Killing Freidman

 Link to NR column.

A little hard to do since he died in 2006, but the dead are a major part of the Cadaver In Chief's constituency ... could the dead be the opposition? Things like ideas and principles are easy to ignore, but they often take over when you really desire to ignore them most (age and death being great examples). 

Milton Friedman, whose empiricism led him to embrace free-market public policy, was the most influential economist of the second half of the 20th century. But Biden has a weird habit of treating Friedman as a devilish spirit who must be exorcised from the nation’s capital. For Biden, Friedman represents deregulation, low taxes, and the idea that a corporation’s primary responsibility is not to a group of politicized “stakeholders” but to its shareholders. “Milton Friedman isn’t running the show anymore,” Biden told Politico last year. “When did Milton Friedman die and become king?” Biden asked in 2019. The truth is that Friedman, who died in 2006, has held little sway over either Democrats or Republicans for almost two decades. But Biden wants to mark the definitive end of Friedman and the “neoliberal” economics he espoused by unleashing a tsunami of dollars into the global economy and inundating Americans with new entitlements.

As we can see from the Cadaver administration, reality seemingly isn't running the show either.  

The Horror Of America

 https://www.newyorker.com/news/on-religion/a-pennsylvania-lawmaker-and-the-resurgence-of-christian-nationalism

The left is very concerned about any hint of patriotism. They have made it clear that when there was an "America", it was "institutionally racist", founded on whiteness, sexism, and noxious combination of horrors like patriotism, Christianity, the nuclear family, rule of law, capitalism, etc. 

The rather long linked column lays these threats to Wokeistan out very clearly using the example of a fairly obscure Pennsylvania legislator, Doug Mastriano. The following gives some idea of the horror of seeing Muslims as a threat. 

By the nineties and two-thousands, many white evangelicalshad come to understand Islam to be the primary threat to America. “White evangelicals were already worried about the growth of Islam, especially beginning in the seventies with the Arab-Israeli war and the rise of oil,” Sutton told me. “What 9/11 shifts is that Muslims are no longer just a threat to Israel but a direct threat to the United States.” This hostility also turned on Muslim communities in America. At megachurches, pastors preached about the spread of “sharia law.” Secular liberalism and movements for social justice were also seen as threatening. “In the early two-thousands, among conservative pastors, you’d often hear that the gays are softening up our society in preparation for Islam,” Michelle Goldberg, the author of “Kingdom Coming: The Rise of Christian Nationalism,” told me.

The Cadaver In Chief (Biden) has labeled "White Supremacists" as the greatest terrorst threat to Wokeistan.  Apparently in the past, he was deluded to thinking that Islamic extremis were a threat, but he is woke now. 

The idea that that old tired nation of "America" was as recently as the early 2Ks considered to be "exceptional", or even (horror!) "under God", is abhorrent to the woke elite like the New Yorker. 

As BLM states, "Silence is Violence". If you fail to speak out against the vanished "America", you are an enemy of Wokeistan. 

Get your mind right!

Souls In The Twilight, Scruton

https://newcriterion.com/issues/2019/5/scrutons-souls

The review maybe goes into a bit too much detail of the book. I'm not sure you can access the whole review outside of a Criterion subscription, but if you can sneak it in, it is worth it ... maybe even with one of those "free introduction subscriptions" ... easy to get into, hard to get out of. So much of life is that way. 

A good summary of the book is "elegiac" -- a lament, haunting, wistful. 

If I wasn't such a fan of now deceased Scruton, I would likely not have purchased it. I'm glad I did, I see it as an elegy for Sir Roger. 

Bonhoeffer, Metaxis

 Since I read this on Kindle, here is a link to my highlights and notes on Goodreads.

Here is a link to decent review of the book.

A major part of the book is documenting Bonhoeffer's deep theological challenge of living our faith in Christ. His question of "What is the church"?  is directly applicable today. Is the church a social organization of people that gather together on Sunday to be entertained, to be identified as "virtuous", "woke", etc or is it a set of committed, confessing, devoted followers of Christ who humbly seek to live their lives increasingly in his example of being wholly human and wholy holy (spiritual)?

The very troubling part of the book is how easy it is to map Nazi Germany to "America" today -- which is much the same as Nazi Germany not being "Germany". We are clearly no longer the Constitutional Republic that we were founded as. We are largely a fascist pagan state. Hitler killed 6 million Jews, our holocaust of abortion has killed 60 million babies.  

In Nazisim, the ideology of Fascism -- massive government bureaucracy, media control, church control, big business cronyism, the judicial system, education all collaborating to create creeping totalitarianism; was combined with nationalism, racism, paganism, and idolatry (for the swastika and the person of Hitler). 

Today, massive government bureaucracy, media, liberal churches, big business, the judiciary, the educational system, etc are combined in censoring ("cancelling") alternate views, paganism through "wokeism", and increasing idolatry through symbols like rainbows, BLM, the earth (environmentalism), masks, etc. covered here. 

So far we are missing the "strongman focus, our "Hitler", who the mass of the population worship. Is that a requirement?, or will worship of wealth, pleasure, etc, and the people who embody those (Musk, Bezos, Gates, etc) suffice? 

Some interesting quotes from the book: 

You cannot claim you believe something if you don’t live like you believe it. God is not fooled by our claiming to believe the words of some well-crafted statement of faith—or by our dutiful church attendance—any more than your neighbors are fooled by it, or the devil is fooled by it.

Silence in the face of evil is itself evil. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act. God will not hold us guiltless.

God is the one who invented reality, and reality can only be seen truly as it exists in God. Nothing that exists is outside his realm. So there are no ethics apart from doing God’s will, and God—indeed, Jesus Christ—is the nonnegotiable given in the equation of human ethics:

Hitler must be called a Nietzschean, although he likely would have bristled at the term since it implied that he believed in something beyond himself. This clashed with the idea of an invincible Führer figure, above whom none could stand. Still, Hitler visited the Nietzsche museum in Weimar many times, and there are photos of him posed, staring rapturously at a huge bust of the philosopher. He devoutly believed in what Nietzsche said about the “will to power.” Hitler worshiped power, while truth was a phantasm to be ignored; and his sworn enemy was not falsehood but weakness. For Hitler, ruthlessness was a great virtue, and mercy, a great sin.

Here in the early 21st century it is an important book for us to "read and weep" as we ponder it's message. Is our silence violence? 

The Chauvin Babbit Standards

https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2021/04/thoughts-on-the-chauvin-trial-and-verdict.php 

The linked contains a solid analysis of the Chauvin "trial". Yes, the prosecution did well. Yes, the defence did poorly. It was a made for TV "drama", and the script was followed. 

I thought the key point was made first in the linked post. 

This entire case could not have happened just 10 or 15 years ago. The prosecution was driven by the global phenomenon of a bystander video that was posted to social media. In years gone by, there would have been no controversy. George Floyd would have been recorded as the 5,000th or so opioid death in Minnesota.

I propose the following as what the "standards" of law enforcement in Wokeistan are.:

The standard for police being involved in the death of a black man in any way during attempted or actual arrest is for them to be maximum "imaginable" crime, after with the assumption will be “Guilty until proven innocent beyond any doubt.” (prove there are no unicorns beyond any doubt, prior to a not guilty verdict)

The “Chauvin amendment to standard” : “If declared guilty a priori by public officials, large lawsuit awards, threats of rioting and looting, killing jurors, etc. Useless “deliberation” must be short.

Note: The standard for the killing of an unarmed white woman military veteran by police shall be, “no charges filed, identity of officer not to be released”. ( The Ashley Babbitt standard)

Wright vs Babbit

 https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2021/04/15/police-mistakes-and-difference-between-wright-and-babbit-shootings-column/7225813002/

It's so obvious it really doesn't require any more explanation -- "it's literally black and white". 

Of course, “weapons confusion” cases are often caused by an officer’s acting out of “fear, mistake, panic, misperception, negligence, or poor judgment.” Yet, in one case an officer is charged and in the other the officer is cleared.

Kimberly Porter, Resisting Arrest

 Choosing a firearm vs a taser is a bad mistake. This video gives a little insight as to why officers may feel some pressure in these situations. 

Have you ever confused left vs right? If you have, consider how being in a high pressure situation that could cost your life might affect your ability to choose the proper hand. 

Chris Rock provides some practical insight on how to not get your ass kicked in a police interaction here. It would also very much decrease your chances of getting shot. 

The person resisting arrest HAS A CHOICE! They make the decision to put their own life, AND THE OFFICERS life at risk. The officer -- committed to doing his/her job, protecting the community, and likely other officers at the scene, really does not have a choice. 

This PL post discusses the Duante Wright shooting and officer (Kimberly Porter) being charged. 

So why would anyone become or stay a police officer? 

The Dollar Demise

https://americanconsequences.com/kim-iskyan-the-death-of-the-dollar/ 

I've been predicting the death of the dollar for a long time -- when will the global economy pull the plug on the ailing dollar? 

And greenbacks are the world economy’s most important medium of exchange, unit of account, and store of value. If they don’t use U.S. dollars, it’s a lot more difficult – and expensive – for countries, companies, and people to buy oil or gold, sell toys or cars, or invest in hotels or bridges.

At a gut level we all understand this. Inflation is vastly understated -- look at your medical and insurance bills for example. Look at taxes on your internet and cell phone bills, and the increasing cost of the services themselves. Everything with few exceptions is rising in price, and it is rising faster than whatever you put in your savings. The government reports the inflation numbers, and they claim they do COLA (Cost Of Living Adjustments) for things like Social Security, military and government pensions, inflation protected bonds (TIPs) etc. Artificially keeping those numbers and interest rates artificially low is a way to heavily tax the masses without letting the "little people" know.

Put it all together, and 78% of all dollars that have ever been made, have been created over the past 12 months. (And… none of that, of course, includes the proposed $2 trillion infrastructure plan announced by the White House in late March.)

The federal deficit is forecasted to hit 15% of GDP in 2021, the biggest deficit since World War II. That’s compared with 2.4% as recently as 2015… and 9.7% in 2009, in the depths of the global financial crisis.

Debt, like most degenerative diseases, doesn't happen quickly, although also like degenerative diseases, when the end does come, that will be quick.  All of a sudden, Bitcoin or some other digical currency is very likely to replace it. 

Most likely is that the U.S. dollar continues to be nudged out of the ring. The other reserve currency options – euro, yen, renminbi, digital renminbi – may become more palatable in relation to a debauched dollar. And in time, bitcoin – or a future cryptocurrency standard-bearer – may also be used as a reserve currency.

When that happens (and it is inevitable unless policies drastically change)  the dollar will drop in value very quickly. Something that cost $1 will cost $1.50,  $2?,  $5? ... no real way to know. 

Reality Is Experience

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Roger Scruton has covered this philosophically quite well. 

Life Of The Party: Biography of Pamela Churchill Harriman

 https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/affairs-of-state-aplenty-for-the-century-s-greatest-courtesan-1.118098

As her 2nd husband said of her, she was "the greatest courtesan of the 20th century ".

This forced me to look up "courtesan", which in modern terms is simply "whore to wealthy men ". The Wikipedia definition is enlightening ... for ages, when marriage was more for political than emotional purposes, a courtesan was a member of "the court" of a monarch, somewhat a trusted confidant and purveyor of inside gossip, and usually "eye candy" as well. 

As daughter in law of Winston Churchill, wife if Randolph Churchill, close friend of Lord Beaverbrook (wealthy newspaperman, head of aircraft production for England during the war), and mistress of Averell Harriman (US envoy for filling war material to England during the war), Pamela was a critical conduit of information, between key power players. 

After the war, she became the "world expert on rich mens ceilings", and at the end of that career married Averell Harriman, became a major Democrat fundraiser, and was appointed Ambassador to France by Bill Clinton ... no irony there! She died February 1998. 

The link gives more detail, and the book gives more detail on her "mother in absentia" role to her son Winston Churchill the younger. 

She trod (or "laid") a rather longer path to power than more current women who used their relationships to men of power for power ... Hillary Clinton and Kamala Harris being current examples. 

The book gives a lot of insight into how the 1% amorally  lives, and how many actual "women of power" got their power. I would not generally recommend it, however for Churchill aficionados, it does give another perspective. 

I also "enjoyed" page 6 in the introduction; "Joseph Biden, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee that gabble of out of touch men that  botched the hearings of SCOTUS nominee Clarence Thomas". 

Biden has been "out of touch" for his whole career, and now in his waning years, he is out of touch with reality itself. An amoral nation gets the "leaders" it deserves.