Wings, Bikers, Gangs, Waco

Waco coverage shows double standard on race - CNN.com:

As a member of a couple of Gold Wing forums on the net, I see all sorts of posts to the effect of "Harley riders give motorcycling a bad name", "No Gold Wings were involved in the making of this riot" etc.

It is human  nature to want to feel superior, and when given the chance, we all have a tendency to take it.

The operative term in Waco, as in a lot of black on black violence is GANG. Neither Harleys or guns are causes of violence. Defining groups with symbols, colors, turf, handshakes, etc and then having conflicts arise does tend to cause violence.

The linked article thinks that focusing on the "biker" aspect of the participants and not mentioning race is a "double standard". Maybe. I tend to think that if we have a non-racial grouping for a riot, as in  "student", "union", "xxx team fans", etc, we use that rather than race.

Otherwise, in this country with segregated areas of cities "black" or "hispanic" are used. When the pictures of the riots show 100% black people, it seems disingenuous to say "generic people rioted". Indeed, in Baltimore and Ferguson, the people rioting were saying they were rioting BECAUSE of "treatment of BLACK people" -- their self identified race was the purpose of the riot.

The writer of the linked article meets another stereotype -- the liberal writer so far from reality they would need a telescope just to see a tiny bit of it's light.

So why is it that in cases such as Michael Brown and Freddie Gray -- and so many others — race is made central to the story, even in instances where the black and brown people involved are victims of police violence?

Uh, because the entire discussion is about the race of the "victim"???

Waco has nothing to do with race, and it only has to do with "biker" because this particular set of Gangs are BIKER Gangs.

We all know what "Biker" means -- loud Harley, boots, dressed like a pirate, tats. It's a stereotype rigorous enough to be it's own parody. As the "1%ers" who are the kind of Biker Gang that are responsible for Waco are PROUD to say, they are the 1%! 99% of "bikers" are not bad ass gang members -- they may be tough, risk takers, etc, they are just not members of a violent biker gang.

The fact is that we LOVE stereotypes! Those Wing forums are also loaded with pictures of Wings "attacking a DQ", or overweight Wing riders at a big table "Wing riders KNOW what to do at a restaurant ... EAT!"

But then there is me -- middle of the bell shaped curve, no distinguishing features, rides both a Harley and a Wing, utterly devoid of distinguishing characteristics, doomed to comment from the ivory tower on the associations of others.

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Stephanopoulos Behind the Curtain

Clinton Foundation donors include dozens of media organizations, individuals - POLITICO.com:

I still run into the occasional really really pure lefty that seems to believe that the ONLY "biased media" is Fox news or talk radio -- everything else is "unbiased". But at least the less looney half of the left understands that basic bias exists. Most holdout "there is no left press bias other than Fox" people were pretty disappointed when the Berlin Wall fell, and are still pretty shell shocked as to why it would even happen, so I'm sure this data on the Clinton Foundation and Stephanopoulos won't affect them either.

This is just a tiny bit more documentation for what anyone reading this blog already knew decades ago. The Clinton's may be slightly more egregious than some, but really folks, this is NOT news. The numbers are very well known, over 90% of the press self identify as Democrats if asked in private, and that often includes campaign contributions, as well as direct advocacy and "gifts" in dollars and in kind.

We already knew that Stephanopoulos was a hired Clinton shill for a number of years before going to ABC -- the same thing happens on Fox for Republicans -- Gingrich, Huckabee, etc. The only difference is that Fox makes it clear that those people are "former whatever", but REALLY, do we need that? Have we become such idiots that we have to constantly see a label to know "there is bias here"?

"Meet the Press" Tim Russert was chief of staff for Daniel Patrick Moynihan and worked for Mario Cuomo up to '84. The current "Meet the Press" moderator Chuck Todd, worked for Tom Harkin, far left IA Democrat Senator. Brian Williams (my helicopter was shot down) was an intern for Jimmy Carter. We could keep rolling a long time here, but for anyone with even a tiny reality base, this is old, old, news.

The reason that it gets covered though is that the pure Democrat - Media - Education - Wall Street - Elite axis is loathe to admit the obvious truth of media bias, so when there is an especially egregious "slip" as in the Stephanopoulos case, they like make it SEEM like this is really somehow "news". It is yet another proof of the very shabby game that has been afoot as we have slipped to one party rule.

It is much like the Wizard of OZ, exposed by Toto, still trying to work the big machine as if the fact that he is now just a normal VISIBLE little man working a great big scary machine had not been fully exposed.

"Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain"! The sad part is that the true ideologue Democrats are required to pretend that they DO NOT notice!!

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Republican Death By Train

Hours after tragic train derailment, MSNBC ghoulishly uses it to advance a political agenda; Update: Train was going twice the speed limit « Hot Air:



The same day as the Philly train crash, NPR was all over the "connection" with Republicans trying to control spending and the deaths on the curve in Philly.



Government currently spends about 35% of everything the US produces each year (GDP). That percentage has been growing forever -- but like all growing things, there is very likely a limit. What we see now is that GDP has started to grow very slowly, AND this is at a point where interest rates are historically low while government debt is historically high. A reasonable betting man would say it is unlikely that interest rates will hold at this level.



From a Democrat view, trying  to control government  spending on anything, save defense, is universally bad. Government workers (including AMTRAK workers) are Democrats, so having more of them and paying them more is GOOD! (as opposed to corporate and other profits, which are BAD!)



It appears that the train was running over 100 MPH into a curve rated for 50MPH. Thanks to government unions which had a "fireman" on diesel locomotives over a quarter century after the complete switch to diesel, our trains still don't have automatic speed control. One of the evil things Regan forced in the '80s was the dropping of the "fireman" position the rails -- but I believe some hung on until the '90s! The government - union connection is a very strong one.



Imagine the politics of replacing a (union democrat) engineer with a computer! Since our trains are all a federally operated system, one can't expect any efficiency or cost containment, but some of the numbers and complexity quoted in this linked article might even give a lefty pause! $3.5 BILLION for speed control!



Anybody have cruise control on your car? Anybody have GPS? I hate to point this out, but trains tend to really stick closely to their tracks -- I'd strongly suggest a MAX speed control system that linked the throttle / brakes with GPS could be produced VERY cheaply. We aren't talking aircraft flight control here ... and looking around a bit, even THAT is now only about $5K for a Cessna 172!



Even fully feather bedded government kickback laden idiots should have no trouble putting auto speed / brake control on train for 10-100X the cost of what FLIGHT control costs for a Cessna! A train really only operates in ONE dimension, the "track dimension" ! So if it was 100x the cost, it would be 500K a train, x 300 (AMTRAK currently operates 300 trains a day in the US), so a "mere" 150 MILLION! Again, that is at 100x the cost for an AIRCRAFT flight control system!



But don't hold your breath. Controlling government costs is WRONG ... no doubt it will take the ENTIRE $3.5 Billion with cost overruns, extra kickbacks, plus, plus plus -- part of the reason listed in one article for the slowdown was "towers on Indian lands", and EPA studies!



Damned bloodthirsty Republicans!









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MN Orchestra, Crying With Cuban Pride

Minnesota Orchestra, in Groundbreaking Cuba Tour, Sells Out House - NYTimes.com:

The Cuba tour generated a great deal of excitement in Minnesota: The orchestra hung a huge banner announcing the tour outside its concert hall, and the performances here are being broadcast in the United States on the radio and streamed live on the Internet — where some fans annotated it minute by minute on Twitter. “I’m crying with pride,” Emily E. Hogstad, a musician and blogger who follows the orchestra closely, posted on Twitter. “I didn’t know you could CRY WITH PRIDE.”

Well, huge excitement in leftist MN at least -- MPR has been all over this, other MN news outlets, not so much.

Isn't it all so wonderful ...

It was not your typical concert at Orchestra Hall in Minneapolis. Tickets here cost around 50 cents, with students paying only half that — part of an effort to make cultural events accessible in a country where salaries are low, said Rafael Vega, the director of the theater, which also presents ballet, concerts, plays and comedy. The concert sold out quickly.

After 50 years of glorious communist rule, salaries are very low, and (not mentioned here), over 50% of the residents live in conditions rivaling the areas of New Orleans post Katrina that were ABANDONED! Marx be praised!

Ah, the joys of communism, and how WONDERFUL that the US is cozying up to that kind of "successful government".

See, W Bush had the wrong ideology -- he was on the idea that HIGHER salaries and BETTER living conditions were good. So he was heartily castigated for over $114 BILLION in aid sent to New Orleans for Katrina aid ... but over half a population living in the conditions that W spent money to get people out of in NO is just fine in Cuba.

When one goes left, ideology is **ALL** that matters!

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Hopeful End of Jeb

In hindsight, Jeb Bush acknowledges he wouldn’t have invaded Iraq | Miami Herald Miami Herald:



There are few things more vacuous than the "If I knew now what I knew then" question. It is completely absurd on the face of it -- one need only look at Wall Street investing, sports betting, careers, etc, etc to realize that it gives any makes mockery of both intellect and an even grade school understanding of history.



Hindsight may appear at first glance to be 20/20 in things as simple as picking a stock or a sports game, in the real world, it just blindness.



Bashar Al-Assad in Syria is much the same sort of strongman ruler that Saddam was in Iraq. Syria has certainly gone swimmingly well. "More focus" was all that Afghanistan needed, both Kerry and BO chortled. 75% of the deaths in Afghanistan have now occurred under BO although given the paucity of media reporting on such matters at this point, the average sheeple could be forgiven for having no idea.



To ask the "hypothetical" is to be expected of the lowbrow sensibilities of the entertainers we call "media people" in these sad times is inexcusable. To answer one, especially one as fraught with "damned if you do, damned if you don't" as the Iraq one is just beyond the pale for a supposedly seasoned politician.



Conservatives have to be pragmatic. Pragmatism is both the reason to consider Jeb, and the reason to reject him. He must be considered because he was elected Governor of Florida twice, and given the Democrat lock on over 200 electoral college votes, all it takes are "the givens" + FL to put Hillary in the WH.

He must also be considered because he was a successful Governor of a large state. That is executive experience. BO had no meaningful experience to be president and neither does Hillary, Democrats could care less -- they aren't about the US being successfully run, they are about buying more votes and allowing more undocumented Democrats across the boarder so they get a complete lock on the WH rather than just 90% of one.



Power for power's sake.



Jeb must be rejected because he is "Democrat lite". He too would keep the hispanic floodgates open to convert the US to another hispanic state -- his wife is hispanic, he knows Spanish, and "mistakenly" listed himself as hispanic on some recent document (a rather bizarre "error"). He must also be rejected because when you have an R next to your name, you don't get away with being an idiot. "Being for the Iraq war before you were against it" doesn't work well for a D, it doesn't work AT ALL for an R.



The quicker Jeb is gone, the better.



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Casey At The Bat, US vs China

U.S. Gambit Risks Conflict With China - WSJ:



On the world stage for the century or better prior to WWI, Great Britain was the sole world superpower and sea power combined with it's vast empire and huge trade advantages kept the world in a long peace.



The US was gaining in power, but felt that given geography, it could be isolationist. The Lusitania broke that reverie in WWI, and Pearl Harbor broke in in WWII. By the end of WWII, air power, missiles and nuclear weapons made it clear that isolation was not an option. While regional powers existed, the military stakes were global.



The Cold War based a bi-polar power structure on strategic nuclear superiority, but even with physical walls and massive censorship, the USSR could not hide the fact that it was losing the war of production and technology to the west from it's own population. Reagan finally called their bluff and the wall and everything else of the old Soviet Union came tumbling down.



But the US, in much the same mode as at the end of WWII immediately retreated from the world stage, assuming things would "sort themselves out" without an dominant power. They did, in the form of a rapid rise of Islamic terrorism and 9-11. They also sorted themselves out in the rapid rise of China, the return of the Russian Bear under strong man Putin and a host of smaller rising powers around the globe -- India, Brazil, Indonesia, etc. Power is part of the natural order, and nature abhors a vacuum.



While the US responded strongly to Islamic terrorism for a period, the post 1990 US as largely been focused on broader and more equitable consumption, more leisure, higher wages, better retirement, more equitable medical care, housing -- essentially a rush to what is hoped to be a very comfortable lowest common denominator. After a reluctant half-century as one of the poles in a bi-polar world, the US has decided it is no longer exceptional -- or as Obama said, "exceptional like Britain or Greece". I always found this comment interesting, as in both WERE once exceptional -- he may be giving the US the same nod. It WAS exceptional until it made the mistake of electing him.



So China is rising, and flexing it's muscles in SE Asia -- and dangerously, our feckless leadership might be going to challenge them as the linked article discusses. This too is a classic example of how the "once great" hastens their decline by first allowing their military, economic and most importantly, home tradition of resolve and willingness to sacrifice for greatness to decline and then get themselves into a confrontation with a rising power that has been gaining power the old fashioned way:

Indeed, China’s military strategy in the region has been built around developing the means—missiles, ships, warplanes, antisatellite weapons and cybercapabilities—to deter America from intervening in any crisis by dramatically raising the potential costs.

The aging hero, sports star, gunfighter, etc takes "one more shot". Sometimes in fiction, it works out, in reality, not so much.



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The 50 Year $22Trillion War

War on Poverty After 50 Years: Conditions of the Poor in America:

Go off and read the report. It isn't that long and the graphs are stunning.

Poverty was in rapid decline in America when we declared war on it -- then it flattened out. (if you want more of something, subsidize it!)

Now it is lodged at about 15% of the population over a long term, BUT, we have spent more than 3x the cost of ALL OUR WARS since the revolutionary in this stalemate battle.

The basic reason is very simple ... single parent families. We have spent more than all the wars combined and achieved a funding of single parent families doomed to live in poverty. Big government in action!

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Let's Agree With BO on Wealth

Obama Dismisses The Wealthy As 'Society's Lottery Winners' | The Daily Caller:

OK, it is all a lottery -- chance. You are born with whatever you are born with, you have whatever parents you have, life is a bunch of random circumstances.  You are rich, you are poor, you are an athlete, a criminal, a saint. It just randomly happens. It's a lottery!

There are no predictable effects of human agency. What happens, happens. "It is what it is".

BO, Aaron Rodgers, Warren Buffett, Steve Jobs, Adolf Hitler, Winston Churchill. All random -- just the odds, the breaks, the roll of the dice. What you do makes no difference, and there is no reason to kid anyone that it does.

Why bother with early childhood education? Some will win, some will lose -- it is a LOTTERY! Why do you expect different results from educational investment? Early, late, never ... whatever. ANY investment? Any action at all? Why?

Why make it a "little tax"? Why not just give everyone a guaranteed income? Hell, make it a million dollars a year for every man, woman and child. Print it. It's a freaking LOTTERY -- human actions are meaningless! Character, hard work, thrift, education, etc -- ALL BUNK. It is just a complicated set of dice. It's the breaks ... the stars, the random things that happen. Nobody has any control, nor ought anyone kid themselves that they do.

After all, BO is president!!! Doesn't that PROVE that there is no such thing as merit??

If anything could prove that merit, intelligence, character, competence, decency, rationality, hard work, honesty, or anything else of a positive nature is COMPLETELY MEANINGLESS, does not BO sitting in the Whitehouse at least cast strong doubt on what we formerly thought counted?? He is there -- if it was based on any form of merit at all, he would not be there, so he must be right!

He is right, it is all random. So why bother to do ANYTHING! The results of any suggested policy are also completely random in the BO universe, so why bother? Any action you take is just as likely to turn out negatively as positively after all.

The (random) emanations of BO are indeed the essence of modern "wisdom"!

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.380 America

Saudi King blows off Obama | Power Line:

The .380 is a 9mm "Kurz", German for "short". "Short" is what our current odiferous leader and increasingly America is relative to respect on the world stage.

The last two years of the Bush administration the media spent nearly 100% of it's time abusing W, and one of things they LOVED to focus on was any sort of comment, snub, allusion by some other power in the world to how bad W was.

BO was to fix all that -- he got a Nobel Prize just for being elected after all.

Actual results? Oh, Iran gave our merchant ship back last week, damned nice of them considering what doormats we are now!

In early April, the Russians intercepted a US plane in a manner that we said was "unsafe" -- we have "protested". I can almost hear Vlad saying "How is that reset goin for ya Barry?". Kerry is over there licking some boots this week apparently.

Mr. Kerry’s visit is likely to be seen in Moscow as evidence of the U.S.’s inability to deal with problems in Iran, Syria and Ukraine without Russian cooperation

This is really old news ... here is a WaPo from last fall .. but it is WAY older and more common than that. The fact of dominance hierarchy is wired into nearly all species on the planet -- humans didn't miss those genes, and when we band together to form nations, the stakes go up. In old business meetings it was sometimes called "butt sniffing" in honor of dogs working out the hierarchy, and while our consciousness brains may like to lie to us about it, our snake brains know who the likely alpha male / females are in every room we are in. Your ancestors lives depended on it every moment of every day in the tribe -- it's a base feature of the homosapiens model.

So like in the alternate universe old Star Trek, when the alpha takes a powder, everyone moves up one! Oh happy day! ... at least unless you are not some old dog " stuck in the "US is exceptional" past ?

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Depression '16, Seven States Decide

Depressing reminder: The 2016 election will be decided by seven states — and Florida is an absolute must-win « Hot Air:

We can talk about how much we don't believe that Jeb Bush is the answer (and I don't), but unless either he or Rubio are on the ticket, Republicans really aren't taking a "conservative" approach to 2106. It is quite easy to see why political realists give Jeb a strong look.

"The Party" (D) has firmly locked up the blue states listed on the linked map since '92 (with a little caveat for NM that doesn't really matter). That means 247 electoral votes bought and paid for by unions, public employees, welfare minorities, and the "elite" ... that need to lock down just one more state and the US Presidential branch will be theirs for the foreseeable future.

The red states are less certain ... in '92 and '96 having Billy Clinton on the ticket put states like MO and TN in the D column ... as well as of course AK ... but let's go with the map, 206 likely R, with a lot less paths to 270 for the R, none of which include losing FL.

Walker - Rubio or Walker - Martinez look like good potential tickets to me. Shake WI out of the blue camp, do all you can to swing FL, and hopefully that will be enough. I don't want a Senator with no executive experience at the top of the ticket -- I don't like Jeb much at all, but I like him FAR better than Hillary. If it MUST be a choice between Rubio at the top or Jeb, I hold my nose and pick Jeb. President is NOT a job for someone with no executive experience -- if BO hasn't proved that sufficiently then there was nothing AT ALL good about his disastrous presidency!

It is a LONG way until November of 2016, but as this chart shows, and I have pointed out in this Blog a lot of times, TP is very close to getting a lock on one branch of Government -- the WH, which means they will shortly lock the 2nd -- the SCOTUS,

"Pragmatics must take precedence over elegance (and lots of other stuff), for nature can not be fooled".

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Free Speech For Me, Hate Speech For Thee

Free Speech vs. Hate Speech - NYTimes.com:



Over years of thinking and experience, I've come down to "Consistency is not an issue" as being the core of "liberal" thought. We could go on a VERY long and boring list of cases of this --

• "How important are budget deficits"? Compare media and liberal attitudes on deficits from W to BO. 
• How serious are US attacks on various foreign groups and US military casualties? Over twice as many US troops for example have died in Afghanistan under BO than under W -- you are forgiven for not knowing, it simply is no issue at all!  
• The US economy at best grew .2 in the 1Q of 2015, and may well have contracted when all the figures get adjusted. If you want to use the MooseTracks way-back machine, you can see how much better the economy was in '05 with the media not paying notice. 

We will only do a "boring 3". Back to the topic of "what does no consistency mean"?



For one big thing, it means UNequal treatment under the law. The "progressive" income tax tells you that --  different rates to different people based on level of income. We see it in the IRS -- let's allow groups that agree with our political viewpoint to be tax exempt, and not allow those that have differing views to have the same status. Oh, while we are at it, maybe we ought to audit a few of the people on the donor lists of those "wrong thinking groups"!



In the linked article we see it with "free speech". Want to have a tax supported art exhibit with a crucifix in urine? or possibly the Virgin Mary with elephant dung? Not a problem ... and CERTAINLY not "hate speech"!



A picture of Mohammad? The NYTs labels this "hate speech" ... and THAT is not allowed!!



Which brings us to that not so subtle core of "liberalism" -- Consistency is NOT an issue! Since it is not an issue, it is perfectly reasonable -- and even prudent, to have one set of laws, rules, freedoms, etc for those that follow "liberal" orthodoxy, and a different set of rules for those that do not!



The current "Progressive States of America" has a state religion called "progressivism", and those that are not members of this religion are subject to the usual treatment of "heretics" down through history.



There is nothing new under the sun.



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Rule of Law or Violence

EXCLUSIVE–Pamela Geller Calls Out Cowardly Conservatives, Says She'll Organize Another Free Speech Event in Near Future **FULL IMAGE GALLERY** - Breitbart:



The purpose of the rule of law is to allow human interaction with a minimum of violence. Under the rule of law, EVERYONE complies with the SAME law in the same way. The US Constitution used to have this principle, it was called "equal protection".



But, POWER is always in conflict with the law, so it was decided that taxation ought to be applied unequally, or "progressively" -- meaning those who made more should not pay more only because they paid the same percentage on a greater amount, they ought to pay a greater percentage! No more equal protection!



Once the floodgate was broken, equal protection simply went away. All affirmative action laws explicitly break equal protection, our taxes and regulatory codes are now BASED on UNequal application of favors, kickbacks, penalties, etc based on location, sex, race,  level of production, etc, etc. -- ultimately, based on political POWER as opposed to LAW.



When LAW rules, then violence is reduced. The state has the sword as decreed by God, but the population with the exception of a few actual criminals obeys the law, so violence is at a minimum.



Remove law and honesty also disappears. Everyone inherently sees the corruption of unequal treatment -- even those that vote for it. They know that they are trying to take advantage of others to gain advantage for themselves (or see it as "payback"),  therefore "get what you can, cheat if you have to, everyone else is doing it too" becomes the zeitgeist of the society. Corruption invades all aspects of life.



Without rule of law, the rioter, or in the case of Islam, the terrorist gains power. Which naturally begets more riots, more terrorism -- more violence. The state wants to maintain control of course, so it also increases in violence. Because all has now become corrupt and violence is increasing, the state adds more and more power -- and more and more enforcement, which tends to lead to still more violence and corruption.



We can see that the US is a long way down this death spiral. A large number of people now respect the threat of violence from Islam, and seek to silence those that may offend the violent Muslim. Violence, power and threats are what are respected -- might is right! Morality, kindness, Christian values are not. Those were respected in the old world of "rule of law", but no more.



So, since Christians abhor violence, they may be coerced to bake cakes for gay "weddings", but since Muslims would likely become violent if such force was applied to them, they are exempted. The modern leftist state has far more in common with Islam than with Christianity -- Christianity and Judaism are religions of law.



Islam and leftism are religions of the sword -- where POWER is the only morality.



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Abolish Bedtime Stories, Then Families

The Telos of Liberalism: Your Children’s Bedtime Stories | Power Line:

Western Civilization was based on a Judeo-Christian morality that was remarkably close to "common sense" or "natural law" relative to what works and what doesn't. Lifetime marriage between a man and a woman responsible for raising children, sanctions against murder, stealing, covetousness,  greed, adultery, fornication, respect for parents and authority, etc.

The left doesn't think much of such morality and gets even more incensed when they find that following such morality has better outcomes than "doing what feels good". They get very ticked when what the espouse has negative results, and what they look down their nose at has positive results.

WE CAN'T HAVE THAT!!

So what is a "liberal" to do? -- obviously, they need to stamp out things like bedtime stories (which seem to be especially egregious at providing advantage), or possibly even stamp out the family! Seems obvious if you think like a "liberal" -- meaning that things you like need to be subsidized, things you don't need to be illegal!

This is not a new conclusion -- the USSR did all it could to remove kids from the home at younger and younger ages and have them raised by the state -- ditto National Socialist Germany, Red China, Cuba, and of course modern Europe and the US in their own ways.

Mandatory non-parochial public education with no subsidies for parochial even though it consistently outperforms public on standardized tests is one way. If the results look bad, the key is to outlaw the standards and certainly the successful alternatives! Putting children into earlier and earlier state control "head start", "pre-school", etc is the current push from the left.

Our country may be becoming less free every day in regard to individuals  ability to define marriage or the life of the unborn as they see fit, and certainly in deciding what to do with the money they make, but it is VERY free as to social scientists deciding on the proper ways in which "family" or what is or is not allowed in "family" may be administered. We do indeed live in a "brave new world".

One way philosophers might think about solving the social justice problem would be by simply abolishing the family. If the family is this source of unfairness in society then it looks plausible to think that if we abolished the family there would be a more level playing field.’ 

‘What we realised we needed was a way of thinking about what it was we wanted to allow parents to do for their children, and what it was that we didn’t need to allow parents to do for their children, if allowing those activities would create unfairnesses for other people’s children’. . . 

‘The evidence shows that the difference between those who get bedtime stories and those who don’t—the difference in their life chances—is bigger than the difference between those who get elite private schooling and those that don’t,’ he says.

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Income Mobllity, Where You Grew Up

The Best and Worst Places to Grow Up: How Your Area Compares - NYTimes.com:



Follow the link to the article and hopefully your browser works as well as mine did to allow you to interactively see the big and little picture of income mobility in the US by county. I'd recommend going off and playing with that a little first.



Back now? Good ... if you followed my advice, you went over, focused on either where you were born or where you live now (likely both), hopefully also got the bigger picture as well and then came back. Humans focus on themselves -- both Jesus (love your neighbor as YOURSELF) and Adam Smith (make self-interest work for all) were right!



The light blue on the chart is "no data" ... the dark blue is really good, the green is good. The red is really bad, the orange bad, yellow is average.



When you look at the chart, it looks like the upper Midwest and the eastern slopes of the central Rockies got splotched with blue and green, while both coasts and the south get a lot of red, orange and yellow. It would be great to have some other such charts so we would run off and do correlation games -- note, while that is fun, it DOES NOT show causality, the "why" ... but it might give us some hints.



But I'll do some conjecture anyway -- it is always fun to let our biases run wild.

1. It isn't "red vs blue" counties. We have seen those charts too many times with essentially the whole country being red except for the very center of urban areas and a few larger counties in MN, CO, CA, VT, etc. So scratch the easy one. 
2. Cold weather / long winters jump to mind. When it is cold from November - March, and maybe only June-July-August being really "summer", there is just more time to hit the books when young and to work hard later in life. 
3. Immigrant heritage. If you did a correlation of Scandinavian / German heritage with those charts what would you see? In the current world it is popular to say "we are all the same" -- certainly the chart shows that we are not the same relative to income mobility. Might culture matter? Dangerous thought I know. 
4. Low population density effects? I'm guessing the big swath of light blue down the middle would be blue / green if there was enough data. Higher population density means "more things to do" -- mass kinds of things, entertainment kinds of things. Low density means that you have to come up with your own things to pass the time (innovation)-- maybe with a tiny group of often life-long friends (outlook / attitude).  
5. All the stuff I haven't thought of ... and this is likely the longest and most important list. My biases lead me down certain paths just like everyone else. Maybe the "reasons" are too complex to tease out -- I tend to not believe that, but it is possible. 

I find these things of interest. Actual data that MIGHT be actionable if we were really so inclined. 

Can ANYONE look at that chart and believe that a FEDERAL program bent on treating everyone the same has ANY prospects of being successful? I sure don't. 

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Jews Offer No Apology for Holocaust

Event organizer offers no apology after thwarted attack in Texas - The Washington Post:

The "Southern Poverty Law Center", a very popular leftist organization with The Party (D),  has the ORGANIZER of the Texas cartoon event on their "list of extremists" and the linked article focuses on those who would practice freedom of speech as being the problem as opposed to those who would murder in the name of Islam.

Note that the "Southern Poverty Law Center" ALSO finds many CHRISTIAN groups to be "extremist" -- those opposed to abortion, gay "marriage" and things like crucifixes in jars of urine as art. You know EXTREMISTS!

Lincoln, JFK, RFK and MLK all did things to "incite" their attackers -- Lincoln defeated the Confederacy, JFK was too anti-communist for Oswald, RFK was not pro-Arab enough for Sirhan Sirhan, and well, MLK was black ... reason enough for a lot of Southern Democrats in the '60s. It is even possible that women dressing too provocatively is a trigger for SOME rapists -- but when we were a nation of LAWS as opposed to men, it was considered very bad form to "blame the victim".

It still is if the "victim" just knocked over a convenience store and is charging an officer as in Micheal Brown. The left still likes that cake -- when they like it. They just want to both eat it and like it -- it is sort of like intellectual deficit spending.

How could it get so that Christians are singled out for attacks, fines and harassment by  law enforcement for their beliefs on abortion or gay "marriage", while even direct violence against someone exercising their Constitutional right of free speech is blamed for the attack vs the attackers?

Step by step, the same way that tyranny always replaces freedom.

If you listen to NPR, you now know that "intelligent, reasonable people" don't "provoke" Islamists.

 Before the Jews were rounded up in Germany, "intelligent, reasonable people" stayed away from Jews and looked the other way if Jews were being harassed -- "they had it coming". It doesn't happen "overnight", but over the past 6 years it has been accelerating here very rapidly.

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