John McCain is one of the few Republicans I respected.
McCain appears to criticize Trump in farewell message to the nation
He was willing to break with his own party, and attack Trump for his policies. He also served his country whereas Trump dodged the draft.
John McCain was a true American hero, and respected by both liberals and conservatives. Trump is a man who feels that anyone who has wronged him in the past (Hillary, Obama, George W Bush, McCain etc) deserves to be thrown under the bus. He is deeply insecure about himself.
FYI: Trump’s refusal to honor John McCain eerily reminds me of how Mao Zedong refused to honor Zhou Enlai after he died a few months before Mao did, due to Mao’s similar pettiness and insecurity.
Trump is a deeply insecure man who cannot tolerate anyone who’s better than him at anything. Jeff Bezos – richer than Trump so Trump has a feud with Amazon. Obama – more respected than Trump, so Trump has to undo everything Obama did. John McCain – a true war hero whereas Trump dodged the draft, so Trump has to make fun of his PoW status and not honor him. How Trump continues to have such high support amongst Republicans is beyond me when he treats other members of his party with such disrespect.
I agree with him that the Iraq War was a bad idea. I agree with him that Obamacare needs to be fixed. I agree with him that America needs to take priority. I agree that jobs need to be brought back to the country.
However none of his policies or what he’s done as president has been doing any of this. If it’s putting America first, then why are we still in Afghanistan? Why increase our military budget by another $50 billion? Why are we picking fights with North Korea? Where’s our Obamacare replacement? Where’s our tax cuts for the middle class?
So far it seems all Trump has done is antagonize people while solving nothing. He’s picking fights with China and North Korea. He’s picking fights with everyone, threatening to withdraw from NATO, from NAFTA. And withdrawing from the Paris agreement. He’s banning travel from random middle eastern countries. Why? What’s the point of these things? Its not protecting America and he’s spending money for a stupid wall and military when it *should* be going to Medicaid, Medicare, Education, and other domestic priorities. Instead, he’s *cutting* Medicaid, warmongering and cutting taxes for the rich. He’s tweeting about NFL players trying to divide the country more while Puerto Rico and Florida go without power. “America first” my ass.
its both… as a President, he has only passed a few pieces of legislation, the tax cuts and the infrastructure bill come to mind, and that’s about it. He’s appointed some Supreme Court Justices, but that’s not that much hard work. The rest of his accomplishments have been mainly executive orders and threatening or withdrawing from agreements with our allies.
He notably does not prepare for any meetings or summits. He doesn’t read any briefing if its over a page and doesn’t contain pictures or mentions his name. A record number of his cabinet has resigned. He spends most of his time at rallies as if he’s still campaigning for president and/or golfing at his resort. He treats discussions with North Korea as a real estate deal. He’s not intellectually curious at all, believes in conspiracy theories, never blames himself for anything, and flip flops on every issue even mid sentence. He starts twitter fights with private citizens. He bans news organizations he doesn’t like from his press conferences. He thinks he’s above the law.
So as President, he’s not very effective. A lot of members of his own party don’t agree with him. A lot of what he says (see the Fox News interview) doesn’t make a lick of sense. As a jerk, well.. I’m sure you already know why he’s a jerk.
I’ve now unfollowed all the major news outlets on Facebook like CBS, ABC, NBC, CNN, Economist, TIME, BBC etc because 90% of the news now is reporting about things that Donald Trump did, and because of the nature of his politics, they tend to be very divisive and a lot of arguing and bickering ensues. I’m tired of it, but I would like to say something about my time feuding with all these people, in particular Trump supporters. And by no means am I saying every Trump voter is like this or that some Hillary supporters aren’t like this, but I have seen a sizeable portion of them with the following traits:
1) They don’t believe in the mainstream media, but they like to make up their own facts and believe fake stories from the right wing media.
They call all the news that are negative to Trump “fake news”. Now, I’m not saying that the mainstream media isn’t biased. They are, but by no means are they fake. Their stories, even though they have a liberal spin on them, are certainly derived from actual events that happened. On the other hand, Trump supporters actually believe fake news and spread this misinformation to people online.
Some examples are, they like to believe that Obama is a Muslim or born in another country (disproven), that Obama ruined the economy (false, he improved it by alot), that Obamacare raised healthcare premiums (false, its been increasing long before Obamacare), that Obama caused race relations to worsen (false, thats not under Obama’s control), that socialism = communism (that would mean that North Korea == Canada), they like to believe millions of illegals and dead people voted in the election (no evidence), they like to believe Bill Clinton was a rapist (untrue), and in response to the refugee ban, say that Obama and Jimmy Carter did the same thing (they didn’t and numerous videos have explained why Trump’s ban is different). And often, they say these things without giving a shred of evidence or proof at all. At least a liberal biased outlet like Vox, backs up their statements with hard sources and statistics. So does The Young Turks, who is liberal leaning, but criticize the Democrats often, they also back up their statements with stats and hard facts. Trump supporters never back up their statements, and cite that mainstream media doesn’t cover these allegations.
You know the reason why mainstream media didn’t cover them? because they’re not true. They are fake stories.
So its ironic that they call the mainstream media “fake”, yet believe their own fake stories.
Another thing is the polls. They don’t believe in any mainstream media polling after the election because the election polls were off. Well, first off, the election polls were actually correct in the national vote count where Clinton won by 2%. Secondly, I know they are uneducated, but there’s a difference between predictive polls and current polling. Predictive polls like election pols try to predict the future, and anytime you try to guess the future there’s a chance you could be wrong. Current polling and stats on the other hand, like the unemployment numbers, and approval rating of the President, are polling people RIGHT NOW, so they are entirely different than predictive polls. They aren’t predicting the future; this is what the data is like right now. They can’t seem to understand that difference.
2) They think its an us vs them mentality. Everyone who is against Trump and for Obama must be a liberal. And they make up names like “libtard” and “snowflake” to make themselves feel better. They are massive hypocrites and literally if Trump does the exact same thing that they hated Obama for doing, they would praise Trump for it. Its insane.
Seriously, whats with all the name calling? Are they in grade school or something? Oh you’re a “libtard” hahaha. Seriously grow up. “Snowflake” is especially annoying because people from both sides get triggered, not just liberals. They like to say stuff like ‘haha we won you lost go to your little safe space and cry your liberal tears’ like what is this? A civil war between blue states and red states? between left wing America and right wing America? all these people are doing is dividing the country more and more. And secondly, the world is not black and white. Its not you either support Trump or you support Obama / Hillary. There’s lots of people like me who are independents or libertarians that support neither. For example, I am against government spending, I am for state’s rights, I am for lowering the debt, I am for capital punishment, but at the same time, I support raising taxes on the rich, I’m against war, and I’m against guns. This stance would make Trump supporters spin their head because they are so used to this idea that everyone must be either a Democrat or Republican, either extreme left wing or extreme right wing.
Furthermore, they keep saying stuff like “liberalism is a mental disease”, “liberals are retarded haha” etc. Now I am not a liberal, but I would like to point out the fact that some of the smartest people in the country are liberals. Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Warren Buffet, scientists, engineers, economists, academics, scholars, Nobel laureates, Hollywood, etc those guys are mostly liberal. Yet a majority of Trump’s voters are uneducated. Hmm. The irony here is stunning. Calling people that have traveled the world, associated with many people globally and have got masters and PhD degrees, learning about the history of the country and calling what they have a ‘mental disorder’ when you yourself probably have never traveled outside America, didn’t go to college or university, and believe in right wing conspiracy theories. I wonder, who is the one who has the ‘mental disorder’ in this case?
3) They have little understanding of how the world works and that’s part of the reason why they dislike the ‘elites’ and immigrants
I reckon that most Trump supporters have not bothered to travel outside of America, or made a real effort to understand the global economy or how it works. The world does not function the same way it did back in the 1950s. The global economy is now interdependent on each other, which makes it unfeasible to isolate the US from everyone else. The world has evolved a lot since the 1950s. Japan and Europe have rebuilt themselves. China has become a developed country. Its just impossible to go back to that time when America was at the top of the world. For example, manufacturing used to be mostly based in the US. Now its been outsourced mostly to China and Mexico and other countries. Its easy to blame the global elites or immigrants for taking away your jobs and enriching themselves but the real truth is that Americans have to keep up. I mean aren’t Republicans the ones who keep saying to do things on your own, make yourself rich and prosperous without government welfare or intervention?
That’s what immigrants do. They try to find the American dream just like so many other people. Then once they make it big and make lots of money, now ironically the same party which supported getting rich on your own is now against them. Hollywood and Silicon Valley are full of “rich elites” but the thing is they were once the same people as them, they just worked hard to get there. Ronald Reagan and John Wayne, too huge conservative icons, were from Hollywood. Lots of immigrants came on H1B visas which are now being hated on by Trump supporters, those same people founded Google, Yahoo, Intel, eBay, among others.
The point is you shouldn’t blame immigrants or Muslims for all your problems, when the truth is that there has been a technological shift in the industry. And as we moved on from agriculture into a service economy into an IT based economy, you gotta change with the times or risk being left behind. Those jobs from China and India aren’t coming back unless we depress wages by a lot and re-create a lot of the infrastructure that we had back in the 1950s. If we don’t, and we try to make things in America again, guess what? The price of all your goods will go up by at least double. You can’t keep blaming immigrants and global elites for your troubles when you are the one that should be re-educating yourself and getting a new skill set.
Lots of Trump supporters believe in global conspiracy theories, like the NWO, Bilderberg group, Bohemian Grove, Trilateral commission etc who they see as a group of elites trying to take over the world. Do you know where conspiracy theories come from? They come from people who don’t know what’s going on so they assume the worst. So the global elites, the people who have money and power, have the ability to influence things going on in the world, and so they meet and try to decide what is best for society.
Notice that most of these conspiracy theories popped up after WWII. After WWII, people in higher up positions decided that we shouldn’t have another war like this and we need to have a way for peace and understanding. The thing is – those groups that people like to point out that is taking over the world are probably more responsible for keeping us from having another world war. But because its a closed meeting, people just like to assume the worst from them. I don’t think it’s like that. Trump’s victory probably upset that group, which Trump supporters want to believe is a good thing, but I don’t think it is. I think it causes a lot of instability and uncertainty with the world. And if people bothered to study history, they would know that before WWII happened and the United Nations was created, there was constant instability in the world. Much more than today. So its not really a good idea to go back to that time.
Edit
Here’s my official explanation for why I’m so focused on Korean girls because I get asked this ALOT. I get this asked to me alot because I know that if I were Korean and I told people I only like Korean girls no one would care but because I’m a foreigner (albeit born only a few miles away from Korea) its somehow not acceptable that I only like Korean girls… I think its also because people just can’t seem to understand that Korean girls are very unique and no other girl can really replace them. Japanese girls are probably the closest approximation to them, but they are still very different from Korean girls.
So, I know its hard for Americans and Canadians to understand this so I’ve had to explain this many many times. In USA and Canada, we are used to having multiple cultures mixed so everyone is very very different from each other. In Korea, this is not the case. Because they are 99% Korean, the culture is very homogeneous, meaning Koreans are very similar to each other, the way they are raised, taught, what they dress like, how they act etc. Now I’m not saying that every Korean is the same – but there is definitely more of an air of conformity in Korea than in other countries.
Now – something else that’s important – Koreans, Chinese, Japanese, etc are all very different from each other. Its easy to group them all as “Asian girls” but in reality after having traveled to each of those countries and lived there, they are all very different from each other. In particular, Chinese are about as different from Koreans as Americans are from Koreans. This makes Koreans wholly unique from other Asians, and other people, because their culture is unique.
So a girl’s personality and what she likes is exactly what I like! My point is if she is raised in Korea – then she has the cultural values, politeness, way of thinking – those values that I appreciate and like. Essentially being raised in Korea gives me and her a set of common interests, shared cultural values, and a matching personality.
So its not that I only like Korean girls or girls that look Korean else I would be interested in Korean Americans which I am not.
I am interested in girls who have that same personality, way of thinking, and upbringing that Korea has, thats my preference. If a Chinese girl or Japanese girl grew up in Korea and had those values sure I would be interested. Its not about what race they are, its about the cultural values they represent, and I just happened to really like Korean cultural values. I hope that makes sense.
So I called my mom yesterday because there were so few Korean girls in SF and I was so lonely and anxious to meet someone since I am getting older, and I got very upset when she started pushing me towards alternatives to Korean women just like a lot of my friends did. My friends and family don’t understand – I didn’t choose to be only attracted to Korean women, why would I choose that for myself? it makes it harder for me to find a gf. I never chose to be “close-minded” like they said. I would gladly date other Asian girls or American girls – if they satisfied what I was looking for in my ideal girl. It just so happens that everything I want in my ideal gf is 100% fully satisfied by Korean women – they are attractive to me in every way, appearance, personality, style, fashion, pretty much everything. And non-Korean women just don’t attract me the same way. I don’t why people keep trying to push me to other “alternatives”. To me, there is no alternative to Korean girls. They are unique, special and cannot be replaced. To me, thats the only option, after having traveled the world, I can honestly say no other women attract me the same way. In Taiwan and Eastern Europe I always thought the prettiest girls there were the Korean girl tourists…
Also another reason I don’t want a Chinese gf is partly because of how my mom is – raised in Northeast China (oddly, very close to Korea) yet Northern Chinese girls have the opposite personality of Korean girls – they are super strong and independent. My mom is no different. When I was young she would constantly fight with my dad. I always heard them hitting each other and my mom throwing things at my dad when I was young. I was of course also beaten by my parents as a kid as well. I don’t like how Chinese women raise their kids – they are super strict Tiger moms. Korean moms don’t treat their kids with as much strictness and I certainly have never heard of any Korean mom beating their kids. I also have never heard of Korean moms physically fighting with their husbands – it seems in Korea the man usually has the temper and the wife’s job is to calm him down whereas in China its the opposite.
I also don’t like that Chinese including my mom and aunt are so arrogant about themselves – they keep saying that Chinese women are more beautiful than Korean women – when they’ve never been to Korea or met Korean girls before! Same with my Chinese friends both guys and girls – those who have never been to Korea, they all believe that Chinese girls are the best looking. I can honestly say that easily the worst looking women, in Korea or not, that I have ever seen were Chinese women. Why? because they don’t care about their appearance! And their personality is too strong – my Mom says thats a good thing – of course she would since she wants to validate her own personality – but thats just totally not my type. If you want to be arrogant and call yourself the best – why not prove it? Why not put at least an ounce of attention on your appearance instead of just making a blanket generalizing statement like that? I got pissed when I heard that because I know its totally not true, and I even did a video on my youtube to dispel rumors that Korean girls are only pretty because of plastic surgery or some BS like that I hear from non-Korean girls who are clearly jealous of them. My best friends gf is Korean and she said these words to me. “If you come to my area of China, you will see so many beautiful girls, like me” and “If you don’t care what your kids look like, then you should marry a Korean girl” just such blatant ignorant and arrogant comments. Whats more is that Chinese women seem to have such negative impressions of Korean girls despite most of them not knowing any Korean girls at all while most of Korean girl friends seem to have positive impressions of Chinese girls. They always say ‘Chinese girls are quite beautiful, nice etc’. Just goes to show you the difference between how they think about each other.
And of course, its not just appearance – some of the rudest and most selfish girls I have ever met are – you guessed it – Chinese! So yes, clearly they are not the women for me – I know its because China had a glorious history and maybe 400 years ago they were ‘ahead’ of Korea and Japan, but that doesn’t mean they are ahead in the present! Its like the British saying they are better than Americans because they once had the bigger empire. It makes no sense in the present day – I’ve been to every East Asian country now except for Mongolia, and I can say that Japan and Korea are much more ahead of China in technology, manners, etiquette, cleanliness, etc But whatever Chinese people can keep thinking that they are the greatest if they want to – to me they are the USA of Asia – arrogant, and ignorant of other cultures.
In general, since I was born in China, raised in a Chinese family, had mostly Chinese friends in university, but hung out with Koreans a lot and lived in Korea for 2 years, here are the main differences between Chinese and Korean women:
1) Chinese women usually don’t wear any makeup and if they do, its very light. – Korean women usually wear a lot of makeup especially foundation to make their skin really pale and white.
2) Chinese women don’t care about their fashion that much, they usually wear sweaters, pants or jeans or long dresses and dress very casually. – Korean women are much more feminine and wear blouses, skirts, dresses, high heels, platform shoes etc very often
3) A lot of Chinese women don’t shave or do their eyebrows or paint their nails. – Korean women do all of those.
4) A lot of Chinese women don’t shower everyday. They will shower only when they know their bfs are coming over – Korean women shower at least twice a day and are clean enough to the point where they will carry a toothbrush + paste in their handbags throughout the day.
5) Chinese women like to brag about how beautiful their race is, how ‘naturally’ pretty Chinese women are and how great their country and culture is. – Korean women are also proud of their country but they don’t openly brag about it, and they don’t think they are the prettiest women.
6) Chinese women care a lot about money, making money, starting businesses and carrying status symbols around like iPhones and expensive cars. – Korean women don’t care as much about money or business or about brand name items.
7) Chinese women don’t have good manners and will often talk very loudly. – Korean women are more quiet and will cover their mouths when they laugh, etc
8) Chinese women make their bfs buy things for them all the time and often times make their bfs basically be pack mules for them when they are shopping. – Korean women don’t expect expensive gifts from their bfs often just flowers or chocolate will do, and they don’t make their bfs carry their bags either. Have you ever seen a Korean guy hold his gf’s bags for her?
9) Chinese women in general are not as sweet or loving to their bf or husband. They usually have more pictures of their dog than they do with their bf. – Korean women are very sweet and loving to their bfs, often take couple pictures together, hold on to their bf’s arms when they are walking and text or call their bfs all the time.
10) Chinese women are not loyal or dedicated to their race. Proof of this is how many of them are marrying Korean guys these days, ironically. They are more likely to marry outside their race. – Korean women’s #1 choice for marriage is always Korean men. I have never met a Korean girl who would not at least consider their race for dating or marriage. They rarely marry outside their race.
11) Chinese women expect the man to do everything around the house like cooking and cleaning. – Korean women will not expect this since in Korean culture the women usually do that while the man works. Proof of this is that there’s no housewives in China whereas in Korea there’s lots of housewives.
12) Chinese women think Korean women are ‘fake’ because they wear makeup or do plastic surgery, a huge irony considering how many Chinese women photoshop their pictures online or go to Korea to do surgery. – Korean women have better opinions of Chinese women they often praise Chinese women for being beautiful. This is coming from girls who have never met the other race but goes a long way to show their differences in personality.
13) Chinese women think the key to raising their children well is to be Tiger moms – raise them as strict as possible and give them a good beating once in a while if they fall out of line. – Korean women are not Tiger moms and treat their children with love and respect.
14) Chinese women are very strong and independent and will often boss men around. – Korean women are more dependent, gentle, soft and sweeter to their bfs, husbands and men in general.
Now onto the second part of my post…
A couple things happened in the past few weeks that really put a dent into my plans to move to Vancouver / find a Korean girlfriend.
1) President Trump said that he would renegotiate NAFTA and is clamping down on immigration
2) I got laid off at Walmart
Yes thats right, so I’m out of a job right now. And yes it came suddenly because our whole team at Walmart Grocery was basically duped into believing there would be a future for us, and then I got a meeting invite with the engineering head and just like that our whole team got canned. It sucks, but what makes it worse is that Walmart was the last big company to allow remote work.
So now I have to find a smaller company or startup that allows for remote work, so its definitely not going to be as easy as before. What’s more, the uncertainty around Trump means my TN visa could possibly not even exist a few months from now, and the H1B visa will also go through additional restrictions and/or scrutiny.
I don’t really want to stay in SF more, for the reasons being that SF is way too gentrified and there’s too many engineers, too few women, and not enough things to do. If I was married or had a girlfriend I could be fine here, but as a single guy in his late 20s, time is running short and I can’t stay here for a long time and see my plans for starting a family get wasted here.
Moving back to Canada is also painful because the salary in Toronto and Vancouver for IT jobs is less than half what I make now, in USD. I’d be taking a 50% pay cut for moving back.
So basically I have a few ways to go from now on:
Plan A) Find a remote job here in California, rent out my apartment, and work remotely from Vancouver. This is the best option, if I can find a good remote job. This way I can get California salary + rental income and still be in Canada. I can stay in California until I save up enough money to buy a place in Vancouver without getting another mortgage.
Plan B) Find a regular job here in SF. This plan probably gives me the highest salary, but I’ll have to put up with living in SF for a few years more. I can buy a place in Vancouver without getting another mortgage, but since Vancouver laws means I get taxed on empty places, I’ll have to rent out that place immediately after buying.
Plan C) Rent out my apartment, and find a regular job in Vancouver. This is a last resort option, since I make the least salary with this option, but it will work regardless of Trump’s decisions on work visas since I don’t need a work visa to rent out my place. I will need to take out a mortgage to buy that Vancouver place though.
So yes, the plan is in order from A to C, with C being the last resort option if Trump does any radical changes with the TN or H1-B visa. Plan A is preferable, but also the hardest since it requires finding a good remote job, which there isn’t many of.
For now, we’ll see what happens… hopefully things dont have to change too much. And yes, moving back to Korea is pretty much out of the question since I have no plans to buy property in Korea and thus have to spend more money paying rent, plus work additional hours due to Korean work culture..