Only one candidate for President, Donald Trump, has dared to say that we should stop immigration of muslims now. I am fairly certain that, if polled, the American people would agree with the Donald.

I watch The Five on Fox News. I am fairly certain that everyone, except for the token liberal, agreed with Donald Trump, and yet not one of them dared to say so publicly, for fear, I assume, of losing their jobs. This, on the supposed right wing extremist cable news outlet.

We have reached the point where agreeing with the majority of the American people is no longer allowed speech, not even on Fox News. I agree with Donald Trump. I’m old. I work for myself. I can say what I want.

No boots on the ground? Why? Because a bunch of muslims from somewhere, or Russians maybe, are going to do the fighting for us? Or the Kurds maybe?

Sunni ISIS and Shia Iran agree about one thing. The United States is their greatest enemy. We are the Great Satan. The Kurds are interested in establishing Kurdistan. They have not signed on to be a substitute for the American military. We refuse to arm them so as not offend Turkey. Turkey is a muslim country with a big army, much bigger than ISIS. Are they going to fight ISIS on our behalf? Doesn’t look like it.

This “coalition” that Obama keeps talking about is a fantasy. We either put large numbers of American boots on the ground, or we cede the ground to ISIS. And that ground is not just in Iraq and Syria. It is in Beirut. It is in Russia, Egypt, Libya, Paris, Nigeria. And Minnesota.

Obama wants to import a few hundred thousand Syrian refugees, some of whom will inevitably be trained ISIS soldiers. ISIS doesn’t have a problem with putting boots on the ground.

The reason this happened in France is because France has the largest muslim population in Europe. Germany is number two, which is why the 9/11 perpetrators came here from Germany. There is a direct correlation between size of muslim population in a non-muslim country, and danger of islamist military operation in that country that kills large numbers of people. It’s like they have their own little country where they can operate, inside your country. Please, Western Civilization, stop importing muslims.

If you are busy, you don’t have time for philosophy. If you are engaged 24/7 with activities essential to your survival, contemplating the meaning of the universe is not a high priority. The pursuit of Philosophy and religion requires a certain amount of leisure. it is a pastime for those who have nothing better to do.

All of civilization is built on the right use of leisure time. Agriculture creates leisure time. No more hunting and gathering. The industrial revolution created more leisure time, at least for some. The information age does it again, eliminating all of those clerical and data entry jobs, and putting all of humanity’s knowledge at everyone’s fingertips. Of course not everyone yet, but soon.

There is no priesthood, no academia, no punditry, no political class, no artists, without leisure. So leisure has been beneficial for the aristocratic class, from whence comes most advances in philosophy, science, scholarship, the arts, and enlighterned rule, from the Roman empire until now.

Fewer adults in the USA are working now than ever since the great depression, due partly to Democratic economic policies, but mostly due to the fact that the modern economy just doesn’t need to have that many people working. This is only going to get worse, or better, depending on your point of view. The jobs are disappearing, and they aren’t coming back. For a long time now, the majority of government jobs have been unproductive and anti-productive ways of keeping the unemployable off the streets.

Although the majority of the unemployed may be opiod addicts, alcoholics, meth freaks, pot heads, and all-around ne’er-do-wells, there are at least a few who are thinking and creating. Maybe they will figure a way out of this mess, but I am skeptical.

People aren’t happy when they are not working. They are not only unhappy, they are self-destructive, ignorant, and in general a drag on society, i.e., the rest of us. Those few that vote will mostly vote for Bernie, the bringer of free stuff, and then Hillary, after Bernie bites the dust. Hopefully they are not yet enough to take us down the democratic path to idiocracy, but that day is coming unless something revolutionary is done.

Make America great again.

As a rule, delusional schizophrenics who believe that they are God, do not deliver anything like the sermon on the mount. The extraordinary actions, aside from the miracles, and the extraordinary words of Jesus of Nazereth have continued to amaze and inspire for over two thousand years.

“Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away.” And that has turned out to be true, throughout all of the turmoil and upheaval of history’s nightmare. If He was not the Son of God, what was He? Just some guy? He was that too of course.

It is really even more unbelievable to think that He was nuts, or that He didn’t exist at all, than to believe in the truth of the accounts in the New Testament.

Although these are my thoughts, they are mostly stolen from G.K. Chesterton, author of The Everlasting Man.

I remember, in the library, wooden cabinets with little drawers filled with index cards, the card catalog. As a member of the debate team at Iowa State University, I spent many hours with the card catalog looking for quotes and facts to support the affirmative argument in the year-long debate topic, something like resolved: that Europe and the U.S. should form an economic union, something like that. Memory fails.

I would use the card catalog to find books and articles to support the position, and copy the arguments and quotes, by hand, onto my own set of index cards to refer to in the debates. We traveled all over the Midwest and South, from Topeka, Kansas to Jackson, Mississippi, to debate and speech tournaments.

I usually, besides the debates, which were always the main attraction, also entered the extemporaneous speaking contest, where you were given a half hour to peruse a list of ten possible topics, and then had to deliver a ten minute speech about whichever one was chosen by the judges.

I was madly in love with Lorrie, my debate partner, but that’s another story.

The point of all this is the incredible explosion in the ability to access information, that has occurred in the intervening 53 years, at least for those who are interested in accessing information, which, amazingly enough, in some respects, seems to be a declining number, but maybe that’s just my old fartism talking.

Sittin’ on the front porch, sipping a cheap, but decent, Spanish red, I started thinking about fear and courage. I, like many people, have a built-in fearfulness. People like us tend to be afraid of many things. My wife is not like that. She apparently does not know the meaning of the word fear. But I believe that many people are like that. For those of us who are, it is important that we develop the habit of facing fear. Rather than running from fear, whenever there is an awareness of being afraid, turn and run toward it. If you notice that you are afraid of doing something, then drop everything and just do it. If you do some of this every day, you will develop it as a habit. And your life will gradually get better and better. It’s a practice for fearful folk. Not doing it makes a fearful person’s life worse instead of better. Courage is a muscle.

Sittin’ on the front porch of an evening, sipping a Jameson’s and water, a woman runs by, dressed in her running clothes, and I think, you know what, if you see somebody doing their running, doesn’t matter race, age, gender, you can pretty much assume they are OK. They have their shit together. They are civilized human beings who know how to postpone gratification. I’m not saying everyone has to be a runner. There are many other ways to be OK. But sittin’ on the porch, seeing her run by, that is what occurred to me.

I’m 71, so I’m on social security, and it’s great. Every month, a hefty deposit is dumped into my bank account. I love it. It’s not really enough to live on, so I’m still working,, but it sure makes living on what there is, easier. Of course if I had taken that social security deduction from my paycheck all these years, and used it to invest in municipal bonds and index funds, I would be getting a much bigger check now. But, of course, I would never have done that. I pretty much always spent everything. Essentially social security is a forced savings plan that invests your money badly at a rate of return that doesn’t even keep up with inflation.

But then, somehow, social security got a thing called a COLA, which meant that the social security checks would be adjusted to reflect inflation, and the more inflation, the bigger the check. Wow, that was great. Since the beginning of social security, inflation has always gone up, and the COLA always kicked in, and next year’s checks were always bigger than last year’s.

But the year that I started getting my checks, the COLA stopped cold, and has been that way ever since. What they did was to change the definition of inflation to not include food, housing, and energy, the only things that old people spend their money on. My mother died last year at the age of 96. She had enough money. She didn’t even need social security. The only things she spent money on were food, housing, and energy.

So, listen up young fools. This is the first step. First, stealthily eliminate the COLA, whiile pretending that it sill exists. You better start voting for people who want to straighten things out, instead of People who promise to give you all kinds of crap, free education, free health care, living minimum wage, increased social security payments, no war, etc., without ever mentioning the cost. These people are lying to you, even more than the other people who seem so uptight.

I think it’s probably good that Vladimir Putin has taken charge of American foreign policy in Syria and the rest of the Middle East. Not perfect, but better than the pathetic alternative.