I'm A Lumberjack And I'm OK

https://imprimis.hillsdale.edu/is-canadas-economy-a-model-for-america/?hootPostID=6fd4767e821928e00b8057f1f5c24a1a

Mark Steyn is a much better writer than I and similarly wordy. He has a wit that I admire deeply ... my real advice is to just go read the linked article. After reading "American Amnesia", the biggest thing I realize I enjoy about conservative writers is that they generally have wit and humor.

Some samples:

As we know from 9/11, the Wahabbis in Saudi Arabia use their oil wealth to spread their destructive ideology to every corner of the world. And so do the Canadians. Consider that in the last 40 years, fundamental American ideas have made no headway whatsoever in Canada, whereas fundamental Canadian ideas have made huge advances in America and the rest of the Western world. To take two big examples, multiculturalism and socialized health care—both pioneered in Canada—have made huge strides down here in the U.S., whereas American concepts—such as non-confiscatory taxation—remain as foreign as ever.

In order to properly understand the following, this video ought to be reviewed. Thankfully, with the election of Trump, I'm guessing that it can survive on the internet for awhile longer even though it clearly lacks proper respect for transvestites!

My colleague at National Review, John O’Sullivan, once observed that post-war Canadian history is summed up by the old Monty Python song that goes, “I’m a Lumberjack and I’m OK.” If you recall that song, it begins as a robust paean to the manly virtues of a rugged life in the north woods. But it ends with the lumberjack having gradually morphed into a kind of transvestite pickup who likes to wear high heels and dress in women’s clothing while hanging around in bars. Of course, John O’Sullivan isn’t saying that Canadian men are literally cross-dressers—certainly no more than 35-40 percent of us — but rather that a once manly nation has undergone a remarkable psychological makeover. If you go back to 1945, the Royal Canadian Navy had the world’s third largest surface fleet, the Royal Canadian Air Force was one of the world’s most effective air forces, and Canadian troops got the toughest beach on D-Day. But in the space of two generations, a bunch of tough hombres were transformed into a thoroughly feminized culture that prioritizes all the secondary impulses of society—welfare entitlements from cradle to grave—over all the primary ones. And in that, Canada is obviously not alone. If the O’Sullivan thesis is flawed, it’s only because the lumberjack song could stand as the post-war history of almost the entire developed world.

The closing health care example is really not to be missed, so I will include it here, even though I am WAY over my quote limit! The truly sad part here is that if the babies had died, Canada's "infant mortality rate" likely would not be affected -- the government does the counting.

**DO** just go and read it!

"A Canadian woman has given birth to extremely rare identical quadruplets. The four girls were born at a U.S. hospital because there was no space available at Canadian neonatal intensive care units. Autumn, Brook, Calissa, and Dahlia are in good condition at Benefice Hospital in Great Falls, Montana. Health officials said they checked every other neonatal intensive care unit in Canada, but none had space. The Jepps, a nurse and a respiratory technician were flown 500 kilometers to the Montana hospital, the closest in the U.S., where the quadruplets were born on Sunday."

There you have Canadian health care in a nutshell. After all, you can’t expect a G-7 economy of only 30 million people to be able to offer the same level of neonatal intensive care coverage as a town of 50,000 in remote, rural Montana. And let’s face it, there’s nothing an expectant mom likes more on the day of delivery than 300 miles in a bumpy twin prop over the Rockies. Everyone knows that socialized health care means you wait and wait and wait—six months for an MRI, a year for a hip replacement, and so on. But here is the absolute logical reductio of a government monopoly in health care: the ten month waiting list for the maternity ward.

Dividers On Division

Trevor Noah: Let’s Not Be Divided. Divided People Are Easier to Rule. - The New York Times:

I really didn't expect the  NY Times to remember much of what they said in their shock and awe phase right after the election. Here is a fine example of some first rate spin from Trevor Noah ... the new "Great Eviscerator" who replaced Jon Stewart on "The Daily Show". Only Trevor is a "kinder and gentler" eviscerator. 

"The past year has been so polarizing and noxious that even I find myself getting caught up in the extreme grandstanding and vitriol. But with extremes come deadlock and the death of progress. Instead of speaking in measured tones about what unites us, we are screaming at each other about what divides us — which is exactly what authoritarian figures like Mr. Trump want: Divided people are easier to rule. That was, after all, the whole point of apartheid."

Ah, Trump is an authoritarian that is like "apartheid". Hard to beat that for "bringing together". So I wonder if Mr Noah has any idea what "Identity Politics" is? The NY Times helpfully carried an article on it Nov 18th in which this was one of the paragraphs:

We need a post-identity liberalism, and it should draw from the past successes of pre-identity liberalism. Such a liberalism would concentrate on widening its base by appealing to Americans as Americans and emphasizing the issues that affect a vast majority of them. It would speak to the nation as a nation of citizens who are in this together and must help one another. As for narrower issues that are highly charged symbolically and can drive potential allies away, especially those touching on sexuality and religion, such a liberalism would work quietly, sensitively and with a proper sense of scale. (To paraphrase Bernie Sanders, America is sick and tired of hearing about liberals’ damn bathrooms.)

So the folks that have operated using "Identity Politics" for a good long while are LIBERALS ... taking blacks, women, hispanics, gays, transgenders, socialists, "marginally legal" immigrants, wealthy limousine liberals in big cities, environmentalists, muslims, and a couple of other SEPARATE GROUPS, and telling EACH of them "you are better off with us, we will cater to YOUR balkanized interests".

 In other words, keeping all those groups divided from each other, but "grouped" by promises to be better than the "other guys", "the irredeemable deploreabiles". Does the fact that Identity Politics is all about dividing, and dividing is what authoritarians do, make "progressives" into authoritarians that are like apartheid? I know the answer to that ... no, of course not. Liberals are always good!

Trump on the other hand said "Make AMERICA great again". America is an idea ... a single entity.

Sadly, given what we’ve seen in this election, Mr. Trump’s victory has only amplified the voices of extremism. It has made their arguments more simplistic and more emotional at a time when they ought to be growing more subtle and more complex. We should give no quarter to intolerance and injustice in this world, but we can be steadfast on the subject of Mr. Trump’s unfitness for office while still reaching out to reason with his supporters.

There we have it. We poor emotional Trump supporters were swayed by extremism and simplistic arguments  -- when what was needed was "subtle and complex" -- and mistakenly cast our vote for someone "unfit for office". However, the brilliant folks like Trevor will be oh so happy to explain it to us in their "subtle and complex ways"  -- usually beginning with "hey you bunch of deplorable stupid racist bigots, let me tell you what you BETTER believe".

That is how the left intends to "bring us all together".  It's a beautiful thing.

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American Amnesia Phase II, The Authors Die of Alzheimers

Ok, phase I was inane, phase II was insane -- as in the classic leftist claptrap of NPR, NYT, WaPO, Huffpo, CNN, MSNBC regurgitated in a massive flow. Pumping 50 million gallons of hog manure in IA comes to mind. This the link back to phase I if you didn't read that yet. 

We do samples of the pungent fertilizer -- so I will follow suit here.

The next year, Reagan made a U-turn. When a deep recession and his big tax cuts yielded massive budget deficits, the president accepted tax hikes to stanch the red ink.

Reagan was a tax raiser ... which I guess is an attempt to make him "one of theirs". But what he did was try to deal honestly with Democrats.

It happened to my father early in his first term when he sought to close a growing federal deficit caused by the deep economic recession. He believed Democrats in Congress would keep their pledge to make $3 in future spending cuts for every $1 in immediate tax increases. 

In 1982 he signed a compromise tax bill with the horrible name of TEFRA — the Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act. And, when those promised spending cuts never materialized in Congress, TEFRA became one of the biggest regrets of my father’s presidency.

We could bore you with a LONG list of these, but the bottom line is that Republicans have been  snookered many times at this game. The authors of the book are mystified why trust has broken down between the parties!

How evil can the Koch brothers be?  Lots of pages of text worth ... they are of course Libertarians and not really Republicans, but "whatever" ... "they are not at war with the Republican establishment". Well, the Republican Establishment certainly was at war with Trump ... so Trump ought to be a good thing for these guys I assume.

For many pundits, American politics seems stuck in its own Groundhog Day: an interminable cycle of partisan warfare and gridlock. The cycle’s beginning can, like Groundhog Day, be dated to 1993. Clinton and congressional Democrats met fierce across-the-board resistance from a Republican Party acting with newfound unity and intensity. The epic battles that followed— budget wars, government shutdowns, impeachment of a president— set the tone for the next twenty-plus years. A new meme in American political discourse, “polarization,” became the new normal in American political life.

Why not 1973? Watergate was getting in full swing -- that had the impeachment of a president involved as well. Certainly the Republicans played Charlie Brown to the Democrats Lucy in the kicking the field goal vignette MANY times.  Reagan played the same roll in the $1 tax increase for $3 of future cuts.

One of the "small" items not really talked about is that Democrats held control of the House of Representatives for nearly 40 years, 1957-1994, but amazingly there was no corruption or cronyism under their rule. Gingrich was a "new breed", not an honorable guy like say ways and means chair Dan Rostenkowski from the mid-80s, who spent some time vacationing at the barbed wire hotel on the SE side of Rochester.

The polarization of the parties has been asymmetric. Republicans have moved much further right than Democrats have moved left.

You would measure that how? By government spending? (steadily up) By government regulation? (steadily up) By social issues? Republican W Bush proposes and passes prescription drug coverage under medicare? Bernie Sanders, a declared Socialist runs as a Democrat and likely would have won had the party not rigged their primaries? Gay "marriage" and men in women's bathrooms isn't a leftward shift?

Have we always had those things and I just realized it? I see leftward as toward more government and less morality and rightward is toward less government and morality. You would think that with their assertion that the "mix" of the "mixed economy" is toward LESS government, while the real world being ever more government spending as a % of GDP, they would at least deign to explain what they mean.

In the current chapter, we explain the parallel rise of two grave threats to the mixed economy: a new economic elite with ideas (and earnings) starkly distinct from the American mainstream and a newly influential economic philosophy that we call “Randianism” (after the radically individualistic thinking of the midcentury novelist Ayn Rand).

I see this development as positive -- Republicans are being accused of reading books other than the Bible ... and possibly Mein Kampf. The normal ding on Republicans is that they lack the intellect to be able to read. The offending text is "Atlas Shrugged" by Ayn Rand, published in 1957.  Not one, but TWO "grave threats", one of them being a book -- the left always has had problems with books.

GOP presidential candidates have become more conservative, while Democratic candidates have not moved left.

Oh, that is what they mean! Obama was not farther left than Bill Clinton ... no need to even consider it! HW Bush was right of Reagan.  McCain and Mittens were to the "right" of W. Glad that is straightened out!

“Say you had a deal, a real spending cuts deal, ten to one . . . spending cuts to tax increases. . . . Who on this stage would walk away from that deal? Can you raise your hand if you feel so strongly about not raising taxes, you’d walk away on the ten-to-one deal?” All eight candidates raised their hands. The GOP crowd roared approval.

There is one of their "proofs" of the rightward shift of Republicans. How about Republicans have FINALLY figured out that a such a "deal" with the Democrats is letting Lucy hold the football again! Even the very stupid eventually learn!

What is it that makes Republicans so evil? The are racists!

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 changed that. Within a generation, the GOP represented the nation’s most conservative voters, and the geographic epicenter of loyal Republican voters became the Deep South— a region that is both poorer and more conservative than other Republican bulwarks. When Democratic leaders finally demanded the end of Jim Crow, black voters became overwhelmingly Democratic.

Never mind that the Democrats were the party of slavery and then of Jim Crow, that DEMOCRATS worked to filibuster the voting rights act and as a percentage, more Republicans than Democrats voted for it.  What really takes hutzpah is that the democrat strategy of keeping blacks on the new inner city welfare plantations where they share-crop the votes every couple years has not been much of an aid to the lives of their welfare slaves -- but no matter, I guess they have actually been consistent on their attitude to blacks for the countries entire history! Keep them on the plantation! Just make it look a little different from time to time.

Besides race, the "machinery" that allows Republicans to get voters to "vote against their interests" is:

This machinery has three key elements: Christian conservatism, polarizing right-wing media, and growing efforts by business and the wealthy to backstop and bankroll Republican politics.

Ok, the book was bad before, but by this point there is nothing not covered on NPR, NYT, WaPo, etc every day. It isn't clear what they would do to get Christian conservatives to stop voting against the killing of 60 million and counting babies, gay "marriage", men in women's locker rooms and such -- maybe kill them?

Do we really have to keep hearing about "money in politics" after 2016? Last summer the media was ecstatic that Hillary was cleaning Trump's clock on campaign money, especially from Wall Street. Here is bloomberg waxing poetic about her out raising Trump by 20 to 1 among billionaires. Gee ... let's get the money out of politics! The amount of crap about Citizens United in the book REALLY is a joke after November -- the "read by" date of this book expired Nov 8!

But even the most plausible of them— campaign finance reform, improvements in our electoral process, a concerted push to bring politicians back toward the center—

We need to get back toward "the center" -- which is? In the view of the authors, the country is "moving right" -- reams more regulation, socialized medicine, ever increasing spending, new "rights" ... gay "marriage", sex change, choose your own race? etc.

Moreover, while there’s no single solution, we do believe there’s an overarching and inspiring aim: restoring the capacity of our democracy to express and act upon the interests that large numbers of us share in common.

So how about 60 million Americans? Is that a "large number". I find it tragic and ironic that the numbers on each side in this past election are basically the same as the number of babies murdered since Roe V Wade. How many geniuses that may have cured cancer, solved our energy problems, or maybe written a book that allowed Trump and Hillary supporters to look across the fence and understand why there is so much disagreement, were gassed by Hitler? How many more have been killed since 1973?

Democracies are at constant risk of being overwhelmed by intensely organized minorities who distort, immobilize, or dismantle government to advance their own interests.

Which may be why this was once a Constitutional Republic. If the government was limited in size -- say 10-20% of GDP, then the special interests rent seeking via government, as well as vote buying schemes, would be limited BOTH by the Constitution and there just being 10-20% of the economy to take from, rather than 40%.

To reverse this spiral, we must reestablish a government with the capacity to foster broad prosperity. We need to ensure that ordinary voters and diffuse interests are capable of triumphing over concentrated interests. And we need to rescue the ideal of the mixed economy from the mists of American Amnesia. Many changes have swept the American economy since the 1970s. Yet our biggest problem is not a lack of attractive policy options. Our biggest problem is our politics. The mixed economy is as necessary as ever— indeed, in a world of increased interdependence and complexity, more than ever. And despite all the changes of recent decades, it is still within our grasp. We need better policies to restore its potential. But above all, we need a better politics.

So we have doubled the size of government in % of GDP since those "forgotten" days of the mixed economy. The authors may be certain there are some great "policy positions", but outside of LOTS more government, LOTS more taxes, and LOTS more regulation, the specifics were "thin" ... except for somehow getting the lowest possible barriers to voting, plus allowing felons, and only thinly trying to disguise the desire to allow illegals to vote (no IDs).

Some favor that redistribution; others oppose it. But what is missing is an understanding that most of what government does is not about redistribution at all; it is about addressing a wide range of problems that markets alone are ill equipped to tackle. Our discourse about government has become dangerously lopsided. The hostility of the right is unceasing and mostly unanswered.

I think the BIGGEST of this books many failings is the failure to recognize that BY FAR the biggest dollar amount of effort by the government IS redistribution, 70-80%.  What is far worse is that most of that is that 40% of US households are now getting over 50% of their income from the government ... and all of that (other than what is stolen from our children and grandchildren) is coming out of those who make over the lofty sum of $102K. They harp a lot on how "makers and takers" is nasty ... perhaps cash cows and vote slaves is more accurate?


This has gotten WAY too long ... I'll leave this as their analysis of the wonders of BOcare. It was really wonderful -- here in MN a lot of folks ended up paying $2k+ a couple for their insurance, $24K a year ... STILL with hefty deductibles and co-pays if they had to use it. AFTER the election, even the WaPo had the courage to interviewed Noseworthy from Mayo who pointed out it was time for a do-over.  They find any claims against BOcare to be completely false -- proof of racism, ill will, etc.

They claim millions are losing good insurance despite a historic expansion of coverage. They claim costs are skyrocketing despite a historic slowdown of medical inflation.

 See, the guys that wrote this book know that BOcare was a wonderful thing! Heck, Hacker (one of the authors) was even one of the architects of BOcare -- thanks! BOcare was one of the things that helped Trump beat Hillary!

So by $$$ the government has grown from 20% of the economy when they claim the "mix" was correct to nearly 40% ... but now they think the government is WAY too small. I think what they really mean is that the socialist vote buying programs to date have eaten the whole budget and they don't have enough left for them to buy more votes or pick more winners or losers -- but they don't say that, so the book is completely debunked by looking up a government spending as a % of GDP chart.

But I looked up the regulation volume in the first post as well -- that is also at record levels.

So, what I "learned":

• government is great, government is good, we thank it for our daily bread. When people go into government they are sainted and there is never any corruption or rent seeking (as in build bigger fiefdoms, keep people on forever even if no longer useful, etc) ... no problems in government ... except Republican obstructionism. 
• Republicans and business are in bed together and evil.  (and racist, but I repeat myself)
• Democrats are so amazing! If the Republicans (and at least the high level business people) could be herded into gas chambers, utopia would be at hand! The very fact that they question this utopia is a sign of their evil. 
• Fox News and Talk Radio! Nuff said ... well throw in "conservative think tanks funded by the Koch brothers". Puts the Democrat / government forces of goodness and light at EXTREME disadvantage! NPR, CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN, MSNBC, NY Times, WaPo, all the universities, Hollywood, American Bar association, government workers unions, etc just CAN'T COMPETE! Side note ... who has market share on radio? They pointed how how much was conservative, but failed to mention that out of the top 4 with basically same numbers of listeners: "Liberal Things Considered" at top (NPR), then Rush, then "Liberal Edition" (NPR), then Hannity. The book led you to believe it was a conservative rout -- really more of a privately funded / publicly funded draw. 

The big thing that books like this make obvious is that the US electorate is operating under two completely different world views. One actually DOES believe in a truly mixed economy, with the government being 10, 20, or possibly even 30% of that mix. The other (the authors of this book) want a SOCIALIST economy with 50, 60 ??? % being government, and almost certainly eventually effectively 100% -- because anybody that opposes them is always going to be "evil". We know they want MUCH more government because having it jump from 20 - 40% of GDP looks like "backward" from their perspective -- there is indeed "Amnesia", but they need to look between their ears a lot more. 

Socialized Auto Care

A fitting end: Castro’s hearse breaks down | Power Line:

Fidel's hearse broke down -- God does give us really good hints.

One of the many comments from people that don't boot lick socialists and communists like BO and Trudeau .... "In Cuba, NOTHING WORKS ... except the prostitutes".


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Trump Will Never Be President

I'm not as certain he will be as these folks were that he would not be -- he isn't inaugurated yet.

It is really worth watching. How are people EVER as sure of something as these people all are? Or are they really not that sure, but just lie so much that "staking their reputation" (what reputation?) on something doesn't really matter that much.

I like BO ... "The worst president in history" with his snarky "Well, at least I WAS president"! People that haven't learned to not believe ANYTHING that dufus says long before now are just not in the learning camp!

40% Of Americans Unemployable Due To Religion

The Culture War Expands | The Weekly Standard:

It has come to my attention "Post Trump" that apparently many BOistanis have lost the understanding of Freedom of Association as well as tolerance, both of which were critical in the mother nation that was called "America" (1776-2012).

While Associational Freedom is so obvious to most at most times that it is like "air", the US history of slavery and Democrat run Jim Crow in the south led to a dangerous precedent with "Brown vs Board of Education". For whites relating to blacks , Freedom of Association was suspended. It was NOT suspended in the reverse direction -- all black schools, all black organizations, etc were still and still are completely legal. The intent was to use this rather extreme measure to break an egregious case of racial apartheid that allowed institutionalized and political oppression in the old Democrat controlled US South.

Rather than clearly understand the specific abridgment of a deep and natural human freedom as a radical measure taken for a highly specific purpose, the same party that managed Jim Crow has seen fit to attempt to generalize the use of force to apply to other groups to gain further political power via Identity Politics. Women were rather quickly added, then minority religions, gays and now "transgenders".

Sadly, while the coercive totalitarian approach is gaining ground in forcing compliance on one side, the opposite is also taking place as "liberals" disassociate themselves with family, friends and businesses because they  "may have/did vote for Trump". Tolerance and Associational Freedom go together in a "classical liberal" Democracy/Republic ... they are part of "why things worked". In a totalitarian state, "tolerance" is replaced by government enforced compliance.

In the linked column we have the case of a young married couple who are practicing Christians. They have a hit show about fixing up homes (not all that sexual). Their church does not support gay "marriage" -- so it is time for them to be boycotted, taken off the air, etc.. If supporting gay "marriage" is a requirement to be employed, then 40% of americans (including me) are ineligible for employment today, or we need to stay quietly "in the closet" and hope nobody "outs us".

Think about that for a moment. Is the suggestion here that 40 percent of Americans are unemployable because of their religious convictions on marriage? That the companies that employ them deserve to be boycotted until they yield to the other side of the debate— a side, we should note, that is only slightly larger than the one being shouted down?

 We were once a Christian nation -- we had shared values that aligned well with our Constitution. Yes, in the South, Christian values were corrupted and used to further a cultural and political system of oppression. Just because an extreme measure was used to break a specific problem should not make that extreme measure now the norm. Unfortunately, the oppressor political party in the old Jim Crow case still has a political vision that requires oppression and lack of tolerance in order to flourish. The Unconstrained Vision of the world.

The idea of our framers was to LIMIT government so that it would never be big or intrusive enough so we even had to waste time on these discussions. The assumption was that free and reasonably well educated people would interact and work our such issues ON THEIR OWN in accordance with their generally Christian beliefs.

The question of a nation founded on ideas rather than territory, ethnicity, language, religion, etc surviving was one of the things (beside the concept of limited government) that made America exceptional. BOistan has an exceptional heritage it chooses to largely ignore, but it is on completely new ground relative to sustaining itself in a way that Europe does not. Eastern Europe shows us that nations founded on territory, religion, language, etc "survive" in a sense even when they are under totalitarian rule (USSR) for nearly a century. France is very likely to still be called "France" and have the same borders even if it becomes an Islamic state. Probably no wine though.

Americans knew who they were and what ideals they held to be sacred. BOistanis don't think much of all that -- they were certain that they were going to continue to hold political power and thus stamp out any remnant of America once and for all. Trump is at least a bump in their road.

The way back from BOistan is long and arduous at this point -- philosophy and religion, at least the language of both, have to return to be foundational for EVERY person that considers themselves "educated". REAL tolerance -- as in understanding the importance of tolerating, COMMUNICATING WITH,  and even respecting the rights of people who think differently than you is critical. The sad thing is that without divinely inspired, or VERY well thought out transcendent principles, such tolerance is impossible.

We are deeply broken -- we have been losing our way for over 100 years. We took huge losses in the 30's and 60's, and then the combination of decades of losses, mass media and BO pulled the last straw and we absolutely fell into the post-constitutional, post-truth failed state of BOistan. The greatest loss for humans is always meaning. Death is small next to that. As Nietzsche said, "He who has a why can endure any how".  Thus, the primary goal of the collectivist forces is always to destroy the why -- the meaning, and replace it with assimilation to the collective.

I could just keep writing, but will stop here  -- one book if you want to dig deeper ...  "Ideas Have Consequences".

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American Amnesia, 1/3 Through

https://www.amazon.com/American-Amnesia-Government-America-Prosper/dp/1451667825

I'm only 1/3 of the way through this pompous and ridiculously wordy leftist tome, but the thought has occurred to me that I may have been snookered. Supposedly, a lefty acquaintance read it, was really impressed, and was willing to read Thomas Sowell's "A Conflict of Visions" in a sort of a "ideological exchange". I'm hoping he didn't this book ... at least not too closely, and perhaps was feeling bad because some of his friends had so figured he would snooker me into reading it and writing a review to save him a lot of time wading through turgid prose.

The big picture summary so far seems to be (unsurprisingly) that "Government is God" ... little events like industrial revolutions, world wars, mass communication, computers, the internet, etc have minimal effects. The key to everything is a properly balanced "mixed economy" -- with government being the senior, virtuous, intelligent partner in the decidedly unequal "partnership" with greedy capitalists, biased research not properly funded via tax dollars, etc.

Ergo, the success of the US from 1946 - 1970 is PROOF that a properly balanced "Golidlocks"  mixed economy is what made this country rich! Simple.

The other leading world economies being bombed to ashes while we were unscathed save Pearl Harbor, and thus supplying damned near everything for their remaining populations to recover isn't mentioned -- so clearly not a factor. That time period being the rollout of all sorts of technologies, plus a burst of growing children (us, the vaunted "boomers") was also not a factor. Keep repeating GOVERNMENT!

Unsurprisingly, the book seems to lack a single chart (I have the Kindle version, so maybe that is the issue). You see the mixed economy was "balanced" until sometime around Reagan, and it has been grossly too small since then, thus accounting for all our problems -- well except for PeterPeterson and Ayn Rand, but I haven't gotten to the conclusion of their nefarious deeds yet. That is why you see in the following chart the huge and continuing drop in government spending as a percentage of GDP starting around 1980:

You don't see it? Well then obviously you are not a liberal, and likely under the influence of Ayn Rand or Pete Peterson -- perhaps you should seek psychiatric care. I must confess, I seem to have a similar issue. I'm guessing that means I'm a clear victim of "amnesia" -- perhaps the use of data and charts is a symptom?

Well, in my obviously incorrect world, government as a percentage of GDP has actually GROWN steadily! From just over 20% to just short of 40% today. To the extent it was "balanced" from 1945 to 1980 and we became amnesic about it, the proper level of spending would be "20-25% of GDP". Strange. 

Oh, they seem to think that MORE REGULATION will help ... so that must be much lower. Hmm ... 2015 was a record year for federal regulation, surpassing the old record set in 2010. Admittedly, that was a "scant" 81,611 pages -- expertly rolled out by an administration brilliantly led by Obama. I'm sure each of those highly effective contributions to the proper functioning of our mixed economy was a gem of great value! 

Now it could well be that pages of regulation as a percentage of population, GDP, or unicorn farts IS actually out of it's "proper mix". However,  other than "more, more, more", being nefariously blocked by Randian Republicans cruel and foul, actual assertions about "what is the goldilocks amount" (mysteriously achieved from 1946 - 1975) remains a mystery not deemed worthy of revelation in this lengthy tome. 

What IS very obvious to me at this point is that the authors of the book are very much in the "unconstrained" vision where the latest is the greatest (unless a Republican gets elected) and more government is ALWAYS better -- data and charts are a distraction. They are so smart that anyone not feeling grateful for their efforts in explaining all this is clearly a Neanderthal and likely voted for Trump. I did --- mea culpa, mea culpa! 

On to the rest of this brilliant treatise ... I'm sort of imagining a "Raiders of the Lost Ark" plot where Pete Peterson conjures the spirit of Ayn Rand and they hypnotize most of the population of the US to use numbers and data and such to attempt to understand reality -- thus becoming "amnesic" about the TRUE reality being described in the book. 

Well, back to the excitement! 

**** I am sort of joking -- I think the "slight" point they missed (or more likely just left out) is that the Democrat purchase of votes via FICA, medicare, BOcare, etc is sucking up way too much of the total government cash now and they need VASTLY more money to support the house of cards "entitlements", PLUS reign in those nasty capitalists. The actual "properly balanced mix" for "liberals" always ends up being 100% government control and guys like me either at room temperature or sitting in a gulag on the N slope of Alaska munching rat in a tent. 

Lacking A Need for Cognition

Stop Calling People "Low Information Voters" | Quillette:

A worthy read on the demon of the hour "the low information voter". Half of Trump supporters (or so) are "deploreables", but let's face it, the other half are "stupid" -- so euphemisms are in order. The WaPo had this fine effort.

Low information voters are those who do not know certain basic facts about government and lack what psychologists call a “need for cognition.” Those with a high need for cognition have a positive attitude toward tasks that require reasoning and effortful thinking and are, therefore, more likely to invest the time and resources to do so when evaluating complex issues.

Ah, "a high need for cognition" ... or as it was put in an Israeli news source ...

But there is one overarching factor that everyone knows contributed most of all to the Trump sensation. There is one sine qua non without which none of this would have been possible. There is one standalone reason that, like a big dodo in the room, no one dares mention, ironically, because of political correctness. You know what I’m talking about: Stupidity. Dumbness. Idiocy. Whatever you want to call it: Dufusness Supreme.

 In contrast, I love the credentials and attitude of philosopher Jason Brennan:

And while I no doubt suffer from some degree of confirmation bias and self-serving bias, perhaps I justifiably believe that I — a chaired professor of strategy, economics, ethics, and public policy at an elite research university, with a Ph.D. from the top-ranked political philosophy program in the English-speaking world, and with a strong record of peer-reviewed publications in top journals and academic presses — have superior political judgment on a great many political matters to many of my fellow citizens, including to many large groups of them.

That's really impressive. I enjoy how impressed Denzel's character is with the president of the entire drug cartel in the clip below.  If Jason got a chance to reflect on his superiority in a similar manner in the waning minutes of his life, he might have a significant epiphany on his actual worth in the real universe. I'd personally be willing to trade a thousand Jasons to ISIS for a single Marine -- and consider that our nation would be making superb deal for both ourselves, the current world, and history.

Professor Jason does start out correctly. He certainly suffers from "some" confirmation and self-serving bias -- in one of his books he suggests that "knowing people" like himself should get multiple votes, while lower classes ... like returning veterans, the people that pay the taxes to cover his university salary, and the supposed dolts in fly-over country that raise his food ought not be able to vote at all. "They are too driven by emotion".

The great twentieth century historian, Arnold Toynbee, theorized long ago that civilisations start to decline when their elite classes become parasitic. I can’t think of anything more parasitic than pseudo-intellectuals using other people’s money to write about feminist glaciology and the “whiteness” of pumpkin spiced lattes — and then being awarded more votes than returning military servicemen and women.

I'd certainly agree that uppity parasite class folks like Jason are a definite sign of civilization in decline -- but I think the rot is well set in a good deal before they show up. 

The article is worth a read -- I don't think Jason will be getting his extra votes anytime soon.

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New SECDEF, Surrender Or Die

I Served With James Mattis. Here's What I Learned From Him: 

Our current SECDEF is ... uh, had to look it up -- "Ashton B. Carter". Sorta sounds like a frat boy being wheeled into the emergency room because somebody kicked his ass in a fight.

BO's cabinet tends to be completely forgettable. Oh sure, we remember Lurch Kerry cuz he looks funny and every once in awhile says something particularly stupid.

http://www.moosetracksblog.com/2015/03/kerry-learns-of-disbelief.html, but otherwise, when the president is s putz and the VP is a joke, the cabinet tends to "follow the LACK of leadership".

I'm betting everyone knows James "Mad Dog" Mattis before long. Here is an example of how to deal with your enemies:

“There is one way to have a short but exciting conversation with me,” he continued, “and that is to move too slow. Gentlemen, this is not a marathon, this is a sprint. In about a month, I am going to go forward of our Marines up to the border between Iraq and Kuwait. And when I get there, one of two things is going to happen. Either the commander of the Fifty-First Mechanized Division is going to surrender his army in the field to me, or he and all his guys are going to die.” 

Nothing much else needed to be said after that. 

Good article, great general, Trump continues to amaze.



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Be Poilite, Be Proffessional

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/gen-james-mad-dog-mattis-7-memorable-quotes/

Man Crush On SECDEF

Viral James Mattis Email About Reading - Business Insider:



Wow, we may take over the world after all!

"The problem with being too busy to read is that you learn by experience (or by your men’s experience), i.e. the hard way. By reading, you learn through others’ experiences, generally a better way to do business, especially in our line of work where the consequences of incompetence are so final for young men."

This guy appears to be the REAL real deal!



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Reality Is Experience

http://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2016/04/the-illusion-of-reality/479559/

A likely important article that I may return to and dig deeper into. Apparently, the physical universe can be replaced with "a conscious entity" and at least this new model "still works".

As a conscious realist, I am postulating conscious experiences as ontological primitives, the most basic ingredients of the world. I’m claiming that experiences are the real coin of the realm. The experiences of everyday life—my real feeling of a headache, my real taste of chocolate—that really is the ultimate nature of reality.

"Ontological" -- being ... what IS.  The territory "real" as opposed to the map ... those being words like virtual, representation, metaphorical. This computer analogy gives a good idea why seeing "what is the most useful to the designer, or random chance" makes more sense than the "most realistic detail".

There’s a metaphor that’s only been available to us in the past 30 or 40 years, and that’s the desktop interface. Suppose there’s a blue rectangular icon on the lower right corner of your computer’s desktop — does that mean that the file itself is blue and rectangular and lives in the lower right corner of your computer? Of course not. But those are the only things that can be asserted about anything on the desktop — it has color, position, and shape. Those are the only categories available to you, and yet none of them are true about the file itself or anything in the computer. 

They couldn’t possibly be true. That’s an interesting thing. You could not form a true description of the innards of the computer if your entire view of reality was confined to the desktop. And yet the desktop is useful. That blue rectangular icon guides my behavior, and it hides a complex reality that I don’t need to know. That’s the key idea. 

Evolution has shaped us with perceptions that allow us to survive. They guide adaptive behaviors. But part of that involves hiding from us the stuff we don’t need to know. And that’s pretty much all of reality, whatever reality might be. If you had to spend all that time figuring it out, the tiger would eat you.

It's always intriguing to me that a super intelligent guy, so non-traditional he is willing to question the MOST fundamental aspects of the nature of existence, still finds "evolution " as somehow a worthy explanation for how we came to be (or maybe "not **BE** as in being physical", but rather "be" as experience only) in this non-physical reality. It is always possible that the computer desktop "just evolved" after all. Actually, if you are an evolutionist, the development of the computer and the desktop metaphor is simply evolution still operating in what we have no doubt mistakenly labeled "consciousness", meaning "something special", but in evolutionary "reality", just more evolutionary adaptive algorithms.

 (column author) But if there’s a W, are you saying there is an external world?

Hoffman: Here’s the striking thing about that. I can pull the W out of the model and stick a conscious agent in its place and get a circuit of conscious agents. In fact, you can have whole networks of arbitrary complexity. And that’s the world.

So, a mathematic attempt to understand consciousness replaces "the world" with "a conscious agent" and it all works ... and it doesn't give him any inking that God would fill that "conscious agent" role quite nicely?

The discoveries of quantum mechanics, the mystery of consciousness and things like the insane small amount of information that seems to be coming in through our optic nerves for us to create what we are "seeing" all point to some fundamental misconceptions about what "reality" is -- if it "is" (ontology again) at all! 

"I think, therefore I am" was always tenuous -- perhaps, a universal consciousness is reality, and "I" am an illusion. Perhaps when God speaks to Moses and says "I am that I am" he was really de-referencing the THAT!  (C++ programming, the "this pointer" is the pointer to the object itself) "I'm THAT" I am" ... the ultimate base of existence.  You (Moses) are another "I am", created in my image.

Roger Scruton has covered this philosophically quite well. 

HuffPO, Overturning Elections

Hamilton v. Trump: The Case That Could Save America | The Huffington Post:

My my there was a lot of hand wringing when the Dems were sure they were going to win and Trump suggested that he would accept the result if Hillary had a "clear victory".

Where is the outrage? When the enormity of Watergate and its direct threat to the American system of government became clear, many Republicans joined with Democrats in denouncing Mr. Nixon and “All the President’s Men.” Yet now, as we face an even graver threat to our institutions—must we term it “Putingate”?—even most Democrats, let alone Republicans, seem to lack the courage and patriotism to stand up to the forces that threaten to invalidate the will of the voters, violate the clear intent of the Founding Fathers, and undermine the Republic they established.

Wow, the left showing situational respect for the founders, guys they have dismissed as dead white racists for years! They must REALLY care about BOistan! They feel it is "threatened"!

That paragraph shows us why Hillary needs to be put behind bars and then hopefully pardoned.

 Watergate was a 3rd rate burglary that Nixon covered up. Nobody died, and no national secrets were compromised -- it was all about the cover up and the fact that Nixon swore on the tapes. That, believe it or not, was "not presidential" back then.

We let Slick Willy stain the office both physically and symbolically. The lying was worse, the cover up was worse and illegal acts were committed by the president himself in the oval office.  Sexual harassment is a crime, and there is NO SUCH THING as "consensual sex" between a superior and subordinate at the office. In fact, although I guess it must be surprising to many BOistanis, sex with anyone at the office tends to be a firing offence. The Democrats yawned.

Hillary has been a noxious skid mark since the day she showed up in DC. She presided over the disaster of Libya from breaking it, to losing our Ambassador and three Navy Seals, to lying about it being "caused by an internet movie", to uttering "What difference, at this point, does it make?". The Clinton Fund -- cash, for Clintons, shows what the public version of organized crime looks like. Her abuse of national secrets requires punishment -- lest the idea that "some are above the law" be enshrined to an even greater degree than it is today.

When Republicans were willing to remove Nixon from office, they believed in principle over politics and assumed that Democrats had the same high ideals. The 50 years since Watergate have shown that they held their opposition in much too high esteem. To date, Democrats have been unwilling to ever place principle and respect for the Constitution, the nation, or even common decency over pure politics. I can only assume that they thought this because they never envisioned a time when all branches of government and the vast majority of state governments were in the hands of the other party.

They clearly lacked imagination.

We need to "book end" Watergate, or Democrats will keep bringing it up FOREVER! Prosecute Hillary, whose crimes make Nixon's pale in comparison, let her eat off a tin tray for a few weeks -- something like Scooter Libby, who suffered the fate for the crime of "perjury" for not remembering events in a proper date order. Hillary has turned perjury into an art form!

Then pardon her, as Nixon was pardoned. If Trump could put together a good speech that says something like; "we have closed the books on a sad period of American history where respect for the Constitution, the nation, history, our institutions and even truth itself was sacrificed for political gain. Let us resolve to move forward, together, rather than spinning in an ever tightening circle of recrimination" ... or something like that.

We have always known which side it is that seeks the abyss by not recognizing elections, using riots and violence as a tactic, and being willing to be utterly shameless in their inconsistency of using the Constitution for toilet paper when it suits them, then turning around and claiming to be defenders of the founders, tradition and sacred institutions like the Electoral College when it suits their quest for illicit power.

See, "reasonable Republicans" would hand the presidency to Hillary and John Kasich as a "unity government". What could be more "reasonable"?

That could open the way for patriots from both parties to come together and formulate a modern version of the Compromise of 1877 that would create a National Unity Government, for which the state delegations in the House of Representatives would be urged to vote in January. Such a Compromise of 2017 might include a President of one party and a Vice President of the other, both of whom meet the Framers’ goal of being competent and not beholden to a foreign power (perhaps Hillary Clinton and John Kasich, or Mr. Kasich and Joe Biden), a pledge by both not to run in 2020, a division of Cabinet posts between the parties, and agreement on certain policies to be enacted, including some of those that attracted voters to Mr. Trump, such as a massive infrastructure program to provide jobs and “draining the swamp” of influence peddling in Washington (which Mr. Trump plainly is not doing).

Republicans have played Charlie Brown to the Lucy ever since Watergate. It is time to close the books on this game!

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BO Says Trump A Job Magician

BO has always been certain that he is the smartest guy in every room. Here he is declaring that Trump would have to have a "magic wand" to keep jobs like the Carrier jobs in the US.

It is great to see an endorsement of Trump's ability to work magic by such a brilliant man! Look at that smiling lady in the background!

BOcare, Throwing The Patient (and Doctor) Out

The one thing missing from the debate over Obamacare, according to a top doctor - The Washington Post:

The headline should win some sort of award for being misleading. Sort of like "Great Funeral Only Leaves out One Thing" ... and then finding out it was "the corpse".

Noseworthy argues that the Affordable Care Act that expanded access to health insurance to millions of Americans did so without nearly enough input from the patient — or the doctor.

Actually, leaving out the doctor and the patient at one time would have been considered a  bad thing ... but hey, it was done by BO, so it HAD to be good! The WaPo and the head of Mayo didn't want to be called "racists" for opposing his stenchfulness prior to the election.

One of the biggest weaknesses of the Affordable Care Act, in Noseworthy's view, is that it expanded access to health insurance — in part by creating barriers to health care. Health plans have successfully controlled costs by restricting which doctors and hospitals patients can use and by shifting the upfront costs of care to patients through high deductibles.

Many of us Deploreables have harped on this for nearly 8 years -- our actual healthcare costs SKYROCKETED under BOcare, and our ability to go to the doctors needed to treat conditions was blocked. If the WaPo and the head of Mayo are able to speak freely now, perhaps the spell of BO really is broken.

Noseworthy is now willing to say that BOcare essentially needs to be scrapped -- and the WaPo is willing to print it!

The fact that access, which is pretty important to patients, is now being jeopardized and patients are feeling it — that has to be fixed. That’s really where the voice of the patient matters. The other, of course, is the unsustainability of the rise of the premiums for the middle class. 

Most Americans are paying more for health care, and they’re kind of figuring it out now. They’ve had the Affordable Care Act for a while, but they didn’t realize what high deductible health plans really were until they got sick. And they said, “Wait a minute — I have to pay the first $1,000, $5,000, $10,000? I don't really have insurance unless I have a catastrophic illness.”

He is also willing to admit what doctors and nurses have been saying is their biggest effect from BOcare -- PAPERWORK!

The Affordable Care Act and the changes that have come along with that have created a very stiff regulatory environment. It’s been very, very hard for health care professionals. And if you’ve been a patient or studied health care, you know that in today’s world, the patient is no longer at the center of the room. The physicians and nurses are spending a lot of time documenting the situation, rather than asking about and listening to. And that removes a lot of professionalism and joy of the work. 

For every hour a doctor spends with a patient, the doctor spends two hours documenting the one hour encounter. So the balance is off, and that’s created a huge threat to the profession.

This has all been known since before BOcare was "approved" by 51votes using "reconciliation" -- surprise surprise, it was a scam from the start and now that BO is about to leave office (oh happy day!) people can  admit that in public without being labeled "racist" -- Trump has already had a hugely positive impact on freedom of speech!


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