Trevor Noah: An Anglo-American South African Sans Talent (Ditto John Oliver)

Art, Britain, Multiculturalism, South-Africa

What I mean by describing The Daily Show’s Trevor Noah as an Anglo-American South African will be understood by South Africans like my friend, Dan Roodt, who knows and values the South African culture that was in all its facets.

Except for a residual accent Noah has clearly worked to lose, there is nothing South African about this guy. Or maybe this is the face of the new South Africa?

The young, photogenic Noah clearly spent his formative years watching American TV and striving to clone those he was watching. To us older South Africans who remember the unique humor of our country’s people, it’s sad.

To hone a sense of humor, the guy should have been seeking out old tapes of the Bangers and Boerewors skits (so old; there is no trace of them on the WWW). I’d take a few Van der Merwe jokes, too; those are so part of our culture (the year 1661 is when “Willem Schalk Van der Merwe set foot on the shores of Table Bay”).

One of my favorite Van der Merwe jokes:

Van der Merwe is working as a server or waiter. His English customer asks if he serves wild duck.

Van der Merwe replies: Duck is not wild, but I can make him “stroppy” for you.

“Stroppy” in the local lingo means unruly, hard to deal with, badly disposed.

I no longer watch TDS, but from the jokes Noah is reported to have told—the guys is so unfunny, it’s hard to see how he’ll last.

Another unfunny foreigner introduced by The Daily Show is Englishman John Oliver. Bloody awful. No wonder Oliver left a country known for its acerbic humor, Britain, to come here. He had no future as a funny man back home.

Trump’s Private Property Plunder Plan

Economy, Private Property, Taxation

The government has several ways to pay for its obligations, one of which is to seize private property in the form of taxes. Taxes are private property plundered. A tax cut for those who pay taxes is tantamount to a return of stolen goods.

With a tax cut, the plundering class simply agrees to pilfer less. The notion that you must “pay for tax cuts” is like a burglar promising to return the television he stole as soon as he is in a better financial position.

I get a headache from just reading Donald Trump’s plunder plan. Rand Paul’s taxation policy is the best in a bad bunch. Rand “has proposed a 14.5 percent flat-tax rate for all types of income.” Equality under the law? What a concept? A flat tax limits state theft. The idea would send the socialist pope in search of sackcloth and ashes.

Trump, on the other hand, has let the low-income cohort off the hook. “Individuals that make less than $25,000 (and $50,000 for married couples) would pay no income taxes under Trump’s plan.”(CNN)

BAD. All citizens should have a dog in this fight. Better to let the so-called poor set the flat-tax rate for all of us. It would be lower than Paul’s 14.5 percent.

Trump’s plan is progressive: the more private property you accrue, the greater the percentage of which you forfeit.

HORRIBLE.

Unspecified, too, at least in this WSJ article, is the burden Trump plans to place on those earning between $100,000 and $300,000.

Welcome To The Jungle Of Post-Constitutional America

Constitution, Democrats, Elections, Objectivism, Politics, Republicans

Nowhere has this libertarian declared in support of Donald Trump. I chronicle and analyze our politics, but, until now, I’ve refrained from partaking in it. This could change, but that’s how it is right now. Nevertheless, at least one reader has confused an analysis of The Positive Process of Trump with an endorsement of the candidate.

A careful reading of The Trump File will show that matters of process are being emphasized:

1. Differences between political incentives in operation and apolitical incentives (Trump’s) in operation. Trump cannot be compared, on the meta-level, to a politician.
2. The Constitution is a dead letter. In this post-constitutional jungle, the law of the jungle is what prevails. Do we get a benevolent authoritarian to veto Obama’s legacies, or do we continue to submit to Demopublican diktats? That’s the best we can hope for until the center falls apart and gives way to the process of secession.

Speaking of dissolving the chains that bind us to the center: Viva Catalonian secession from Spain. Good for Catalonians. They have begun the process.

The Left Beatifies Boehner, Perhaps Pope Francis Will, Too

Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim, Politics, Religion, Republicans, The State

His tenure as the speaker of the House John Boehner (Republican) spent greasing the skids for the policies of Barack Obama (Democrat). And he capped a career of crying by sobbing to the sounds of Pope Francis’s trendy, pop philosophies (the intellectual equivalent is to be found in a Chinese fortune-cookie wrapper).

But to listen to the Left’s coverage of Boehner’s resignation—MSNBC and CNN—the man was a saint thwarted by right-wing crazies.

Before he leaves the country, the sooner the better, Pope Francis might want to beatify Boehner for promoting statism and crying while he, the pope, preached the same.

Boehner will likely head off to K Street to lobby and loot some more.

Pukes both.

By the way, aren’t you sick and tired of the, “I’m a poor boy, the son of an Ohio barkeeper” (Boehner), or a “Cuban immigrant,” or the first kid in family to go to school (Huckabee)?

Shut the f-ck up already with the sob-cum-inspirational stories.

For all your papal needs: