The one where I bend my own rules

I can’t give you a brain, but I can give you a diploma.

The Wizard to the Scarecrow in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.

Children’s author, L. Frank Baum was born on this day in 1856 (died 1919).

This is not a treatise on the state of American education. Then again, maybe it is.

It’s Monday, and in full disclosure I’m breaking my own self-imposed rule and writing about politics.

Sort of.

Last week Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos spoke at Bethune-Cookman commencement last week in Florida. Bethune-Cookman is one of the nation’s historically black universities.

DeVos was jeered and students turned their backs on her when she stood up to speak.

Regardless of how you feel about someone, and I’m no fan of DeVos, when did that become acceptable behavior?

Or a few weeks ago when Ann Coulter was scheduled to speak at Berkeley, the supposed bastion of free speech, but that didn’t turn out so well.

And of course. there are the names and insults thrown at the President…the Orange Toad…or whatever.

Diversity. Tolerance. Acceptance.

You keep using those words but I do not think you know what they mean.

I mean seriously, if you talk about those things all the time and then show up at a Town Hall meeting just to scream and hurl insults at your Congressman or State Senator or even assault him or try to run him off the road…then…well…the truth is that all of your serendipitous statements are just a big steaming pile of horse pucky.

Look, we’re all a bit agitated. We’re all a bit tired of politics. But screaming and protesting and throwing things and calling names…well, that’s no way to run a railroad.

Speaking of railroads, read Atlas Shrugged…it will do you good (even if you don’t agree).

The thing is that people keep saying there’s going to be a YUGE backlash in the 2018 elections. Maybe. Typically, the party in the White House loses substantially two years after taking power.

But I’m just not sure the Angry Left ™ is the solution the country is looking for.

As I wrote on Facebook the other day “just because the right is wrong, that doesn’t mean that the left is right.”

Look, this isn’t just from the left, then again this stuff didn’t happen at the Tea Party rallies. The left is certainly getting most of the attention these days.

I make no apologies for my conservative/libertarian leanings. In fact, if you’d look them up and think them through, it would do you good.

But I’m not trying to change anyone’s philosophy or point of view.

I’m really talking about how the message is being delivered.

You can resist all you want, but he really is your President. That’s not going to change.

Then again, on the slight chance that it does, maybe you need to save some energy for when President Pence nominates Sarah Palin to be Vice President.

It would perhaps do you good to look up the Presidential line of succession. If you did you’d realize that if you managed to pull off more than a dozen or so impeachments, you’d make Betsy DeVos the president.

That’s the way the Constitution works.

I am not trying to tell you not to fight. Not at all. In fact, voicing your opinion is one of the most American things you can do.

I’m just saying that maybe, just maybe, you want to consider how you’re voicing that opinion.

Political disagreements used to be settled by duels.

Ask Alexander Hamilton how that worked out.

Don’t throw away your shot.

I’ve said enough.

Some people without brains do an awful lot of talking, don’t you think?

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