17 Years Of Powerline

https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2019/05/17-years-17-thoughts.php

Politifact, Trump, Animal

https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2019/apr/08/tweets/tweet-leaves-out-context-donald-trumps-animals-rem/

My hat is off to Politifact, the normally quite left wing biased "fact checker" that decided to come clean on this one.

Democrats suddenly started throwing out the claim that "Trump called immigrants animals" and it spread like wildfire in social and other media.

The real story. In a meeting in May of 2018, Trump said the members of the gang MSi13 gang, whose motto is "Rape, Control, Kill" are animals.

I grew up in the age of evolution, and AFAIK, that is still the standard educational system doctrine. Bottom line, human beings are a form of animal, the universe and everything in it is a completely random meaningless happening, and "morals" are purely a matter of "might is right".

At the moment I happen to be reading "Good Natured: The Origins of Right and Wrong in Humans and Other Animals" which clearly says right in the title that humans = animal. As a Christian, I certainly find that dangerous and insulting (why not eat humans?), however for those on the left, I have not seen any problem with evolution, the academy and vast swaths of the left themselves treating themselves and others as beasts.

So it is OK to call conservatives and Christians anything from racist, fascist, Nazi, homophobic, xenophobes, deplorables, misogynists, islamophobes, white supremacists, sexists, nationalists, etc and on and on, however calling gang members in one of the nastiest gangs around "animals" is completely beyond the pale?

If one looks at the MOA man who threw a random 5 year old boy off a balcony, one might say that the left has created a species far worse than any "animal"!

Social Norms, Virtue, Enforcement

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/david-brooks-gay-marriage-changing-norms/

In the middle of a column about how norms change, David Brooks remarks, “There used to be a social penalty for supporting gay marriage. Now there’s a social penalty for not supporting it.” I am not at all sure that there was a significant social penalty, in almost any stratum of our society, for supporting same-sex marriage.

Indeed.

In the past, HAVING OPINIONS rarely involved sanction. The leading exception in relatively recent memory being the dreaded HUAC (House Un American Activities Committee) focused on comunists in the country potentially spying for the Soviets. "Are you now, or have you evern been a communist or communist sympathiser".

Today, "Do you now, or have you ever been a supporter or voter for Donald Trump" seems FAR more "reasonable" to the left. Along with support gay "marriage", or lose your job, position, etc. The list keeps lengthening -- transgender, privilege, cultural appropriation, etc.

American "Morality" once was the agreed to Judaeo-Christian, 10 Commandments, New Testament, God, Country, Mom, Hard Work, Salute the Flag, Apple Pie ...

Today, "morality" is the observance of the will of THE PARTY (D) ... Salute the Deep / Administrative State, gays, trans, Muslims, destruction of the Consituition, etc. If / when you fail to 100% comply, you are very likely to be sanctioned. "Virtue" today is compliance with THE PARTY.

That is the water in which we now swim.

It seems to me that there is an asymmetry between how social pressure worked back when same-sex marriage was a minority position and how it works now that it is a majority position. That asymmetry tends to reinforce some of Brooks’s larger points about how norms change. The traditionalist view was widely but, it turned out, often lightly held, and barely conscious of itself as a view. Marriage as the union of a man and a woman was just “the water in which we swam,” as Brooks describes the general functioning of norms. The progressive view is by contrast extremely conscious of its status as a view that can and should be socially enforced.

"Love Your Enemies", Aurthur Brooks

https://www.amazon.com/love-your-enemies-brooks/s?k=love+your+enemies+brooks

A worthy read for our times by an ex-professional orchestra french horn player, a current staunch Catholic intellectual, and outgoing president of AEI,

Aurthur's thesis is that our problem is "contempt", and that in sort of a self help way by looking at how contempt damages us personally, breaks our relationships and is toxic to our country, no rational person would continue to want to wallow in it.

He is right of course, however, even though he brings in the work of Jonathan Haidt (the innate moral virtues) in chapter 4, I question if he really has internalized (or maybe doesn't agree with) Haidt's thesis that we are not in fact "rational", but rather "rationalizing".

He says a few times a version of "Unless we hope to become a one-party state...we" 1) need to honor different viewpoints 2) can't afford contempt 3). require a healthy opposition ... etc.

My take on late 20 teen America is that half the country thought we WERE a defacto "one party state" as of 2008, with the Deep / Administrative State being totally locked, academia, the bulk of the media and media happily on board, topped off with  a demographic juggernaut of thoroughly indoctrinated left leaning youth and safety net addicted immigrants (legal and illegal)  insuring that the single-party lock was only going to get more solid.

Their response to Trump seems to be: 1). Impeach him 2). get rid of Electoral College / Senate power 3). Stack the SCOTUS  4). Collect all the guns in case the "deplorables" take offence to any of this. If they do accomplish those goals, we will have a one-party state, and I'm not so certain that a whole bunch of folks on the left don't find that to be a very good idea.

If not, then the advice in this book on learning to listen, the advantages of understanding "them", and "better disagreement" is excellent.

While there no doubt some right-wing extremists that unfriend, shun, etc, I've never met any. (just like the folks at CBS in NY in 1980 were shocked because they didn't know a single Reagan voter maybe). My sense is that Christians like Brooks and myself really just don't "get" how truly inhuman "Love Your Enemies" is -- we know it is hard, however we accept on faith that it is possible. My sense is that for many non-Christianw, this admonishment is akin to "Be a married bachelor" or "be a living dead person".

An oxymoron ... like "military intelligence'.

When one sees something as irrational to the point of being ridiculous, it seems unlikely they will seek to undertake the difficult task of embarking on the attempt.

Again, I hope I am wrong!

The Paternalistic World View and 401Ks

https://www.vox.com/2019/3/27/18174385/retirement-savings-401-k

A VOX article that lets us look iniside the mind of the left as to their understanding of the "common man", and what ought be done relative to "average people". They believe that humans CAN'T learn to save for the future, so the important job falls on business and the government -- "the elite",

There’s a reason, it turns out, why employers didn’t hand retirement planning off to workers: 401(k)s are terrible at ensuring that those who need to save for retirement do. Indeed, over the same period in which 401(k)s expanded, the share of working-age households at risk of being financially unprepared at age 65 jumped from 31 percent (in 1983) to more than 53 percent (in 2010). Indeed, the terribleness of 401(k)s helped spark a new field of behavioral economics, which showed that voluntary plans in which people manage their own investments defy everything we know about how the brain works.

Reading the short book "The Millionaire Next Door" explains that most of the wealthy in America are people that follow a simple rule ... spend less than you make, put the savings in something that goes up in value. Naturally, there are LOTS of forces trying to tell you that is "foolishness". "What will a million dollars be worth in 50 years anyway?" Is one of the things I've heard ... the answer ; "A million dollars more than zero". As a corollary, MUCH more than a million dollars MINUS a bunch of debt and interest paid out of your pocket!

There are a whole host of reasons that people are more unprepared for retirement today than in '83 ... massive regulation, the economy being basically stagnant for a decade from '08-'16, crushing taxes including ever more crushing FICA tax (in 1975 it was 5.85 on the first 14k, today it is 6.2 on the first 127K! $819 vs $7,874), lots of inflation (much of it undeclared once the government got into the "inflation adjusted" business), no interest on savings, crushing medical costs made 3-5x MORE crushing on those who DID save by BOcare ... the list is just endless and much of the "help" keeping people down is courtesy of the the elite through the Davos crowd, government, and Deep / Administrative State.

However, the BIG reason remains that FICA gives people a very false sense of "security". If it had been created as what it actually is -- "old age POVERTY welfare" (and a giant new federal tax), which would only go to people without savings, assets, pensions and other income streams, then a much higher percentage of people would save more. It **IS** welfare for elderly, and increasingly if you are not impoverished in old age your small benefit is taxed away from you anyway.

In other words, like typical government, those that pay the most get the least -- or nothing.

**IF** the government actually wanted to "help the irresponsible common man", they would do what W proposed ... put something like the FICA percentage in private non-profit fiduciary managed fund of broad indices of stocks, bonds, property, commodities, metals, etc. NOTHING is "certain", and CERTAINLY NOT THE GOVERNMENT! (see numerous failed governments over history ... Venezuela currently, 100's of them around the globe over the past century or so, with runaway inflation in Germany in the early 1920's being a well known case with an "advanced" nation.

Of course, telling the truth would have never given the giant boost to government spending that FICA did. It was set up so that everyone could imagine getting it, but the original dates you could get it insured that very few would actually collect, and most of those would not collect for long. It was a HUGE "win win" for the government ASSUMING "an ever growing employed population, an ever expanding economy, and not very many people reaching retirement age" -- all assumptions that have proven spectacularly wrong like most "government projections".

It really was successful for what it was supposed to be -- a massive vote buying Democrat party operation.

The reality of it all is that "there is no free lunch" ... the vast majority of people (and businesses) MUST spend less than earned and put the remainder in something that goes up in value. When they don't, the person, business or country will go bankrupt and have NOTHING!

"Liberalism" may look and sound "paternalistic", but no good father would really follow policies that are guaranteed to lead to bankruptcy! The idea that the population is less responsible than the government is obvious idiocy in even a democratic republic! Who votes in the supposed "wise men" that are going to care for us all? The same idiots that can't spend less than they make and put the difference in something that rises in value!

Those elected "wise men" have run up over $200 TRILLION in unfunded liabilities ON TOP of the over $20 TRILLION in US debt. On top of that, state and local debt exceeds $3 TRILLION!

Remember, the people running that up are the "elite"  VOX assures you ought to have MORE power because they are "smart and responsible" and you can count on them taking "good care of you"!

Naturally, those folks will tell you that anyone that advises "God, Guns and Gold" is a COMPLETE idiot ... you would not want to be called names by the elite would you?

How Republicans Became Red

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/when-republicans-were-blue-and-democrats-were-red-104176297/

Good little bit of recent history. How did color of socialism, rebellion, anger, blood and Satan become the designated color for Republicans in the US?

The Smithsonian assures us it was a complete ACCIDENT!

Early in the article they state the obvious ...

“For years, both parties would do red and blue maps, but they always made the other guys red,” said Chuck Todd, political director and chief White House correspondent for NBC News. “During the Cold War, who wanted to be red?”
Indeed, prior to the breakup of the Soviet Union little more than two decades ago, “red was a term of derision,” noted Mitchell Stephens, a New York University professor of journalism and author of A History of News.

Yes, and blue is the color of water, cool, calm, the Union Army, the sky, etc.-- and it is the most popular color, with 40% of men prefering it and 30% of women -- oh, and only about 10% of each prefer red. I'm CERTAIN that the choice of red for Republicans was PURELY because their name starts with an "R" -- I mean if that was the reason why would you not make the Democrats "Dirt Brown"? 

BTW, if you go look at the color selections, blue and GREEN would be the obvious choices!

Why the Smithsonian -- the museum of the Deep / Administrative State even finds us an EXPERT to verify that it really makes no difference! 

Sara Quinn, a visual journalist now at the Poynter Institute in Florida, said she sees no particular advantage to either color.
“Red is usually very warm and it comes forward to the eye. Blue tends to be a recessive color, but a calming color,” she said.

You know, such things have a tendency to raise a red flag for me! 

CNN Does Parody Of Itself On Clinton Impeachment

https://www.cnn.com/2019/03/08/opinions/clinton-impeachment-gop-hypocrisy-avlon/index.html

As with most things, Jesus said it best Matt 7:5 "Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye."

The rub is of course that we are ALL hypocrites all the time. We see our own behavior and that of our tribe or "team" to be excuseable at worst if it is indeed "wrong" at all. In 1999, the watchword for CNN, NPR, NY Times, etc was "Move On!", "It's a private matter, only about consentual sex!" 

The article closes with: 

Looking at the GOP's approach to Clinton's impeachment trial 20 years ago, it's clear there is now a double standard when it comes to Trump. Hypocrisy used to be the unforgivable sin in American politics. But that seems to be one more casualty of Trump's presidency.

Duh!  It was actually completely clear then as it was when Jesus said Matt 7:5. Clinton lied under oath, had sexual relations with an employee (illegal under US statutes, consensual or not -- oral sex provided by an employee to a McDonald's manager will get them fired too!)  More importantly, Clinton was PRESIDENT when he did those things -- Trump was a private citizen. What CNN primarily gives us is the billionth proof of Jesus's teaching -- the log in their own eye has completely blinded them!

I loved this paragraph:

Trump's former attorney general, Jeff Sessions, took a strong stand against lying from the oval office. After Clinton was acquitted by the Senate on two articles of impeachment in February 1999, Sessions spoke out about the impact it could have on the culture of the country. "It is crucial to our system of justice that we demand the truth. I fear that an acquittal of this President will weaken the legal system by providing an option for those who consider being less than truthful in court," he said.

Unless CNN is happy about Trump being president, they actually agree with Sessions! Convict Slick in the Senate (as he should have been under the Nixon standard), and there would be no Trump as president! Just as Sessions said, Clinton getting away with it lowered the bar and one result of that is TRUMP!

I'd argue that the "Nixon standard" is actually the root of the problem. Republicans hopefully (but foolishly it turns out), DID cross the aisle to side with the Deep State, Media and Democrats who hated Nixon with the same kind of hatred that they now hate Trump. Republicans thought that evidence of a president "obstructing justice" was a worthy standard. Democrats however didn't expect it to be a standard for DEMOCRAT presidents, only for Republican ones! Which became totally clear in the Clinton impeachment.

It is pretty much a self defeating standard. If makes it reasonable for the opposition party, which is going to include the Deep State and the Media in the D case, to attempt to "investigate" a president of the other party. When they do, the president is almost certain to attempt to prevent the "investigation" (often just a "fishing expedition" or "witch hunt"), from destroying himself, his friends, and possibly his administration. When you are president, self defence quickly becomes "obstruction of justice".

In the Clinton case, there was a "there there" ... Paula Jones was a real person, Monica Lewinsky, Kathleen Wily and Juanita Broderick were all real as well, and in the age of "#METOO", more people acknowledge that. In the case of the Mueller investigatition we now know there was nothing to investigate in the first place. The entire operation was purely a political op.

I'd be remiss if I did not point out a classic CNN dodge here. Clinton WAS impeached in the House, so where the vote counted was in the SENATE.  Thus, in a classic case of "When accused of killing three men and a dog, he promptly produced the dog alive", CNN gives us this:

When it was all over, a handful of House Democrats voted against Clinton, and several Republicans crossed partisan lines to acquit the president on charges of perjury and obstruction of justice. So while partisan lines did largely hold, there were still some politicians who put their principles ahead of party loyalty.

However, the internet makes it easy to look up. NO DEMOCRAT crossed party lines in the Senate to cast a guilty vote, and since it wasn't going to pass without those votes 5-10 Republicans crossed lines for likely political rather than moral purposes. A bit different than what CNN would like to you think! 

A two-thirds vote (67 senators) was required to remove Clinton from office. Fifty senators voted to remove Clinton on the obstruction of justice charge and 45 voted to remove him on the perjury charge; no member of his own Democratic Party votedguilty on either charge.

Jesus remains 100% correct -- and CNN remains 50% correct (at best). They can see faults in the opposition (Republicans) very well, and they are completely blind to the faults on their own side!