SHIT HOLE COUNTRIES

I will grant you: Donald Trump has the delicacy of a bull elephant on testosterone. He does seem rather odd for a true recipient of (White) privilege. But he is who he is. 

Liberals and the worse-than-Liberal ANTIFA/neo-feminista/B.L.M. types would have little to discuss if Donald Trump were to speak as hypocritically as Hillary Clinton... or, worse yet, if we had President Hillary to contend with. Trump is governing as a mainstream conservative for the most part. Business is booming. Unemployment is down. He is slowly winding down our useless expenditures in foreign wars. He is bringing law and order back to the streets and borders. 

Am I a MAGA supporter? Not really. As a 68-year-old gay man, I have known America for over half a century to be a better place in respect to the rest of the world, but neither great nor the best. I have been harassed by police. I took an underachieving career path to avoid the added pressures of institutionalized homophobia. It was a trade off. One I do not regret. I survived Ronald Reagan's attempt to wipe gay men off the map. I have learned to live the good life in America, but it is still hard work for someone from a less-than-wealthy background. Too hard, in my opinion, given America's great top-heavy wealth. 

The latest fake outrage among the Left-ish is about Trump calling some places "shit hole countries". Imagine. A President of the United States actually speaking of certain places on the planet like a commoner. How shameful. Not really. I find it refreshing.

My grandparents came to America from shit hole countries. My blacksmith grandfather left Lithuania when it was a shit hole. It has come a long way since its flirtation with Scandinavia and the E.U. in the post-Soviet times. And some people might still call it a shit hole. My seamstress grandmother left Belarus, then White Russia, when it was a Czarist shit hole. It is now less a shit hole, but governed by one of the last shameless dictatorships in Europe. My Irish great grandfather was brought here as an infant from Ireland during the Potato Famine. If mass starvation counts as an indicator of a shit hole, then there you have it. 

Where do all these easily offended American snowflakes come from? Well, perhaps some of the outrage is driven by the huge number of immigrants in the U.S. illegally and legally from present-day shit holes. And they are here, if they were to admit it honestly, because their countries or regions of origin are indeed shit holes. Somalia, Haiti, Central America, Nigeria, etc.. 

With the possible exceptions of Haiti and Central America, which have been neighboring pawns of bad American foreign policy, these shit holes are shit holes because the people in them are uneducated, too populous, religious and, in some cases, simply corrupt. They are not shit holes because of America. In fact, countries with problems and industrious populations (South Korea, Japan, China, India, post-WWII Europe, post-Soviet Eastern Europe are examples) have been aided to prosperity by the people and government of the United States. From that perspective, America has a great track record of helping those who allow themselves to be helped out of shit hole status.

Africa has an abundance of shit holes. Yet Africans are still blaming their shit hole status on Britain, France, Portugal and Belgium. After nearly 70 years of self-rule, some African nations are worse off now than when they were colonies of European powers. The once-modern infrastructure left behind by the colonizers was intentionally neglected or destroyed in many cases. Government consists of cut-throat criminals, elected over and over again. How is this the fault of the long-absent colonizers? It isn't. Africans have lacked the will to purge their nations of tribalism and destructive religious conflict. 

If you are turning red, and steam is coming out of your ears at my words, sit back and ask yourself where you would rather retire when you are old? What city in Africa or Central America is your dream retirement destination? Perhaps you'd like a small place in Haiti without running water or indoor plumbing? Of course not. But you'd probably dream of living in a place like Vancouver in Canada, where you could live the good life and maintain your hypocritical political leanings. 

Donald Trump's only lasting contribution as POTUS may be his ability to wake up both the indolent and hypocritical. So far, he has done this with words alone. Americans have not been herded into camps. Protest is alive and almost too well. After all, women were walking around D.C. dressed as vaginas. Students fire-bombed Berkeley with impunity. Blacks and Hispanics have declared open racist hostility against all White people in media without being shamed or prosecuted. 

So, if you care so much about any country being called a shit hole, go there with your American money. Spread your wealth. Put your money where your faux-Lefty sentiments lie. Transform those places into Edens. Your tax dollars haven't succeeded, but you may. Yes indeed, give it a go with your own money and please don't come back until you've succeeded.