Scragged Articles

Emotionless

Thu, 14 Nov 2024 11:22:00 GMT

I'm worn out.

The first half of the year was not easy. Due to the hospital administering a bit too much fentanyl, a medical test went very wrong. Regardless, I was conscious throughout it, even when my chest clinched tight and I could no longer breathe. It felt like a giant snake was wrapped around me, squeezing with unspeakable might. The internal chest pain was not something that I had ever experienced before. A nurse was reading a computer screen and screaming out numbers which I could no longer hear clearly, a technician turned his back to me doing something and I could not signal him.

For a period that was likely between twelve and twenty-five seconds, I could not breathe or speak. At a moment when I was objectively sure my heart was ceasing to function, the adverse reaction inexplicably ended.

Breathing again, my heart resumed beating, and at the first measurement, I had a blood pressure of 70/52. The nurse and the technician were rapidly saying something, but my ears just didn't work enough for me to understand them. Wary about what had just happened, I stood up and walked back to the internal waiting room. None of us thought about the little, ECG stickies on my chest. Later that night, I stood in front of a mirror and photographed them.

Despite the downsides it was strangely liberating. I had learned some of the sensations and thoughts which we eventually experience. Most of all, I was proud of myself for not flinching, not showing fear, not breaking down. However, as I left, I did glance back at where I had been to make sure the nurse and the tech weren't doing CPR on me, because I had promised myself a "meat lovers" pizza after the test.

Still, I was pretty sure that there wouldn't be a second half of the year. Thus, I began reading about politics as though it were a sport, figuring that I wouldn't live long enough to feel the consequences.

Two months later, my romantic vision of the medical world was finally shattered when I learned that the shiny chrome paddles, wielded by the heroic doctor in the climatic scene of every stupid medical show, don't exist. They use cheesy, one-time-use sticky patches, just like the patches in the AED boxes.

A third procedure went well. My treating medical professionals brought their "A-game" to that one. I knew if they kept trying they could get it right!

During this time, I only told three family members and a friend. The friend promised to clean up loose ends if I had a bad day, and I had to tell the three family members in case I didn't show up to future holiday dinners.

Meanwhile, I continued to work and took off minimal time, lest anyone else figure it out.

For me, the political twists and turns were a welcome diversion. They reminded me that some things are more important than ourselves. America as a Constitutional Republic far exceeds any miserable little value which I will ever have.

Spring turned to summer, and the pessimism of 3 1/2 years was eased by Biden's debate performance. Seventy million Democrats and Independents got to see what we tried to tell them.

Then, despite my new, colder outlook on life, on a Saturday evening in July, the events that unfolded in a wonderful town in Pennsylvania made me gasp, then leap to my feet and yell with pride, as Trump, miraculously saved from an assassin's bullet, defiantly thrust his fist into the air. The Deep State had failed to assassinate Trump.

Barely thirty seconds after a bullet tore through his ear, Trump's courage and leadership, backdropped by a giant American flag, cemented his larger-than-life image. Trump was now a folk hero, a real-life Flash Gordon fighting an evil Deep State, despite seemingly insurmountable odds.

I suppose that I felt a connection because we were both still above dirt.

Considering that I had not yet cooled to room temperature, and still had bills to pay, I jumped back into my work. My clients are very polite when I speak with them, but beginning in September, I noticed that most will not return a text or call. Even when we are discussing an ongoing case, they are quiet, almost withdrawn. Living in a big Blue city, more of my clients are Democrats than Republicans. Be they Democrats or Republicans, they share so many honorable and noble character traits. This malaise, this pessimism, this depression, has infected Democrats and Republicans alike.

The same phenomenon has been occurring among some of my friends. It has been occurring more among males, though a few females share the traits. One-by-one, they have become self-isolating. A few have quit their jobs. We are not talking about street people or people with addictions, these are clients and neighbors and friends, including one friend of thirty-six years. These people have excelled in their lives.

Seeking to understand why increasing numbers of successful people, who have been consistently responsible, are replicating autistic behavior, I have listened to their phrases in common. All of them feel hated, vilified by the Woke and Leftist bureaucrats. In casual conversations, they often thrust their face into their hands and blurt out a sentence about something that angers them. Commonly expressed angers include a DEI-focused workplace, where merit is no longer considered. "I was one of three fire captains. I had 28 years experience. She had 12 years of experience and they made her fire chief!" Other angers were driven by the tax burden; a woman realtor lost her composure while saying, "Why should I have to pay more taxes?!" A friend who works for a telecommunications company recently went into his office location and found that one out of every three employees had been fired. "The guy in my work group they let go was smarter than me. I'm worried I'll be next."

The pattern is that these people feel unappreciated, and rightly so. Curiously, nearly all of these people have commented on TV commercials. "The man is always made to look stupid. A real clown."

"I hate my job! The company higher ups don't appreciate me. I've been traveling through Europe for a month. I get two days at home and then I have to go to China." After careful interaction, I have concluded that the "withdrawal" is their fear and anxiety over the future.

Some of my neighbors are still nice, while others became irritable in October. One weekend, on separate occasions, two of my liberal white women neighbors replied to my sidewalk greeting with, "Don't bother! followed other stuff. A week before the election, I called one of my friends who lives several houses away, to ask him to join me for lunch, which we usually do every three or four weeks. He didn't answer, so I left a voicemail. Later, he sent me a snarky text that he was busy doing everything he could to get Kamala Harris elected. I dropped it and we haven't spoken since. Frankly, in October around my neighborhood, I saw more "rear ends" than does a proctologist.

As the election approached, as a political critter, I stayed wound up, sleeping less than 5 hours most nights of the week. A poll would come out, only to be contradicted by the next poll.

Due to the unpredictable nature of my work, I have embraced early voting, assuring that I won't miss an election. This time, while waiting in the eternal line, a liberal white woman began threatening to spit on a woman campaign worker offering a "conservative voting guide." There were other obnoxious exchanges during the two and a half hour wait.

Inspiringly, two candidates were present, both hoping to reach a few more voters. One is a Democrat and the other a Republican. Both of these gentlemen were steadfastly polite and respectful.

This morning I was pondering the fact that four decades ago, some people thought I was paranoid about the course of the country. Now they think I'm naive. Somewhere along the way, I would have been considered level-headed. Too bad I missed those brief few seconds.

Also, I have concluded that many of "The Withdrawn" will never warm up and re-enter society on their own; their wounds are too deep. It will take true leaders to earn their trust. We need these people because they make America a better place. Ignore them, write them off, and American society will further decay toward a Mad Max world. Don't believe me? Chicago. Detroit. New York City. Portland. Los Angeles. Oakland. The Withdrawn are many of the people who are leaving these cities. They are taking their skill sets and tax payments to Red States. Prove me wrong.

You can see this phenomenon with your own eyes. Drive on I-95 and look at the moving vans, and the rental trucks and trailers, all headed to Red states. They are not on vacation, they are moving, never to move back.

The fear of a Kamala Harris regime, with its further declining economy and crushing oppression were "stopping the breathing" of the Withdrawn. These people are not stupid, and they are tired of being vilified by the Democrats and ignored by the Establishment Republicans.

Like a clever stage magician using sleight of hand, pollsters misdirected the public, on both sides, into expecting a Kamala win. Perhaps they did it to promote Kamala, or did they expect an influx of fraudulent ballots?

The Deep State, that hidden unelected "machine" who has been secretly running our government since WWII. While Biden slept on the beach and Kamala was on the campaign trail, or bellied up to a bar, the Deep State was churning away censoring what we could read and say, banning certain foods, vitamins, supplements, medications, guns, and gas stoves, controlling our lives, running wars for fun and profit, importing every Third World cat-eating criminal, and generally being tyrannical in their treatment of American citizens.

The Deep State is not incompetent. In fact, they have over 4 million trained intelligence operatives and spies, 200,000 Federal law enforcement officers, and unprecedented technology. Regularly, they overthrow elected leaders and install new, "more favorable" leaders in their place. Need a 100,000 protesters against Netanyahu in Israel? No problem. Want a puppet President of Ukraine? The Deep State can do it. The Deep State will even throw in a legend to make him look unshakable. The Deep State have been the unmatched masters of manipulating elections. Even Joe Biden said, "We have put together, I think, the most extensive and inclusive voter fraud organization in the history of American politics."

Over the years, the Deep State has transformed from an urban legend, a conspiracy theory, into an acknowledged ruling entity. Two weeks before the election, I asked a Kamala voter if it bothered her that the unelected Deep State is running America and that Biden and Kamala are both puppets? "No," she responded, "I think the Deep State does a really good job."

On November 6th, the morning after Election Day, four of the Withdrawn shocked me with their texts and spoken words. The four, three Trump supporters and one Kamala supporter, said that they had feared a civil war, but now felt greatly relieved. Similar sentiments began to be posted on social media. I have concluded that many of the Withdrawn might have become so out of fear.

Kamala's supporters were confident at every level. Beginning in August, Kamala's supporters brazenly predicted a sweeping Kamala victory. Lower level Kamala supporters were assured by the now-discredited polls, but her high level supporters knew about the fraud already in motion.

Polling stations with high percentages of likely Trump voters would have "ballot shortages," "gas leaks," or "overworked poll staff." Then, police would tell voters that they had to "leave and come back tomorrow." Even if they voted, poll workers in troubled locations would say, "Put your ballot in this box and someone will put your ballot into the machine later. (Wink, wink, smile)"

Voters who refused to leave a spontaneously-closed polling station were threatened with arrest, and some were actually arrested. Judges took steps to mitigate the voter suppression, but it kept reoccurring.

Mail-in voting was made for fraud. There is often no way to verify who actually voted. It allows vote counting to be extended for nefarious purposes.

The masterpiece of vote fraud is the "3 a.m. ballot dump." The ballot counting is suspended for the night and most of the poll workers are sent home, and poster board is placed over the windows. It's a nice touch to have a water or gas leak conveniently occur.

Suddenly, box loads of ballots mysteriously, yet conveniently, appear from local delivery trucks, vans, suitcases hidden beneath a table. "Oh, lookee, 130,000 mail-in ballots, and they're all for Kamala!" Dispersed to key precincts around America, the fake ballots totaled more than 18 million. Hey, it worked in 2020, so it should work in 2024.

Then, something happened that has never occurred before, something unimaginable. A rag-tag guerrilla "army" of hundreds of thousands of amateurs, from every background, race, religion, and walk of life, came together and defeated the very best of the Deep State. They were united in a belief that we restore our republic and live in peace and prosperity, with respect for each other.

Perhaps you were one of them. Since 2020, you scoured through your state's voter rolls, looking for active voters who were, in fact, dead, illegal aliens, or simply never existed. Maybe, like Scott Presler in Pennsylvania, you went through neighborhoods, finding low propensity voters, whom you educated and lead to participate in the American voting process. One of X/Twitter's more popular posters is a very good friend who contacted other volunteers for chairs and water to be delivered to voters being suppressed in voting lines. Possibly, you were an anonymous person, conducting your own stakeout for the vans and trucks hauling fraudulent ballots. Sitting in her car in a dangerous neighborhood of Philadelphia, one of these unfathomably courageous volunteers, in her old, worn out car, in need of unaffordable maintenance, begged her car to last through the night to follow a truck hauling fraudulent ballots to its "3 a.m. drop." Acting on a tip and a hunch, she found the truck, posting photos of it on social media when she could. Other volunteers, in far away states, relayed her message in time for RNC lawyers to confront election officials at the truck's destination, successfully blocking that insertion of fraudulent ballots. Most telling to me was that these volunteers called each other by the "pronoun," Patriot.

The election outcome was a surprise to nearly everyone, me included. I didn't believe the polls, but 2020 had left me wary, nervous about the expected fraud, jumpy. Many Trump supporters are expressing their concern that some sort of martial law will be imposed by Biden or Harris to overturn the election results. I'm more optimistic, though I do expect obnoxious protests and endless lawsuits.

The election concluded in a resounding Trump victory. Nonetheless, America will suffer lasting damage. A bitter divide will remain, and as long as neighbors, friends, even family, turn on each other over personal beliefs, this national wound will not heal. Still, we shouldn't let up in our determination to make America great again.

Begging people to like you never works, and it's up to those who shunned us to extend a gesture of friendship. If the people who hate us, change their minds and want to join us in building a better America, that would be wonderful. If they don't, then we can get along without them. This year prepared me well.

Whither Scragged?

Thu, 06 Jun 2024 10:02:00 GMT

Time marches faster as you get older, it's all too easy to suddenly realize how much time has passed - and your humble correspondent is ashamed to admit just how very long indeed it has been since any new articles appeared in the virtual pages of Scragged. At one point we had at least one full-length article per day, sometimes more; over the years our publishing schedule slipped to a few times a week, then weekly, then every week or two, and then, as now, vanished entirely.

Our loyal followers deserve an explanation, and an answer to the occasional emails we've received - indeed, to be honest, we think even our submittal form isn't working as reliably as it once did, so feel free to write us at editors@scragged.com .

Are the authors of Scragged deceased, unwell, retired, imprisoned, or subject to some political epiphany resulting in an abrupt change of sides? No, none of those; we have, unlike America, not been "fundamentally transformed," and are as yet healthy and free.

What has changed, though, is the environment in which Scragged was intended to operate.

The Truth Is Out There - But Where Exactly?

We've used a slogan to encapsulate our approach to political punditry: "They Report - We Decide." What this meant was, the writers of Scragged are not "reporters" or journalists in the traditional sense, who investigate happenings, write their own observations, and serve as direct witness to whatever's going on.

Quite the contrary: our beat has always been the intertubes, reading and digesting the works of others. From consuming the widest possible variety of inputs, filtered through our accumulated knowledge and study of history, we let you know what's really going on in the world.

These type of meta-analysis seems straightforward and commonsensical, but it has a serious weakness: it is entirely dependent on our inputs - that is, the other articles we read out there on the Web - having some discernible relationship to reality.

Does that mean we believe everything we read? Of course not. However, through the first two decades of the 21st century it was still generally possible to apply an adjustment factor - an intellectual shim, if you will - to make up for well-known biases of various sources.

For instance, The Economist was long one of our favorite reads because of its dedication to detailed global analysis and interest in the non-obvious. Once upon a time, this high-minded periodical devoutly believed in capitalism and economic freedom, so its articles from that perspective could be generally trusted. As a European publication, its views on social matters were less congenial, but even there, they attempted to honestly understand conservative points of view and evaluate them on their own basis, as well as accepting and presenting facts that ran contrary to their own existing biases.

In a way, we even modeled much of Scragged's editorial voice after that of The Economist - yes, we most definitely have a point of view, but we demand of ourselves to be able to present facts in support of it, and to entertain other perspectives at least up to a point so long as they argued from a factual basis.

Other respected news media which we quoted occupied various other points on the political spectrum - The New York Times, The Washington Post, National Review, Forbes, Fortune, The Wall Street Journal, and far too many others to name. None could be trusted entirely, but facts stated in them were highly likely to be accurate as far as they went, and their known bias was sufficiently clear to be adjusted for.

Alas, those days ended some years back - we can't say when exactly, but the blatant nonsense surrounding Covid-19 made it unavoidably clear that traditional fact-oriented journalism had died.

Yes, there was much unknown when the Wuhan flu first presented itself to the world, but within an astonishingly short time, we could see that there was an established narrative that was directly counterfactual, demonstrably untrue in comparison with facts easily available to us with the merest trifle of research.

The mainstream media wasn't merely spinning the news, controlling the narrative by what they did and did not deem worthy of discussion, as they've done for decades. They weren't even expressing their bias clearly with personal attacks, as on President Trump, while still presenting the underlying facts in a somewhat truthful fashion. With the coming of Covid, the media developed the toxic habit of bold-faced, brazenly lying, trumpeting untruths that even a child could discern.

Declaring as fact that Covid came from animals, "most likely" from a Chinese wet market, and not from a lab mishap? That was defininitionally impossible to know at the time, and even to this day - so the entirety of the media presenting that highly tendentious position as proven fact was an air-raid-siren of alarm. We now that our State Department knew that the virus had probably come from the infamous lab, which means that the media also knew, and actively chose to tell us the exact opposite for years on end.

Lie followed lie in short succession. Ivermectin is a horse dewormer unfit for human consumption, rather than a Nobel-prize-winning human medicine? Masks and six-foot distancing will provide protection from an air-distributed virus? Paying everyone to stay home will save the economy, rather than lay it waste?

Had everyone in journalism gone insane? Is it no longer acceptable to truthfully accept and describe uncertainty? We have no idea if ivermectin cures Covid, or even helps - but we can confidently assert, on the basis of countless millions of patients who've taken it over decades, that it doesn't kill you as the media and corrupt bureaucracy would have had you believe.

Of course, there are many more sources of news than the internationally-known mainstream media; we've long had a range of sources throughout the blogosphere, not merely conservative ones like the Townhall group of sites, but far-left perspectives like Truthout and Reader Supported News, to say nothing of the countless crosslinks and references found by following rabbit-holes in the hope that an actual fact lies at the bottom.

Unfortunately, even with this broad-based approach to information gathering, we seem to have disproved the famous saying by Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D, NY): "Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts."

These days, the facts simply do not matter. What sort of an "insurrection" comes prepared with less than a dozen firearms, and not a single official being shot? How can it be a crime for a President to do whatever he pleases with classified information, including ordering it to be packed up and carted off to his (Secret Service guarded) home for his post-Presidency? Why are commands to effectively end manufacturing of internal combustion vehicles not met with gales of derisory laughter and calls for the men in white coats, when simple math tells us that the necessary mining sources of copper, lithium, and other materials do not and will not exist to electrify everything on anything remotely close to the demanded timescale?

And there's still the unavoidable question of - which facts can we depend upon, and on whose authority? Hardly a day goes by when a longstanding conspiracy isn't revealed to have been something perilously close to the truth all along. In a world where Harvard Public Health is providing support to perhaps the oldest modern conspiracy theory, "Fluoridated water is bad for you!," can we even be sure of anything anymore? Of course, Harvard Public Health also supported the useless masks, so we remain empty-handed in our search for provable, demonstrable truth.

If we had the resources of a Joseph Pulizer or William Randolph Hearst, we could send out actual old-school investigative gumshoe journalists to gather and bring home the facts. If we controlled a Congressional committee with subpoena power and a willingness to directly order the House Sergeant-at-Arms to imprison those who defy those subpoenas or commit perjury, we might also drag some truths kicking and screaming out into the light.

Or maybe not: Dr. Fauci has now admitted the truth, under the glare of the lights, that most of what he said during the Covid era was basically made up. Does it matter? Will anything change, or any price be paid for the destruction he wrought? Most likely not.

In our view, anyone speaking from a position of authority has a moral responsibility to not only tell the truth to the best of their ability, but to refrain from making apparently authoritative statements without a good basis for doing so. That doesn't mean that you can't make mistakes - we all do - but it is precisely because of this discipline that recognized authorities earn and maintain credibility.

It's no accident that, as poll after poll have found, all established American institutions have lost basically all credibility. The American people know they're being lied to, gaslit, manipulated, defrauded, cheated, and hoodwinked in every way imaginable and doubtless many that aren't.

To the extend that Scragged possesses authority and credibility, we show our respect to our audience by telling them the truth as we see it based on the accumulated evidence gathered by our research. The problem is, at the moment we have no confidence that we're seeing any truth at all... so what is there to say beyond "May God have mercy on us"?

The Historical Long View

Well, while we may not have much to confidently say at the moment, there are those far wiser than we who do.

Americans can always be counted on to do the right thing.after they have exhausted all other possibilities.

- attributed, perhaps apocryphally, to Sir Winston Churchill

There's something amazing about America's democracy, it's got a gyroscope and just when you think it's going to go off the cliff, it rights itself.

- Albert Einstein

There is a special providence for drunkards, fools, and the United States of America.

- Otto von Bismarck

The Americans are a very lucky people. They're bordered to the north and south by weak neighbors, and to the east and west by fish.

- Otto von Bismarck

And let's be honest - there are those far braver and bolder too, within just-barely living memory. Today we celebrate the 80th anniversary of the D-Day invasion, almost certainly the last such major anniversary with active participants still available to testify to their greatness.

We rightly honor the brave men who risked their lives to free Europe from Nazi tyranny. Many of them never came back, or only returned half a man. Few regretted the sacrifice, because all of history was made better because of what they did.

Nobody is asking us to sacrifice our lives, at least not in the physical sense, not yet - though anyone with an eye to see or an ear to hear can perceive that not so very far off, now that we as a nation have decided that political prosecutions are OK.

Yes, we don't believe our polls or our elections are free, fair, or true - but they aren't wholly made up either. It's still theoretically possible to win beyond the margin of cheating, as Trump himself did in 2016.

Yes, there's a powerful Deep State that opposes every sort of conservative reform, but they aren't all-powerful. They've pulled out all their stops to keep Donald Trump away from power, but not only have they not succeeded, they've done so at great cost to their credibility and greatly limited the scope of possible future actions they can get away with.

The end has not yet been decided. The way forward is unclear, and it's still anyone's game. The fall of America will indeed come - everything human dies eventually - but whether that's near or far still remains within the power of the American people to decide.

And when we at Scragged, with our limited, finite human imaginations, come up with a way to contribute that seems like it might be of merit, we will. And we'll let you know.

Why War in Ukraine?

Fri, 17 Nov 2023 11:42:00 GMT

Looking at the current mess in Ukraine, where a large and naturally rich country has basically been destroyed, while at the same time eliminating both the reputation and a half-century's worth of collected hardware of the Russian Red Army, it's hard to imagine just what sort of mindboggling madness and miscalculation got us here.

Not One Inch

NPR hosted a panel discussion which reviewed what the Soviet Union regarded as a promise that NATO would not expand eastward toward the Soviet Union.

Russians say the U.S. and its NATO allies broke a key pledge. They claim the West promised Russia in the 1990s that NATO would move not one inch to the east. Putin recently said, you cheated us shamelessly. The U.S. and NATO say that's nonsense and they've always had an open-door membership policy. ...

The Berlin Wall falls in November 1989 and up comes this question of German reunification. The U.S. thinks that maybe what they could offer the Soviets to get them to allow that is a promise that NATO will not expand eastward. ...

A book about the negotiations over all this called Not One Inch. And she [Mary Sarotte, the author] says this "not one inch" thing comes from this very early conversation in 1990 between then-U.S. Secretary of State James Baker and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. Baker floats this idea of letting Germany reunify in exchange for NATO moving not one inch eastward. Gorbachev's like, OK; I'll think about it. ...

Baker goes back to Washington where President George H.W. Bush is like, absolutely not. And so the Americans drop it. It never shows up on the bargaining table.

So while it is true that "not one inch" was mentioned at a high level, it never appeared in any of the final agreements - and as we all know, a verbal contract isn't worth the paper it's written on, particularly when, in international affairs, even written agreements often aren't.

NATO Expands

President Clinton was elected in 1992, soon after President Mikhail Gorbachev dissolved the Soviet Union in 1991. Mr. Clinton started offering the new Eastern European nations, which had been part of the Russian empire, membership in NATO.

We at Scragged can't help but see how this could be interpreted as a provocation which Russia couldn't ignore forever, because every expansion put NATO forces that much closer to the Russian heartland. As a land power with no natural boundaries, they've suffered invasion from the East and from the West for generations; a degree of paranoia is completely understandable.

Indeed, we are not alone in this worried suspicion; Politico reported that when Russia invaded the Ukraine, Mr. Clinton was quick to assure everyone that his expanding NATO had nothing to do with the invasion:

Clinton said Putin "made no secret of the fact that he thought the dissolution of the Soviet Union was a great tragedy."

The former president said the U.S. and NATO never meant to threaten Russia and that the nations of Eastern Europe had a right to live in security after decades of being dominated by Russia. ...

During Clinton's presidency, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland joined NATO, followed in 2004 by Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia. All of those nations had either been part of the Soviet Union or allies of the Soviet Union.

There's no way that Mr. Putin would have been happy about NATO coming eastward, but for many years he didn't do much other than protest. Mr. Churchill observed that Russia is a mystery wrapped in enigma and shrouded in obscurity. Perhaps the countries like the Baltics were small enough not to worry Mr. Putin, perhaps he wasn't through modernizing his military; we simply don't know why he didn't go beyond protest as his understanding of "Not one inch" was consigned to the dustbin of history.

The Ukraine is a Different Matter

The Ukraine is the second largest of the former Soviet Republics and has a very long border with Russia. NPR said that President George W. Bush started pushing for the Ukraine to be admitted to NATO. France and Germany pushed back, which resulted in an ambiguous situation where NATO more or less offered the Ukraine membership but without setting out a process to actually do it.

There is also a nationalistic reason for Mr. Putin to want Ukraine. He has said "The breakup of the Soviet Union was the greatest geopolitical tragedy of the 20th century." The word "Russia" comes from the name of the Rus, a tribe which formed and grew into the Czarist Russian nation. Its capital was Kiev, the capital of what is now the independent Ukraine nation. Mr. Putin has wanted it back for many years, but why invade now?

As long as the Ukraine government was more or less favorably disposed to Russia, Mr. Putin could tolerate a degree of inconclusive talk about NATO expanding so much closer to him, but we messed that up.

Truthout tells us that Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland was the "mastermind" behind the Feb. 22, 2014 "regime change" in Ukraine. She worked to overthrow the Ukrainian government headed by President Viktor Yanukovych while convincing the ever-gullible US mainstream media that the coup wasn't really a coup but a victory for "democracy."

Viktor Yanukovych's government had been pro-Russia enough to rub along acceptably with Russian President Vladimir Putin in spite of all the pro-NATO talk, but the new government was much more pro-Western and less acceptable to Russia. From Mr. Putin's point of view, the US had fallen back to an old cold-war tactic - we destabilized a government which had been allied with him and replaced it with an enemy government aligned with us.

To make matters worse, it seemed that by working through various businesses, the new government's friends were paying large sums of money to the son of the Vice President of the United States. How would that look to the Kremlin kleptocrats?

Wasting no time, Mr. Putin annexed the Crimean Peninsula from Ukraine in February and March of 2014. The Obama administration ignored its obligations to protect the territorial integrity of the Ukraine, and Mr. Putin kept it. He didn't go any further during the Trump administration, but once Mr. Biden took over, he saw an opportunity to force the Ukraine back into the Soviet orbit and ordered the invasion.

He grossly overestimated his military capabilities, but that's a problem inherent to any tyranny. The top three qualities Mr. Putin demands in subordinates are loyalty, loyalty, and loyalty followed by slavish devotion. Skill and ability aren't all that important - until they suddenly become very important, and as we see, Putin doesn't seem to have much of that left in his army at all.

So Where Are We?

As we see it, the US backed Mr. Putin into a corner, and then led him to believe that NATO was disunited enough that it would be OK to invade, which ended up turning the Donbas into a killing ground. This is yet another dent in American credibility.

What's worse, we now have two Eurasian land powers destroying each other. This will make it easier for China under President for Life Xi to take back the parts of Russia which China ceded to the Czars as a result of the Treaty of Aigun of 1858 and the Convention of Peking of 1860 - the latter universally known and loathed in China as chief among the Unequal Treaties. The Chinese are well aware that the Mongol empire once ran from Vladivostok to Vienna, and they'd like to get some of that territory back, not to mention reeducating the rebels in Taiwan.

We live in interesting times, and our feckless leaders persist in making things more interesting, day by day.

The Magician, the Pool Table and the Blue Marble

Sun, 29 Oct 2023 18:37:00 GMT

When I turned 11, my dad arranged for a magician to put on his show at my birthday party. His final trick consisted of two panels with slide-on covers. One panel had the silhouette of a white rabbit and the other panel had the silhouette of a black rabbit. The magician would cover the panels, spin them around, and tap the covers with his wand. Next, he would remove the covers and the rabbit silhouettes had appeared to change position. We were having none of it and jeered, "We know how you did it!"

We shouted for the magician to turn the panels around because we knew that on the backside of the white rabbit panel would be a black rabbit and likewise with the other panel. The magician resisted turning the panels around until we were dismissing the trick as easily solved.

Then, with the tips of his fingers, the magician relented and turned the uncovered panels around. On the back of the white rabbit panel was the silhouette of a red rabbit and on the other panel was the silhouette of a yellow rabbit. We sat dumbfounded. Clearly, we had seen something that was beyond our understanding. Such is the case with UAPs (UFOs).

Four years later, I was attending a large birthday party, held for a girl I hardly knew, at a swimming pool and clubhouse. Bored, I found my way to the pool table in a dark corner in the clubhouse. An Army Colonel in his dress uniform, also bored, was passing the time at the pool table. He was the father of a girl at the party. It was just the two of us and we played game after game for about two hours.

In the conversation, he claimed to work with an advanced projects group; basically he oversaw a group of engineers and physicists, ensuring that the work fulfilled the Army's interests. He never said what they did, but he kept repeating, "Our physics are all wrong." It was clear that the Colonel was referring to physics as it was being taught in school and generally accepted by the public.

At that time, as an obnoxious teenage punk, one of my few accomplishments was playing pool and I won most of the games. Sadly, my knowledge of physics at that age was mostly limited to what I learned watching reruns of Star Trek. Fortunately, college would add to what I learned from Capt. Kirk and Mr. Spock.

The Colonel left me with a wisdom that I have never forgotten. After I sank the 8-ball in the declared pocket of the final game, the Colonel said, "That is the definition of success; accomplishing what you set out to do."

From the 1960s to August 2023, people who claimed to have seen a UFO, believe that extraterrestrials exist, or believe in any of the myriad associated phenomena, were promptly labeled kooks, con artists, or worse. While the release of previously classified videos to the public has provided evidence, the Congressional testimony by witnesses served as a catharsis. Those who had claimed to have encountered UFOs, and who had been much maligned, could no longer hold back their proclamations of "I told you so!"

When people evaluate that which they do not understand, they try to reconcile it with what they do understand. If they cannot reconcile the mysterious with their scientific beliefs, they tend to dismiss it as a fake, an optical illusion, or as stories told by crazy people. Thus, the topic of UAPs/UFOs languished for six decades.

Like my friends at my birthday party, I could not resolve how the magician did his trick. Are not mankind all the same as were we children? Have not humans opined that UFOs fly by aerodynamics? Or electrogravitics? Or magnetic fields?

We opined those answers because they were concepts within our understanding.

If gravity is the tendency of masses to follow the path of least resistance on the space-time continuum, perhaps the answer is there.

It seems the Colonel was right again.

Over the last three centuries, we have transformed from Newtonian physics to Einsteinian physics to Quantum physics. Before we injure our shoulders patting ourselves on the back, let us consider the recent re-translation of Sir Isaac Newton's first law of motion. Sir Isaac's words "nisi quatenus" did not mean "unless," but meant "insofar." This simple correction showed that Newton's equations could incorporate previously disregarded influences of the real world on an object at rest or in motion.

Finally, Newtonian physics has been resolved with Quantum physics. Isaac Newton understood a lot more than we realized.

We are wrong to think that we live alone in a "sea" of universe, too vast to cross. Little oddities, like time dilation and a non-constant speed of light, mean that the clock on the wall of the UFO probably runs a lot slower than your kitchen clock, and makes the trip to Earth much more practical.

In all of human history, every advancement, every invention, every civilization, every war, every love, every moment great or small, has taken place on this blue marble we call, Earth, or on its dusty companion, the Moon. We have no place to run. Sooner or later, a "Non-Human Intelligence" will become known to us, and we have a lot to get done before they do.

Inflation for Snots 2

Tue, 22 Aug 2023 13:09:00 GMT

by Richard Morris

In Part 1, we learned the high price of tickets to the rock rap massive metal band Snot Heat Ice Tooth concert in Reykjavik, Iceland did not cause inflation.

We also covered that economics is the study of the use of limited resources that have alternative uses. The fundamental question is simple: What system should we use to allocate resources? The basic choices are either orders from the government or the free market. There are blends of these two, but there is no other fundamental choice-even though some would like to pretend there is by applying price or government controls.

Then we examined inflation, which is a general increase in the prices of goods and services. Like the tide coming in and lifting all boats, inflation causes the price of everything to go up. What causes this?

Inflation has one cause - and only one

Inflation comes from printing legal tender - that is, printing money, or creating the modern digital equivalent. It has nothing to do with tickets to the Snot Heat Ice Tooth concert, and although it might be news to CNN and Paul Krugman (who self-identifies as Keynesian and liberal), real economists have known this for hundreds of years.

Even Krugman, for example, tweeted on February 7, 2021, "The constraint is political, not financial; what we need is a program that delivers tangible benefits to voters, showing them that govt can do good." He places votes above economics.

Economist Milton Friedman accurately said: "Inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon." He should have left this 1990 statement at that, but he didn't.

In 1994, he expanded the statement and committed an error. He said: "Inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon in the sense that it is and can be produced only by a more rapid increase in the quantity of money than in output." While that is true, it is misleading in the sense the statement implies (1) prices should remain the same forever and (2) it is possible to measure gross output in order to increase or decrease the money supply.

Monetarism posits that the government's job is to control the amount of money in circulation - that is, by issuing fiat money in amounts decided solely by the government. Monetarists assume monetary policy by the government is proper, then argue that the objectives are to control the money supply to keep prices the same as they are now - whatever "now" means. That is the fatal flaw.

Why are the prices now the "proper" prices? Why should they remain the same in the future? Why not lower prices later for the same goods and services?

Friedman and Krugman probably disagreed on everything else, but they both agreed the government should control the money supply. Where they differ is the how, when and why.

Friedman advocated the free market, or capitalism. He wisely said: "The great virtue of a free market system is that it does not care what color people are; it does not care what their religion is; it only cares whether they can produce something you want to buy." The free market is the only system where everyone is equal under the law. Equality of opportunity, but not of result.

He also said, again wisely: "When government in pursuit of good intentions tries to rearrange the economy, legislate morality, or help special interests, the cost come in inefficiency, lack of motivation, and loss of freedom. Government should be a referee, not an active player." Why? Because anytime the government becomes an active player by picking winners and losers, it interferes with the market. That interference rewards friends and sends false signals to all others who participate, to the detriment of the general population. Friedman, again, is correct.

Even if one trusts government, governments do not have a good history of picking winners-but losers have a great history of picking governments. Witness the Solyndra fiasco. Obama praised this company for its innovative and extraordinary manufacturing of solar panels. It got a $535 million loan guarantee from the U.S. Department of Energy. Solyndra also got a $25.1 million tax break from California and a tax break from the DOE. The company started in 2005, and went bankrupt in 2011. DOE took a $528 million loss.

Beyond winners and losers, we can't trust the government. If we learned only one thing from the Covid pandemic, it should be that official government narratives are politically slanted and often untrue. Government should never be an active player in business or money.

Friedman was a champion of monetarism, if not the originator, which holds the government should be an active player in the market through monetary policy. Monetary policy says the government controls the amount of money in circulation. In practice, this process necessarily rewards friends and sends false signals to the market economy, to the detriment of the general population.

Friedman was a great economist, yet he advocated (1) the government not to be an active player in the economy and also (2) to be an active player in the economy. These are patently mutually exclusive positions, meaning that if either one is true, the other cannot be true. Both might be wrong, but at least one necessarily is wrong.

Why didn't he see he was holding mutually exclusive positions? He died in 2006, so we will never know, but we must not make the same error. Therefore, we will briefly examine Friedman's famous idea of monetary policy.

"Monetary policy" is impossible

One of the main reasons socialist societies fail is that no one person, or council of super-intelligent people, can make the innumerable daily economic decisions made by the individuals within that society. Thomas Sowell, Ludwig von Mises, and many other economists noted that no single person or council can accurately decide which products and how much of any particular product a society should produce because this requires knowing the individual decisions of every person, collectively amounting to trillions of decisions made daily.

The Soviet Union, under central planning, was famous both for shortages of essential goods, as well as warehouses bulging with unneeded other goods in the wrong place, because central planners constantly made mistakes.

This truth applies just as much to fiat money. How much fiat money should the monetary authority inject into the economy, or how much should it extract? Tough question. But there is more: How to do the actual calculation for that number?

Consumer Price Index (CPI)

How do we measure inflation? Here's a shocker: we can't, at least not with any precision.

It's surely not the Consumer Price Index (CPI). We can calculate the ocean's tide because it does not involve anything other than the height of the water that we can measure using a standard, non-changing, ruler. But not so with inflation, because there is no such measuring stick.

Economist Murray Rothbard said it best: "Any concept of average price level involves adding or multiplying quantities of completely different units of goods, such as butter, hats, sugar, etc., and is therefore meaningless and illegitimate. Even pounds of sugar and pounds of butter cannot be added together, because they are two different goods and their valuation is completely different."

Trying to measure inflation by adding up product prices is not accurate, so the government "weights" them to compute the rate. To make matters worse, the government arbitrarily decides what goods to include and the weight given to each item in compiling the CPI. The con game is to make the government look good.

The CPI is a primitive tool, much like the first magnetic compass pointing to the magnetic north pole, not the true north pole. The needle was unstable, wiggled, oscillated, and dipped. The earth's magnetic field does not align with the lines of longitude we use for navigating. The compass is also subject to deviation and variation errors. Yet, it was their only tool, and better than nothing. Likewise, the CPI is the only tool we have to measure inflation. And, alas, as flawed as it is, it gives us a clue.

How much fiat money to print or burn?

For the same reasons as the inability to measure inflation, monetarists cannot measure how much fiat money to print or burn. This makes the application of their idea impossible.

And the problem gets worse. As soon as you introduce government into the market, you invite corruption. In this case, who decides how much fiat money to add or withdraw? How much does it cost to "buy" that person? I hope you are not surprised to learn that corruption is, and always has been, rampant. You might be surprised to learn politicians are cheap.

What about the market? Well, all items constantly change in relative value to other items-including money. There is no such thing as a "fair price," a concept embedded in the first written law, the Code of Hammurabi, some 4,000 years ago, and shown to be in error ever since.

But gold has a different status, with a long history of stability as money and a commodity. Its value also changes relative to other stuff on the market.

Friedman agreed. On July 4, 1977, He wrote an article for Newsweek entitled "Fair versus Free." He wrote:

When "fairness" [or "fair" trade] replaces "freedom" [or "free" trade] all our liberties are in danger.

..

There is no objective standard of "fairness" [or "fair" trade]. "Fairness" [or "fair" trade] is strictly in the eye of the beholder. To a producer or seller, a "fair" price is a high price. To the buyer or consumer, a "fair" price is a low price. How is the conflict to be adjudicated? By competition in a free market? Or by government bureaucrats in a "fair" market?

Businessmen who sing the glories of free enterprise and then demand "fair" competition [and "fair" trade] are enemies, not friends, of free markets. To them, "fair" competition [and "fair" trade] is a euphemism for a price-fixing agreement [and trade protectionism]. For consumers, the more "unfair" the competition [and trade], the better. That assures lowest prices and highest quality.

These are mutually exclusive positions. If one is true, the other is false. How could Friedman write this and at the same time advocate that government bureaucrats should control the money supply?

So, following the teachings of Niccolo Machiavelli, that politics have no relation to morals, all governments now print fiat money. The only difference between government and Monopoly© money is that the former says "Legal Tender," and the paper costs more.

Anyone over 40 can remember that the price of everything in fiat money is higher today than twenty years ago. But, the rising fiat money tide is not a natural phenomenon like the ocean. It is solely created and controlled by the government printing the money. That is why inflation varies among fiat money-issuing countries. Their printing presses run at different speeds.

Not only could inflation not occur in the free market, the value of money would increase for reasons beyond the scope of this article. In other words, the money you put under your mattress for your old age would buy more stuff later than now. Let that last sentence sink in.

Because most people genuinely don't understand inflation, this fact needs emphasis: The government, through the Federal Reserve, is the only reason inflation exists in the United States. Our money is under the Fed's complete control, and fiat money inflation always occurs when government entities want to buy votes and approval.

In his various writings, Rothbard and many others present evidence and reasoning to justify his conclusion that, as he says, "the soundest monetary system and the only one fully compatible with the free market and with the absence of force or fraud from any source is a 100 percent gold standard. This is the only system compatible with the fullest preservation of the rights of property. It is the only system that assures the end of inflation, and with it, of the business cycle." The end of inflation and boom-and-bust.

In arriving at his conclusion, Rothbard expected objections. So he anticipated and answered the protestations before they were raised. He explains why, contrary to Friedman and Krugman, there is never a need for a larger supply of money than that already in existence - meaning real money, not fiat money.

Inflation for Snots 1

Wed, 19 Jul 2023 19:18:00 GMT

by Richard Morris

"Did you see that the rock rap massive metal band Snot Heat Ice Tooth is going to Reykjavik, Iceland, and the price of the tickets are so high that it caused a 10% inflation in the country?"

While the names have been changed to protect the guilty, that is the essence of a question put to me when recently dining at a friend's home. "No," I responded, "and the price of the tickets deals with supply and demand. Ticket prices will not cause inflation. Inflation comes from printing money."

When others at the table did not grasp these two elementary economic concepts, it was time for an explanation in simple, non-economist, everyday language without all the nuances often inserted into a technical answer.

The Study of Scarcity

Let's start with a classical definition: Economics is the study of the use of limited resources that have alternative uses.

In a society, how do we allocate our labor, our money, the show tickets, or anything else? People always want more than the actual resources available. More people want to go see Snot Heat than there are seats. And virtually any resource can be put to many alternative uses. For example, an almost limitless number of products can be produced from petroleum.

The fundamental question is simple: What system should we use to allocate resources? The basic choices are either orders from the government, or, the free market. There is no other choice-even though some would like to pretend there is by applying price or government controls.

Either the government says who gets tickets to Snot Heat. This is the Aristocracy of Pull (whomever you know or can corrupt to get a ticket for you). Or, the people who want to attend bid for the tickets, and the highest bidders get the tickets. This is supply (the limited resource being the number of tickets available) and demand (the number of snotties who want to attend). Either system leaves a whole bunch of little snots without tickets.

Now let's pause and look at inflation. Inflation is typically defined as a general increase in the prices of goods and services. Like the tide coming in and lifting all boats, inflation causes the prices of everything to go up.

In days of old, a couple thousand or so years ago, money was coins, and gold became the standard metal.

To illustrate: Let's assume society has 1,000 gold coins of one ounce each, a total of 1,000 ounces. But some clever bad guy named Dirty Duke figured out he could drill into the rim of each coin and remove 20% of the gold, then smooth over the edge so nobody could tell he did it. People would think there were only 1,000 ounces in circulation, but Duke added the 20% (200 ounces) he drilled out, so the money in circulation is equivalent to having 1,200 coins in circulation.

Did Dirty Duke create any new resources? No. He created no new wealth.

Besides, wealth is not money. Wealth is what is produced and consumed. As Elon Musk put it, wealth is "stuff."

Duke did not make any new stuff. But, his action meant there was now more money to buy the existing stuff (limited resources). At any moment in time, the amount of stuff is fixed. You can make more stuff later, but the supply is fixed at any particular instant.

Just as the high bidders get the Snots tickets, Duke can use the additional money to outbid others for the stuff he wants. Those who cannot bid as much as the high bidders, like the Snotties who did not get tickets, go without stuff.

Those who sold stuff to Duke now have more money, and they can go buy stuff they want, and the higher prices filter their way down the chain. That is how we get a general increase in the prices of goods and services. That is called inflation.

Unlike the tide that lifts all boats simultaneously in the harbor, inflation is more like a distant estuary and it takes time to fill. Likewise, inflation spreads in a ripple effect. Early receivers of the new money (friends of the government) spend more and bid up prices. The later receivers face rising prices, but their incomes either remain unchanged or they increase but at a slower rate. People at the low end of the income scale suffer the most.

Then the government learned the coin trick and began to make coins of lesser weight, but with the same value imprinted on them. And, to discourage any competition in pilfering or counterfeiting by the likes of Dirty Duke, the governments put knurling on the edges to make the drilling obvious. To this day, governments do that and claim the integrity of their coins-even though modern coins have no intrinsic value like gold does. Just another con added to the list of government cons. After all, who will drill into a coin to extract worthless metal?

Then came a bonanza for kings, emperors, sakes, sheiks, and presidents: the printing press. The Dirty Dukes printed money, too, but they could not declare it to be "legal tender." Legal tender is a form of money that the government dictates is satisfactory payment for any monetary debt. But it has no intrinsic or fixed value and is not backed by any tangible asset, such as gold or silver. It is called fiat money.

The founders of the U.S. were aware of the fraudulent practice of fiat money, and to prevent it from happening in the new country, the Constitution provided that only gold and silver shall be money. That was an error. They should have picked one and said something to the effect that one grain of gold is worth one dollar. (There are 480 grains to a Troy ounce.)

If they had done that, or if the United States government had not violated the Constitution and printed fiat currency, there would never be inflation. Period. It is truly that simple. It has nothing to do with tickets to the Snot Heat Ice Tooth concert.

How do we measure inflation? Here's a shocker, it's not the Consumer Price Index. That's a sham. We can calculate the ocean's tide because it does not involve anything other than the height of the water. But not so with inflation.

Trying to measure inflation by adding up product prices is not accurate. To make matters worse, in compiling the Consumer Price Index, the government arbitrarily decides what goods and the weight given to each. But, alas, it is our only tool, and it gives people a clue.

So, following the teachings of Niccolo Machiavelli, that politics have no relation to morals, all governments now print fiat money.

Anyone over the age of forty can easily remember that the price of everything in terms of fiat money is higher today than it was twenty years ago. The rising fiat money tide is not a natural phenomenon. It is solely created and controlled by the government printing the money. That is why inflation varies among fiat money-issuing countries.

Not only could inflation not occur in the free market, the value of money would increase for reasons beyond the scope of this article. The money you put in the bank or under your mattress for your old age would be worth more later than it is now. Let that sink in.

Because most people genuinely don't know it, the fact needs emphasis: The government, through the Federal Reserve, is the only reason inflation exists. Our money is under the Fed's complete control, and fiat money inflation always occurs when government entities want to buy votes and approval.

Blame Nixon

Wed, 21 Jun 2023 21:35:00 GMT

Donald Trump, for all his many great and worthy strengths, has a horror of ever admitting that he is wrong or might have made a mistake. Instead, he likes to cast blame when bad things happen. For sure, there's plenty of blame to go around regarding his unprecedented Federal prosecution by his political opponent's Justice Department for what is, at bottom, a paperwork dispute.

But he's not going nearly far enough in assigning blame, because the true fault for our current situation of a runaway, weaponized, unaccountable, election-rigging government lies with none other than Richard Nixon.

When Tricky Dick Wimped Out

As Americans, we have certain expectations of our government. Yes, many of those are bad - we expect it to be slow, deeply inefficient, and grotesquely costly - but we also don't expect astronomical corruption, or bad-faith active destruction of the body politic. And for most of America's existence, that generally held sway.

Yes, New York's Tammany Hall gang fleeced the taxpayers mercilessly, but they also built a great deal of city infrastructure that still benefits Gotham today.

Yes, Democrats and Republicans, and before them the Whigs, disagreed as to what policies would best benefit American strength, wealth, and security, but there mostly wasn't any doubt that both sides truly did desire American strength, wealth, and security, and were pursuing it to the best of their ability, while raking off the odd percent or three here and there.

Even the most personally foul Presidents had worthy redeeming virtues. John F. Kennedy was a shameless womanizer that would make an NBA star blush, but he was also a legitimate war hero who personally saved the lives of several of his men while coming very close to dying in direct combat with an implacable enemy. He failed miserably in his first encounter with Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev, but recognized his failure and worked hard to improve.

However, for all that JFK truly did love his country, he didn't belong in the Oval Office: his victory in the 1960 election is now widely accepted to have been stolen by election fraud, arranged by his running-mate "Landslide" Lyndon Johnson of (then-staunchly-Democrat) Texas, and Mayor Richard Daley of the Chicago machine. Of course we'll never know the details for sure, but the point is that Mr. Nixon believed he had been robbed... and decided to do nothing about it legally.

The American people should not know that the presidency of the United States can be stolen.

- Richard Nixon

That doesn't mean he did nothing at all - history shows that the lesson Mr. Nixon learned from his 1960 experience was "When the going gets tough, the tough start cheating." Even that far back, though, he should have realized that what a Democrat can get away with, a Republican cannot, and so it turned out to be.

Would it have been possible for Mr. Nixon to prove that Mr. Kennedy had won by fraud? Likely not: while some recounts were conducted, no great change in numbers resulted. On the other hand, no recount could show how many genuine-seeming ballots were cast by residents of Chicago graveyards, Texan transient ranch hands, or illegals.

Mr. Nixon came to believe that cheating in American politics is OK, which ultimately destroyed him when Republican Senators turned against him. The correct lesson, in 1960 as today, is that vote fraud and other forms of cheating in American politics is just fine if you're a Democrat and not otherwise.

True to past form, Mr. Nixon tried to cloak his hesitance to fight the fraud with a high-minded concern for the tender sensitivities of the American public. In reality, he felt, probably accurately, that being viewed as a "sore loser" would be the kiss of death to any future campaign he might wish to engage in as a Republican.

Even back then, he probably saw that questioning elections is OK if you're a Democrat: Hillary still blames her 2016 loss on Russian cheating in favor of Mr. Trump and Al Gore still questions his loss to Mr. Bush in 2000, whereas Mr. Trump and Ms. Lake questioning more recent elections is a threat to "our democracy" where Democrats win all close elections. In Donald Trump, we are already seeing this as quite a few Republicans who'd otherwise like him are sick of hearing him complain about being robbed.

Mr. Nixon's Better Path

Suppose, though, that Mr. Nixon had been driven by righteous indignation like Mr. Trump, and not (just) a thirst for personal power? If he'd come out in full-throated fury, the American people would have had no choice but to listen. In 1960, the media and cultural scene were already leaning to the left, but they weren't as completely captured by far-left anti-Americans as they are today. There were many Republican newspapers, and even the TV networks felt a need to appear to be impartial, limiting their ability to control news by ignoring inconvenient stories.

As Mr. Trump himself has revealed, a major-party candidate by definition cannot be ignored, and attempting to spin him too hard simply destroys the credibility of news organizations that try.

The America of 1960 believed far more in fair play and morals than we do today. What's more, the governments of Chicago and the Democrat Jim Crow "solid South" were held in far more widespread contempt than those of the Democrat disaster cities and bankrupt blue states are today.

While national Democrats were happy to accept the votes, funds, and help of their misgoverned compatriots, they still were capable of being embarrassed by the obvious injustices and maladministration. In a few short years, the Jim Crow racism that had locked Democrats into Southern power for most of a century would be ended by an America that found such views repugnant and retrograde.

A Mr. Nixon who truly loved his country and was willing to sacrifice for its benefit would have started a crusade against electoral fraud. It's unlikely that anything would have occurred to change the 1960 result, but, considering that at least some fraud demonstrably did occur as was quickly proved, President Kennedy would not have dared oppose angry Republicans for fear of, in effect, confessing to the truth of the accusations.

Back then, it would have been relatively easy to establish the straightforward, common-sense anti-fraud measures that are standard in every democratic country across the world save America: universal government ID requirements, strictly limited absentee voting, a single heavily-regulated and well-monitored Election Day. Imagine how every election from that day to this would have been different, had those standards been enacted into law in the early 1960s, before America's cultural consensus fell apart?

The Road Not Taken

Unfortunately, that wasn't what Mr. Nixon chose; instead, he decided to simply cheat more and harder. As we all know, though, the Republican party, then as now,was as incompetent and feckless at cheating as it is at promoting the concerns of its voters.

Had Mr. Nixon taken the opportunity given to him to clean America's electoral house, Donald Trump would be president today. Of course, had Mr. Nixon done that, perhaps we wouldn't have needed a President Trump in the first place.

Twenty-Six Minutes

Tue, 13 Jun 2023 14:36:00 GMT

The political pulse of America has always fascinated me. Reading about politics, watching political debates, writing about politics, they have been a lifelong passion.

Today is different; I feel the need to lay bare an unraveling of the social fabric that, I'm pretty sure, will touch us all. Apathy is defined as not caring, and America is suffering from an epidemic of national apathy. Perhaps nowhere is this national apathy more evident than in our justice system.

Let me be specific. This is real and I have it on video. As proof, while maintaining some privacy, I am sending still photos from the video to the Editor. This summer I am supposed to testify as a witness in a civil matter, a vehicle crash at an intersection.

As I was going to bed, and my home was dark, someone began beating on my door. He yelled that I needed to come outside so that he could talk to me. I did not open the door.

He refused to identify himself. He was told to leave and he continued pounding on my door, ringing my doorbell, and calling out my name, for about 10 minutes before finally leaving.

The guy kept claiming that he needed me to step outside, saying, "I need you to come out so I can talk to you about your professional services."

Maybe it was the knife he was carrying, that can be seen in the video, but I just didn't think he wanted to hire me.

Let's keep that knife on the outside of that door, shall we?

He tried looking through one of the windows. This is shown in the video, too.

After he left my door, I learned that he had parked in front of a neighbor's house. As of today, I do not know his identity or if he was alone. That's a key point, was he alone?

Here was my thinking during this matter:

Keep the door closed. Opening the door would make me a willing participant and more vulnerable to attack; both physically and legally.
Why was he here? In the first seconds, I assumed that he was a salesman for roofing or similar, desperate to make a sale. When he called out my first and last name and my wife's first name, I was pretty sure that he was not here to give free roof estimate.
His voice tone was sarcastic and patronizing.
I told my wife to do the talking, which she did from a position of cover. Why? Because I was near the door, prepared to respond if he forced entry and I didn't want him to know where I was waiting.

The police were called early into the encounter, and 26 minutes later the police arrived. It took so long for the police to arrive that I retrieved some papers the guy left. They were a subpoena for my deposition regarding the traffic accident for which I already was scheduled to be deposed. Fundamentally, during the event I didn't have enough information to know what was unfolding.

If he was a legitimate process server delivering a subpoena, why did he not call me? I would have accommodated his schedule.

If he was a legitimate process server, why did he not have the paperwork in an envelope with my name on it? After all, wouldn't he want to keep the documents he delivered organized for each of the intended recipients?

The 911 operator and police did not seem to take it seriously, until the police saw the video. After the police left, I began notifying the appropriate attorneys by text and email.

Two of my neighbors appeared frightened by the incident. I assured them that the matter was under control, but one neighbor remained unconvinced.

My adrenaline only allowed me 3 hours of sleep that night. I had to get up early and drive out of town to work with other people who were expecting me. Though I only had time for one coffee, my anger kept me alert throughout a long, physically active day.

During the day after, I learned that the individual at my door was hired by a defense attorney for a corporate vehicle owner being sued. Since I had been receiving and replying to emails from the same attorneys about when and where I would be deposed, for two weeks before this incident, I believe this was meant to intimidate me, a witness.

The attorney who hired the guy claimed that he was a rogue, unprofessional, process server. However, that attorney refuses to identify the "process server. I Further, he never used the words, "process server" or "subpoena."

Another lesson I learned was that nobody gave a @#$%&; most of the attorneys were apathetic. The day after the incident, I was told by one of the attorneys that none of the attorneys intend to notify the Court.

In the summer of 2020, Americans saw near daily riots occurring across the country. The rioters were seldom prosecuted. Some Americans were outraged. So what? The rioters, looters, and criminals, were ignored by authorities in much of America. Has the situation improved since 2020?

You don't need me to tell you about the crime and violence occurring daily in many American cities. New York City has become famous for prosecuting victims who fight back against their attackers. Are Portland, Los Angeles, New Orleans, Baltimore, or Memphis, safer?

Who wants to go for an evening stroll to get some fresh air in Chicago? Maybe you would like to dine downtown in Philadelphia?

I could have ordered a pizza and had it delivered before the police arrived.

Did the 911 operator assign a low priority? Were the police overburdened? Did the police assign a low priority?

911 is an abortion and should be reformed or abolished. About 10 years ago, while on the way home from a shopping mall, I witnessed a serious, multiple-car crash on a highway. Apparently, two unrelated witnesses in other cars called 911. I called 911, too. We were told to hang up and call another number because the crash occurred on a county boundary. While we waited for the 911 operators to get their thumbs out of their rear ends, someone alerted a nearby fire station. The firefighters heroically responded without waiting for the county line to be surveyed.

Many years ago, an off-duty police captain stopped an armed robbery in progress in a local store. He instructed the clerk to call 911, which she did. 911 dismissed the call. Multiple calls were placed, including by the police captain, to no avail. I don't remember how it was resolved, but it took about 1 1/2 hours before on-duty officers responded. It made the news, but nothing changed.

If you live in my big Blue city, you are on your own, no one will arrive in time to help you.

When you only have seconds to stop a potentially lethal encounter.

The police in my big Blue city are only 26 minutes away!

Saving Your America - It's Closer than You Realize

Fri, 02 Jun 2023 13:39:00 GMT

Maybe I know something about you.

You grew up believing in America. You proudly put your hand over your heart and gazed unwaveringly at the flag as you stood for the national anthem. To you, America was special; you valued America more than you valued your own life. You could sing, "Who more than self their country loved, and duty more than life."

You always thought no one was above the law.until you saw senators and congressional representatives amassing fortunes equal to forty or a hundred times their career earnings, and sometimes much more than that.

You taught your daughter to respect herself and that goodness and decency would prevail. Then, you watched Presidents grope women against their will, sometimes in front of the press. Even small children were not safe. Sickeningly, nothing happened to these brazen molesters, not even mild criticism.

You voted for candidates who said exactly what you longed to hear, and then they ignored their promises. They mocked and laughed at you after they were elected. And the worst was when they were up for re-election and smirked while taunting you with, "You don't want the other candidate to get elected, do you?" They never intended to vote for what you supported. You labeled them RINOs, but they didn't care - they had the office, the power, and the perks. What did you have besides gnawing frustration?

A torch deep within your heart was lit when Donald Trump spoke the words, "Make America Great Again!" President Trump worked to fulfill MAGA, but that's hard to do when you face made up criminal charges every day of your presidency and for over 5 1/2 years so far.

You grew up believing that, despite our differences, we are all Americans, united behind our country. Now, it's a divided country, Blue States and Red States, the polite and the rude, the law-abiding and the violent.

What is a country anyway? It's a place defined by borders, unified by a common culture and a common language. Now, the border has been thrown wide open. Even the cells in our bodies have walls.

Our culture used to be a melting pot of many cultures, bound by a respect for the rights of individual Americans. Now, we are a collection of two or more increasingly incompatible groups. It is with great sadness in our hearts that we know that these groups have irreconcilable differences egged on by our power-mad leaders who feed off the conflicts.

Maybe you are a nurse whose personal beliefs will not let you abandon a dying patient, despite the hospital administrator's orders. You do it because you're you.

Maybe you are a preacher who sometimes has to skip a meal to pay the rent on your tiny urban ministry, located in a crappy strip mall. You do it because God called you.

Maybe you are a police officer who performed CPR on a baby who wasn't breathing or caught a carjacker, and now you have to check to see if the employee at Greasy Burger spit on your lunch.

Maybe you run a small business and you face ruinous tax increases as the national debt spirals out of control.

You don't watch the news anymore because it irritated you. Now, you can't even read the online news because you think it's hopeless.

You used to pick out the clothes you wore on Election Day to that include red, white and blue. Now, Election Day has been replaced by Election Month, ballot harvesting, and easily falsified mail-in ballots coming from who knows whom.

Now, you seldom talk about politics or elections to anyone, because you believe that the outcome is being manipulated.

You sometimes avoid speaking to acquaintances because you are trying to focus on where you go from here. Like a person in shock, you clench your jaws and look straight ahead. Maybe you are in shock.

Interest rates are increasing and you are beginning to feel the sting. Credit cards, insurance, mortgage, they all have to be paid.

Today, I heard a vehemently anti-Trump, Biden voter complain about her credit card interest rates. Hopefully, she will make the connection with how she voted.

You often blame the media for hiding the acts of an out-of-control President, his Administration, and Blue state politicians. The problem is not that Blue voters are ignorant of what crimes and dictates are being committed; it's that they don't give a rat's little rear end, and you don't know how to overcome their indifference.

Right now, you and I know that Red America and Blue America are locked in a stalemate. Unfortunately, Blue America is running the country with a "Reverse Midas Touch;" everything they touch turns to.

Therein might lie our answer.

Title 42 has ended. Oh, sure, the Biden Administration lost their nerve at the last moment and are implementing the very Trump policies they so opposed. Too late, the rabble horde is already at the border and determined to get inside America. The steady flow envisioned by the Biden Administration might become the world's largest bums rush.

Over the coming weeks, the hordes of illegal aliens will spread around America. When they do, quiet, upper middle class suburbs in places like Connecticut, Massachusetts, Northern Virginia, and North Carolina, might soon have a better understanding of the burdens of cities like Phoenix, Tucson, El Paso, and Brownsville.

Is it possible that some Democrats will reconsider their voting? We will see soon enough.

How's that electric car and no more gas powered cars thing going? The electric power infrastructure is not in place to support it.

Batteries no longer hold as much charge after a certain amount of use, too. Just like the battery in your cell phone or laptop, electric car batteries have to be replaced after a few years. Electric car batteries are not cheap. Replacing the batteries in some models of electric cars will cost more than the resale value of the car.

In some European countries, electric cars which need new batteries are simply discarded. Of course, if you are the President, a senator, or congressional representative, whose family owns stock in lithium or cobalt production, forcing electric cars on America will bring you fabulous wealth.

Will Democrats reconsider their voting as their electric car costs mount up? Let's watch it unfold.

Crime in Blue cities is increasing. Does rising crime bother you? Do you worry about the safety of your family? Or your pets? Or your home? Your own safety is important, too.

Perhaps rising crime will become an issue for Democrats.

We have high-ranking elected officials taking bribes from America's enemies. Worse, these traitors are actively seeking to embroil America in wars for their own profit.

Will Democrats cheer while their sons, and maybe their daughters, are drafted?

Perhaps America will be saved when enough Democrats are touched by the failures and betrayals of their own leaders. And when it happens, we can join together and begin to Make America Great Again.

Guardians of Galactic Culture

Tue, 30 May 2023 08:53:00 GMT

Every generation, it seems, bemoans the unprecedented debauchery of youth and the decay of culture. Widespread cultural decline would appear to be a full explanation for most if not all of the systemic problems we see in America. We are living in John Adams' prediction:

Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious People. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.

We hardly need to present proof that modern-day America is anything but moral and religious; a simple walk down any city street or into any store, or turning on the TV for more than a few seconds, provides all the evidence you could ever need. And, as Andrew Breitbart observed,

Politics is downstream from culture.

Thus we find that modern politics is every bit as corrupt and degraded as our culture. In order to fix the one, we must first fix the other.

But how? Conservatives were expelled from all aspects of culture generations ago - high, low, popular, and everything in between. Sure, there have been isolated corners of parallel conservative institutions, from Davey and Goliath to VeggieTales and even today's The Chosen. But these have little if any effect on the wider culture-at-large; as successful as they may be, they're fundamentally preaching to the choir.

What the past half-century has taught is that presenting Sunday-school lessons as Sunday-school lessons only works for people who like Sunday school and are probably already attending. The same is true in wider politics: how many people bothered to watch the various movie versions of Atlas Shrugged or other conservative message movies? Basically nobody, and certainly nobody left the theater a libertarian that wasn't already one when they went in.

No, what's needed is stories, drama, and entertainment that can stand on their own, telling a gripping tale, that only tangentially expresses conservative values, perhaps even in a heavily cloaked way.

Thus it was that we were gobsmacked to find such a film presented by none other than that wokest-of-woke internationalist organizations, the Walt Disney Company, in the form of Guardians of the Galaxy: Vol 3.

Goodies and Baddies

Searching for their missing National Review subscription?

On its face, there is nothing conservative about this film by any of the regular metrics. There is no shortage of foul language, sexual innuendo, and of course rampant violence. The whole point behind the titular Guardians is that they respect no laws or outside authorities; they answer exclusively to their own morals and sense of right and wrong.

And that's what makes them heroic, because in their world as in ours, all sources of authority are utterly corrupt and evil in result if not always in intent. There is, of course, no religion presented, as such. The villain of the tale, known as "the High Evolutionary," seems to be a near-deity, roughly analogous to the powerful but rather fallible Greek gods, but unlike them, his power is a deep devotion to science. Hmm, does this remind us of anyone in the real world who claims to be the living embodiment of Science itself?

What's more, the stated objectives of this character are functionally identical with those of our modern Left and the Democrat party: to create a flawless and perfect Utopian society. Nothing wrong with that, right? Except that anyone or anything that isn't flawless and perfect is decreed by his High-Evolutionaryness to be devoid of inherent rights and subject to summary extermination the moment their usefulness ends.

There's a truly striking sequence toward the end of the movie, on artificially-created "Counter-Earth" that appears to be a rough facsimile of 1980s America, but populated by evolved intelligent animals. Some of these animals apparently work blue-collar jobs, live with their families in neat suburbs, and drive oversized sedans; others deal drugs and beat up victims in the inner city.

When Guardians leader Peter Quill points out to the High Evolutionary that utopias don't generally include drug pushers and thugs, he calmly and regretfully agrees, "They do not" - whereupon he pushes the planet-destruct button, incinerating countless billions of his own creations while his starship soars away to try, once again, somewhere else.

He even comes close to discovering the truth: his fresh batch of perfect "people" are clearly H.G. Wells' Eloi from The Time Machine, peaceful and brilliant but devoid of any imagination, motivation, or leadership capability. In contrast, his most successful creation, Rocket Raccoon, is a foul-mouthed dealer of violence... who saves the lives of vast numbers of innocents, whereas the High Evolutionary tortures and murders "for a higher purpose" without a second thought.

Nazi Dr. Mengele would be right at home working in the High Evolutionary's experimental laboratories, as would Planned Parenthood and many of their supporters.

Revenge Served Cold

The director of the movie, James Gunn, had his own run-in with cancel culture: in 2018 he was fired from directing this sequel over "controversial" tweets decades old, only to be restored after outrage from fans and costars. It shows: the digs at modern leftist shibboleths are mostly subtle but clear if you're looking for them.

There never was a movie more replete with Persons Of Color: blue, red, purple, green, and on and on, all the colors of the rainbow and more besides. And yet, as portrayed in the movie, there's one and only one actual (half-)human being: none other than Peter Quill, a strongly heterosexual, English-speaking, middle-American white male who is also the primary hero and leader. Funny about that!

Any visible black people? Yes, one: the villain, who in Marvel lore was an interwar Englishman and thus white, but in the movie doesn't seem to be particularly human at all, like nearly all the rest of the cast.

Now, if you care about actual black people, this is fine: the actual black human actor, Chukwudi Iwuji, did a tensely restrained and powerfully dramatic Oscar-worthy job of what could have been the standard chewing-up-the-scenery villain role, and hopefully will receive the honors his performance has rightfully earned. If you're only somewhat woke, there's a crumb for you: the character was white in the comics for decades and has now been race-swapped. But he was the bad guy, how racist!

What about homosexuals and other perversions? Well, as is typical for the Guardians, they're too busy getting into and out of scrapes to spend much time in bed; the main "love interest," Peter Quill's alien girlfriend Gamora, isn't even in the movie as such. She was killed as dead as it's possible to get in a comic-book movie by big-baddie Thanos (who himself exemplifies the goals of environmentalism) rewriting history; a major subplot of this movie is Quill attempting to come to terms with the fact that she's gone and not coming back, even though his universe does contain another "Gamora" who looks the same and shares some of the same history, but, not the important bits that produced the relationship.

There is however one scene that had my jaw on the floor, a throwaway comic mind-altering sketch at the expense of homosexuality, almost redolent of Monty Python. I haven't seen anything like it in, oh, probably decades at the least. It contributes to the plot not one whit; it is isn't even very funny. The only possible reason for its presence has to be a thumb-in-the-eye to the Heroic Homo trope, courtesy of a vengeful director. Astonishing!

What's the main lesson or moral of this movie? It's not a trick question, and, it isn't "don't trust the good intentions of elites," though that's drip-fed into you the whole time. It's something even more wholesome, on full display to audience applause: There is nothing more important than family.

And, yes, despite not being related, the Guardians are portrayed as having become a family, with all the stresses, fights, insults, rivalries, but also underlying love and sacrifice that implies. What's more, as they realize this about themselves, they also realize the essential importance of one's actual biological family: the movie closes with Quill returning to Earth to reconcile with his human grandfather who he hasn't seen in probably 40 years. I wonder how many theatergoers may have left the auditorium with similar thoughts about their own estranged family members? Not what you expect from a comic-book flick!

In short: while having nothing ostensibly to do with anything political, religious, conservative, or "good" in the church sense, Guardians of the Galaxy: Vol 3 has a lot to say about those topics, nearly all of it both good and readily digestible to the average watcher who's spent their life steeped in the dominant liberal media culture. How's that for artistic genius!