Category Archives: Economics

Economics, Education, Governance, Immigration, Responsibility

The Eve of Destruction

October 6, 2019 Prudence Leadbetter Leave a comment

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?

Culture, Economics, Education, Obama, Trump

RATIONAL ENDS

October 5, 2019 Prudence Leadbetter Leave a comment

Antifa thugs with weapons and masks claim to right the wrongs of "fascists", mistakenly named as far-rightists.

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.

Culture, Economics, Governance, Health Care

FOR THE HEALTH OF IT

September 22, 2019 Prudence Leadbetter Leave a comment

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 5^th 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.

Economics

A Degree of Economics

September 8, 2019 Prudence Leadbetter Leave a comment

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?

Economics, Education, Family, Race

The Bad Old Days

July 28, 2019 Prudence Leadbetter 6 Comments

It is an interesting “fad,” we might call it, to portray every event in history from the viewpoint of the most “woke” or radical perspectives fostered and pandered-to by today’s politicians. It doesn’t seem to be helpful in terms of increasing knowledge or of increasing understanding of the past. But it has, in the span of 20 years or so, become commonplace. Every example of this new ignorance need not be brought before the bar of reason for the student of history to still be able to ask, “why?”

If we accept the premise that schools are the imparters of truth, then it follows that they should be the bastions of truth, as well. Interesting word, ‘bastion.’ It means a projection from a defensive wall that affords more effective firing angles against attackers, and it also means “bulwark.” A bulwark is a person, or a thing, that is the immovable defense of the fort or castle. In the battle of ideas, persons in the school or education business, are obligated by their office in society – the official role to which they are committed and for which they are well-compensated – to be the bulwarks against UN-truth and lies.

In that regard, their best success derives from having taught students to both find truth and to recognize it when it appears… or disappears.

Parents consign their children to schools in order for them to learn truths and to learn about truth. Human beings entrusted with imparting truth to children of any age, are sorely tested to not convey opinions or beliefs they hold that cannot be demonstrated to be true. One might think – and parents might hope – that a mechanism exists to remove teachers who cannot help but taint truth with their opinions. That the opposite mechanism exists should give us pause. Short of severe debauchery or criminal acts, it is nearly impossible to pry a teacher loose from his or her tenured security. What are they teaching?

Let’s look at a simple event that has caused news stories in recent years; the landing of the “pilgrims” in Massachusetts Bay, ostensibly at what we know as Plymouth, named for Plymouth, England. To get to Plymouth the so-called Pilgrims had to endure privations and tribulations that we, today, in our land of too much food and electricity, cannot conceive of. We lose our cool when another car blocks us or cuts in front of us. Imagine uprooting your family and leaving the place of your birth and generations of customs and history, to sign on to a corporate adventure to the “New World,” about which little is known. Your first ship proves unseaworthy and you limp back to port until another can be obtained and hired to your purposes.

You are unable to carry with you more than a small trunk’s worth of tools and possessions. On your little ship there are no bathrooms, no showers, salted fish and beef to eat, no fresh vegetables, no toothpaste or toilet paper. Privacy is virtually non-existent, you know nothing of germs or disease except that the latter is common. Childbirth is among the deadliest of burdens for women. For years you have planned and hoped for a better life upon reaching the distant unknown shore, and after the final two months at sea you are deposited on the shore, far off from your intended destination, now forced to fend for yourselves from the ground up, in fact, building shelters, foraging for wildlife and wild fruits or berries to try to store enough food for the imminent winter which will be much harsher than what you have been used to, particularly since your delay in leaving England left you in the New World in October, rather than in May or June.

Among your beliefs is deep religious faith in God, bolstered by frequent prayer, but He isn’t cushioning any blows or revealing hidden stores of healthy food. Many of you die in that first winter, yet faith and incredible work see you through. Eventually relations with natives, whom you believe to be “savages,” keep you from dying out altogether and your duties as profitable fur trappers can commence.

Accidentally, in total ignorance, you have brought germs that infect the native people, germs against which they have no defense. You have brought another disease, economics, including concepts of private property, fences and stockades, and guns and swords of steel to defend them. You believe that God has blessed you with a new land over which you have every right to take dominion. History records the clash of beliefs and its outcome.

To this Prudent observer, descended from those Pilgrims and others who followed soon after, the story of immense courage and faith, regardless of what we may, today, think of that faith, is a bit heroic. Courage in the face of danger is one of humankind’s abiding virtues and is worthy of honor and emulation, but what is more frequently discussed, even abetted by public entities, is the awfulness of the Pilgrims and all of their virtues and beliefs, since it turned out badly for the natives. The thanks offered prayerfully to God, for the salvation of the tiny colony, must now be denigrated because of those germs and the new ideas the colonists held dear.

The strength of the underdog fighter who wins against all odds, must be hated because, we have since learned, he once flipped the bird to another driver and… it was a woman! There will never be a good reason to train the way he did, or learn the tactics that he used to win, not ever will there be a reason to mention his name or take his picture. Everything must be expunged.

And so education has purged itself of the role of Christianity in the creation and final founding of the United States. Since many teachers and professors, now, are so sure that belief in the Bible’s teachings is superstition, they cannot bring themselves to learn how it is woven into the fabric of America, and certainly not to teach about it. Is it all just economics? That was Marx’s view; we certainly must teach about that. So, is the “new” narrative about where America came from the same as “truth?” It would seem Prudent to judge that it is a half-truth at best. Does that fulfill the essential requirement that educational institutions… and functions… be the defenders and imparters of truth? If not, what are they? What are they being paid to do, if not impart truth?

Christopher Columbus was nothing if not unusually brave. It took unusual courage to set sail beyond the sight of land, not knowing how far it was to reach another shore. It was a struggle for him to obtain not one, but 3 crews to follow him on his undefined journey. When he landed he was thousands of miles from where he thought he must be. His mission was financed by the newly victorious, fused monarchies of Ferdinand and Isabella, who defeated the Moors just one day before granting Columbus the support he needed.

They needed gold, which the “indies” reportedly had, and some other valuables Columbus’ crewmates and soldiers might come across. No one on earth had knowledge of germs, viruses or infections. No one. The Spaniards were simple thieves who believed non-Europeans, non-Catholic non-Europeans most particularly, were “savages.” In other words, Spaniards, like French, British, Italian, Dutch and other explorers… Portuguese, were brought up to believe that because of their relative enlightenment, manufactures, printing, marriage, courts, police, and religion, they were superior to savages wherever they found them. The Spaniards were fulfilling the charge of their King and Queen, whose authority came from God. There was no better work they could do. Not so simple, perhaps.

Today Columbus is vilified, as if current hot feelings might improve Columbus’ own attitudes, causing him and all of his crewmates who had just risked their lives on their mission to the “Indies,” to renounce every belief they held and their faith, and to switch to social services for the savages they had found, perhaps teaching them how to forge iron and smelt bronze, and to build better huts and grow more crops. The next expedition could teach them to read the Bible and raise their children.

Many teachers seem consumed by the estimates of decimation brought about by European diseases thanks to Columbus’ discovering the new world. Rather than recognize the essential sacrifice and bravery of mariners of Columbus’ day, along with the unintended consequences of the intercontinental movement of peoples, educators convinced of the evil intent of all white-skinned peoples, pummel their students with the evils initiated by white Europeans. Increasingly liberal teachers twist the views of their students such that whites begin to hate themselves and question not only bad actions of the past, but even ideas and philosophies generated by people whose skin is not brown.

This immediately translates into hatred of America and the ideas that created it; it also validates hatreds the racialist hate-mongers are encouraging non-stop in black communities. Neither trend is healthy for our nation, our future progress or our steady destruction of disease and poverty. It’s stupid, essentially. Shame on us.

This same poisoned outlook has been seized upon by socialists now to fuel their never-ending struggle to destroy individual freedom, a goal that may only be achieved by destroying America. They must destroy Christianity, too, since many white people believe in it.

Can the descendants of slave owners atone not only for the sins of their ancestors but for the sins of their ancestors’ ancestors’ ancestors? No, never. The actions of the past still remain no matter what is done, now. Can the descendants of slaves (which are virtually all of us depending on how many ancestries we include) receive some kind of justice for the sufferings of their ancestors? No, the suffering will have still happened. Is that suffering the reason some brown-skinned people are economically behind the curve today? Or educationally? No.

Up until the “Great Society,” which federalized welfare has purchased the votes of blacks for generations, the suffering of slaves had created a great strengthening of their descendants. “We shall overcome” had genuine meaning and blacks were overcoming and gaining economic power faster than their white “oppressors.” But when hate became a tax-funded industry, black progress not only slowed, but reversed. And still they excel… in virtually every field, yet more also fail, convinced by their hate-filled leaders that life is unfair because of (pick all that apply) whites, Christians, police, schools, businesses, Republicans, slavery, Columbus, NASA, Trump. What a waste, however enrichening it is for some.

Culture, Economics, Education, Immigration, Race, Representation

GHETTO, LIVING

June 21, 2019 Prudence Leadbetter Leave a comment

“Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn’t pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same.” – Ronald Reagan.

Into his simple statement, Ronald Reagan distilled the greatest threat and the greatest strength of America: the ideas of it. We could forget them. We could become so enamored of the false idols of socialism that we finally fail completely to pass along the meaning and significance of America. The Prudent observer already recognizes that a large fraction of U. S. citizens are far down that path.

What makes this possible? Obviously, education is worth examining; so is immigration; so, too, is ghetto-ization. Let’s look at the last. Ghettos form somewhat naturally, primarily for ethnic reasons, which is to say, cultural reasons. They form economically, as well, but where the only shared “norm” is poverty… or substantial wealth.

Religious ghettos are well recorded and well-storied in history. Most were either harmless or threatening to a power-structure. Some were left in peace, most eventually destroyed for their “other-ness,” and the implied threat that represented.

Most ghettos engender resentment, or cohere because of it. Shared resentment is a political tinderbox, to which outside intrusion, however legitimate, can provide the explosive spark. In and of itself, ghetto-ization is deconstructive of the greater society, corrosive and segregationist. There is no good reason to encourage the growth or even the existence of ghettos – of any sort, at least not in a democratic, free-enterprise republic.

In its perpetual confusion, religious sectarianism both creates and attempts to integrate, ghettos. Part of Judeo-Christian teaching is to “…come apart and be a separate and chosen people.” It is not dissimilar to many other faiths. The direction seeks purity of body, mind and soul. When the rest of the “world” is deemed impure and immoral, “sickly” in a sense, quarantine appears wise, and temporarily it is. Enlightened sects both separate themselves and purposely integrate themselves, hoping to attract some – if not all – of the impure and immoral to adopt their ways of belief and of life.

Mere enlightenment can easily evolve into messianism, causing religious groups to send missionaries out to dissimilar, and therefore, “heathen” lands who are living in sin for no other reason than ignorance of the one, true path.

But ghettos, religious, ethnic, economic, tend to inhibit understanding – understanding which is essential to cultural/social survival based on shared mores and standards, habits and language. Those “inside” tend to mostly talk to one another, share distrusts of outsiders with one another, hear only opinions from one another and, eventually, for some, reinforce one another’s hatreds for outsiders.

Hatred is unhealthy, especially so for relatively “open” societies, where there is freedom of movement, speech and expression… and where there are politicians. Hatred spawns a rotten sort of political power… a sort that is happy to ply ghetto hatreds with pandering postulates, even to the point of social revolution. That is, every form of “establishment” power is besmirched and derogated until the cravings of those seeking votes are but a shade away from the hatreds of the marginalized.

It would seem unwise to spur the creations of more ghettos, and unwise to feed the ones that exist such that they need not integrate and come to better understandings.

In effect, the United States has permitted, encouraged and protected the formation of new ghettos, both through civil tolerance of the rights of homeless people to remain drugged while living animally on appropriated public lands, and by importing enclaves of aliens whose cultures and belief structures are not only unlike our own, but antithetical to our own. The great “melting pot” of quickly assimilating immigrants is a quaint notion. Immigrants today come, in part, to show Americans how inferior our mores are to their “superior” ones, from which they have fled to our shores. This is unhealthy.

At the same time our social welfare industry strengthens and feeds the original, “black” ghettos, feeding their politically powerful support to those in government who feed the welfare industry. More recent ghettos based on Central and South American attitudes and language(s) actually compete for the support from the welfare industry that was largely delivered to blacks 50 years ago. The United States literally fights to grow those ghettos in contravention of our own laws. This is doubly unhealthy since it cements a disregard for law amongst our fastest growing minorities, many of whom reside here illegally. Very unhealthy.

Very few within the ghettos described share understandings of our Constitution or of our common law and standards. For these growing sub-cultures, there is no need to forget our heritage: they come or are born without it and there is no requirement to adopt it in order to enjoy our land and protections, legally and honestly or not.

For the rest of us, upon whom the survival of the ideas of America rests, many of our youth are ignorant of, have forgotten or have been instructed away from those ideas. One generation is all it will take to lose everything.

Culture, Economics, Education, Family, Immigration, Race, Responsibility, Trump

Party of Hate

February 16, 2019 Prudence Leadbetter Leave a comment

“Doctors” learn this procedure from one another to become “good” at it.

The battle over a “border wall” on the southern, Mexican border is a symptom of larger and more significant hatreds motivating a large minority of American residents. One hopes, and prays, that those same will step back and reconsider their desire to feed such ugly motivations. Led by Democrat leaders like Nancy Pelosi and Charles Schumer, Barack Obama and now, Andrew Cuomo, and many others, these new political haters appear to share several common traits:

They hate the Constitution as it was designed and written. The intent of the founders cannot be accepted, in their views, because some of them owned slaves, a grievous custom, without question, but totally irrelevant to the ideas and philosophies they espoused. In fact, the designers and compilers of the American ideas were ALL opposed to slavery and did their best to help it phase out of American life. Read Frederick Douglass; he understood.
They are deeply ignorant of American and of European history, and of the Bible, itself. The underpinnings of American culture are ignored by them, even reviled.
The institutions of government are trusted by them more than any individual’s motivation, and the seeming ability to legislate or regulate – doesn’t much matter – people to act as their fellow thinkers wish, is so tantalizing as to distort the presence or even the perception of liberty.
They view America’s existence as an affront to all non-white, non-European people, and therefore not deserving of defense, even of its borders, and that the history of America should be erased from people’s minds and certainly from educational systems so that America’s evilness and corruption can never again interfere with universal sharing of all wealth or with individual freedoms to play, fornicate and indulge as Gaia intended, under the careful watch of the Smarter Ones. They’ll identify themselves.

So, politics is not the actions of a free people to choose their leaders and governing philosophies; it is the benign control of wages, prices and production so that everyone is EQUAL, with brownish people being more equal than white people. Skills-based education will no longer be required for most students, so long as there are enough very smart people who should be compensated for making everyone else comfortable.

The quaint chaos of individuality and “freedom” can be avoided.

The majesty of American citizenship is unique in the world. There is no system like ours. Anyone… anyone, anyone who can honestly swear to uphold the Constitution, obey civic law, pay his or her bills and act responsibly, can become an American – an actual, living, breathing, American. One wishes those born here were held to the same standards, but still, it’s impossible to sign up for a French residency and ever, ever become, well, French. The same is true for Japan, China, Japan, Korea, or India or virtually any ethnically defined country. You might get to live in other countries legally, but you’ll never become one of them. America, including Canada, is different. America is defined by the ideas that formed her, and by geography. That’s it. No matter how hard racists of every shade attempt to say America is defined by white skin, it has never been so.

This is not to say there haven’t been some terrible ideas held by “Whites.” There are terrible ideas held by every race. The tendencies to gain power or wealth or women by whatever means can be devised, legality and justice be damned, is pretty much universal. The religious / ethical belief structures that lead us to contain those desires, to channel them for greater goods, to construct families that produce good adults from the children they are responsible for… those we are tearing down by every means possible, even through new laws that give status to the most twisted perversions and hatreds.

Hatred of America is readily evidenced by laws – LAWS – that permit partial-birth “abortion” and even infanticide for the most temporal purposes, even convenience. Since Roe v. Wade was given Supreme Court justification, we have killed-off 61 million Americans while importing 30 million non-Americans to “pay for our Social Security.” The trouble with Americans is they might become infected with individuality, Constitutionalism, responsibility and freedom! So, we destroy those who might make America stronger and import, illegally, those more likely to be dependent upon the whims and pleasures of the Smarter Ones, made widely known by their widely parroted self-declarations.

Trump, for all his flaws and imperfections, is trying, almost alone, to restore the mighty engines of freedom. If we are waiting for perfect, flawless leaders to arrive before we follow them away from rot and debauchery, we’ll wait forever while the last great hope of mankind is pissed away.

Culture, Economics, Education, Family, Representation

The Fibers of failure

January 16, 2019 Prudence Leadbetter Leave a comment

Things just aren’t the same, anymore… have you noticed? On the other hand, it’s not Prudent to say they ever were – the same I mean. Strong societies like the United States, remain strong because some things are the same, in fact; to protect ourselves, our grandchildren and their grandchildren, the strong fibers in our culture must be defended and inculcated in our children as well as in ourselves. There are too many who should understand their presence and purpose but appear ignorant of them.

One such fiber is our Constitution. Conservatives revere it; leftists unceasingly circumvent it. Since its adoption the Constitution has held strong, but has no effect on national direction when governance simply steps into the shadows and ignores it. Most of that determined ignorance includes big tax-funded payoffs to politically significant segments of the citizenry, cementing the synthesis, into the new thesis that the Constitutional limitation on this or that governing act actually could be interpreted in a different (socialistic) way. Later there is always the new antithesis that, couched in terms of “equal protection under the law” and “non-discrimination,” must, “constitutionally” be applied to still more segments until there’s a permanent acceptance of that much socialism by the very conservatives who believe they are defending the Constitution! It’s a strong, inelastic fiber that’s been stretched, nevertheless, over the past 150 years.

Conservatives believe that pulling back from the severe strains on the Constitutional fiber, is the only long-term solution to the survival of the American idea.

Religion, churches (church-communities) and religious education form a fiber that is perceived as “quaint” by the leftist elements on the East and West coasts and urban pockets in between. Anti-religion is strong on college campuses, as it is in public grade and high schools. Being at least agnostic, if not atheistic, is worn as a badge of intellectual status, certainly since the 1960’s; those still attending are being taught that the Bible and the words of Jesus somehow fit socialism. In response, churches are failing to define the difference between worldly comforts and holy purposes of life. Government, under a Constitutional guarantee of non-interference in and by religion itself, has proven feckless and works harder to divest itself of moral responsibility at every level. This “fiber” is threadbare and undependable.

Family cohesiveness is the core strength of any society. In no culture has the strength and identity of mores and traditions been separated from widespread, if not complete, adherence to the family “pattern,” until the degradation of “Western,” culture, now entering its seventh decade. It is quickly becoming America’s greatest weakness and we have repeatedly elected representatives who facilitate it with misguided welfare programs. Without succeeding generations of “America”-acculturated citizens, there will be no “nation” and worse, there will be no one to defend it. Electronics and computerized health-care are not substitutes for strong, morally straight families, for only they form the “fiber” of freedom and self-government enabled through the Constitution.

Public education is the second greatest acculturation mechanism and process we have. By default public schools and teachers are charged with the responsibility to educate succeeding members of our society and culture: new “Americans,” in truth. Since the 1970’s, certainly, teachers and their unions have cemented themselves into codified bailiwicks where they can teach almost anything without fear of being fired, while rewarding those elected “representatives” who protect their “bailiwicks,” with solid political support. Unthinking – or lightly thinking – citizens vote for said “representatives” and vote further to “support” public education with tax increases and overrides to prove their great morality in defense of an American tradition. Meanwhile, “teachers” are increasingly producing less-literate graduates who distrust, if not hate, the United States and the true traditions of sacrifice, thrift, personal responsibility and Judeo-Christianity, while embracing socialism, of all things the most antithetical to American success and strength. As a culture we are failing miserably to make the fabric of our nation stronger, and we grin as we reward those who facilitate our internal weakness. This “fiber” is now almost invisible, maintained mostly in private, church-connected schools, and not all of those.

Finance and wealth creation have been, and should be, strong fibers in the fabric of industrialized societies, of which the United States is one, like it or not. Both are tightly connected to honesty in our legal structures, honesty in our contracts, honesty in our “money,” fair debt creation and destruction, and private property. In short, the economics of the Bible, both old and new testaments, like it or not. Proto-socialists rail against “unfair” wealth “distribution.” They are simultaneously right and wrong. Wealth is not “distributable,” per se, and “fairness” is irrelevant, but the accumulation and possession of “wealth,” is certainly uneven, leading to strong feelings of envy and raw hatred of the “greedy.” These feelings are political minefields and rich fodder for politicians whose beliefs are fundamentally anti-American… or anti-family: same thing. But back to “money”:

Financially, the federal government is a failure, unable to maintain its own household within a budget and even to create an honest budget through anything close to honest legislation. Because the Congress can, and the U. S. is in a global position to enable it, the federal government borrows more than it can (ever) repay, every fiscal year. Despite these well-known facts of financial incompetence, American voters continue to elect “representatives” who believe – and require by legislation – that more and more of every American’s personal financial security should depend upon or be in the hands of, the federal government. This “fiber” is a misconstrual of the “strings” that federal intrusion always includes – strings that could strangle us.
Debt is a tool of growth, investment, liquidity, defense, achievement, construction, infrastructure, public health and more, much more. Yet it is also a weapon, threatening and weakening whole nations, indeed, every nation. Instead of leading the world economically, proving the superiority of free enterprise and freedom itself, the United States has succumbed to banking globalism and to the blandishments of socialism, under which “investments” are made in daily necessities for large fractions of our population. Economically there is no “R.O.I” – return on investment – where debt is incurred in the furthering of dependency. The U. S. carries a “current” debt liability that is approaching annual G.D.P. Our productivity cannot generate sufficient surplus to even “service” that debt (pay the interest on it) without borrowing other debt to do so, given the nature of our entitlement budget and bloated pension commitments. Weapon-wise, debt allows international banking to FORCE the U. S. to borrow to meet its commitments for interest payments. Every dollar of debt is a dollar of weakness, not strength; of obligation, not freedom. Our “representatives” are doing this type of budgeting “for” us since it’s too complicated for us to understand.
Money is real. That is, “money” has intrinsic value: gold, silver, platinum or other “hard” currencies, or the notes that stand for a set value of real money so long as those notes may be traded for real money on demand. We don’t have “money” any longer, although we have currency that we are still willing to work for, sell for, buy with and “save up” for those rainy days. Written on the notes in our pockets are official dictates that this or that piece of paper shall be accepted as “legal tender” in all transactions, public or private. Someone famous and/or important has his or her name printed nearby affirming the quality of the banknotes we hold. They are no longer U. S. Notes, they are Federal Reserve Notes, a private bank with a public name. Instead of having the U. S. Mint simply print U. S. Notes when we need more liquidity in the economy, we incur a debt to the Federal Reserve bank, and others, including foreign countries – debts we have no hope of repaying in principal, while our obligation to “service” those debts is unending. The government prints U. S. Bonds, however, which are accepted as good instruments for the loans their purchasers are making to the United States. The question, is, therefore, if the bonds are good, why not skip the growing interest cost and just print our own money? Hmmmnnnhh.
So, our money is not honest. It is, instead, merely confidence notes that we and most of the world, accept. Federal Reserve Notes may be exchanged at any so-called bank only for other Federal Reserve Notes… not for gold or silver or anything of intrinsic value except, if inclined, for modern pennies, the content of which cost more than 1 cent. Melting them down for the intrinsic metal value is a crime, of course. More and more we exchange our “cash” for magnetic bubbles on a hard drive, trusting the federally regulated “bank” to protect the record so that we may access it at gasoline pumps, hardware stores and websites that will trade books and electronic gizmos for a share of those magnetic records. We are now a couple of layers of separation from real-value-money and yet fully confident that “our” money is both safe and safely “ours.”
Our entire economy is based on, and priced on, debts and interest. Think about it. Our rush to “cashless” commerce carries a very high price, whether one makes use of credit cards or not. First, the merchant/ restaurateur who accepts your card, must pay the transfer or remitting agent a fee for that privilege – a fee based on a percentage of the transaction amount, including taxes. This may be 1.5%, 2%, 3% and occasionally more depending on total flow of “credit” transactions for that single location or for the total transactions for a chain of locations. Many card-holders use “Rewards” cards to obtain fractional cash-back or “miles” or other goodies marketed as though free, simply as a thank-you for using the card. In reality those “rewards” raise the fees to the vendor/merchant for the privilege of accepting the card. Those costs are recouped entirely from the cost of goods sold – there is no free lunch. Later, the card-holder receives a bill from the “credit-card company” (bank) for all the stupid latte’s, Big Macs and smoothies he or she has enjoyed during the month preceding. Smart card-holders pay that bill in total the minute they receive it, but a large and growing percentage do not, allowing some of the balance to carry over to the next billing cycle, incurring upwards of 20% or more interest! Some even pay only the minimum suggested to keep the collection process at bay – this figure leads to maximization of the total interest the cardholder will eventually pay to the bank that has, in effect, loaned him or her enough money to buy lunch… or gas… or movie tickets… or even subway rides. As above, so below, when it comes to debt-consciousness. In effect then, our entire retail economy and large segments of wholesale purchases carries a “vig” of 2% or more on average; that is, 2%, say, on about $6 Trillion in retail sales and 25% or more than that in wholesale/raw-materials sales. The interest cost on costs of goods, is approaching $200 Billion. Where does that money go, one wonders? We’re all paying for it.

The once-strong thread of thrift and sacrifice has disappeared, leaving all of us – and our supposedly “rich” nation, indebted for life, our children’s lives, their children’s lives and the lives of further generations than they. What an inheritance.

Suffice to say that our nation is adrift. One political party/movement: liberal, progressive, socialist, Democrat, is prostrating itself before the twin altars of unrestricted abortion and legalizing drugs and other crimes, and the altar of outsiders: non-citizens unwilling to provide for themselves or to follow our most basic national laws. The other is tripping over its shoelaces trying to remain relevant to media that share the liberal, progressive, socialist, Democrat viewpoints – and philosophies – while trying to overcome 60 years of feckless education (also liberal, progressive, socialist, Democrat-leaning) that has separated 3 generations of Americans from their history, heritage and founding majesty.

Politicizing, even codifying, every feeling and hatred, has not rendered ours a happier or more cohesive society. Indeed, it is not even “fairer.” Politics that channels hatreds requires the aggravation of envy and jealousy; it requires the accentuation of differences between groups rather than between individuals. So-called “identity politics” leads to identifying each group’s enemies and resisting, if not attacking them. Civility as a tool for nation-building is not simply unemployed, it is mocked.

When differences between individuals is dealt with – usually in small, civil steps – what usually develops is an understanding of how much more similar they/we are, than different. Individuals don’t usually hurl epithets at unrelated, unconnected individuals, it takes a mob mentality to do so, and then it is done in order to or because of some perceived membership in a mob-hated group. Civility, and civilization itself, takes work, commonality, leadership, both individual and social. A Constitutional Republic like the United States is based on individual, not group responsibility; it is based on self-control and individual responsibility, not group control or group responsibility. Keep this distinction in mind. One need not be Christian to appreciate that the New Testament was a covenant with individuals and not with tribes or peoples. Ours is a “Christian” nation in that our Constitution enables individual success and failure, and individual responsibility to one’s community, family and self for the consequences of one’s actions… and, perhaps, to God.

Culture, Economics, Education, Governance, Politics 2018

MATTHEW’S Wolves

December 10, 2018 Prudence Leadbetter Leave a comment

Much is made of “division” in the United States. “Left” and “Right” are “far apart” on the “issues.” Congress is “hopelessly” divided, “races” are divided, the “middle class” is being destroyed. What is going on?

How has the America of World War II, of Eisenhower and J. F.K., Moon landings and even of 9-11, turned into a multi-cultural, deeply indebted nation that seems no longer to have common purpose or even common vision? The only nation launched on the distillation of ideas, philosophies and experiences about FREEDOM – freedom for individuals – has entered into an era of division, disagreement and hatred for opposing opinions and for those holding them. How did we get here? Why haven’t we arrived somewhere else… someplace where our better natures, better educations, better communications and greater technical opportunities would make us more unified, stronger, more capable and even more equally prosperous – free-er, one might have hoped?

There have to have been forces, perhaps “efforts” applied to divert the hope of generations, indeed to divert the “hope” of the “free” world– the dream of the not-free world – into a path of division and hatreds, a path of ultimate destruction and dissolution. What “forces?” It should be no surprise that the strongest forces applied against America’s future come from inside our borders. As always,there are and have been competitors, opponents and enemies from outside. How we have dealt and deal with all of them,comes from inside.

Have there been “outside” forces in our favor? One might count France among those, without whose assistance the bloody divorce from England’s monarchy would have failed in 1783. In an odd, sad way, The French revolution also instructed our fledgling nation as to the excesses to avoid in search of ephemeral purity. In a sense we owe much to both France and to England for the philosophical bases of America. Their joint challenges of World War I caused “America” to repay our debts, most specifically to France when General Pershing”s chief administrative aide, Colonel Charles Stanton, declared to France, and to the World in a sense, “Lafayette, we are here.” And America, having won the great internal battle for its soul in the 1860’s, had clearly grown to national adulthood,ready to play its part in establishing order and correcting injustice.

Although the influences of socialism had begun inserting themselves after the Civil War, it was our new international position during the first world war that enabled statist, Woodrow Wilson, to attempt to replace America’s national independence with a new global partnership, the League of Nations, including, he hoped, conforming our independence to that new order… such is the overarching dream of the strongest “outside” forces against American independence and survival.

To begin the process of bringing America down from its skyrocketing growth and influence, required financial brakes. The first Federal Reserve tryout resulted in the Great Depression and the installation of a social engineering president,FDR, and the great socialist program, Social Security. And, it began the new education of Americans, whose economic fears subsumed the promises of freedom and the duties of responsibility and even the lessons of the Bible. Dependence upon government taxing authority could be suddenly, slyly defined as the new INDEPENDENCE: a remarkable accomplishment over the span of just 11 years. These were inside forces, infinitely more powerful than the outside forces that encouraged and encourages them still.

World War II briefly delayed the socialist wave, even as communists embedded in the federal government prepared Americans for wholehearted embrace of the United Nations as the well-fertilized seedling of a “new world order.” Deeply flawed Joe McCarthy flared brightly as he exposed a number of communists in and near the State and Defense Departments… so did Congressman, Richard Nixon. In the 1960’s society and government were transformed. Government by the Great Society and the 3 assassinations; society by drugs, sex and rock-and-roll, but I repeat myself. Mixed among these social assaults upon morality were the retirements of the great educators – educators who taught more in high school than students learn in college it seems, today. Education became liberal and within the decade, socialist.

The Vietnam war, controlled in large part by the U. N., destroyed the nation’s trust in the rightness and righteousness of government. We were killing soldiers stupidly, without a goal or plan for victory. The hope of the world was dimmed, its trustworthiness diminished. Despite winning virtually every battle in Vietnam, The U. S. conceded defeat and crawled home ashamed. A process of military stalemate, begun in Korea, multiplied in Vietnam, has persisted to the current time, fulfilling the socialist lie that no nation is any better than any other, no culture is exceptional, no social structure is superior. September 11, 2001 came and… well, went, its lessons unlearned and turned against ourselves.

Government can no longer do enough. A president who believed the Constitution is fatally flawed with its “negative rights,” was elected and re-elected. Inside forces. Generations, now, believe that a Constitution without socialism is not worth defending and they don’t even see the dichotomy. Inside forces.

Now education is likely the most potent inside force that pushes and molds our supposedly self-governing citizens. Given the remarkable resources developed inside the United States, one might think that the education of American citizens would be wholly according to our own heritage and culture, yet we are turning out American youth who’ve been taught that every other culture on Earth is equal to or better than our own, and that our heritage and history is so flawed as to be indefensible. No history-changing, indeed, history-improving ideas about freedom and self-governance and governmental constraints, can be allowed credence any longer because actions taken by the respective thinkers 250 , 300 and 500 years ago, are disapproved-of in the 21^st century.

One is stressed to imagine a greater waste of time or greater loss of opportunity. Instead of leading today’s students – inheritors of the exceptionalism of America’s founding – to grasp and then build upon, improve upon, the phenomenal break with history that our Constitution represented and represents, its lessons are rejected in favor, unbelievably, of socialism,and denigrated in preference for division and hatred. Is this accidental? Is the inexorably leftward, anti-constitutional drift of U. S. education all happenstance? Is it reasonable for a purposeful society to maintain some control over the imparting of culture to its youth? Or shall the freedoms we enjoy be defended only in terms of their allowance for the undermining of the foundations of that society?

Inside forces. Beware of wolves in sheep’s clothing.

Culture, Economics, Governance, Representation, Taxation

Innocence, Debauchery, and the American Dream

November 17, 2018 Prudence Leadbetter Leave a comment

America suffers in the 21st century not from a loss of innocence, but from a loss of discrimination… a loss of judgment. Mankind has never lacked for debauchery nor for ways to debauch nearly every civilized function, from work, construction and development to education, medicine, churches and religion. Everything “we” have discovered or invented, we seem to have figured out how to besmirch and cheapen… like government.

Government, at least since Saul fell on his sword and bequeathed kingship to David, however inadvertently, has been occasionally a good invention, often completely inimical to human growth and perfection. Okay, okay, humans are perfected only in the rarest of circumstances, but, still, government is mostly inimical. In the long sweep of history, despite themselves, governments have brought a semblance of order, enabled scientific advances, established widespread education – some of it good – and provided measures of safety and peace within which individuals can seek happiness, or perfection, or both.
The last we call constitutional republicanism which stands out among the dozens of forms of tyranny still in use. Nevertheless, despite its promise, this form of self-governance has not been immune to the diabolical inventiveness of the forces of debauchery, of which there is space enough to discuss only a few.

Money is big in the debauchery field, as it is in the politician field, making it frequently difficult to discern between them. There never is enough money in the politician field, particularly where it intersects with socialist whims. Money, money, money means taxes, taxes, taxes and from time to time the working people object to taxation and politicians, who have the clarity of vision denied to workers, can perceive – if not create – hordes of dependents for whom that tax money is so sorely needed. That some dependents are billionaires is of little importance in the grand scheme of dependency. You’ve got your troubles, I’ve got mine.

So if taxation can’t be trusted to produce money fast enough, it becomes increasingly crucial that ways to expand the income of government be devised and, politicians having been elected and installed for their unique efficiencies, recognize that there is no point to re-inventing the wheel, as it were, in the matters of government income, so turn to the financial successes of debauchery for new ideas. Humans have left no stone unturned in the search for ways to cheat others out of their hard-earned money and one of the neatest tricks is the infamous “Ponzi Scheme.” It is easily explained:

A Ponzi scheme is an investment fraud where clients are promised
a large profit at little to no risk. Companies that engage in a Ponzi
scheme focus all of their energy into attracting new clients to make
investments. This new income is used to pay original investors their
returns, marked as a profit from a legitimate transaction. Ponzi
schemes rely on a constant flow of new investments to continue to
provide returns to older investors. When this flow runs out,
the… scheme… falls… apart. [From “Investopedia”]

When the government, itself – who convicted Ponzi for fraud in 1920 – follows Ponzi’s formula, it takes a longer view and fewer dollars from each “investor,” and calls it “Social Security.” No slouches in the debauchery of public trust, politicians are able to compel workers to “invest” by force of police power, and then restrict the “returns” to only so many dollars per month and only after leaving the “investment” fallow for decades. That way the originators of the fraud will have passed on before the scope of the trick is figured out by the “investors.” “Invested” funds are then used to get future “investors” to vote for future perpetrators.

Prudence would suggest that “investors” should contemplate the consequences of having personally (actually) invested 15% of their pay over their entire working career. Upon retirement they would have had a huge financial asset and they wouldn’t be dependent on government to dribble back their own money! Of course, empowering citizens to live WITHOUT government is as anti-socialist as it could be and virtually never allowed even lip-service.

We need to give politicians the power to make life, health and death decisions for us.

Social Security really took off after World War II, as payrolls grew and pay rates along with them. The river of money was “re-invested” in all sorts of vital, crucial, crisis-averting expenditures that any sane and humane investor would endorse… had he or she known of them. After 1968 especially, the number of non-citizens who arrived on our shores seeking the “American Dream” exploded, and the means to support their “disabled, disadvantaged” selves derived from the “lockbox” of Social Security cash. Naturally, thanks to Ted Kennedy’s (the lyin’ of the Senate) legislation (Hart-Cellar Act), the colors and origins of immigrants are more important than the needs of the United States, and their relatives became more important than immigrants who can actually contribute to the strength of the nation. Many had/have no marketable skills or are “disabled” and “qualify” for SSDI or SSI support derived from – you guessed it – the “investments” of those canny worker-investors who are so proud of their own district’s Representative and state’s two Senators… oh, yes.

Unexpectedly, the Social “Security” lockbox tends to empty more quickly than promised. More money is needed! What to do? What to do without “raising taxes,” of course? There must be a form of debauchery… uhmm, we mean, outright mendacity and fraud… well, not that, of course, but some kind of “wool” that can be pulled over enough people’s eyes… naw, that’s just an old political joke, ha – ha – ha. There must be a form of courageous legislative governance that can find “new” revenue to meet the nation’s vital, crucial, crisis-averting expenditures. Aha! Loans!

Fortunately, globalist bankers had finally convinced Congress to approve the creation of a means to provide constant DEBT to the federal government. Now, if you’re one of those worker-investors we were talking about, you’re asking yourself: “Who in Hell would want a supply of debt?” (And you’d be right, but it’s a different topic.) “Everyone wants to get OUT of debt,” you’d say to yourself, being right a second time, “and anyone trying to get more debt should have his head examined!” (Or, his ledgers… again, right!)

Growing governments while controlling countries is a long-term plan. The international socialists have been at it for a long, long time. The “income” tax was instituted by amendment in 1913. This provided a large enough river of funds to enable the government to “help” itself and more and more people. Interestingly and, it certainly must be coincidentally, the Federal Reserve Act – a 20-year project of the largest banks – was passed at the end of… well, ha!… 1913! Both long-term efforts needed a global statist like Woodrow Wilson to be president in order to come to fruition.

The only way to quietly undermine the nationalism and freedom of the United States was to plant the seeds of debt and a private bank that controls the nation’s money supply is the best tool to do so. The “Fed,” as it’s called, makes economic policy as it sees fit. The “governors” don’t take advice from elected representatives, most of whom are happy to not be responsible for too awfully much. Whenever the Chairman of the Federal Reserve testifies in Congress it’s to tell Congress how things are going to be and not to ask the people’s representatives how things should be. The “Fed” is about as “federal” as Federal Express.

So what about how a central bank can control a nation’s economy? Why would any Congress vote for that? Well for the first 20 years or so the new “Fed” was practicing frog boiling, and the financial waters were just pleasantly warm… until the crash of 1929 and the attempts by, first, Hoover, and then by Roosevelt, to force an end to DE-flation and unemployment by running deficits and pushing the private economy to adapt to federal pressure. The federal government could borrow in the face of the human problems that bad economics had wrought.

Adopting the programs initiated by Hoover, FDR managed to keep the U. S., and much of the world, in depression until the Second World War broke out. Prior to the emergency legislation passed during the “Banking Holiday” of 1933, the 12 “Fed” Districts made policy on their own, enabling some to do severe damage in parts of the country while recovery was stumbling forward in others. Naturally, the preferred answers to the crisis were always based in more central control, essentially the story and the outcome of the “Great Depression.”

Until the Federal Reserve was created the U.S., like most industrial nations, was on “the gold standard.” United States Dollars represented a number of grains of 90% pure gold. That is, an ounce of “.9 fine” gold “cost” $20.67 and had since 1900. Never failing to take advantage of a crisis, 1930’s era leftists – FDR and the “brain trust” – used the banking and international gold crises to obtain emergency legislation making private ownership of gold coins, metal or bullion illegal! That is, everyone had to turn in his or her gold in exchange for $35.00 worth of U. S. “dollars” (actually, Federal reserve notes) that were now backed by so many grains of silver or by 60% as many grains of gold than prior to the seizure. It was pretty slick.

The federal government had acquired tons of gold for, in effect, next to nothing, but gold was now valued at $35 an ounce of .9 fine purity. Suddenly the government had a lot of money to spend in its attempts to correct the severe deflation and unemployment afflicting the U. S. and other industrialized nations. Most of it helped but did not solve the fundamental problems in the economy; it took a big war to do that.

We have got to give the federal government total control over our life, health and death decisions.

Where there is a name for schemes like Social Security (“Ponzi”), there isn’t a moniker for what happened to America between the two world wars, except, perhaps, “Progressivism,” not to be confused with “Progress.”

In a Constitutional Republic, “Progress” is measured first by how large a fraction of the population DOESN’T DEPEND ON GOVERNMENT for basic needs like housing, food, clothing, employment and health care. It’s also measured by the quality of citizenship, the honesty of jurisprudence, of police agencies and individuals, the clarity and even-handed enforceability of laws, the honesty of education and the level of cultural agreement by and amongst the vast majority of its citizenry.

The worst chicanery of all is the structure of the federal budget, which is barely a budget at all since it is about 75% “entitlements.” Congress has NEVER cut the budget, has never cut an “entitlement,” has never gotten rid of an “executive” department, has never paid down the national debt, at least in the past 60-odd years, has not failed to borrow from our great-great grandchildren for a like period, and has never audited the “Federal” Reserve. That’s because it’s.., well…, too busy. They are so busy on our behalf of course, and so tired from “fighting” for the middle class and “working” families who are non-working families to a significant degree, fighting to “improve education” and “leveling playing fields,” that there is barely enough time to begin to explain why what rational people think should be done simply can’t be done, unless they write a check for the campaign.

Mostly, they are too busy raising money for re-election, which is the number-one mission after a couple of years in office, and helping their real constituency: the congressmen and women and senators who sit nearby, because THEY can help in the fight for re-election more than any other group in the country.

We elect them, you and I, because their counterparts in the other party – pick one – are such scurrilous bastards and bitches that we have to keep “our” representative or senator in there so that we can continue the fight to “take back our country.” And a check for the campaign is not only vital, right at the moment you tear open your mailer, but may be multiplied up to FIVE times if your check is received by midnight 4 or 5 days hence.

Save yourself and the “campaign” even more, maximizing the value of your support, by using a (bank) interest-bearing credit-card to make your nation-saving donation!

Leftists are loathe to argue principles but they love to set the terms of public discussion. To effect that control they have to change the meaning of words… like “democracy,” for example. Where ”democracy” once meant a system of civic governance where the majority ruled – right or wrong – it now means “when Democrats rule… right or wrong.” So, when non-Democrats are in power, having been elected by a majority of votes, they are “threatening democracy.”

The United States is not organized as a “democracy.” It is a Constitutional Republic with democratically elected representatives and, interestingly, democratically elected executives, part of an extraordinarily well-designed system of dividing powers and constituencies to which each must answer. But power is vested in representatives of the citizenry who, the original theory is, are knowledgeable, honest and willing to sacrifice for their fellow citizens. That last is where the system breaks down. There no longer is any sacrifice! Right under our noses “our” representatives have turned the tables on us and we didn’t smell the odor!

Being an elected official, legislator or appointed officer in any of our states’ governments, the federal government, certainly, most cities and in virtually every public school system on up through state colleges and universities, is a very sweet deal – far more lucrative and secure than any “private” sector position, and with better benefits, more holidays and many “perks.” The “public servants” in today’s equation are you and me: taxpayers… and we don’t get free healthcare when WE retire.

“Representing” ignorant taxpayers is the best job many reps and senators will ever have: high pay, big benefits and almost no responsibility beyond re-election. Americans, themselves, should have it so good.

And, finally, for this chapter, the biggest scheme of all: that “debt” we looked at earlier. A “ponzi” scheme would seem a bad enough swindle for elected representatives to foist upon their “constituents,” but the worst is far, far greater, and so slick that Republicans are regularly denigrated for attempting to slow it – not STOP it, slow it – by just a few billions from time to time. Somehow, Democrats tell us, not going further and further into debt to pay the INTEREST-only on earlier debt, is tantamount to treason and threatens to “ruin the credit rating of the United States of America!” God save the Queen!

If you are seeking a way to judge the veracity, competence, integrity, legitimacy or sensibleness of ANY federal Congress-person, just consider the CURRENT national debt. You do know that it’s closing in on $21 TRILLION dollars, yes?

You do realize that it threatens our very economic existence? That it represents how far beyond our national means we have lived for the past 60 years? That it exemplifies the utter inability of our elected representatives (so far) to manage the budget for which they ARE responsible… and for which job they have earnestly sought our votes?

Do you recognize that unlike wars and other existential threats, since the “Great Society” kicked in, in 1968, every social discomfort has been labeled a “crisis,” confirmed by rigged congressional testimony, making raising the so-called “debt ceiling” every year an act of “courage” and of patriotism. Those 21 Trillion dollars are the proof that socialism will destroy our freedom. It is taking a long time because of the exceptional work ethics of Americans, but our economic destruction is a safe prediction, given that the history of the last 6 decades of representative government in our (ostensible) 2-party system is one of utter economic debauchery.

But then, there’s always Broward County.

The Civil Right