Jonathan Lawry

Support crew for triathlete wife, and physical access control electronics enthusiast.

[Josh McCabe @JoshuaTMcCabe]

Hard times create strong men.

[Jonathan Lawry @3rdpig]

Again with analogies, and again my mind goes to how the analogy doesn’t fit. I kindly suggest taking a course or a book on persuasion theory.

A brief scroll through your feed seems to suggest that you are very emotionally invested in your very outspoken opinions, so I won’t invest any more time in this conversation. Enjoy the rest of your day.

[Jonathan Lawry @3rdpig]

Naive I am not, but nor do I fill in ambiguities with my own insecurities and imagination. “The hard way” could mean anything you want.

Also, you seem learned enough to know that analogies are poor persuasion tools, as the mind goes immediately to how the analogy doesn’t fit. Here you are comparing the POTUS to the mafia, and then letting your mind go from there, assigning mafia qualities that, if the mind accepts it, makes it think it is correct on every subsequent assumption.

[Jonathan Lawry @3rdpig]

@IrelandOCDS @Survcon63 @johnkonrad fortunately, he made no such threats. A reporter asked "...will you rule out military action?", to which he refused to answer. This makes people imagine a threat.

[Jonathan Lawry @3rdpig]

Very doubtful. If he had asked for exactly what is in the agreement, negotiations would have been scaled back from there. The absurd initial "ask" served as an extreme "anchor-point", which made the current agreement possible.

As for "threatening to steal their territory", he never did this, and people imagine he did. What did happen was a reporter asked "..would you rule out military action?", to which he declined to answer. Not the same thing.

[Jonathan Lawry @3rdpig]

Ah. I concentrated on the tone of your reply instead of the content. We are in agreement on the facts.

In regards to the dairy situation, in spite of the small size of that trade, it does illustrate a legitimate gripe: they protect their sacred cows (pun intended) but otherwise want unfettered access to our market here.

[Jonathan Lawry @3rdpig]

A bit of a mischaracterization. Trump wants ALL Canadian markets to be open, meaning no carve outs and quotas for dairy farmers, for example. Plus some safeguards that Canada will not become a conduit for reimports of Chinese products. There is more to this than meets the eye. He has SOME valid points here.

[Jonathan Lawry @3rdpig]

@LXXXIVMJW @CallieRealTalk @Telegraph Yes. Fortunately, Executive Order 14297 and similar policies are starting to change this dynamic.

Like the trust-fund child who whines when forced to finally pay his own way, the rest of the world is reacting predictably.

[Jonathan Lawry @3rdpig]

You will notice that I never claimed that Canada did so.

However, I will claim that she has never NEEDED to: Canada is protected by our nuclear umbrella and military. 90% of her population lives within 100km of the US border. She knows the US will never tolerate a foreign threat to an immediate neighbor.

This has allowed her the freedom to direct resources to things other than maintaining a significant military. No doubt she would survive without the US, but not as comfortably as it does now.

The rest of the world may groan and complain, but at the end of the day there is no alternative to the US big enough to move the needle. We are needed to defend the western order. We are needed as a market for their products, to pay for the R&D for nearly every new pharmaceutical (which is then provided at near marginal production costs to their single-payer systems)

The rest of the world needs the US whether they like us or not.

[Jonathan Lawry @3rdpig]

This was an intellectual exercise, not a joke. Whether it ever comes to pass, I certainly will never live to see.

As for our “reputation”, it matters very little to me, and most Americans, the opinions of foreigners who endlessly complain about what we do or not do, while never risking blood nor treasure themselves. Yet when the 💩 hits the fan, they are the first to beg Washington to intervene.

I have a soft spot for Canada and Denmark, as they have at least made an effort with some of our recent military misadventures, but this doesn’t change the global dynamic with regards to the US role in the world.

[Jonathan Lawry @3rdpig]

It has to be several human lifetimes, to overcome residual nationalism in regions culturally very different.

I think that I may live long enough to see Alberta to join the Union, and maybe the purchase of Greenland from Denmark (we have actually been asking Copenhagen for it for 150 years…not a new idea). The British Commonwealth is culturally very similar with a shared Common Law legal system.

But having said that, people have to gradually get used to the idea, and 400 years is about right.

[Jonathan Lawry @3rdpig]

I actually had a thought experiment with my left-of-center friends recently. They all longed for some sort of global government. I said “I would be all for that, if the entire Earth 🌎 were the United States”.

After their laughter died down, we actually discussed the how this would work on an intellectual level. The general consensus was that it would take 400 years to bloodlessly assemble this. We would have to begin by reconstituting the British Commonwealth under the Stars and Stripes 🇺🇸. We would start with Alberta and Scotland after their successions.

[Jonathan Lawry @3rdpig]

@Will_Tanner_1 Wait. When did I have a season of sneakers?

[Jonathan Lawry @3rdpig]

@johnkonrad @skibidiblazor San Diego liberalism is tempered by the “whatever dude, let’s go surfing” vibe. Nobody dwells on politics when the surf’s up. 🏄‍♂️

[Jonathan Lawry @3rdpig]

Years ago, I was sitting alone at a restaurant in Buenos Aires, eating a nice steak 🥩, carefully swapping fork and knife so that I would [correctly] only cut and feed myself with my right hand. Random old dude came up and asked me if I was American, as apparently no one else does that.

[Jonathan Lawry @3rdpig]

Without counting Social Security overpayments, which shouldn’t be done, it still would have been a deficit. Also, the politically painful BRAC cuts, for which Bush paid the price, and everybody suddenly investing in their 401k plans, helped Clinton as well. 2/3 of the “surplus” was due to capital gains tax revenue on a bubble inflated equities market.

[Jonathan Lawry @3rdpig]

While this is a welcome sign, orgs like nightly network news, which generally just make video segments from print journalism, quickly amplify these “mistakes” long before they are corrected. Dave’s correction is too late, as the damage is done (or the is mission accomplished, cynically).

[Jonathan Lawry @3rdpig]

To save money, I have am mixing my own cocktails these days. Last night, I tried a White Lady.

What a gorgeous drink: Gin, Cointreau, lemon juice. Whipped egg white if you want it fancy. I may have another tonight.

[Jonathan Lawry @3rdpig]

@SamuelAHundley @PrezWisdom Yeah. Not saying it was fairly covered. Just that with GHWB it became folklore in a way it did not with JRB.