If the IRS wanted to put something really useful on their website, how about a list of countries that don't have an extradition treaty with the U.S.?
*.*
KANDAHAR—A U.S. Navy pilot turned off his targeting computer during a bombing run and killed four hundred civilians, according to a recent statement issued by public relations.
Lt. Roger Himmelweg, an F/A-18 Super Hornet pilot, claims he was responding to urges to “trust his feelings” during a mission last week, which was supposed to be targeted at an arms cache being stocked by Taliban insurgents. Despite the fact that the highly advanced fighter/bomber aircraft had millions of dollars’ worth of sophisticated targeting hardware and software installed, Himmelweg believed he could drop his ordnance with greater accuracy using only his emotions and the low-toned urges of a distant old man.
“I don’t know what happened,” Himmelweg said in a post-mission debrief with international authorities. “I heard this voice in my head, you know, and it just kept telling me to do stuff. ‘Trust my instincts, let go.’”
“It seemed totally plausible at the time.”
“We spent a lot of money designing that shit,” Christopher Marzilli, Boeing’s Executive Vice President said in an interview. “Literally tens of thousands of man hours went into building and testing the targeting equipment on the F-18 so that we can drop bombs with centimeter accuracy. And this guy thinks he hears Jesus one time and decides to go Sodom and Gomorrah on a hospital. The weapons aren’t even supposed to fire without a target lock!”
This is not the first time the voices of deceased old men have caused problems in Afghanistan. In 2017, Green Beret Sergeant Victor Mullaghan opened fire in a crowded marketplace after hearing a voice tell him to “use the force,” resulting in over a dozen civilian casualties.
“I thought he was saying, you know, use the lethal force,” Mullaghan said afterwards. “The guy sounded like my commander. Old, wise, and like he was always trying to deliver some important life lesson even though he was just saying to wash your hands after you pee.”
“So I figured it was him over the radio. It was a shit ton easier than haggling with that guy over the price of his carpet, I’ll tell you that.”
*.*
From Facebook: Whenever I'm mad at someone, I bake them a batch of chocolate cookies and put in one raisin per cookie, just to mess with them.
A study says atheists are nicer to Christians than the other way around. Of course, atheists believe that. Then again, it's about the only thing they believe.
A man died from salmonella poisoning 10 days after eating a gecko on a dare at a party. He also no longer saves 15% on his car insurance.
*.*
One day during cooking class, the teacher, Mrs. Jones, was extolling her secrets for preparing perfect sauces. When she ordered us to the stoves to prepare our assignments, she said, "Don't forget to use wooden spoons."
As I stirred my sauce, I contemplated the physics behind the mystery of the wooden spoon and decided it must have something to do with heat conduction.
I approached Mrs. Jones to test my theory. "Why wooden spoons?" I asked.
"Because," she replied, "if I have to sit here listening to all your metal spoons banging against metal pots, I'd go nuts."
*.*
Being a literalist can sometimes be very helpful.
I can always respond to "Do these jeans make my ass look fat?" with a confident and honest "No."
But I dread the day when she rephrases it as "Does my ass look fat in these jeans?"
Quote of the Times;
From the deepest desires often come the deadliest hate. – Socrates
Link of the Times;
https://www.takimag.com/article/cracking-skulls-for-a-good-cause/
Issue of the Times;
The Six Laws of Survival: Strategies for Beating the Worst Case Scenario by Jeremiah Johnson
We just finished a series on how to escape from Bill Ayers’ Summer Reeducation Camp (or Gulag 17, depending on the situation). Now we will cover one of the most important elements of all: How to stay out of the “Happy” Camp. Best thing of all: do not go in. Easier said than done, however, there are some things you can do beforehand that will increase your chances of staying out of the Gulag.
These things are not complicated, however, they will require both willpower and action. They will not be things that happen on their own. In order to stay out of a camp, you must do something very important:
You must do things that others do not do, and you must not do what others do.
Let us run with this concept in a scenario:
You’re in bed…it’s a Saturday morning, and you don’t have to go to any of your 3 jobs today until noon. Your battery-powered clock seems to have stopped at 5:15 am. Puzzled you hear the drone of jet engines, and all of a sudden the house seems as if it is shaking. You jump up and run to the front door and as you walk onto the front porch, all hell is breaking loose.
Your mind is playing, “For Whom the Bell Tolls” by Metallica as you look up and see dozens of aircraft flying West to East, disgorging sesame seeds that sprout parachutes by the thousands, all coming down into your neighborhood. “Red Dawn” isn’t playing: it is happening, and you’re in it. Your neighbors didn’t bother to come wake you up; however, they’re working on starting their cars, with no success. The paratroopers are landing, and a large crowd of people is running down Main Street to the tune of automatic gunfire in the distance. Yep, you guessed it! America has been invaded, and chances are you are not going to be handing out a Slurpee this afternoon.
Now what? You must fall upon the six laws of survival or else all could be lost.
THE SIX LAWS OF SURVIVAL
In a survival scenario all bets are off and the following laws will keep you alive. These laws are rigid, but necessary. Harsh, but true. Keep your cards close and always have a plan.
Law 1: Wherever that crowd is running, do not join them.
This is not to say that they aren’t (initially) running in the right direction. But what of it? They are bound to be either captured en masse or worse (bombed, strafed, or shot). For the horror of the IHM (the Incredible Human Mob), look no further than “War of the Worlds” with Tom Cruise where he and his family are driving the passenger van…right up and into the mob. Look what happened there. You can’t defeat their numbers, and you will be captive to them…another steer in the herd.
Strike out on your own, you and your family, avoiding the main thoroughfares at all cost, and avoiding the IHM.
Law 2: You have to have a place (and places) to go.
This is where thinking outside of the general herd will pay off. We’re going to instruct by running through a checklist…. this will be a “handy-dandy” checklist that you can print out or run over in your mind to be able to follow rule #2.
• Did you preposition assets (food, weapons, money, etc.) at an initial safe location?
• Is that location within walking distance for you and your family?
• Once there, are you and your family secure for at least a 24 – 48-hour period?
• Safe from enemy troops/government “peacekeepers” on the hunt?
• Safe from fallout and/or NBC agents?
• Does it have a food and water supply to sustain all of you for 7 days?
• If your initial safe location has been compromised, is a duplicate location nearby?
• Do you have a farther (more remote) location that you can reach on foot in 3 days?
• A secure, sustainable location with supplies for at least a month?
• Do you and your family have a handheld method of communication for each member?
• Have you formulated short-term (initial contact, 48 hours, 7 days) plans?
• Have you made long-term (1 month and month-by-month; 6 months and 6-month continuous analysis; 1 year) plans?
Guys and gals, these are just basics. You must have these things in place in order to give you and your family a fighting chance. Whether or not it is a foreign invasion or a domestic communist takeover of the United States, you must leave your home in suburbia or you will be rounded up, bringing us forward:
Law 3: You will be leaving your home, permanently or for a long time.
This is survival. The majority of readers are not living in the mountains or in a remote location. If you follow these steps and practice them on a dry-run on a regular basis…it will give you the advantage that most people will not have. You must innovate: come up with ideas that others will not think of. Do you know of an abandoned warehouse on the outskirts of town? Chances are that 90% of others will think the same thing in a grid-down/Red Dawn survival scenario. You need to find the places that are off the beaten path. And if there are none? It may mean that you have to create a place.
How? By caching your supplies within the walking distances described for each part of the “safe” area. By finding tunnels, caves, or other sub-structures that can protect you from the elements and at least afford partial protection from radiation. By being who it is you imagine yourself to be: a prepper…a survivalist…or a survivor. When you enter any contest, do you enter it to lose? Do you strive for just “second place” or “second best” in this arena? Chances are the answer is “no,” but you have to arrive on that conclusion on your own. All of this is a challenge, and this underlines everything for you if it needs clarification:
Law 4: In survival, there is no silver medal: “second place” means death.
Forget that phrase in “The Hunger Games,” because if you are taken…the odds are not ever in your favor. We went through a 4-article series on how to escape from the Gulag where I reiterated how important it is for you to stay out of it. I stand by this concept. If you are taken captive, the odds aren’t in your favor of getting out…for the duration of it.
And then guess what? The Germans during WWII as the allies approached began to hide their transgressions by liquidating the camps…basically killing everyone that could bear any type of witness to the atrocities. Do not think for an instant that it will not happen again. Look at Holodomor in Ukraine and the starvation tactics the USSR used to follow after the Malthusian model. Our enemies have very little regard for human life, and the lives they value are of their own people. If the Chinese communists would run over their own people with tanks and sell their internal organs while they’re still alive, what will they do with us?
Which brings us to the “Malcolm X” rule:
Law 5: You must stay out and survive by any and all means necessary.
Some of you may think “JJ is a little harsh.” I would rather be hard and harsh now, and enable you, my countrymen, to have some tools at your disposal and a “sharp tack” under the figurative buttocks of your mind to give you the impetus to do something about the situation prior to its occurrence. The country is “long in the tooth,” and you have to grasp these concepts and act upon them now…not burn off the pages and save them in the survival archives…but use them to inculcate your own, individual plan of action now.
Rule #5 means resolving yourself to do what you must in order to protect yourself from the ravages (and not just possible, but probable death) inside of one of these camps. These are all basic, “generic” things to begin as a base for your preparations. This is a form of guerilla warfare! Avoid the occupiers/oppressors at all cost! These things will work for you…if you resolve yourself (ves) to do them. I’ll close with a note on OPSEC (operational security): you better build off of these basics and keep all of them to yourself.
JJ is giving you the basics that you need, without revealing everything of his own plans. Why? Because I earned them by paying for them with years of experience and suffering, and it means my family’s survival. Such measures would run you a lot of money and imagination; such measures come from years of practical experience and the willingness to take chances. This thought brings us to our final rule, the failure of which means compromise leading to death:
Law 6: Do not tip your hand or reveal your plans to anyone.
Next installment we will talk about life under occupation, be that by foreign invaders or by totalitarian state that has morphed out of a democracy. In the meantime, prepare and plan, and when you are reasonably sure, execute a dry run. The practice does make perfect and affords you a time and trials to iron out all of the glitches in your operations. Until next time be good to one another and keep up the fight!
Jeremiah Johnson is the Nom de plume of a retired Green Beret of the United States Army Special Forces (Airborne). Mr. Johnson was a Special Forces Medic, EMT and ACLS-certified, with comprehensive training in wilderness survival, rescue, and patient-extraction. Mr. Johnson is an ardent advocate for preparedness, self-sufficiency, and long-term disaster sustainability for families. He and his wife survived Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath. Cross-trained as a Special Forces Engineer, he is an expert in supply, logistics, transport, and long-term storage of perishable materials, having incorporated many of these techniques plus some unique innovations in his own homestead.
This article first appeared at Tess Pennington’s Ready Nutrition.com.
Strategies?
Pronouns?
A customer at the counter of a lawn ornament shop; "Give me four of those pinwheels, two of those pink flamingos, two of the sunflowers, and one of those bent-over grandmas in bloomers."
Cashier replies; "That'll be eight dollars for the pinwheels, ten dollars for the flamingos, six dollars for the sunflowers, and an apology to my wife!"
*.*
If my body were a car, this is the time I would be thinking about trading it in for a newer model.
I've got bumps and dents and scratches in my finish and my paint job is getting a little dull, but that's not the worst of it.
My headlights are out of focus and it's especially hard to see things up close.
My traction is not as graceful as it once was.
I slip and slide and skid and bump into things even in the best of weather.
It takes me hours to reach my maximum speed.
My fuel rate burns inefficiently.
But here's the worst of it --
Almost every time I sneeze, cough or sputter.....either my radiator leaks or my exhaust backfires!
*.*
Random Thoughts
I planted some bird seed. A bird came up. Now I don't know what to feed it.
All I ask is a chance to prove that money can't make me happy.
They told me I was gullible ... and I believed them.
One nice thing about egotists: They don't talk about other people.
The cost of living hasn't affected its popularity.
How can there be self-help "groups"?
Is there another word for synonym?
The speed of time is one-second per second.
Is it possible to be totally partial?
If swimming is so good for your figure, how do you explain whales?
Show me a man with both feet firmly on the ground, and I'll show you a man who can't get his pants off.
*.*
Ocasio-Cortez announces bill to make electoral college tuition-free
The new face of the Democrat party and the youngest person ever elected to the House of Representatives, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, is making waves. In a press conference, the New York native has declared her intention to make the electoral college tuition free.
“People shouldn’t be riddled with student debt when they’re trying to bring about a socialist revolution after school—and that shouldn’t be any different for the electoral college graduates,” Ocasio-Cortez explained.
“It’s just not fair. I mean, what are there—five billion college students in the United States? They shouldn’t have to be in debt for the rest of their lives to pay for something as integral to society as a woman’s studies degree or a masters in underwater basket-weaving. The world could not survive without women or baskets.”
It was unclear whether the first-term congresswoman understood that the electoral college was not in fact an actual university.
“It shouldn’t matter if these students and graduates also vote for the president or whatever—they shouldn’t have billions of dollars in debt either.”
Ocasio-Cortez has made a name for herself by making bold claims like “The world is going to end in 12 years,” and “You can get 100% renewable energy by plugging an electrical extension into itself.”
*.*
Fred was unfortunate enough to be hit by a 10-ton truck and landed up in hospital in intensive care. His best friend Morris came to visit him.
Fred struggles to tell Morris, "My wife Sally visits me three times a day. She's so good to me. Every day, she reads to me at the bedside."
"What does she read?"
"My life insurance policy."
Quote of the Times;
An insult is like a drink, it affects one only is accepted. – Heinlein
Link of the Times;
https://heartiste.org/
Issue of the Times;
What Were Robespierre’s Pronouns? by Peggy Noonan
The French Revolution was led by sociopaths who politicized language, much like today’s Jacobins.
King Louis XVI of France is led to the guillotine. We often make historical parallels here. History doesn’t repeat itself but it does rhyme, as clever people say. And sometimes it hiccups. Here is a hiccup.
We start with the moral and political catastrophe that was the French Revolution. It was more a nationwide psychotic break than a revolt—a great nation at its own throat, swept by a spirit not only of regicide but suicide. For 10 years they simply enjoyed killing each other. They could have done what England was doing—a long nonviolent revolution, a gradual diminution of the power of king and court, an establishment of the rights of the people and their legislators so that the regent ended up a lovely person on a stamp. Instead they chose blood. Scholars like to make a distinction between the Revolution and the Terror that followed, but “the Terror was merely 1789 with a higher body count.” From the Storming of the Bastille onward, “it was apparent that violence was not just an unfortunate side effect. . . . It was the Revolution’s source of collective energy. It was what made the Revolution revolutionary.”
That is from Simon Schama’s masterpiece “Citizens,” his history of the revolution published in 1989, its 200th anniversary. It is erudite, elegant and heroically nonideological.
John Adams, across the sea in America, quickly understood what was happening in France and voiced alarm. In contrast his old friend Thomas Jefferson egged on the revolution and lent it his moral prestige. Faced with news of the guillotines, he reverted to abstractions. He was a genius with a true if hidden seam of malice, and rarely overconcerned with the suffering of others.
The revolution had everything—a ruling class that was clumsy, decadent, inert; a pathetic king, a queen beyond her depth, costly wars, monstrous debt, an impervious and unreformable administrative state, a hungry populace. The task of the monarchy was to protect the poor, but the king had “abdicated this protective role.” Instead of ensuring grain supplies at a reasonable price, Mr. Schama notes, the government committed itself to the new modern principle of free trade: “British textiles had been let into France, robbing Norman and Flemish spinners and weavers of work.” They experienced it as “some sort of conspiracy against the People.”
One does see parallels. But they’re not what I mean.
It was a revolution largely run by sociopaths. One, Robespierre, the “messianic schoolmaster,” saw it as an opportunity for the moral instruction of the nation. Everything would be politicized, no part of the citizen’s life left untouched. As man was governed by an “empire of images,” in the words of a Jacobin intellectual, the new régime would provide new images to shape new thoughts. There would be pageants, and new names for things. They would change time itself! The first year of the new Republic was no longer 1792, it was Year One. To detach farmers from their superstitions, their Gregorian calendar and its saints’ days, they would rename the months. The first month would be in the fall, named for the harvest. There would be no more weeks, just three 10-day periods each month.
So here is our parallel, our hiccup. I thought of all this this week because I’ve been thinking about the language and behavioral directives that have been coming at us from the social and sexual justice warriors who are renaming things and attempting to control the language in America.
There is the latest speech guide from the academy, the Inclusive Communications Task Force at Colorado State University. Don’t call people “American,” it directs: “This erases other cultures.” Don’t say a person is mad or a lunatic, call him “surprising/wild” or “sad.” “Eskimo,” “freshman” and “illegal alien” are out. “You guys” should be replaced by “all/folks.” Don’t say “male” or “female”; say “man,” “woman” or “gender non-binary.”
In one way it’s the nonsense we’ve all grown used to, but it should be said that there’s an aspect of self-infatuation, of arrogance, in telling people they must reorder the common language to suit your ideological preferences. There is something mad in thinking you should control the names of things. Or perhaps I mean surprising/wild.
I see in it a spirit similar to that of the Terror. There is a tone of, “I am your moral teacher. Because you are incapable of sensitivity, I will help you, dumb farmer. I will start with the language you speak.”
An odd thing is they always insist they’re doing this in the name of kindness and large-spiritedness. And yet, have you ever met them? They’re not individually kind or large-spirited. They’re more like messianic schoolmasters.
Offices and schools are forced to grapple with all the new gender-neutral pronouns. Here a handy guide from a website purporting to help human-resources departments in midsize businesses. It is headlined. “Gender Neutral Pronouns—What They Are & How to Use Them.”
He/She—Zie, Sie, Ey, Ve, Tey, E
Him/Her—Zim, Sie, Em, Ver, Ter, Em
His/Her—Zir, Hir, Eir, Vis, Tem, Eir
Himself/Herself—Zieself, Hirself, Eirself, Verself, Terself, Emself
It’s wrong, when you meet a new co-worker, to ask his pronouns. (We don’t say “preferred” pronouns—that “implies someone’s gender is a preference”!) You don’t want him wondering if you think he’s transgender or nonbinary. Instead, introduce yourself in a way that summons his pronouns: “Hi, I’m Jim and my pronoun is he/him.” Use “they” a lot. It’s gender neutral. Suggested sentence: “I spoke to the marketing director and they said they’d get back to me.”
This is grammatically incorrect but so what? Correct grammar, and the intelligibility it allows, is a small price to pay for inclusion and equality.
We are being asked to memorize all this, to change hundreds of years of grammar and usage, to accommodate the needs or demands of a group that perceives itself as beleaguered.
There’s a funny but painful spoof of all this on YouTube. A seemingly friendly but dogmatic teacher of adult immigrants in English as a Second Language class introduces them to the 63 new pronouns. They are understandably flummoxed. An Asian woman announces she identifies as a girl and then shrinks in fear this might not be allowed. A confused Eastern European man asks the pronoun of his desk. The Central American asks if the new pronouns mean gay. “You’re not learning English so you can be a bigot, are you?” the teacher demands.
And there are the office arguments about bathroom policy, which I gather are reaching some new peak. There can no longer be a men’s room and a women’s room, so we can have one expanded bathroom everyone can use. No, we’ll have three. But there may be a stigma to using the third, so keep two bathrooms but remove all designations. But the women don’t want to put on their makeup with men coming in and out. But the men don’t want women walking in on them—that’s a harassment suit waiting to happen!
It’s all insane. All of it.
But we’re moving forward, renaming the months and the sexes, reordering the language.
You wonder how the people who push all this got so much power. But then, how did Robespierre?
Cashier replies; "That'll be eight dollars for the pinwheels, ten dollars for the flamingos, six dollars for the sunflowers, and an apology to my wife!"
*.*
If my body were a car, this is the time I would be thinking about trading it in for a newer model.
I've got bumps and dents and scratches in my finish and my paint job is getting a little dull, but that's not the worst of it.
My headlights are out of focus and it's especially hard to see things up close.
My traction is not as graceful as it once was.
I slip and slide and skid and bump into things even in the best of weather.
It takes me hours to reach my maximum speed.
My fuel rate burns inefficiently.
But here's the worst of it --
Almost every time I sneeze, cough or sputter.....either my radiator leaks or my exhaust backfires!
*.*
Random Thoughts
I planted some bird seed. A bird came up. Now I don't know what to feed it.
All I ask is a chance to prove that money can't make me happy.
They told me I was gullible ... and I believed them.
One nice thing about egotists: They don't talk about other people.
The cost of living hasn't affected its popularity.
How can there be self-help "groups"?
Is there another word for synonym?
The speed of time is one-second per second.
Is it possible to be totally partial?
If swimming is so good for your figure, how do you explain whales?
Show me a man with both feet firmly on the ground, and I'll show you a man who can't get his pants off.
*.*
Ocasio-Cortez announces bill to make electoral college tuition-free
The new face of the Democrat party and the youngest person ever elected to the House of Representatives, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, is making waves. In a press conference, the New York native has declared her intention to make the electoral college tuition free.
“People shouldn’t be riddled with student debt when they’re trying to bring about a socialist revolution after school—and that shouldn’t be any different for the electoral college graduates,” Ocasio-Cortez explained.
“It’s just not fair. I mean, what are there—five billion college students in the United States? They shouldn’t have to be in debt for the rest of their lives to pay for something as integral to society as a woman’s studies degree or a masters in underwater basket-weaving. The world could not survive without women or baskets.”
It was unclear whether the first-term congresswoman understood that the electoral college was not in fact an actual university.
“It shouldn’t matter if these students and graduates also vote for the president or whatever—they shouldn’t have billions of dollars in debt either.”
Ocasio-Cortez has made a name for herself by making bold claims like “The world is going to end in 12 years,” and “You can get 100% renewable energy by plugging an electrical extension into itself.”
*.*
Fred was unfortunate enough to be hit by a 10-ton truck and landed up in hospital in intensive care. His best friend Morris came to visit him.
Fred struggles to tell Morris, "My wife Sally visits me three times a day. She's so good to me. Every day, she reads to me at the bedside."
"What does she read?"
"My life insurance policy."
Quote of the Times;
An insult is like a drink, it affects one only is accepted. – Heinlein
Link of the Times;
https://heartiste.org/
Issue of the Times;
What Were Robespierre’s Pronouns? by Peggy Noonan
The French Revolution was led by sociopaths who politicized language, much like today’s Jacobins.
King Louis XVI of France is led to the guillotine. We often make historical parallels here. History doesn’t repeat itself but it does rhyme, as clever people say. And sometimes it hiccups. Here is a hiccup.
We start with the moral and political catastrophe that was the French Revolution. It was more a nationwide psychotic break than a revolt—a great nation at its own throat, swept by a spirit not only of regicide but suicide. For 10 years they simply enjoyed killing each other. They could have done what England was doing—a long nonviolent revolution, a gradual diminution of the power of king and court, an establishment of the rights of the people and their legislators so that the regent ended up a lovely person on a stamp. Instead they chose blood. Scholars like to make a distinction between the Revolution and the Terror that followed, but “the Terror was merely 1789 with a higher body count.” From the Storming of the Bastille onward, “it was apparent that violence was not just an unfortunate side effect. . . . It was the Revolution’s source of collective energy. It was what made the Revolution revolutionary.”
That is from Simon Schama’s masterpiece “Citizens,” his history of the revolution published in 1989, its 200th anniversary. It is erudite, elegant and heroically nonideological.
John Adams, across the sea in America, quickly understood what was happening in France and voiced alarm. In contrast his old friend Thomas Jefferson egged on the revolution and lent it his moral prestige. Faced with news of the guillotines, he reverted to abstractions. He was a genius with a true if hidden seam of malice, and rarely overconcerned with the suffering of others.
The revolution had everything—a ruling class that was clumsy, decadent, inert; a pathetic king, a queen beyond her depth, costly wars, monstrous debt, an impervious and unreformable administrative state, a hungry populace. The task of the monarchy was to protect the poor, but the king had “abdicated this protective role.” Instead of ensuring grain supplies at a reasonable price, Mr. Schama notes, the government committed itself to the new modern principle of free trade: “British textiles had been let into France, robbing Norman and Flemish spinners and weavers of work.” They experienced it as “some sort of conspiracy against the People.”
One does see parallels. But they’re not what I mean.
It was a revolution largely run by sociopaths. One, Robespierre, the “messianic schoolmaster,” saw it as an opportunity for the moral instruction of the nation. Everything would be politicized, no part of the citizen’s life left untouched. As man was governed by an “empire of images,” in the words of a Jacobin intellectual, the new régime would provide new images to shape new thoughts. There would be pageants, and new names for things. They would change time itself! The first year of the new Republic was no longer 1792, it was Year One. To detach farmers from their superstitions, their Gregorian calendar and its saints’ days, they would rename the months. The first month would be in the fall, named for the harvest. There would be no more weeks, just three 10-day periods each month.
So here is our parallel, our hiccup. I thought of all this this week because I’ve been thinking about the language and behavioral directives that have been coming at us from the social and sexual justice warriors who are renaming things and attempting to control the language in America.
There is the latest speech guide from the academy, the Inclusive Communications Task Force at Colorado State University. Don’t call people “American,” it directs: “This erases other cultures.” Don’t say a person is mad or a lunatic, call him “surprising/wild” or “sad.” “Eskimo,” “freshman” and “illegal alien” are out. “You guys” should be replaced by “all/folks.” Don’t say “male” or “female”; say “man,” “woman” or “gender non-binary.”
In one way it’s the nonsense we’ve all grown used to, but it should be said that there’s an aspect of self-infatuation, of arrogance, in telling people they must reorder the common language to suit your ideological preferences. There is something mad in thinking you should control the names of things. Or perhaps I mean surprising/wild.
I see in it a spirit similar to that of the Terror. There is a tone of, “I am your moral teacher. Because you are incapable of sensitivity, I will help you, dumb farmer. I will start with the language you speak.”
An odd thing is they always insist they’re doing this in the name of kindness and large-spiritedness. And yet, have you ever met them? They’re not individually kind or large-spirited. They’re more like messianic schoolmasters.
Offices and schools are forced to grapple with all the new gender-neutral pronouns. Here a handy guide from a website purporting to help human-resources departments in midsize businesses. It is headlined. “Gender Neutral Pronouns—What They Are & How to Use Them.”
He/She—Zie, Sie, Ey, Ve, Tey, E
Him/Her—Zim, Sie, Em, Ver, Ter, Em
His/Her—Zir, Hir, Eir, Vis, Tem, Eir
Himself/Herself—Zieself, Hirself, Eirself, Verself, Terself, Emself
It’s wrong, when you meet a new co-worker, to ask his pronouns. (We don’t say “preferred” pronouns—that “implies someone’s gender is a preference”!) You don’t want him wondering if you think he’s transgender or nonbinary. Instead, introduce yourself in a way that summons his pronouns: “Hi, I’m Jim and my pronoun is he/him.” Use “they” a lot. It’s gender neutral. Suggested sentence: “I spoke to the marketing director and they said they’d get back to me.”
This is grammatically incorrect but so what? Correct grammar, and the intelligibility it allows, is a small price to pay for inclusion and equality.
We are being asked to memorize all this, to change hundreds of years of grammar and usage, to accommodate the needs or demands of a group that perceives itself as beleaguered.
There’s a funny but painful spoof of all this on YouTube. A seemingly friendly but dogmatic teacher of adult immigrants in English as a Second Language class introduces them to the 63 new pronouns. They are understandably flummoxed. An Asian woman announces she identifies as a girl and then shrinks in fear this might not be allowed. A confused Eastern European man asks the pronoun of his desk. The Central American asks if the new pronouns mean gay. “You’re not learning English so you can be a bigot, are you?” the teacher demands.
And there are the office arguments about bathroom policy, which I gather are reaching some new peak. There can no longer be a men’s room and a women’s room, so we can have one expanded bathroom everyone can use. No, we’ll have three. But there may be a stigma to using the third, so keep two bathrooms but remove all designations. But the women don’t want to put on their makeup with men coming in and out. But the men don’t want women walking in on them—that’s a harassment suit waiting to happen!
It’s all insane. All of it.
But we’re moving forward, renaming the months and the sexes, reordering the language.
You wonder how the people who push all this got so much power. But then, how did Robespierre?
Blessing?
Today, I was in the bathroom at a popular coffee chain. Someone wrote "What Would Jesus Do?" on the wall.
Another person wrote directly underneath that, "Wash His hands."
Then a third person wrote, "And your feet."
*.*
As the passengers settled in on a West Coast commuter flight, a flight attendant announced, "We'd like you folks to help us welcome our new co-pilot. He'll be performing his first commercial landing for us today, so be sure to give him a big round of applause when we come to a stop."
The plane made an extremely bumpy landing, bouncing hard two or three times before taxiing to a stop. Still, the passengers applauded.
Then the attendant's voice came over the intercom, "Thanks for flying with us. And don't forget to let our co-pilot know which landing you liked best."
*.*
What do you get when you roll a hand grenade across a kitchen floor?
Linoleum Blownapart.
*.*
An old prospector shuffled into the town of El Indio, Texas leading a tired old mule.
The old man headed straight for the only saloon in town, to clear his parched throat.
He walked up to the saloon and tied his old mule to the hitch rail.
As he stood there, brushing some of the dust from his face and clothes, a young gunslinger stepped out of the saloon with a gun in one hand and a bottle of whisky in the other.
The young gunslinger looked at the old man and laughed, saying, "Hey old man, can you dance?"
The old man looked up at the gunslinger and said, "No son, I don't dance . . . never really wanted to."
A crowd had gathered as the gunslinger grinned and said, "Well, you old fool, you're gonna dance now!" and started shooting at the old man's feet.
The old prospector, not wanting to get a toe blown off, started hopping around like a flea on a hot skillet.
Everybody standing around was laughing.
When his last bullet had been fired, the young gunslinger, still laughing, holstered his gun and turned around to go back into the saloon.
The old man turned to his pack mule, pulled out a double-barreled 12 gauge shotgun and cocked both hammers.
The loud clicks carried clearly through the desert air. The crowd stopped laughing immediately.
The young gunslinger heard the sounds too, and he turned around very slowly.
The silence was deafening. The crowd watched as the young gunman stared at the old timer and the large gaping holes of those twin 12 gauge barrels.
The barrels of the shotgun never wavered in the old man's hands, as he quietly said;
"Son, have you ever kissed a mule's bottom?"
The gunslinger swallowed hard and said, "No sir .. . . but . . . but I've always wanted to."
There are a few lessons for all of us here:
* Don't be arrogant.
* Don't waste ammunition.
* Whisky makes you think you're smarter than you are.
* Always make sure you know who is in control.
* And finally, don't mess around with old folks; they didn't get old by being stupid.
*.*
The minister gave his Sunday morning service, as usual, but this particular Sunday, it was considerably longer than normal.
Later, at the door, shaking hands with parishioners as they moved out, one man said, "Your sermon, Pastor, was simply wonderful - so invigorating and inspiring and refreshing."
The minister, of course, broke out in a big smile, only to hear the man say, "Why I felt like a new man when I woke up!"
Quote of the Times;
“If you are not prepared to use force to defend civilization, then be prepared to accept barbarism.” – Sowell
Link of the Times;
https://pjmedia.com/instapundit/335442/
Issue of the Times;
‘Oikophobia’ and #NeverTrump: How Can We ‘Secure the Blessings of Liberty’?
What has prompted our immigration crisis? Isn’t it the same sentiment that leads Democrats (and David French, but I repeat myself) to claim Ilhan Omar is a better American than anyone born here?
“Oikophobia,” a hatred of one’s native country (and of one’s fellow citizens) is the most remarkable proof that our elite class have become hopelessly degenerate. Consider David French’s argument that, unlike those of us who were born here, “immigrant citizens have actually done something to earn their status.” Well, what had Ilhan Omar done for America when she was naturalized at age 18? Less than my father did. Dad was an Alabama farmboy when he joined the Army at age 18 and he earned the Purple Heart in France in 1944. Is David French implying that being my father’s son makes me less worthy of American citizenship than Ilhan Omar? Isn’t this insulting insinuation at the heart of the open-borders argument, the idea that all immigrants are better than any America, because Americans are the worst people in the world?
If you are a native-born American — and especially if you are white — Democrats consider you infinitely inferior to Ilhan Omar. The tone of David French’s argument suggests he agrees with this assessment, and one does not persuade people by insulting them. Why can’t French, an intelligent man and an able lawyer who once did great work in the cause of academic freedom, see why his anti-Trump arguments fail?
The problem, I think, is that French has been swept along by the same floodtide of degeneracy that produces mobs of enraged anarchists on the streets of Portland and makes college campuses unsafe even for well-meaning liberals like Bret Weinstein. The election of Trump, and the rising populist sentiment that elected him, caught our elite by surprise. They were shocked to discover that a powerful plurality of Americans — nearly 63 million voted for Trump — had never accepted the notions of “progress” that prevail among the university-educated elite and in the urban communities where the elite reside. Among the core tenets of this elite weltanschauung is a belief in the superiority of immigrants. You might notice the way they quote Emma Lazarus’s poetry as if it had more authority than the Constitution, a reverence for the “huddled masses” being essential to what amounts to a religious faith among our otherwise godless elite. When I visited the campus of Harvard with Pete Da Tech Guy in the fall of 2017, we were immediately confronted on our arrival with a protest on behalf of so-called “dreamers.” Harvard students are not nowadays notable for their dedication to moral virtue — they get drunk and screw around quite shamelessly — but they are adamantly certain that it is morally wrong to deport illegal aliens.
Many years ago, Peter Brimelow pointed out that a major problem with U.S. immigration policy is that voters have seldom gotten a chance to express their preference at the ballot box. The elite of both parties seem generally agreed in preferring immigrants to native-born Americans, the Republicans beholden to corporate interests that want cheap labor and the Democrats seeing immigrants as future Democrat voters. Public opinion surveys indicate that most Americans see the issue of immigration as a matter of numbers. A majority would approve of accepting 250,000 new immigrants annually, and even if you bumped that number up to half a million, most people would be OK with it, but what we have had for the past 20 years is an unofficial policy of almost unlimited immigration. Our immigration laws are riddled with loopholes, and enforcement has been uneven and irregular, so that the combination of legal and illegal immigrants has amounted to more than 1 million every year since the mid-1990s. A majority of Americans oppose this, but prior to 2016, they never had a real chance to express their dissatisfaction at the ballot box. They had previously been offered no clear choice; choosing between open-borders Democrats and open-borders Republicans was no choice at all, as far as immigration policy was concerned, and some Republicans (including my late Cousin John) were worse than any Democrat on the issue. Trump’s blunt talk — “Build a wall!” — appealed to voters who had long been frustrated by the refusal of the political elite to address their concerns over our immigration policy (or non-policy, to be more accurate). The potency of that populist resentment startled not only the political class, but also the journalists and pundits who had acted as publicity agents for the elite’s open-borders consensus.
Much has been made of the harsh “tone” of President Trump’s rhetoric and of his mercurial temperament. His critics among the conservative commentariat make much of the “character” issue, saying that even though Trump has enacted many policies that conservatives have long advocated, he does not function as a role model, failing to represent the responsible and thoughtful character of a true conservative.
Trump’s coarse language and erratic behavior, however, are an integral part of his success. During the 2016 primary campaign, I compared him to the NFL legend Fran Tarkenton, a scrambling quarterback whose unpredictability made him an unsolvable riddle for opposing defenses. Trump seems to operate according to some internal gyroscope, an instinct that leads him to say and do things which no political consultant would suggest, but which nevertheless produce victory. Consider his tweetstorm last Sunday against “the Squad” of freshmen Democrat congresswomen who had been at war with Nancy Pelosi. Jumping into that fight seemed to contradict every sensible precept of effective politics, and even many Trump supporters were dismayed. Yet once again, Trump’s instinct was vindicated, as even many of his opponents agreed he had succeeded in making these four young left-wing radicals the “face” of the Democratic Party. In the process, not incidentally, Trump hijacked the news cycle for an entire week, so that nothing else (e.g., Joe Biden’s debut of his health-care proposals) had any real impact. And as we approach the next round of Democrat presidential debates, Trump is riding high in the polls (his latest result in an NBC poll matching his all-time best), and Democrats are becoming demoralized.
“Trump’s going to get re-elected, isn’t he?” people keep asking Thomas Friedman, and if his liberal friends are saying this to him, what does that suggest about the success of Trump’s methods?
That success only inspires the Trump-haters to louder shrieks of indignation, because to them it is wrong for him to keep winning this way. And yet it is not really the president they hate so much as the people who elected him. What David French and the other #NeverTrump Republicans don’t want to confront — what they cannot admit, not even to themselves — is that Trump’s success is a repudiation of their own weakness, a condemnation of their abject failure. The crowd of intellectuals at National Review and the now-defunct Weekly Standardconsidered themselves possessors of an authority that entitled them to prescribe policy and to anoint candidates for the Republican Party. Exercising this leadership prerogative, as an elite class as secure in its authority as any feudal aristocracy, our conservative intellectuals were always eager to claim credit when Republicans won elections, but when Republicans lost, they insisted that this was never their fault. Probably their zenith of prestige was in 2005, after Bush had been re-elected, which gave credence to Karl Rove’s talk of a “permanent Republican majority” based on a so-called “center-right” coalition. That hope quickly evaporated, with military disaster in Iraq followed by Democrats recapturing Congress in 2006 and then on to the economic catastrophe of 2008 followed by the election of Barack Hussein Obama.
Insofar as a Republican majority has been revived since that low ebb of 2008, it was first because of the Tea Party — a grassroots populist movement that powered the GOP House landslide of 2010 — and eventually the populist success of Trump’s campaign. If you were directly familiar with the Tea Party movement, as I was, you know that there is considerable overlap between those who attended rallies in 2009-2010 and those who are now the staunchest supporters of Trump. While immigration was not an issue the Tea Party concerned itself with, the movement’s prominent early supporters included Michelle Malkin, author of the 2002 book Invasion: How America Still Welcomes Terrorists, Criminals, and Other Foreign Menaces, and a leader in opposition to the John McCain-backed amnesty proposals. In general, the Tea Party’s populist sentiment was expressed as a distrust of the Beltway establishment in both parties, including those Republicans who had supported corporate bailouts in 2008.
Because the #NeverTrump Republicans refuse to accept any responsibility for the failures of Bush-era GOP policy — although all of them, including French, marched in lockstep in support of those policies — they are at a loss to explain how or why they have lost their influence as intellectual leaders of the conservative movement. Instead, they denounce the 63 million Americans who voted for Trump as ignorant racists, which prompts the question: Why would anyone support “conservative intellectuals” who so emphatically agree with Democrats?
(Pierre Omidyar could not be reached for comment.)
Four years ago, Vox Day observed that French and the #NeverTrump conservatives “haven’t grasped the fact that the demographic changes to the United States have not only changed the way the political game is played, but have changed the game itself.” The country that elected and re-elected Ronald Reagan by landslide margins has ceased to exist, replaced by one in which Republicans can win the White House only by razor-thin margins, and the most important reason for this change is immigration. The demographic changes that have so transformed our politics did not “just happen.” It wasn’t some impersonal trend which caused this, but rather it was a matter of policy, and National Review was on the side of open borders, having purged Alien Nation author Peter Brimelow and sidelined John O’Sullivan. Not only did National Review purge those who dissented from their open-borders agenda, but also treated as persona non grata anyone who lamented this purge. They will call you a racist if you don’t support open-borders Republicans whose policies make it impossible for Republicans to win elections. Why do the editors of National Review think we should be grateful for their services in denouncing Republican voters as racist, as if there is a shortage of Democrats willing to perform this service?
Americans have grown tired of being lectured about how racist they are. The white people delivering these lectures — e.g., Joe Scarborough, Chris Cuomo, David Brooks — seem to believe that their moral superiority to the rest of us is so self-evident that we will enjoy and be grateful for the opportunity to be “enlightened” by them. Yet they are telling us nothing we haven’t already been told a million times, long before anyone imagined Donald Trump running for president.
David French’s insistence that Ilhan Omar is better than any native-born American simply because she is an immigrant — that our inheritance as Americans is a stigma of inferiority — is insulting, and the fact that he thinks we are too stupid to notice this is even more insulting.
The authors of our Constitution explained that their purpose was to “secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity.” If we are the posterity of our nation’s Founders — if we would deserve to be known as their heirs — then we have inherited an obligation to ensure that “the blessings of liberty” are preserved intact, that they may be enjoyed by future generations of Americans. So-called “Justice Democrats” like Ilhan Omar are a threat to that heritage of liberty, and yet David French, who wishes us to believe he is a conservative, seems to think that it is “racist” to oppose them. I do not exercise any control over what President Trump puts on his Twitter feed nor do Trump supporters seek my advice on what they should chant at rallies, but I know that Donald Trump prevented Hillary Clinton from becoming president, and that his willingness to call out Omar and her “Squad” (and to be smeared as a racist for doing so) indicates a keen understanding of what it will take to prevent Democrats from taking back the White House in 2020.
Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe there is something to be gained by playing “Nice Guy” with the Democrats, but if being nice were the criterion of political success, Jeb Bush might be president. And he’s not.
Another person wrote directly underneath that, "Wash His hands."
Then a third person wrote, "And your feet."
*.*
As the passengers settled in on a West Coast commuter flight, a flight attendant announced, "We'd like you folks to help us welcome our new co-pilot. He'll be performing his first commercial landing for us today, so be sure to give him a big round of applause when we come to a stop."
The plane made an extremely bumpy landing, bouncing hard two or three times before taxiing to a stop. Still, the passengers applauded.
Then the attendant's voice came over the intercom, "Thanks for flying with us. And don't forget to let our co-pilot know which landing you liked best."
*.*
What do you get when you roll a hand grenade across a kitchen floor?
Linoleum Blownapart.
*.*
An old prospector shuffled into the town of El Indio, Texas leading a tired old mule.
The old man headed straight for the only saloon in town, to clear his parched throat.
He walked up to the saloon and tied his old mule to the hitch rail.
As he stood there, brushing some of the dust from his face and clothes, a young gunslinger stepped out of the saloon with a gun in one hand and a bottle of whisky in the other.
The young gunslinger looked at the old man and laughed, saying, "Hey old man, can you dance?"
The old man looked up at the gunslinger and said, "No son, I don't dance . . . never really wanted to."
A crowd had gathered as the gunslinger grinned and said, "Well, you old fool, you're gonna dance now!" and started shooting at the old man's feet.
The old prospector, not wanting to get a toe blown off, started hopping around like a flea on a hot skillet.
Everybody standing around was laughing.
When his last bullet had been fired, the young gunslinger, still laughing, holstered his gun and turned around to go back into the saloon.
The old man turned to his pack mule, pulled out a double-barreled 12 gauge shotgun and cocked both hammers.
The loud clicks carried clearly through the desert air. The crowd stopped laughing immediately.
The young gunslinger heard the sounds too, and he turned around very slowly.
The silence was deafening. The crowd watched as the young gunman stared at the old timer and the large gaping holes of those twin 12 gauge barrels.
The barrels of the shotgun never wavered in the old man's hands, as he quietly said;
"Son, have you ever kissed a mule's bottom?"
The gunslinger swallowed hard and said, "No sir .. . . but . . . but I've always wanted to."
There are a few lessons for all of us here:
* Don't be arrogant.
* Don't waste ammunition.
* Whisky makes you think you're smarter than you are.
* Always make sure you know who is in control.
* And finally, don't mess around with old folks; they didn't get old by being stupid.
*.*
The minister gave his Sunday morning service, as usual, but this particular Sunday, it was considerably longer than normal.
Later, at the door, shaking hands with parishioners as they moved out, one man said, "Your sermon, Pastor, was simply wonderful - so invigorating and inspiring and refreshing."
The minister, of course, broke out in a big smile, only to hear the man say, "Why I felt like a new man when I woke up!"
Quote of the Times;
“If you are not prepared to use force to defend civilization, then be prepared to accept barbarism.” – Sowell
Link of the Times;
https://pjmedia.com/instapundit/335442/
Issue of the Times;
‘Oikophobia’ and #NeverTrump: How Can We ‘Secure the Blessings of Liberty’?
What has prompted our immigration crisis? Isn’t it the same sentiment that leads Democrats (and David French, but I repeat myself) to claim Ilhan Omar is a better American than anyone born here?
“Oikophobia,” a hatred of one’s native country (and of one’s fellow citizens) is the most remarkable proof that our elite class have become hopelessly degenerate. Consider David French’s argument that, unlike those of us who were born here, “immigrant citizens have actually done something to earn their status.” Well, what had Ilhan Omar done for America when she was naturalized at age 18? Less than my father did. Dad was an Alabama farmboy when he joined the Army at age 18 and he earned the Purple Heart in France in 1944. Is David French implying that being my father’s son makes me less worthy of American citizenship than Ilhan Omar? Isn’t this insulting insinuation at the heart of the open-borders argument, the idea that all immigrants are better than any America, because Americans are the worst people in the world?
If you are a native-born American — and especially if you are white — Democrats consider you infinitely inferior to Ilhan Omar. The tone of David French’s argument suggests he agrees with this assessment, and one does not persuade people by insulting them. Why can’t French, an intelligent man and an able lawyer who once did great work in the cause of academic freedom, see why his anti-Trump arguments fail?
The problem, I think, is that French has been swept along by the same floodtide of degeneracy that produces mobs of enraged anarchists on the streets of Portland and makes college campuses unsafe even for well-meaning liberals like Bret Weinstein. The election of Trump, and the rising populist sentiment that elected him, caught our elite by surprise. They were shocked to discover that a powerful plurality of Americans — nearly 63 million voted for Trump — had never accepted the notions of “progress” that prevail among the university-educated elite and in the urban communities where the elite reside. Among the core tenets of this elite weltanschauung is a belief in the superiority of immigrants. You might notice the way they quote Emma Lazarus’s poetry as if it had more authority than the Constitution, a reverence for the “huddled masses” being essential to what amounts to a religious faith among our otherwise godless elite. When I visited the campus of Harvard with Pete Da Tech Guy in the fall of 2017, we were immediately confronted on our arrival with a protest on behalf of so-called “dreamers.” Harvard students are not nowadays notable for their dedication to moral virtue — they get drunk and screw around quite shamelessly — but they are adamantly certain that it is morally wrong to deport illegal aliens.
Many years ago, Peter Brimelow pointed out that a major problem with U.S. immigration policy is that voters have seldom gotten a chance to express their preference at the ballot box. The elite of both parties seem generally agreed in preferring immigrants to native-born Americans, the Republicans beholden to corporate interests that want cheap labor and the Democrats seeing immigrants as future Democrat voters. Public opinion surveys indicate that most Americans see the issue of immigration as a matter of numbers. A majority would approve of accepting 250,000 new immigrants annually, and even if you bumped that number up to half a million, most people would be OK with it, but what we have had for the past 20 years is an unofficial policy of almost unlimited immigration. Our immigration laws are riddled with loopholes, and enforcement has been uneven and irregular, so that the combination of legal and illegal immigrants has amounted to more than 1 million every year since the mid-1990s. A majority of Americans oppose this, but prior to 2016, they never had a real chance to express their dissatisfaction at the ballot box. They had previously been offered no clear choice; choosing between open-borders Democrats and open-borders Republicans was no choice at all, as far as immigration policy was concerned, and some Republicans (including my late Cousin John) were worse than any Democrat on the issue. Trump’s blunt talk — “Build a wall!” — appealed to voters who had long been frustrated by the refusal of the political elite to address their concerns over our immigration policy (or non-policy, to be more accurate). The potency of that populist resentment startled not only the political class, but also the journalists and pundits who had acted as publicity agents for the elite’s open-borders consensus.
Much has been made of the harsh “tone” of President Trump’s rhetoric and of his mercurial temperament. His critics among the conservative commentariat make much of the “character” issue, saying that even though Trump has enacted many policies that conservatives have long advocated, he does not function as a role model, failing to represent the responsible and thoughtful character of a true conservative.
Trump’s coarse language and erratic behavior, however, are an integral part of his success. During the 2016 primary campaign, I compared him to the NFL legend Fran Tarkenton, a scrambling quarterback whose unpredictability made him an unsolvable riddle for opposing defenses. Trump seems to operate according to some internal gyroscope, an instinct that leads him to say and do things which no political consultant would suggest, but which nevertheless produce victory. Consider his tweetstorm last Sunday against “the Squad” of freshmen Democrat congresswomen who had been at war with Nancy Pelosi. Jumping into that fight seemed to contradict every sensible precept of effective politics, and even many Trump supporters were dismayed. Yet once again, Trump’s instinct was vindicated, as even many of his opponents agreed he had succeeded in making these four young left-wing radicals the “face” of the Democratic Party. In the process, not incidentally, Trump hijacked the news cycle for an entire week, so that nothing else (e.g., Joe Biden’s debut of his health-care proposals) had any real impact. And as we approach the next round of Democrat presidential debates, Trump is riding high in the polls (his latest result in an NBC poll matching his all-time best), and Democrats are becoming demoralized.
“Trump’s going to get re-elected, isn’t he?” people keep asking Thomas Friedman, and if his liberal friends are saying this to him, what does that suggest about the success of Trump’s methods?
That success only inspires the Trump-haters to louder shrieks of indignation, because to them it is wrong for him to keep winning this way. And yet it is not really the president they hate so much as the people who elected him. What David French and the other #NeverTrump Republicans don’t want to confront — what they cannot admit, not even to themselves — is that Trump’s success is a repudiation of their own weakness, a condemnation of their abject failure. The crowd of intellectuals at National Review and the now-defunct Weekly Standardconsidered themselves possessors of an authority that entitled them to prescribe policy and to anoint candidates for the Republican Party. Exercising this leadership prerogative, as an elite class as secure in its authority as any feudal aristocracy, our conservative intellectuals were always eager to claim credit when Republicans won elections, but when Republicans lost, they insisted that this was never their fault. Probably their zenith of prestige was in 2005, after Bush had been re-elected, which gave credence to Karl Rove’s talk of a “permanent Republican majority” based on a so-called “center-right” coalition. That hope quickly evaporated, with military disaster in Iraq followed by Democrats recapturing Congress in 2006 and then on to the economic catastrophe of 2008 followed by the election of Barack Hussein Obama.
Insofar as a Republican majority has been revived since that low ebb of 2008, it was first because of the Tea Party — a grassroots populist movement that powered the GOP House landslide of 2010 — and eventually the populist success of Trump’s campaign. If you were directly familiar with the Tea Party movement, as I was, you know that there is considerable overlap between those who attended rallies in 2009-2010 and those who are now the staunchest supporters of Trump. While immigration was not an issue the Tea Party concerned itself with, the movement’s prominent early supporters included Michelle Malkin, author of the 2002 book Invasion: How America Still Welcomes Terrorists, Criminals, and Other Foreign Menaces, and a leader in opposition to the John McCain-backed amnesty proposals. In general, the Tea Party’s populist sentiment was expressed as a distrust of the Beltway establishment in both parties, including those Republicans who had supported corporate bailouts in 2008.
Because the #NeverTrump Republicans refuse to accept any responsibility for the failures of Bush-era GOP policy — although all of them, including French, marched in lockstep in support of those policies — they are at a loss to explain how or why they have lost their influence as intellectual leaders of the conservative movement. Instead, they denounce the 63 million Americans who voted for Trump as ignorant racists, which prompts the question: Why would anyone support “conservative intellectuals” who so emphatically agree with Democrats?
(Pierre Omidyar could not be reached for comment.)
Four years ago, Vox Day observed that French and the #NeverTrump conservatives “haven’t grasped the fact that the demographic changes to the United States have not only changed the way the political game is played, but have changed the game itself.” The country that elected and re-elected Ronald Reagan by landslide margins has ceased to exist, replaced by one in which Republicans can win the White House only by razor-thin margins, and the most important reason for this change is immigration. The demographic changes that have so transformed our politics did not “just happen.” It wasn’t some impersonal trend which caused this, but rather it was a matter of policy, and National Review was on the side of open borders, having purged Alien Nation author Peter Brimelow and sidelined John O’Sullivan. Not only did National Review purge those who dissented from their open-borders agenda, but also treated as persona non grata anyone who lamented this purge. They will call you a racist if you don’t support open-borders Republicans whose policies make it impossible for Republicans to win elections. Why do the editors of National Review think we should be grateful for their services in denouncing Republican voters as racist, as if there is a shortage of Democrats willing to perform this service?
Americans have grown tired of being lectured about how racist they are. The white people delivering these lectures — e.g., Joe Scarborough, Chris Cuomo, David Brooks — seem to believe that their moral superiority to the rest of us is so self-evident that we will enjoy and be grateful for the opportunity to be “enlightened” by them. Yet they are telling us nothing we haven’t already been told a million times, long before anyone imagined Donald Trump running for president.
David French’s insistence that Ilhan Omar is better than any native-born American simply because she is an immigrant — that our inheritance as Americans is a stigma of inferiority — is insulting, and the fact that he thinks we are too stupid to notice this is even more insulting.
The authors of our Constitution explained that their purpose was to “secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity.” If we are the posterity of our nation’s Founders — if we would deserve to be known as their heirs — then we have inherited an obligation to ensure that “the blessings of liberty” are preserved intact, that they may be enjoyed by future generations of Americans. So-called “Justice Democrats” like Ilhan Omar are a threat to that heritage of liberty, and yet David French, who wishes us to believe he is a conservative, seems to think that it is “racist” to oppose them. I do not exercise any control over what President Trump puts on his Twitter feed nor do Trump supporters seek my advice on what they should chant at rallies, but I know that Donald Trump prevented Hillary Clinton from becoming president, and that his willingness to call out Omar and her “Squad” (and to be smeared as a racist for doing so) indicates a keen understanding of what it will take to prevent Democrats from taking back the White House in 2020.
Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe there is something to be gained by playing “Nice Guy” with the Democrats, but if being nice were the criterion of political success, Jeb Bush might be president. And he’s not.
Unsustainable?
How come there's no Knock Knock joke about America?
Because freedom rings.
*.*
A college professor asked his class a question.
"If Philadelphia is 100 miles from New York and Chicago is 1000 miles from Philadelphia and Los Angles is 2000 miles from Chicago, how old am I?"
One student in the back of the class raised his hand and when called upon said, "Professor you're 44."
The Professor said, "You're absolutely correct, but tell me, how did you arrive at the answer so quickly?"
The student said, "You see Professor, I have a brother; he's 22, and he's half nuts."
*.*
BEAVERTON, OR — Nike is making waves once again this month in effort to appease their sponsored celebrity/unemployed backup quarterback, Colin Kaepernick.
Kaepernick first got the company to pull their much-anticipated Betsy Ross shoes because, as he pointed out, the flag was made when slavery was around. Sources confirm that the Ross flag was made in a time when people owned slaves and is thus a symbol of all things terrible in the world.
Now, Nike has decided to cease making any cotton clothing because Kaepernick says cotton “reminds me of slavery”.
“Anything that hints at slavery has to go,” Kaepernick said. “And that includes standing for the National Anthem, shoes with Betsy Ross Flags, and, of course, cotton, since slaves picked cotton.
“I have no fear of satin,” Kaepernick said. “There’s nothing that speaks of oppression with a pink sateen luster, for instance.”
“Sure, these fabrics might hinder performance a little bit,” a Nike spokesman said, “but we’ve transcended sports to become the world’s largest purveyor of wokeness.”
*.*
One hundred years ago everyone owned a horse and only the rich had cars.
Today, everyone has a car and only the rich have horses.
Oh, how the stables have turned.
*.*
Apparently, you can't use "beef-stew" as a password.
It's not stroganoff.
Quote of the Times;
“Did the Russians pay the 2020 Democratic candidates to throw the 2020 election to President Donald Trump?” – Elder
Link of the Times;
https://pjmedia.com/trending/mark-zuckerberg-brags-we-didnt-allow-pro-life-groups-to-advertise-before-irelands-abortion-vote/
Issue of the Times;
The Top Four Reasons California Is Unsustainable by Thomas Del Beccaro
California is a place unlike any other on the Globe. It boasts perhaps the greatest natural resources of any state along with shining high-tech industries. However, like many good economic stories, government policies threaten its future.
Indeed, its government has made California unsustainable.
Of course, it wasn’t always this way. As the 1960s came to a close in California, it had a population of nearly twenty million. In the decade before, its economic strength afforded the construction of a vast State Water Project and higher education system that was the envy of the world. Matched with a majestic and trade friendly coastline, along with visionary business leaders, California’s future seemed secured.
No more – and here are the four major reasons California is at such great risk.
1) California’s Infrastructure Deficit
That vast State Water Project was designed for a population not much greater than 25 million. Today, on any one day, California verges on nearly 40 million people within its borders and is projected to reach 50 million if not higher.
In the last 50 years, however, California’s infrastructure needs have been ignored.
The state’s water system remains essentially is as it was in the 1960s. As for its roads, a recent headline declared that “California’s roads are some of the poorest in the nation and rapidly getting worse.”
According to a 2017 infrastructure report card:
“Driving on roads in need of repair in California costs each driver $844 per year, and 5.5% of bridges are rated structurally deficient. Drinking water needs in California are an estimated $44.5 billion, and wastewater needs total $26.2 billion. 678 dams are considered to be high-hazard potential. The state’s schools have an estimated capital expenditure gap of $3.2 billion.”
In 2017, California’s Governor Jerry Brown estimated California was “facing $187 billion in unmet infrastructure needs.” However, the Bay Area Council Economic Institute “pegs the cost of California’s unfunded infrastructure needs at up to $737 billion and possibly as much as $765 billion.” Who is right? It’s hard to know but all of those figures are more than daunting.
2) Government Debt
How much in debt are the California governments? That’s hard to know too. According to a January 2017 study, “California state and local governments owe $1.3 trillion as of June 30, 2015.” The study was based on “a review of federal, state and local financial disclosures.”
In other words, that $1.3 trillion in debt is the amount to which California governments admit. Other studies believe it to be more. Indeed, one study says it is actually $2.3 trillion and a recent Hoover Institute stated that there is over $1 trillion in pension liability alone, or $76,884 per household. Incredibly, there are 4 million current pension beneficiaries, a number that continues to grow and which exceeds the total population of 22 states.
What’s the right number? Apparently, it is so large it is hard to accurately estimate. In every case, the number is staggering.
3) California’s Taxes and Regulations
When you consider the California legal system and its regulatory system, inclusive of the world’s most comprehensive global warming law, California is likely the most regulated state in the Country, if not the World.
California also is among the highest taxed states in the nation. California has the highest income tax rates. The top rate is 13.3%. The next closest top tax rate is in Oregon at 9.9%. However, Oregon does not have a sales tax. California has the 10th highest sales tax.
What is remarkable about the California income tax isn’t just that it has the highest rate, it is how little income it takes, just above $52,000, to qualify for California rate of 9.3%. Given the high cost of living in California, that means many Californians are subject to that rate.
On the other hand, for more than a decade, fewer than 150,000 of California’s 35+ million people pay half of all of its income tax – a highly imbalanced system.
Now, many might think California needs all of those taxes given its infrastructure deficit and debt. The problem with that notion is that those prolonged high taxes, debt burden and regulations limit California’s economic future. After all, why would businesses locate in California in the future with the impending tax-aggeddon that must be in the offing?
Also, California’s middle class has been hollowed. A recent CNBC headline read: “Californians fed up with housing costs and taxes are fleeing state in big numbers.” Where are they going? Many have left for low tax states offering more jobs than California.
They have been replaced by those taking advantage of California’s magnet government policies, which increase California’s long-term spending needs. For those that remain, according to Smartasset.com ”California has the highest debt-to-income ratio in the country.”
Little wonder, the demographer Joel Kotkin concluded that “the state is run for the very rich, the very poor, and the public employees.” It is also how California found itself with the worst poverty problem and why “California ranks dead last among U.S. states in quality of life, according to a study by U.S. News.”
All of which brings us to the number one reason California is not sustainable.
4) The California Governments
You would think all of the above would have government officials deeply worried. So much so that they would cut back everywhere they could. If you thought that, you would be wrong – very wrong.
California spends nearly $200 billion a year on budget and even more off-budget in the form of programs paid with bonds, i.e. debt financing. As for the pension debt, of that nearly $200 billion, in the most recent budget less than $2 billion was allocated to paying down that pension debt. More than that was spent this year on a high-speed rail project currently estimated to cost $70 billion and which no one seems to want.
Beyond that, as I wrote earlier, California is moving ever farther left and wants the nation to pay for it. The next generation of leaders, Gavin Newsom, Kevin de Leon, Xavier Becerra and Kamala Harris are significantly to the Left of the old (and “conservative” by comparison) Jerry Brown and Diane Feinstein. That new generation of leaders are supported by an influx of friendly voters who are replacing those that are leaving.
All of those leaders support the dozens of lawsuits brought by the Democrat Attorney General Xavier Becerra against the Trump Administration. Many describe those lawsuits as part of California Democrats resistance movement – a resistance designed to result in political gains more than policy benefits.
Gavin Newsom, Kevin de Leon, Xavier Becerra and Kamala Harris also support some form of significantly expanded healthcare benefits if not universal healthcare – which is estimated to cost as much as $400 billion a year (that is not a typo). All of them support the California magnet policies that attracted so many of those in California illegally. In fact, there is no indication that the next generation has any concern for the future debt. Instead, they support higher taxes.
What taxes will those be? Within a decade you can expect higher income taxes and sales taxes. There is always a movement afoot to do away with California’s landmark property tax protection known as Prop 13. You also can expect a service tax – a tax on lawyers and accountants as well as hairdressers and gardeners. That service tax would be on top of the existing income tax. Beyond all of that, sooner or later an asset tax will be proposed. California counties already collect an asset tax on businesses. Look for that to be proposed statewide as California lurches ever farther to the Left and if forced to confront future debt.
Is there a silver lining in this story?
If you are living in one of the 49 other states, you should learn from the lesson that is California. If you are living in California, there is always the lesson of how Michigan came to be governed by a more centrist government. Of course, that came after the failure of the prior government. For now, however, for all its concern for sustainable foods and products, California is on a high-speed rail to unsustainability.
Because freedom rings.
*.*
A college professor asked his class a question.
"If Philadelphia is 100 miles from New York and Chicago is 1000 miles from Philadelphia and Los Angles is 2000 miles from Chicago, how old am I?"
One student in the back of the class raised his hand and when called upon said, "Professor you're 44."
The Professor said, "You're absolutely correct, but tell me, how did you arrive at the answer so quickly?"
The student said, "You see Professor, I have a brother; he's 22, and he's half nuts."
*.*
BEAVERTON, OR — Nike is making waves once again this month in effort to appease their sponsored celebrity/unemployed backup quarterback, Colin Kaepernick.
Kaepernick first got the company to pull their much-anticipated Betsy Ross shoes because, as he pointed out, the flag was made when slavery was around. Sources confirm that the Ross flag was made in a time when people owned slaves and is thus a symbol of all things terrible in the world.
Now, Nike has decided to cease making any cotton clothing because Kaepernick says cotton “reminds me of slavery”.
“Anything that hints at slavery has to go,” Kaepernick said. “And that includes standing for the National Anthem, shoes with Betsy Ross Flags, and, of course, cotton, since slaves picked cotton.
“I have no fear of satin,” Kaepernick said. “There’s nothing that speaks of oppression with a pink sateen luster, for instance.”
“Sure, these fabrics might hinder performance a little bit,” a Nike spokesman said, “but we’ve transcended sports to become the world’s largest purveyor of wokeness.”
*.*
One hundred years ago everyone owned a horse and only the rich had cars.
Today, everyone has a car and only the rich have horses.
Oh, how the stables have turned.
*.*
Apparently, you can't use "beef-stew" as a password.
It's not stroganoff.
Quote of the Times;
“Did the Russians pay the 2020 Democratic candidates to throw the 2020 election to President Donald Trump?” – Elder
Link of the Times;
https://pjmedia.com/trending/mark-zuckerberg-brags-we-didnt-allow-pro-life-groups-to-advertise-before-irelands-abortion-vote/
Issue of the Times;
The Top Four Reasons California Is Unsustainable by Thomas Del Beccaro
California is a place unlike any other on the Globe. It boasts perhaps the greatest natural resources of any state along with shining high-tech industries. However, like many good economic stories, government policies threaten its future.
Indeed, its government has made California unsustainable.
Of course, it wasn’t always this way. As the 1960s came to a close in California, it had a population of nearly twenty million. In the decade before, its economic strength afforded the construction of a vast State Water Project and higher education system that was the envy of the world. Matched with a majestic and trade friendly coastline, along with visionary business leaders, California’s future seemed secured.
No more – and here are the four major reasons California is at such great risk.
1) California’s Infrastructure Deficit
That vast State Water Project was designed for a population not much greater than 25 million. Today, on any one day, California verges on nearly 40 million people within its borders and is projected to reach 50 million if not higher.
In the last 50 years, however, California’s infrastructure needs have been ignored.
The state’s water system remains essentially is as it was in the 1960s. As for its roads, a recent headline declared that “California’s roads are some of the poorest in the nation and rapidly getting worse.”
According to a 2017 infrastructure report card:
“Driving on roads in need of repair in California costs each driver $844 per year, and 5.5% of bridges are rated structurally deficient. Drinking water needs in California are an estimated $44.5 billion, and wastewater needs total $26.2 billion. 678 dams are considered to be high-hazard potential. The state’s schools have an estimated capital expenditure gap of $3.2 billion.”
In 2017, California’s Governor Jerry Brown estimated California was “facing $187 billion in unmet infrastructure needs.” However, the Bay Area Council Economic Institute “pegs the cost of California’s unfunded infrastructure needs at up to $737 billion and possibly as much as $765 billion.” Who is right? It’s hard to know but all of those figures are more than daunting.
2) Government Debt
How much in debt are the California governments? That’s hard to know too. According to a January 2017 study, “California state and local governments owe $1.3 trillion as of June 30, 2015.” The study was based on “a review of federal, state and local financial disclosures.”
In other words, that $1.3 trillion in debt is the amount to which California governments admit. Other studies believe it to be more. Indeed, one study says it is actually $2.3 trillion and a recent Hoover Institute stated that there is over $1 trillion in pension liability alone, or $76,884 per household. Incredibly, there are 4 million current pension beneficiaries, a number that continues to grow and which exceeds the total population of 22 states.
What’s the right number? Apparently, it is so large it is hard to accurately estimate. In every case, the number is staggering.
3) California’s Taxes and Regulations
When you consider the California legal system and its regulatory system, inclusive of the world’s most comprehensive global warming law, California is likely the most regulated state in the Country, if not the World.
California also is among the highest taxed states in the nation. California has the highest income tax rates. The top rate is 13.3%. The next closest top tax rate is in Oregon at 9.9%. However, Oregon does not have a sales tax. California has the 10th highest sales tax.
What is remarkable about the California income tax isn’t just that it has the highest rate, it is how little income it takes, just above $52,000, to qualify for California rate of 9.3%. Given the high cost of living in California, that means many Californians are subject to that rate.
On the other hand, for more than a decade, fewer than 150,000 of California’s 35+ million people pay half of all of its income tax – a highly imbalanced system.
Now, many might think California needs all of those taxes given its infrastructure deficit and debt. The problem with that notion is that those prolonged high taxes, debt burden and regulations limit California’s economic future. After all, why would businesses locate in California in the future with the impending tax-aggeddon that must be in the offing?
Also, California’s middle class has been hollowed. A recent CNBC headline read: “Californians fed up with housing costs and taxes are fleeing state in big numbers.” Where are they going? Many have left for low tax states offering more jobs than California.
They have been replaced by those taking advantage of California’s magnet government policies, which increase California’s long-term spending needs. For those that remain, according to Smartasset.com ”California has the highest debt-to-income ratio in the country.”
Little wonder, the demographer Joel Kotkin concluded that “the state is run for the very rich, the very poor, and the public employees.” It is also how California found itself with the worst poverty problem and why “California ranks dead last among U.S. states in quality of life, according to a study by U.S. News.”
All of which brings us to the number one reason California is not sustainable.
4) The California Governments
You would think all of the above would have government officials deeply worried. So much so that they would cut back everywhere they could. If you thought that, you would be wrong – very wrong.
California spends nearly $200 billion a year on budget and even more off-budget in the form of programs paid with bonds, i.e. debt financing. As for the pension debt, of that nearly $200 billion, in the most recent budget less than $2 billion was allocated to paying down that pension debt. More than that was spent this year on a high-speed rail project currently estimated to cost $70 billion and which no one seems to want.
Beyond that, as I wrote earlier, California is moving ever farther left and wants the nation to pay for it. The next generation of leaders, Gavin Newsom, Kevin de Leon, Xavier Becerra and Kamala Harris are significantly to the Left of the old (and “conservative” by comparison) Jerry Brown and Diane Feinstein. That new generation of leaders are supported by an influx of friendly voters who are replacing those that are leaving.
All of those leaders support the dozens of lawsuits brought by the Democrat Attorney General Xavier Becerra against the Trump Administration. Many describe those lawsuits as part of California Democrats resistance movement – a resistance designed to result in political gains more than policy benefits.
Gavin Newsom, Kevin de Leon, Xavier Becerra and Kamala Harris also support some form of significantly expanded healthcare benefits if not universal healthcare – which is estimated to cost as much as $400 billion a year (that is not a typo). All of them support the California magnet policies that attracted so many of those in California illegally. In fact, there is no indication that the next generation has any concern for the future debt. Instead, they support higher taxes.
What taxes will those be? Within a decade you can expect higher income taxes and sales taxes. There is always a movement afoot to do away with California’s landmark property tax protection known as Prop 13. You also can expect a service tax – a tax on lawyers and accountants as well as hairdressers and gardeners. That service tax would be on top of the existing income tax. Beyond all of that, sooner or later an asset tax will be proposed. California counties already collect an asset tax on businesses. Look for that to be proposed statewide as California lurches ever farther to the Left and if forced to confront future debt.
Is there a silver lining in this story?
If you are living in one of the 49 other states, you should learn from the lesson that is California. If you are living in California, there is always the lesson of how Michigan came to be governed by a more centrist government. Of course, that came after the failure of the prior government. For now, however, for all its concern for sustainable foods and products, California is on a high-speed rail to unsustainability.
Not?
My wife thinks I put football before marriage.
Even after celebrating our third season together.
*.*
Little Danny O'Brien, a fine Catholic lad, was out looking for trouble. He tripped people on the street, threw bricks through windows, smacked folks on the head and generally caused mischief until a passing cop stopped him.
"What's going on here!" bellowed the officer.
"It's like this officer," winked Danny. "I am on my way to confession and I'm a little short of material."
*.*
Hillary Clinton expresses shock and sadness for Jeffrey Epstein’s upcoming suicide
In a heartfelt tweet, Hillary Clinton expressed her surprise and shock at the unexpected forthcoming suicide of long term friend and billionaire Jeffrey Epstein.
Epstein was arrested in New York Saturday on federal charges related to sex trafficking, CBS News has confirmed. The financier has long been accused of sexually abusing underage girls, and in 2007, he pleaded guilty to two prostitution counts in a Florida court as part of a controversial deal to avoid federal charges.
It has been revealed that former president Bill Clinton was a guest at Epstein’s “orgy island” 26 times, where naturally nothing unethical happened.
“We were such good friends, so that’s why his suicide next week is such a tragic shock to us,” Clinton added.
*.*
An American and his wife were driving in Canada and got lost on the prairie. After what seemed like forever, they finally came to a city.
When they saw a gentleman on the sidewalk they pulled up to the curb and the lady wound down her window and asked: "Excuse me, sir. Where are we?"
The gentleman replied, "Saskatoon, Saskatchewan."
The woman rolled up the window, turned to her husband and said, "We really are lost. They don't even speak English here!"
*.*
FRANCE - Spurred on by the black vest protesters in Paris this weekend, Muslims have stormed the streets of Marseilles and are attacking any non-Muslims they can find.
Police fear the death toll could be as high as 12.
Quote of the Times;
“You notice Democrats are not saying we should take in Venezuelan refugees? Same reason they ended the policy that allowed Cubans to come. They do not want Hispanics who have seen what happens when their policies take effect. These Venezuelans would be Republicans like Cubans.” - Adams
Link of the Times;
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/the-media-savaged-trump-when-he-claimed-puerto-rico-officials-were-mismanaging-disaster-aid-but-he-was-right
Issue of the Times;
Why I am Not a Socialist by Art Carden
I share a lot of the concerns and goals of those who describe themselves as “socialists.” More health care and housing for poor people? Great. More educational opportunities for the least well-off? Absolutely. A cleaner environment? Sure thing.
Why, then, am I not a socialist? As political and economic ideas go it’s So Hot Right Now. It’s also cross-generational as political superstars Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez refer to themselves as “democratic socialists.”
I think, though, that they are making serious mistakes. To put it simply, people too often mistake the ends for the means and define economic and political systems in terms of their advocates’ stated goals rather than the actual characteristics of those systems. With respect to a lot of the goals of the self-described socialists, there is a lot more standing between them and their vision than a failure of political will.
We saw in the early 20th century that socialism doesn’t work in theory, and the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet Union provided decisive evidence in the late 20th century that it doesn’t work in practice. If there are any questions remaining to be resolved the further the USSR fades into the historical distance, resource-rich Venezuela’s freefall into chaos, poverty, and widespread government repression should answer them.
To borrow from Thomas Sowell, I think we should define economic systems in terms of the social processes they set in motion. It isn’t enough to speak and write in terms of intentions. This is especially true when we find ourselves emptily and airily advocating things no decent person would oppose. Robert Heilbroner defines socialism as “a centrally planned economy in which the government controls all means of production.” According to Ludwig von Mises, “The essential mark of socialism is that one will alone acts.”
That “one will” might be a dictator or the chair of an elected committee of central planners (for short, let’s just call it “the state”). Rather than a multitude of wills enacting a multitude of disparate plans, socialism features a single will enacting a single, all-encompassing plan.
At first glance, it seems reasonable. Why not replace the chaos of the unfettered market in which people regularly make poor decisions, entrepreneurs often screw up, and more money means more votes with something far more just, orderly, and scientific? Mises answers by asking the fundamental question: “Can a socialist system operate as a system of the division of labor?”
His answer: no, it cannot.
He originally made the argument in 1920 in an article called “Economic Calculation in the Socialist Commonwealth,” expanded the argument to book length in Socialism: An Economic and Sociological Analysis, and restated it in a section on non-market cooperation in Human Action, his magnum opus. Socialists tried and failed to rescue their system from his critique, and, for a long time, people (many economists included) mistakenly believed that Mises and Friedrich Hayek, who had discarded his youthful socialism on encountering Mises’s arguments, had lost the debate. Ultimately, however, they were vindicated both in theory and in practice.
What, exactly, was their argument? Here’s how I read it.
To begin, Mises stacked the deck against himself by assuming that all the easy objections to socialism had somehow been answered. He assumed that the central planner was utterly uncorrupted by any consideration other than the well-being of society. He assumed further that the central planner had a menu of technological possibilities, available resources, and the people’s preferences. The central planner knew exactly the pattern of consumers’ goods that would maximize welfare. His only job, then, was to arrange society’s factors of production so as to produce everything with maximal efficiency. He only has to do so without using market prices determined by the voluntary exchange of privately owned means of production.
It is literally an impossible task. Note that Mises (and Hayek after him) doesn’t say, “It’s a difficult task.” He claims that it is impossible for the central planner to compare the costs and benefits of different ways of producing society’s array of consumers’ goods without private ownership and prices generated by market exchange. There are a few steps from private ownership to rational economic calculation:
1. Private ownership. Individual owners have the right to use, alienate, or derive income from the means of production like land and capital. As residual claimants to the income the means of production generates, they therefore have stronger incentives to use them wisely than does a member of a central-planning board or larger polity who bears no personal cost from choosing poorly.
2. Exchange. If the means of production are privately owned, then they can be exchanged. Exchange gives a practical outlet to disagreement, which is an unavoidable fact of the human condition. Imagine your neighbor owns a farm on the outskirts of town. You disagree with her use of the land and think the farm could be put to better use if it were converted into a shopping center. When the means of production are privately owned, you can act on your conviction by finding someone who is willing to finance your venture, buying the farm from her, and converting it into a shopping center.
3. Prices. Prices emerge from market exchange and provide, at any point in time, people’s best estimate of the value of a tool, tractor, ounce of copper, or plot of land in its best available use. The information is crucial, and once again, if you’re convinced that the pattern of prices is wrong then you can go into the market and buy what you think is undervalued or sell short what you think is overvalued. Your action contributes valuable knowledge that helps future buyers and sellers compare their estimate of the value of the means of production to everyone else’s.
4. Profits and Losses. It’s said that the proof of the pudding is in the eating. The proof of the plan is in the profits and losses. If you have chosen wisely, you are rewarded with a profit, which is an increment above everyone else’s assessment of the best possible uses of the means of production. It’s a pat on the back from the invisible hand, and it’s the market’s way of rewarding your judgment by increasing the means at your disposal. If you have chosen poorly, you are punished with a loss. It’s a slap in the face from the invisible hand, and it’s the market’s way of punishing you for wasting resources by decreasing the means at your disposal.
As Mises argues, prices, profits, and losses are crucial, and in turn, the institutional structure of the market is crucial as well. The planning board’s instruction to mimic what the market does but do it more efficiently is curious. As Mises puts it, “They want people to play market as children play war, railroad, or school. They do not comprehend how such childish play differs from the real thing it tries to imitate.” Later, he describes the importance of the market process in revolutionizing the means and methods of production: “The capitalist system is not a managerial system; it is an entrepreneurial system.”
Mises’s critics responded that he was owed a debt of gratitude for showing that prices are essential to economic calculation, but they argued that market exchange of private property was not necessary, because prices of the means of production could be derived from a mathematical model of the economy. In 1945, however, Friedrich Hayek argued in his classic essay “The Use of Knowledge in Society” that this is true if we define the economic problem as one of solving known equations subject to known inventories of inputs and known constraints. Unfortunately, some interpreted this as a concession on Hayek’s part: central planning could calculate, after all — it was just inefficient relative to the price mechanism.
This wasn’t Hayek’s argument, though. Hayek argued that the economic problem is of a very different kind — of a kind that cannot be solved by a planner with a big-enough computer. It is a problem, he argues, of assembling, combining, and deploying knowledge distributed across many minds and available to no single mind. Just as Mises argued earlier, it is a problem that cannot be solved by a central planner, no matter what the computational resources at his disposal. The information needed to solve it (prices, profits, and losses) emerges from individual, purposive action — in this case, buying and selling ownership of the means of production in markets. The knowledge that emerges is unavailable to any planner or anyone else through any other mechanism (and indeed, as he and others pointed out, to the extent that the Soviet Union was able to “calculate” it was able to do so by observing prices in places with markets for the means of production).
Empirically, the socialist record is one of dismal and at times murderous failure. Why, then, do intellectuals, scholars, and commentators continue in their romantic attachment to it? In a summary of Hayek’s contributions, Peter Saunders puts it thusly: “Hayek understood that capitalism offends intellectual pride, while socialism flatters it.” Mises understood this, too, and he worked tirelessly to answer those who thought themselves fit to plan for others, or at least to select those who would plan for others. Even though I agree with a lot of socialists on social goals, I think the record of theory and history shows that socialist planning is an impossible task.
Even after celebrating our third season together.
*.*
Little Danny O'Brien, a fine Catholic lad, was out looking for trouble. He tripped people on the street, threw bricks through windows, smacked folks on the head and generally caused mischief until a passing cop stopped him.
"What's going on here!" bellowed the officer.
"It's like this officer," winked Danny. "I am on my way to confession and I'm a little short of material."
*.*
Hillary Clinton expresses shock and sadness for Jeffrey Epstein’s upcoming suicide
In a heartfelt tweet, Hillary Clinton expressed her surprise and shock at the unexpected forthcoming suicide of long term friend and billionaire Jeffrey Epstein.
Epstein was arrested in New York Saturday on federal charges related to sex trafficking, CBS News has confirmed. The financier has long been accused of sexually abusing underage girls, and in 2007, he pleaded guilty to two prostitution counts in a Florida court as part of a controversial deal to avoid federal charges.
It has been revealed that former president Bill Clinton was a guest at Epstein’s “orgy island” 26 times, where naturally nothing unethical happened.
“We were such good friends, so that’s why his suicide next week is such a tragic shock to us,” Clinton added.
*.*
An American and his wife were driving in Canada and got lost on the prairie. After what seemed like forever, they finally came to a city.
When they saw a gentleman on the sidewalk they pulled up to the curb and the lady wound down her window and asked: "Excuse me, sir. Where are we?"
The gentleman replied, "Saskatoon, Saskatchewan."
The woman rolled up the window, turned to her husband and said, "We really are lost. They don't even speak English here!"
*.*
FRANCE - Spurred on by the black vest protesters in Paris this weekend, Muslims have stormed the streets of Marseilles and are attacking any non-Muslims they can find.
Police fear the death toll could be as high as 12.
Quote of the Times;
“You notice Democrats are not saying we should take in Venezuelan refugees? Same reason they ended the policy that allowed Cubans to come. They do not want Hispanics who have seen what happens when their policies take effect. These Venezuelans would be Republicans like Cubans.” - Adams
Link of the Times;
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/the-media-savaged-trump-when-he-claimed-puerto-rico-officials-were-mismanaging-disaster-aid-but-he-was-right
Issue of the Times;
Why I am Not a Socialist by Art Carden
I share a lot of the concerns and goals of those who describe themselves as “socialists.” More health care and housing for poor people? Great. More educational opportunities for the least well-off? Absolutely. A cleaner environment? Sure thing.
Why, then, am I not a socialist? As political and economic ideas go it’s So Hot Right Now. It’s also cross-generational as political superstars Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez refer to themselves as “democratic socialists.”
I think, though, that they are making serious mistakes. To put it simply, people too often mistake the ends for the means and define economic and political systems in terms of their advocates’ stated goals rather than the actual characteristics of those systems. With respect to a lot of the goals of the self-described socialists, there is a lot more standing between them and their vision than a failure of political will.
We saw in the early 20th century that socialism doesn’t work in theory, and the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet Union provided decisive evidence in the late 20th century that it doesn’t work in practice. If there are any questions remaining to be resolved the further the USSR fades into the historical distance, resource-rich Venezuela’s freefall into chaos, poverty, and widespread government repression should answer them.
To borrow from Thomas Sowell, I think we should define economic systems in terms of the social processes they set in motion. It isn’t enough to speak and write in terms of intentions. This is especially true when we find ourselves emptily and airily advocating things no decent person would oppose. Robert Heilbroner defines socialism as “a centrally planned economy in which the government controls all means of production.” According to Ludwig von Mises, “The essential mark of socialism is that one will alone acts.”
That “one will” might be a dictator or the chair of an elected committee of central planners (for short, let’s just call it “the state”). Rather than a multitude of wills enacting a multitude of disparate plans, socialism features a single will enacting a single, all-encompassing plan.
At first glance, it seems reasonable. Why not replace the chaos of the unfettered market in which people regularly make poor decisions, entrepreneurs often screw up, and more money means more votes with something far more just, orderly, and scientific? Mises answers by asking the fundamental question: “Can a socialist system operate as a system of the division of labor?”
His answer: no, it cannot.
He originally made the argument in 1920 in an article called “Economic Calculation in the Socialist Commonwealth,” expanded the argument to book length in Socialism: An Economic and Sociological Analysis, and restated it in a section on non-market cooperation in Human Action, his magnum opus. Socialists tried and failed to rescue their system from his critique, and, for a long time, people (many economists included) mistakenly believed that Mises and Friedrich Hayek, who had discarded his youthful socialism on encountering Mises’s arguments, had lost the debate. Ultimately, however, they were vindicated both in theory and in practice.
What, exactly, was their argument? Here’s how I read it.
To begin, Mises stacked the deck against himself by assuming that all the easy objections to socialism had somehow been answered. He assumed that the central planner was utterly uncorrupted by any consideration other than the well-being of society. He assumed further that the central planner had a menu of technological possibilities, available resources, and the people’s preferences. The central planner knew exactly the pattern of consumers’ goods that would maximize welfare. His only job, then, was to arrange society’s factors of production so as to produce everything with maximal efficiency. He only has to do so without using market prices determined by the voluntary exchange of privately owned means of production.
It is literally an impossible task. Note that Mises (and Hayek after him) doesn’t say, “It’s a difficult task.” He claims that it is impossible for the central planner to compare the costs and benefits of different ways of producing society’s array of consumers’ goods without private ownership and prices generated by market exchange. There are a few steps from private ownership to rational economic calculation:
1. Private ownership. Individual owners have the right to use, alienate, or derive income from the means of production like land and capital. As residual claimants to the income the means of production generates, they therefore have stronger incentives to use them wisely than does a member of a central-planning board or larger polity who bears no personal cost from choosing poorly.
2. Exchange. If the means of production are privately owned, then they can be exchanged. Exchange gives a practical outlet to disagreement, which is an unavoidable fact of the human condition. Imagine your neighbor owns a farm on the outskirts of town. You disagree with her use of the land and think the farm could be put to better use if it were converted into a shopping center. When the means of production are privately owned, you can act on your conviction by finding someone who is willing to finance your venture, buying the farm from her, and converting it into a shopping center.
3. Prices. Prices emerge from market exchange and provide, at any point in time, people’s best estimate of the value of a tool, tractor, ounce of copper, or plot of land in its best available use. The information is crucial, and once again, if you’re convinced that the pattern of prices is wrong then you can go into the market and buy what you think is undervalued or sell short what you think is overvalued. Your action contributes valuable knowledge that helps future buyers and sellers compare their estimate of the value of the means of production to everyone else’s.
4. Profits and Losses. It’s said that the proof of the pudding is in the eating. The proof of the plan is in the profits and losses. If you have chosen wisely, you are rewarded with a profit, which is an increment above everyone else’s assessment of the best possible uses of the means of production. It’s a pat on the back from the invisible hand, and it’s the market’s way of rewarding your judgment by increasing the means at your disposal. If you have chosen poorly, you are punished with a loss. It’s a slap in the face from the invisible hand, and it’s the market’s way of punishing you for wasting resources by decreasing the means at your disposal.
As Mises argues, prices, profits, and losses are crucial, and in turn, the institutional structure of the market is crucial as well. The planning board’s instruction to mimic what the market does but do it more efficiently is curious. As Mises puts it, “They want people to play market as children play war, railroad, or school. They do not comprehend how such childish play differs from the real thing it tries to imitate.” Later, he describes the importance of the market process in revolutionizing the means and methods of production: “The capitalist system is not a managerial system; it is an entrepreneurial system.”
Mises’s critics responded that he was owed a debt of gratitude for showing that prices are essential to economic calculation, but they argued that market exchange of private property was not necessary, because prices of the means of production could be derived from a mathematical model of the economy. In 1945, however, Friedrich Hayek argued in his classic essay “The Use of Knowledge in Society” that this is true if we define the economic problem as one of solving known equations subject to known inventories of inputs and known constraints. Unfortunately, some interpreted this as a concession on Hayek’s part: central planning could calculate, after all — it was just inefficient relative to the price mechanism.
This wasn’t Hayek’s argument, though. Hayek argued that the economic problem is of a very different kind — of a kind that cannot be solved by a planner with a big-enough computer. It is a problem, he argues, of assembling, combining, and deploying knowledge distributed across many minds and available to no single mind. Just as Mises argued earlier, it is a problem that cannot be solved by a central planner, no matter what the computational resources at his disposal. The information needed to solve it (prices, profits, and losses) emerges from individual, purposive action — in this case, buying and selling ownership of the means of production in markets. The knowledge that emerges is unavailable to any planner or anyone else through any other mechanism (and indeed, as he and others pointed out, to the extent that the Soviet Union was able to “calculate” it was able to do so by observing prices in places with markets for the means of production).
Empirically, the socialist record is one of dismal and at times murderous failure. Why, then, do intellectuals, scholars, and commentators continue in their romantic attachment to it? In a summary of Hayek’s contributions, Peter Saunders puts it thusly: “Hayek understood that capitalism offends intellectual pride, while socialism flatters it.” Mises understood this, too, and he worked tirelessly to answer those who thought themselves fit to plan for others, or at least to select those who would plan for others. Even though I agree with a lot of socialists on social goals, I think the record of theory and history shows that socialist planning is an impossible task.
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And someone shot a duck.
An Images & Ideas, Inc. Service.
No Vegans were harmed in the making of this site. We're looking for a new provider.