Great Society, Amity Shlaes

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0061706426?tag=duckduckgo-d-20&linkCode=osi&th=1&psc=1

Excellent book, bit on longish side for what it covers, but that doesn't bother me. Best read after reading "The Forgotten Man" first.

My synopsis of that work,

The short version of "The Forgotten Man" (TFM) is that Hoover and others started the policies that would cause the depression in the late '20s by trying to reduce the money supply, raise taxes pass tariffs (Smoot Hawley), and increase Government control and projects (eg. Hoover Dam). Hoover and the Republicans started the descent, but FDR and the Democrats weakened and prolonged it by pushing the failed policies harder, and most damaging, actually attacking business and criminalizing individual business practices. In some cases, the rules were completely irrational, as in the NRA insistence on "straight killing" of chickens disallowing customer selection and differential pricing that went all the way to the Supreme Court in Schechter. When FDR and the New Dealers lost, he was furious and embarked on his "packing the court" attempt to circumvent the Constitution.


The degree to which the Democrats, the schools, and the MSM have propagandized the "New Deal", The Depression" and especially FDR himself is incredible. The spectacle of a very rich man "going after the rich" while sailing on his yacht may be the poster child case for "consistency is not an issue". By raising taxes, criminalizing business behavior after the fact and moving the Government into new areas (utilities, unions, pricing, etc), he managed to simultaneously reduce the prospective return for risk taken (by tax rate increases) while drastically INCREASING the risk on both the business front (regulation, government takeover, unions), but also add in the prospects of CRIMINAL PROSECUTION, even if the act was not "illegal" at the time it was done. An amazing combination of horrible policy, no wonder he managed to prolong the Depression until WWII forced him to change his policies so business could get busy and win the war.

We have been "progressing" toward tyranny at the hands of the "progressives" since TJR!

"Great Society" (GS) takes us from the "lead up" (Ike / JFK) into the promise that America could "do it all" ... guns, butter, defend against Communism, end poverty,  ensure "equal rights" (and likely outcome), go to the moon, and MORE .... all without raising taxes or wrecking the economy.

The GS "succeeded" in losing the war, increasing poverty, exploding the deficit, exploding taxes, burning the inner city, blowing up morality ... hey, at least we went to the moon!

From page 116, "...the civil rights bill was establishing a precedent. A law that defined new rights at a national level was taking away from individuals the authority of their own conscience and substituting a federal, national conscience to overrule them. And who knew whether the federal government's conscience would always be better?"

The biggest thing the book made clear to me is exactly how the party of Slavery and Jim Crow became the "Party of Civil Rights".

On p 152, "The OEO "Equal Opportunity today" allowed that it would welcome experiments, including those where community action organizers paid by Washington where "facilitating opportunities for the poor to participate in protest actions" "

The Democrats and the unions CREATED the protest movement! The "Port Huron Statement" was funded by Walter Reuther, president of the UAW! Saul Alinsky, Barack Obama, and Hillary Clinton were all federally paid to foment protest! The federal agencies created as part of the GS funded and encouraged the people who encouraged and took part in demonstrations and riots. 

On page 201 "The War on Poverty welfare benefits actually encouraged men not to work" ... average family welfare check was up to $238 a month, wages were at $220.

The sad story of the book is that between FDR and LBJ, they all but completely destroyed the greatness of America -- LIMITED GOVERNMENT!

A more complete and expert review here.

Epimenides, Absolute Thinking, Schiff

https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2020/01/a-postmodern-impeachment.php

As Pilate observed, "what is truth"?

Is very hard question for mere humans to arrive an answer to this question -- although our media marketing complex is ready and willing to give us easy (but false) answers. 

Accepting that Christ is "The Way, The Truth and The Life", would be an excellent start. This would quickly lead to the realization that we can at most , "discern" with a lot of his Grace, that we can never judge, because "Judgement is the Lords". 

The linked gets into the Epimenides paradox -- "All Cretans are liars" ... however, Epimenides is a Cretan, so ... 

Sentient beings tend to get out of this paradox pretty easily, since the idea of "absolutes" is more applicable in the domain of mathematics and metaphysics than reality. Primarily, because they inherently realize that such thought games are just that -- games. They don't put food on the table!  If they choose to waste a little time, they know that just because Epimenides and Cretins may be "in most cases"  liars, does not infer ALL cases, 

For flesh and blood people who do actual work and live in the real world outside of the echo chamber of Washington and the MSM, and sometimes, (with increasing difficulty) even outside the "Matrix-lite" world of  media and marketing (but I repeat myself), most of what the "Media-Marketing-Matrix sells and tells is simply nonsense. 

The "Media-Marketing-Matrix" (MMM) deals mostly in absolues, and absolutes need to have the classic lost in space warning -- "Danger Will Robinson" on their "package" (like cigarettes). 

... but of course they do not. The Deep/Administrative State are increasingly one in the same with the MMM -- it is very lucrative to sell snake oil.

One of the many losses as our nation as lost God, is that Satan has led many of us into the ditches of "Liberals bad, Conservatives good" ... or vice-versa, the general case of "Our side good, other side evil". We are lost lambs without Christ, easily led to the easy (and false) comfort of earthly absolutes. Satan is a VERY absolute guy -- my guess is that the true Absolute of Gods Love and willingness to forgive is what really burned his biscuits. How could God love such clearly flawed, ugly,  and unloveable creatures as humans! Satan simply could not accept the "injustice" of it! 

Someone with basic exposure to psychology understands how dangerous such thinking is to our lives and relationships. However we are daily bombarded with media that is increasingly targeted to support each of our narrow views as "ultimate justice", and the alternative POV as the "essence of evil",  thus relationships, family, and eventually our country are destroyed. 

Trump is Satan, Adam Schiff is truth and light! ... or vice versa. Call me skeptical. 

We are in grave peril. 

Non Delegation Clause, A Deep State Limit At Last?

https://newrepublic.com/article/156207/plot-level-administrative-state

The linked article naturally is VERY concerned about any potential limit to the power of the Administrative / Deep State. ("puissance" is just an arcane term for lotsa power)

The doctrine’s puissance lies in the separation of powers. In the American constitutional order, it’s the role of Congress to write the laws and the role of the executive branch to carry them out. The doctrine bars any branch from handing its powers to another branch. Congress can’t pass a bill that gives the president the power to write his own legislation, for example. Nor can the president instruct the military to take orders from the House and Senate Armed Services Committee instead of himself. Sounds simple enough.

Most of the alphabet bureaucracy that does most of the "ruling" in BOistan is unconstitutional because it removes any enforcement of limits on government, which the "progressives" LOVE!

The main innovation of America was LIMITED GOVERNMENT, something never before tried -- the power of kings was UNlimited.  The mechanism by which the government was limited was separation of powers -- "factions", enforced by adherence to a written constitution that could only be amended by a difficult to garner 3/4ths majority. Difficult, but proven to be far from "impossible" -- the 13th amendment ending slavery, the 19th giving women the right to vote were evidence of the mechanism we were granted working as designed. Nobody imagined that women could be granted the right to vote via a SCOTUS decision!

Roe, Kelo, Obergefell and the refusal so far to enforce separation of powers since FDR have led to the runaway growth of the Administrative / Deep State, which with the election of Trump has decided that direct interference in elections, including reversing them is within Administrative/Deep State "puissance" (POWER!).

Thus, at this moment, BOistan is "A divided people, under the unlited power of the Administrative/Deep State, without liberty, and without justice for any not part of the elite Deep State, for whose benefit the deplorables are allowed to serve. 

Resistance At All Costs

https://www.amazon.com/Resistance-At-All-Costs-Breaking/dp/1538701774/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=resistance+at+all+costs&qid=1575906076&sr=8-1

Goodreads link.

For any readers that are wondering why I post this on this blog as opposed to Radio Free Moose, my answer is that this is a BOOK REVIEW, and it is a review of a book by a respected WSJ editor, not some partisan hack. It more about governance than politics. RFM is more from rants, brain farts, etc.

As always, there is a bias in this book - to be human is to be biased. The difference is that in this book, sources are generally named -- not "anonymous White House sources close to Trump". As this book clearly documents, a huge amount of our "news" is totally fake, and the cost of that is our nation being destroyed -- by the very powers claiming that Trump is the "destructive force".

The summary of what has happened is pretty clear, and it didn't start with Trump ... Obama weaponized the Administrative/Deep State with Lois Lerner being an obvious example, long before he decided to use/allow the FBI/NSA/CIA/State Department etc to attack Trump prior to him even  being the nominee.

The story is pretty simple and this book documents it.

• The Clinton campaign funded opposition research by Fusion GPS to dig up dirt on Trump. 
• Fusion colluded with Russians on this task
• Comey ... who was on record as hating Trump, used the Fusion information ("The Steele Document") as a pretext to initiate an intelligence op against Trump as "insurance". 
• The FBI/NSA/etc fed information to Democrats which began operations to nullify the 2016 election prior to Trump even taking office. 
• The Administrative/Deep State worked hard to entrap Trump and anyone working for him to create a "case" for removal from office. 
• This operation continues -- with Deep State tools being used to surveil Devin Nunes and probably anyone else they see fit in hopes of finding something, ANYTHING!  embarrassing / questionable / "illegal" ( like "lying" because you got a date wrong in testimony, or have "violated" some "law" that has never been prosecuted prior to Trump ...) 

The assumption of all this (like Harry Reid taking the nuclear option) is that the combined power of the Administrative / Deep State, MSM, and the mostly left Judiciary is going to prevent any power ever being vested in parties/groups that want to maintain some semblance of a republic again. They may well be right. 

As I have been saying since at least Obama, we are most likely in a non-recoverable situation already --- it is gratifying to see such an emminent organization as the WSJ lay out our peril so clearly. I pray it is not too late. 

It is a book that sorely needs to be read by any who are even beginning to wonder if they are being hoodwinked by the elite establishment! A little quote ... 

"One particularly huge mistake helped drive all the rest: The press became willing advocates for government officials and agencies (at least the ones they liked). This is the reverse of the role the press is supposed to play. The media exists to be a watchdog:the public depends on it ..." 

"It’s hard to explain just how big a dereliction of duty this is. Reporters learn on day one that government officials exist to spin and lie, and that they do so with impunity. And the FBI’s Trump-Russia investigation fell so clearly into the government-abuse-of-power stories that the press usually exists to expose—spying on a presidential campaign, wiretapping U.S. citizens ..." 

 This is unfortunately a much too old a story ... we have continued to build a massive unaccountable bureaucracy that is increasingly running the country in collusion with most of the elected officials from BOTH parties (see "Never Trump"). A vast majority of us apparently like the illusion that we can have everything we want and "someone else" will pay for it.

Trump is far from the "perfect vehicle" ... the sad situation is that he is the ONLY vehicle, and unless he and a majority of both houses win in 2020, what is described in this book will only get worse.