Increasingly Mr. Donald Trump is becoming the fulcrum on
which our democratic republic balances, and he has not shown, yet, that he is
rigid enough to affect the balance. This
is not to say he isn’t tough. The
constant attacks, threats of impeachment since inauguration, and unusual
hatred, would wilt lesser men, and often has.
Much has been made of the turnover in Trump’s administration, as if it
represented “chaos” in the administration.
While it may yield a little “chaos,” it is temporary. The problem is that Trump believes that when
someone is hired, he or she owes an outward loyalty, at least, to the “boss.”
What has taken him some time to recognize is that every – as
in, every single one – person in a position to execute policy or influence
policy, has an agenda. Worse, since the
Obama administration, agendas in Washington are no longer matters of how to
accomplish national goals, no nuanced approaches to policy. Agendas now are only to accept or to oppose
the direction desired by the elected president.
Many of those recommended for top appointments, especially on matters of
international policy, held an agenda of opposition, and deserved replacement. The president now must become very strict
towards his appointees, and this mood must extend deeper and deeper into the
many agencies who are happy to oppose him.
(see: http://www.prudenceleadbetter.com/2019/11/28/due-process/
)
Is Trump up for this?
It is hard to tell. He seems not
to take very much advice, else someone would have tempered his Tweeting; on the
other hand, his selections for judgeships reveal good work and recommendation
by someone else. Still, he has not been
as thorough in replacing appointees as his predecessor was, and many of those
in the White House, State Department, Department of Justice and the
“Intelligence Community,” are actively opposed to Trump, his background, his
style of work and speech, and to his America-first policies. Their allies in the Congress and other covens
of Democrat-leftists, have done their worst to hamstring the president since he
first appeared to have a chance at the nomination,
never mind the election.
Despite the roadblocks and mistreatment by much of the
press, Trump has managed to accomplish quite a bit, and he has changed the
nature of American diplomacy somewhat.
Will it all bear fruit? It is
impossible to say, but certainly no more impossible to predict than have been
the results of “normal,” deep-state diplomacy over the past 50 years. The best way to guarantee the predicted
outcomes in all that time has been for the United States to give up more –
including sovereignty – than we ever have asked… or received in return. Predictions of opposing sides’ accepting all
the American largesse our “negotiators” could give away, always came true.
One hopes that should we not obtain the quality of a deal we
need for U. S. benefit, that our “side” will stay strong and not immediately
throw more value to the other side in order to “win” some sort of a deal that
politicians can crow about, knowing that after a few dust-ups, most voters will
forget what was even at stake and accept that the deal we got is better than
“not talking” at all. This is national
hogwash, of course, and it stems from a general attitude of American
unworthiness compared to other nations’ interests. Trump supporters want a bull-dog negotiating for our side, both domestically and
internationally.
At some point, one would surmise, the mendacity of the FBI,
the CIA, the State Department and even the Obama White House, and the 3-year
story of failing to prove any – as in, not even one – of the amazing
allegations against Donald Trump and his appointees and supporters, would begin
to dissipate the hot tempers that accompanied those allegations, both personal
and legal. At some point, the charges of
“racism” and “sexism” should abate; the so-far indefatigable charges of
“collusion” with Russians, well-debunked at great effort and expense, should
fade away as the truth penetrates haters’ consciousness. At some point, all of the energy needed to
maintain hatred of Trump, the person, could be expected to turn toward
political action.
But, with the gaveling into passage of two gaseous “articles
of impeachment,” not yet.
Leftism, global socialism, in fact, is transforming America’s national unity and our local states, counties, cities and towns. It is insidious. Because of George Soros’ financed groups, for example, several counties are suffering under prosecutorial regimes that refuse to prosecute “small” crimes. Unfortunately, the definitions of the nature of crimes that fall in the “serious” and “minor” lists, are subjective, and proving to be dangerous by their very existence.
Every major metropolis, at least all the ones run by liberals… but I repeat myself, is turning away from public order. Several have District Attorneys who campaigned on platforms of “criminal justice reform,” which is Orwellian newspeak for leniency toward criminals. In Boston, which is mostly in Suffolk County, the new D. A., Rachel Rollins, ran with a list of “petty” crimes her administration would not spend time prosecuting. This was so that “they” could concentrate on “serious” crimes. One might suppose that every petty criminal – particularly those that enjoyed doing those crimes, or who felt a right to the proceeds of those crimes, or any of their relatives who thought it unfair that their otherwise “good” sons, daughters, nieces, nephews or grandchildren should be hassled or incarcerated when, after all, life has already been unfair to them, voted for Ms. Rollins… all in the interest of social justice. The D. A., it is fair to say, has never made a living running a convenience store, or an auto-parts store or small grocery. She has never paid the increasing insurance rates for small businesses victimized by thefts deemed non-serious; she has never paid the extra-high prices for the products those stores’ neighbors must pay to cover the no-longer-sanctioned thievery.
She represents the very odd, even twisted logic of
liberalism: people of certain skin colors and economic circumstances are not
responsible for their actions, since they are largely RE-actions to (pick all
that apply) racism, systemic racism, institutional racism, heritage of slavery,
social injustice, police brutality, departmental (police) racism, lack of
education resources, having to pay for Transit rides and poor housing. In fact there IS systemic racism and it is
the outrageously expensive welfare racism that has destroyed the family
structure of inner-city populations – mostly of color – since the “Great
Society” began. Regardless of what
people of any color may think about
brown-skinned people, even if their thoughts are racially vile – and they’re
out there – it is only the actual impact
of “racism” that truly matters. It is
safe to say that only an infinitesimal fraction of “racist” or prejudicial
thoughts have any impact on anyone besides the ignorant thinker.
Racism is as natural as breathing, otherwise, today, there would be no ghettos forming. People, however, prefer people like themselves: those who look like, sound like and “live” like themselves… even those who eat the same foods and attend the same churches. It’s as natural as breathing. What each ethno-centric group thinks about the others is mostly inconsequential. Should they think nicer thoughts? Probably, but it’s not anyone’s business what thoughts they think unless… unless they take some negative action because of them. Burning down or looting some Korean’s store because of racial hatred is racism that actually matters. Stealing from any store because you think life has been unfair to you because of “racism,” is actual racism that matters.
Consigning 4 or 5 generations of black and brown people to
welfare dependency, and now “legally” enabling them to be more effective
criminals, that is real racism that matters.
To help counter black welfare hopelessness, the same liberals promote
and finance abortion-on-demand as some sort of civil right, and, as evidently
intended, it reaches 60% or more of its pinnacle of “success” by killing off
black and brown babies. What a country.
San Francisco, formerly under the guidance of Gavin Newsome, now the winsome governor of California, has, in the span of less than a decade, converted itself from a city of beauty to one where humans are enabled, if not encouraged, to live more like animals, thanks to new “rights” afforded to those so inclined, to camp out in public spaces, take illegal drugs in public, commit certain levels of crimes to support their “oppressed” life choices, fornicate in public, and relieve themselves wherever the fancy strikes them, now amounting to 20,000 or more defecation “rights” in public places, including sidewalks, parks, playgrounds and schoolyards, each year! Uptight “conservatives,” San Francisco authorities discovered, have no right to impose lifestyle choices on others not as fortunate.
Dogs and other animals at least endeavor to cover up their
feces. Once public nudity was found to
be a “right,” was public defecation far behind?
Once public defecation was ensconced among constitutionally protected “rights,”
was defecation in a super market far behind?
That’s where the toilet paper is, after all. The astronomical property values in San
Francisco are starting to slip, and segregation from public areas is growing
for those able to afford it. Dystopia.
Liberalism appears to have partnered with global socialism
on the path toward destruction of “Western” culture and North American culture
in particular. A very effective way to
accomplish that goal is to disrupt cultural norms, one of which has ALWAYS been
that laws mean what they say, those who break those laws deserve legal
sanctioning for those criminal acts, policing, prosecution and adjudication
shall be, BY LAW, unbiased, fair and based only on the law. In other words, no individual in the chain of
justice has the power, logically, to decide the resolution of cases outside of
the lawful process – certainly not on the premise of some sort of triage due to
“limited resources.”
Who represents justice for victims? Isn’t justice the key reason for
relinquishing personal sovereignty to a government? Where does ANY law convey authority to an
individual to judge some people’s justice as more valuable than that of others?
None does, in fact, but many are deciding that justice somehow varies based on skin color. This is not to say that injustice hasn’t been
meted out by white authorities based exactly on skin color. It was shameful then, and is shameful,
now. But how is injustice for most
citizens able to correct, or balance, injustice meted out for some others in
the past… even if the past was yesterday?
It isn’t, of course, unless perceived in a certain level of hatred…
hatred spawned in racism, a terrible way to conduct public safety and other
policies.
Public safety is attacked hourly by the growing hordes of “homeless”
people accumulating in major cities, all liberal bastions of victimhood. Clearly, feeling sorry for people who, in the
vast majority, choose to be how and where they are, neither improves their
condition or living circumstances, nor their health or humanity. Victimhood requires someone to be “oppressing”
those in uncomfortable straits, and liberals/socialists, never exhaust the
reasons that misfits, criminals, drug addicts and otherwise “homeless” denizens
are not responsible for their situations.
Indeed, it seems more cruel to perpetuate – practically promulgate – living
“on the streets” rather than forcing those who do so to “shape up.”
Public vagrancy laws have, in some liberal jurisdictions, been set aside as somehow un-Constitutional. In other words, “society” has no right to require either living or sanitary standards. Drug addiction and public urination, defecation and lewd exposure are now civil rights. “Crimes of survival” are to be tolerated by the more fortunate in order to balance past – possibly current – oppression of “the homeless.” Cultural standards, norms, are now simply suggestions. By extension, then, one is left to decide which laws enforcing standards are worth obeying: very poor statecraft, to be sure, helping, steadily, to dissolve social and political unity. The natural result will be imposition of social order by a police state. The mindset of modern liberalism is creating, or has created, sets of problems that are insoluble by democratic republicanism.
A woman in Seattle was brutally raped at a car dealership by
a “homeless” man. Her screams brought
help too late to prevent the consummation of the assault. She has spoken out as loudly as she can
against policies that foment Seattle’s growing homeless/lawless
population. Liberals, at least those who
still feel sorry for poor, victimized, homeless criminals, attacked the victim for spreading a story that might reduce public
sympathies for “homeless” people!
In Los Angeles many homeless people “live” in the terminals
at LAX international airport. They cause
problems, of course, including filth, lewd and lascivious exposure to both
adults and children, stealing of small packages and purses – generally discomfiting
the traveling public. Some keep
themselves clean in the restrooms, some don’t.
Some avail themselves of indoor plumbing, some don’t. The situation is tolerated.
Liberal administrations shrug at the existence of these “intractable”
problems. Cities spend tens of millions “addressing”
the homeless problem, basically in trying to contain it. But they cannot, or will not, contain the
drugs, the diseases, the “petty” crimes or the human failure. Liberalism is incapable of creating or
imposing order and standards in urban centers.
Does this mean the problems are unsolvable? If liberals declare a condition as “normal,”
does that stop consideration of ideas for its solution?
To correct the
conditions, or causes of homelessness and addiction, requires changing the
beliefs of those who cling to that way of life.
This is not to say that most, or even very many of those living on the
streets intended to live this way or even want
to live this way, but they cling to it out of fear. It is their life and their comfort. It is where their co-sufferers live, their friends
and drug dealers, some quite petty, sharing more than selling. To be torn away from them is the most
grievous outcome imaginable. They help
one another and bond with one another. “Arresting”
them is no solution, since the penal system cannot provide what is missing. Individual cities cannot simply “place” them
in housing: their beliefs won’t have changed and their habits and life-choices
will immediately resume. For most of the
“street” people, a new belief in both themselves and in their legitimate place
in civilization, must be learned – inculcated, if you will.
OMG! Do you mean “re-education
camps? You fascist!” Yes.
The loudest screams will come from leftists, for whom the
entire country is a well-orchestrated re-education camp – but let that go for
the moment. There is no long-term, or
even short term solution to rampant,
growing homelessness, other than changing the beliefs of those who cling to
that way of survival. Pursuit of
happiness, indeed. They need a new happiness,
and not one drug-induced. A test-city/county
needs to be selected and a tightly defined state of emergency declared. The resources of a wealthy nation, and its
brain-power, must be applied to a new community where survival depends on
learning and practicing the skills of construction, farming, sewerage
treatment, fire-prevention… every single skill and craft needed to operate a
small town. Every homeless or addicted
person in the test region will be brought there.
Removed from filth and literally forced to be clean, in
every way, and drug-free, our test-community will rise from a tent-city to a
constructed one. Individuals will be
detoxed and then taught nutrition and self-care and then their old skills or
new ones will be employed – as will they – to create a model community. These people are not worthless, they are lost
or trapped. If they do not work they
will have meager sustenance. If they
work and contribute and grow, they will eat better, live better, perform
better. Much like the American legion’s “Boys’
State” and “Girls’ State” programs, they will form neighborhood groups and
eventually town or city councils. They’ll
elect leaders and establish schools for themselves and their children. They’ll learn how to build and furnish houses
in the most eco-friendly ways, and they’ll produce goods or foodstuffs to sell
to others so that their town can afford fuel, electricity and so forth. From completely subsidized they will become
completely independent, a program that will probably take 4 or 5 years. With success, every drug addict, homeless or
not, could be sentenced to “New Life Town.”
To accomplish this will require military discipline and
regimentation, and a domestic “Peace Corps” to assist relatively backward
people to learn to be civilized, to live well through self-discipline and
responsibility, rather than enforcements.
They are the wayward children of America. We know how to effect adult maturity and responsibility,
we do it all the time with our own children.
For how many more decades and ruined lives will we refuse to “raise”
these people?
Despite his New York crudeness and bragadocio, Donald Trump
has begun a service to the foundational ideas and premises of America, and
thereby to every American. He, himself, and every one of his most loyal
compatriots, is oblivious to the magnitude of that service. What has he done?
His presidency has operated, as most have done, at a public
level, variously reported in praise and condemnation, broadcast and published –
the level at which modern politics are negotiated and fulfilled. Beneath that, he operates within the secret,
classified levels that are presented to each president as though to initiate
him to the centers of real governance, hidden from public view for reasons of
“national security,” wink. This secrecy
conveys a patine of power and influence to which he has been inaugurated,
shared by very few. It is heady stuff,
becoming a member of the world’s most august and arcane fellowship. The continuity of the secrets, of the
secretive machinations, of the vital, world-controlling decisions that only he can make, of the “nuclear launch codes,” and
of the distilled intelligence few others will see, is really out of his hands. It is shared
with every president as part of the fable of democratic, civilian control not
only of the vast domestic bureaucracies, but of even the military-industrial
complex. But, it is a fable.
Here and there brief windows open between the public and
private presidencies and much heat is generated, politically, some of the
citizenry become agitated, editorials are written, commenters supply commentary,
and even Congress expresses its dudgeon, both high and low. The portion of the public made restive by the
once “secret” revelations is assuaged by palatable political lies and life goes
on. Very few lives are affected. Elections, however, can be effected because
of them. Still, not much changes over
time.
Beneath the “secret” level of (mostly military and
international) governance, there is the amorphous, faceless, simultaneously
unorganized yet unified, unelected and permanent, administrative state. This vast majority of our “governors” have
virtually no connection to any president or even presidency. Each new “head” of the administration is
largely uninvolved with this level. It
was in place – two millions strong – long before his election to the “most
powerful office on Earth’ and it will remain in place long after he has “left
his mark” upon America.
And now, Trump. Trump
got elected by defeating the penultimate deep statist, Hillary. Hillary is a political deep statist; the
permanent deep statists are, however biased, mainly interested in their
individual interest areas, perhaps thanks to some college degree, and in their
economic security, excellent benefits and virtual tenure. Political deep statists are more likely to adhere to
either the socialist world view – and power – and to the eternal struggle to
impose it upon the United States, or to simple, tawdry, utterly corrupt and
corruptible personal financial aggrandizement.
This is where Hillary Clinton has spent nearly five decades and America
has finally had enough of her. Trump is
clearly on a path quite divergent from the Clintons’.
Trump doesn’t much care about political correctness. He doesn’t care much about whom he offends,
even when he intends to offend them.
Most are offended because that is their “shtick:” finding offense
everywhere and garnering immediate social media support that will bring the
weak-willed to their sniveling, apologetic knees within the hour. Otherwise decent, even productive and useful
people, are made weak and malleable by the “woke” offense industry. Soon, people like Joe Biden and Beto O’Rourke
are apologizing for being white. This
doesn’t work with Trump, one of the reasons his supporters stick with him.
Because he doesn’t suffer fools, Trump has engendered
impressive levels of hatred here and there within the deep state. He has a pro-America agenda, which is to say,
an agenda that hews slightly more closely to the presumptions of liberty that
were part and parcel of her founding. He
wants domestic policy to reflect individual responsibility and even-handed law
enforcement, for example. This is not
the policy of the deep state, crafted in tens of thousands of regulations
whereby virtually everyone may be persecuted or prosecuted for broken “laws”
created by those unelected regulators.
Regulators hate Trump, even though he hasn’t struck all that deeply into
their regulatory empire. It is hateful
enough that he undid some of the “great regulator, Obama’s” glorious flood of
executive orders.
The deep, deep state, State Department department hates him
because he wants America’s treaties and foreign relations, trade and otherwise,
to work FOR the United States and no longer against us. Most presidents make diplomatic noises while
the State Department’s deep statists (largely globalist socialists) do what they
“know” is best for the world; Trump intends to reverse much of that and make it
pro-American. They will undermine his
policies wherever possible, like in Ukraine.
He has no interest in helping George Soros.
The EPA minions surely detest him because he wants land use
to include humans. It may sound silly,
but many EPA regulators literally prefer squirrels and other four-or-more legged
denizens of Earth over almost any two-legged ones… except for them, of course,
and the other climate-change thinkers who, they dream, will wind up taking care
of the planet far better than most humans have been, and in deserved comfort – few,
if any, America-first conservatives included.
Interior has little use for Trump. The careerists at Interior cannot imagine any
wide-open spaces that are not restricted to bears, wolves and armadillos. Humans don’t belong in those habitats, just
lizards and beavers and so forth. Any
humans already mistakenly thinking they “own” a plot in those open lands can be
eased – or forced – out of the “habitat,” and eventually housed in a 300 square
foot dormitory space powered by solar panels, vegetables growing on the roof, drinking
recycled water. Only by being as uncomfortable
as possible could humans – non-ruling humans – ever balance the ways we’ve
despoiled all the “habitats.” Trump
isn’t into that view of the future.
It is impossible to evaluate the motivations of 2 Million
federal workers. The majority are lifers,
eventually to retire from their federal jobs.
Each has his or her own motivations, personal “profits,” philosophies
and biases. No single description can
apply to 5 people, let alone to a million or more, but given their similarities
of employment, there are obviously some motivations, satisfactions, that they
share.
Primary of these is a general approval of government, defined as interlocking
bureaucracies within which, and among which, are performed the “real” work of
government. Federal government personnel
are generally in favor of federal government: perfectly logical. Next, each long-time employee is generally
favorable toward his or her own agency or office. Each perceives his or her work as valuable,
if not vital. Each, then, is likely to
be resistant to any diminution of his or her agency or mission. The managers in each agency are, more than
just stability, desirous of growth –
growth of mission and growth of personnel numbers. Growth equals importance, promotion, better
pay. Built into the 15 executive
departments of the Cabinet, are so many agencies that no firm count of them
exists!
There are 200 at least, but there may be over 400. These, alone, provide a substantial force for
permanence and growth – a force that politicians cannot find the courage to temper. Four hundred or so would seem to be a
manageable, or at least a take-controllable number. But it is merely the blueprint. Within them all are PROGRAMS, programs and
more programs. Congress creates
them. For every one there is an advocacy
group that at some time identified a problem that a federal agency/program was
not addressing specifically. The good
intention of every advocate is probably real.
Problems exist. Solutions are
often obvious, but rarely easy to effect.
So, politicians are scratched at their most itchy spot:
re-election. Soon a bill is filed to
great publicity, that will finally, after years of Republican inaction, solve this or that terrible problem.
Mainly out of ignorance for some, and out of innate anti-liberty
socialist beliefs for the rest, problems, no matter how small or how caused,
are federalized. That the federal
administrative state is possibly the least effective way on earth to solve
problems, only describes the cynicism of politicians who put every problem in
the federal lap or on the federal breast.
That they do so while the federal budget is $22 Trillion in debt – and
more – only describes their utter mendacity and failure, over many terms, to
uphold one of the most basic covenants the federal government makes with its
citizens. For shame.
Trump, unfortunately, has yet to express a willingness to
change federal budgeting.
Still, whether it is because of, or in spite of himself,
Trump has caused to be exposed the infidelities of globalists and socialists
who prefer a continuing, costly, international policeman role for the U.
S. Several have been ejected and more
soon will be. But even if all of the
untrustworthy DOJ, DOD, CIA and NSA apparatchiks were cleaned out… all of them…
the liberty-corroding machinations of the molasses-heads just a bit deeper
entrenched in the hundreds of agencies and thousands of programs (did you know
there are over 1,000 federal programs “addressing” poverty?), will plod along,
inflicting regulations with the force of law, able to strip citizens of their
constitutional rights, among other things.
It is insidious, yet not corrupt, actually – it’s a way of stultifying,
nightmarish administrative life. Blame
for it rests on 50 Congresses and a dozen presidents. And on us.
Conservatives like to think that they are upholding the
Constitution when they oppose communists, socialists, liberals and other
Democrats. They tout principles and vote
to increase the debt ceiling like lemmings.
They are hated roundly for this, by the “woke” socialists who are not
only not awake, but are barely aware of either the Sun or the Son. God help anyone who threatens to cut the
budget; only enemies of the Republic would conspire to allow the “government”
to “shut down.” It never does.
Impeachment. An ugly
term, certainly, but one so frivolously cast that it’s meaning and impact are
widely misunderstood. To impeach
means to indict. “Well, like, ‘Duhh’ man. What am I supposed to think, now?”
In simple terms, an indictment is just a charge levied against an individual,
that is agreed to by a selected panel
of citizens sworn to listen without bias to evidence supporting the charge, and to vote their consciences
according to the applicable laws pertaining to the crime that the charge alleges. How’s that?
Still a little unclear? Perhaps
an example will help.
A small business owner is awakened at night by a call from
police informing him that there was a “break-in” at his building. He throws on some clothes and rushes to his
business to observe that, in fact, (real, or “solid” evidence) a windows was
jimmied somehow, and other damage done to the window frame and to objects and
materials inside the building. There are
no clear fingerprints or blood drops or other identifying foreign matter that
could immediately identify who did the observed damage. A search is performed to see if something
were stolen, and a police report filled out.
Eventually a person is arrested during a similar break-in,
and the state, through the District
Attorney’s office, brings him before a Grand
Jury composed of that select panel of sworn citizens, and the charges are
presented, including such evidence as has been gathered. That evidence
may be circumstantial or it may be direct evidence such as eye-witness accounts
of the commission of the crime, or of the sale of items stolen from break-in
victims, or even testimony from people who heard the accused talking about
committing the crimes. That panel, the
Grand Jury, “hands up” an indictment to the District Attorney, who will become the prosecutor in the trial of the accused, and he or she
files the case with the appropriate
court. The accused will be represented
by his defense attorney, whom he has hired or whom the court (the state) has provided to him at taxpayer expense. This is called “Due Process” in the United
States.
Following a “just” trial according to the rules of
jurisprudence, the accused, if convicted, may still appeal his conviction on various technicalities, including poor legal representation.
What has any of this to do with the impeachment show we are
anticipating, now?
“Impeach” was a cry hurled toward Trump and toward anyone
who would broadcast it, even before the brash, vulgar, non-Washington-molded
President-elect was inaugurated. “For what?”
would be the response from his supporters.
“For “collusion” with Russians!”
That the charges hurled against Trump were mirror images of
the actions of the Clinton Campaign, the Clinton-dominated Democratic National
Committee, AND of the nefarious elements of the F.B.I. and C.I.A. and of the
Obama administration, itself, in no way mitigated the inflammatory calls for impeachment that were hurled by politicians and elected
office-holders throughout, so far, his first term as President. Barely had the dust settled from the utter
collapse of the collusion with Russians construct, but new, nebulous charges have
been leveled that are purported to justify… wait for it, impeachment!
The new charges stem from a phone call President Trump made
to the new President of Ukraine in July of 2019. Ostensibly, and it is strictly subjective,
Trump threatened to withhold already approved military assistance unless
President Zelenskey investigated apparent influence peddling by Joe Biden while
Vice-President in the Obama administration.
So far, at least, there is no proof that a so-called, “quid pro quo” was
actually required, but that is the crux of the impeachment cries. Mr. Trump deserves some recognition for not
folding before the onslaught.
But, it may be instructive to consider the alleged “crime”
of demanding something from the
government of Ukraine in some sort of exchange for American largesse.
Ukraine has long been considered corrupt, inasmuch that
numerous officials enrich themselves at the expense of the citizenry, including
bribery to get anything actually done, including, amazingly, defending the
integrity of the nation against Russian incursion and encouragement of civil
war on behalf of the supposedly ethnic Russian minority. The U. S. stood still while Russia separated
Crimea from Ukraine, and virtually still as irregular Russian insurgents
created a nearly autonomous region around Donetsk. President Trump has finally begun to send
armaments to Kiev for defensive purposes against the restive Russians.
Ukraine has last been independent for fewer than 30
years. Upon the breakup of the Soviet
Union, the new Republic of Ukraine inherited a bureaucracy of corrupt officials
and apparatchiks whose prior graft was tiny compared to the
opportunities under a more open-market, open-for-business environment. But Ukraine is also an example of the most
unholy alliances our own government has made with international socialist
organizations who, for 30 years have been undermining governments to install
socialists. George Soros is at the
center of those efforts and our own tax monies have been funneled to his groups
in multiple countries (Egypt, Macedonia, Ukraine, Chile, Somalia, Libya, and… wait
for it, the United States!)
Bit by bit, President Trump and the relative handful of
honest patriots who serve with him, have exposed the wholly un-American efforts
of those who agree with international socialism and who actively support it
with every form of subterfuge and disingenuousness true Americans can only imagine. Mr. Obama was the most blatant socialist, ne’
communist, we have ever elected… and Mr. Trump is the antidote to his two terms
of American decline. Joe Biden
thoroughly agrees with Obama’s work and his missions to Ukraine as Vice
President, where Soros and U. S. efforts had taught young socialists how to
topple a government in 2014, are perfectly legitimate areas of inquiry for an
America-first president to follow.
The shady-looking insertion of Hunter Biden, a sketchy individual in his own right, into a corrupt gas company spawned by a corrupt Ukrainian oligarchy, in a country into which the U. S. was poised to pour several hundred millions of taxpayer monies, made the need to obtain some sort of clarity that the money wasn’t an example of good money after bad, a virtual duty. The parallel issues of “Crowdstrike” actions to interfere with the 2016 elections simply accentuated the need to encourage the eradication of corruption before more money were turned over. If Trump had NOT asked for a “quid pro quo” he should be judged a fool.
Now there is a form of “grand jury” attempting to , quite unfairly it appears, assess “evidence” against the accused President. There isn’t much to the process so far that adheres to what we enjoy as “due process” in the matters of indictment and prosecution. To date there has not been described a crime for the “grand jury” to evaluate the nature of any evidence for, yet they struggle onward, certain that the unpleasant America-firster, Donald Trump, is guilty of something – if not everything.
Eventually, and probably just as interest in the “historic” impeachment inquiry begins to fall off, the House of Representatives, that august and impartial grand jury, will vote to “impeach,” as in, they will “hand up” an indictment. But the hand-up goes not to a prosecutor but to the Senate. There a “trial” will be held, presided over by the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, John Roberts. The once and future “grand jury” will take the responsibility of “prosecutor,” having filled the role of persecutor for three years to no avail. They will employ various attorneys to make the House’s case in the Senate. Should be a great show.
We had take-out from Chipotle’s tonight. It’s pretty good, although hard to take home
without it’s becoming cold, but still tasty.
I went out of my way a few miles to get it, even though I nearly pass
one on my normal way home. When I
arrived the place was packed, unusually so – extraordinarily unusually so – for
a weeknight at this particular mall full of restaurants.
They were hosting a fundraiser for a five-time cancer victim
who had been on the local swim team in high school, in between cancer battles,
and who has made nothing but friends in her first twenty five years on
Earth. The swim team was sponsoring the
event during which, for several hours, Chipotle would donate not five or ten or
fifteen percent of revenues from identified supporters, but an astronomical
thirty-three percent thereof. By the
time I left the wonderfully noisy establishment, the line had expanded from the
long one I waited in, to one that extended through the double doors. I had tears in my eyes.
The ultimate beneficiary is a granddaughter. But that isn’t the topic… not really.
I work in a small city beset with every social ill, discomfort, and disruption there is, from drug abuse to gangs to illegal entrants on welfare. Yet it has its own vitality, too, with hundreds of small businesses, including several that expedite everything from cars and furniture to cash back to the “home” countries. Driving along the best route to the Chipotle restaurant I passed blocks that once were nearly pure Italian, now nearly pure “Hispanic,” although none of the residents come, actually, from Spain.
Looking at the myriad signs hanging from brackets or
otherwise affixed to the storefronts, I was struck by all the forces, factors,
influences and opportunities to create something, that had come together to
form the human consciousness that had created this or that sign in
particular. And for that matter, that
had created the things on display in the windows, or the very windows or the
cars parked in front. In the boundless
(we think) Universe of planets and places of every shape and kind, how
insignificant and majestic each of those creations are. Why are they what they are?
Across the street were new apartment blocks of certain size and shape, in certain colors chosen from millions of colors, made of materials natural and invented, but made – created, by people, whose purpose and motivation may have been garnering money, another human invention, but whose product, however important to the net occupants, is, in the grand scheme of things, so infinitesimally tiny as to be invisible, which is not to say, meaningless. One can rightfully assume, I believe, that every human-conceived and created thing or, I suppose, idea, is meaningful. Indeed every thing is or was meaningful in a large manner at some time, and the fact that no one we can find remembers its large meaning in no way detracts from its infinitesimal and utter importance.
How is it that we mere specks of tissue on this planetary
mote have found within ourselves the need and the ability to create
things? How is it that we have invested
so much of our cosmically virtual instants of life to the work of creating
things, but even more astonishing, to devise ways and means to care about one another… like the five-time
cancer patient who has created of herself, in spite of constant physical attacks
on her tiny body, a teacher to children?
That so large a fraction of our blinks of time is spent
creating ways to comfort ourselves and our children, is logical and to be
expected, one would think; but, how is another such large fraction of our time
consumed by caring for others, unrelated, most likely and unmet, even more
likely? Chemistry? Cosmic rays?
Hmmnh. What is the point?
Many of us human specks think there is no point. To they who agree, apparently one should have as much fun as possible, as much sex as possible, own as many things as possible, be they items for sale behind that singular window in the building built as it was with the certain kind of sign saying what it says on the street where I passed, or the painted apartment blocks with unknown people in them… unknown at least to me. If the things one owns happen to bring the owner more fun and more sex, then he or she has hit “life’s lottery,” making him or her “lucky” despite the impossibility of luck as a force working on the dust-mote of a planet we call home, else there would be something larger than our atoms and selfishness.
The house a semi-handyman lives in is full of things that he
has made or perhaps modified or built because of need or artistry. They are pleasing
to him, for a hundred reasons, perhaps even to impress his wife or mate. Oftentimes they were argued about in the
concept, but he still “did” them, sometimes to praise. But, why?
Why could not things have simply stayed the same? Someone else crafted them as they were, or
damaged them to leave them so. Barring
concerns of safety or comfort, why not leave them alone, tan instead of green,
yellowish instead of rose, blue instead of stained and polished wood? Whence came the compulsion, by anyone, to change
them, all those things?
There may be, a billion stars away, a planet with what we call astronomers looking through what we call telescopes and barely detecting the changes in brilliance of our little star as we circle across its disk of light. If a little more “advanced” than we they may have detected radio signals or nuclear blasts on our little speck and feel compelled, somehow, to let us know they know. We will. What would it matter, the color of my house or socks or fingernails, to any of those distant, distant cousins? Or, to us, theirs? But they and we, matter above all of our respective, awakened histories, to one another. Interesting, that.
Where does freedom live?
Is there some reason, aside from novels and movies, both strange aspects
of humanity, to believe that only planet-wide, homogenous people could ever
advance sufficiently to contact other life?
Isn’t science most properly an affirmation of freedom? Freedom to wonder,
investigate, experiment and explore?
Freedom to challenge “truths” and to postulate new ones? A billion stars away, would the search for us
be a scientific endeavor or a military one?
Or, as many appear to believe, increasingly over many
decades, is freedom, the essence of individuality, an impediment to “progress?” If it is snuffed out on our Earth-speck, will
the Universe care? Or is freedom a blip
in the history of humanity, otherwise destined to be controlled by more
powerful elites, inexorably planet-wide?
How is it that humans evolved to invent democracy and the concept of
republicanism? Cellular luck? Not possible if there are no philosophical
forces, like “luck,” operating outside of simple existence. Did biochemistry produce democracy? Or a nation founded on self-government and
limited central powers?
And if “freedom,” the inherent rights of individuals to both
succeed or fail, were to be snuffed out on the tiny mote of matter we call
Earth, would it matter to our brothers on that other speck a billion suns away? Would it matter here?
Two world-changing events occurred in 2016: the U. K. vote
to leave the European Union… and the election of Donald Trump to the U. S.
presidency. There are many parallels,
both in the respective happenings and in their aftermaths. Both events have exposed flaws in the
collectivist trends both nations were in the midst of. Both nations have experienced hate-filled
political discourse ever since.
The “UK” – Britain – had taken an economic step away from sovereignty when it joined the “European Community” in1973, and reinforced the decision by referendum two years later. After the Maastricht Treaty in 1992, Britain took a political step away from sovereignty, as well. Now the European Union, The “EU” placed controls and limitations on member “states” regarding citizenship, borders, immigration and judicial decisions, with the avowed intention of forming a “United States of Europe” and subverting cultural distinctions and national rights. Britain has always been restive about the changes to its sovereignty, and public pressure and petitioning finally caused Parliament to create the referendum, yes or no, on leaving the EU: the so-called “Brexit.”
What is interesting is the emergence of hatred as a dominant British political tool, more than even during existential threats of war over Britain’s lengthy warring history. Per usual, all of what Brits call “hooliganism” is laid at the feet of “ultra-right-wingers,” who, apparently, are too stupid to recognize the wonderful future that’s possible with globalization. If anyone objects vociferously to the slippery amalgamation into an ephemeral United States of Europe, he or she is pigeon-holed as a “right-winger” and not worthy of considered attention.
In other words, “nationalism” may be viewed only through the
lens of Nazism and racism and all the other “isms” leftists use to end
debates. The benefits of national
competitiveness in the elevation of living standards of every sort, is
carelessly conflated with government’s benign intentions and centralized economic
control. Individual liberty is the first
victim of centralization. The unholy alliance of history-ignorant education and
a leftist press have proven useful in the imposition of this theory.
A similar effect has clearly been evidenced in the rise of
Donald Trump. With calls for his
impeachment even before his inauguration, there is no surprise that his
political opponents are clamoring ever louder for impeachment, now. The only thing missing is an impeachable
offense, but they’ll construct one or hire a contractor to create one for them. Why not win at the ballot box by putting the
efforts at impeachment to work building an electoral coalition? That’s a good but separate question.
Why the hate across academia and liberal-leftist “communities?” From Antifa on up, the degree of hatred for
Mr. Trump and his supporters is indicative of tremendous fear: fear of losing something so dearly held that nothing is too
extreme to defend it… even if that means disrupting democratic republicanism
and the Constitution, itself. What could
that be? That is the question, and a
larger question in the U. S. than in the U. K.
Do leftists simply hate all non-leftists? Maybe… they don’t like us, certainly, and think
we are stupid for not appreciating their view of history’s inevitable direction. But, hatred?
Takes a lot of energy to hate, maybe that’s why they aren’t very
cheerful. It could be that they have
plans to facilitate the supposedly inevitable direction of human activity (and
serfdom) and that those plans are so important that they must destroy everyone
who opposes – even by disagreeing with – the idea of a universally socialist
future.
Is it as simple as just hating Trump, the man? He has lived a very exposed life and, until
deciding to run for president, he enjoyed the benefits of wealth and acceptance
in the elite circles of power and influence open to those who appear to not
oppose the leftist vision. You might say
he exploited those benefits. While not a
perfect husband, he has been a good father by all measures, and treats his
ex-wives gently. Evidently he married
more of his female affair partners than John F. Kennedy did his. He has never had any questionable deaths
connected to him or his companies, and no one has had to “take the rap” for
him. Is he a sweetheart? No. He’s
rather ruthless in business… a requirement in the kinds of businesses he has
worked in. He’s a scrapper, willing to
fight back when politically punched. He seems
quite patriotic. What’s to actually hate so vehemently?
Trump must be a threat to something held very dear by all of
those who have reared up to stop his presidency. The measure of his enemies helps us size up
the President, no longer simply Mr. Trump. Trump’s life and past business successes and
failures, did not include diplomatic niceties, euphemistic half-truths and
pretend alliances. Trump, himself, has
never tried to present himself very differently than he actually is: brash,
defensive, crude and vulgar at times.
He is vulnerable, politically, mainly from being a braggart, from which he slides in and out of embellishing the truth, even small truths. Unlike people in ordinary life, many of whom have the same bad habit of embellishing stories, but for whom it doesn’t make much difference, Trump’s overstatements are described only as lies. Others’ families and acquaintances recognize the habit and live – or work – around it. It may even be a source of humor.
In the position of U. S. President there is no room for it…
none, we’re told.
People want to hear the lies they expect. They want to hear about “diplomacy” and “budget
cuts” and “working-class” families like Teamsters, and about “working families”
with indefinable careers, and the great favorite, “investments” in the future
or in our children. Another whopper we
like to hear is “religious freedom.”
While more liberal leaders are expected to purvey “white” lies that keep
America happy and keep secret the daunting business of the executive branch, Trump
is pilloried for overstating, he is the worst liar in American history, after
all.
Trump’s election, though, has interfered with our worldwide economic position, our military standing, the sanctity of our national borders, our ability to complete or repair relations with many nations, and with our ability to conduct domestic business. Why? Because of something Trump has done? Some action that has hurt our standing everywhere? That doesn’t seem like the Prudent answer.
Hatred of Trump, the man, is the damaging cause. Hatred, stirred by certain leaders in the
Democrat party, and continuously stirred up by them, to a degree pushed by
international socialists, is the hammer that has been pounding the U. S. domestically
and internationally since before he was
elected! Hatred. Political action founded on hatred.
Trump has awakened and exposed the essential fraud of the socialist,
administrative, “deep” state – the statist monster of socialist dreams and the
ultimate threat to our constitutional form of government.
When has this phenomenon ever been seen in the United States? Leading up to and during the second Civil War. Now we are entering the fourth.
Widespread hatred, particularly violent hatred like that exercised by so-called “antifa” gangs, is a symptom of civic breakdown. Political leaders are the very people whom we hire to subdue these effects of social dissatisfaction, or hopelessness, yet many are foregoing their responsibilities or actually encouraging the breakdown.
There are many threats to freedom, the greatest of which from outside, is China. They have permanent interests from which they do not deviate. One of those is to achieve dominance over the United States – everything else is secondary. Yet we, U. S. citizens AND our so-called representatives, are allowing Chinese interests to dominate us internally! Who voted for Nike? Politicians on both sides are profiting mightily – and in cash – from connections to Chinese companies. We keep re-electing them. Trump is trying to stand up to the Chinese and receives bitter domestic resistance for trying. You just can’t gore a single ox, anymore.
Meanwhile, we are doing our best to ignore history, these past few decades, and many seem determined to undermine the American idea from within. A world that is still fundamentally not-free, and dominated by soulless international bankers, is in no way the place for the end of national identities, to be replaced with global socialism – for “climate” reasons or any other. It seems more than Prudent, now – today, to defend and strengthen our Constitutional, democratically-elected republican form of government.
It is easy to hate and it is difficult to love. This is how the whole scheme of things works. All good things are difficult to achieve; and bad things are very easy to get. – Confucius
History has shown that political power gained through the marshaling of hate is usually hard to maintain, and always destructive – never constructive. The only path toward maintaining hate-based power is to identify a very large set of enemies whom hate-leaders can paint as hate-worthy, and more: threats to the peace and prosperity of the “oppressed” in-group said leaders wish to control. It is Prudent to recognize the “hate-ees” in order to defend against the hat-ers.
Despite being consistently accused by the leftist hate
leaders, of employing hate themselves, most of the hated are best described as
traditionalists. Let’s consider how the
process has developed. One large group
that is cast as hateful are those of us who believe strictly in the Declaration
of Independence and the Constitution it spawned. By nearly direct implication that group is
nearly congruent with Christian, or Judeo-Christian belief structures. In other words, Biblical morality is at least
professed by most of those who also believe in the founding principles of the
United States. It’s no surprise, but
tangent to our point.
Since Roe v. Wade the power of litigation and crafty parsing
of words and phrases whose usage has obviously changed since the Federalist
Papers were written – a special aspect of redefining words and meanings to
control the argument – has well-served those who don’t believe in the moral
structure and personal responsibility imposed by “free will,” also called
“individual sovereignty.” Socialism
fills their wants, not a constitutional republic. Unfortunately the defense of tradition now
has two, new, giant weapons arrayed against it: 1) Social media; and, 2)
Ignorance.
Social media allow for near-instant sharing, or spreading, of ideas… not to be confused with truth, reality and intelligence. It spreads the last three, too, but those are not dangerous to honest people. But ideas – “memes” in the current parlance – can be shared very quickly without filters of contemplation, research or understanding, a perfect condition for hatreds. One person offended can rapidly become thousands and tens of thousands: a political force for the elected dishonest to take advantage of. Social media and the handiness of cell-phones and their video cameras do great and instant damage to public discourse and the once great “free press.” Further, it has provided for the concentration of information into the hands and biases of fewer than 100 people, of whom traditionalists – conservatives – are both suspicious and skeptical. No system of individual liberty can stand for long without the free flow, and publication, of ideas. An algorithm here, an algorithm there, and pretty soon we’re talking about real mind control. The thought-police are standing by. What will happen when governors are elected (thereby) who agree with defining conservative ideas and tradition, itself, as hate speech?
Ignorance is mostly of history and of the lessons of
history, although ignorance of, say, climate science is also a large part of
how socialism has gained fresh currency among young people in the United
States, of all places. We the people,
who shucked off monarchy to establish freedom as a founding principle, are the last people on earth who should find
socialism attractive; socialism is the same
as monarchy, except that the party is the monarch, of which the chairman is
the King. What do children growing up in
the United States have to do with socialism?
Ignorance: the only soil in which socialism can grow.
Socialists, inherent enemies of individualism, not only purvey ignorance of history, they live on it like parasites. They play a long game, beginning with dominance of education – their barely employable graduates are the result, and they all seem to prefer socialism over free enterprise and private property. Bereft of ways to earn enough to live like people on TV… or down the street, they find it easy to blame traditionalists for their ill fortunes and to demand recompense for attempting to follow fortunate people’s rules. “Forgive my debt,” they say, and leading (following) politicians proclaim that ‘meme’ from the rooftops. If, as tradition and (un)common sense dictate, one disagrees with that demand, one is transformed into a hater and, probably, a racist… whatever “racist” even means, any longer.
Sexual traditionalists are also accused of bigotry, hatred,
homophobia and theocracy. Simply
declaring support for “traditional” marriage can cause boycotts of one’s
business and disavowal by political leaders and even by municipal governments,
such that one’s business may not locate a branch within a jurisdiction because
of “hate speech” by the owner. The facts
and truths associated with said “hate speech” have no bearing, as is often the
case with marshaled hatreds. It is not
the truth that stirs crowds and gangs – hatred motivates in the vacuum of
ignorance. By increasing ignorance,
certain people fertilize the soil where hatred grows.
All in all, the Prudent observer can conclude that those on the left end of the political spectrum are more involved than are rightists, with hate and accusations of hate. Inevitably, of late, attempts to engage leftists in substantive discussions of (pick one) immigration, education, health care, energy, climate, gender, religion, any of the Bill of Rights, trade, economics, the Constitution, America, Mexico, South America, colonialism, Democrats, Republicans, Trump, Obama, housing or farming, and a few other topics, results in accusations of (pick one) White Supremacy, Nazism, Fascism, racism, homophobia, misogyny, Islamophobia, or hatred.
Those on the right, it appears, tend to laugh at much of the above, or shake their heads and lament the poor state of education that enables other Americans to believe the things professed. Conservatives and “traditionalists” are always on the defensive; leftist haters are always the attackers, and have the advantage. To what end?
And, finally, will traditionalists, defenders of the Constitution, propriety and reason, manage to hold back leftist destruction? Will we return to secure borders, for example? Will reality regain sway on college campuses? Will the federal budget ever be cut? Will “public” education be made to include appropriate American history content, reading of books, basic math and writing skills, possibly cursive writing (so that older documents may be read), and the Constitution? Will the subject and science of gender return to reality? Will honor, duty, commitment and personal responsibility return to primacy in interpersonal relationships? Will the administrative, largely hidden and secretive state apparatus be made more open and honest? Will the three branches of the federal government return to their Constitutional bounds and purviews? Will honesty be restored as the operating public and private philosophy? Will e pluribus unum regain its primacy as the true “American Dream?
One can understand why liberals and other proto-socialists
feared George W. Bush. He had developed
himself into a patriotic, empathetic and religious man, shucking the follies of
his youth and the excesses of inherited power… for the most part. Growing up in the shadow of powerful and
successful (read: wealthy) people, going back several generations, creates a
different mindset and outward view from those of most of us. The Bush dynasty developed from good fortune
and good genes, and, perhaps, some good luck, but no family with the political
impact of the Bushes could have had its hand on the levers of wealth and power
for so long without ruthless application of power and influence.
But “W” is/was a little different, more empathetic, stemming from his “kinder, gentler” father, George H. W. Bush, and from his newfound humility. Unfortunately, after the 9-11 attacks, “W” also wanted to change the world, exporting and delivering democratic republicanism to other peoples who were not, in themselves, prepared to believe in it. Still, more than most who ascend to the presidency, “W” remained fairly honest, believing in what he was doing, however wrong-headed. Not a bad guy, all things considered, but not a particularly successful leader of the free world, let alone of the United States. The hatred of him was just as wrong-headed, but some of the fears were rational.
The left was more than ready for a change and with some
ruthless interventions, able to ride a wave of window dressing and socialism
into the White House with Barack Obama.
Republicans in general didn’t trust him or ANY of his ideas, while those
in congress tended to give him what he wanted for appointments and budgets,
despite uniform hostility to the mis-named Affordable Care Act. They couldn’t even make hay from his wild
failures internationally and the mis-feasance / malfeasance of his Secretary of
State… not even from his demilitarization of the armed forces, socially and
financially. He completed two terms, by
the end of which he had virtually decimated the Democrat Party.
Still, Obama accomplished much of what he promised to do,
starting with the destruction of compromise with Republicans. “We won,” he would say. Policy discussions with Republicans were few
and fruitless, if not more derogation than debate. The liberal press learned that access came
from right-thinking (left-thinking), not honesty and, indeed, many government
types were finding jobs with networks and relatives of powerful network types
were finding jobs in the administration – altogether too cozy a relationship
and bearing no relationship to the term: Free Press. From 8 years of besmirching “W” Bush at every
turn, the left-leaning, Obama-approving press learned that fawning coverage of
Obama was a ticket to better ratings.
For the average listener/reader/watcher, the Obama
administration was the opportunity to espouse socialism and so-called “multi-culturalism.” Suddenly, finally, it became okay to proclaim
alternatives to and opposition towards… umm, actually, more like hatred towards the institutions and standards of “American”
culture. Everything that was influenced
by the Bible, Christianity and English common law, was fair game for leftist,
communists, socialists, atheists and anti-U.S. activists of every stripe, many
of whom had been lurking in public education for years. College campuses are full of their weak-kneed
and malleable products, now.
Oddly, crony capitalism expanded under Obama, that erstwhile
social warrior, as have monopolies, due in large part to the digitization of
information and the intellectual laziness of large swaths of the population,
particularly educators. Given free rein
to proselytize leftward, weaker teachers at all levels literally graded on
right-thinking (left-thinking) rather than on true intellectual curiosity,
balanced inquiry, research and expansion of knowledge. Indebted graduates and drop-outs emerge
committed to ideas untested and unchallenged.
Some professors, reduced to tears and seclusion after Hillary’s
electoral loss, have never recovered, except to hate the current president and
to entertain ways to undo some parts of the Constitution so that such defeat
may never recur.
The “politics of personal destruction” first named during
the early Clinton era, has become just “politics.” Since The
Loss, the only path to power appears to be one that climbs over destruction
of opponents, at least for Democrats, and not one paved with better ideas,
policies and uplift. As with all
socialist movements, uninvolved people are also destroyed, at least in spirit,
in order to create a more perfect world, free of merit and everything else that
works for the majority of people.
Inevitably, the controlling elite minority (also very wealthy) will
self-identify and new rules will prevent anyone else from gaining “unfair”
advantage in society. Those who “cling”
to quaint ideas of individual sovereignty, self-protection, private property,
unlicensed enterprise and the Electoral College, will be clearly spotlighted as
the reason for others’ failure to achieve, and further restricted to make
things even more fair. A final solution
for their uppity independence will pass both houses.
Now, too, politics includes the Orwellian “Antifa”
gangs. Somehow, and for obscure
political reasons never explained, various municipal governments tolerate
lawlessness as if it were actually “anti-fascist” in its purposes. Who wants “fascism” in their warmly welcoming
and inclusive cities? The thing of it is
that “antifa” employs the tactics of classical fascism! Huh.
The terrible “fascists” whose heads they try to crack consist of people
who believe, basically, in the U. S. Constitution, and there is the crux of
modern politics: Constitutionalism and the enumerated and implied rights
guaranteed thereunder, is being vilified as “fascism,” an extraordinary twist
of language and logic. Our “free press”
supports this dichotomous hatred of the country whose Constitution protects
them.
The other “new” element of politics in 2019 is a mix-up of
anti-legality and anti-Americanism, if not anti-Americans. The hot words are
“illegal alien” or, more accurately: “illegal entrant.” One party has invested political capital,
much heat, anger and historic blindness on behalf of open borders, unrestricted
illegal entry and loose, extra-legal asylum/refugee processes. The net effect of it all is to flood the
nation with aliens who are neither committed to earn citizenship or even to
learn English, rather to steal from Americans – through government agencies who
willingly participate in lawlessness – in order to “share the American Dream”
or other phrases of equally opposite meaning.
That there is a political party gaining support on this basis ought to
trouble all of us.
It seems within the realm of Prudence to doubt the true
motives of the Democrat party and its best-known leaders. This is no testament to the righteousness of
Republicans, but the rapid leftward skid of Democrats is unparalleled in
American history. Since Roe v. Wade the
defense of abortion has become more than a mere knife in the heart of Life,
itself, morphing into a virtual sacrament that Democrats must receive to stay
in the party. Death to unborn children,
unborn Americans. It has served its
second purpose well, the delegitimizing of religion, most specifically Christianity:
the death of America, itself. In leftist
hands abortion has been the sharp wedge for breaking the bonds of our
federation of states and to break the bonds of freedom, as well.
Some 61 Million Americans have been denied the Right to Life, mainly for
convenience. Some millions of them would
have grown up to love this nation and its exceptional purposes. They’d have grown and loved and learned and
married and taught their children to take care of themselves and their families
and their country. Perhaps that is the
threat those babies represented – a threat so grievous that they had to be
eliminated before they threatened the final solution for our aberrant
Constitutionally limited democratic republic, Land of the Free.
Simple abortion has itself morphed into infanticide while
illegal entrants are encouraged to sneak in to the country in order to have
their babies become U. S. citizens as if by magic. There is magic afoot in abortion on demand:
black magic that makes murder the day before birth a right; and for babies who
insist on living through abortion procedures, quiet termination in HOSPITALS at
the hands of doctors and proto-parents who simply don’t want to take the baby
home. Are these children not U. S.
citizens by virtue of birthright? How is
it that these citizens have not been murdered
by willful neglect? Magic most foul,
and the hallmark of Democrats – the Party of Death.
A patients view of the doctors, just before going into surgery.
Few topics or “matters” matter as much or generate as much
discussion and political malfeasance as health care, and not really “care,” but
coverage. Coverage is where the “easy” money is. “Coverage” is like a giant public works
construction project: easy to skim from.
It’s virtually impossible to get any graft – or campaign contributions –
from individual medical procedures, but insurance conglomerates and hospital
corporations and the pharmaceutical industry are deep wells for craven
politicians. Consequently, those same
politicians are willing to expose the federal budget and debt creation to the
medical “field” to the benefit of all, and even of patients sometimes.
Money, money, money.
About one-sixth of the U. S. economy is tied to “health care,” but a
much smaller fraction is tied to CARE, itself.
These are huge industries with gigantic advertising, promotion and
bribery budgets. The ever-pure United
States calls those filthy bribes campaign contributions… or, they might be
“donations” to colleges and universities for research and production of new
doctors who, coincidentally, will be fully committed to pharmaceuticals,
chemotherapies, surgery and maintenance for life – or death. It’s all expensive.
Cancer is one of the cash cows of medicine: the big
shibboleth in human caring and willingness to help others. People fear it, and rightly so. Breast cancer is a powerful subset, and so is
pediatric cancer. We love kids and care
about their health more than for any older group. Kids are helpless and pathetic; humans feel
these things and sacrifice to raise them from complete dependency, to minimal
independence, to experimental independence, to sports and education and
personality development and, one day, separation into adult-hood. We hate any interruption to these things and
sacrifice to facilitate the stages of normal childhood. Cancer is a Hell of an interrupter and we want to pay to stop it. And we do.
Billions of dollars have been raised by the American Cancer Society, for example, and they claim a 79% rate of actual cancer expenditures: mostly for research, but a large amount is for “soft” expenses that help those who are in treatment and their families, and other non-care, non-research uses. A big pile goes to run the Society, of course. To its credit, A.C.S. does a lot of good along the paths it sees fit, and it’s much more efficient than the federal government, a low bar. Sadly, despite its widespread use of children to raise its millions (Relay for Life, anyone?), only a small percentage of ACS dollars are employed to solve pediatric cancers.
In one case Prudence knows well, a 6-year-old girl survived
neuroblastoma after much chemo, operations, stem-cell harvests and replacements
only to fight through it again 4 years later, with more of many of the same
poisons that forced the cancer to retreat the first time. Five years later, more chemotherapy to force
a third retreat. “A miracle,” her family
declared. 3 years later osteosarcoma
attacked her right tibia, part of which was removed with cadaver bone up to the
knee. More chemo – same crap as earlier
times, same poison to push the cancer back.
College and Masters degrees completed, 6 years later the fifth attack
and fifth battle with cancer, now in the thoracic cavity pressing on the
lung. The bone cancer was a not rare reaction
to earlier treatments; the chest problem a recurrence of the bone cancer, by
genus. Same poisons prescribed and
administered, except she was unable to tolerate any more of it. Twenty years of treatment, constant news
about this and that breakthrough therapy, DNA, customized immunology, yada,
yada, yada… same attempts to kill the cancer a little faster than the patient.
When the young woman with the lengthy, miraculous, cancer
survival history heard what kind of poisons they were planning to pump directly
into her bloodstream, she naturally pointed out that it was the same crap she’d
received the last time! Was there
nothing better? Newer? Apparently not. Bring
us your sick children and we will poison them for you in the hope that the
cancer cells will die first and we can hold your child back from the brink of
death.
Medical students arrive at medical school with science knowledge –at least biology, maybe chemistry – ready to be taught some skills, mostly about using and understanding the data produced by wonderful diagnostic electronics, and about the latest in pharmacological weapons to counteract natural biological weaknesses, failures, breakdowns, related pains and mental/emotional discords and incongruities. There is a lot to learn. If surgery is the interest, there is a lot of practice. Students develop likes and dislikes that lead them to one specialty or another, or, for many, general health and well-being such as “family” doctors ought to know. Some of these general practitioners are really “internists” who understand “internal medicine” as distinct from “external medicine,” one supposes.
In any case, new doctors are taught according to fairly rigid protocols and traditions by people whose adherence to standards is well known… and respected. Indeed, it is only by proving one’s own adherence to those standards that a doctor will be licensed or safe when sued. “Recognized” standards, “current” protocols, “best” practices – those are the only defense a doctor has. Where is the profit for leaving medical orthodoxy?
Does this mean that “doctors” or “big pharma” are blocking the introduction of miracle cures that an obscure researcher somewhere has developed because traditional medicine would not? Well, “yes,” and “no.” I think, or at least hope fervently, that the answer is “yes” although there is no intent to do so; and that the answer is “no” because there is no intent to do so. But, the inhibition of new ideas is almost inevitable. Thankfully it is not impossible and progress does get made, inventions are developed and made marketable – and trustworthy – and new drugs are eventually approved. So, what’s the problem?
The problem is that the new drugs are rarely giant steps –
sometimes they are, but not often. This is because most research is built on
previous success and lines of inquiry and wide departure from the reservation
is not very likely – it doesn’t get funded.
Pharmaceutical manufacturers are looking for sure things. Often the greatest advances are side-effects
of drugs, new and old, that coincidentally prove beneficial elsewhere. More power to them.
Similar effects produce medical technology like, for popular
example, knee replacements and hip replacements. Now very reliable and long-lasting, such
replacements are commonplace, almost to the exclusion of alternatives. Could the damage and erosion of joints be
prevented? In most cases. Are there nutritional preventions that are
still regarded as anecdotes, not science?
Absolutely. Do you suppose that
part of every knee replacement is dedicated to learning how to prevent knee
replacements? Well, no.
Americans, and most residents of highly developed countries, eat themselves to death, drink and drug themselves to death, smoke themselves to death, fertilize and pesticide ourselves to death, and so on. For all of our health clubs, gyms and YMCA’s, Americans tend, on average, to not take very good care of the bodies we are born with and, now that parts can be replaced by our remarkable “repair, replace and maintain” medicine, there seem to be fewer reasons to worry about the consequences of ice cream, sodas and cheese-burgers and lack of basic exercise regimens. We are told 8 times every half-hour by our flat-screens that we need never suffer from aches, pains, discomforts, anxieties or depressions. There are pills for each of these maladies. In fact, there are separate analgesics for shoulder pains, neck pains, knee and foot pains, back pains, headaches, migraines and insufficient sleep. People who have allowed apnea to intrude on their ability to sleep can get a C-Pap device to counteract it. What’s to worry?
What do all of these OTC chemicals do to us? Some of the long-term effects are known, not
the least of which is liver damage, but it’s slow, virtually unnoticeable,
until it isn’t – kind of like moderate smoking.
Sugar and alcohol also have cumulative effects, if not simple diabetes, then an acidification of body chemistry that weakens the immune response to invaders. Too much gluten, perhaps? The American diet is awash in wheat and wheat proteins, right down to canned tunafish (only one brand is clean). Tunafish? And lots of other products: vinegar, puddings, many candies, gravies, prepared foods of all kinds include wheat starch, “hydrolyzed vegetable protein” and on and on. Many people know they are allergic to gluten, far more do not… know, that is. Skin problems, digestive problems, immune problems and, of course, weight problems, stem in large part from too much wheat in our diets. The body tends to become allergic in the presence of too much of the same thing – often the food you like the best, as well. But, that’s no problem! There are multiple crèmes and pills to fight off the effects of our odd diets, so many, in fact, that they must be profitable enough to purchase TV advertising nationwide. Do you ever wonder if every prescription for these somewhat dangerous drugs includes a small amount of money to fund prevention of gluten intolerances? Nahh. Bread, cake, doughnuts, fried clams, stuffing, ice cream, mayonnaise, salad dressings, sub-rolls, pita, crackers and… and… whatever, are too tasty to forego and, besides, “they” have things for that.
When Dwight Eisenhower left the presidency he warned America
about the encroaching power of the “military-industrial complex.” Rightly so, although that sloppy circle of funding
and influence has managed to keep the country fairly safe in an uncontrollable
world. One can almost hear the words of
a true outsider warning us against the “medical-industrial complex,” although
almost no one would listen. On the edge
of Boston and Brookline there is a street called Longwood Avenue where
hospitals have grown into connected proximity.
It’s starting to look like Las Vegas.
The insertion of politics into health care really got moving with the “Great Society” in the mid 1960’s. It hasn’t been all good despite the public intentions of the socialists who caused the Great Society to be codified. Today federal funds feed into the insatiable maw of modern medicine, and to help it along, every Congress adds new mandates for care and coverage. Combined with the primacy of welfare (federalized at the same time) the general interface with patients has trended to impersonal, if not de-personalized, care. The vision for health care is still greater impersonality, robotics and, again, health orthodoxy that satisfies… umm, well, the federal government, and “averages.”
No one is going to stop the money. If we have to borrow from our 5th descendent generation, by God, we’ll do it! No one who needs a new hip, rich or poor, will be denied one! What? Do we want to have a society where there is one level of care for the wealthy and another for the poor? With enough agitation and politics anything that needs a licensed medico to accomplish will be funded. Trans-gender mutilations? Where’s the checkbook? Prudence would advise that there is not enough money, or desks for nameless bureaucrats to sit behind, to provide all the repairs and drugs that are known, to every person who thinks he or she needs them. Maybe robots will provide more even-handed care and cost less than humans. Not so far.
Prudence has successfully resisted the temptation to counter the many ignorant statements uttered by the impressively ignorant Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, of late an elected representative in the U. S. House of Representatives. She has a college degree… in economics.
One recent evening she purported to explain – obviously only
to those more ignorant than herself – what “capitalism” is. In the process she confused it with “free-market
economy,” and then jumped to explaining how one might have a “mixed” economy
where the “state” doesn’t own the means of production but “workers’
cooperatives” do. Neither the origins of
the means of production that workers’ cooperatives will “own,” nor the means of
managing their cooperative labor, were revealed during her explanation.
To the likes of Ms. Cortez the Marxist concept of capitalism
is not a solution to the human condition, but the cause of suffering and
injustice. Unfortunately, modern
capitalists are proving many of Marx’s theories. Thanks to the vapid connivance of ostensibly
democratically elected governments (crony-capitalism), international banks
virtually direct public policy and national economic decision-making. Most “workers” – wage-earners, are relatively
comfortable and not about to revolt against anonymous masters, but not
all. The obscene concentrations of
economic and productive power run the risk of collapsing the edifices of international
capitalism. There’s plenty for social
justice warriors to despise.
On the other hand… socialism cannot destroy debt – only productive
surplus does and can do that. It is not
possible, at least human nature will not allow, a financially complex society
to grow without practical amounts of debt.
Not to be pejorative, “debt” is merely paying for a product or “good”
over time. No, that sounds too
simple. “Debt” is only true and
practical when a financing agent has judged a borrower likely to pay back the
loaned cash with interest, oftentimes with the financier holding a chattel
interest in the good for which it has loaned the purchase price, because of two
factors: 1) The financed “good,” or product or house or car or medical
procedure has sufficient desirability, utility or comfort value for the
borrower as to make its value or worth obvious (and its potential loss
undesirable enough) and valued by the borrower; and 2) The borrower or
beneficiary of the good’s utility or comfort is, by test of available income
over time, able to make periodic payments on a timely, contracted (promised)
basis.
In the ideal case, then, debt is simply a tool that is “rented,”
as it were, the value of which is clear enough to cause timely,
interest-bearing, repayment. The manufacturer
of the good (debt properly employed should always, as in every single time, be
employed to facilitate the transfer of a “hard, or manufactured, good” and not
a temporary expense) obtains immediate payment, enabling additional future
manufacture, while the customer of the good obtains the use and facility of the
good immediately upon need when it may be too costly to afford a single cash
exchange for it.
Much is misunderstood about “productive surplus.” It’s “margin,” which is to say, revenue that
exceeds the cost of manufacture. “Oh,
well, that’s profit for a capitalist,”
some will say, “and you shouldn’t “overcharge” poorer customers or else you
should share it with your exploited workers.”
But margin isn’t simply “profit,” and the “exploited” workers are paid
according to their productive capacity and value to the production of the goods
the manufacturer makes and sells. Margin
provides “working capital;” what does it actually do?
Working capital means cash in the bank, and it serves to
improve efficiency within the manufacturer’s operations by enabling investment
in better manufacturing equipment, often by being committed to pay off
equipment acquisition debt, which shifts that portion of margin to
cost-of-goods but which can reduce the costs elsewhere with more productive
equipment (which is also a good result for the people who make that new
equipment). Working capital enables the
company to train its workers to higher skill levels and greater productivity,
yielding higher pay. It also enables the
company to hire more employees as production increases and, let’s hope, quality
and sales also increase.
Productive surplus destroys debt; it’s the only engine that
can. In the presence of productive
surplus, debt is a useful and valuable tool for growth and for improving
overall living standards. But what
happens to “profits?”
Profits belong to shareholders, who are, in fact, the owners
of the company. Socialists feel as
though no one person or small group should “own” a means of production, but
that it should automatically “belong to” or be controlled by, the workers, to
whom all the profits should be distributed.
History, the bane of socialists’ existence, teaches that humans are good
at some things, bad at others, and one of those “others” is collective
decision-making or, the corollary, collective self-leadership, an oxymoron that
socialists insist on believing in. Let’s
start at the beginning.
A person has an idea for a widget/product/thingy that other
people will want to have because it makes, ummm… it makes baking cakes, breads
and muffins easier and more efficient with fewer bad results. The person has no factory but he (let’s say
it’s a he) learned in trade school (paid for from taxes that derive from
profits) how to work with metal as well as how to apply himself to a problem
and how to concentrate and to research the things he doesn’t know. First he figures that being able to have a
baking oven that has even, steady heat would lead to uniformly baked goods, so
he tries various kinds of pipes and shapes and pressures to provide even gas
flames that won’t make hot spots within the oven. Aha!
He gets it and finds a way to generate even heat, cobbles together a
metal stove and burns his first cake to a crisp, as the whole oven became a hot-spot. Hmmmnn.
Our inventor/entrepreneur realizes he must regulate the heat
to achieve one temperature and hold it there within very narrow limits… The process goes on for weeks and months,
absorbing every spare hour and weekend until he has a metal box of a specific
shape with special gas burners, elaborate temperature sensors and controls,
insulation and directions for installation, use and cleaning. But he has just the one. If he sells it for more than it costs to make
he’ll have a brief profit but it takes so long for him to make just one that he’ll
go hungry before he can get the next pulse of “profits” from selling the second
one, assuming that he quits his 9 to 5 job and works on the oven business full
time.
He has some savings that he has been slowly accumulating to
provide for his family if something happened to him, and he’s been careful to leave
them intact. His idea is good and he’s
proven that it’s the best oven design potentially on the market. How to get it there? He needs capital, of which he has only a
little. He and his wife decide to take
the risk, pledging their savings and their house(!) to secure a loan that will
allow for several key things needed for producing 10 ovens per week, and
selling them, at a margin that will allow for repaying the loan with interest
(which employs people at the bank), insuring against the risks and liabilities
manufacturers face, making payroll (and benefits!) for the 5 people they must
hire to make and market the ovens (including payroll for himself, the
owner/inventor, and to invest in an inventory of parts and gizmos needed to
assemble ovens such that orders for ovens can be filled promptly. And, oh, yes, they have to lease some
suitable – or nearly suitable – space for manufacturing and testing, on which
there is a large deposit. Everything is
at stake.
With much struggle and worried nights things get done. The first 10 ovens are produced, tested and
packaged for shipping. The sales “department”
of one former kitchenware sales rep, has secured an order for 4 of them, one of
which is to a small mom-and-pop bakery not far away. The owner/inventor goes to their small shop,
attached to their house, to oversee installation by the plumber/gas-fitter, and
personally teaches the operation to the new owners, who took a risk of buying
an expensive new oven based on its description and manufacturer’s test
results. They agree to let the
inventor/capitalist advertise their success with it – for a fee. It performs as advertised and they start to do
more business thanks to the creative new pastries their new oven bakes to
perfection (damn those wood-fired stone ovens).
Well, the advertising kicks in and the sales department
manages to sell the rest of the first ten and the next ten and things start
humming at the “Great Perfection Oven Company.”
Soon, a major catalog sales company makes an offer to carry the oven at
a discount to them which, if they can prepay for a certain number and sell at
least 10 a month, the harried owner/inventor agrees to provide, even though he’ll
make less margin per oven. The advantage
is that with that new revenue he can afford two more production employees and
more leased space and increased advertising.
And on it goes…
Within a couple of years he and his wife celebrate the
pay-off of the first loan that had put their house and savings at risk. The business has grown to employ 40 employees
and a large commercial bakery has approached them with a request for a
production-size version of the “Perfection Oven” with its now-patented gas
burners (patenting cost over $30,000) and the inventor/owner commences to
design just such an oven which will require more manufacturing equipment and
changes to one of their production lines… and so on.
Ms. Ocasio-Socialist, do you think he doesn’t “own” this
business? He and his wife are the only
share-holders. Do you know what else “margin”
dollars must do? They have to provide
long-term benefits like pension contributions to trusted, valued employees: the
ones who help the company succeed and be profitable. They have to create a reserve fund in case
other threats to the company materialize, cutting into profits, challenging its
patents, creating knock-offs and look-alike ovens that sap Perfection Oven
sales and margins, as well as changes in tax laws or state-mandated benefits,
paid leave laws and new health-care coverages… not to mention changes in OSHA
and EPA regulations that could hamper production or require costly new changes
to production facilities, unionization, higher fuel costs for delivery of both
raw materials and finished goods (ovens).
Lots of future risks that must be insured against, sometimes with simple
cash reserves. THEN there are profits.
Ms. Cortez, do you, with your costly economics degree, understand
any of this?
