Bucolic Bike Escape From Right Wing Nut Job On Teenage Nephew David's 9/11 Birthday

My backup bike rolled me for a few miles this second Saturday of the 2021 version of September.

September 11, to be precise. Hard to believe it has been two decades since that shocking 2001 morning.

I stopped the bike for photo taking purposes on one of the bridges which cross Sikes Lake. The one you see above is at the west end of the lake. Above the bike seat you can barely see a guy fishing. He had four kids with him, also with poles in the water. It made for a bucolic scene.

Since today is 9/11 I now have a teenage nephew. My Favorite Nephew David turned 13 today. I sent David a Happy Birthday message to his phone. And then later learned that David is on a two week phone restriction due to exhibiting some stereotypical teenage bad behavior.

I was late getting to the bike ride portion of the day today, due to getting stuck in two parallel conversations on Facebook. In one of the conversations I was talking to a self described "conservative".

In the other conversation I was talking to a well educated liberal progressive sort. The liberal is in Texas, the conservative is in Virginia, but grew up in the same Washington town I grew up in.

I am unable to understand how someone can grow up in the same town I grew up in, went to the same schools I went to, from grade school to high school, and then somehow ends up being "conservative" or more accurately a "right wing nut job".

During the course of the conversation with the conservative many of the right wing nutjob tropes were uttered.

"Socialism never works".

"You've drunk the kool-aid".

"Libtard".

"I don't want my tax dollars to pay for abortions".

"The government funds Planned Parenthood".

I guess I should be grateful I did not see Benghazi or Venezuela mentioned. 

Why do these conservative sorts seem to have zero understanding of what socialism is, and the fact it works quite well in multiple countries? And that America has multiple socialist aspects. The main socialist thing America does not have is Universal Health Care.

It seems most of these conservative types confuse socialism with communism, not understanding these are two different isms.

And, regarding communism. There are only a few communist countries left, with China being the big one.

And China is doing quite well.

In less than 20 years China built a freeway system with slightly more miles than America's. America began building its interstate system around 60 years ago. And it still is not totally finished. China began building theirs in the 1990s. And it is finished. China has many miles of high speed rail. China has a middle class bigger than the entire population of America.

So, conservatives who try to make a bugaboo out of socialism, confusing socialism with communism, well, even bugabooing communism is wrongheaded.

Even a communist nation which is not as successful as China, like Cuba, is not all that great a case for saying communism always fails. Cubans have great health care, with more doctors per capita than America. Cuba would be in a lot better shape if America would let it be, drop all sanctions, and actually try and help. It probably would not take much to have communism come to an end in Cuba, like it did with the Soviet Union.