Filed under: Bureaucracy, Capitalism, Crime, Democrat Corruption, Domestic Policy, Economics, Economy, Education, Election 2020, History, Immigration, Law, Media Bias, Politics, The United States | Tags: Political Words, The New Name Calling, Trying to Sway the Public
What a strange, strange time we are living in. The important words to describe it are new combinations of old words. “Social justice.”not just justice dealt out under the law, but social justice. What does that mean? Something like everybody is to be nice? The words are ubiquitous, you hear them everywhere, but the meaning is pretty flimsy. Then there’s cosmic justice—applying to everybody, everywhere? Virtue signaling is a little clearer— see what a good person I am? I can’t wait for society’s verdict, you need to see how good I am immediately. The one that really bothers me is hate speech which is rapidly becoming any speech that you do not like. This is not speech that urges you to hate someone else, but again, any speech that you do not like, particularly that emanating from the other political party, or criticizing you or what you believe in. Foul language is fine. Vulgarity is Acceptable, But do Not Disagree. If you know all the important words and their definitions, you are woke, or with the contemporary use of language. It’s easy.
Since the Mueller affair didn’t work to dispose of President Trump, the Democrats are hard at work trying to move the emotions of the voters largely by calling names. “Racist” is the most important, every one of the dozens of people on the Democrat debate stage has insisted that Donald Trump is a racist, with not a shred of evidence. Trying to suggest that the reason we are trying to keep illegal aliens out of the country is because of their race rather than the simple fact that we have laws that tell just how you may apply to enter our country legally and how to do it. They have dragged out pictures of Obama’s chain link fenced-off areas for detaining illegals, especially if there are children involved. Children in cages, especially frightened children in cages or crying children in cages has such an emotional effect that AOC made a fool of herself getting pictures taken of herself standing, weeping, in front of a chain link fence that supposedly held the aforesaid weeping children, except that other shots showed it to be a parking lot on the other side of the fence. Virtue signaling.
There are some suggestions that many American blacks are recognizing the president’s accomplishments in creating jobs. Black unemployment is the lowest it has ever been, and even the kids are finding it easy to get a job. Do you suppose that Democrats are so intent on keeping every single black vote that they would be insisting every time they speak to emphasize what a racist the President is? Are they that crass? Of course they are. The New York Times has a series going to explain to all those who managed not to learn any American history is school, that the United States of America was based on slavery, founded on slavery, and grew wealthy and prospered because of slavery. Useful if you are trying to blame the slave trade on Donald Trump, but dependent on the ignorance nurtured by our public schools.
Slavery was common in the world at the time of our nation’s founding. The native American Indians kept slaves of other tribes they had defeated or captured in wars. The Kwakiutls of the northwest coast made regular trips south to the coast of present day Washington and Oregon to capture slaves in their big war canoes. Arab ships prowled the coasts of Europe and England to capture white women (preferably blondes) for concubines for their harems. The Moslem traders who captured African natives for the slave trade, drove long columns of slaves north to the Mediterranean, and to the ports on the Atlantic coast where the slave ships came.
The majority of African slaves in the transatlantic trade went to the sugar islands and to South America, not the United States. It was exceedingly common for people in the British Isles and Europe who didn’t have the necessary funds to come to America as indentured servants, who had to work a defined number of years to earn their freedom, though usually at more pleasant work than African slaves had on southern plantations. Farm work was very labor intensive. Tractors were a distant future invention, but there were plows to be pulled by horses. My point is only that the history of slavery is far more complicated than the New York Times cares to admit, and still exists in some parts of the world. When you are trying to blame the president and his party for the entire slave trade, and for rampant white supremacy, you get pretty far off into the weeds.
Democrats are moving their attacks to the imminent recession to be caused by Trump, of course. Any day now the market will tank and it will all be Trump’s fault. Scaring the public into a market downturn will, they hope, cause a bad recession. Trying to damage the public in order to defeat Donald Trump in the upcoming election is a new low, and one of their sleaziest ones. Trump’s tax cuts, they are sure, went only to his richest friends and to the biggest corporations. Economics is not one of their strong points. But please do pay attention to their efforts to sway an election. Politics has become remarkably ugly, and they really should be held to account.
Filed under: Bureaucracy, Capitalism, Democrat Corruption, Domestic Policy, Economy, Education, Election 2020, Energy, Free Markets, Freedom, Global Warming, Health Care, Humor, Immigration, Junk Science, Law, Politics, Taxes | Tags: A Saturday Rant, Are They Just Crazy?, Democrat Folly
I don’t know about you, but I’m still mulling over the 2nd round Democrat debates. More than one person has asked if the Democrats are just crazy? We do not speak the same language with the same understandings. Democrats believe firmly that Republicans give tax breaks to the rich. because those are the people they represent and favor. The good people, the caring people, (the aforementioned Democrats) are trying to make everybody equal. They want to take that excess money away from the rich and give it to the poor, who need it more, unfortunately not because it will actually help the people, but because it will prove what good people the Democrats are.
That you cannot make everybody equal, does not occur to them. That the attempt to make everybody equal usually devolves into socialism and tyranny from a way too powerful government is not within their comprehension. It is deeply important to Democrats to be seen as good people. That’s why they favor open borders. America is, in their minds, a nation of immigrants, (like most of the rest of the world) and the more the merrier, especially when most new citizens are apt to vote Democrat. America, by law admits about one million immigrants who have applied and waited their turn, because the government feels that is about the number we can teach how to become citizens and settle in.
Note the absurd things they choose to believe. We have concentration camps for the children of illegals at the border, where we put them all in cages. They can make our people like illegals better by putting teeter-totters through the border fence where an American and a migrant can play together and become friends. ICE, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the police force that tries to protect American citizens by removing criminal illegal aliens is demonized as Nazis and Storm Troopers. Angel Moms who have lost members of their families to criminal illegal immigrants, not only get no help nor recognition, but are demonized if they say anything nice about members of ICE.
Democrats want to win votes by promising gifts to the voters. Andrew Yang wants to give everyone $1,000 a month Free healthcare, free college education, are common offers, and everybody seems to want to remove fossil fuels and coal and run the economy on “renewable energy”. Unfortunately neither wind nor solar energy are reliable sources of energy. The wind does not blow all the time, sometimes not for days, and seldom at the right speed to produce efficient energy. The sun is too diffuse, there are clouds, and rainy days or weeks, and both sources require 24/7 backup from conventional power sources, but none of the candidates seem even vaguely aware of that fact. The big response is the simple fact that the federal government has no money of its own. Anything promised or gifted means that your taxes have to be raised enough to pay for it.
They all seem to believe that the climate crisis is upon us and we have a varying few years before it’s all over. Beto O’Rourke gives us 10 years, Buttigieg says the tipping point is 12 years away, Jay Inslee says we have to be entirely off fossil fuels in 15 years, Steve Bullock says 2030, Gillibrand — “greatest threat to humanity”, Elizabeth Warren says it’s “the existential crisis for our world and puts every living thing on the planet at risk”.
They all want to impoverish the country in an exercise that cannot have even the slightest effect on world climate. Certifiably nuts. Parroting what is currently fashionable without the slightest reference to science, history, or fact. Do not allow any one of these people anywhere near the reins of government.
Filed under: Bureaucracy, Capitalism, Domestic Policy, Economics, Education, Heartwarming, History, Liberalism, Politics, Progressives, The United States | Tags: "White Supremacy", Illusions about Race, The Case for Marxism?
It’s Sunday, so perhaps you have more time to watch a little longer intellectual discussion of capitalism and freedom from Thomas Sowell, brilliant as usual. A splendid commentary on the general conversation out there today.
Sowell discusses his early life as a high school dropout and his first full-time job as a Western Union messenger delivering telegrams. He admits to flirting with Marxism in his early twenties as he first tried to grapple with the housing inequality he saw across the neighborhoods of New York City. Marxism, he says, was the only explanation he could find at the time. He went on to serve in the Marine Corps before continuing his education in economics at Harvard and earning a master’s at Columbia and a PhD at the University of Chicago.
Sowell’s first job after his receiving his PhD in economics was working for the Department of Labor, and he says it was there that he realized Marxism was not the answer. He argues that the government has its own institutional interests in inequality that cannot be explained through Marxism. He began to be discouraged by Marxism and the government in general and began searching for better economic ideas and solutions (the free market).
Robinson and Sowell discuss Sowell’s written works, his ideas of racial and economic inequality, the state of the United States today, and much more.
Filed under: Capitalism, Economics, Education, Health Care, Immigration, Law, Taxes, The United States | Tags: How an Economy Works, Strange Ideas, The Mystery of Capitalism
Elizabeth Warren has moved into second place among the vast array of Democrats wanting to be president. Presumably because no one is listening to what she has to say. Let me review a few bits:
She promises to Import at least 700% more refugees to the U.S.
She wants a total moratorium on all new fossil fuel leases.
She promises on her “first day” as president to set up a commission to investigate U.S. Crimes against immigrants.
Warren’s Immigration plan will decriminalize illegal immigration, end the detention of border crossers.
Crossing the border illegally should not be a criminal offense.
Warren is committed to ending the Israeli occupation of Palestine (?)
A New tax on the Rich will pay for day care for every newborn in the U.S.
Then a new wealth tax will take care of her modest $1.25 trillion debt-and-tuition deal, a tax on “Wall Street Speculators“.
Under Warren’s Medicare for All Plan, many hospitals would be forced to close, especially in poor, rural areas.
Warren speaks with forked tongue on cutting college costs.
She pitches Climate Change jobs, which would cost $2 million per job.
Warren Wants to break up Big Tech — all of it.
Elizabeth Warren endorses reparations for slavery.
Elizabeth Warren claimed that she never used her supposed native American heritage for personal advantage.
There’s more, but you get the idea. I have often pointed out that she has been said to have only a “child-like” understanding of economics. Maybe we should have some kind of basic quiz that would-be candidates have to pass before they can run for office.— just to protect ourselves.
Filed under: Bureaucracy, Capitalism, Democrat Corruption, Domestic Policy, Economy, Education, Election 2020, Energy, Environment, Freedom, Global Warming, Health Care, Immigration, Junk Science, Politics, Progressivism, Socialism, Taxes, Unemployment | Tags: Not Doing Your Homework, Pandering for Votes, The Democrat Debates
Campaign season always gets a little odd. It is not unusual for candidates to be poorly informed, and what seemed a fine idea in preparation for a speech or event, turns out not to be. But before you adopt something as an issue, it’s wise to do your homework. Eliminating private health insurance, late-term abortions, the Green New Deal, open borders and free health care for illegal immigrants may have seemed like good ideas when competing with (25?) other candidates for the presidency, but out in the real world where pollsters do their thing, these bright ideas are not popular at all.
Americans support access to abortion in the first 20 weeks of pregnancy, but it drops off. Action to address climate change? A lot of people have studied up a little, and are not convinced that a rise in the amount of CO² in the atmosphere is a sign of impending doom. CO² is plant food, and the planet is greening, crops are bountiful, and lots of hungry people have enough food. It is currently just over 400 ppm in the atmosphere, and yet greenhouses keep it closer to 1000ppm to grow healthy plants. The “Green New Deal” is absurd, both in its aims, and the costs, which would be far beyond unaffordable.
Back when attention was being called to the fear of climate change, government money to address the matter became available, with lots of grants to scientists who could write a good grant proposal for their efforts to investigate. With the prospect of improved labs, possible assistants, and prestige for their universities, many scientists adopted the computer programs used by the big investment houses to project the future stock market action and returns. So they put in what they knew for sure about the climate, which wasn’t all that much, and added what they thought was probable, and some good guesses, and got their grants to tell everyone what the climate was going to do in the next hundred years or so. Uh huh.
The climate of the earth has been changing for millions of years. There has been bountiful weather as there was in the Renaissance when wine grapes grew in England, and ice ages when ice sheets were shaping our lakes and mountains. There was a little ice age in the 1800s when we had some really bad weather. We don’t have good records of temperatures in the past. Ships captains kept some records, but there just aren’t good records, and we’re reduced to looking at paintings and written descriptions, which is not a scientific source. Dr. Roy Spencer notes that we don’t understand the action of clouds at all. They can block the sun, and on a nice day moving clouds at different levels, blowing in different directions clearly must affect the temperature, but we can’t measure it. And what about cloudy days and weeks? AOC came up with her “Green New Deal” but nobody thinks she knows anything about the climate at all. Actually there are quite a lot of climate prognosticators out there trying to work up public panic, from Al Gore on down to AOC and Tom Steyer.
Some are running on initiating a “carbon tax” which would be poisonous to the economy, accomplish nothing whatsoever about climate change, and please only those who have no comprehension of the fact that our economy runs on fossil fuels. We no longer need to import oil or gas and have such a plenitude that we can export oil to other countries as well.
Democrats have pretty much given up on pretending there is no border crisis, and the consensus seems to be to fix it with open borders. Julian Castro said that illegally crossing the border should no longer be a crime but merely a “civil offense.” Beto O’Rourke and Sen. Kamala Harris agreed. Democrat candidates (all of them) also proposed that free health care be given to all undocumented immigrants. Hardly “free” but taxpayer funded. Obamacare was supposed to fix our “broken health care system”, but Democrats decided it was a for-profit nightmare that requires more radical intervention.
Kamala Harris, Sanders, Warren and Gov. DeBlasio called for the abolishment of private insurance plans in favor of a government-run plan. Kamala Harris backed off the next day, but wanted Medicare for All available to everyone if they want it, but they still get to keep their private health insurance if they have it. Clearly they have no idea how a government-run plan would work, how much it would cost and what an enormous drag on the economy it is. Mayor Pete Buttigieg and entrepreneur Andrew Yang boasted about their 6-figure college debts and others promised to cancel debt and make college free. This was a great opportunity to show what they can do, and present some programs meant to help the country, and all we got was pandering. They clearly have no idea about what, if anything, should make anyone want them in office or what they could do for the country, and are convinced that how you get votes is to give people free stuff.
The Trump economy is working for everyone, but Democrats are hoping that nobody will notice. They want to claim that minorities are being left behind, and you would think we are in the midst of the Great Depression. The jobless rate for blacks is 6.2% only 2.9 percentage points higher than for whites, compared to a 4.6 percentage point difference before the start of the 2008 recession. They prefer to think that the economy is only working for the rich and people are scraping by with several jobs. The facts don’t support that idea. There are now 1.3 million fewer Americans working part time for economic reasons. It is a matter of faith for Democrats that tax-cuts only go to the rich and only benefit the rich.
These Democrat candidates are offering a lot of ideas that polls show the people don’t want. They don’t want to lose their private insurance. They don’t want open borders, nor do they want to give illegal aliens free health care. Free stuff may sound good, but it is not, as claimed, free. Somebody has to pay for it. Guess who?
Filed under: Democrat Corruption, Domestic Policy, Education, Freedom, History, Humor, Politics, The United States | Tags: A Moment of History, Majority Leader McConnell, The Betsy Ross Flag
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell posted this on Twitter, which I thought was nice. Especially after all the ignoramuses out there, unfamiliar with history, decided that the Betsy Ross flag was somehow a racist symbol.
Why should I be surprised? Anything and everything can now be assumed to be racist. It’s getting tiresome, and accomplishes nothing, nothing at all.
Filed under: Bureaucracy, Capitalism, Domestic Policy, Economics, Economy, Education, Free Speech, Freedom, History, Humor, The United States, Unemployment | Tags: Delving into the Statistics, Surprising Misunderstandings, The Wisdom of Thomas Sowell
The brilliant Dr.Thomas Sowell explains about the origins of discrimination and clarifies the problems and the solutions. He is not only always quotable, but his insights are always valuable.
