History

I'm a lover of history.  Starting at a very early age I would read (consume) as much history as possible.  All history, any history.  I did however have a fairly voracious appetite for European history (it could be that it's where a large amount of my ancestry comes from).  Today is Holocaust remembrance day.  It should be a day of reflection on how evil the human race can become, and how easy it is to get wrapped up in blindly following something.

We have a sitting President who opted to neglect mentioning the Jewish people when briefly talking about Holocaust remembrance day.  I hate to say this, but I am fairly certain that his anti-Semitic lap-dog (sorry I can't quite recall what Steve Bannon's actual title is, and I really don't want to google him to look it up) wrote it for him (much like the America First inauguration speech which hauntingly had a lot of groupspeak from certain white supremacist groups).

"Give him a chance" people will say.  I have.  We have.  In the 7 days since the inauguration only 1 thing has been okay coming from the White House, and that was the symbolic signing away of the TPP.  My only issue with this as being the only beacon of a decent action is that both Clinton and Sanders would have done the exact same thing, I also call it symbolic because it was never going to make it past congress anyways.  Past that our next 4 years continue to look bleaker and bleaker.

We're about to go into a trade war with Mexico.  Will we win?  Of course.  That's not a concern.  However I do happen to live in a state that has a massive border with Mexico (sorry walls won't do anything) and while we have a trade deficit with Mexico it is a fairly tiny portion of our GDP.  While a lot of people will disagree with me, it's a bad idea to economically ruin a country you border, poverty makes people desperate.  While this may never happen, a Mexico that is screwed by the US may just go to China instead.  Sphere's of influence are important for a reason.

I'm not paying for a wall.  A possibility of a 20% import tax would have consequences for me the consumer.  I think in general a lot of people don't want to think about that, and are ignoring that fact that ultimately we will pay for a damn wall, that will stop nothing.

Muslim immigrants and refugees have to go through stricter vetting to get into this country.  This is that kind of scary first step to vilifying an entire group of people and leading out country down a very dark path.  Fun fact (actually its not even remotely fun) Anne Franks father tried a few times to immigrant to the United States and was turned away because of very strict immigration rules.  If we are so worried about Radical Islam, why aren't we worried about Radical Christianity?  If it were to ever come to it, I'd no doubt register for an Muslim database.  Fear mongering will never make America great.

The Mexico City policy reinstatement will have far reaching problems around the globe.  Anti-choice laws have nothing to do with being pro-life.  If pro-life was really pro-life we would stop talking about the death penalty.  If pro-life was actually pro-life we would care for those children who were born.  Now once they are out of the womb they are somebody else's problem.  Pro-life is nothing more than pro-birth, anti-choice.  The hypocrisy of the legislators who want to be anti-choice, you must have that baby, but once you do it's your own damn responsibility, don't come to us for help or insurance.  I'm pro-choice, I always have been, but I'm also pro-education.  The sex education in the United States is a disgrace.

Torture doesn't work.  

Read this : it's short and has some interesting parallels - https://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005141