RAG Perspective: An American Pro-Liberty Conservative: Post #3771 M: The Economic Folly of Universal Basic Income; The Right to Self-Defense

Wednesday, August 15, 2018

Post #3771 M: The Economic Folly of Universal Basic Income; The Right to Self-Defense

Quote of the Day

A great pilot can sail even when his canvas is torn.
Seneca

My Greatest Hits August 2018

Readership continues to be in a a slump with weird anomalies like 5-year post outperforming more recent posts. I'm secretly pleased with the lead/tied post which is a quirky, personal mashup of sorts, a funeral trip to Fall River, my parents' childhood home base. I don't think I've been there in 20-odd years. Hotel rates were unbelievable. The local Hampton Inn was charging nearly $300/night (I found a much cheaper hotel in Somerset where my Dad grew up). Fall River is now more known for its sizable Portuguese population, but there is still a significant Franco (Canadian)-American presence, of which my folks were part: I overheard a Franco lady on the phone at the breakfast tables, and the checkout clerk pronounced my surname perfectly. (I can speak or listen to some French, Portuguese (Brazil) and Spanish; I've lost some fluency due to lack of practice over recent years.) I didn't drive by my maternal grandfather's old house, where my late uncle and Mom were born. I think they sold the house to some Boston yuppies for a song like $32,000 (they couldn't afford the property taxes). The rumor is the yuppies cashed out for $100K-plus a few years later. I just remembered as a young kid thinking everything was so big and then when I visited one Christmas vacation during college, everything seemed much smaller. I could barely drive through some narrow streets with parking on both sides.

My uncle's passing was not unusual in the sense his health was serious enough for my Mom to fly up from Texas, but he had improved to the point the doctors were about to discharge him, my Mom said that he was in good humor, his appetite was good, etc. He had left the main room for a bathroom break --and passed in the bathroom. I had not been asked to do the family eulogy; I initially thought maybe the choice of my middle brother may have been from my uncle or mom's wishes. but I think now it was probably a sibling decision made behind my back (I'm the oldest of 7). I'm really not bitter about it; I did a reading at the funerals of my grandfather and my uncle. The issue for me was that I've had enough conversations with my uncle (quality, not quantity) to know my uncle wouldn't have been happy with parts of the eulogy. My uncle was a humble, modest man. To give a telling anecdote, he resisted an effort to have his portrait done like predecessors for one of his parishes.

My biggest criticism (I had given a critique to a dry run at my mom's cousin's house where we reunited) had to do with my uncle's childhood mastoiditis, where my grandmother, still grieving from the infant death of her first in the hospital (hence why my uncle and mom were subsequently delivered at home), reportedly made an agreement with God that if He spared my uncle's life, God could have him as a priest. My brother noted that my grocer grandfather had hoped that my uncle would take over the business. (It liquidated after my grandfather's retirement.) I just didn't want this family mythology to obfuscate my uncle's free will in choosing to follow his call to the priesthood.