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“20-20” Not So clear

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Oh say, can you see?
Oh say, can you see?

As Minneapolis (and three dozen other cities) burns and is given over to lawless thugs because, evidently, it is politically correct to do so and politically incorrect to arrest looters and arsonists and vandals, the United States has to face some uncomfortable truths, and resolve to believe them, since they are, well… true.

Here is one: sixty years of federalized welfare has destroyed the lives, hopes and attitudes of many blacks.  It has also destroyed the black family unit which had been gaining ground at an accelerated rate for two decades prior to the Great society, and at an uneven, but relentlessly upward direction for seven or eight decades prior to that.

Here’s another:  government cannot “fix” racism, nor can it “make” people love one another, or desire to integrate with one another.  What government, through the adjudication of INjustice can do, is set standards and make clear the police, judicial and penal consequences for the mistreatment of any individual, whether civilly or criminally.

We have enough laws.  We have the most beautiful Constitution and amendments that create a legal  structure of equality of opportunity for every individual, and of equality under the law for every individual.  But the rights guaranteed on paper do not belong to the government nor do they come from government; they belong to United States citizens who have formed  governments to ensure, protect and enforce those rights.  And, when those rights are abrogated by institutions or by individuals, those same governments, who are formed by and paid by we the people, and who are obligated to defend, protect and serve US, must take correct, legal, swift action against the offender(s).

Unfortunately our political structures have failed, largely in order to serve themselves, to treat individuals as deserving of every right and freedom as sovereign individuals, but rather as members of groups – groups who can be defined by either victimhood or unfair advantage.  Identity politics is the underlying acid that has eaten away at the foundations of success for Americans.  It is the same acid that leaves us, nationally, nearly destitute, as we constantly borrow from future generations to make ourselves more comfortable or politically powerful (and wealthy) today.  For shame.

The long-term political structure in Minneapolis and in Minnesota, generated and managed the police and judicial environments that left large numbers of people so distrustful of authority that a spark like a bad police action ignited the pent-up hatreds that politicians have pretended for years have nothing to do with them.  Their reaction is to blame President Trump.  He’ll react, somehow, and almost no one will be happy with what he does or doesn’t do.  Under the Constitution, under our federal system of 50 sovereign states, and under hundreds of years of common law and morals, it is not the president’s job or duty to resolve the grievances suffered by an individual in Minneapolis, Minnesota, except  that he must direct the Department of Justice to ascertain whether federal laws or Constitutionally protected rights have been abrogated. 

He cannot override the government of Minnesota or of Minneapolis.  Yet as the office of president has become as much one of celebrity as of competence or leadership, people, and the press, expect every problem to be federalized.  Competing political forces are attempting to gain advantage by spewing their own hates and dislikes in efforts to gain power from a bad even that, under group identity politics, is portrayed as a national problem.  It is an individual problem, allowed to fester by incompetent local police management and union politics, which played out against an individual, whose family, without question, deserves justice and probably substantial compensation for wrongful death at the hands of the city of Minneapolis.

If the political “leaders” of that city had any vision, they’d be having every other police officer in that department hand-deliver notes of regret and sorrow to Mr. Floyd’s family, with promises to prevent any such event.

The problem is that the utterly corrupt political cabals that generated the equally utter hopelessness that engenders the bottomless hatred for “white” society and control systems – like police – is not the group we should expect to propose a solution for utter corruption.  Just saying.  These are human conditions, created by humans.  Humans can, if armed with the right attitudes and beliefs – philosophies, if you will – prescribe right policies and applications of law and freedom that will unleash the creative, constructive power of inner-city citizens regardless of color.  If you are unable to believe this is possible, then you cannot help form the new structure… can you?

To help the irresolute, Prudence can provide a “coral fact,” as they say in Hawaii, to wit: increasing welfare payments to anyone is nowhere part of the solution.  So, let’s think fresh thoughts.  Actually, they need not be all that fresh, since the mechanisms of success and personal independence are rather well known.  “Oh, c’mon, Prudence!  These are complex problems.  Blacks have been repressed and discriminated against for hundreds of years in this country.  The solutions will take time.”  Words to that effect will be tossed across important looking meeting rooms for months after these riots are almost forgotten by the “press.”

Some very serious person who “sees the big picture” is certain to say, “We can’t just cut people off from their EBT, can we.”  It should be a question but the speaker isn’t seeking any other answer… at all.  She (most likely a she who feels great sympathy for the downtrodden) is part of the welfare industry, not so very well paid, but paid above average, plus state benefits and pension.  And she cares a whole heck of a lot.  She always votes Democrat because they do the most to help the poor.  Ultimately the meeting breaks up after resolving to petition the state for massive reconstruction funds and new housing upgrades, and to have the entire congressional delegation file and back legislation to provide tax breaks to industries to invest in the riot-torn neighborhoods across the country.  They all feel very good about their answers to the problems.  Why, it could be 8, 9 years before there is any unrest in those cities.

People are made weaker from handouts, sympathy and low expectations.  Strength, self-esteem and purposeful living come from attainment.  Having someone tell you that even though you are a personal failure, full of hatreds and resentment for having accomplished nothing of value to others, that you are important and “entitled” to the same “equality” that others have, only weakens the listener.  He or she knows that his or her status and independence have not improved one iota since the last time a social worker told them they were just as worthy as any white person.  After a couple of generations of welfare subsistence, the “white” system is an enemy, not an example; the armed defenders of an obviously racist country and society are merely armed enemies whose actions are invalid at every police, judicial and penal level.  There is no possibility of compromise.

“Piss me off enough and I’m gonna’ burn your house down.”

It simply is not Prudent to attempt to fix the problems, now a mere membrane away, with the policies of the last 60 years that created them.  What have we got to lose?

One can observe the feckless reactions of mayors and governors to the transformation of “loving” protests into coordinated  riots across the country.  Are these failures based on political motivations?  They certainly are not based on executive decision-making.  What fools these liberals be.  Have we decided, politically, that there is more than one America?  That model has placed some of these nincompoops into power.  Do they fear losing their political influence so much that they will allow the destruction of their jurisdictions so as not to “offend” destructive mobs?  If there were ever an un-American group/organization it is Antifa, and these are the people who must not be offended?  For shame.

The neighborhoods where welfare is the largest source of income, and any family now in its second or later generation of welfare as its source of income, must be transformed.  This won’t happen by building nicer public housing, nice as it may be.  Even for those who have come to terms with never being independent of welfare handouts, they must be directed, guided, rewarded for and, ultimately, forced onto a path of attainment.  What does that mean?

First, responsibility.  This requires moral judgment on the part of the welfare industry, something for which current policies and employees thereof are incapable.  We have created a process of handing out monies by people who are just as resentful of “white” attainment models as are the increasingly hopeless clients of the system.  More welfare yields more resentment, so it’s not a solution model.  Public assistance must reward attainment, not mere acquiescence.  That is, recipients need to be taught to believe in their own ability to be responsible for themselves and, despite everything they’ve been taught or heard for 60 or 150 years, that their efforts will succeed. 

This won’t be done through “training programs,” “computer literacy” classes or voter recruitment drives.  Some form of “responsibility boot-camp” is required, operated by people who believe in free-enterprise capitalism and in “e pluribus unum.”  What have we got to lose?  Political influence?

Our existence as a nation depends on the ideas  that make us a nation.  We are not a nation because of shared ethnicity, but because of shared ideas and ideals, the main one of which is “Out of many, One” – e pluribus unum.  This is the American dream: that all kinds of people, recognizing that people are NOT all the same, but are all entitled to equality of opportunity – to make the most and best of themselves – and to equality under the law, can live as one people!  There is little else that a government “of the people, by the people and for the people,” can honestly do… or should do.  The breakdown of order in multiple cities here in late May of 2020, is the result of attempting to dishonestly  do for people not because of their equality under the law, but because of their inequality  under the law.

The socialist outlook is to disperse responsibility for failure and to force sharing of success.  And, they teach this fallacy, having assumed control, politically and actually, of the government education monopoly.  Without changing the belief of all of our citizens that there is a “sub-class” of people who are incapable of being responsible unto themselves and their families, the end result will fail to strengthen society.  We cannot “pay off” people who hate the concepts of America and thereby get them to suddenly love this nation.

Every single program going forward must be designed in accord with the principles of personal responsibility and of the opportunity to attain to ever greater success and status.

Attainment is not about getting rich, although money can, with the right attitudes, be part of the measure of it.  Getting richer  in many more ways than money is the truer measure.  So far, and it’s been only about 100,000 years, so it’s not yet proven, humans have found only one way to advance: by attaining to every level of advancement, which is to say, by striving for each.  So far, and it’s been only about 100,000 years, no one has been able to give attainment to anyone, only the opportunity to reach for it.

It would seem that no government has ever been able to grant anyone the rewards obtained by striving and earning a certain level of attainment, only money – which has never made anyone a better human.  It follows that no quantity of sympathetic or even empathetic words has ever changed the outcome of pretending that a person is not responsible for his or her decisions, actions or feelings; likewise, those words cannot change a handout into attainment.  Yet every human being has the spark of attainment from birth… until taught otherwise.

Clearly it is parents who must instill the essential morals and beliefs… and decency into their children.  Clearly millions of parents have failed miserably at their duty; our governments have failed by supporting “families” that take no responsibility for themselves, and less for their children.  Financing generational resentment is not a plan.  As local and state governments finally recognize the need to stop rioters, the question of what to do with violent, destructive, anti-American thugs who are not interested in the path of attainment, must be answered.  Do we think we’re going to coddle them enough or pay them enough to change their hatred to love?  Do we intend to just send them home to apartments that we renovate to make their living conditions more fair?

Where should they go?  What kind of jobs can they do – or would they do – to support themselves?  Drug dealing?  Gun dealing?  Extortion?  House painter?  Roofer?  Carpenter?  Do we expect to incarcerate them all until they turn nice or die?  In part, their state of hatred and resentment is “our” fault and we can’t continue treating them as we have under the “Great Society.”  Do we try to be “nicer” to them?  Those willing to riot and destroy businesses and willing to kill police, are not part of American society.  They are not like you and me and our children.  Should we reward their hatred for decent society because we feel sorry for them?  Where should we let them live?  Where should they be so that the rest of us are protected from them?

Should they get to eat if they don’t work to support themselves legally?  That’s a deeper question than it sounds.

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Free Repress

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I had a short sit-down with a most charming and intelligent lady recently – very Prudent in my judgment.  We agreed on nearly everything concerning her professional expertise and shared each other’s reminiscences from too many decades.  At a couple of points she had alluded to being “very liberal” without it influencing our discussions, while describing how her work improved individual  performance for business leaders and managers.  At that Prudence suggested that she probably is not as liberal as she thinks.  We never did get into either of our social views, but before parting it became very clear that conservative news sources could never be trusted while “liberal” ones always could.

In the end I opined that I wasn’t sure that President Obama was a natural born American, that his released birth certificate was forged in some way and that he was the only person in his administration who ever claimed he was born in Kenya, and I cited a statement on a “book jacket.”  She was able to name everyone related to or near the president in any way as scurrilous in the light of “more than 30 indictments,” for Heaven’s sake.  I suggested that they weren’t connected to Russian involvement with Trump and she listed a couple where people had been working for Turkey (Flynn) who later lied about meeting a Russian, and Paul Manafort, of course.

I was wrong about the “book jacket” reference: the claim was made by Obama’s literary agency in a booklet it used to promote books to large buyers, but Obama, himself, never challenged it until a couple months after declaring himself in the running for the Democrat nomination.  The literary agent lady claimed it was her personal mistake and that Obama himself had never told her personally that he was born in Kenya.  She probably derived the “belief” in his place of birth from the information in the Harvard Law School yearbook that listed the very same Barack Hussein Obama as having come from Kenya.  The very same Obama hadn’t challenged that, either, after having certainly seen it, he being the first African-American editor of the Harvard Law Review, after all.  So there is some validity to Prudence’ having formed a belief about his Kenyan origins.  Harvard, of course, “corrected” the yearbook entry after the controversy became news in 2007.  Lots of mistakes connected to one little-known individual’s demographics.

The idea of Obama’s grandmother, in Kenya, having been present at his birth, there, however, is not substantiated.  One of Obama’s half-brothers, among others, tried to float a fraudulent claim about a Kenyan birth certificate, which muddied the waters even more.

To the lady’s credit, despite rattling off every “Trump” negative possible in a very brief couple of sentences, there are many questions about Trump’s associates, himself, and even about his relatives – but it seems Prudent to await some sort of proof of the many embellishments certain media layer on to every indictment that has emitted from the Mueller operations.

Prudence would indicate that most of those who voted for Donald Trump don’t like him, particularly.  (See http://www.prudenceleadbetter.com/2017/11/29/trumpism-is-a-ghost/)  Many obviously do, imputing to him the persona of “one of the guys” even though he doesn’t drink or smoke.  They like the way he says what he thinks, even without the politically correct filtering.  Those who don’t “like” him also appreciate his willingness to throw out his opinions and willingness to call people out for their bad acts, lies and falsities of various sorts.  It doesn’t help that he is reckless in many of his statements to the point of stating his own falsities, but in most cases it doesn’t sound like “lies,” in the sense of malicious mendacity.  Opinions vary.  Still, a majority of states wanted the degree of change Trump would bring, regardless of his “baggage.”  Prudence agrees.

It is obvious, Prudence would indicate, that the creation of Fox News dramatically altered the “news” business, perhaps on a par with the creation of CNN.  The challenge to the amorphous leftism of, first, broadcast networks and then cable networks, caused those outlets to sharpen their stances and to attack “right wing news.”  With so few right-leaning networks, right-leaning politicians have naturally hewn closer to Fox and a handful of independent “blog,” YouTube and “Podcast” sources for “alternative” news and opinion… and confirmation.

CNN and others turned to spend more and more time and content in sharply partisan “reporting.”  The news business is now not just corrupt, it is failing its vital role, guaranteed to it in the First Amendment.  Government types are delighted to be allied with the “press.”  It removes all that “truthiness” pressure.

However, the slippery immersion into partisan defense by most media, is not only destructive of our separation of powers, but an abject disregard… a besmirching of the role of a free press – not “free” to pander but free to be honest, something journalists in many countries die for.  Of all the ills America suffers today, the loss of an honest, free press may be the worst.  For shame, and shame upon the magnates and business titans who own various outlets of partisan claptrap.  Who is watching the watchers?

The biggest watchers, today, are the largest cyber-media monsters: Google, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and others.  In the span of fifteen years, virtually everyone who utilizes the internet for communication or information, has adapted to obtaining both through one of these companies.  It is the most rapid transformation of human interaction… and most rapid concentration of power – power over human knowledge – in all of history.  Only now is the danger and threat of this concentration being recognized.

-Google, in particular, is succeeding at convincing schools to forego books and other paper media for everything from studies, assignments, homework and testing.  Kids who spend excessive hours on screens for games, Facebook, Twitter, You Tube and Snapchat, have been shepherded onto screens for even more hours per day!  Worse, they are being taught from the youngest possible ages that truth may be found on a Google screen.  Except that, now we learn that Google has a very specific view of what truths are find-able on those very screens.  Can democracy survive this evil filtering of facts?

Indeed, not even Constitutional republicanism can withstand it.  Have we the necessary vision and courage to reverse this extra-constitutional threat?

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Thought Leaders and other followers

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The evolution of politics in the U. S. is only a symptom of the collective consciousness of our people, as reactions to the much-anticipated “Nunes Memo” makes stark.  So-called “thought leaders,” who, in earlier times, might have been recognized as “leaders” by any definition worthy of follow-ship, are now best identified by a mix of shrillness and hypocrisy, the latter readily ignored by erstwhile and very temporary “followers.”

Any Gen-X’er or Millennial who stumbles across this scree is advised to watch “Saving Private Ryan” or “Apollo 13,” where he or she might get a glimpse of real adversity, dignity and bravery.  Shouting at people with whom you suddenly disagree doesn’t begin even to cast a shadow in the sunlight of true grit.  Who are the “thought leaders” of these most recent generations?  Barack Obama, may be one, although none of his great thoughts come to mind; just as much so is Colin Kaepernick, just as hard to comprehend.  And looming over Hollywood there is always Barbra Streisand.  For both Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Obama Saul Alinsky was a thought leader, as he was for a generation of radicals.  Thought leaders, all.

Universities – in the “West,” at least – no longer place much emphasis on historical thought leaders, nor much on history, itself, sadly.  It is as though their role in preserving and increasing knowledge of western civilization is no longer worth the price of admission, which is trending toward the upper half of a hundred thousand bucks a year.  For those kinds of dollars one’s sons and daughters deserve safe spaces where never is heard a discouraging word.  Real debate requires grief counseling – parents have paid enough to get some.

George Soros might be a thought leader.  He certainly has enough followers, including those he pays minimum wage to riot on call.  But, there’s the nagging question, what does he THINK?  And, the gloomy corollary, what could his followers be thinking?

Soros thinks, in part, that a system of governance in which individuals are sovereign – like that outlined by the U. S. Constitution – must not be tolerated on this planet, he being a rabid socialist.  We also know that when Nazis were actively collecting and killing Jews like himself, that renouncing his faith, family, heritage and neighbors was not too high a price to pay to preserve his own life and comfort when all one need do was cooperate with Hitler’s Fascists, perhaps helping them steal Jews’ property.  No regrets, he says, and one might suppose his followers think the same way, as do partners, colleagues, compatriots and comrades who either have or hope to benefit from Soros’ wealth, whether an influential Democrat or a $15-an-hour “antifa” thug.  We need not probe too deeply into the erstwhile meaning of “antifa,” but Soros has bought, at least, a place in the thought-leader coven.

Many other political and government types see themselves as thought leaders.  They do their damnedest to lead the news whenever possible, but there they must compete with supposed journalists  who are vying for their own places in the thought-leader cabal.  Dismayingly, thanks to Twitter, Facebook, You-Tube and the like, many of both groups do lead thousands of people’s thoughts, even if only for a few hours… or minutes.  It’s heady stuff, nevertheless.

Mr. Trump has long thought he could lead some thoughts and a good slogan and article of clothing can do that, as evidenced by Madonna, for one example, and “KISS” for another.  Still, he does lead a lot of thinking in that everyone seems to think about him, whether skeptical, neutral, favorable or downright hateful.  People are in various tizzies since Trump decided to run, never mind since being elected, including great thinkers like Nancy Pelosi and Joy Behar of NBC.  Prudence isn’t sure whether great connivance is the same as great thinking.  Maybe.

One can recall when Billy Graham and a handful of other faith leaders were also thought leaders, in that large numbers of people attuned their beliefs to theirs.  In the “old” days, one might say, Cardinals in the Catholic Church were in that same role, in the sense that the Pope was a thought leader for the faithful.  Prudence indicates that their role has diminished significantly, largely from self-inflicted, festering wounds.  Western civilization overall has an abiding stake in the success and purity  of the Roman Catholic Church.  No matter one’s own path of faith, that purity is worthy of prayer.  Indeed, the purity  of EVERY Christian path is worthy of prayer, but each of those will have to find the strength to ignore popular culture and the attractions of money.  Few have.  Still, it is only in folly that we attempt, societally, to disavow the thought leadership of our Judeo-Christian heritage and history, since it underlies our laws, our origins, our forms of economics and capitalism and our sacrificial sense of justice.  There is no single thought pattern  stronger or more pervasive than what is described in the Bible, much as we wish there were no rights or wrongs or, for their matter, conscience.

Regardless of our half-baked feelings and weird higher education “leaders,” every society with endurance requires an abiding, overarching thought or belief in its mission… or purpose… or, failing those, right to survive.  “Balkanization” became a verb for good reason.  It names and describes how and why a nation held together by force will fracture along racial, tribal, religious and cultural lines, whereupon old hatreds, temporarily shrouded, again by force, will spill out into murderous, brutal conflict.

That is a fate to which the United States is not immune… not on the path we are following now.

Why?  What do we think about that?  Do we even hold congruent opinions, or beliefs about our direction?  Our future?  Karl Marx was and lately, is, a thought-leader, who later in life had to forego many of his twisted economic thoughts, since he had not factored in freedom, economic and otherwise.  We might consider that devotees of Marxism, like Trotsky, Lenin, Stalin, Mao Tse-Dung, Pol Pot, Fidel Castro, Che Guevara, and, also of late, Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, were also thought-leaders, but their thoughts have destroyed not only dozens of economies but tens of millions of their citizens.  That isn’t easy to conceive of or even feel badly about – if you’d ever heard of the events – but one can imagine a gymnasium, let’s say with 100 people in it: it’s only 10 rows with 10 people in each row.  One might even know all 100 of them.

But to appreciate these historic thought-leaders we’d have to imagine, say, 250 such gymnasiums just in Massachusetts and with a little help from one’s phone, realize that that is only 25,000 souls.  Hmmmnnn… Various kinds of Communist and National Socialist thinking have eliminated over 100,000,000 people – friends, neighbors, mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, sons and daughters and more.  That’s at least 4,000 Massachusetts-es worth of gyms.  Is that enough murders to care about?  They make Hitler, alone, a very junior partner.  Does Marxism lead your thoughts?  How in Hell has communism gained favor among American youth?  For whom is this change a measure of success?

Somebody… some thought-leader, so called.  It makes one a little happy to be at this end of his life and a little sorry for today’s youngsters who will mature in an America where the thoughts of knuckleheads will be “leading.”

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Conservational Conservatism

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Real conservatives are also conservationists.  Liberals, of course, will scoff at this, but Prudence tells us that this is a logical relationship.  The nature of true conservancy can illuminate the right thinking of true conservatives.

Those who fight for conservation of nature have drawn political lines mainly along economic – often anti-economic – lines.  The in-group of conservationists tends to view all those who are not as rabid about conservation as they as somewhat backward, perhaps rapacious exploiters who care about only profit… even if it will “destroy” our home planet.  Planetary destruction is a tall order, but humans have been quite industrious about modifying our environments, plural, although the greatest, planet-wide climatological changes have occurred with no human input whatsoever.  Still, our increasing need for energy has changed the lower atmosphere, at least, making humans ever more suspect.

As defined by conservationists, conservatives are all greedy, overweight and driven by profits; very conservative people, however, see such people as enemies of honest capitalism similar to their being enemies of conservation.  Real conservatives are not in favor of unregulated, monopoly capitalism, like that which results from close connections to politicians and their overreaching governance.

Real conservatism is not reactionary, but it does desire to conserve good philosophies and, with them, the best of ethics for organizing and governing our society.  This also means conserving the best of our culture, not plural.  It is, viewed without hate, not all bad.

Some conservationists would sacrifice human civilization to preserve a pristine habitat for every other form of life, or at least, white Anglo-Saxon Protestants wouldn’t be missed, especially if snail-darters would then thrive.  Once enthralled by being smarter and more sensitive than everyone else, rabid conservationists tend to ally with others who are equally so convinced.  Political power follows.  Now, the very overreaching government that makes so-called capitalism an enemy of vast majorities, is seen as the one force needed to assure adherence to their beliefs – whether conservationist, abortionist or racist (anti-white).

True conservatives can discern which of these causes should be opposed and which are worth working with.  We oppose abortion-on-demand and racism of all colors.  We believe in non-wastefulness, non-pollution, and clean environments.  We tend to be religious and we do NOT seek for the government(s) to enforce our beliefs, but to protect them.  We oppose globalized, monopolistic crony-capitalism since it tends toward organized theft of both wealth and sovereignty.  We trust individuals to perfect themselves, yet we insist on firm application of laws and sanctions for wrongdoing… for everyone.

Conservatives believe in balance and in courtesy toward all.  We tend to accept others as good or, at least, right-motivated until proven wrong.  To true conservatives, what someone feels is not nearly as important as what one DOES.  That is, anyone who is willing to ACT like an American, including respect for our laws and for other people, is welcome to live in America.  It’s fairly simple.  Respect for other people includes respect for their environment – everyone’s environment, while enabling economic opportunity and private property rights that make it possible for individuals to be FREE to the greatest degree possible… FROM GOVERNMENT.

The most passionate conservationists are well-advised to be conservatives, as well, and to recognize human nature as individual and not monolithic.  Conservationists seem to have fallen into encouragement of a police state that will enforce conservation as they see it; conservation that pits its desired ends AGAINST people, requiring, therefore, government to force compliance with conservationists’ corner on a part of science.  This ignores other parts of science, particularly that of human nature, yielding a somewhat fascist liberalism that has rendered America a rich-appearing debtor, barely able to afford conservation or even self-defense.

The success of the American experiment will be recognized in the shrinkage of government, not its growth, and in its honesty of education, not its bias.

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The Most Powerful Organ

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The most powerful organ in the body is not the heart, or the liver, or even the descending bowel!  Athletes might think the greatest power is in the “glutes” or the femoris and adductors.  In obese America even the stomach is way behind the greatest organ.

The organ we’re describing is the source of the greatest hatreds in the world.  It moves armies and populations to hatred and dehumanization of outside groups, so that they might be bombed and killed without conscience.  It is so powerful that it can change the meanings of words to the degree that murder is no longer murder and crimes are now “rights.”

The most powerful organ is the MOUTH!  I know, right?

The most comforting words of love and compassion can issue from a mouth connected to one’s heart – a phenomenally useful combination.  These can lead to love between friends… and even between strangers.  They can lead to procreation and great parenting, recognition of strengths in others and acknowledgement of heroism.  They can educate in great principles and improve one’s society, culture and public good.

The mouth is fairly close to the brain.  This doesn’t always mean there’s a connection, however.  A mouth can spew corrosive vitriol directly at people we love, even to the point of destruction of marriages, families, companies and governments.  Mouths sometimes, well… run off at the mouth, so to speak.  Friends of the mouth’s host will then ask, “What on Earth were you thinking?”

Nothing, probably.  Recently, for example, that great philosopher, Madonna Louise Ciccone, proclaimed for as large an audience as she could find, that she had thought about blowing up the White House (based, apparently, on its legal resident).  One would hope that her mouth had spewed with no forethought, but she claims there was some.  She should know, no?

World-famous deep thinker, Stephen Colbert, said on broadcast TV that the mouth of the president of the United States was good only for holding the penis of the president of the Russian Federation.  That was scripted, evidently, and probably practiced, but it still is not evidence of a connection between the Colbert’s mouth and his brain… hmmnn, unless, Lordy, maybe it is!

I wonder if that is where the term, “Full of (euphemism for turd)”  came from?

Social media provide ways to “speak” by typing, and those who enjoy the process seem to act as though typing out text makes one an “author” or some sort of “journalist” and not a “speaker.”  Verbal crap that people – most people – would never say face to face, might be magically insulated by virtue of social-medium “publication.”  This is proof that there is often no more brain-connection to peoples’ hands than to their mouths.

This is true for Presidents and paupers, liberals and conservatives.  One need only be able to discern unfounded – or unbounded – hatred in texted speech, as opposed to reasoned criticism, to gauge the connection of brains to much of modern “speech.”

 

 

 

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Minimum Wage hokum

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PRUDENCE SAYS: I don’t like the concept of minimum wage. Why can’t a person agree to work for an amount of compensation? Why can’t a person offer an amount of money, or, say, ice cream, to get some wood chopped or something, and another free, sovereign citizen agree to accept two ice-cream cones of his or her choice in exchange for the chopping of that wood?
I’ll tell you why: governments can’t tax ice cream. The greatest beneficiary of “raising the minimum wage” is… wait for it… the government! You see, da’ gummints think employers are 1) greedy; 2) lying connivers; 3) stingy and miserly; 4) not to be trusted. Plus, they don’t like them. Everyone knows businesses all have a room in the back that’s full of cash – cash they are just too mean to share with their down-trodden, exploited employees.
What happens when the “minimum” wage is increased? Income taxes increase. Social Security contributions increase. Medicare taxes increase. State income taxes increase. Government types, because they have no understanding of business, freedom, free enterprise, profit and the multiplication of wealth, don’t grasp that all of those revenue increases they are hoping for, aren’t going to happen (with a key exception we’ll get to) and that, in fact, overall revenue will probably go down, as follows:
1) There will be fewer employees overall. Raising people’s pay doesn’t increase sales or profits; it only raises expenses for the employer, as in, raising the cost of goods and services he or she is trying to sell. Government types think the employer can just take less filthy lucre for himself and share it with the least productive, least profitable employees. The employer can only reduce the quality and value of what he sells, or reduce payroll some other way, usually by eliminating the least productive of the least productive employees, and then pay no taxes for them, at all. Indeed, the newly unemployed start collecting welfare from others’ taxes. 2) Lower taxes from less profitable businesses and, here and there, the end of businesses altogether.
Now, here’s the key exception: Many negotiated labor contracts are tied to multiples of the minimum wage. As a result, raising the minimum wage will eventually raise lots of higher wages and we’re back to the real reasons: 1) buying votes with other people’s money; and, 2) raising taxes. How benevolent can they get? People at the bottom are still out of work, of course, except now they are unemployed from a $12 or $15 job instead of a $9 one.
Here’s what may be the worst effect of mandating higher pay for less desirable workers: The cost of discriminating against them becomes LOWER. If a desirable, friendlier, neater, better-performing and acting employee now costs the same as a poorer, less-friendly, less manageable employee, there will be far fewer of the less-desirable actually employed. Prior to the mandate, less-desirable employees had a cost advantage that would encourage employers to hire them for less-valuable tasks. If that cost difference were $10, lots of less-desirable people would get a chance to work. If the difference is mandated to be $0, hardly any will get that chance. Did you know that this was the exact strategy of unions under apartheidt in South Africa? The unions “went to bat” for blacks by insisting that everyone’s wages be equal! Sounded great, but the purpose of it was to make sure fewer white unionists had to compete with black applicants.
Unfortunately, our government “… of, by and for the people…” is demanding that every employer be subject to racial and other quotas, regardless (almost) of abilities to function at a profit. Things are becoming less American bit by bit. I don’t like it.