Prince William to receive millions in federal infrastructure funds for key projects

Come on, Cloud, don’t hold it against me.

Bridget, first off, you’re the best! You should be Trump’s next Chief of Staff. You’re reasonable and make tons of sense.

This weekend I found a wallet in the parking lot of a grocery store with several hundred dollars in it. Based off the drivers license inside, I saw the owner’s house was a few blocks away. I took the wallet to his house and gave it to him. He said “Thanks” and basically closed the door in my face, as if I was returning a wrench I borrowed from him. No, “Where’d you find it?” No, “Thank goodness I don’t have to go through the ass pain of getting a new ID or replacement credit cards.” Just “Thanks.” It was kind of bizarre actually. If I lost my wallet and someone took the time to return it without stealing anything, I would no doubt display some appreciation. But what I did really isn’t special or unique. Any Trump supporting, America loving man/woman would have done the same thing. That’s the type of people we are. If you ever go to a Trump rally you’ll see thousands and thousands of people just like that. You hear the opposite about us on here from losers like UnEducated Patriot, a guy who could have been the wallet owner.

I have no negative wishes for Cloud, Bridget, I really don’t. She said that my misogyny was noted, I thought that was a hilarious response. Deep down inside her there’s a sense of humor, I can sense it. Here’s my thoughts of her, she’s the product of liberal parents, her friends are all liberals, and she works with a bunch of liberals. The liberal lifestyle is all she knows. I hold nothing against her. It’s just my belief that if she ever spent time with a guy like me at a sports bar, a Trump rally, a UFC fight -whatever- her opinion of us would change. If she ever turned on 105.9 FM (WMAL) and listened to either Chris Plante, Dan Bongino, or Vince Coglianese, she would see that we’re funny, energetic, good hearted, and are the kind of people she’d want by her side when walking down a dark alley. I’m not offering to be anything more than someone who could point her in the right direction though, hopefully get her on the right track. Now for the UnEducated Loser, I don’t like that guy. I don’t think he’s a good guy. I don’t respect him. I wouldn’t enjoy being near him. I don’t think Cloud would either, and that’s the type of guy that represents the party/lifestyle she supports.

But, you’re right, Bridget, I’ll probably never “win her over”, but I won’t change, it’s who I am.

@Al

Every president should have to hire a chief of staff who often doesn’t agree with them. Didn’t Lincoln surround himself with people who would challenge his ideas? 



Yeah, your wallet story tracks with my impression of you—both in your goodheartedness and maybe in your disappointment, too. I used to go get water from a spring near Strasburg. If someone(s) is there before you it can take a long time depending on how many bottles are being filled. I tend to get kind of impatient when I wait cause I’m just sitting there on the side of a mountain road.

Once, when I was filling my bottles, a guy pulled up behind me and after a short while, he got out of his car and came toward me. I thought he was feeling impatient, and maybe he was, but he came to help. He was a military guy and just saw no reason not to help since he had nothing better to do. Helping the people before me had never even occurred to me. I just wished they would hurry. Honestly, I stood there for a minute, just thinking that at least in this regard what a better person than me he was. And in temperament and perspective, I bet that he could have been you.

I was at the park that I camp at on Friday just for a few hours and wanted a snack. I went into the visitors center and recognized all three rangers, and they recognized me and were immediately friendly. The snack deliveries hadn’t come, so they went into the office and just gave me food from the ranger stash. It’s a rural county. They all had southern accents. There were probably Trump supporters among them. Recently, in Warrenton, I went into the Amish store and struck up a conversation with the woman working there, a long-time Virginia resident. Something she mentioned proudly more than once. Somehow data centers came up, and we disagreed, but we actually talked our perspective through and by the end of the conversation she was considering my position and inviting me to move to Fauquier. She was just so lovely.

This is the Virginia that I live in, and I know that I am interacting with Trump supporters and people of all political stripes every day, but it almost never comes up, and I don’t know how this country can function if we can’t tolerate each other’s views and put our humanity first. Honestly, I just don’t know how else to not just tear the country apart.

I’m pretty sure that Cloud kicks ass and that her current track is just fine and probably suits her and will evolve over time just like any intelligent person’s does. I completely believe that you mean no harm. Maybe we just need to accept that we are not going to change each other’s minds or antics. I told the story of my transgender friend on this forum, and I am sure that I am never going to change anyone’s mind on that topic, but I think and hope that when I tell that story that people of all political stripes can relate to my loyalty to my friend because that’s what the story is really about. I would like to think that some Trump supporters would tolerate my LGBTQ+ views because I can tell you why I have them including stories of the gay friends who drove from DC every night that my dad was in hospice to be with him. I mean, I think most of us can share the value that you support the people like that in your life. You just do—come hell or highwater.

I was raised in Fairfax County by super southern parents. Educated Patriot and I share more politics than you two do, which is easier, even if it’s not all of them, but both my parents were raised by farmers and my dad, who was a brilliant engineer, pretty much exclusively referred to himself as a “good ole country boy” and loved an inappropriate dirty joke—the more poorly timed the better. I’m always going to support a rural way of life and the people who choose it—always— and that means tolerating and sometimes appreciating differing political views. I get why you don’t like EP, and I’m never going to agree with intolerance on either side, but I’m going to leave it to you military guys to sort that out amongst yourself. Given that I have benefitted from both your efforts, it’s just not my place to bash anybody who has served.

I don’t think you should change. Diversity includes us all. It means a lot to me that you would have this exchange.

Bridget, I bet your dad and I would have gotten along great, nobody loves an inappropriate joke more than I do. “Ok, a white guy, a black guy, and a Hispanic guy all walk into a bar….” that’s how just about every joke started when I grew up and the butt of the joke rotated, depending on which guy told it. I grew up with white, black, and Hispanic friends and we all loved those jokes. I’m still friends with some of those guys today. We made fun of each other constantly, that’s just how it was back then. We didn’t get offended. But if someone from outside of our group made fun of my friend, black, white, or Hispanic, well, those were fightin’ words and much like the Marine Corps motto, I was often the First to Fight! Sometimes I won, sometimes I lost, but regardless, a reputation was established - if you ran your mouth you better be prepared to back it up. While I’ve certainly mellowed since then, I still have that fighting spirit. All my close buddies do.

I don’t care about a person’s race. I don’t care if a dude wants to dress up like a chick either. Just don’t be an a$$ about it. Don’t get upset if you’re a dude with a wig on and I call you sir. Don’t expect me to say something that isn’t true just to appease someone who has emotional issues, or is otherwise unsatisfied with the person they are. This is how I see it. If you’re a dude who dresses up like a lady, then expect guys like me to see it this way. Have realistic expectations. I won’t go out of my way to be a d!ck, just go about your business, do your thing, and don’t press me on it. Do you think my perception is unreasonable? I’m seriously interested in your opinion because you seem like the most reasonable person on here.

I could get along with liberal people, some of them are just fine. Cloud for example, I’m sure she’s everything you said she is and probably a decent person. You’ve probably heard this saying or something like it, “Conservatives see liberals as people with bad ideas. Liberals see conservatives as bad people.” I don’t see her as a bad person. Yeah, I’ve had some fun at her expense but I don’t mean anything serious. Even though she thinks I’m a creepy DC outsider, I think she’s kinda funny. But UnPatriotic Loser is a different story. I do see him as a bad person, I see him as a cancer to our country. He’s everything I want my kids not to become.

Al, Yeah, I bet you and my dad would have liked each other through shared humor. The culture you describe sounds like growing up in the 80’s around here. I think that racial issues are a double-edged sword. Over-politicization can pervert the best of intentions, and anything can be leveraged to political gain in the wrong hands, so, I get that sometimes objecting to the polticization of race gets misconstrued as racism, but I also think that you can take that too far and excuse actual racism. And I think the whole thing is a spectrum with subtleties that are hard to name. We pretend like it’s simple, and then, yeah, start judging each other’s morality and create more division. It’s a vicious circle.

I think transgenderism is challenging for some of the same reasons. First, it’s an awkward, difficult transition even for the friends. It just is. And, I will say that my friend has said that some of the most difficult reactions have been from liberals, who she thought would be more open, and then they weren’t. The first time I saw my friend after she had been on hormones for a while, I kept finding myself staring at her chest. It was weird. It was new and kind of confusing, and I’ve had a lot of exposure to gay culture. She tried to strike up a conversation with me on make up, which I rarely wear, and I just kind of stood and stared, while my head reeled about how I would define my own femininity. It was hard and awkward to the point of being unpleasant to some degree for all of us. It just was.

For the first year or so, my friend was afraid to leave her house dressed as a woman. She feared for her physical safety. The hormone therapy did not help. Neither did trying to address the gender dysphoria. And neither did some of the political rhetoric/culture wars. So, I don’t know. For that first year or so, that “sir” would have devastated my friend. Now, my friend would be more able to shrug it off, but you would never get to know this person that my dad also dearly loved and that is sad to me. From my experience, transgenderism is the cure not the disease. I get what you are saying about not being up in your face—where’s the line with the politicization, when are you hurting your own cause, and at the same time the vulnerability is real. So, I’m always going to consider who is more vulnerable on this issue, you are the transgender person? If you accidentally say “sir”, it’s a non-issue. If you are challenging their reality with your “sir”, then don’t expect them to not politically get up in your face. That seems like the give and take to me. My reality has room for them, but really accepting gender transition means challenging a lot of beliefs and if that’s not part of the conversation meaning that for acceptance to be genuine it has to be a process not instantaneous, which means patience and listening on both sides, the conversation will never go anywhere, and we will have to live with yet another endless battle.

For Educated Patriot, first I’m just going to acknowledge that I don’t really know him, not even his name, so any “critique” Is kind of inherently ridiculous and definitely only an impression. He seems like an okay guy to me. He stayed in the military too long for me to think that it wasn’t service oriented. His education background and intellect are objectively impressive to me, but don’t play as central a role in my value system as some people’s. That’s just personal preference: the inherent value of what he has accomplished and who he is seems quite objective to me.

Our overlap in values is limited but certainly exists. What I see as cancerous is not personal to him but is oligarchical in nature. I know what you mean when you say that the Democratic Party is less about the little guy, and his persona portrays that, but he does also support social programs and volunteer. I do believe he has the service gene. I also do think those altruistic values still exist in that party, but if you don’t think they are being deeply challenged, you aren’t paying attention. It's why I'm not a Democrat.

Thanks for the insightful response. I really enjoyed reading it.

You already have a good idea why I don’t like the UnPatriotic Loser, but I’ll expand upon it. I don’t believe anyone else besides me and you are viewing this specific discussion anymore, so please understand I’m not bashing him to screw with him, I’m just telling you how I see it.

There are guys like him in every branch of the service, especially in the officer ranks. And the more senior you go, the higher the percentage of guys like him there are. It becomes very political when you hit the field grade ranks. Promotions become tougher and who you know becomes more and more important. Promoting becomes the priority for them - I can spot these guys a mile away, just by their mannerisms and how they speak. They all speak in the same cliches, repeat the same talking points, and kiss endless ass. Unpatriotic Loser is the pristine example. Just look at how he represents himself here, “I did this, I did that. I got this award, the Army invested in me, I went to an elite school, blah blah blah.” I haven’t hear him once speak about the soldiers he led. They are the Army - his purpose is to provide for them! To train them, equip them, lead them, mentor them, teach them, inspire them, love them, put a boot in their ass when they need it, shield them from BS, etc… He doesn’t get that and I just can’t stand the likes of him.

@ Al,

The soldiers I led?

I put three into West Point, ten to OCS, five to Warrant Officer School, and wrote nearly a hundred college recommendation letters during my career.

My promotion and retention rates in my Battalion Command exceeded Army averages.

I have hired several hundred veterans and retirees in my civilian life. Many of them are connected to me within two degrees of separation.

Keep in mind my company boasts how our job offer rates is worse than Harvard acceptance. Can you guess my company?

That is what I have done for my soldiers.

But I guess I am falling back to what I have done. How terrible of me.

How about you?

Thanks for chiming in loser. I was hoping you’d run your mouth, “I put them in West Point…” my point exactly. I, I, I!!!!! Right off the bat with that one, too. You did that, huh? You wrote references maybe, just as I have, but don’t pretend that you did anything beyond what was expected. If they made it, they earned it. You know how many guys I wrote references on and assisted with their career development? Who the F knows, I didn’t keep stats on what was one of my primary duties as a leader. Dude, I joke on here a lot, but you are no-sh!t joke. You might fool a person with no military background but you’re not fooling me or any of the other vets on here. We know exactly what you are.

@Al

No doubt I don't understand the details of military culture.

Even civilians can figure out why you don't like each other. We are all coming from our unique life experience. Mine's laden with the arts. I've rubbed elbows with the cultural elite in both Hollywood and NYC because of other artists. Due to writers that I know I got invited to a book part at the Luce's (the people who own Time Inc.) When I stepped on the elevator to go to their apartment--the guy running it congratulated me. Congratulated me for stepping on to an elevator to go to an apartment. It was as weird a moment as the first time hanging out with my transgender friend. There were a bunch of old Hollywood stars at that party. I met Gloria Vanderbilt and inadvertently hurt her feelings. I had the best wine of my life and a tremendous NYC view. It was fun. I went to two of their book parties. It was enough. Fun to visit, not my scene.

Regardless, I'm really good at what I do. I'm going to open a studio in the River Arts District in Asheville. It's the right culture for my work. Lots of millionaires live there to sell my work to. Lots of artists to play with. The city brags about its conservation easements and its water quality. It's going to be fun. Educated Patriot gets to live by his values. I get to live by mine. He does not bother me regardless of whose perception is correct. My life is only getting better. He is not wrong that I don't fit in NoVA, and that is okay with me. I am happy to go.