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Today we call that "schizophrenia". I do agree with your statement: Blackbird, although we disagree on most things, I do appreciate your kind and respectful way of conveying your beliefs.

The federal deduction for state/local taxes has always puzzled me. Why would the federal government want to encourage states to raise taxes by subsidizing the cost of said taxes? The federal government should not be in the business of providing incentives for states to raise taxes. The residents of a state wanting to raise taxes should take up issue with the state, rather than ignoring reality and getting a refund from the federal government. Why should people who live in low tax states with fewer services subsidize people who live in high tax states? Makes no sense. Now New Yorkers and Californians can stop being deluded about their state's extremely high expenditures and seek tax relief there.

I don't. I "created" my children too, just like you believe God did. But I don't expect them to "worship" me - I expect them to grow up and be independent beings who don't need me to micromanage their lives. And I would absolutely step in if my children were in trouble, pain or fear. I think the perfect time for God to have stepped in was when children were being shovelled into ovens in Auschwitz. But he did not. His choice was to not step in. His choice has been to not step in for over 2000 years of human misery. You may see that as complettely "reasonable". I do not. This is a common misconception - that life has no purpose without God. My life's purpose is likely much the same as your's - to be a good, kind, compassionate person who respects, appreciates and forgives others. To continually better myself. Our motivations are likely different though - I am a good person because I want to be. I don't try to be a good person because a deity tells me to. I wouldn't live my life any differently if I believed in God. The proof of this is that I know many people who claim to be religious and go to church and preach Bible verses but "prove false to it's power" - they are some of the worst, least compassionate, least forgiving, least giving people I've ever known. Yet some of the best people I've ever known - don't believe in God, have tattoos and never step foot inside a church. You don't need to believe in God to be a good person and exhibit "Bible qualities".

Yes, which gives a whopping big tax break to... him. And through a last minute addition of an item no one is taking credit for which allows real estate companies to take advance of a pass through tax provision, will hugely benefit his company. I'm sure he had nothing to do with it, of course... According to independent analysis within 10 years 80% of the benefits will accrue to the 1%. Is that how he's gonna help the middle class?

Environmentalists aren't just environmentalists. Everything became extremely politicized over the last 15 years in a way that it wasn't back in the 90s when environmentalists were talking about overpopulation. Nowadays, if you think of yourself as an "environmentalist", then you're on the "left", and if you're on the "left", then you're overarching worldview is based on "social justice" ideology. And the primary concerns of social justice ideology are about what they perceive as racism and sexism, with environmental concerns far down the list. Even when they do talk about environmental issues, they mostly talk about "climate justice", which mostly means transferring money from rich white people to poor non-white people as a way to punish white people for having polluted more in the past, rather than doing anything to actually reduce environmental damage. And any mention of overpopulation is inherently considered deeply racist, since overpopulation is primarily a third world problem, whereas social justice ideology teaches that third world cultures are perfect and all the world's problems come from the white man. Therefore talking about overpopulation is anathema to social justice people, and by extension to modern environmentalists. To get environmentalists to talk about overpopulation again, you have to do a lot more than just remind them about it. First, you'd have to turn the modern reality of society up side down, breaking down the way that people have sorted themselves into broad ideological camps, and allow individual issues to decouple from the overarching identity politics that has taken over society. In other words, not gonna happen any time soon. I don't know what will drive the next major cultural shift that gets Western civilization out of its current fall into social justice ideology, but so far we are still falling in deeper, not yet climbing back out.