What did we learn in 2021?
– My first lesson would be to avoid the supposition that any year will be better than the prior year.
This assumption is like crack cocaine to optimists, the idea that no matter how rotten the year before was, the following year simply has to be better.
Proof that this is what a psychologist I once knew called “stinkin’ thinkin’” would be the totality of 2021: The political coming together under Joe Biden that never came together. The end of Covid that saw more Covid deaths than the year before, despite vaccines. The horribly botched withdrawal from Afghanistan. Crime in the cities that has deadbeats doing Number Two on sidewalks and stealing up to $950 in merchandise without fear of prosecution. And the return of inflation that looks very familiar to those of us who remember Jimmy Carter.
Tell me, my Democrat friends: Is this what you voted for?
More important lessons:
– In the immortal words of Johnny Cash, “Don’t take your guns to town, son, leave your guns at home.”
Pundit Bill O’Reilly said he has an 18-year-old son, and there’s no way he would let him take a gun to a riot, like Kyle Rittenhouse did in Kenosha, where a jury ultimately ruled he acted in self defense in killing a guy coming at him with a gun, and another guy beating him with a skateboard.
The obvious solution: Let the authorities deal with rioting. Don’t ask a 17-year-old to defend your car lot from arsonists.
– Imagine how much trouble could have been avoided if the governor of Wisconsin had accepted Donald Trump’s offer of additional National Guard troops to help quell the rioting in Kenosha. But no Democrat would be caught dead accepting help from Trump, so you had rioters and arsonists on the streets of Kenosha for three days.
If the National Guard isn’t meant to stop mobs from burning cities, what is it for? The lesson? Bring in the troops sooner, rather than later. (Like they did successfully when the Rittenhouse verdict was announced.)
– Another important lesson this year: Never, ever resist arrest. The world is full of lawyers who will take your case if you are mistreated by cops during an arrest. Don’t fight with people armed with clubs, tazers, firearms and armored cars. See them in court. Every bit as important as “don’t take your guns to town” is this: “Don’t resist arrest, ever.” Right or wrong, resisting arrest is a ticket to a drawer at the morgue.
– If you’re waiting for a politician like Joe Biden to make your life better, or more “fair,” or more “equitable” with the life of Bill Gates, you’re in for a long wait, Skippy. Politicians will be your friends until the next election, when they get what they really want: more years in power. It’s time we realize that the real extremists in Washington are the charlatans (in both parties) who keep heaping more debt onto our kids and grand kids, for the sleazy goal of getting re-elected.
(Critics say there are things Sen. Joe Manchin favors in the stalled Build Back Better monstrosity. Well, there are things I like in the grocery store, but that doesn’t mean I have to buy everything in the grocery store.)
– Half our country couldn’t care less about debt. All they want is more free stuff from the government. Thank heavens people like that weren’t in the landing boats at Normandy. Politicians heap trillions onto our debt, then turn around and claim to be “responsible” when it comes to raising the debt limit. Their hypocrisy is enough to choke a horse.
– And lastly, this lesson: I was diagnosed with Covid on Nov. 26 and went into voluntary 10-day quarantine. Eighteen days after diagnosis I got a call from the state, asking about my case. Then I received a letter from the state postmarked Dec. 20, telling me to quarantine until Dec. 5th.
(!)
That’s 25 days after diagnosis, and 15 days after quarantine ended.
These are the geniuses who are going to save us from Covid?
So anyway, maybe 2022 will be better.
But, I’m not betting the farm on it.
