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Trump doesn’t deserve to be admired, supported; Thomas M. Finch; Beaver County Times; June 20, 2017.
The BCT has published at least 49 letters from Mr. Finch (TMF) since December 2004. At least 31 of these letters were anti-Bush and/or anti-Republican and they never disappoint. Here is one example. You can find the remaining Finch letters I critiqued in the critique archives. As usual, this letter is little more than a string of leftist talking points. I wish he could get a regular column in the BCT. I also wish he could get at least five minutes per day on a local radio and/or TV station. The most recent letter I reviewed was “Trump shows himself to be ultimate “ ‘snowflake.’”
Below is a detailed critique of the subject letter.
“I find it incomprehensible seeing letters like Rita Gavert’s appealing for people to ‘support Trump.’
“Right is right, and wrong is wrong -- how can anyone ‘support’ what is untenable? The man is an incorrigible, self-centered, amoral, inept, narcissist who has absolutely no desire to improve anything but his own bank account -- and have people tell him how great he is.
“There is a quote from Mark Twain that I’d like to apply here: ‘Patriotism is supporting your country all the time, and your government when it deserves it.’ I’m sorry, but Trump just doesn’t deserve to be honored, admired, or supported. He has accomplished nothing since establishing his one-party corporate dictatorship except brag about opening 70 jobs in a coal mine. Good. I expect Gavert, U.S. Rep. Keith Rothfus and Trump to all have coal furnaces installed in their houses and casinos.”
[RWC] I wonder if TMF knows Donald Trump (DT) referred to the same Mark Twain quote in a 2014 tweet. The quote comes from The Czar’s Soliloquy (March 1905).
“There are twenty-five million families in Russia. There is a man-child at every mother’s knee. If these were twenty-five million patriotic mothers, they would teach these man-children daily, saying: ‘Remember this, take it to heart, live by it, die for it if necessary: that our patriotism is medieval, outworn, obsolete; that the modern patriotism, the true patriotism, the only rational patriotism, is loyalty to the Nation ALL the time, loyalty to the Government when it deserves it.’”
In case TMF missed it, the quote excerpt was about Russia. I don’t know if MT intended any of it to apply to the U.S.
Do coalminers “have coal furnaces installed in their houses?”
“As for Gavert’s comment that ‘...it’s not true that all scientists agree on global warming,’ are you kidding me? Yes, all real scientists agree. The ones who do not are being paid millions for their denials by the fossil fuel industry. Wise up.”
[RWC] It appears TMF didn’t get the memo. Manmade global warming (MGW) believers have been embarrassed too many times by weather colder than they expected. As a result, they have mostly switched from talking about MGW to talking about climate change.
TMF’s use of the term “denials” is intentional. Columnist Ellen Goodman wrote, “Let’s just say global warming deniers are now on a par with Holocaust deniers.”
Using TMF’s “logic,” his “real scientists” are paid millions for their position by the “green energy” industry and governments.
“Calling a spade a spade does not turn it into a diamond, no matter how much you believe it to be true. Beliefs do not change facts. Facts, if you’re reasonable, should change your beliefs.”
[RWC] Here’s an excerpt from my paper Manmade Global Warming:
“A 2007 UN IPCC report asserted Himalayan glaciers would melt by 2035. In January 2010, the IPCC conceded there was no science to support this assertion. How did the claim get into such a high-profile report? The IPCC admitted it simply had taken this “info” from a 2005 report issued by the environment advocacy group World Wildlife Fund and made no attempt to validate the claim. Where did the WWF get the info? From 1999 magazine interviews with a glaciologist. Just as the IPCC, the WWF did not investigate the claim. Where did the glaciologist get the data? Nowhere. The glaciologist acknowledged his assertion was speculation, not the result of formal research.”
There are more examples in my paper. I’m sure TMF is “reasonable;” does anyone believe the facts I present will change his MGW “beliefs?”
“I’ll end this with another Twain quote: ‘It is easier to fool people, than to convince them they have been fooled.’ That is the aura of Trump in spades.”
[RWC] It’s fitting TMF concludes with a faux quote. According to Snopes.com, “While the quote ‘it’s easier to fool people than to convince them that they have been fooled’ is often attributed to Mark Twain, there’s no evidence that the author actually wrote this phrase.”
In fairness, here’s what MT wrote in his autobiography: “The glory which is built upon [a] lie soon becomes a most unpleasant incumbrance … How easy it is to make people believe a lie, and [how] hard it is to undo that work again!”
Regardless of the wording, MT got it right and TMF is a good example.
© 2004-2017 Robert W. Cox, all rights reserved.