What Do We Have In Common?

 Powerline Link

Good description of the divided concerns in Wokeistan.  

I happen to have just finished "Bully Pulpit". Sadly? Or happily? Things have not changed much since the early 1900's. Oh, the players may be somewhat different ... Republicans are now more "Free Traders", and while there are still political machines on both sides, the big ones are mostly Democrat.  These days, "The Malefactors of Great Wealth" are now the Davos elite, mass media, world government bureaucracy,  and the tech titans. The "bourgeois middle class" is now largely bureaucratic administors (in and out of government), + medical and some higher level tech rather than farmers, small business, etc. 

"Division" has been baked into all human systems since we lived in caves. Sure, it ebbs and flows, but "Tom Brady, Jeff Bezos, and Bill Gates" sort of people are always going to make A LOT more than Benchwarmer Bob, the corner grocer, and your cleaning lady. Tools only make it worse -- the more powerful the tools, the greater the division. 

Can you fix it? Sure! See Churchill! 

‘The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings. The inherent virtue of Socialism is the equal sharing of miseries.’

-Winston Churchill, House of Commons, 22 October 1945

Certainly a simplification (as he well knew), but totally true in general. Since Socialism inherently produces much less weath, there is less inequality. The elite will still be far more wealthy that the commoner, but except for imports, the goods will be of a lower quality. 

The Internet is a tool that lets you be nastier, more isolated, and more tribal. We seem to be using it "well". 

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.

Socialist Sweden Heaven Myth

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/bernie-sanderss-scandinavian-fantasy/2020/02/27/ee894d6e-599f-11ea-9b35-def5a027d470_story.html

Socialism vacillates between being driven by mythology, wishful thinking,and pure falsehood. Follow the link -- we already know what the wagest of socialism are!

Sanders’s vision of Scandinavian countries, as with much of his ideology, seems to be stuck in the 1960s and 1970s, a period when these countries were indeed pioneers in creating a social market economy. In Sweden, government spending as a percentage of gross domestic product doubled from 1960 to 1980, going from approximately 30 percent to 60 percent. But as Swedish commentator Johan Norberg points out, this experiment in Sanders-style democratic socialism tanked the Swedish economy. Between 1970 and 1995, he notes, Sweden did not create a single net new job in the private sector. In 1991, a free-market prime minister, Carl Bildt, initiated a series of reforms to kick-start the economy. By the mid-2000s, Sweden had cut the size of its government by a third and emerged from its long economic slump.

Corona, The Socialist Virus

https://www.patreon.com/posts/birth-of-virus-34396633?utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook&utm_campaign=postshare&fbclid=IwAR0ayUFt7ooWsbW2jSI4lGDMCD5iPkNDKHea7ONNzwgpYLBWU4OXeZ92v5s

Read the post ... it is a real life experience and it just might awaken your latent common sense.

First of all, split crotch pants for toddlers are common in China.

Second, as everyone is now aware, we HAVE the socialist virus, and HAVE had it since at least FDR. Like any contagion, it spreads, and like all the serious contagions it is extremely likely to kill, or at least severely injure the host (in this case the US).

Here is a little first hand insight to how people live under socialism in China.

Over the next several days and weeks, we would experience the amazing culture of China, in several different cities. But some things stood out to this germophobic American. I watched a man hock up something from his chest and spit it on the floor, right next to us, in a restaurant. No oysters for me, thanks. I’ve suddenly lost my appetite.

We visited a Hutong (inner city - where the locals live) and saw raw chickens, skinned and bleeding, just laying on the floor, waiting to be thrown on a restaurant grill…for public consumption. No FDA or USDA or food inspectors or “codes” to comply with, here. But why? This is the last purely communist country on earth. You’d think there would be red tape everywhere. What was happening here?

Well, "what was happening" is what happens in all cases were there is no competitive pressure. A race to the bottom. Why would "government officials" care and work hard to cast a watchful eye when they could not be voted out? Think public housing or public transportation in the US.

If you maintain the thought that "humans are basically good", "Shantung Compound" is strong evidence against that faith.

It is easy to get confused here -- you might validly observe that the FDA and USDA in the US are more likely to be OVER protective. True. Consider however that in the US the coffers of the bureaucracy for extending itself are close to unlimited, so more rules, inspections, etc generally mean more power and money for the agency, we still have freedom of speech to complain,  and the ability to exert a little control over even the bureaucracy through voting.

In China, the government already HAS all the power, plus media control -- they are not going to be "voted out"!

As you watch the virus spread, watch which countries are hit worse and consider what type of government they have. MAYBE the US will be hit worst ... maybe it is me that learns, and if that is the case, I will. What about you?

I read the book "Guns, Germs, and Steel" and failed to blog on it. One of its contentions was that the Europeans basically used "germ warfare" against the Indians ... although there is a lot of questions about how much understanding there really was of germs in the 1400s - 1700s.

Today we at least scientifically have a decent understanding of germs and immunity, but it seems pretty clear we still generally lack a "common sense" understanding. We scientifically know that peanut allergies among other things are "caused" by lack of exposure allowing the immune system to properly adapt at the correct phase of development.

Children are being raised in a much to antiseptic environment in the US and Western Europe, so their immune systems are less developed and they are more vulnerable to viral and bacterial infection. If you have ever traveled to Africa, India, or other such places, you have taken a battery of inoculations against things we have not had to worry about in the US for a long time.

It is very likely that our population will suffer the same effect as the American Indian -- pathogens bred in less developed, or differently developed nations will be transported here and attack our less developed immune systems. Perhaps this turnabout is cosmic justice? Or maybe it is just the price of "outsourcing" our common sense to "experts".

Will socialism kill us because it breeds killer pathogens in socialist nations that get introduced here to kill millions? Or will the political socialist pathogen continue increase it's domination of our system until we are living and dying in squalor here at home?

Unless we become more aware, it is likely one or the other.

https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMe2002387?query=recirc_curatedRelated_article

Brooks On Capitalism vs Socialism

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/05/opinion/socialism-capitalism.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share

I have a definite ambivalent relationship with Brooks ... he is supposed to the "conservative" in the NY Times editorial staff, and he voted for Obama TWICE!

I find this column to be very close to spot on however ... just read it.

The Fraser Institute is a free-market think tank that ranks nations according to things free-market think tanks like: less regulation, free trade, secure property rights. The freest economies in the world are places like Hong Kong, the U.S., Canada, Ireland, Latvia, Denmark, Mauritius, Malta and Finland. Nations in the top quartile for economic freedom have an average G.D.P. per capita of $36,770. For those in the bottom quartile, it’s $6,140. People in the free economies have a life expectancy of 79.4 years. Those in the planned economies have a life expectancy of 65.2 years.