The Problem With the 5th Amendment

 

We've recently been treated to the spectacle of Anthony Fauci invoking the 5th amendment 111 times and the head of ActBlue invoking it 47 times as well as dozens of others each of whose invocations left Americans seething inside and muttering that this isn't 'justice' as that term is typically understood.

And they're right.

Imagine being called into the boss' office and being asked  "Did you tell Jeff it was okay to pay this invoice?"  and replying that you respectfully decline to answer on grounds that doing so might get you fired?  No, you can't imagine that, can you?  Yet when Fauci is called before his boss (or, more appropriately, the Board of Directors) that's exactly how he answered their questions.

Now, true, your boss can only fire you, but Congress can refer you for prosecution and that might mean prison time among other things, so the 5th amendment protects you from putting yourself in prison, but...

Congress is not asking such questions on behalf of Congress.  They're asking on behalf of the people who pay the bill, the taxpayers.  And they're asking about job-related events while government employees were being paid to do some job.

What to do?  What to do?

I have a solution, and I can't understand why no one else has offered it before, because it's simple and straight-forward:

When someone is offered a taxpayer-funded position, whether in government or external to it, that offer of employment must come with the understanding. explicit and in writing if needs be, that the employee voluntarily surrenders their 5th amendment right against self-incrimination for any matter that concerns the job for which they are/were employed and paid.

The CEO of ActBlue is still protected, but Anthony Fauci wouldn't be.  Lois Lerner (remember her?) could be asked  "Did you treat some groups of tax filers differently based on their political leanings?"  and she would not be able to avoid answering and would have to answer 'yes' or 'no' risking prosecution either for malfeasance or for perjury.

Is this the solution to the problem of the 5th amendment getting in the way of the administration of justice?  If this were implemented now or soon, would it be the automatic sump pump the swamp has needed all along?

Yes, the number of people applying for or accepting tax-funded employment might suffer a decline, but the ones then considering government employment 'too risky' are exactly the ones we don't want working for the government.

Problem solved?  Maybe.

 

The Queen-Knight Game

 

Watching the Trump 2.0 administration's obviously carefully-choreographed dance reminded me of something from my youth.  When I attended college in 19-mumble, chess was all the rage, and various people came up with odd and amusing variations†.  One such variation was "The Queen-Knight Game" in which one player had the full panoply of 16 pieces arrayed against a single Queen that also had the power to move as a Knight.  You might think that this would be unfair to the Queen, and (generally speaking) you would be wrong.  Make that 'dead wrong'.  A single piece with such power will (generally speaking) ransack the opposing force in short order, leaving the stunned loser wondering what just happened.

One of my classmates, observing such a ransacking, wondered whether it might be possible to beat the seemingly-unbeatable Queen, and set out on a singular quest to find a way (or the way).  I suppose it will come as no surprise that after some serious work, he did.  He (some reader of this will recognize himself instantly) developed a 'script' that simply required the player to follow it religiously unless...  unless at some point the Queen should accidentally place herself in a vulnerable position and be captured.  And that being the only piece of that color, the game would end there.  The only alternative being that the Queen would be forced into an ever-shrinking section of the board until there remained no option.

The 'game' required certain moves to happen in a certain order such that no piece would ever be unguarded.  That is, none of them could be safely captured; with only one piece, the notion of 'trading' is unavailable to the Queen.

That's what Trump's team is doing.  Each move is carefully planned and timed.  Move 'M' must happen before move 'N', and 'N' must be completed before move 'O' can proceed.  The Establishment Queen is being squeezed into ever more restricted territory, and right about now is sensing that something horrid is about to happen, even if she doesn't yet quite know what that 'something' is.

Regarding Trump's cabinet nominees, the Democrats in Congress (and some Republicans) are threatening to stall the required Senate consent.  But Trump has already placed 'Acting Directors' at the head of those departments as placeholders, and the Acting Directors are firing people left and right.  The nominated Directors would normally be under a 90- or 120-day moratorium on 'cleaning house', but an Acting Director has no such limitation.  If Senators want to stop the bleeding, their only counter-move is to approve the nominees.  No approval?  The firings will continue until morale improves.

Oh, and by the way, the money spigot has been turned off...

—==+++==—

(†) Another such was Kriegspiel

 

Target: General Aviation

 

The EPA has decided that leaded aviation fuel (avgas) is an environmental hazard.  In effect, the EPA has painted a huge target onto the sides of virtually all light aircraft used by the General Aviation community.  Spared from the ax will be anyone flush enough to own a jet-powered aircraft, and anyone who flies Part 103 (ultralights) because neither needs leaded fuel.

An article in the Orange County Register notes that "Lead isn’t in the jet fuel used by commercial aircraft", and that's true.  Jet fuel is — with all the lace around the edges stripped off — either kerosene or naphtha (cigarette lighter fluid), and neither are supplemented with tetraethyl lead, but avgas is because it improves performance in piston engines enough to allow them to actually... you know... fly.

So, what does the EPA want?  Probably, they are going to require that all engines that currently run on 100LL (100 octane low-lead) be converted to use unleaded fuel.  They will do this by interfering, legislatively or economically or both, with the production of 100LL.  The approximately quarter-million owners of such aircraft will be faced with replacing their existing power plants with ones that can run on unleaded avgas with an octane number well above 100.  Retrofitting existing engines will likely be cost-prohibitive.  General aviation, already quite expensive, is going to get even more so.  In fact, this may spell the end of most GA and the resulting closure of many small private and municipal airports.

So you typically commute in your Cessna 172 between Tallahassee and Sarasota?  Well, good thing for you that Delta flies SRQ-ATL-TLH (and return) and it only takes a little over five hours each way!  That 240 mile trip that your Cessna can do in about 90 minutes — starting whenever you wish — can now be done in just 312 minutes, but you have to get up at 4:30 to be at the airport by 5:30 for your 7:00am flight.  $450 dollars!  Cheap!  Not as cheap as flying yourself, and you can only do it twice a week because 'schedules', but you no longer need to rent a spot at the airport or have insurance on the airplane.  Think of all the money you'll save!  (Other trips by extension.)

Cherchez l'argent.  This is a giant pile of loot being redirected to the very small community of commercial aviation from the very large community of general aviation.

 

Can we really reform the Justice Department? Really?

 

Over at The Price Of Liberty, Nathan Barton suggests that the answer is a categorical 'no'.  I find it impossible to argue against that.

 

More Anti-war With Each Passing Day

 

I ask myself why we're in such a mess.  The only answer I can imagine is that we have put ourselves here by making bad decisions, and those bad decisions are coming home to roost in the form of a warped economy and the great bugaboo, income inequality.  Those who actually make the decisions have a penchant for making decisions that work to their advantage.  Your advantage?  Please, don't make me laugh.  This is how Congress and the DC upper crust can justify spending trillions 'to keep the government running for a few months while we sort everything out'.  Much of... most of that money benefits the average Joe not one whit.

Meanwhile, Congress is at war with its citizens because those idiot citizens insist upon staying warm in the winter and cool in the summer, and they want to drive their cars to work and play instead of staying home or taking public transportation.  To make us behave as we should, the economy will be throttled (both senses of that word) to deprive us of the wherewithal of modern living.  It seems as if the elites want us living in a 9th century village so that there will be enough jet fuel available for them to visit the Côte d’Azur.

And no one can stop them from pillaging our own assets right from under our very noses.

I ask myself where are the heroes.  We subject ourselves to costly election campaigns every two years, and we try to send heroes to Washington to fight for us, but the heroes we send often turn out to be weak-kneed liars who, within years if not months, prove to be in it for no one but themselves.  The exceptions to this are almost too rare to warrant mention.  It's the old canard about the 99% of villains giving the 1% of heroes a bad name.

When there's a dust-up in some foreign country (where we typically have no national interest) there's always some Congressman who will stand up and berate their fellows for not defending the oppressed peasants of West Wheresoever.  And the result?  We send the Army.  We send the Marines.  And we send them a few trillion dollars to help them make ends meet.

And sometimes we brush up against some country that can actually fight back.  And the heroes we sent on a mission that had no 'payback' other than more power for those who did the sending... those heroes don't come home from the mission.  Ah, well, you can't make an omelet without breaking a few eggs.

I ask myself who is profiting from all this.  It isn't me, and I suspect it isn't you, either.  Congressmen, meanwhile, have an alarming tendency to become millionaires or billionaires during their term(s) of office.  How does that happen?  Well, it's a fairly simple process, actually. 

• get involved in a war
• send billions or trillions in foreign aid
• that foreign aid is redeemed (laundered) via domestic arms manufacturers
• who make lavish campaign contributions to those who voted correctly
• which money can be kept if left over after a campaign ends

We've just witnessed a new variation on that theme involving family members or relatives — Hunter Biden is merely one such example — who gain employment in countries that are recipients of foreign aid:

• send foreign aid to country A
• get relative hired by company B
• that is financially connected to country A
• and is paid with (laundered) funds originally marked 'foreign aid'
• some of which makes its way back to a politician who voted correctly

I ask myself when are we going to learn.  I suspect the answer is 'never'.  'Learning' in this context means grasping that 'spending money' does not equate to 'fixing problems'.  Americans, by and large, do not yet understand that.  They think — I'm using 'think' here in its broadest meaning — that all problems can be solved with sufficient greenbacks.  Decades and centuries of adverse experience has not yet penetrated into their consciousness.  They continuously send off to Washington representatives who believe — we have only their actions to inform us of this — that their job is to spend money as fast as possible.  The soldiers who march off to war in countries they've never heard of to fight for reasons of which they are either unsure or deluded will come home to us, if at all, broken physically or mentally or both.  Yes, some lives were lost, some careers ended, some families upended, but it was a very beneficial tactic, financially speaking (if you're in Congress).

Our televisions constantly bombard us with pleas for The Wounded Warrior Project or something similar, the sub rosa message being that you're a patriotic American only if you feel sorry for those who were maimed in a place they shouldn't have been, fighting a war that benefitted their fellow citizens not at all.

Those who march off to war these days fall into two broad categories: the blindly patriotic, and the weak-minded.  The blindly patriotic go because we must, in their minds, push back against any threat to the country no matter how ephemeral.  The weak-minded just do what they're told.  It's a rare thing these days that anyone goes to war because the nation has been attacked.  In a nuclear age, the major powers are not going to do that to each other.  The risk is simply not worth it.  That's why all conflict for the past 75 years has been 'strong vs weak'.  Put another way, it's 'bully vs nerd'.  On those rare occasions when the nerds score (9-11-2001 springs to mind) the bully goes crazy, lashing out wildly and generally making things worse.

If we're to work our way clear of the colossal mess we're in, we must stop making things worse.  How?  Step number one has to be 'stop spending money'.  We have to find all those places where we're spending money foolishly, and stop that.  (Yes, Pentagon and military suppliers, I'm looking at you.)  Then, we have to find all those places where we're spending money wisely and... probably... stop most of that, too.

We'll need another batch of heroes, I suppose.

 

Strike Two

 

For six years now, the Democrats, the mainstream media, and the federal legal mechanisms (DOJ/FBI/others) have been hounding Donald Trump.  The obvious goal is to render Trump legally incapable of mounting another Presidential campaign.

Yet, we're assured that Trump was soundly defeated in 2020.  Literally every talking head, even those one might expect to be opposed to that cabal (DNC, media, and Deep State) use terms like "disgraced former President" or "debunked claims about the election".  We non-talking heads are faced with a most unhappy dichotomy:  either that last election was stolen or 81 million American voters thought it was a great idea to put an Alzheimer's sufferer in the White House.  One of those must be true, and I flinch from coming down on one side or the other.  They're both horrible options.  Whichever one chooses to believe, it's a losing move.

With each passing day, it becomes harder to deny that Trump is setting himself up for another run at the White House, and with each passing day, the Democrats' unbroken streak of unforced errors make it look more and more likely that Trump, if he runs, will win. The man still has enough juice to pack stadiums to overflowing.  As with the last election, the Dems are happy when the crowd amounts to 400.

Of course, the GOPe isn't too happy about that prospect, but they could find themselves holding a losing hand if a substantial number of Trump-backed newcomers win their elections this November.  Certainly, there aren't enough of those committed Trumpists to take over either the House or the Senate against the entrenched Never Trumpers, even combined with those already seated, but a big enough 'red wave' would send a very uncomfortable message to the rest:  get on board the train or be left at the station.

I've never been a Trump supporter.  I didn't vote for him in either 2016 0r 2020, and it's unlikely I will in 2024.  I absolutely reject the notion of voting for Republicans so that Democrats don't win.  In contests past, it has been hard to press the argument that the parties are sufficiently different that voting for one or the other is a sensible choice.  Last Thursday, Joe Biden put that notion to the torch.  True, both parties are corrupt as the natural end-game of such things must go, but the corruption of the Democrats is of a starkly different nature.  They seem to have gone full-totalitarian.  The only plausible counter-move is Sherman's March To The Sea.

The myriad federal agencies, nearly all of them Constitutionally insupportible, are the headquarters of what is commonly known as 'the deep state':  hordes of Civil Service hangers-on impossible to fire, yet most of them must be mothballed if the deep state is to be defanged.  The only way to do that is to defund them.  Luckily, this is not an impossible task as long as at least one house of Congress is held by a committed majority.

Deny the 'continuing resolution' that has been used for the last 15 years to avoid the (Constitutional) necessity for passing a budget.  No more Mr. Nice Guy.  Cut the budget.  Cut the budget so deep that Harry Browne would have gasped and reached for his nitroglycerine.  Pentagon -85%.  Any TLA not mentioned in Article 1 § 8 -100%. — I here mean FBI, CIA, and NSA.  Any TLA sanctioned by I§8 cut by enough that the top 4 management levels have to work for free in order to actually fulfill the agency's Constitutional mission — there are precious few of those.

Will this happen?  I sincerely doubt it.  Nobody either in office or contending for one has that much courage.

If it doesn't happen, of course, we're probably doomed to a very, very dirty hot civil war for which I'm certain I don't have enough ammunition.

 

Projection

 

I subscribe to a daily digest of politically and economically newsworthy articles compiled by Thomas Knapp and billed as the 'Rational Review News Digest' which readers here may or may not find enlightening.  A recent entry pointed at an article by Jonathan Rauch in The Atlantic predicting what a Trump second term might portend.  I have my own views on the topic, but I wanted to see what a decidedly rabid anti-Trump outlet might have to say.

Specifically, Rauch is worried that

...a second Trump term could bring about the extinction of American democracy.  Essential features of the system, including the rule of law, honest vote tallies, and orderly succession, would be at risk.

How could this happen (according to Rauch)? 

• First, install toadies in key positions.

  Isn't that what every new administration does?  Traditionally, every department head offers their resignation to the new President.  A smart President accepts those offers and replaces every one of them.

• Second, intimidate the career bureaucracy.

  Given that 'the career bureaucracy' is what we typically refer to as 'The Deep State', it seems as though intimidating it would be exactly what the doctor ordered.  Presently, it is nearly impossible to fire most of these 'career bureaucrats'.  They don't care what orders their boss, the Chief Executive, gives them.  They can do as they please, fuck you very much.

• Third, co-opt the armed forces.

  ...as by purging from the ranks all who are insufficiently obedient to dangerous and probably unconstitutional orders to vax-or-else or who reject the tenets of CRT?  Welcome into the ranks a diverse mix of ethnicities, sexual orientations, and political persuasions regardless of their ability to function as a fighting force?  That sort of co-option?

• Fourth, bring law enforcement to heel.

  He's talking about the FBI that has already been thoroughly politicized and weaponized against the very person he fears might have a second term.  This shouldn't be fourth; it should be first.

• Fifth, weaponize the pardon.

  (Translation: free all existing political prisoners who have been waiting almost 600 days, many in solitary confinement, for daring to enter the U.S.Capitol building on January 6th, 2021, 'speedy trial' be damned, and clear the records of all who have been coerced into guilty pleas.  That kind of weaponization of the pardon.)

• Sixth, the final blow: defy court orders.

  Rauch here invests the Judiciary with the God-like power to overrule 'separation of powers'.  What the judiciary says goes, no ifs, ands, or buts as far as he's concerned.  Sorry, Jonathan, that's not how this works. 

The title of this post is 'Projection' because almost everything Rauch worries about in his article is already being done by the current administration.  He's worried about the status quo.

Rauch apparently thinks that 'the rule of law' is presently at work in these united states.  That's funny.  That could be the basis of a great stand-up comedy routine.  What is he smoking?  As to 'honest vote tallies', we Americans are all in the position of having to consider that either (a) the last election was stolen, or (b) 81 million Americans thought it was a good idea to send an Alzheimer's patient and a giggling bimbo to the White House.  Here in Florida, the Democratic contender for the Governorship says "Thank God for Joe Biden!"  I have to believe he adds under his breath "He makes the rest of us look like geniuses."

In fact, should Trump actually squeak through the gauntlet provided by The Deep State and get himself a second (lame duck) term, he should Schedule F the top four management layers at FBI, DOJ, CIA, NSA, and several dozen other federal departments and agencies, and then downsize them all.  It was Reagan's machete-like deregulation and tax reforms that goosed the economy into overdrive, a rocket-propelled boost that Bush and Clinton rode to the end of the century.  It was Trump doing much the same that pushed us into the enviable position of being a net exporter of petroleum (here deliberately overlooking his idiotic tariffs, the absence of which would have made his economy so much better).

The baseline problem, of course, is that both Republicans and Democrats hold the laughably inane notion that governments can manage economies.  They can't.  They never could.  The only way to 'manage' an economy is to get out of its way.  The career bureaucrats won't allow that, and that's why they have to be purged, something only Democrats and RINOs think would be a bad thing.

 

The Problem With Inflation

 

Inflation in one form or another has always been with us.  Even during the 18th and 19th centuries, there was some inflation.  Inflation, however, really 'got its legs' beginning in the 20th century.  Two events gave it the boost it needed to become a household fixture: the creation of the Federal Reserve Bank, and the 16th Amendment (Income Tax).

The Federal Reserve Bank made it possible for the federal government to fund itself with deficit spending: 'borrow' money from the Fed and pay it back sometime in the future — maybe never.  Our 'national debt', the Keynesians told us, was no problem because 'we owe it to ourselves!'

The Income Tax made it appear that the federal government was actually 'paying' its way.  Well, actually you're paying its way, sort of...

Until the advent of COVID hysteria and the latest round of massive government spending bills, it was estimated that the value — the purchasing power — of a 1913 dollar had fallen to about five cents ($0.05).  Yes, inflated by a factor of twenty.  Since COVID, it has gotten much worse.  80% of all the greenbacks in circulation today were printed within the past 3 years.  Since (Milton Friedman warned us) 'inflation is everywhere and at all times a monetary phenomenon', that means that our hypothetical 1913 dollar is now worth approximately a penny.

Now, if you are a businessman or a wage-earner, your prices or wages will rise to accommodate the inflation.  Everything seems to adjust itself, to 'establish equilibrium'.  Generally.

If you aren't a businessman or wage earner, if you are living on savings, things are going to be somewhat different.  Your savings are static.  They don't automatically rise to establish equilibrium with the new prices for everything.  This is why AARP is always so concerned about their members, many of whom are on fixed incomes.  For them, everything is suddenly more expensive and their 401k's don't seem to be quite as lush as they felt last year or the year before that.

We are told by our politicians that this inflation is transitory, meaning it will subside within the planning future.  (Janet Yellen is lately 'walking back' that pronouncement.)  Even if it is, there's still a serious problem left unaddressed.

The real problem is this: once inflation subsides, prices will still be high.  Just because runaway inflation becomes less runaway, prices don't go down.  They stay at the elevated state the last runaway inflation left them at.  Things are still unaffordable; they're just not becoming more unaffordable.

What us senior citizens on fixed incomes really need is a little runaway deflation: prices retreating to levels not seen since 2018... or 1958... or 1918.

Is that going to happen?  Not likely.  For that to happen, the government would have to grow smaller and less expensive.  The Mint would have to collect greenback dollars and take them out of circulation — while not printing any replacements.  We would then have the situation of 'fewer dollars chasing the same amount of goods'.  We haven't ever seen that happen with the U.S. economy, so we don't know exactly how such a thing would work out, but it would be an interesting experiment, no?

 

I'm Tired Of Hearing About Russia And Ukraine

 

It's awful that Russia invaded Ukraine.  That's the end of that story.  Ukraine has no strategic value to the United States, and we are five times as far away from Ukraine as is Germany.  If Russia invading Ukraine is a serious political problem, it's five times as much of a problem for Germany as it is for us.  Before we get involved in another European Pissing Contest Among Cousins (see WW-I), I want to see several European countries get involved first.  Poland has already said "Thanks, we'll pass".

As punishment for their dastardly deeds, the U.S. is imposing sanctions on Russia, cutting them off from the international banking system.  Of course, the power elite in Russia, the political leaders and the oligarchs, are largely unaffected by the sanctions.  It's The Man In The Street who is most affected.  Idiot Americans think we're doing the Lord's work by bashing Russia.  What we're actually doing is confirming in the minds of ordinary Russians that we're a bunch of ignorant bullies.  That's largely true, but we don't have to confirm it daily, do we?

Meanwhile, the mostly-made-up conflict with Russia provides the perfect villain upon which our incompetent administration can blame the high price of gasoline.  Forget the fact that Biden's first official act as President was to kill the KeystoneXL pipeline.  Forget the fact that Biden's second official act as President was to ban fracking.  None of those had anything to do with the price of motor fuel.  How odd, then, that this week for the first time ever, we paid more than $4 per gallon for gasoline; $4.249 to be precise, and that's with a 5¢/gallon discount, so $4.299 for almost everybody else.  Energy independence?  Who needs that?

Almost everyone is now aware that inflation has infected the economy, but being economic illiterates, few understand why inflation has infected the economy.  Anyone even moderately conversant with the Austrian School of Economics knows the answer.  Since the Trump Presidency, the Fed has been issuing letters of credit to the U.S. Treasury, and the U.S. Mint has been printing greenbacks... $8Trillion worth.  80% of all the dollars in circulation have been printed... new... within the last two years.  The only surprise is that inflation has only hit a 40-year high and not a 90-year high (to account for the Great Depression.

Back in 2016, I predicted an oncoming economic crash, and I was very surprised that it didn't happen.  I predicted it in 2012, too.  Perhaps I was too much of a pessimist back then, but I have not seen anything that makes me feel optimistic about our country's future path.  My (Republican) Congressman, Gus Bilirakis (FL-12), gleefully reported today that he helped spend another trillion — for the children and for the troops!  And to reward them for all their good work, the 'emergency spending bill' also included a raise for members of Congress!

Really, as long as the bulk of voters insist on sending to Washington politicians who see their job as 'spending money as fast as possible' there's no way we're going to escape runaway inflation.

Where are we going, and why are we in this handbasket?

 

How To Drain A Swamp

 

There has been considerable blather since... oh, around mid-2016 or so... about when Donald Trump announced he was interested in becoming President of the United States... about how he would 'drain the swamp'.  That didn't happen to anything like the extent most of his supporters expected it would, and it might be instructive to ask why those exalted expectations never seemed to come to pass.

 

A new President coming into office typically receives the resignations of all political appointees of the prior administration.  Often, this includes the Directors of FBI, NSA, and CIA, but not always.  A newly-elected President who really wants to drain the DC swamp will signal that resolve by immediately accepting those proffered resignations — and summarily dismissing any who do not resign — and then cancelling the security clearances for all those persons.  Given the atrocious condition of the military currently, several high-ranking flag officers should likewise be relieved of command and separated from the service.

All such persons, military and civilian, should be relieved of their passports.  Why their passports?  Because a President, the head of the Executive Branch, also heads the Justice Department that would be potentially prosecuting other heads-of-departments (possibly including the DoJ itself), and it is necessary that those high-ranking (and therefore wealthy) defendants not be able to flee the jurisdiction.  The President also heads the Department of State that owns those passports.  The President is thus entitled to recover State Department property. 

That's insufficient, unfortunately.  The next three (at least) management levels below those Directors need to be furloughed.  They may not be able to be fired outright if they are 'civil service', but they can be placed on administrative leave, minus their security clearances, pending an investigation to determine if they are safe to have in sensitive positions.  The personnel remaining will be charged with operating their functions without the encumbrance of the upper echelons.  It strains credulity to wonder if those organizations cannot function effectively when run by the people who actually run them day-to-day.

Such actions following hot on the heels of Inauguration would send tremors through the halls of Congress.  There are — I have not the slightest doubt — many Congressional staffers who, seeing U.S.Marshals and State Department functionaries stripping the highest ranks of DC Officialdom of their badges of office, would begin to consider 'turning state's evidence' before it was too late.  A President truly set on draining the DC swamp would only need one or two such turncoats, and even the New York Times could not decline to publish the news of the forthcoming indictments.

All that is needed is a President who doesn't care that somebody who hasn't yet been sufficiently neutralized is going to leak pictures 'in bed with a dead girl or a live boy', as one unfortunately forgotten wag once predicted.

Does such a person exist?

 

Out Of Our Shackles

 

If the day should ever come (may Heaven avert it!) when the affections of the people of these States shall be alienated from each other,...  the bands of political associations will not long hold together parties no longer attracted by the magnetism of conciliated interests and kindly sympathies;  and far better will it be for the people of the disunited states to part in friendship from each other, than to be held together by constraint. -- John Quincy Adams

John Quincy Adams was not alone in voicing such secessionist sentiments, either.  Alexis deTocqueville also thought it a good idea along with Sec'y of State Timothy Pickering (F-MA) and President James Buchanan (F-PA).

Some will protest that the issue of 'secession' was settled long ago.  That's not true.  What was settled in 1865 was the question of whether an agricultural economy without an industrial economy in partnership can hold its own against such a partnership.  The answer was that it could not.  The Confederacy decided to 'go it alone' and the Union objected to being left without a ready source of cotton, rice, and okra.  The Union got its way, thanks to their industrialized economy.  Might makes right.

Big government supporters then and now were and are very much against the idea of government growing smaller as by the departure of states, but lately the worm appears to be turning.  Upset over the election of a President they wouldn't have chosen (and, in fact, didn't), California has been making secessionist noises recently.  It's a fact that California's economy absolutely dwarfs the economy of the Confederacy, so they certainly could survive (at least in the short run) without being a part of the current union, and it is very unlikely that this President would react as negatively to their departure as did Abraham Lincoln.  In fact, it's probably true that a large portion of the electorate left behind would actually cheer the new nation onward.

Should we object to a CalExit?  I think it is becoming more apparent with each passing day that, as Mike Vanderboegh once observed, the United States is now one country occupied by two distinct people.  That wouldn't be a problem if both of those two distinct peoples were tolerant of each other, but that's not the case.  In fact, it's blindingly obvious that one faction considers the other to be sub-human and unworthy of any consideration.  This group, the intolerant, accost members of the other group at restaurants and disturb their peaceful enjoyment of a meal they haven't prepared themselves.  They do not simply boycott the 'others', they actively thwart the others' enjoyment of rights they themselves insist upon.  Rights for me but not for thee.  When those 'others' are invited by their supporters to speak on college campuses, for instance, they often find themselves blockaded and unable to even enter the venue.  When they do actually gain entrance and try to speak, they are often hooted and heckled by the 'intolerants' in the audience who — it must be said — are not present to hear the speaker but rather to prevent the speaker from being heard — by anyone.  Surprisingly, the intolerants are not receiving the same treatment from those 'others' who, by and large, tolerate the intolerants.

In case it isn't obvious, the intolerants are without notable exception so-called 'progressive leftists', and their targets are, also without notable exception, so-called conservatives.  The left isn't prepared to extend even the basics of common courtesy to a group they see as 'the enemy'.  In other words, we are at war.  We just haven't started shooting each other yet.  If and when the shooting starts, progressive leftists are going to be unpleasantly surprised to discover that conservatives are better armed and are all too willing to shoot back.

One would have to be an absolute moron to think that a peaceful secession would not be better than that.  Maybe it's time for us to seriously consider secession as a solution to the unrest we see every night on the 6:00 o'clock news.

 

Hunter Biden, Director

 

Why all this focus on Hunter Biden?

Some people have a tendency to not 'connect the dots'.  They may look at all the attention paid to Joe Biden's son Hunter and his employment on some obscure Ukrainian energy company's board (Burisma) and jump to the obvious conclusion:  the Republicans can't find anything on Biden, so they go after Biden's family.  If that's true, it would be despicable, and we would all be justified in heaping scorn on the GOP for such dirty politics.

There's a spare dot in the middle of this picture that's hidden from view.

Ukraine, like many other countries, is a recipient of U.S. foreign aid.  The threat of withholding that aid can be used to move their politics in any desired direction.  "Aha!" you say, "so Ukraine leans on Burisma to put Biden's son on their payroll and pay him a pile of loot so that they'll have an 'in' when it comes time to collect some more foreign aid!  That seems like a sound business decision!"  and you just missed the hidden dot.

The hidden dot is that Burisma has deep connections to the Ukraine government itself, the same government that gets all that foreign aid.  Burisma can pad its invoices to cover Hunter Biden's hefty (and likely unjustified) directorial 'salary' and Ukraine winds up paying that bill.  Burisma just passed Hunter's salary through to the Ukraine government which paid that salary using U.S. foreign aid money.  Hunter Biden is not being paid by Burisma, he's being paid by you.  Foreign aid money is being 'laundered' from your pockets right back into the pockets of the Biden family.

Hunter sits on several such boards in several similarly-situated countries despite the fact that Hunter Biden has no experience in the workings of the oil and gas industry.  His only 'experience' is as the son of a long-term U.S. Senator and Vice President.

Who wants to bet that if the U.S. cuts off aid to Ukraine, Hunter Biden would be flushed from Burisma's board within the week?

Lord Peter Bauer once pointed out that "Foreign aid is an excellent method for transferring money from poor people in rich countries, to rich people in poor countries."  And to rich people in rich countries, too, it seems.

 

P.s.:  Paul Pelosi, Nancy's husband, just resigned from a board in a country that looks very much like a laundry.

 

A response to 16 liberal talking points

 

A friend posted these 16 theses on Facebook with the proviso: "(Got another opinion? Put it on your page, not mine)".  Each of these 'liberal talking points' deserves an individual reply, but since I have been disinvited to post anywhere but my own page...  so let it be written; so let it be done.

—==+++==—

1. I believe a country should take care of its weakest members.  A country cannot call itself civilized when its children, disabled, sick, and elderly are neglected.  Period.

Resp:  It is the essence of 'civilization' that the old, the weak, the infirm, and children are cared for and protected when they cannot do so for themselves.  On this count, there cannot be any argument without first abandoning any pretense of civilization oneself.

2. I believe healthcare is a right, not a privilege. Somehow that's interpreted as "I believe Obamacare is the end-all, be-all."  This is not the case.  I'm fully aware that the ACA has problems, that a national healthcare system would require everyone to chip in, and that it's impossible to create one that is devoid of flaws, but I have yet to hear an argument against it that makes "let people die because they can't afford healthcare" a better alternative.  I believe healthcare should be far cheaper than it is, and that everyone should have access to it.  And no, I'm not opposed to paying higher taxes in the name of making that happen.

Resp:  To say that healthcare is a right reveals a gross misunderstanding of the nature of 'rights'.  One cannot have a right without a corresponding responsibility.  My right to own a gun, for instance, carries with it a responsibility not to use it for evil.  What responsibility is associated with a right to healthcare?  It can only be that someone is charged with the responsibility of providing healthcare.  Who would that be?  Here is a case where, again, the productive sector is being asked — no that's not right — is being ordered to provide for someone who can't or won't provide for themselves.  If it were only the old, the weak, and the infirm, our innate moral sense would urge us to do this without coercion, but that's not what's at stake here, is it?

3. I believe education should be affordable and accessible to everyone.  It doesn't necessarily have to be free (though it works in other countries so I'm mystified as to why it can't work in the US), but at the end of the day, there is no excuse for students graduating college saddled with five- or six-figure debt.

Resp:  What we see as 'the education crisis' is largely manufactured by bad public policy.  Suppose the government decided that teachers must be able to get to work teaching and offered a $10,000 tax rebate for any teacher who bought a new car.  What do you think would happen to the price of new cars?  If you guessed that the price of cars would suddenly jump by several thousand dollars, you can see why the price of a college education has quintupled in just a few decades.  (The same analysis, by the way, applies to that 'housing bubble' of a few years back.)  Market forces must be allowed to 'price' the value of a degree in Medieval French Literature or we will soon find ourselves with scholars who can quote verbatim 13th-century love poems but can't be employed anywhere but McDonald's.

4. I don't believe your money should be taken from you and given to people who don't want to work.  I have literally never encountered anyone who believes this.  Ever.  I just have a massive moral problem with a society where a handful of people can possess the majority of the wealth while there are people literally starving to death, freezing to death, or dying because they can't afford to go to the doctor.  Fair wages, lower housing costs, universal healthcare, affordable education, and the wealthy actually paying their share would go a long way toward alleviating this.  Somehow believing that makes me a communist.

Resp:  Jack is not rich because Jill is poor.  There is not a causal relationship between those two things.  There is a causal relationship between 'Jack is rich' and 'Jack runs a government-sanctioned monopoly'.  If you're serious about solving the problem of wealth inequality, you're not going to do so with simple-minded redistributionist schemes.  Plus, recognize that there will always be some inequality; some people are more talented than others, and some don't see money as the be-all and end-all of life.

5. I don't throw around "I'm willing to pay higher taxes" lightly.  If I'm suggesting something that involves paying more, well, it's because I'm fine with paying my share as long as it's actually going to something besides lining corporate pockets or bombing other countries while Americans die without healthcare.

Resp:  Well, you just pinned two things that can't happen without government intervention, and you think the answer is 'more government intervention'.  I don't know how to counter that.  Checkmate.

6. I believe companies should be required to pay their employees a decent, livable wage.  Somehow this is always interpreted as me wanting burger flippers to be able to afford a penthouse apartment and a Mercedes.  What it actually means is that no one should have to work three full-time jobs just to keep their head above water.  Restaurant servers should not have to rely on tips, multi-billion-dollar companies should not have employees on food stamps, workers shouldn't have to work themselves into the ground just to barely make ends meet, and minimum wage should be enough for someone to work 40 hours and live.

Resp:  Should companies have to pay 'x' dollars for work that isn't worth 'x' dollars?  What do you do with employees who don't/can't/won't contribute to your bottom line at least the equivalent of the minimum wage?  Answer: you fire them and replace them with machines.  What happens to your business if ALL your employees produce less than you are forced to pay them?  Your business is now 'your former business'.  Good idea?  Then, too, 'minimum wage jobs' aren't meant to provide a living wage.  They're meant to provide the kind of experience one needs to get a better job.  If you can only make minimum wage, you shouldn't be starting a family.

7. I am not anti-Christian.  I have no desire to stop Christians from being Christians, to close churches, to ban the Bible, to forbid prayer in school, etc.  (BTW, prayer in school is NOT illegal; *compulsory* prayer in school is - and should be - illegal).  All I ask is that Christians recognize *my* right to live according to *my* beliefs.  When I get pissed off that a politician is trying to legislate Scripture into law, I'm not "offended by Christianity" — I'm offended that you're trying to force me to live by your religion's rules.  You know how you get really upset at the thought of Muslims imposing Sharia law on you?  That's how I feel about Christians trying to impose biblical law on me.  Be a Christian.  Do your thing.  Just don't force it on me or mine.

Resp:  THAT is a true 'liberal' position, one that all the founding fathers would have applauded.  It boils down to 'leave me alone', a sentiment we find all through the revolutionary writings, the Declaration of Independence, and the Constitution.  Where did we go wrong?  We said "Hmm.. clean food and untainted meat: good idea; let's have an FDA..." and we were off and running.

8. I don't believe LGBT people should have more rights than you.  I just believe they should have the *same* rights as you.

Resp:  Another true liberal position, but who says they have fewer rights?  Would that be... umm... Congress?

9. I don't believe illegal immigrants should come to America and have the world at their feet, especially since THIS ISN'T WHAT THEY DO (spoiler: undocumented immigrants are ineligible for all those programs they're supposed to be abusing, and if they're "stealing" your job it's because your employer is hiring illegally).  I'm not opposed to deporting people who are here illegally, but I believe there are far more humane ways to handle undocumented immigration than our current practices (i.e., detaining children, splitting up families, ending DACA, etc).

Resp:  While Republicans (and occasionally Democrats) might dispute this, the Constitution nowhere grants authority to anyone, Congress or the President, to control immigration (you could look it up).  Congress is granted power 'to establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization', and that's as far as it goes.  Surprised?  Whether you acknowledge it or not, the root of the current malaise is not 'immigration' per se, but rather the welfare state we have allowed this country to become, that and the fact that Congress has bobbled the ball on that 'uniform Rule of Naturalization' thingy.

10. I don't believe the government should regulate everything, but since greed is such a driving force in our country, we NEED regulations to prevent cut corners, environmental destruction, tainted food/water, unsafe materials in consumable goods or medical equipment, etc.  It's not that I want the government's hands in everything — I just don't trust people trying to make money to ensure that their products/practices/etc. are actually SAFE.  Is the government devoid of shadiness?  Of course not.  But with those regulations in place, consumers have recourse if they're harmed and companies are liable for medical bills, environmental cleanup, etc.  Just kind of seems like common sense when the alternative to government regulation is letting companies bring their bottom line into the equation.

Resp:  I would much rather have Consumer Union inspecting my food than FDA and USDA.  CU has a vested interest in maintaining their reputation for honesty and fair-dealing.  FDA and USDA?  Not so much.  Every drug ever recalled by the FDA was first determined to be safe and effective by the FDA.  As to 'consumers have recourse', I refer you to the vaunted 'tobacco settlement'.  Was any of that monster fine used to recompense anyone actually harmed by smoking?  Nope, and the terms of the settlement immunized the tobacco companies against lawsuits.  Nice people you're hangin' with...

11. I believe our current administration is fascist.  Not because I dislike them or because I can’t get over an election, but because I've spent too many years reading and learning about the Third Reich to miss the similarities.  Not because any administration I dislike must be Nazis, but because things are actually mirroring authoritarian and fascist regimes of the past.

Resp:  If by 'fascist' you mean 'controlling the means of production', then we've been fascist for about 170 years.  I think what you mean is 'totalitarian', and we've been that for about 120 years.  Only the fact that 120 million Americans own 400 million guns and 300 billion rounds of ammunition has kept the government from lining people up against the wall.

12. I believe the systemic racism and misogyny in our society is much worse than many people think, and desperately needs to be addressed.  Which means those with privilege — white, straight, male, economic, etc. — need to start listening, even if you don't like what you're hearing, so we can start dismantling everything that's causing people to be marginalized.

Resp:  Does that mean you want to forbid facial tattoos and eyebrow piercings?  Because if anything 'marginalizes' people, it's that.  Most marginalization of people results from the decisions of the marginalized rather than their skin color or gender.  Efforts to coerce an end to that marginalization results in bakers being sued for turning away profitable business.  Coercion is bad no matter what the reason.

13. I am not interested in coming after your blessed guns, nor is anyone serving in government.  What I am interested in is sensible policies, including background checks, that just MIGHT save one person’s, perhaps a toddler’s, life by the hand of someone who should not have a gun.  (Got another opinion?  Put it on your page, not mine).

Resp:  There is not a single 'sensible gun control policy' in the liberal catechism that would have saved even one life — ever.  If anyone has proof that that's incorrect, I'd like to see it.  120 million Americans own 400 million guns and 300 billion rounds of ammunition.  If any appreciable fraction of those were as dangerous and unstable as they are made out to be, there wouldn't be 30,000 fatal gunshots each year; there would be 30,000 fatal gunshots each month.

14. I believe in so-called political correctness.  I prefer to think it’s social politeness.  If I call you Chuck and you say you prefer to be called Charles I’ll call you Charles.  It’s the polite thing to do.  Not because everyone is a delicate snowflake, but because as Maya Angelou put it, when we know better, we do better.  When someone tells you that a term or phrase is more accurate/less hurtful than the one you're using, you now know better.  So why not do better?  How does it hurt you to NOT hurt another person?

Resp:  I will happily call someone 'Theo' rather than Theodore, Ted, or Eddie, and I may even — if they ask politely — refer to them as 'Your Serene Boffness', but I'll laugh when I do.  Force me to do that?  That's really what this is all about, isn't it?

15. I believe in funding sustainable energy, including offering education to people currently working in coal or oil so they can change jobs.  There are too many sustainable options available for us to continue with coal and oil.  Sorry, billionaires.  Maybe try investing in something else.

Resp:  The laws of physics are immutable.  No amount of wishing will change the fact that wind, solar, hydroelectric, and thermal energy together cannot — that's an important word: cannot — sustain the world's current lifestyle, but it can destroy entire national economies trying prove that they can.

16. I believe that women should not be treated as a separate class of human.  They should be paid the same as men who do the same work, should have the same rights as men and should be free from abuse.  Why on earth shouldn’t they be?

Resp:  The laws of nature are as immutable as the laws of physics.  Men cannot bear children and parthenogenesis doesn't work for our species.  That means that men and women are biologically different, and no one with even half a brain disputes that.  That women must bear the children and are in a relatively fragile state while doing so means that they cannot — there's that word again — work the same as men.  At some point, they are forced (!) to attend to the birthing process and not attend to 'their job'.  Men provide muscle mass and DNA; women create civilization; let's not screw that up.

I think that about covers it.  Bottom line is that I'm a liberal because I think we should take care of each other.  That doesn't mean you should work 80 hours a week so your lazy neighbor can get all your money.  It just means I don't believe there is any scenario in which preventable suffering is an acceptable outcome as long as money is saved.

Resp:  That must mean you're anti-war.  What are you doing voting Democrat (or Republican)?

 

Representation Without Taxation

 

One of the issues over which we Americans fought our Revolutionary War was "taxation without representation".  We were being taxed by the Crown (King George III) and denied the ability to choose our own representatives in Parliament.  There were other issues, of course, but that was one of the biggies that could get those unruly colonists to rise up in revolt.

Our Constitution is written to, among other things, guarantee that every taxed American is represented — mostly.  The Territory of Puerto Rico, for example, has no representative in Congress, and therefore Puerto Ricans do not have to pay income taxes to the federal government.  They have their own local government and pay local taxes to support that.  The same is generally true of Guam and other territories:  if you can't vote for a Congressional representative, you don't get taxed.  (This is not 100% true 100% of the time, but it's 'close enough for government work'.)

There is, however, another side to that coin.  Some people pay no taxes but still get to vote.  They have 'representation without taxation'.  It may turn out that your income is so small and your tax credits and authorized deductions are large enough that your 'taxable income' is zero and your tax is also zero.  People in this situation are incentivized to vote a certain way because the result of their vote will cost them nothing — there's no penalty for voting this way as opposed to that way.

This may explain why our country is in the condition it's in.  When the number of tax filers who actually pay no tax crosses a certain threshold, the controls that would normally act to correct fiscal irresponsibility disappear.  If you know you won't be taxed for that new road, there's no reason for you to vote against it, is there?

The same sort of analysis applies to those who receive stipends from the government.  'Social Security' is a fine example.  For people who are retired and whose income consists of pensions and social security payments, it is very likely that the 'tax due' line on one's 1040 will be smaller than the total received from taxes paid by others, even if that number is not zero.  That is, there are two categories of 'tax filers': those who pay taxes, and those who consume taxes.

Without the ability to put the brakes on out-of-control spending, bankruptcy looms.  It's inevitable.  It may be that our next revolution will be fueled by the issue of 'representation without taxation'.  At some point in the future, one's W-2s and 1099s that report the core of one's income may show income in two categories: income derived from taxes, and income not derived from taxes.  It will make for an interesting new world when, as must eventually happen, the franchise is restricted to those whose tax contribution exceeds their tax consumption.

Under such a system, Congressmen will vote, but only when they're at work.  They can all stay home on Election Day because their salary is all derived (it damned well better be) from taxes; they are 'tax consumers'.  Policemen and firemen will not vote, along with FBI agents and (uh-oh...) soldiers, although volunteer firemen will vote because they actually have income producing jobs beyond volunteering.  Public school teachers won't vote, but private school teachers will.  The kid who delivers sandwiches from Quizno's will get to vote, but the clerk at DMV who issued his driver's license won't.  It's very likely that SS recipients will no longer vote unless the income from their 401Ks is so large that the tax on the proceeds exceeds their SS checks — in which case they probably don't care, either.

But as long as our electoral system allows people to vote who do not actually 'pay the bill', we will see the wrong kind of politicians elected over and over and over.  It's a recipe for disaster that is just now becoming clear.

 

The (longed-for) 28th Amendment

 

There's a chunk of text making the rounds — has made the rounds, in fact, for quite some time — calling for a 28th amendment.  The (proposed, longed-for) 28th amendment would say

Congress shall make no law that applies to the citizens of the United States that does not apply equally to Senators and Representatives, and Congress shall make no law that applies to Senators and Representatives that does not apply equally to the citizens of the United States.

or some variation thereto.

I think I may have started this a long time ago.  At least, I have a text file dated 11/11/2000 at 9:40a that reads

The 28th Amendment

Restoring Sanity to The Law

1. Congress may not exempt itself or its agents from compliance, in whole or in part, with any Federal law or regulation, nor allow regulations which do so, nor shall it encourage state or local jurisdictions to exempt it from compliance with their laws.

2. Any existing Federal law or regulation which exempts Congress from compliance with its provisions, in whole or in part, is hereby rescinded in its entirety.

There's a big difference between the two.  Did you notice?  The one I wrote 17 years ago undoes all the historical damage caused in its absence by automatically revoking all laws currently in existence that violate it.  Leaving that part out is really very 'conservative':  it freezes the current situation in place.  I suppose that makes my version 'regressive' although I personally think of it as 'progress'.

There are many now calling for a con-con, a constitutional convention, to remedy what they see as myriad ills plaguing our nation.  I truly believe most of those ills would evaporate if we were merely to prohibit past, present, and future acts of discrimination by our Congress.

What do you think?

—==+++==—

Update:

While browsing through some old material, I came across an essay I wrote for 'Adverse Reactions', my (quasi-)regular column in Tampa Bay Mensa's newsletter, The Tampa Bay Sounding, and it seems to have been written even earlier than November 2000; probably July 2000.  It was about campaign finance reform and it was called The Big Lie.  That essay was the impetus for the original suggestion.

 

The Great 'Right v Left' Lie

 

Of all the memes that can lead our thinking astray, the notion that in American politics there is a "right wing" versus a "left wing" is the most common, the most incorrect, and the most dangerous.  It derives from the tradition in the French legislature that the royalists sit on one side of the assembly and the populists on the other, and this is what makes it incorrect in modern America.  Our legislators, both R and D, routinely claim to be working for the benefit of their constituents — and some do, on occasion — but their primary goal is clearly not to enhance their constituents' freedom, but rather to expand their own power.  They do this by "making a federal case of it" in every instance and on every issue.  They are all (with a very few exceptions) 'royalists'.  This echoes a remark by Judge Andrew Napolitano that there is only one party in American politics: The Big-Government Party, that has a left wing and a right wing.

This meme is so common that anyone who suggests it might be false immediately becomes suspect of having ulterior motives, whereas the 'motive' in such cases is merely to open others' eyes to the truth.  Such crusaders may be consoled by the knowledge that every true thing was first believed by a single person before being believed by dozens, hundreds, millions, and, finally, everyone.

The meme is dangerous because it leads us to believe that those politicians who identify with our side are correct and others who identify with their side are incorrect when, in truth, they are all on the same side, the side of The Big-Government Party.  We thus support those who are guiding us toward ever more intrusive government, ever more dilution of our freedom, in the mistaken belief that we are on the side of the angels.

So, if there really is not a left-right distinction, what accounts for the division so evident among Americans today?  What defines the divide we can so clearly see?

The division is between individualists and collectivists.  It is a statist-v-libertarian conflict.  On one side are those (statists) who subscribe to the notion that the citizen exists for the purposes of the state; these are opposed by those who place the individual above the collective, who insist that the collective exists to fulfill the individual, rather than the other way around.  This is, in fact, the guiding principle upon which our nation was founded.  We find in the Declaration of Independence Jefferson asserting that "...to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men...".  The bedrock of our system is libertarian in nature: that the state exists to fulfill the individual.

Note that it says "to secure these rights", not 'secure our safety'.  Our government was created to keep us free, not safe, yet when the USA PATRIOT Act was proposed in the wake of 9-11 only one Senator (Russ Feingold) and one Representative (Ron Paul) objected and voted 'no'.  Every other member of Congress voted to give the government enormous power over its citizens, power that was unconstitutionally usurped from those same citizens.  With few exceptions, we the people have sent to represent us those who think their job is to keep us safe — even if it means enslaving us.

Whether Democrat or Republican, left or right, nearly all of them are collectivists.  Why?

It derives, I believe, from our natural tendency to acquire.  Whether we understand it or not, economic principles are burned into our very being.  We understand intuitively that it is better to have and not need than to need and not have, and so we gather wood before winter and save our pennies for a rainy day.  Along comes a politician who says "Elect me and I'll see that you have whatever the current hot-button issue is!" and our natural reaction is "Great!  That means I won't have to do that for myself!" and we cast our vote accordingly.

A politician who promises to get government out of our way so that we can do things for ourselves is much less enticing than one who promises to do those things for us.  It's only natural.  How can we delude ourselves into thinking that we are about to get the mythical free lunch?   We can because we want to.

At the very base, our problems with intrusive government start with our desire to have a pony.  Adults are supposed to know that a pony is expensive to start with and requires more expenditures for food, health care, and lodging, but, like children, we ignore those uncomfortable facts when it's our pony.

The fault is truly not in our stars but in ourselves.

If you're content with being a secure peon rather than a free person, you need not change a thing.

 

reg•u•late, v.t.

 

From Noah Webster's dictionary, 1828

reg•u•late, verb transitive

1. To adjust by rule, method or established mode;  as, to regulate weights and measures;  to regulate the assize of bread;  to regulate our moral conduct by the laws of God and of society;  to regulate our manners by the customary forms.

2. To put in good order;  as, to regulate the disordered state of a nation or its finances.

3. To subject to rules or restrictions;  as, to regulate trade;  to regulate diet.

Note that placing rules and restrictions on a subject was the last thing Revolutionary era Americans thought of when they said 'regulate'.  The first thing they thought of was 'adjustment':  to make something work properly, the way one might adjust a clock to keep correct time.  Thus, a 'well-regulated militia' is one that functions as a unit and all of whom know how to clean, load, and fire their weapons.  To 'regulate commerce' did not mean 'suffocate under a mountain of legislation';  it meant 'make it work the way it should'.

Under Congress' article I section 8 power to 'regulate commerce among the states' the implication was that Congress would facilitate commerce rather than micromanage it.  This was the primary impetus behind FDR's threat to pack the Supreme Court with additional judges who would see things his way:  FDR wanted more power than the interstate commerce (hereafter IC) clause allowed because his vision was of a larger, more powerful central government that could mold the economy in ways that would dispel the economic depression of the 30s and 40s.  He got his needed reinterpretation and today almost everything Congress does is justified under those expanded IC powers.  That new interpretation is so expansive that the Gun Free School Zones Act was cast as justified by the IC clause because it claimed to protect future consumers in IC!

In fact, although article I section 8 grants power to Congress in only 17 specific areas, this new interpretation of the IC clause is so broad that it can truly be said that article I section 8 now grants power in 16 specific areas and one other which is 'anything else Congress wants'.

Virtually everything we see as 'wrong' with the federal government today arises from that faulty interpretation:  we are supposed to be living in The Free Trade Zone Of The United States but are instead saddled with rules that require (just as one example) special certification for over-the-road long haul drivers who operate in more than one state — and those rules cost money.  In the one recent case where Congress should have been using its original powers to prevent damage to the consumer, they conspired with a state to promote it.  Before 1974, if you wanted to fly to Dallas, you landed at Love Field (DAL), 5 miles NW of downtown.  When DFW was proposed as Dallas' new airport, Texas asked for and Congress agreed to limit the use of Love Field in order to promote DFW (and American Airlines).  As a result, as soon as DFW was operational, the FAA no longer accepted flight plans for Love Field to or from airports outside Texas.  You could then fly DAL-Abilene-Seattle, or DAL-ElPaso-Hawaii, or DAL-Houston-Paris, but you could not fly non-stop to any of those destinations unless you flew from DFW.  The 40-year agreement expired in 2014 having cost Southwest Airlines 40 years of business out of Love Field and funneling most of that business to America Airlines which, for all intents and purposes, owns DFW.

Because of Congress' new-found power over the economy, corporations whatever their size and, in fact, entire industries are at the mercy of Congress which now wields the power of life and death over them.  Is it any wonder Washington DC is awash in corporate lobbyists and campaign contributions?  People who complain about the corrupting influence of corporate money over politics are complaining of the wrong thing.  They should be complaining about the corrupting influence of the incorrectly-interpreted IC clause.

 

Massively-Parallel Trial-And-Error

 

There are several ways you can approach 'solving a problem'.  You can iterate, trying one proposed solution after another until you find one that works.  This is (supposedly) how the light bulb was invented.  The drawback to 'iteration' is that you may find a solution that works but is sub-optimal;  there's another solution that's better, but you didn't find that first, so it didn't get adopted.  Again, this may be true of the light bulb.  Also, because you have found a solution, it will be applied to every instance of the problem, for some of which it will work excellently and for others of which it will barely work at all.  Of course, if there's only one manifestation of 'the problem', we don't have to worry about that.

For that case where 'the problem' exists in several versions, there is a better way:  massively-parallel trial-and-error.  Set n teams to work solving the problem.  As solutions begin to be put into practice, we should expect to see at once that most solutions are unworkable, some are acceptable, and a few are remarkable.  The unworkable solutions can be discarded, the acceptable solutions can be improved, and the remarkable solutions can be adopted.  We wind up with several solutions that can be applied to various manifestations of the problem.  The drawback to this method is that it is expensive because every proposed line of research must be funded up front.  The costs that might have been avoided because we found that initial (possibly sub-optimal) solution and stopped looking are going to be spent right now.  We're going to examine every plausible solution and we're going to pay for the examination today.  We actually have laboratories where this type of problem-solving can take place.  They are called 'states'.

In fact, save for a few issues already addressed in the Constitution, most of the country's problems are supposed to be solved using this massively-parallel trial-and-error method.  Each of the states is supposed to solve its own problems of health, education, and welfare (among other things).  Fifty potentially different solutions to each problem, each solution funded not by a gigantic federal bureaucracy but by the states themselves.  After a reasonable trial period we would be able to discern that the Iowa model for education works easily as well as the South Carolina model and that the Idaho model is a catastrophe for everything beyond kindergarten.  Before long, Kansas would drop their solution in favor of the South Carolina model, and Idaho would adopt the Iowa model.  Over time, each state would move toward better solutions and away from poorer solutions, a process we regard as 'improvement'.  How much better this than a 'one size fits all' solution imposed by the federal machine onto places and conditions for which that single allowable solution may or may not be workable?

Impossible, you say?  Up until very recently, this was the way we dealt with wide-spread problems.  Some states did better, others worse, but all did as well as they could given the resources available.  Why don't we still do this?  Perhaps the answer was best enunciated by Thomas Sowell:

The first lesson of economics is scarcity:  there is never enough of anything to fully satisfy all those who want it.  The first lesson of politics is to disregard the first lesson of economics.

 

Why Term Limits Won't Solve Anything

 

There's a lot of agitation around the issue of 'term limits for Congress'.  It sounds like a good idea — what we used to call 'LGOP':  Looks Good On Paper — but it misses the point, and won't solve the problem of Congressfolk getting filthy rich during their tenure.  What it will do is spread the wealth a little more evenly because Congress won't have as much time to amass wealth, and their successors will get their chance sooner.  The actual total amount won't change.

How does a Congressman (includes 'Congresswoman' in its generic form) become a millionaire?  They run for re-election.  Aided by 'name recognition', an incumbent has a huge advantage over any challenger absent a scandal.  It's axiomatic that unless the candidate is caught in bed with a dead girl or a live boy, re-election is almost guaranteed.  An incumbent will gather lots of campaign contributions from those who wish to be seen as 'friends', yet be able to run the campaign relatively cheaply thanks to that name recognition.  What's left in the campaign chest the day after election day belongs to the candidate, and it could be substantial.  Add to this that campaign contributions can dribble in over the full course of a Congressman's term, and we're talking lots of money.

Beyond that, Congressmen pay for nothing or close to it.  Lunch in the Congressional dining room is cheaper than your cafeteria at work because it's subsidized by taxes.  Basically, you're buying lunch for Congress.  They get, in addition to a lush salary, an allowance for office expenses including their staff.  When it's time to vacation in Aruba, some constituent can always be found to offer a ride on a corporate jet because the Congressman needs to see how our foreign aid dollars are being spent, etc.  If you were banking $160,000 each year, you'd be a millionaire before your first term in the House was up.  Now you're an incumbent.

None of this would change with term limits.  Senators would run for a House seat; Representatives would seek Senate office.  When term limits kick in, there's always 'lobbying'.

Money will always flow toward Congress regardless of term limits.  There will always be bribes and graft.  The reason is simple:  Congress has the power to micro-manage the economy.  They get to decide if this company or that one lives or dies.  Naturally, if you're the owner or CEO of a company, you want to make sure that Congress decides 'lives' rather than 'dies'.  You will make sure your Congressman (all of them, actually) know your name and how much of their campaign war chest you've contributed.  If you support term limits for Congress because you want to get money out of politics, you're barking up the wrong tree.  To get money out of politics, get power out of politics first.

The key to Congress' power over business and the economy is the 'Interstate Commerce Clause':  Article I section 8 grants Congress the power "To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes;".  Originally this was intended to empower Congress to prevent states colluding with each other in ways that would enrich them at the expense of other states.  Imagine Pennsylvania and New York charging tariffs or 'inspection fees' for tobacco shipments originating in Virginia and destined for Vermont.  We are supposed to be living in The Free-Trade Zone of the Americas and the Interstate Commerce clause was supposed to make it happen.  Instead, during the FDR administration when the President needed Constitutional authority for doing all manner of things, the I/C clause was re-interpreted to provide that authority and the Supreme Court, under FDR's threat to 'pack' it, buckled under.  The result is what you see today:  Congress can do anything with impunity.  Anything.  That's not what the I/C clause was supposed to empower.

How do we know that?  Article I section 8 reads "Congress shall have power to" and goes on to list 17 things Congress shall have power to do.  As the I/C clause is currently interpreted, Art.I sect.8 says "Congress can do these 16 things and whatever the Hell else it feels like doing."  In fact, most of Art.I sect.8 is now redundant because the I/C clause is all that's needed.  Could that have been what the Constitution's writers intended?  How ridiculous!

So what happens when we re-establish a proper understanding of the I/C clause or, better, simply abolish Congress' power over interstate commerce?  The Drug War goes away.  The FBI goes away.  The FDA goes away.  The FAA goes away.  A horde of three-letter agencies evaporate: DHS, TSA, CIA, HHS, SEC, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, the Federal Reserve Board, FDIC, the Department of Education, the Department of Energy, and the list goes on and on.  None of them are included within Congress' powers granted in I(8). 

The Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) occupies forty (40) feet of shelf space when printed, filled with regulations promulgated by nameless and unaccountable agencies, all of which you are responsible for following under penalty of the law.

What would your tax bill look like if it didn't include the budget for the thousands of bureaus and agencies Congress never had the authority to create?  More importantly, how important would term limits for Congress be without them?

 

What Happened To The Soviet Union?

 

From the Russian Revolution in 1917 to the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, communism had one of the largest, most robust bases-of-operation imaginable.  For 45 years after the end of WW-II, 'the West' (primarily The United States) engaged in a Cold War — mostly political maneuvering, espionage, sabotage, and outright bribery — in an effort to contain the growth of the other.  The most newsworthy incident of the time involved the Soviet gambit to install missiles in Cuba.

During the 80s, Ronald Reagan proposed, and the US spent time, effort, and money developing a futuristic anti-missile defense (dubbed "Star Wars" for its planned use of directed-energy weaponry).  Although it never actually materialized, the Soviets had to counter the impending threat (the inventive Americanskis, after all, might actually have pulled that rabbit out of their hat) and the colossal cost of doing so bankrupted, for all intents and purposes, the entire Soviet operation.  Within a few years, the Soviet Union collapsed, having run out of money.  It is said in retrospect that Reagan raised the stakes so high the Soviets couldn't call the bet.  It's probably an accurate description of what happened, but it raises additional questions about how the whole Cold War was waged.

—==+++==—

The most intriguing question, I think, is 'what would have happened had we not moved to block each and every communist gambit?'

What we know with near-certainty is that socialism/communism is at the top of its game when used as a philosophical ideal.  As an economic system, it's a losing bet.  You can run an economy socialistically only for so long before the internal stresses and frictions make it grind to a halt.  Like physical systems, entropy will eventually catch up to it.  ('Entropy' for economic systems is the resistance of individuals to the central planning inherent in all socialist economies.  It takes several forms which may be described as "I should move to somewhere I'm more appreciated" or "They're not paying me enough to do this job well" or "I made my quota for the week already".  Each means the economy is not running at 100%.)

If a government is very careful, the game can be played for a much longer time.  Sweden and Norway are examples of this although Sweden is currently seeing cracks form in its medical delivery system stressed as it is by a huge influx of immigrants from the Middle East drawn by the promise of free stuff.  If the game is played less carefully, economic entropy gets you sooner rather than later.  How long?  The economic resources you start with play a big part in that, to be sure.  Norway has North Sea oil reserves that will allow the game to go on for quite a long time.  Sweden has only those reverves built up over a long period when it was a much different sort of country, economically speaking.

When the West pushed back against communist 'aggression' here, there, and elsewhere in the world, China and Russia slowed their advances and this probably made them better able to continue.  What if we had just let them run rampant?  Yes, they would have gobbled up lots of territory and those conquered people would suffer under increasingly repressive central planners, but that suffering is the entropy that attacks socialist systems.  Might the Soviet Union have collapsed in 1981 or even 1971 had we simply let them expand unchecked?

'But an expanding Soviet Union would be a threat to world peace,' someone objects.  How?  It was never a possibility that the USSR would nuke the US; never.  In most years, it was the output of Kansas and Nebraska that kept the people of the USSR fed through the winter.  To entertain the thought that the USSR was led by people stupid enough to destroy their own food shows an alarming inability to grasp reality.

When Eisenhower left office in 1960, he left a message for us in his farewell address.  In it, he warned of "the military-industrial complex' and its ability to take over our economy and our government.  We didn't listen.  Since then, the Pentagon's budget has grown steadily, year after year, fueled by war after war such that today if the Pentagon were its own country it would be the seventh-largest economy in the world.  Just the Pentagon.  A military budget bigger than France's.  Not 'bigger than France's military budget'; bigger than France's budget.

There are abroad in our country people who will earnestly assert that we need a military that large to properly defend ourselves.  It's fair to ask, I think, why Great Britain doesn't need a military budget of a comparable size and why France doesn't and why Germany doesn't and why Spain doesn't and (most tellingly) why China and Russia don't.  The answer, of course, is that we taxpayers of the United States foot the bill for defending not only ourselves, but dozens of other countries who spend little or nothing on their own defense.  Why should they if Uncle Sugar is picking up the tab?  Then, too, we regularly engage in offensive military operations, primarily in the Middle East, ostensibly to combat 'terrorism' and that doesn't come cheap.  Our fighting men (and women) deserve the best of the best when it comes to armaments, and don't forget our allies.  They need to be comparably equipped and we need to make that happen.

There's a vast difference in the cost of fighting a war here against an invading army as opposed to the cost of fighting a war there as an invading army.  Note carefully what is happening:  we are expanding the way the Soviet Union expanded and there is no one around to stop us.  We will expand until, just like the Soviet Union, we go bankrupt.

Who will be "the last man standing" when that happens, I wonder?