From Behind Enemy Lines

It’s tough, being new to the Right. I have a lot of Left habits that need to go. I was in the process of getting rid of many of them anyhow, because they no longer served me, but it’s becoming important.

The Left fights everything with emotion. Don’t agree with a legal standing? Cry at it. Have a problem with a cop or a sheriff? Scream and flail your arms. Care to protest oil drilling, farming methods you disagree with, or a politician’s third wife? Lay on the road and have a tantrum.  They revel in their emotions, and I struggle with it. A lot of why I moved “right of left” was because of this behavior.

The Right tends to make claims that they’re entirely fact driven. It’s not true. A good portion of the Right seems to want to base their facts on a book written by human beings (however inspired) over a thousand years, translated (badly) many times in the interim, and tend to cherry pick the parts they want to use. While I consider the Bible to be an inspirational writing, likely inspired by the Divine, I have enough theological training to know that it wasn’t written by God (or Goddess, or whatever). It’s a great book to use as a moral compass. It has a great outline of moral and ethical laws that apply to a person individually, and specifically to the Jewish (and later the Christian) people. But it isn’t fact. It *contains* facts in some places, but it is not, itself, fact.

That said, the Right does a much better job of putting together coherent factual arguments. They are much less likely to let emotions interfere with their stance. I don’t expect to see someone on the Right break down in cringe-worthy tears because they’re being questioned about something.

I struggle with emotions. I am an emotional person. I grew up in a household where I was forced to sublimate any emotions I had. As a child who was being verbally and emotionally abused, I quickly learned to stifle any emotional response. When I left the house of horrors I grew up in, I decided I would never squelch my emotions again, and so I set myself up to emotionally vomit on everyone around me. While it was important that I learn to emote in a healthy fashion, that was NOT the right way to go about it.

So when I’m talking with someone on the Right about things, and I know that I have a good argument, I sometimes lose track of the words I need. The emotions I feel are overwhelming, and I react rather than act. I have the ability to create logical arguments, but if I care about the outcome, my emotions tend to get in the way. This is an ongoing personal issue that I’ve been working on for years.

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The past couple of weeks have been an absolute whirlwind. So much so that I really don’t have anything specific to write about. Part of the problem I’m having is that when I write the night before (like I am now), it might be out of date by morning. That’s what happened last Wednesday. I don’t like it when that happens.

Let’s see. First, I’ve been very happy to see what’s going on with DOGE. I have long held the opinion that “smaller government is better government” and DOGE seems to be doing just that. I’m confused as all get out over people weeping about “the poor federal workers who got canned” when those “poor” federal workers got 8 months of salary to play on. Most of them will have jobs by the end of the month, and that 8 months of salary is theirs to keep for holiday or Christmas or whatever. There’s nothing poor about them. I never got 8 months (or even 8 days) of salary when getting fired.

NH had a bill, HB 283, put forward. If you’d like to look at it yourself, you can find it (and lots of commentary from pundits) here. Basically, as I read it, it says that NH schools will (if the bill passes) no longer require world languages, arts and music, engineering and tech, computer science, and personal financial literacy in order to graduate. The number of credits remains the same. What I read, when I looked at the bill, was that NH wanted to focus on having students who could read, write, and do ‘rythmatic, first and foremost, and so those were made most important and required. I see that schools that are struggling to put out kids who can do those very basic things can now focus on just those basic things. What the bill does NOT say is that those other subjects are being removed from the school.

However, the NEA and other Dem groups are basically telling their folks that the Republicans want to take all those subjects out of schools. They have ads on Facebook and other places. I keep going onto them and asking people, have you actually read the bill? Most of them very obviously have not, and are simply taking their talking points and moving on. The pearl clutching is horrifying.

I am less irritated by those who did read the bill and have constructive commentary to make about it. It’s been suggested by a friend that less requirements means people will not bother taking courses on art and engineering and such. I find that unlikely. Every high school kid I know (and I know lots of them, because my own kids are just barely out of high school) takes subjects that are not required. They take art, or “language arts in comic books” (a surprisingly robust and very good English course, I might add), or whatever other equivalent to “underwater basket weaving” there is. Art and music aren’t leaving the schools, anymore than the football team is. There’s a ton of opposition to the bill, so I am guessing it won’t pass, but I don’t see it as the major threat that the Left obviously does.

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The trade wars going on are making me chuckle. First, we have Mexico. Trump imposed a tariff on them, slated to begin at 12:01am Tue. Feb. 4rd. By 10am Monday, Trump had fielded a call from Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum, and the tariffs were put on hold for a month. Why a month, you ask? Because Sheinbaum promised to “…reinforce the northern border with 10,000 members of the National Guard immediately, to stop drug trafficking from Mexico to the United States, in particular fentanyl.” (AP)

Canada… now they’re doubling down. Or rather, I should say that outgoing Prime Minister Trudeau is doubling down. He’s put a 25% tariff on certain items coming from the US to Canada (the list is here: Canada.ca). Having zipped through the list, it looks like chicken and other poultry, cheese and other dairy products, wine and other alcohol, cigarettes, and then a list of various smaller products like suits and jackets, carpets, etc. The biggest one for me is the chicken. We in America have been experiencing a rising in chicken prices because we have less chickens due to many of them being slaughtered due to avian flu (I’m on the fence over it, but having talked to egg and meat producers myself, it’s not that big a deal and isn’t the main reason costs went up). If we’re not exporting chickens and eggs, that means we get to eat them. That should lead to our prices going DOWN. Seems like a win to me.

Canada placing tariffs on our goods going north means that our folks will find people willing to pay better prices down here, in America. That means we keep American produce in America. That seems like a huge win to me. Bring it on.

Funny (to me) quote: “And don’t forget bar cabinet staples, like tequila and Canadian whisky. According to the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States, a trade group, the U.S. imported $4.6 billion worth of tequila and $108 million worth of mescal from Mexico, as well as $537 million worth of Canadian spirits – including $202.5 million worth of whisky.” (AP) Goodness gracious, what ever will we do if we can’t buy Mexican tequila and Canadian whiskey? Oh, right, we make those here. Never mind then. LOL!

And then we have Panama. I don’t understand all the minutia with the trade agreements between Panama and China, but I know that we used to own the canal. We built the damn thing. I can’t find news on it, but I heard through the grapevine that Panama has already caved on their Chinese partners, and modified things to allow better and more preferential treatment to American ships using the canal, thereby halting (at least temporarily) Trump’s tariffs.

The bottom line is, everyone’s now watching Canada. They’re the only ones who didn’t immediately give in. I’m pretty sure that Canada is going to hurt more from this than America is. While Canada is a little bit larger, it has less population by far (336 million in America versus Canada’s 41 million). They simply don’t have what it takes to win this trade war. Eventually, they’ll give in.

And while I’m pretty sure that Trump’s comments about making Canada the 51st state were jokes, there would be benefits to both countries in merging. It also might allow for some spacing out of people, maybe “redistricting” in a way? Regardless, it’s a fascinating idea.

Chris asked me to write this. He wanted me to write it because we got into a long, drawn out and rather loud discussion last night over it. It was emotional, on my part at least. I got very frustrated because I couldn’t seem to voice what I wanted to, and Chris was offering me solutions and excuses for Trump. That wasn’t what I wanted. Also, this hits me differently, I think, as someone new to “right of the left.”

So let’s start at the beginning.

I listened to Trump’s press conference about the DC crash. I started watching with a certain amount of nervousness, because I know Trump often says things during stuff like this. I was expecting a few gaffes, but I kind of got thrown sideways (emotionally) over some of what he said. For those who want the full transcript, it’s here. I’ll be quoting from it below.

I was trying to not cringe over the commentary about how much better his (Trump’s) policies were than Biden or Obama’s. Frankly, when I’m tuning in to find out what’s going on with a crash, I do not want to hear finger pointing. Do that after, when we have facts in hand. But it’s Trump, and I put it off to grandstanding, which is normal for him no matter how much it irritates me. Then he said this:

“But we’ll restore faith in American air travel. I’ll have more to say about that. I do want to point out that various articles that appeared prior to my entering office, and here’s one. The FAA’s diversity push includes focus on hiring people with severe intellectual and psychiatric disabilities. That is amazing. And then it says, FAA says, people with severe disabilities are most underrepresented segment of the workforce and they want them in and they want them. They can be air traffic controllers. I don’t think so.”

I know people who do piloting and ATC. While I know that there’s been a push to get women and people with different skin color into ATC, I didn’t think they’d lowered their standards. I did 15 minutes of investigation, and according to what I read, their method of finding people had changed, but their requirements for hiring had not. As a side note, apparently I didn’t look back far enough, as there’s a Fox article about changes done in 2015. I didn’t look that far back last night. Regardless, I translate the above statement from Trump to say, “People in wheelchairs and who are mentally defective can be air traffic controllers.” That statement is not true. Looking back on it now, it’s one of Trump’s “aggrandizement” statements, making his claim sound bigger than it is. I believe Chris would consider it to be a gaffe or misspeak, as opposed to a lie. I called it a lie last night. I was wrong about it being a lie, but I don’t think I’m wrong that it’s a bad statement.

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I think this is my favorite JD moment so far. Margaret Brennan apparently wanted to play journalist and attempted to take down VP Vance in a sit-down conversation. She brought up immigration, which should be a hard-hitting topic right now. Unfortunately for her, she’s not nearly as good at this game as Vance is, and the bottom line is she’s arguing for keeping violent criminals in the country. Not a good look for her.

From the interview:

Vance: ‘We absolutely cannot unleash thousands of unvetted people into our country…’

Brennen: ‘These people are vetted. These people are vetted. Uh…’

Vance: ‘Just like the guy who planned a terrorist attack in Oklahoma a few months ago? He was allegedly properly vetted, and many people in media and the Democratic Party said that he was properly vetted. Clearly he wasn’t. I don’t wan’t my children to share a neighborhood with people who are not properly vetted, and because I don’t want it for my kids, I’m not going to force any other American citizens’ kids to do that either.’

Brennen: ‘No, and that was a very particular case, it wasn’t clear whether he was radicalized when he got here, um, or, when he was living h-“

Vance: ‘I don’t really care, Margaret, I don’t want that person in my country, and I think most Americans agree with me.’

And that’s a wrap. Brennen tried and failed to make Vance look foolish. Her point was to make him stutter, to call on his faith as a Catholic and shame him, and he had absolutely NONE of it. Instead, he brazenly told her that he was ashamed by the American Council of Bishops, which was an impressive thing to say, in my opinion.

Another question being asked on social media is, what do you tell your kids if one of their friends is swept up by ICE while they’re in school? I’ve heard several good answers, mostly snarky, but my favorite was honest and polite, and went something like this:

“Honey, I’m sorry your friend was taken away. If they are here legally, it will take a day or two for the paperwork to sort out, and your friend will be right back to school. ICE agents can be scary, but they’re very gentle with children, and they won’t hurt your friend. But if your friend’s parents are here illegally, then I’m afraid you might not see that friend again. I know that’s hard, and it isn’t your friend’s fault, but there are consequences to actions. Just like you have consequences to your actions when you do something bad, your friend’s parents might have done something bad. They aren’t being punished like you, but they do have to go back to their home country. That’s the consequence of their actions.” (from Not the Bee)

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I am about to embark upon something on Facebook and possibly other social media. I am going to start posting up every second Monday, asking people what rights they have lost in the previous two weeks. I am going to make this a relatively serious question, because frankly, if someone actually *does* have their rights restricted, I want to know about it. Whether it’s gun rights, freedom of speech and/or religion, or whatever, we should be on top of that. More than that, though, I want it to be a *polite* reminder to my friends and acquaintances that they haven’t actually lost any rights.

I am including the first draft of the message below. I’m posting it here, because I’d like your feedback! Note, this is meant to be a reminder yes, and some people may see it as snark, but I’m trying to make this serious and real, as well. I want it to resonate with people, and maybe make them feel just a little bit uncomfortable. This is for *the person*, not “someone they know” or “that random group over there.” I may choose (but haven’t yet decided whether) to allow folks to include close friends in their reports (defined as “someone you know personally, face to face, have hugged, laughed, and cried with”).

The message:

Dear friends, family, acquaintances, followers…

There are a lot of people feeling vulnerable and concerned right now. I understand your feelings. I want to understand better, during Trump’s first (and possibly subsequent) year as President, what rights are being infringed upon by either Trump or the government (at any level). This question is put out there for YOU, the person reading it. It is not there for other people. I don’t want you to speak for other people (though I heartily encourage you to let other people know about my little experiment, and invite them to join in!). I want to know what YOU are losing or having infringed. 

This is a serious question on my part. I currently have a “research set” of one: me. That’s not enough. I need to hear what other people are experiencing, first hand. But I also need you to understand, I will research this stuff. I WANT to research this stuff. If a claim is made, and it doesn’t match reality, I will explain why and provide any related information I have access to. My hope is that this will encourage conversation, logical thought, and mental and emotional organization on my own part, and the part of others. I have other folks who are very interested in rights that have been infringed upon, and I will pass along information to those others who may have the ability to enact changes or challenges. 

As an example, I firmly believe (and have quite a bit of paperwork and research to back me up) that banning TikTok was and is an infringement of my First Amendment rights. While it affects other people, I am touting it as something that hurt/damaged/impinged upon ME individually. I lost MY right to speak freely on an app of my choice. 

So I ask you, what rights of yours have been infringed upon since President Trump took office on January 20, 2025?

Alright, what do you think? I realize many of you may believe it’s pointless, and you might be right. But it was questions like this that caused ME to change my mind on things. I owe it to other people that I love to ask again and again for them to apply logic, even when it’s painful.

I’m behind enemy lines, and I don’t like it. SIGH

So as a member of the renaissance faire community, a lot of my acquaintances and many of my friends are to the Left. Since I’m selling my goods to them, I have a reason to keep politics out of my social media, and out of my business. I’m a firm believer that no one should do political stuff at their business… you’re there to sell stuff, not stump for your favorite politician. Do that on your own time. But I digress.

I can’t just “be Right.” This puts me in a very uncomfortable spot. I suppose it’s useful for Vine, because I can bring information over here and let you know what’s being said off to the Left of social media, but I still don’t like it. This morning, it was everyone talking about how “the gays” will need to go back into the closet, and “I’m not going back into a closet!” Felicia, I don’t believe anyone told you to go into a closet, and Trump isn’t anti-gay, and has NEVER been anti-gay. But whatever.

There’s this need to lump sexual orientation (gay, lesbian, and bisexual) in with gender orientation (girl, boy, undefined). It’s how we ended up with LGBTQIA+++ instead of the original LGBT. Many of the gay folk and the “I changed gender because I had to, and I’ve stayed under the damn radar and WANT TO CONTINUE staying under the radar” crowd are pissed as hell with the TQIA+++ folks, because they’ve ruined a lot of stuff that the older people have worked damn hard for.

So when Trump said his bit about the government recognizing only two genders, male and female, I knew what he was talking about. His executive order on the topic, Defending Women From Gender Ideology Extremism…, is very explicit. Forms, specifically government forms, will list biological sex. I can see that there may be some issues going forward, with long-standing people who changed their gender (not sex) many years ago and have been living discreetly and happily as the gender they’ve chosen, are suddenly being forced to change all their paperwork. It may be that the order will be understood to ignore those few people who sincerely make the transition. I like to think so. But nothing in the order says people can’t choose to be whoever and whatever they are. It just says that for government and federal forms (which include medical ones) and for single-sex spaces like changing rooms and bathrooms, biological sex will be more important. Again, this may be a problem for a few people who are well integrated into society in their new gender… I suspect no one is upset about a biological male who looks like, acts like, walks like, and sits to pee like a woman using a woman’s bathroom. We’re upset about bearded individuals with intact male genitalia hanging out, changing with our teen girls.

But people on the Left have grabbed onto that and are in a froth. I am not.

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This came up on my Facebook feed this morning. I had to read it four or five times to “get it.” The person who posted this believes (or so I understand) that because unfair-to-Right practices (and frankly, unfair-to-American practices) are being rolled back and gotten rid of, that “they” (presumably the Right and/or Trump and/or Musk) are attempting to destroy “our” (aka the Left’s) communities.

What?

Sweetheart, no one is trying to destroy your communities. You’re welcome to continue using your communities. No one has told you that you can’t. In fact, Facebook allows you to curate a group where you can literally control all the speech therein, so that your Leftist ears need not be sullied by the foul words of the Right.

The only community that’s currently being destroyed, that I can tell, is TikTok. I’m bitter about it, because it’s a place that I really enjoy visiting and I like the platform. And the government is taking it down “to protect us” from something. Apparently we’re to be protected from free speech, but whatever.

I can’t say that these “changes” are things that are just to Left leaning places, either. I decided to log into Truth Social to go see what it was about, maybe make some friends over there. I was on less than ten minutes, did nothing more than say hello in a handful of writing groups and history groups, and then got a ban notice. I have no idea what I did, because it doesn’t tell you. It says “go look at the guidelines” as if I’m a four year old. “You know what you did!” No, Truth, I don’t. I have no fucking idea. Ugh.

Back to the message above. I love the presumption: “WE need these spaces to stay connected.” No, you don’t. Go to a coffee shop. Visit a bar. Read in the park. Enjoy rollerskating or ice skating. What about the library?

I run a writing group on Facebook. I’ve had it up for a few years now, but never paid much attention to it. Recently, I’ve been trying to get it more active. I discovered it was chock full of scammers and spammers. So for the past couple of weeks, I’ve been slowly tossing people out. It’s frustrating. Facebook can ban people for saying positive things about Trump, but can’t take care of the marketing spammer who’s sneaking into people’s DM’s? Bah.

I haven’t seen the above attitude amongst friends, for which I’m grateful. That sense of entitlement doesn’t seem to be infiltrating my own communities. It was definitely a real post, however, and so it certainly represents some people’s beliefs.

Also, what the heck is with the language (or lack thereof) in the post? Ugh.

As you know, I attempt to keep abreast of the Left media so that I can report things here, and also to help those on the Right understand things that might require some translation. Even though I’ve moved more Right (or the Left has moved more left, whatever), I intend to continue doing this. It is important to me to not have an echo chamber, and to listen to news from a variety of sources. This leads me to today’s article.

Kamala Harris Swears In Senate Members from Times of India

You’re welcome to read the article. It’s a confusing bit of media. The heading would lead you to believe that the article is talking about Harris swearing in the new Senate members. It really has little to do with that. Instead, they talk about how J. D. Vance was laughing during the swearing in (the video just repeats itself a few times btw), and a video went viral of him doing so. It’s reported like this is a Big Deal. It’s not. He was smiling through the entire thing, pleased as punch to see so many of his friends being sworn in. As he should. He wasn’t laughing. I’ve watched the thing.

One of the quotes from the article gives you a feel for what they’re aiming for (and missing, imo, but that’s another story): “Many of the Republicans Kamala Harris swore in today could not pronounce her name, the Time Magazine headlined its article…” They later suggest that those Republicans could pronounce her name but chose not to. The bottom line is, they’re more worried about the name than the people being sworn in. I will tell you, I only remember how to pronounce her name because Kamala rhymes with mommala, which was part of a SNL skit, I believe. I have to say it over in my mind to remind myself! It’s an unusual name. Now, should they have made the attempt? Yes. It’s a statement of respect, and while I don’t expect any of them to respect her, they should respect the office, and they should treat her as if they respect her for ceremonial things like this. That they didn’t says stuff to me, but it’s still pretty minor.

The article also talks about how the “smiling people” coming to her to be sworn in were her bitter enemies only weeks ago, as if this is two-faced in some way. Why would they not be smiling? They won. We all won. They said she was a threat to the American way of life, and I believe that she was, and may continue to be if she stays in politics. They also make some claims about the claims made by Republicans about Harris, claims of “her wanting to ban Christmas from the calendar” and “bringing dog meat to immigrants’ stoves.” It’s asinine and silly. The only part they sort of got right was the claim that she tried to skew the election results by flooding the polls with illegal immigrants. I’m still struggling to understand who in their right mind would vote against a law that protects our voting places.

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It has been an interesting year for me. Most of my 2024 was spent figuring out why my politics were so skewed. I’ve become more active in my prepping (again). I lost weight. I gained weight. I finished another cookbook and published it (The Clay Table), and finished writing and partially editing another (Rise Up, a bread cookbook, hopefully due out in the summer).

In 2025, I am going to be a busy little critter. I have a fantasy anthology I’m putting together (Tales from the Turning Leaf Tavern), which comes along with a Kickstarter, a “real” cover artist, and a bunch of other new (to me) aspects of authoring. I have 10th century Viking, 15th century English, and 18th century American reenactments to participate in. I have my 18th century cookbook to put together, write, and edit. I have a series of YouTube video lessons on how to take an idea from your mind and turn it into a book that’s available on Amazon. I have TikTok to keep up on, provided there’s still a TikTok to use. I have reading to do, and sewing. And then there’s the list of never ending household chores: laundry, dishes, vacuuming, tidying, cooking, etc…

All in all, though, I’m very happy with where I am. If you’d suggested 20 years ago that I would be sitting here, a published and popular author, I would have laughed at you. I could not have envisioned a time when historical groups vied for who got me for what dates, because I “bring so much.” It was inconceivable to think that I would be teaching food history to people at libraries… and be paid for the privilege. I am in a really good place.

I’m excited to see what Trump brings to America in his second term. It is my strong hope that his various people do their jobs well, and that the country starts out strong on January 20th. I want to see DOGE get rid of a lot of the useless stuff that’s gathered up into the government over the years. I hope to see improvement in schools, along with cutting away any fat in that arena as well.

Mostly, I’m hoping to see grocery costs come down. I know it won’t be immediate, but Trump has four years. I’m hoping that by his second year in office, we’ll see a distinct down-trend in the cost of American grown foods.

Happy New Year, everyone. Thanks for reading Vine of Liberty, and being a part of our virtual family. May the blessings of the Divine go with you into the new year, and fill your lives with health, wealth, and joy.