cothran is especially pointed on the bizarre Cultural Revolution Theatre of liberal complaints that Trump didn’t tweet fast enough nor voice sufficient condemnation of the original protesters for exercising their rights.

The watching Republicans scurry to try to get on the right side of the cameras was embarrassing.

I don’t remember anyone getting the same treatment when Republicans were shot.

You do remember that story, don’t you? You better remember it since the MSM has already forgotten it and won’t remind anyone of that embarrassing incident…

One final note – history.

This whole frewfraw started over the proposed removal of a Robert E. Lee statue that’s been in a Charlottesville park for, well, seemingly forever.

It’s part of the left’s campaign to expunge or rewrite parts of history of which it disapproves of. To the left history is a tool, rather a club, to be used to get its way, support its climb to totalitarian power.

To most everyone else history is agnostic. It is what it is, but not the left. For them it has to politicized, as everything else is politicized for deployment in service of its mission.

Recently, also in Virginia, practically down the street from me, Jeb Stuart High School was suddenly renamed by the school board. Well, not actually renamed yet, the board didn’t have another name handy. This happened after some liberals squawked, one complaining that her property values were plummeting were brought down by the name (this in an area that has seen asset appreciation drive homes to some of the highest in the United States). The board turned on a dime though the increasingly liberal area still had enough old-timers to keep the issue evenly divided.

No surprise that the board is packed with professional educational and community types, few of whom have ever been employed in the private sector, and those that have been are inevitably lawyers, activists or contractors/consultants to the federal government.

They are the creatures of the ever-expanding swamp that will consume us all.

The question becomes, under the coming liberal dictatorship, will it be possible to teach any history at all. Or will their be spots where no-longer-existing people and historical characters, erased from history, exist as phantoms that heroic folks battle and overcome.

In such a time will copies of Panzer General be hunted down? In such war sims will it any longer be possible to play as Confederates, Germans, Japanese or even, Mongolians, Romans or Crusaders? Any grouping disfavored by the cultural commissars?

Googlekrieg

The Google firing of James Damore could be the straw that broke the camel’s back. Maybe.

Damore had done nothing wrong beyond stating his opinion (much of it based on what is scientifically/medically known general genetically-oriented differences between the sexes). He was not incompetent. He did not harass anyone (though he himself, as a white male, was being harassed by Google cultural commissars) nor threaten anyone. He merely offered a different perspective from the increasingly extreme hyperleft perspective of Google management.

Shockingly, Google has insisted and continues to insist, that it believes in “diversity”of opinion. The company’s inability to see how it is 180 degrees wrong is a premier example of the innate lack of self-awareness of the modern liberal. That it permeates a whole company and its culture is rather frightening.

A lot of people have countered that Google is a “private” company and thus can fire anyone it wants for any reason it wants. Actually, it’s a publicly-held company. I’m a part owner. If you have a 401k with any tech fund in it odds are that you too are an owner. I certainly didn’t approve this company cultural fascism.

If Google were really a privately held company – a single or small number of owners, all of whom agree that employees need to all have the same political opinion, then I’d buy the right to fire employees they don’t like.

The problem with that approach, however, is that liberals have spent the last five decades arguing vociferously against that point. They have pushed government and legal interference into every nook and cranny of the business world, even against single-owner businesses; those that are really “private.”

They’ve forced small groups to admit members who are antithetical to that group’s mission. All in the name of “justice.”

It’s also been said that California’s famous labor laws expressly forbid firing people for political beliefs. The laws were, of course, written to protect commies and similar types but they can be protect all.

In addition, Google is a federal contractor and clearly has run up against federal discrimination laws. Remember Grove City? Take a penny, you’re in for a pound.

On the legal front Google doesn’t have even a leg to stand on.

It is possible that any Google lawsuit could end up in the court of an idiot judge. We’ve recently encountered judges who disregard what the law clearly says but they dislike; judges who feel free to rewrite laws to what they want.

We’re seeing more and more of this “No conservatives need apply” from liberals in the business world. It should surprise no one that all of their arguing about justice and nondiscrimination for decades was just a convenient stalking horse. Once they began to populate the corporate nest they, like the Cuckoo Bird, push out anyone not like them. With them it has always been about accruing power.

A Very Judicial Coup

We’ve now entered the Alice in Wonderland phase of America — specifically its judiciary arm.

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has just handed down its decision concerning the Trump “Travel Ban.” Surprise! It affirmed the remarkably daft and erroneous lower court decision concluding that Pres. Trump did not have the authority to restrict immigration — especially immigration from places that produce dangerous people.

The statute in question is one of the more straightforward statutes out there. Not written in typical double-negative bureaucratese, it’s actually understandable to a human being (i.e. not a lawyer). Here’s the important bit.

“Whenever the President finds that the entry of any aliens or of any class of aliens into the United States would be detrimental to the interests of the United States, he may by proclamation, and for such period as he shall deem necessary, suspend the entry of all aliens or any class of aliens as immigrants or nonimmigrants, or impose on the entry of aliens any restrictions he may deem to be appropriate.”

Pretty clearly the president can make most any decision he wants concerning immigration. If he does something squirrely, he can answer to Congress or the people.

However, the Ninth, according to this summary from Law Newz, decided that the president did not have exclusive domain over immigration. In fact, the court seems to have decided to insert itself immigration policy by dismissing the president’s reasons because, well, the court doesn’t approve of restricting immigration.

Well, glad that’s settled.

Actually, you would be hard-pressed to find a decision that was more perfectly wrong than this one. Almost every reason the court uses is spectacularly wrong and misunderstands the law and the Constitution.

For instance, the court decided that the president doesn’t have the power to proclaim the details of policy because he was discriminating against select people.

Wow, imagine that, a law that discriminates.

Oh, wait, that’s what laws do. They discriminate. Murder laws discriminate against murderers — crimping their style, so to say. Theft laws discriminate against thieves. Speed limits discriminate against speeders, etc. And immigration laws in the past discriminated against specific countries such as Eastern Bloc countries or limited the amount of immigrants from countries.

Funny how those laws work…

The court complained that the “travel ban” was breaking up families — declaring a new right that anyone related to an American may enter the country at will.

Now, a federal court ruled that the president doesn’t have the power that a statute clearly delegates to him. Well, then what’s the point of a president if courts can simply insert themselves into policy whenever they wish?

Maybe they think they should be in charge — unelected courts assuming a power they do not have in the Constitution. Judges that cannot be easily removed. Sitting in judgment of Congressionally passed laws, presidential Constitutional duties. No longer satisfied to be blindfolded and follow the law unequivocally, they now offer their thumbs up or thumbs down, like the Roman emperors of old; or maybe the Red Queen.The law means what she says it means.

It is time that these arrogant robed tyrants have their wings clipped. As the Virginia flag says, “Sic Semper Tyrannis.”

Can a Businessman Learn?

Donald Trump was a successful businessman (not that he didn’t have some failures) but his ascendancy to the presidency validates the point that the presidency isn’t a business position — at least as far as the current situation defines it.

No doubt before he became president Trump thought he could handle the Washington denizens. He figured that he knew a lot of Democrats in the past, had given to their campaigns and had worked with them in development projects.

I think that the the viciousness of the Washington national Democrats and their media auxiliaries ha stunned him.

A case in point — this whole Comey “memo” and Trump “obstruction of justice.”

Here’s what I suspect and think. We’ve only been treated to a highly edited, one-sided, possibly fictional version of what happened. I suspect that Trump did say to Comey at the meeting, when they were alone, that he should consider letting go of the Flynn matter. I also suspect there’s more to it. Something along the line of “You got your scalp. Flynn’s out. You know he didn’t do anything. You can call off the dogs.”

Trump’s mistake is that he thought Comey, and the Democrats in general, were honorable and were merely chasing Flynn to mark their territory and let the new president know that they are not to be trifled with. That they should be consulted with on big matters.

Trump the businessman has a grasp of such behavior. The county and city councils that he dealt with along with unions and the occasional Mafiosi behaved in a similar manner, until they were bought off with money, flattery and some choice jobs. In Trump’s experience, as an urban property developer, generally people want things developed so agreements can be reached, it’s just a matter of how much or who to employ or kowtow to. As corrupt as urban Democrats often are, they usually do want that eyesore redeveloped and they want the glory of being involved in such projects.

Washington Democrats do not operate that way.

They have one goal and one goal only — the accrual of power, total power. Everything is in service of that acquisition and anything in the way must be and will be destroyed. They are devoting their lives and the treasure (along with lots of other people’s treasure) to that goal.

Trump incorrectly thought that the taking down of Flynn was merely some muscle-flexing on the beach. Some letting the new guy in town know how things work if he wants to do business in the town.

It wasn’t. The Democrats deployed their knights and troops along with activating their media skirmishers to destroy Flynn. They will destroy everybody Trump sends out.

This whole “Russia Collusion” story is the pure distillation of that process.

Trump might think it will go away when he bribes the right people, appoints some Democrats or Democrat-approved people or compromises on the right issues. Not going to happen. Trump might think that the story will go away when the absurdity of it becomes apparent to a certain number of people and the media reports it honestly. Neither of those points mean a thing and the media will never report the story honestly. They are an arm of the Democratic party and can not operate separately of that brain any more than your arm can take on a life of its own.

There is currently one main short-term goal of the Democratic party and its disparate elements and allies in that quest for power — that is the destruction of Pres. Donald J. Trump. There will be no deviation or compromise of that goal. None.

The sooner Trump understands that, the sooner he can come up with a strategy for survival (and coincidentally, the United States as a free country rather than the totalitarian socialist state the Dems yearn for).

One leg, possibly the most important strategic long-term leg, is to Drain the Swamp.

While the Democrats and their generic allies in Hollywood, academia and business have other sources of income, influence and power, they ultimately depend on Washington in a way that a plant needs the sun. All the fertilizer and water mean nothing if there is no sun. Washington is that sun to the socialist campaign.

Start knocking the supports down and Democrat power lessens. The Dems are very weak at the state and county level so much of their lifeblood comes from two sources — very rich people (Hollywood, Silicon Valley and Wall Street) and Washington handouts. These handouts can come in the form of direct cash and/or influence.

They have an additional leg, not as wealthy, but it provides young, enthusiastic shock troops and serious cultural propaganda value — academia (K-12 and college).

Trump (AND THE DAMN CONGRESSIONAL GOP) need to start reducing numerous programs, agencies and departments.

There are so many targets of opportunity.

Start with the federalization of the student loan program. Kick it back to the private sector and states and make it clear that no one has a right to a federal government-funded education. It’s not in the Constitution.

National Labor Relations Board — Oh, Hell, yeah. Bulldoze it and salt the Earth that where it stood.

Eliminate the Dept. of Labor. It serves no purpose other than being a paid union and socialist clearinghouse. Anything that has to survive can be ported over to the Dept. of Commerce.

Eliminate the Dept. of Commerce. It serves no purpose other than being a pork barrel for select politically-connected business while also being a great place for socialists to make connections for better employment in the private sector. Anything that we just can’t live without can be reformulated in an agency.

The Dept. of Energy is a liberal pork barrel, increasingly being working against legitimate energy sources while funding green silliness. It’s legit functions with the nuclear energy industry can be put back into an agency like it was before or turned over to the U.S. Navy.

Seriously trim the Dept. of Interior. It was Ground Zero during the last government shutdown, revealing itself being staffed with hardcore liberals who viewed their fellow Americans (their actual employers) with disdain. They felt they owned the properties under their observation and that they, and only they, should be able to visit the parks and monuments.

Chase down every “green” program at every federal operation and shut it down. Chase down every “affirmative action,” “minority,” “diversity” or “inclusion” program at every agency and shut it down. You cannot believe the hundreds of millions, probably billions, of dollars these two liberal-stuffed rackets shake out of the federal government each year in the form of cash grants, conferences, giveaways and guaranteed contracts; every dollar of which goes to a liberal. The absurdity of the federal government “fighting” discrimination by openly discriminating is typical of the upside down world we live in.

There are so many liberal, anti-American, socialist NGOs and nonprofits wholly dependent upon federal funding or the imprimatur it carries. Hundreds, thousands of them. The mere threat to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting demonstrated this and how these people will cling to their taxpayer funds with every breath. They feel entitled to that money and feel it is theirs. They need to be apprised that this is wrong.

A bonus is that with the feds moving against these programs, states and counties would feel empowered to shut down their Mini-Me versions of these programs. Collateral damage would hit academia with devastating affect.

Put all these Democrat socialist soldiers out of a job. Get a real job with your NGO grievance-mongering experience. Or stock shelves at a 7-11.

Restore the Hatch Act to curtail open liberal intimidation in the agencies.Start with places like the IRS and Dept. of Justice. (And shut down any department or agency office with the words ‘Civil Rights’ or ‘Diversity’ in their title — these are fountains of mischief and vexation; they are not concerned about real ‘civil rights’ merely projecting their fascist power over their fellow citizens whom they view as backward).

Work with Congress to rein-in the out-of-control judiciary. Trim its powers — it is a Constitutional violation to have “inferior” judges sitting in judgment like a Roman emperor of Congressionally-passed laws or presidential actions. It might help to publicly depose several of the worst actors.

There’s more, sadly much more, but this would be a good start.

Pres. Trump needs to understand that, ultimately, swamp creatures will eat you. It’s what they do. They see you as an invader and a threat. Stop feeding them!

Scooter Libby Redux

Am I the only person getting a creepy Scooter Libby deja vu on this whole “Trump Campaign Russian Collusion” question?

Look at the similarities.

There’s a whole wildly exaggerated “threat to national security” claim. If you’ll remember select folks (Democrats) were claiming that CIA desk jockey Valerie Plame was practically America’s top spy and now we have folks (Democrats once again) claiming that Russia did something that somehow affected a handful of voters in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania to vote for Trump or not vote for Hillary. Something vague. Yet in reality it’s obviously a nothingburger on the national security front.

Then there’s the seemingly endless promise that there’s more, if only investigators will look deeper they’ll tie the whole administration into the story and a president will need to be impeached.

Meanwhile, one begins to get the funny feeling that everything that is known is all there is and in the end we’ll discover that five minutes after the investigators started working they already knew the answers. Remember how Patrick Fitzgerald knew who leaked Plame’s name, the putative point of the whole investigation, on Day One. It was Colin Powell aide Richard Armitage not Libby yet Fitzgerald, Javert-like, extended his “investigation” endlessly. Ultimately he caught Libby in a perjury so rickety that Fitzgerald should have been the one sent to jail for abuse of office. Armitage never faced any consequences over the leaking of the name of America’s top secret spy…

We already know the extent of the “collusion.” It’s minimal, coincidental and going nowhere. The whole nut revolves around an unpaid bit-campaign advisor whose business posting several years ago was in Moscow. Throw in the Flynn call to the Russian ambassador to lay some groundwork for Flynn’s upcoming job (not that unusual) and that’s it. Oh, yeah, Trump may have once eaten at the Russian Tea Room or attended a performance of Swan Lake or seen a matroshka doll…

Yet we have the FBI tied up in knots over it all and Democrats in unison demanding another Fitzgerald fishing expedition (which will feel compelled to get a scalp, any scalp, to justify their phony-baloney jobs and all the hot air the Democrats and their media parrots have exhaled).

And of course there’s the great unsaid – Obama’s mockery of Mitt Romney’s warnings on the danger of Russia and Obama’s swearing of fealty to Russian President Dmitri Medvedev in 2012.

Oh, and there’s this from Investors Business Daily pointing out that there was more actual “Russian Collusion” with the Hillary campaign than the Trump campaign. Yet, somehow, that doesn’t get any attention. I wonder why.

Tailgaters

I’m not referring to those pregame partiers.

No, I’m talking about those aggressive drivers who sit on your bumper, trying to push you along.

I was driving home at night a few weeks ago when a vehicle pulled up on me as I traveled down the road. I could tell it was an SUV or pickup because the lights were high so my car interior was filled with light. I figured it was about two feet off my bumper. This continued for about a mile.

I raised my arm and waved. The kindly driver then flashed me with his brights.

Was that an acknowledgment and he’d back off?

No, he just kept on me another mile to the next light — a double left turn. I pulled off to the furthest left lane and the pickup pulled by in the next turn lane. As he went by the gentleman gave me the finger.

What a class act.

Mind you, I was going the speed limit and it was around 8:00 at night on one of the busiest roads in northern Virginia. Still, I made sure my doors were locked.

So we all turned onto Guinea Road and Speed Racer got right onto the back bumper of the next car in front of him. As we ascended the hill that car hopped over into my lane to let the ass-wipe pass by and then he returned to the other lane.

So, I ask you, tailgaters, why do you do what you do? Are you so special that everyone must get out of your way? Think about what you are doing.

How Is Trump Like Global Warming?

Those who have been around a few years can recall the very specific predictions that used to be issued by global warming con men like Al Gore. Back at the end of the Clinton administration, doom-laden prognostications included things like New York City being practically underwater in… well… right about now. Temperatures were going to continue to rise until the world was one big desert, except where it was Waterworld-style ocean — all at the same time. It would no longer rain or snow, except where it rained and snowed in Biblical quantities. Tornadoes and hurricanes would roll year-round all over the planet.

Of course, 20 years later none of these things happened. New York is not underwater (despite Pres. Obama’s claim that Miami was underwater at high tide — a ludicrous claim that the media buried though one can imagine the firestorm if Donald Trump had said such a thing) and the temperature graphs have become so laughable that one could drive a semi between the real temperatures and the predicted/expected temperatures (that doesn’t even take into account the manipulation of some temperature records by NOAA). And the U.S. has gone through a record period of hurricane nonvisitation.

You’d think that would humble some people but, as we see, it didn’t. The hucksters, now renamed “climate change” activists have simply redoubled their efforts.

All of this leads me to Donald Trump.

Liberals, led by the Media-Entertainment-Academic Complex and the Democrat Party, promised that with ascension of Donald Trump all sorts of bad things would happen. The stock market would collapse; the world would erupt in flames; minorities of all stripes would be thrown into jail or possibly even tossed onto pyres; slavery would be reinstituted and fascism would be the official religion of the United States.

Well, like global warming predictions, all of these have proven wildly incorrect.

So what is it with the liberals that they feel compelled to insist that whenever their oh-so sage advice is not followed hyperdoom consequences will ensue? Why does everything with them have to be so histrionic, so Manichean?

Sadly, we are seeing the manifestations of this on college campuses where we have so-called students squealing that they are oppressed and being “marginalized.” Yes, the most pampered, coddled, spoiled, patronized, overfed children in history live in some kind of fantasy where they are oppressed victims akin to gulag zeks, medieval galley slaves or concentration camp inmates. It boggles the mind yet it is the world we are now living in. What is to be done with this next generation of delusional liberals?

The Dao of United

The “Dr.” David Dao-United Airlines story shows that the infantilization of America continues.

Ignoring the monumental stupidity of United Airlines chucking paying passengers in favor of employee “deadheads,” I have to be a contrarian and say that the bad guy here is David Dao.

A few things need to be understood in this case.

The cabin crew has significant legal powers backed by federal laws. They act with the power of the pilot, who is captain of the ship, just like a ship at sea. While you are on his/their craft, you are subject to that authority. Passengers are to obey their commands or risk being removed or restrained. The cabin crew must retain control of the cabin.

There was no other option once Dao had escalated the situation. He had to go.

Because you paid for a seat does not mean you own that seat or you can disregard the crew if you don’t like one of their commands.

Do you want the lowest common denominator in control of the cabin? How long before he goes off again?

What happens when this guy decides he needs to go to the bathroom and he doesn’t want to wait?

What happens if he doesn’t like the food options or doesn’t want to pay for them?

What if he wants a drink? Was he drunk? On medication? (I suspect he is on medication and probably under psychiatric care.)

What if he decides the cute chick next to him should be his wife?

What do you do with unreasonable people in close quarters?

The success of transportation systems is that everyone obeys the rules and they are simple rules, usually not too outrageous (though this is the airline industry). Everyone must be in compromise-mode and turn the self-centered mechanism off (even when Jabba the Hutt next to you insist upon hogging both arm rests). Personal space is very small and everyone, other than David Dao, understands that.

But what we had here was an alleged mature, grown man, a “Doctor!”, act like a spoiled brat.

How often have you been in a grocery store and witnessed a small child scream and throw themselves on the floor because mom won’t get them the candy or toy they want? And how often have you thought, that lady needs to get that kid under control?

Well, you just saw the same thing. Why is this different?

Actually it’s worse because Dao, theoretically an adult, is supposed to know how to behave; how to deal with bad and difficult situations.

Dao should have grumbled, shuffled his feet, maybe threatened legal action as he left the plane and then complain loudly to United customer service. Complain to the local newspaper, bad mouth United to everyone.

But what we now have is a reward for being an unreasonable, self-centered child.

Ever since the Baby Boomers ascended the cultural heights, there’s been an increasing desire to extend childhood into adulthood — to make life one big, long childhood romp. I guess this incident is a logical result.

Some random thoughts.

Does anyone think that Dao could have been reasoned with? I’m sure every parent reading this knows deep down, that answer is no.

Is your discomfort based on how ugly the incident was? We occasionally hear of planes setting down to remove unruly passengers.

Would you have wanted to sit next to this guy? Especially if United had let him have his way?

Hey, terrorists are paying attention. They just noted that making a scene will allow one to get one’s way — aided by shrieking women and fools recording things with their cellphones and hopping onto “social media.”

It’s frickin’ O’Hare Airport not Nome International — there’s a bazillion flights leaving all the time. Dao could have easily taken another one, probably all of 20 minutes later. United likely could have booked him a first class trip on one though I have the suspicion that like the small child he is, he was never going to voluntarily leave the plane.

A lot of conservatives and libertarians have convinced themselves that had United offered enough money (say, $23 million?), this whole ugly mess could have been avoided. Sorry, guys, that’s you projecting your rational thinking onto someone who is clearly irrational. That maniac isn’t responding to monetary offers. He’d just as likely have responded to a trail of Skittles leading off the plane.

Does anyone want “Dr.” David Dao treating them? Does this guy have the temperament to be making possibly life and death decisions?

Maybe he’s not really a “Dr.” but more like a “Napoleon” at the loony bin?

Well, no matter what, this has just lowered air travel a notch lower. And I have a business trip in two weeks (though I’m not on United).