Basher51's Bluff and Bluster

...and in the course of doing so, he explains the conservative position on bailing out the Big Three automakers.  It is actually quite interesting.  And Shep goes nuclear on the guy!

Let's discuss the soon to be conservative prerogative of "speaking truth to power". 

For at least the last 8 years this term has been used to rationalize all sorts of bizarre behavior by liberal demonstrators from throwing pies at conservative speakers to shouting down speeches by conservatives to hurling foul-mouthed invective at conservatives.  All those folks doing such things and more have been claiming that they are "speaking truth to power".  Well, for at least the next two years and possibly four years, we conservatives will be given the right to speak truth to power.

You see, as it was explained to me, those IN power cannot speak truth to power.  It is only the helpless minority that can speak truth to power.  Well, let me introduce conservative Americans--the latest helpless minority!  We don't control the White House, we don't control the Senate, we don't control the House.  We are decidedly the helpless minority.  We can now claim the prerogative of speaking truth to power and the left has to respect that the same way that they demanded we respect them when they did it.

So, how are we going to speak truth to power?  First off, as conservatives we not only are held to a much higher standard of conduct than the liberals (we always have been, fact of life, get over it), but we are also held to a much higher standard of proof (again, get over it).  So, sorry folks, throwing pies, shouting down speakers, acting like jerks, all of that is off the menu for us. (Shame, really, I was rather looking forward to hurling a pie at a visiting professor.)  No, we conservatives are going to have to speak truth to power in a much more dignified, dare I say, "stodgy" fashion.  No appeals to cheap emotionalism for us.  No trying to put handcuffs on a presidential advisor.  No, we are going to have to do it in a way that is far more staid and dignified. 

We are also going to have to speak truth to power after decisions have been made.  We can't base our actions on conjecture and cheap conspiracy theories involving back room deals and secret events that everyone has heard about (how then are they "secret"?).  Speaking truth to power for us is going to mean telling the liberal powers how their actions have negatively impacted us.  "I now have to choose between paying my taxes and feeding my family. This is as a result of your actions."  "I had a good paying job.  Then your decision to slap intense regulatory oversight on the industry that I work in has caused me to be laid off."  "I've had to lay off half of my workforce because of the policies that you've enacted." 

The big issue is how are we going to do this?  I have not the foggiest idea.  I was hoping that some of you might come up with ideas.  Big protest rallies don't seem to be our style.  Most conservatives work real jobs and can't just take time off to protest.  Besides, past history shows us that mainstream media pays scant attention to conservative protests.  We've had tens of thousands gather on the Mall in Washington DC  and not have a single line of coverage or so much as a mention on the TV news programs.  When ever I've asked editors about that the answers are always a bit disturbing.  "That rally was on a weekend and we didn't have anyone." "You're right, we should have covered it.  Perhaps next time." One flat out told me that conservatives protest rallies are simply too bland to cover.  Perhaps if we spewed vulgarity, threw feces around, destroyed private property, and spray painted grafitti on the Washington Monument we would get covered.

So folks, enlighten me.  How are we conservatives going to speak truth to power?

I just finished two solid weekends of working the deer sight-in at the Stone Bank Sportsmen's Club.  I got cold, sore, and tired.  But what fun!  First off, SBSC has some great guys and gals who love having fun.  Then there are the hunters who bring in their rifles and shotguns for sighting-in.

Now, for those who have little connection with the shooting sports here is what a sight-in is and why we do it.  Simply put a sight-in is finding out where your gun is shooting.  Mostly for those who use scopes instead of iron sights, you need to know if you put  the crosshairs on a target, that the bullet will end up there.  Sometimes the hunter has installed a new scope, or the rifle is new, or it hasn't been shot in a number of years.  Other times, the hunter just wants the reassurance that the gun is still accurate.  If the gun is not on target, we adjust the scope or sights to bring it onto target.  At SBSC, as with most clubs, we allow the hunter to shoot his own rifle.  Using a spotting scope we report to the hunter where the bullet hit on the target and then, if needed, we adjust the scope to bring it to bear on the target.  It is lots of fun and real rush when you have a gun that is way off and you dial it in on target.

Some of these guys use some big honking rifles!  I had guys with 7mm mags, 300 win. mags, 44 mag rifles, 375 H&H, 35 Remington, and a handful of guys using 12 ga. shotguns with scopes.  The bulk of the rifles were the venerable 30-06, the 308, and the 270.   We also had old guys (one or two were certainly over 70 years old) but the amazing thing was the number of high school age kids.  We have been told over and over that kids aren't following in the hunting tradition.  You'd be hard pressed to say that based upon what I saw.  The bulk of hunters were between, say, 16 and 30. One father, God bless him, brought out his two young sons.  One was about 12 and another was probably 8 or 9.  The dad sighted-in his rifle (a 7mag) and then sighted-in his older sons rifle (a 308).  Then the kid shot the 308.  That kid was a better shot than his old man!  At 100 yards he put three rounds easily within a 3" circle!  Then we went down to the 25 yard range to sight-in a Ruger 10/22, .22 cal rifle for the young son.  That kid wouldn't be deer hunting.  But his dad had given him a new rifle and scope for his birthday and the kid would be hunting rabbits later in the season.  Again, the dad zeroed in the scope and then the kid shot.  Just like his older brother, the kid was a remarkable shot!

What I was seeing was the passing along of a great tradition.  I saw daughters and young wives sighting-in with the dads and husbands. (In fact, we've recently had two young ladies join the club.)  During breaks in the action we guys who worked the sight-in would swap stories of past hunts (For a score of reasons I no longer hunt. I admire guys who do and sometimes wish that I still did.), chat about various rifles and calibers, or tell tales of that guy who tried to sight-in an iron sighted shotgun at 100 yards.  Although this was the first sight-in that I've worked with SBSC, a long time ago I did sight-in at another gun club that I belonged to.  For some reason, perhaps because I am older and more mature, at this sight-in I felt a greater sense of comraderie, a shared sense of taking part in a great tradition.  Each day we had a hot meal at the clubhouse on the grounds (I helped cook it both Saturdays!).  Nothing like some big hot "guy food" where we could chat about the days events and the guy would compare this sight-in with others that they'd done.  I was part of it, I was taking part in that great Wisconsin deer hunting tradition even though I myself do not hunt.  It felt good, as if there are some traditional things that are worth keeping, and revering.  I felt that even if they made rifles and scopes that don't need sighting in that hundreds of folks would still show up to sight-in their rifles.

Next weekend gun deer hunting season opens in Wisconsin.  There will be about 25 guys hunting that are using rifles and shotguns that I helped to sight-in.  I won't be there with them.  But I will have taken a small part in the Wisconsin deer hunting tradition. It feels good to be able to say that.

"A billion here and a billion there and pretty soon you're talking about some serious money." So, supposedly, goes the quote from the late Sen. Everett Dirkson (R-IL)

So, $700 billion here, $50 billion there, another $50 billion requested...where is this money coming from?  I thought that Bush had driven the country to bankruptcy, the war in Iraq was getting too expensive, and so forth.  Suddenly we have nearly $1 trillion to spend?

Where did that money come from?  Yes, I know from us taxpayers.  But do you mean that the federal government just happened to have nearly $1 trillion dollars unspent just waiting to go out the door?

This coming Monday, Nov. 10, will mark the 33rd anniversary of the sinking of the SS Edmund Fitzgerald.  The Great Lakes ore carrier and its crew of 29 brave souls lies in 530 feet of water in Lake Superior about 17 miles from Whitefish Bay off the northeast point of the Upper Peninsula. 

For more information on the sinking, click here.  It was the last major shipwreck with loss of life on the Great Lakes.  Strangely, it happened on almost the exact same day as the Armistice Day Storm of 1940 and the monster 4 day-long storm of 1913.  Both of those storms claimed numerous ships and countless lives.  But the sinking of the "Big Fitz" came as a suprise.  By 1975 we were feeling pretty good about ourselves and figured that, as was the case with the Titanic, that our technology would prevent a massive loss of life ont he Great Lakes.  We had radio, we had radar, we had superb weather forcasting.  And Lake Superior blew it all away and proved that she was still the one in charge.  It was as if she was saying "When comes the month of November, I will be the one to decide."  It is amazing that with all of our technology we still don't know precisely what sank the Edmund Fitzgerald.  Was it the rogue waves called "The Three Sisters"?  Did the Fitz have a bad set of navigation charts that caused her to bottom out on Six Fathom Shoal?  Did she have leaky hatch covers?  We still don't know.

One interesting aside.  A friend of mine, a writer living in Los Angeles but who grew up in Sault Ste. Marie, MI, wrote a screenplay about the sinking of the Fitz.  As he took it around the Hollywood producers the remarks he got were very indicative of the narrow viewpoint of Hollywood.  "Come on, who's going to believe that there are ships on the Great Lakes?"  "Why does everyone have to die at the end?"  "Anyway that we could get a couple blacks or women on the ship?"  He tells me that he gave up figuring that it would be easier for all concerned.

(Photo from Great Lakes and Seaway Shipping web site.  Go to:  www.boatnerd.com)

Dear President-Elect Obama;

First, a hearty congratulations.  You won fair and square.  I wish you the best in your upcoming term as president.  Having a majority in the House and Senate, a doggoned near super-majority in the Senate at that, is really going to help.

I understand that you are planning to be really bi-partisan.  I have to admit that your selection of someone as hot-headed and hyper-partisan as Rahm Emanuel as your chief of staff concerns me.  But you are the boss and as my new president I will give you the benefit of the doubt until you prove otherwise.

I'd like to offer you a suggestion from a conservative that I know that you will take in the same spirit of bi-partisanship and unity that I offer it.  It is going to be incumbant upon you to reach out to the Republicans, particularly the conservative ones.  (I'm sure that you know that they, being the minority party,  are by tradition and practice not the ones who are required to reach out.  My suggestion to you is that you publically announce that in the spirit of reaching across the aisle that you are going to declare dead on arrival any legislation or regulation that would re-impose the Fairness Doctrine; that you simply refuse to consider it.  Contrary to what others may say, imposing the Fairness Doctrine would only re-invigorate the contentiousness of the Right.  It would give them a raison d'etre.  You, as the most visible of all Democrats would end up being the target.  It would kill any chance that you might have to "reach across the aisle".

What would you be risking by taking the Fairness Doctrine off the table?  The enmity of the far left?  Where would they go?  Some of your major contributors to your campaign war chest?  How much do you really need and can you get by with less?  Cost you support in the House and Senate?  You are the Number One Democrat in the eyes of a ton of folks. How could anyone in your party oppose you right now?

But by and large the good that would be done by taking the Fairness Doctrine off the table is priceless.  First, the incredible good will that you would gain among Republicans who would not have to face a very, very angry crowd.  Two, major broadcasters make a lot of money off of talk radio.  You killing it certainly wouldn't gain you any support from them.  But the biggest gain that you could make is assuring conservatives that you are someone that they can work with.  If you end up killing talk radio by re-imposing the Fairness Doctrine, you will end up really reinvigorating the folks that you just totally demoralized in the last election.  They will get to listen to Rush, Hannity, Ingraham somehow.  And those talkers will be leading the charge to crate the hostile environment that you save stated that you want to end.  You may argue that they would do that if the Fairness Doctrine is not imposed.  True, but imposing it will only make Limbaugh that much more effective. Not imposing it could--just could--"defang" him a bit.

So the choice is yours, as it always has been.  To me taking the Fairness Doctrine off the table is win-win for you and for conservatives.  And keeping it off the table could make the p[olitical discourse that much more civil.  That's what you want, right?

Sharing your desire for a greater and more civil nation,

I remain,

Basher51

I don't have any grandparents anymore.  My last grandparent died about 6 years ago.  I miss them terribly.  But I will always have the memories.

I extend sincere condolences to Barack Obama on the death of his grandmother.

No politics at a time like this.

Folks, I have to get something off my chest.  It takes no skill to repond to a blog by merely posting a video from YouTube or someplace similar.  I like the practice of argumentation, the exchange of opinions, where you are forced to dissect an opponent's argument, analyze it, and draft a response.  It is an intellectual game.  It keeps the mind sharp and the wit keen.  But here are my problems with the use of a vid as a comment:

1. Just grabbing a vid off of YouTube requires no debating skill whatsoever.  Indeed, when I have watched some of the video comments I've been remarkably "underwhelmed" .  Many have at best a tangental relationship to what is being discussed.  I really have no problem if a video is included as part of a longer argument, as evidence of the larger point that you are trying to make. But if that is the case, then put your argument in writing and then say "here is a video that supports what I'm saying".    And for heaven's sake, don't post a 15 minute video when only 15 seconds of it is relative to your point!  If you absolutely MUST do that, then write:  "If you fast-forward to 12:30 you'll see that..."  Life is too short to wade through gobs of boiler plate to get to the one rivet of comment that you want to make.
2. Neither you as the poster nor I was the viewer have any  way of knowing the context of the incident that is portrayed in the video.  If you are trying to comment that McCain called Obama a "flower pot" and you merely post a video of McCain saying that, it proves nothing.  Is the video a snip from a much longer comment?  Was McCain telling joke at the time?  Was he talking about something completely different that had no relation to Obama?  If the video was one minute out of a 30 minute speech, what else was said in the speech that contradicts the point being made?  If this seems to contradict the point made just above, then you understand the problem with cutting and pasting a video for comment.
3. Anyone with a modicum of computer skill can edit a video these days.  What proof of authenticity is there with the video that you are posting as a comment?  And don't tell me that your proof is that it is all over the internet.  So are a myriad of Photo-shopped pictures.
4. If you can't put it into your own words, then how do I know that you even have the slightest idea of what you are talking about?  I'm no genius, not by a long shot.  But I did fairly well in school and managed to learn how to use the simple declarative sentence.  Presumably, if you have a high school diploma or GED you have learned that too.  These days a fourth grader can post a YouTube video here and you have no way of knowing if the person is serious, reasonable, or just tossing flame bait.  If all you want to do is create discord, there are countless (literally!) places on the internet to do that.  Go there.

Perhaps I'm old fashioned.  I'm over 50 and that fact stares me in the face every day.  But I still think that the written word is one of the greatest gifts that God gave us.  I have a YouTube account and love to go there and watch some zany stuff.  Much of it is pretty inventive.  But a whole lot is totally idiotic.  If you want to watch video, that is the place to go.  But please, if you want to argue a point, put it in writing.

West Hollywood Halloween display depicts Sarah Palin hanging in effigy.

In the news today is this story in which a federal judge in California allowed the US government to confiscate the trademark logo of a violent motorcycle gang.

This gang, the "Mongols", is a group of despicable low-lifes with no redeeming value to society.

What is chilling is that a federal prosecutor and a federal judge declared that if a member of the Mongols wears, say a vest with the logo on it, it is subject to seizure.  Folks, that can of judicial action is downright scary. Lord knows, unless the order is reversed by a higher court,  what other sorts of confiscations of trademark logos will occur.  It is precedent setting.  That means that the federal government has the ability to say "You did it in that case and you can do it here."

Given that we are on the verge of one-party rule in this country, and a party that hates and detests anyone dissenting from their orthodoxy, how long will it be before the logos of conservative groups such as, the National Rifle Association or Rush Limbaugh, are ordered confiscated?  You think it is far-fetched?  Remember that in some southern states it is illegal to display the Confederate battle flag on public property.  We've been edging towards this for a long time.

You say, well, this only affects groups that I dislike.  They'd never come for my symbols and logos.  Except that ont he campuses some liberal colleges they've removed the cross because it is "offensive", that you can only say certain things in "free speech zones" on various parts of the school grounds, that merely saying certain things can lead you to being sent to what amounts to "re-education camps" in order to (borrowing a line from "Cool Hand Luke") "get your thinkin' right".

We are on the verge of a time when blogs like these will no longer be allowed for the sake of "fairness".  We are getting ready to welcome in one-party rule where freedom of expression will be restricted to expressing ideas that the one party approves of.  That party at one time rioted for free speech on the campus of UC-Berkely.  They now have come full circle.

The recent polls showing that not only The One is the likely winner of the presidential race, but that the Dems will be swept into a veto-proof majority in Congress and the Senate has me worried, very worried. 

This isn't a wallet issue, would that it were.  This is an issue of freedom.  The liberals that make up the powerbase of The One and the Dems in general have said that one of their first goals is to stifle free speech in the name of "fairness".  My career in broadcasting began and ended during the time of the Fairness Doctrine.  I know quite well how it stifled any discussion of views.  There was no way that you'd put on the air anyone who was controversial unless you also had ready to go someone from the opposite viewpoint.  It sounds simple enough, but the effect was chilling.  For the uninitiated, "time" in broadcasting means "money".  You don't want to waste time ("dead air") by putting on something that is a turn-off factor for viewers or listeners.  Why do you think that Sunday morning is the time when the public affairs talk-a-thons, religious broadcasts, and the like are on the air.  Few viewers tune in on Sunday AMs.  The libs know that they can't compete with the one medium that is reliably conservative: talk radio.  Air America and any number of other liberal talk radio programs have failed miserably.  So, rather than try to compete, the Dems simply have decided to kill talk radio.

But that isn't all that has me worried.  You have a condidate that has the sheer audacity to declare one day that he will take public funding for his campaign and then, after his opponent also agrees to that, changes his mind and is now quite literally buying the office of president with a campaign that is on track to spending $1 billion in its run for the presidency.   Yet, no one seems to be bothered by that.  Indeed, the news media seems quite comfortable with, and even celebrate, Obama holding fundraisers with the mega-wealthy where he takes in $11 million dollars in one night.  Money like that doesn't flow without promises.  Warren Buffett, Bill Gates, George Soros, don't spend money without the expectation of a big return.  But to date, no enterprising reporter has bothered to even start to check out where all of this money is coming from and what promises are tied to it.Now, you add to that sort of fawning adulation among the news media the out-and-out destruction of any form of criticism of The One and you have the recipe for Basher51 being worried.

I hate to get all ColbyDog-ish here, but I smell a conspiracy.  There are tons of big money people behind The One.  Why are they so willing to spend millions and millions bankrolling the Dems and making sure that any critical voices are stilled?

Oh, you may say, you are over reacting.  The liberals are all for free speech!  Maybe 40 or 50 years ago.  But not anymore. Been to a college campus?   It isn't the College Republicans who are demanding speech codes, forcing the establishment of "free speech zones", stealing entire press runs of a conservative campus paper, shouting down conservative speakers and assaulting them, banning Christian clubs that don't allow atheists to be officers, removing crosses from campus chapels in the name of tolerance, preventing students from holding Bible studies in dormatories.  This is how modern liberalism deals with dissent--it not only stifles it, it ham-handedly crushes it and then claims to do it in the name of diversity and tolerance.

I have prided myself on being the eternal optimist.  But I can honestly say that I am getting more pessimistic every day.  Given the liberals out and out hatred, and I do mean hatred, of anyone who dares speak against them in public fora, I feel a coming chill on all of our freedoms.  And they will tell us that it is good for us, and if we need to hear a dissenting viewpoint that they will provide one for us--one that they approve of.

I'm still nagged by Obama's comment that he wants to "spread the wealth around".  Thinking about it, I find it a very scary concept.  Indeed, the whole idea that the government could say that someone, including me, is making too much money and needs to give it to someone who isn't, is downright repulsive.  First, it plays into the class envy and class hatred that is doing nothing productive in this country and needs to be stopped.  Second, it is based upon the false idea that income production is a zero sum game.  It most certainly is not.  There simply is not amount X that we all draw from and if I get more that means that there is less for you.  Income--wealth--is fluid.  There is always more.  It just has to be produced.  So, if you have more than I do, there is nothing economically that prevents me from going out and producing just as much as you, if not more.  Believe it or not, it is still happening every day in this country.  Third, who gets to say whether the wealth that you or I have or have earned is too much?  What standard will be applied and who will judge whether that standard is just, fair, and correct?  To whom would we appeal if we have been wronged?  What if we don't like who gets the wealth that we generated but was taken from us because it is too much?  How do we as a society benefit if we impede wealth production? 

More than anything else, what benefit to society is there when we punish wealth production? If the level of taxation skyrockets at $250K, what incentive is there for me to go past that amount?  If expanding my business and hiring more workers moves me to the level where government has determined that I make too much money so that they must confiscate it and give it to others, then I'm not going to expand my business, people won't get hired, and more income won't be entering the overall economy.

Yet, that is exactly what The One told Joe the Plumber that he wants to do. 

And it is why I'm pretty certain that his four years in office will amount to a redux of the economic stagnation of the 1970's.  Drag out your leisure suits and polyester shirts!  We're headed to the disco!

I've heard and read comments from all sorts of pundits and news media folks concerning the suddenly "alarming amount of hate" being vented at McCain/Palin rallies.  They point to the "Waukesha man" and the beginning and they furrow their brows about "new lows" and the "visceral hate" being spewed at these events.

For Pete's sake!  Where have these concerned folks been for the last 8 years when we have had folks from the Hollywood left to sitting members of congress to pastors in the pulpit venting about how much they hate President Bush, how much they wish that he would have died in the 9/11 attacks, how they wish that Air Force One would have crashed with him aboard, how they want him hanged as a war criminal.  Take a look at the Daily Kos and the Democrat Underground blogs and see how people still vent visceral hatred for George Bush and wish all sorts of misfortune on him and his family.  SUDDENLY there is hate being vented and it is coming from the Republicans?  There was no hate being vented before the McCain rally in Waukesha last week?  Did these pundits sleep through the demonstrations and riots at the Democrat and Republican conventions with all sorts of folks screaming "Kill Bush!"   and "Torture Bush!"?  And what about the hate and death threats against James T. Harris, the black man who also spoke at the McCain rally in Waukesha.  What about the visceral, deep-seated hatred that Jeremiah Wright vented from the pulpit?  Go to any major university and try to speak your support for Bush or any Republican and then count the death threats you get, not to mention the number of times "hate Bush" is stated.

Get real.  The hate against Bush over the last 8 years so completely eclipses campaign rhetoric coming from the Republicans.  I'm just dumbfounded that any rational person would even comment. 

I was helping a buddy with a few chores Saturday.  The guy is kind of liberal, but we've always gotten along fine.  Well, along and along we pretty much finish the chores and were chatting and I mentioned that I really wanted to see the Packers game on Sunday.  I'm not the greatest Packers fan out there.  But I had a feeling that they might win and I wanted to see that.  He goes off on me telling me how can anyone be so shallow as to worry about a sports event when there is so much corruption in government and the worldwide financial crisis and all.  I've never known this guy to be a worrywort and at first I thought that he was kidding me.  He wasn't.  People should not bother with sports and movies and entertainment until we get this financial mess cleaned up and the rascals are in jail, he said in so many words.  "You go ahead and focus on your stupid games, " he said.  I have no idea what he was going to do on Sunday afternoon.  Perhaps he was going to picket the Reuss Building or something.

Now, I politely demurred and insisted that I had stuff to do and then left.  But I've heard this kind of claptrap before.  We need to set aside trivialities and collectively get our nose to the grindstone and fix the serious problems of the land, goes the argument.  It has a million variations which have cropped up any number of times in the past.  Back when the "farm crisis" was the big thing a friend of mine who is an independent truck driver told me that we should not be putting resources into helping farmers until we get the truckers taken care of first.  "How can the farmers get their stuff to market without the truck drivers?" he said.  On the surface, it was a pretty sound argument and for a time I was swayed by it.  But then I thought "Who gets to decide when we have taken care of the truckers?"

Indeed, that is the failure of all of these types of arguments.  Who decides when we have fixed the economic crisis?  Who decides when all of the scoundrels are doing hard time? Who decides when we can finally watch sports or movies without the burdcen of a guilty conscience?  If only 95% of all of the scoundrels are in prison can I still watch NASCAR?  If 5 mortgage lenders are still on the brink of bankruptcy, can I still go to a Southern Gospel concert?  Who do I get permission from to attend?  As angry as my friend was, I have a feeling that no one will ever be able to attend an entertainment event ever again.

Another problem is that in our world there is always a crisis lurking around the corner.  If you haven't figured it out by now, when this economic crisis is past (and it will pass), there will be another one right on its tail.  The winter wheat will fail. Or the housing market will have trouble. There will be famine in North Dakota. Or the new president will have a skeleton or two in their closet.  There is going to be other crises and we have to live with it.  Never have we in this country had a pastoral time with no problems whatsoever.  Folks, we live in a fallen world and we are just one of many fallen creatures who fail to live up to their potential. The Bible tells us that "in this world you will have trouble".  No where does it tell su that we will have a cakewalk in this life.

Lastly, we cannot possibly exist without taking relief from our worries.  Did the Great Depression teach us nothing?  During that time we had some of the best entertainment known--classic movies were produced--wonderful novels were written--and sports events of all types and at all  levels were constantly sold out.  We need escape from our worries.  It helps us to re-energize and re-focus.  That's why presidents go to Camp David and Congressmen take junkets.

My buddy can live as a nervous wreck if that is his choice.  His lack of faith and optimism certainly will make his presence less than enjoyable for anyone around him in the future.