Friday, March 1, 2019
Thursday, February 28, 2019
One
of the most contentious issues brought about as a result of the 2016 Trump
Clinton Presidential debates concerned if Trump lost, would he accept the results. This was never asked of Hillary
Clinton, mostly because the costal elites and East coast media machine had
decided it was a foregone conclusion that she would win, but she didn’t. Now it is the democrats who seem to have a problem accepting the outcome of the presidential election.
Now
comes the kicker. Since they are unable and unwilling to accept the outcome of the people, they have started a new movement to skirt the assurances of the
constitution and a representative government by doing the outlandish –
replacing the electoral college with the popular vote. The vehicle for this is
called the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact. This compact is comprised
of 11 states and the District of Columbia on board. Recently, Colorado is set
to become the latest member of this group of states joined together to bypass
the electoral college system. Yes, that is correct, and if successful, it would
give the 2020 presidential election to whoever wins the popular vote. Although
it could only go into effect if states representing at least 270 electoral
college votes pass the law, it remains a frightening proposition to know that
this how people who frequently scream voter suppression, are in their own way
suppression the vote of the citizens of their own state. As it stands, the
states in the compact has 172 electoral votes.
This
is why the framers, via the twelfth Amendment, instituted the electoral
college, to prevent group think and highly populated urban areas to have more
say than less populated and rural areas. When we vote to elect a president, we
are really selecting a slate of electors to indemnify that the candidate who
wins in that state with a plurality of the votes gets all of the state’s electoral
votes. This system has worked very well.
However, sometimes as we recall from the
2000 election, the Electoral College can result in a candidate that wins the
popular vote can still not become president.
Likewise, in the election of 1992, Bill Clinton received a majority of
electoral votes and was the duly elected president, despite the fact that he
received only 43 percent of the popular votes. Although the introduction of a
third party candidate, Ross Perot was the main reason for this, Bill Clinton
did not win a majority of the popular vote in either of his elections in either
1992 or 1996, yet he was named as President because he won an Electoral College
majority in both elections.
I
think democrats need to think twice before they take us down a slippery slope
to re-write, changes or alter the constitution. In particular, if we pick and
choose only the parts of the constitution they do not like. Although they
continue to scream Russia stole/hacked and interfered in our electoral process
without evidence other than Ads on twitter and Facebook, and equally contend
that people are so dumb and stupid that memes made us vote the way we did, or
that Pro-Beyoncé and Anti-Beyoncé were targeted to split the Black vote, they
never ever consider that Hillary Clinton was just the perfect image of
unlikableness (i made this word up) ever to run for the highest office in the land.
We
must accept the constitution as it is. Why? Because James Madison and Hamilton
really didn’t want The United States to be a democracy, but rather a
constitutional republic. They both wrote
extensively about this with Madison being mainly concerned with tribes, mobs or
‘Factions’ (pro-life, pro-choice, pro illegal immigration, anti-illegal immigration,
free trade, anti-trade, isolationist, globalist etcetera) that could hurt the nation
by violating the rights of and having more power than other citizens based on
where they lived. Specifically, he stated that such groups could possibly: “sacrificeto its ruling passion or interest both the public good and the rights of othercitizens.”
This
is why we need the Electoral College and why it should never be obviated from
our national political process. To
suggest the opposite is infantile and demonstrates a lack of understanding of
the Constitution of the United States and reading of the Federalist Papers (expressly
Federalist #10). Moreover, to change to the results of the popular vote to select our President would be true voter suppression.
Tuesday, February 26, 2019
The height of arrogance
is thinking that the world revolves around you. This has been a truth since
Alexander Pope penned his Essay on Man - in particular with respect to western
European thought - thoughts that resulted in the political philosophies of Imperialism,
colonialism and neocolonialism. This purview of the world is alive and well in
the progressive liberal enclaves of the United States especially among the
uber-rich as confirmed in the recent statement made by Bill Maher suggesting
that we in Red state America “want to be” like he and his ilk.
Nothing is farther from
the truth. Clearly assuming that others want to be like you without even asking
said people if such was their desire is not only a sign of being out of touch
with reality but additionally an indicator of extreme pomposity. If he would
take the time to come to places like my small town of 2900 in Georgia, he would
see the cost of living is much better, that our communities are safer and way
cleaner than any west coast or east coast urban bastion. Clearly the self-serving
and self-centered egotistical Bill Mayer believes that the rest of the world in
“fly-over country” want to have and be like the other elite coterie of coastal
numskulls who think they know it all.
Unlike Mr. Maher, we
admit we do not know it all, but have the ability to reason and think for
ourselves. We do not need liberals from
big cities, which have been run in the ground by ill-fated democratic policies,
dictation how we should think, what to think and/or believe. No we do not want
to be Like San Francisco where human waste and needles are frequent and
regularly seen on the streets, we do not want to be Baltimore where they are willing to spend $200,000 to remove each confederate statue but they cannot afford to heat their schools and where one-third of High Schools in Baltimore,
last year, had zero students proficient in math and nine out of ten black boys in Baltimore City are not reading at grade level. We do not want to be Portland
or Los Angeles where homeless is growing out of control. We do not desire to be
like California at all. Why would one want to copy a state that has 25 percent of the entire nation’s homeless population?
We do not need to waste
money to buy a good meal and a strong drink, we do not need craft beer albeit
they are readily available, and surely do not need to throw-away money at a
"Michelin-starred" restaurant to provide artificial and cosmetic
self-value. We are just fine with not wanting to be like or hang with folk that
smile and obtain pleasure from looking down on others. We are just fine with
restrooms for men and women. We are just fine with not having boys who call themselves girls, against all the evidence of Genetics, Anatomy, Physiology and
basic Biology, wrestle, race and box against women (breaking their skulls). We are fine with men not wearing dresses,
going to the gun show regularly and pick-up trucks. One would have to be serious dumb fck to even
think let alone state for all to here that the only jobs we have are
"guarding prisoners or murdering chickens." Fool so out of touch he
doesn’t know that you can’t murder a chicken (chickens are not human). Yes Mr. Maher. We are just fine. Maher
and his kind consider themselves paragons, as being the perfect example of
quality. The fact of the matter is that they are sore losers, shallow,
materialistic and in 2020, they will be as they did in 2016, asking themselves
how and why the democrats lost in 2020.
Thursday, November 8, 2018
Tuesday, October 23, 2018
Tuesday, October 9, 2018
Saturday, September 22, 2018
Thursday, September 20, 2018
Friday, September 7, 2018
Saturday, July 14, 2018
Saturday, June 30, 2018
Thursday, June 28, 2018
Monday, June 18, 2018
Thursday, May 31, 2018
Tuesday, May 29, 2018
Sunday, May 27, 2018
Monday, April 16, 2018
Monday, April 9, 2018
Saturday, March 31, 2018
After observing the events of the prior few weeks, I have come to two embarrassingly somber conclusions: 1) many
Americans are not knowledgeable of civics as it regards the type of government
we function under and 2) people are proud to display such a lack of knowledge
for all to see. America is a
constitutional republic. It is not a
democracy. Democracy is a synonym for
mob rule and our founding fathers were very much aware of this principle. So
much so that they defined a set of rules for the government to function within
(the Constitution) and a treaty between the United States Federal Government
and its citizenry called the Bill of Rights.
For as long as I have been alive, I have
never seen a march specifically designed to take away a civil right. I have seen marches pro or for civil rights
but never a march for example, to take away the vote, or to take away free
speech or any other basic right as outlined in the Bill of Rights. But the recent manipulated and inorganic march against guns (which it should be called) is a first. Although they are
too cowardly to state such openly, it is really a march to obviate the second
amendment, since each argument and position taken expresses a semantic desire
for some policy action to ‘infringe’ upon the Second amendment – an inalienable
right as stated in the Bill of Rights.
Let me attempt to explain.
The general tenor is the suggestion that
the second amendment is outdated, and for some 97-year-old liberal, “a relic of the 18th century.” I find this both simplistic and indication of a few
lipofuscin granules on someone’s prefrontal cortex. The fact is defending
against any tyranny by the government or foreign actor is a constant in the world we live in and
to remove the possibility of such never occurring in the USA when we know men
are both in good and evil form, would be dumb. Just as idiotic as the assertion
that the second amendment is about hunting (which it is not) or that it was
speaking about muskets (which it was not since muskets were the assault rifle
of the day).
Appears that this self-absorbed and
mindless horde of gun grabbers is too thoughtless to comprehend this let alone
understand the history behind the genuine fear of government tyranny. Let me
try and break it down. The colonies once
were run by the crown in England and as such, the original states were headed
by appointed governors by the crown. In
Massachusetts, one of those persons was General Thomas Gage. He operated under
several laws established by the British Parliament to exercise control of the
colonies one of which was called the Townshend Acts. These four acts enabled
the British to extract revenue in the form of taxes and tariffs and more
importunately, gave them the power to suspend any form of representative
assembly the colonist formed. They carried out enforcement of these functions
via the British military by Writs of Assistance. These were documents that
allowed for the redcoats to enter, search and seize anything from a private
citizen they considered contraband. These were non-specific meaning that they
did not require details for the search or where the search would be implemented
(reason for the 4th amendment).
As one would reckon, the colonist did not like
these actions and rebelled leading to the Boston Tea Party. After the Boston
Tea Party in 1773, the British Crown and Parliament were mad as fuck at the
colonies. To show this anger, they
passed the Coercive Acts in 1774 which many colonist found upsetting because it
restricted town meetings (once a year) making them illegal, closed the Boston
Port, made British official immune to prosecution and mandated that colonist by
law would have to quarter British troops. Next the British put in place an import
ban on firearms and gunpowder which was followed by actual house to house gun and gunpowder confiscation by British troops.
On one occasion, General Gage dispatched a
garrison of troops to break up a meeting of citizens in Salem. There they were
met by a few thousand-armed Americans young, old, male and female, for all
Americans were armed and had plenty of powder to match. Given that there were
only a couple thousand British troops in the colonies while Gage was governor,
he realized it would be hard to enforce any of the laws aimed and controlling
America, since there were many thousands of armed Americans in Massachusetts
alone.
He went back to using Writs of Assistance
to seize weapons and gun powder. They
could enforce these actions with the gun but failed to comprehend that the
colonist considered the confiscation of their weapons through violence as an
act of war. As history records, of all the things the British did, the most
offensive to the colonist was seizing their guns and powder. This reached a
fever on April 19, 1775, when British soldiers under the direction of Major ohn Pitcairn went to Lexington and Concord to seize the guns of the citizenry,
starting the American War for Independence.
Therefore, after the Revolutionary War,
the first three amendments of the Bill of rights dealt with speech, assembly,
protest (1st), no infringements on gun ownership (2nd) and the quartering of
troops in private homes (3rd). All of which are granted by God and not the
government. Ergo, when the second amendment was written and ratified, its
intent was that the civilian population would insofar as much as possible, have
the same weapons as the military. Thus, it intentionally reads: “A
well-regulated Militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the
right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed.” It asserts
via the employment of the comma’s, that the Second Amendment was to preserve
and guarantee, NOT grant, the pre-existing God given right of individuals to
keep and bear arms.
True, the 2nd amendment emphasizes the
need for a militia, being a member of any militia (well-regulated or not), was
written in such a way to say being in a militia was not a precondition or
requirement for citizens to exercise the right to keep arms. This is clarified
in Federalist Number 46. James Madison wrote: “Besides the advantage of being
armed, which the Americans possess over the people of almost every other
nation, the existence of subordinate governments, to which the people are
attached, forms a barrier against the enterprises of ambition, more
insurmountable than any which a simple government of any form can admit of.
Notwithstanding the military establishments in the several kingdoms of Europe,
which are carried as far as the public resources will bear, the governments are
afraid to trust the people with arms. And it is not certain, that with this aid
alone they would not be able to shake off their yokes. But were the people to
possess the additional advantages of local governments chosen by themselves,
who could collect the national will and direct the national force, and of
officers appointed out of the militia, by these governments, and attached both
to them and to the militia, it may be affirmed with the greatest assurance,
that the throne of every tyranny in Europe would be speedily overturned despite
the legions which surround it.” Thus, individual Americans have a God given
legal right of self-defense against the state and/or any foreign invader via
the 2nd Amendment.
Alexander Hamilton too noted this in
Federalist 29 when he wrote: “That there may happen cases in which the national
government may be necessitated to resort to force cannot be denied. Our own
experience has corroborated the lessons taught by the examples of other
nations; … If the representatives of the people betray their constituents,
there is then no recourse left but in the exertion of that original right of
self-defense which is paramount to all positive forms of government, and which
against the usurpations of the national rulers may be exerted with infinitely
better prospect of success than against those of the rulers of an individual
State. In a single State, if the persons entrusted with supreme power become
usurpers, the different parcels, subdivisions, or districts of which it
consists, having no distinct government in each, can take no regular measures
for defense. The citizens must rush tumultuously to arms, without concert,
without system, without resource; except in their courage and despair” He later
adds: “As civil rulers, not having their duty to the people duly before them,
may attempt to tyrannize, and as the military forces which must be occasionally
raised to defend our country, might pervert their power to the injury of their
fellow-citizens, the people are confirmed by the next article in their right to
keep and bear their PRIVATE arms.”
Simply put, the Second Amendment is the
fail safe for the citizenry against authoritarianism and political mob-rule
tyranny. Now I know the first argument will be this can’t happen today and that
only the police/military should have these “weapons of war.” Maybe, or maybe not is my response. I grew up in the 1960s and in my life time I
have seen tyranny mostly abroad. What if the Vietnamese had not been armed?
They surely fought against tyranny albeit from abroad. On the other hand it can be from the inside,
as was the case with the Cambodian genocide carried out by the Khmer Rouge against people who were perceived to be in opposition of the regime. After Pol Pot banned guns, he followed it with the murder of between 1.5 to 3 million
people.
Guns were the reason slavery could be
carried out flawlessly, they enabled the ability for Leopold of Belgium to inflict genocide on more than 10 million Africans. Then there was Sharpsville in South Africa and the attacks on the Black Panther Party in Chicago and Los Angles in 1969. History shows us that the only African nation that was not colonized by
a European power was Ethiopia, which ironically was the only African nation to have guns to fight of the effort to do so by Italy (under Mussolini). The same
is true as I write this, in South Africa, the government under the leadership
of its new President Cyril Ramaphosa voted to confiscate white-owned land without compensation.
Still albeit historical accurate, I would
be vilified if I confronted either David Hogg or Emma Gonzales with this
information, which I find strange, for if I were in a classroom I would
not. These are rude children whom think
they know everything about everything. I know because I am a parent with 25
years in the game and a teacher of college students with the same amount of
years in the game. I question and
confront students daily because they typically repeat what they hear and do not
read or engage in critical thinking. This is not by mistake, it is neurological
and reinforced by contingencies of reinforcement (habit). Why can’t we ask
Hogg, or question his views and correct him when his facts are inaccurate? I do
it every day in class. Why can’t we ask Emma Gonzales why she wears a flag of
Cuba, a communist nation, from which her family had to flee because upon take
power Castro seized all arms and killed more than 100,000 Cuban citizens? Isn’t
this fair game? Why not ask them why they resort to bullying and name calling
when people have differing yet valid views than theirs? Why not push back when
they call all against their wishes simple want to “murder children”? Is what
you push collective punishment? Do you think all gun owners should be held up
to the shooter of your high school as a standard? Are you comfortable asking to
privacy rights should be reduced and that second amendments rights should be
infringed because that is what you want but don’t want your right of wearing
the book bag you want infringed? Is that fair? Do you know what an assault rifle is or when and AR-15 semi-automatic ever been used on the battle field?
I will tell you why, because it is
anatomical. In the adolescent 14-24, the
prefrontal cortex is still developing. Consequently, he rational part of a
teen's brain (the prefrontal cortex) isn't fully developed and won't be until
approaching age 30. Thus, as opposed of critical thinking, the Limbic system, the amygdala is the part of the brain they rely on to make decisions where as
adults think with the prefrontal cortex. The amygdala is associated with
emotions, impulses and aggression behavior. This is clearly on display. For example, they call it a March for Our
Lives (which is eerily like the annual Pro-Life “March For Life) yet they
do not consider unborn babies lives and are funded by Planned Parenthood (more than 900 black babies are aborted per day- nearly half are repeat abortions) among
others while at the same time calls the National Rifle Association “child
killers.” They want black people to side with them in the consideration that
police and the military should be the only ones to have (long) guns while they
gun us down relentlessly in the streets everyday (sure we kill each other daily
also but this isn’t the point). The oke seems to write itself - rich white kids and liberal elites have tricked Black Lives Matter to embrace All Lives Mattter and the Police State (only cops should have guns). They want the age of voting to be dropped to 16
yet want the age of gun ownership increased to 21 (another inconsistency).
Last, they are bad at math and citing statistics. If they were truly concerned about saving the lives of kids, Assault rifles would be at the bottom of the list. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration 2016 data shows 37,461 people were killed in 34,436 motor vehicle crashes, an average of 102 per day. According to researchers at John Hopkins and the CDC, there are 250,000 deaths per year due to medical error in the U.S., an average of 685 per day. Based on data from the National Vital Statistics System, Mortality, in 2016, there were more than 63,600 drug overdose deaths in the U.S., an average of 173 per day (a sizable number are between 15-20). Data collected by the National Center for Statistics and Analysis reveals that nearly 6,000 teen drivers ages 15-20 died from motor vehicle injuries because of distracted (cell phone use) driving, an average of 16 per day. According to the FBI, 1,604 people are killed by “knives and cutting instruments” annually, an average of 4.4 per day - 374 were killed by “rifles” in 2016, an average of 1.02 per day. But go ahead, you let your teenage child run your household and formulate fender government policy – not me.
Last, they are bad at math and citing statistics. If they were truly concerned about saving the lives of kids, Assault rifles would be at the bottom of the list. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration 2016 data shows 37,461 people were killed in 34,436 motor vehicle crashes, an average of 102 per day. According to researchers at John Hopkins and the CDC, there are 250,000 deaths per year due to medical error in the U.S., an average of 685 per day. Based on data from the National Vital Statistics System, Mortality, in 2016, there were more than 63,600 drug overdose deaths in the U.S., an average of 173 per day (a sizable number are between 15-20). Data collected by the National Center for Statistics and Analysis reveals that nearly 6,000 teen drivers ages 15-20 died from motor vehicle injuries because of distracted (cell phone use) driving, an average of 16 per day. According to the FBI, 1,604 people are killed by “knives and cutting instruments” annually, an average of 4.4 per day - 374 were killed by “rifles” in 2016, an average of 1.02 per day. But go ahead, you let your teenage child run your household and formulate fender government policy – not me.
I could continue but we all know that any
military using AR-15 in battle against fully automatic MPT-76, FN SCAR-H or AK-47 (all fully automatic meaning pull thee trigger once it keeps firing) would be
wiped out. What these kids are doing is using anger against law abiding gun
owners, for they want all guns outlawed.
They want what Hitler did when he passed major gun control and seizure legislation. They are not progressives, they are totalitarians. They are more
like the young generation in Communist China under Mao, who killed the older
generation, assisted in his gun confiscation and the deaths of more than 100 million who did
not agree with the politics of communism. They are a loud brood, but just
because they are the loudest, doesn’t mean they are the largest and they or
their handlers are too cowardly to go door to door with a gun to take any gun
from a law-abiding US citizen.
Thursday, March 22, 2018
Wednesday, March 14, 2018
Saturday, March 3, 2018
Tuesday, January 23, 2018
Friday, January 12, 2018
Wednesday, January 10, 2018
Monday, November 20, 2017
Friday, November 17, 2017
Thursday, November 9, 2017
Saturday, November 4, 2017
Wednesday, November 1, 2017
As I frequently say, I am not the sharpest knife in the
drawer. In fact I reckon I take prided
in how little I actually know. But every
now and then I am able to string together a couple a few thoughts and sentences
in such a manner to express what I honestly and truly believe and this is one
of those rare times. When it comes to economics, I am no economist but when I
read what is proposed and written by many of the “so-called’ experts in this
field regarding the present economic standing of the United States, in particular
Paul Krugman and Larry Summers, I always think of what Milton Friedman once
said: “If you put the federal government in charge of the Sahara Desert, in 5
years there'd be a shortage of sand.”
I would not be surprised if a lot of cats consider Paul Krugman
and Larry Sumner’s as overly smart and learned men. I would agree and note
there are several reason for this, inclusive of their Ivy league educations and
their incessant habit of speaking in technical terms employed to make them seem
smarter than they are and/or to confuse the listener when they are proven wrong
and/or are just guessing about what they think versus what they actually know.
I suggest this because both believe economic theory is ALWAYS right which
herein my problem with them is. Let us start with Krugman, who clearly has no clue or understanding of middle and lower class Americans.
If you have ever heard Paul Krugman talk or read anything he has
penned to paper, one halcyon observation that can be made is that in his
astigmatic perspective, he is always right and never wrong. No matter the
topic, especially when the subject is rooted in macroeconomics, if you disagree
or refute his propositions, you are often accused of having bad data,
reconstructing history or just being plane ole illogical. This unceasing
proclivity of Krugman’s to be correct in theory but incorrect based on real
world standards would be amusing if it were not so dangerous. For example
Krugman frequently invents or pretends to have been the economist who predicted the housing bubble. What he forgets to add is that in 2002 he wrote that the
Federal Reserve and Alan Greenspan needed to “create a housing bubble to replace the NASDAQ bubble” in order to combat the recession at the time. When
this was pointed out, you guessed it, he explained away the unexplainawayable.
He also has a habit of taking credit for stuff that has nothing
to do with him or his words like the fact that the U.S. has yet to experience
any real increase in price inflation. This although he had stated and predicted that from 2010 on, the U.S. would experience an extended period of unending
“process of disinflation.” One could go on and on: the zillion times he has
said the Euro would collapse or how negative interest would never ever happen.
Regarding the Euro, he even went as far as to put in writing that many of the
peripheral countries of Europe would be unable to remain in the Eurozone, even
predicting that Greece would be out along with Spain and Italy four years ago.
I won’t just focus on Krugman, for every slap-stick comedy duo has
a sidekick and partner and there is no better person I can slot for this role
(casting couch aside) than the one and only Larry Summers. Summers, former
Treasury Secretary during the Clinton administration and former Director of the
National Economic Council for President Obama has blessed the world with the
already disjointed and discredited concept of "secular stagnation."
Now to provide a little background, when Barack Obama was elected in 2008, he
mounted Summers as head of the National Economic Council. This even after he
made remarks suggesting that women were biologically and genetically inferiorto men and more so, had not done such a great job while in the Clinton
administration with respect to the dotcom bubble and his advocacy for the
Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000. The CFMA gave us financial
derivatives, credit-default swaps and other complex papers which were basically
unregulated and brought about the 2008 financial collapse. Although prior to
this he regarded these new changes regarding securitization on Wall Street as
being positive.
But I digress, back to secular stagnation. Summers believes that
the U.S. economy is engaged in a new long-time trend or new normal that he has
termed "secular stagnation." In simple terms, he suggests that
without the existence of bubbles in any part of the U.S. economy, it is
mathematically impossible for the economy to generate enough spending to get to
full employment. For him, this is because since interest rates can't go below
zero (Krugmanesque) and because the "natural interest rate “has been
permanently lowered into negative territory such that real rates can't go low
enough to keep the economy out of a protracted slump.
This all sounds good on paper but there are more than a few
things wrong with this vision of Summers. The foremost is how one calculates
real rates. How do we measure real interest rates or are we measuring real
interest rates? When cats like Summers say that inflation-adjusted rates have
been falling, most are just subtracting expected inflation from the nominal
interest rate. The concern is that the way I see it, real interest rate is
entirely different from the natural interest rate, which mean a more tenable
explanation other than secular stagnation and the new normal of sub two percentgrowth, could be due to an unusual prolonged business cycle.
My question is how can cats like Krugman and Summers keep
getting away with being so wrong so frequently yet venerated as economic Gods
by the elite east and west coast press outlets and even many of our current
politicians? Until we figure this out, it will be nearly impossible to have
intelligent reasoned and fact based discussions or even arguments with such
individuals on the topic of economics. I understand completely what Robert Skidelsky meant when he wrote: “Today’s professional economists, by contrast,
have studied almost nothing but economics. They don’t even read the classics of
their own discipline. Economic history comes, if at all, from data sets.
Philosophy, which could teach them about the limits of the economic method, is
a closed book. Mathematics, demanding and seductive, has monopolized their
mental horizons. The economists are the idiots savants of our time.”
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