Charles Krauthammer note to readers: “My fight is over”

Commenters: if you won&#x27;t resist the temptation to rehash stale political controversy out of respect for a human person, then please resist because it&#x27;s dreadfully tedious and obviously against the guidelines.<p>&gt; <i>Eschew flamebait. Don&#x27;t introduce flamewar topics unless you have something genuinely new to say. Avoid unrelated controversies and generic tangents.</i><p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;newsguidelines.html" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;newsguidelines.html</a>

I&#x27;m far less progressive than most HN commenters. For me, his columns were well-written and well-reasoned. I disagreed with half of them.<p>What I liked most is that he made me think.

My most remembered opinion piece by him was &#x27;Raise the gas tax. A lot&#x27; Quite the opposite to most conservative energy policies. <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.washingtonpost.com&#x2F;opinions&#x2F;charles-krauthammer-raise-the-gas-tax-a-lot&#x2F;2015&#x2F;01&#x2F;08&#x2F;5b4b407c-976f-11e4-aabd-d0b93ff613d5_story.html" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.washingtonpost.com&#x2F;opinions&#x2F;charles-krauthammer-...</a>

After hearing the news, I found out he&#x27;s actually been in a wheelchair since college, when he broke his neck in a swimming pool, and he doesn&#x27;t have much use of his arms. His story is pretty courageous from that stand point.

His work will be missed.<p>I regularly scan opinion columns from people all over the political spectrum. I enjoy reading well-reasoned essays whether I agree with them or not.<p>Krauthammer always provided well-reasoned essays. Whatever the issue, if the public got too far out ahead of it, either for or against, Charles was quick with a &quot;Harumpphh&quot; and a clever one-liner to point out that we should be more circumspect.<p>I stopped watching cable TV news years ago. Charles Krauthammer is one of a few commentators that I missed watching on a regular basis. He was a grumpy old uncle who had been around the block a time or two and was going to set me clear on how to think about some issue. Most of the time I just ignored him, but it was fun having him around anyway. The world will be a poorer place without his work.

Hmm... it is unfortunate. I always remember him for pushing super hard for the invasion of Iraq and thus partially responsible for the deaths of 100,000s at least and also more than $T of funds used for that war:<p>&quot;Time is running short. Saddam has weapons of mass destruction. He is working on nuclear weapons. And he has every incentive to pass them on to terrorists who will use them against us.&quot;<p>From: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.washingtonpost.com&#x2F;archive&#x2F;opinions&#x2F;2002&#x2F;04&#x2F;19&#x2F;we-cant-blow-it-again&#x2F;79cca890-0bea-4e2d-ba8b-3787989d87cf&#x2F;?noredirect=on&amp;utm_term=.79f457320126" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.washingtonpost.com&#x2F;archive&#x2F;opinions&#x2F;2002&#x2F;04&#x2F;19&#x2F;w...</a>

OT: Is asking for money to opt out of tracking and personalized ads actually GDPR-compliant?

Recent turmoils in the US and the World in general, has me wonder about a different aspect of this. For those who don&#x27;t like the current state of affairs in the world (Trump, Brexit, &quot;populist&quot; movements everywhere), it is awful to leave from this world not knowing what will happen to your family and friends. The scene from &quot;The Matrix, not like this...&quot; is what comes to my mind.