Degree, Ideas, Shakespeare

The included quotation is from one of my most favorite books -- reviewed multiple times in the Blog, "Ideas Have Consequences",  it is an quotation from Shakespeare as you can see. I've gotten back into trying to understand the bard, with the help of Issac Asimov's Guide To Shakespeare. The reason I'm using that book is because it is very clear to me (and Asimov) that the only people in the modern world that can understand Shakespeare are those that study him AND have a reasonable understanding the historical, legendary, and mythological underpinnings of the works.

Other than the Bible, Shakespeare is one of the biggest creators / interpreters of the meaning that made Western civilization work. His work was intended to appeal to both the common man of his day ("1600 England"),  AND to the aristocracy that funded him. Our problem is that even our (largely technically) "educated" have LESS understanding of Classical Greek and Roman literature than his lower class audience in 1600.

The following quote is included as an "artful means" to make the argument that the chapter it is in opens with ...

"... those who seek to do things in the name of mass are the destroyers in our midst. If society is something that can be understood, it must have structure; if it has structure, it must have hierarchy; against this metaphysical truth, the declamations of the Jacobins break in vain". 

(The Jacobins are the radical reformers of the French Revolution -- the folks with the guillotines) 

Troilus and Cressida, Act I Scene II
O! when degree is shak’d,
Which is the ladder to all high designs,
The enterprise is sick. How could communities,
Degrees in schools, and brotherhoods in cities,
Peaceful commerce from dividable shores,
The primogenitive and due of birth,
Prerogative of age, crowns, sceptres, laurels,
But by degree, stand in authentic place?
Take but degree away, untune that string,
And, hark! what discord follows; each thing meets
In mere oppugnancy: the bounded waters
Should lift their bosoms higher than the shores,
And make a sop of all this solid globe:
Strength should be lord of imbecility,
And the rude son should strike his father dead:
Force should be right; or rather, right and wrong—
Between whose endless jar justice resides—
Should lose their names, and so should justice too.
Then every thing includes itself in power,
Power into will, will into appetite;
And appetite, a universal wolf,
So doubly seconded with will and power,
Must make perforce a universal prey,
And last eat up himself. 

The play Troilus and Cressida was written about 1600 but set against the Trojan war (1200 BC) with all the heroes of Homer (850 BC oral, 500 BC written) -- Ulysses, Achilles, Helen of Troy, Agamemnon and sundry references to gods and goddesses and historical references both real and legendary.  Prior to the late 1800's when a German named Heinrich Schliemann went a digging, Troy and the whole story was assumed to be a myth -- but he found it, so historians are sure it is based on history rather than pure mythology.

As you read the Shakespeare and the Greek and Roman mythology for that matter, you see timeless human questions played out -- "the Gods", fate, chance,  betrayal, friendship, love, honor and hatred of parents, children, peoples, order, disorder, etc.

In 1600, they considered the BASICS of a "Classical Education" to know the time of Troy -- 2500 years removed from their time, to be REQUIRED if one was to consider themselves "educated". Even the "peasants" knew more of ancient history than the typical college educated science, humanities, etc "educated person" today.

From the Shakespeare:

"Degree' -- Difference, distinction. Fair lady vs worthless harlot. Immortals vs mortals, etc. Today much of our society screams that "there are no degrees or distinctions" -- all supposed "merit" is "privilege". All outcomes are to be made the same ... "inequality" is the 2nd biggest issue of our time (Climate Change the first).  The Golden State Warriors may as well replace Stephan Curry with any old college player -- there is no such thing as "degree" -- your "betters" have told you so! Fortunately, they have told you there is no such thing as TRUTH either.

"Force should be right, or rather right and wrong" ... might is right. TP has the votes to repeal gender, marriage even life itself for the 60 million unborn dead so far. The gods have spoken!

"Power into will" -- or in Nietzsche, "Will to Power".  All of life CAN be reduced to abolition of degree between "mortals" through will and power. See North Korea today. Remember the USSR or National Socialist Germany. Shakespeare knew all about POWER. Shakespeare had been sponsored by and was friends with Henry Wriothesley, Earl of Southhampton, who was aligned with Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex who ended up being executed by Elizabeth I -- in fact, Cressida going bad may have been an allusion to Elizabeth I.

As I now try to parse through Shakespeare I realize yet again the inadequacy of my own knowledge and the height I need to climb to recover even tiny pieces of the wisdom of the ancients. We once KNEW THIS! It was "so simple a child could do it". We had a much greater grasp on what it meant to create and operate a working personal character, family, church, community, culture and nation, but we lost it ... here is a little metaphor from one of the cheesier original Star Treks -- at about 2:30 McCoy has encountered "the teacher" and returning Spock's brain is suddenly doable.

  I covered a bit about our shared plight of having lost the owners manual to the starship of western civilization, grabbed a bottle of pure grain alcohol (we didn't want to try to identify "degree" between beverages), and turned the controls of the starship over to natives from the jungles of the Amazon -- why not? Everyone is equal!

What could go wrong? ... hey, I just met this girl named Pandora. She has a box that seems interesting, so we are going to crack it open tonight and see what is in it. I hope it is "new stuff", new stuff is ALWAYS better -- "progress" you know.

Some Frankness From Thomas Frank

Thomas Frank on How Democrats Went From Being the ‘Party of the People’ to the Party of Rich Elites - In These Times:

I loved this quote ... isn't it wonderful to see how the DC wing of TP ("The Party"-D) thinks?

I live in Washington, D.C., and I spend time around Hillary-style Democrats. They really think that they’ve got this thing in the bag. And I don’t just mean her versus Bernie. I mean the Democratic Party winning the presidency for the rest of our lives. From here to eternity. They can choose whoever they want. They could nominate anybody and they would win. They think they’re in charge.

I tend to agree with them -- they have brought in enough illegals, made voting with no ID nearly the national standard, and through organizations like ACORN and just the fact of 90% of the people tabulating the votes being union government employees, that all counts are suspect. As Stalin said "The people who cast the votes don't decide an election, the people who count the votes do". TP counts the votes -- or contracts for the machines to count the votes.

The main thesis of the article is:

According to Frank, popular explanations which blame corporate lobby groups and the growing power of money in politics are insufficient. Frank instead points to a decision by Democratic Party elites in the 1970s to marginalize labor unions and transform from the party of the working class to the party of the professional class. In so doing, the Democratic Party radically changed the way it understood social problems and how to solve them, trading in the principle of solidarity for the principle of competitive individualism and meritocracy.

There is that left wing word again "meritocracy" -- oh how they hate the idea that people are blessed with different abilities and can use them wisely or foolishly to obtain different economic result! TP moved away from PRIVATE sector unions in the '70s and focused on the massive growth of PUBLIC  sector unions. Automation, global trade and non-competitive labor had pretty much destroyed vast swaths of American industry by that point already, Steel being a great example. TP cares about POWER not people -- they go where the power is, and it was certainly with the professional class.

But Frank seems surprised that TP operates as it does and clearly took action when BO took office to benefit it's major constituency, the upper 10-30% (Frank wants it to seem more elite than it is, it's more than 10%)  -- government workers, teachers, university professors, lawyers, financial people, fortune 500 professionals.

This is not only because of those evil Republicans, but because Obama played it the way he wanted to. Even when he had a majority in both houses of Congress and could choose whoever he wanted to be in his administration, he consistently made policies that favored the top 10 percent over everybody else. He helped out Wall Street in an enormous way when they were entirely at his mercy. 

He could have done anything he wanted with them, in the way that Franklin Roosevelt did in the ‘30s. But he chose not to.

He didn't do what FDR did because what FDR did failed miserably. It prolonged and deepened what would have been a bad recession, much like 1982 into the Depression. BO's "FDR lite" of STILL massive government intervention, regulation and cronyism have made a "recession" into the "Great Recession". BO got away with what he could get away with to not make the disaster as obvious as it ought to be. It is STILL easy to look at the 1930's, late 1970s and 2008-2016 as times of TP taking control (they took Congress in 2006) and the economy being bad.

The big overarching problem of our time is inequality. If you look at historical charts of productivity and wage growth, these two things went hand in hand for decades after World War II, which we think of as a prosperous, middle-class time when even people with a high school degree, blue-collar workers, could lead a middle class life. And then everything went wrong in the 1970s. Productivity continued to go up and wage growth stopped. Wage growth has basically been flat ever since then. But productivity goes up by leaps and bounds all the time. We have all of these wonderful technological advances. Workers are more productive than ever but they haven’t benefited from it. That’s the core problem of inequality.

First of all, productivity is NOT improving. The OBJECTIVE of the left is the story of inequality! A more and more privileged government crony elite class and an ever more dependent and controlled mass "proletariat". The left is about CENTRALIZATION OF POWER in the hands of the VERY few, ultimately THE ONE! Left is control, right is chaos, the US was supposed to be "center right".

If policies of merit and competition are allowed to work, one gets the US 1982 - 2008. If the policies of the left are allowed to work, the result is East vs West Germany prior to '91, North Korea vs South Korea today.

The biggest question I have is whether Frank is a "Useful Idiot" and doesn't know that BO (and FDR and Carter before him) are doing exactly what is intended, or if he is simply a propaganda shill for the TP. I guess it really doesn't matter ...


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Laughing At Alzheimers or Transgenders

Was Will Ferrell’s Reagan Comedy Really Mocking Alzheimer’s? - The Daily Beast:

Mocking Alzheimers?  -- as the linked article points out, "How unfair"! ... and a lot of people "didn't even read the script"! It's reminiscent  of how the prudes didn't like federal funding of "Piss Christ" or Mother Mary done in elephant dung. What a chilling lack of tolerance for "art".

One thing Hollywood wants to get across -- with the help of Bill O'Reilly no less is the false narrative of Reagan falling into Alzheimer's early in his second term. That has been thoroughly debunked, if you follow the link to Power Line off this post, you can verify that.

It is instructive that the media also has created the meme that "Reagan laughed at AIDs" -- based on some staffers and media people having uncomfortable laughter dealing with the issue in the early '80s.

We ALL live our lives according to SOME "story line" which fits with our World View. We have no choice, we have a VERY finite human brain that is WIRED to deal with "narrative" through the filter ouf our World View.

In the narrative of TP, Reagan was an idiot, thought he was acting in a movie, out of touch, etc, etc" for his whole public life -- Alzheimer's being what killed him is just another "fact" to reflect back into the already created narrative that makes him a character for derision.

Our American educational system and media machine has destroyed the ability of the vast majority to even begin to think critically -- so we are prey to any Obama, Trump, Hillary, etc that shows up!

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Hillary Leaves Reservation, Finds Trump

Today’s Cuckoo Land Report | Power Line:



So HILLARY said; "I have a lot of experience dealing with men who sometimes get off the reservation in the way they behave and how they speak."



Hmmm ... was that Slick Willie that "left the reservation"? Oh, WAIT, she had to apologize ... she said RESERVATION! ... BEEP, ... "Hate speech".



So she apologized, she is of "The Party", no harm no foul. Naturally if TRUMP had said the same thing, that would be yet another really stupid racist thing he said. But never mind -- that isn't the reality we live in. Trump had the same reaction that I did ...

He continued: ‘That’s a very demeaning remark to men in my opinion. Was she referring to her husband? I think she was referring to her husband."

We as a nation of course have slipped the surly bonds of any reality whatsoever -- but as PL commented, visiting a couple Indian Reservations would be a SUPER idea for those enamoured with how well it works to be "taken care of" by the government. For extra credit, they could visit a couple of housing projects in Chicago (IN DAYLIGHT -- preferably shortly after sunup when the locals are largely unavailable.  VA hospitals would be good (and safer) as well.



Oh, we have the case of a Catholic school talking about "two genders" being investigated as a hate crime.

When it happened at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, the school was so spooked it called the Los Angeles Police Department. Both the police and the university’s Bias Incident Response Team are investigating the stated belief that only two genders exist, male and female, as a hate crime.

Perhaps ISIS, Putin, Some "ill" from the Hermit Kingdom, or SOMEONE will just put us out of our misery. It is obvious we richly deserve it!



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Perspectives Of A Russian Immigrant (No. 14) - IBD

Perspectives Of A Russian Immigrant (No. 14) | Stock News & Stock Market Analysis - IBD:



Nice to see someone else explain "The Party" (D) once in awhile!

The social mobility of individuals pursuing their potential, which is so unique to the USA, is being replaced with three groups of citizens: those who are part of the bureaucratic machine, those who have connections to the machine and the masses. 

It is ironic that people who think that the U.S. Constitution is outdated support the vision of the Democratic Party — the party promoting government bureaucrats and desperately looking to suppress voices of the opposition.

Those that are "part of the machine" and "connected" are members of The Party -- TP!



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Perspectives of a Russian Immigrant (IBD Series 2)

A Russian Immigrant Sees U.S. Making Same Mistakes As USSR | Stock News & Stock Market Analysis - IBD: " ibdeditorials.com."

I ran into this on one of my old blog posts -- I'll likely put up a few of them at least, it looks like they may all be a good read by a woman that emigrated from the USSR in 1980.

“Authors writing about socialism need to know what socialism is. The author of this article would rather just go into a tirade about the problems in our country … and automatically jump to the conclusion the problem is socialism. Huh? What? Where is the socialism you’re talking about?”

An old Soviet joke goes as follows: “A Soviet and an America journalist argued about whose society is freer. The American declared, ‘I can stand in front of the White House and yell that our president is a fool!’ ‘Big deal,’ responded the Russian, ‘I can stand in front of Kremlin in Moscow and yell that your president is a fool too!'”

This joke is at least 40 years old. But today in the U.S., very much as it was in the USSR, a rodeo clown’s livelihood is in peril because he dared to make a joke about the president. One can measure level of socialism by the number of lives wasted, humiliated or destroyed by a centralized government that is pursuing its agenda and control.

I covered the Rodeo Clown incident a bit here.  She has an excellent list of some of the techniqes used by socialist / centralized / command and control nations. I'll bring a few here, but the whole set is worty:

• Polarizing society by dividing people into groups by ethnicity. 

• Controlling speech, enforcing political correctness and attempting to suppress opposition media.

• Intimidating opposition through Justice Department investigations of journalists, IRS intimidation of groups and individuals who oppose government policies, and information collected on citizens that becomes quite handy. 

• Controlling people by making them dependent on government for basics such as medical care, property rights and income. 

• Applying separate standards in medical and other services for government employees and acolytes vs. the rest of society.

The control spreads ... Curt Schilling losing his job is a current example.  I liked the following quote:

A prominent Soviet physicist, Lev Landau, defined the USSR’s system as “a dictatorship of bureaucrats.” It amounted to socialism, he said, “because the means of production do not belong to the people, but to bureaucrats.”

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Medicine, Coded for Disaster

http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/how-government-killed-medical-profession

Pretty much all institutions, crafts, professions and pursuits go through a number of cyclical forces. At a high level we have things like centralized control vs decentralized, process vs art/craft, public / private, big factory "assembly line" sorts of approaches vs skilled craftsmen --- we could go on.

Writing computer code went from a highly individualized "art" prior to say "the 1970's" and then became an increasingly heavyweight "Design - review - Code - review - Test - review, with tracked "defects" at each phase with plenty of "metrics" to make the "Waterfall" a one shot through a supposedly constantly improving process. The process got way too heavy.

Then came the Internet and Open Source and it all blew up to free-lance "super coders" throwing source across the net with abandon  and rapid cycling new versions constantly. "Design" largely died and even "specifications". The coders took back control of software -- and it went pretty much back to being an "art" rather than a "profession".

Medicine has been both an art and very much a profession for at least hundreds if not thousands of years. It is the most personal and intimate of "personal services", with the level of trust required in your dealings with your doctor exceeding all other relationships in your life when the combination of trusting in both their care / concern / focus / wisdom / confidentiality / character AND highly skilled technical expertise as a package in a single person.

Much like religion, a government that seeks to entirely control your life cannot allow this sort of relationship to NOT be mediated by government and kept under strict control of government. The linked article gives a lot of detail of how we have slid into the hole we are now in, and how it is nearly certain to get MUCH worse.

Before long, these codes were attached to a fee schedule based upon the amount of time a medical professional had to devote to each patient, a concept perilously close to another Marxist relic: the labor theory of value. Named the Resource-Based Relative Value System (RBRVS), each procedure code was assigned a specific value, by a panel of experts, based supposedly upon the amount of time and labor it required. It didn’t matter if an operation was being performed by a renowned surgical expert—perhaps the inventor of the procedure—or by a doctor just out of residency doing the operation for the first time. They both got paid the same.

"Process" attempts to convert humans into plug compatible "parts". That was bad enough with programmers -- in which the best are able to produce 10-100x the "output" of the "average".  Measuring that output is exceedingly difficult -- "lines of code" are often used, but most assuredly "more is NOT better". As in writing, the tightest, best performing, most free of problems, easiest to understand, extendable, maintainable ... etc, etc makes programmers FAR from "plug compatible".

Doctors, having MUCH larger requirements relative to knowledge, skill, judgement, decision making, diagnostic acumen,  very personal communication / interaction, etc, etc are far far less "compatible" than programmers. I did a blog post discussing the difference between the pilots that crashed a plane in Buffalo a few years back and "Sully" Sullenberger who dead sticked an Airbus into the Hudson with no loss of life. Paying doctors "all the same" is insane  -- as is thinking that converting medicine into an "assembly line" with a bunch of "codes and process" is somehow going to "improve" it. What it does is shift power and renumeration to bureaucrats and devalues the unique skills of doctors.

So what we end up with is this:

In other words, we’re about to experience the two-tiered system that already exists in most parts of the world that provide “universal coverage.” Those who have the financial means will still be able to get prompt, courteous, personalized, state-of-the-art health care from providers who consider themselves professionals. But the majority can expect long lines, mediocre and impersonal care from shift-working providers, subtle but definite rationing, and slowly deteriorating outcomes.

The best doctors will end up in the private system, and a lot of solid doctors the next echelon down will just leave medicine because it is no longer a profession and they are professionals. What 90% of the population is increasingly left with is best described in this from Ayn Rand's "Atlas Shrugged".

“Let them discover the kind of doctors that their system will now produce. Let them discover, in their operating rooms and hospital wards, that it is not safe to place their lives in the hands of a man whose life they have throttled. It is not safe, if he is the sort of man who resents it—and still less safe, if he is the sort who doesn’t.”

57 One Way Streets To Perdition

Thoughts from the ammo line | Power Line:

I've covered at least very nearly all of these, but the litany is important, I highly recommend reading it. As you read the following paragraph, context is important -- the ex-wife of the person BO was running against (Jack Ryan) was 7 of 9 ... Jeri Ryan. Men have done strange things when involved with even less good looking women.

In Obama’s 2004 race for the U.S. Senate – which was the springboard a mere 105 “Present” votes later for his Presidential campaign – first his primary opponent’s, then his general election opponent’s SEALED divorce records were broken into and unsealed. In one case, some extremely minor mutual push-and-shove “abuse” and, in the second, some consensual but embarrassing sexual hijinks spilled out into the world. Obama prevailed. What are the chances that someone could catch such a lucky break? Twice?

I'm with Ammo Grrril on  the basic reason that BO's records all need to be sealed.

I’ll tell you what I think: I think he got into college as a foreign student, one born in Africa and raised in Indonesia. I’m not a “birther.” I do not believe he was born in Africa. I believe he was, in fact, born in Hawaii. But I believe Obama is the original “birther”; he lied and said he was born in Africa to get into college, just as he did in the bio his booking agency used. A bio he let stand for 18 years, uncorrected. I also think the old Choom Gang slacker had mediocre grades. And I’d bet my favorite gun that every lawyer on Power Line kicked his ass on the LSAT. Prove me wrong, Barry. Let’s see the records.

The book bio factoid above is absolutely true -- but of course, nobody cares. We are on a lot of one way streets and BO is a Democrat. Nuff said! Good God, Hillary Clinton is running for for president and Mr blue stain is still around! We live in a world where well over 50% of the population is purely following the script laid down by The Party and it's media / propaganda arm.

Nothing but One-Way Streets. No wonder we’re on the road to perdition and can’t even make a U-Turn.

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Too Simple Amygdala

The Psychopath, the Altruist and the Rest of Us - WSJ:

An interesting article, but very misleadingly simple.

There is an interesting book that I've read and will maybe blog on at some point called "The Psychopath Inside" about a neuroscientist that discovers he is a psychopath. It gives a much better perspective to the psychopath side.

YES, there are brain structures that play a distinctive part, but how you are brought up, your intelligence, your life choices, your relationships and a myriad of other things have HUGE influence as well.

We are a LONG way from looking at one part of the brain and stating "you are a psychopath" or "you are a hyper-altruist"!

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Compassionate Salt

Christians, Don't Fall for the 'Compassion' Trap:

The linked article is an excellent read for Christians that are concerned about standing up for Christian values to read. It just misses having one scriptural quote to complete it.

Matt 5-13 "You are the salt of the earth. But what good is salt if it has lost its flavor? Can you make it salty again? It will be thrown out and trampled underfoot as worthless." 

A teaser ... but I recommend reading it all.

First, there is no inconsistency between defending our culture from the latest sexual “reform” and loving our neighbors. It is compassionate to women and children to argue that governments and businesses shouldn’t render them more vulnerable to sexual predators. And if you believe the words of the Bible, there is nothing compassionate about acquiescing in the latest cultural demand to normalize immoral and troubled behavior. Yes, transgender men and women need the love of Jesus, but if by our words or deeds we contribute to the notion that their “transitions” are perfectly acceptable, we’re contributing to their own tragic self-mutilation.

Arrest Louis C. K., Campaign Finance Law

In-kind political contributions from celebrities should be regulated like cash donations:

Louis C. K. is doing a fundraiser for de Blasio -- Louis typically gets $500K - $1 million for an appearance.

It is impossible to see how Louis C. K.’s donating his only major asset — his celebrity — to the cause of Bill de Blasio is anything other than an in-kind contribution. And, given that Louis C. K.’s ordinary rate (between $500,000 and $1 million minimum for U.S. appearances) far exceeds the legal limit on contributions to mayoral campaigns, it is difficult to see why this should be legal while other in-kind contributions valued at the same level are forbidden. Why should $1 million worth of photocopying be verboten while $1 million worth of high-value celebrity fund-raising is hunky-dory?

So why does Louis not get arrested like Dinesh D'Souza did?

We know this answer, de Blasio is a DEMOCRAT! If we didn't have laws on the books to criminalize political activity that opposes "The Party" (D), we would have this.

I am a First Amendment absolutist and a free-speech absolutist. I think Louis C. K. should be able to say what he likes, where he likes, how he likes, on behalf of whatever candidate he likes. But I also think the same thing about Charles and David Koch, Exxon, and Charles C. W. Cooke.

Anyone that takes even a TINY amount of time to look at "campaign finance" and "money in politics" knows that what is the problem from the ruling TP perspective is CONSERVATIVE money in politics! The only reason laws have been put on the books is to make it possible to put people like D'Souza in jail if TP desires. Louis C. K. is completely free to provide an in-kind donation of $500K-$1 Million to TP, in fact he is great guy in the eyes of TP for doing so! (surprise, surprise)

In California, if someone is accused of "coordination" with "outside spending groups", they are "Guilty until proven innocent" in direct violation of UN human rights law, to which the US is a signer.


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Criminalizing Politics, Dinesh D'Souza

Dinesh D’Souza avoids jail time, gets five years of probation for campaign finance violation - The Washington Post:

D'Souza's real crime is being a conservative. He has written books and done movies critical of left wing policies and politicians -- most prominently BO and Hildebeast.

"Campaign Finance laws" are simply laws to criminalize opposition to "The Party" (TP-D). The entire government bureaucracy and the vast majority of the legal system are controlled by TP. The idea of them "prosecuting" a Democrat for some campaign finance "infraction" isn't even in their imagination. The only campaign finance infraction a Democrat could possibly commit is NOT RAISING ENOUGH MONEY!

We live in a country run by and for TP -- so those that are willing to oppose TP need to be punished. How else will they get their minds right?

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An Interest In Sheep

If I Lose Friends Over Trump, So Be It:

Back in the old days, US politics were a bit more like this old cartoon.

Both parties had a strong interest in the sheeple, just from a bit varied perspective. At the end of the day, they punched the clock and went off for a few drinks in some smoke filled room.

My personal theory is that they were all Christians, Americans, men (yes, and typically white) -- they believed in God, the Bible, Mom, Apple Pie and Chevrolet. They might argue over baseball, which highball was the best, brand of cigarette, "Ginger or Mary Ann", but they were generally "fine fellows well met".

My view of today's problem is that the coyotes have taken over Washington -- both "sides" are primarily concerned with dividing up the spoils, so they act like they really hate each other, but in fact what they TRUELY hate is Cruz or Trump.

The article tries to claim that Trump is some sort of aberration that is REALLY worth "losing friends over". I'm guessing the guy would hate Cruz at least as bad if not worse. BO was something we have never seen in American politics before either -- a man who stated his core identity as "Luo Tribesman" and his mission as "destruction of the colonial powers".

Hildebeast is a known criminal, pathological liar, and failed miserably at the only semi-real job she ever held (SOS). Everyone is thinks Trump is wrong about "She wouldn't even get 5% if she wasn't a woman".  It is hard to imagine her even existing as a candidate were she not a she -- her two "qualifications" are First Lady and Failed SOS. It is hard to be a "First Lady" without being a woman (so far), and she would have never been SOS if she hadn't been First Lady.

I'm a Cruz guy, but at least Trump is a "wild card". We know that Hildebeast is total corruption, absolutely self serving and grossly incompetent. Maybe Trump will surprise us -- who knows. I'll take Russian Roulette over a sure bullet to the brain.

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Eugenics: “The Thick-fingered Clowns We Call The People”

The Forgotten Lessons of the American Eugenics Movement - The New Yorker:

I'm starting to think that the New Yorker might be the victims of a "terrorist attack" if they keep this kind of reporting up. The quote in the title is from Oliver Wendell Holmes -- that paragon of American "progressivism". However, as one reads to the end, we discover that this fine column is yet another cautionary tale on "Trumpism" rather that the wonderful "progressivism" of our day.

Cohen writes that there was widespread skepticism about eugenics among those whom Oliver Wendell Holmes once referred to as “the thick-fingered clowns we call the people,” but the opposition wasn’t large or organized enough to effectively counter the influential network behind the movement.

Naturally, the New Yorker sees no similarity between BO's calling out "the bitter clingers" nor their own allusions to Trump supporters later in the article:

The 2016 Presidential campaign has reverberated with appeals to strength and victory and virility and contempt for weakness and failure and foreigners, hitting notes of blatant ugliness that we’re not used to hearing in the public sphere. The response in some quarters has been bafflement, as though this way of speaking had materialized out of nowhere.

Perhaps some "imbeciles" have been breeding in the Red States after all?

What is hardest to forget about “Imbeciles” is the stream of grandiose invective against the supposedly unfit—the diatribes concerning “germs of dependency and delinquency” and the “world peopled by a race of degenerates and defectives.” It’s a language that combines the detachment of scientific terminology with the heat of bigoted slurs.

Yes, apparently the "bitter clingers" in fly-over America are not yet fully "imbeciles", but one doesn't need to listen to very much NPR or read much NY Times to realize that those Trump supporters are certainly not much above genetic flotsam and jetsam.

As Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote to a friend, about his pleasure in writing the Buck decision, “Sooner or later one gets a chance to say what one thinks.”

I've read enough of the left to know that they have done plenty of "studies" about how "conservative brains" are more gullible, less prone to believe in "facts", etc -- they know they are superior and their big issue is how long they have to put up with the inferior conservatives!

I'm definitely "thick fingered", and no doubt Oliver Wendell Holmes would find me to be an "imbecile". That's OK. When I was young I spent some time with young adults that worked at a nursing home who were certainly "low IQ" which was referred to at that time as "retarded".

Personally, I prefer to be identified with them than with Oliver Wendell Holmes! I like to think that Oliver or even most of the New Yorker staff would treat me rather well 1 on 1 -- let's face it, intelligence isn't everything!

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Lucifer In the Flesh

John Boehner Describes Ted Cruz as 'Lucifer in the Flesh' - First Draft. Political News, Now. - The New York Times:

Boehner feels that Ted Cruz is "Lucifer in the Flesh". Here is a sample of the teary ones rhetoric on this topic.

“I have Democrat friends and Republican friends,” Mr. Boehner told David Kennedy, an emeritus history professor, at the event. “I get along with almost everyone, but I have never worked with a more miserable son of a bitch in my life.”

I'd be honored to have Mr Kleenex as an enemy -- as PJ O'Rourke has opined, "Christ said to love our enemies, he didn't say not to have any!"

I'll leave my comments on the crybaby with this from Revelation 3:16

"So, because you are lukewarm--neither hot nor cold--I am about to spit you out of my mouth."

My guess is that Christ approves of Lucifer over Boehner -- at least you KNOW where Satan stands! He DOESN'T have "friends" on both sides!

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