tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29158995425508332302024-02-19T08:59:03.432-06:00What An Average Guy ThinksA collection of thoughts on subjects that an average guy and some of his associates find interesting or amusing.An Average Guyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01936210902482016775noreply@blogger.comBlogger130125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2915899542550833230.post-5600921237360906362020-04-14T23:10:00.000-05:002020-04-14T23:10:52.399-05:00The Campaign<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgL6g4JY-OGIEMKbcKlgXEE8jZm00DW8t124iE3WsmAh0Setrrmj1GZ0yUDjPs_HPRSCaq82aQ59-qb_ZD8xy_WG3gZBeIpo-lb_ZtUYZoxnG8u1cPlyyy-0VoirVzdQ8hldHJtqib1-W77/s1600/JB.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgL6g4JY-OGIEMKbcKlgXEE8jZm00DW8t124iE3WsmAh0Setrrmj1GZ0yUDjPs_HPRSCaq82aQ59-qb_ZD8xy_WG3gZBeIpo-lb_ZtUYZoxnG8u1cPlyyy-0VoirVzdQ8hldHJtqib1-W77/s200/JB.JPG" width="200" height="176" data-original-width="535" data-original-height="472" /></a></div>Several things have happened recently in the race for the Presidency. First, Bernie Sanders announced that he is now supporting the candidacy of Joe Biden. This has been described as an indication of Bernie’s maturity and an example of how adults should behave in defeat. The reality is, I think, that it’s closer to an act of pure political pragmatism and Trump hatred. Bernie Sanders is pure political ideologue. His goal is to turn the United States of America into a socialist workers paradise. Make no mistake. But fewer people will listen to him and he will have less influence if he isn’t working from inside the Democrat party. If he’s going to work within the Democrat party then he has to support the Democrat candidate. But there may possibly be more to it.<br />
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Also, Barack 0bama finally announced his support for Biden. You can read into it what you will, but he had no choice if he wants to be active in democrat circles, and he does.<br />
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The “possibly more to it” from the first paragraph is this. Barack 0bama knows better than anyone else that Joe Biden isn’t the man he was in 2008 or 2012. He’s likely had wandering personal conversations with him that made it clear that Joe Biden is incapable of serving as president. It seems almost likely that if quarantine hadn’t confined Joe to his basement that he would have collapsed on the campaign trail already. Post quarantine, the DNC will hold him up for the crowds like Punxsutawney Phil while maneuvering to keep him away from the podium as much as possible and refusing to allow any unscripted questions or rope lines where he might assault another voter. They will also lobby for a virtual convention to shield him. It may not help. The added stress may simply be too much for mister Biden to take and it may become obvious to the DNC that he’s just not able to accept the nomination.<br />
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So what then? Well, if that were to happen then the runner up in the primary would be the obvious substitution, but only if he hasn’t bolted the party and bad mouthed the entire operation. Even in the two months after the convention he may physically or mentally collapse. The same scenario holds. Bernie would be the obvious stand in.<br />
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So Barack’s reticence and Bernie’s continuing to play the game may make sense, not as impartiality and civility, but as cold political calculation. Either way, they have to be in a panic, because it’s becoming obvious to everyone that if Joe Biden wins the November election, whoever he’s chosen as his running mate will be running as the incumbent in 2024.<br />
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But that’s just what an average guy thinks <br />
An Average Guyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01936210902482016775noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2915899542550833230.post-5310071886803624462019-11-17T15:52:00.000-06:002019-12-21T17:57:46.284-06:00The Biden Murders<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0E0f8l8BUyziBAS0KKckS0mU1udHjNFsSz1Xy-sH9rhPRvT20BUYi-zwKtIavX5KXv9njEXp6HiTfsY3RM4fvxV3Yheth5Hfoc-0CnSaEvLc4pjhWrGmK2WLXaStYJ4uKADqmo5htLYp1/s1600/JHB.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0E0f8l8BUyziBAS0KKckS0mU1udHjNFsSz1Xy-sH9rhPRvT20BUYi-zwKtIavX5KXv9njEXp6HiTfsY3RM4fvxV3Yheth5Hfoc-0CnSaEvLc4pjhWrGmK2WLXaStYJ4uKADqmo5htLYp1/s200/JHB.jpg" width="200" height="133" data-original-width="968" data-original-height="645" /></a></div><br />
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Just a hypothetical here. If Joe Biden was rumored (and there was some circumstantial evidence to indicate that it could possibly be true) to have murdered someone in Ukraine in order to protect his son's employers and thus his son's job would it then be improper to ask the government of Ukraine to investigate that even though Joe Biden were your political adversary? <br />
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Now of course Joe Biden didn't kill anyone (at least directly. It's hard to know if anyone died trying to defend themselves from a Russian AK with a box of MREs because they didn't get the weapons or any of the lethal aid that they begged the Obama administration for) but there is some evidence to suggest that Hunter Biden was given a very high paying managerial position (for which he hadn’t a shred of qualification) with a Ukrainian natural gas company solely to provide some political cover from corruption investigation as his father was then the Vice President of the United States who had control over if, when, and how much money would flow from the U.S. to Ukraine.<br />
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Is public corruption and bribery a crime anymore? Or are those only crimes relative to who happens to be in office at the time? <br />
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Is it unethical to investigate your political opponent for specific crimes possibly committed while in office? If the answer is maybe (depending on how serious the crime is) then how serious is serious enough? How far along the Jay Walking to Murder spectrum does that point lie? What will Joe Biden have to have done in order to warrant an investigation?<br />
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But that's just what an average guy thinks<br />
An Average Guyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01936210902482016775noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2915899542550833230.post-85156442321623430092019-04-18T22:22:00.000-05:002019-04-18T22:22:16.674-05:00Hunter Killer Team<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOgkuNIjNAizbZY1XV-V4Go6ee2Gnm5n7g9q0WOL09wzypbs8jnLVvUHOuoiy1zQilcPNcHjWbNlVZmGBAMVM12XiC5CcDIHblsrOLhCSE9_60iKjmsQaVwxikRPS2dxhu1_jCu5PFaSpQ/s1600/DoJ.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOgkuNIjNAizbZY1XV-V4Go6ee2Gnm5n7g9q0WOL09wzypbs8jnLVvUHOuoiy1zQilcPNcHjWbNlVZmGBAMVM12XiC5CcDIHblsrOLhCSE9_60iKjmsQaVwxikRPS2dxhu1_jCu5PFaSpQ/s200/DoJ.png" width="200" height="200" data-original-width="1024" data-original-height="1024" /></a></div>So what the HELL just happened here?? Here’s what it looks like from this corner of the universe. <br />
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A lot of people despise Donald Trump. I don’t care for him myself and I’ve made no secret of it, but during the heat of last presidential campaign some people took things a little too far. It appears, and I think it will be made clearer that the Clinton campaign hired a law firm to collect opposition research on Donald Trump. How hard could that be? That firm then hired a retired Trump hating British intelligence operator (Christopher Steele) who then bought some dirt from the Russian government (whose motives were pure) and put together the “Steele Dossier”. They shopped it around to the press, but had no immediate takers. Then somehow John McCain (another Trump hater) and his staff got hold of it and it wound up in the hands of a group of Trump haters over at the FBI. <br />
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This was going on at the same time that the 0bama administration was outing anyone who had ever been tangentially involved with any secret investigations (unmasking they call it) and spreading their names all over town. Susan Power, the United Nations Ambassador requested the unmasking of 260 individuals during her last year in office. You might ask, (we all might ask) why would the UN Ambassador be so actively involved in any counter terrorism investigations? Don’t we have spooks for such things? In any case, some folks in the Department of Justice and the intelligence community saw an opportunity that didn’t seem to have a down side. They would make the public aware of this information to try and effect the election. But it hardly mattered, Hillary was favored to win by a mile, so this was just a little insurance. Then after the stunning upset of November 7, 2016 they shifted gears. They would end Trump’s tenure as president prematurely or cripple his administration so that he would be unable to accomplish any of his stated goals in regards to immigration, healthcare, the economy, or foreign policy. He was accused of colluding with the Russian government to rig the outcome of the election.<br />
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A Special Prosecutor was appointed. He assembled a “Hunter Killer” team of 19 Trump hating, Hillary donating criminal prosecutors, 40 FBI agents, forensic accountants and enough professional staff to serve them. Together, they issued almost 3,000 subpoenas, executed 500 search warrants, issued over 200 orders for communications records, issued 50 orders for the use of “pen registers” to spy (err…. Investigate) who investigative targets were talking to, made 13 requests to foreign governments for evidence and interviewed 500 witnesses, to paraphrase the new Attorney General.<br />
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And what did this team of ultra-partisan political assassins come up with in the way of collusion with the Russian government?? Absolutely nothing.<br />
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What Robert Mueller did say that they found was evidence that Trump and his administration may have tried to commit obstruction of justice. But they also noted that in any case they were unsuccessful. That they freely made all of the requested witnesses and documents available. They did, however loudly and frequently complain that they were innocent of any wrong doing and that the investigation was a partisan witch hunt. <br />
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So let’s get this straight, because it’s important. Donald Trump and his administration on the basis of opposition research were essentially charged with treason and no evidence of that was found. They also complained about the legality, fairness and partisan nature of the investigation and indicated that they might try to stop it, but nothing they ever said or did had any affect. So, no obstruction either. <br />
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And now the clever people in the House of Representatives like Adam Shiff, who for two years has claimed that he had seen evidence of collaboration between Russia and the Trump administration and the Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelsoi have backed off of their impeachment mantras. But others like Eric Swalwel and Maxine Waters remain adamant. So now we know what the democrat party will be using as a talking point during the coming election season. It won’t be the Green New Deal, because that’s a farce, and it won’t be the childlike birthday wish list of giveaways that would make Greece look austere. It won’t be the economy because growth is good. Unemployment is down. Real wages are rising for the first time in many years. People are keeping more of their own money. No, they are going to use in their own public hearings and provide to a complicit media all of the evidence gathered by a crack Hunter Killer Team of political apparatchiks where it will be handed over to a crowd of equally zealous, but far less qualified “news anchors” and “comedians” so the material can be massaged and used to retry this case in the court of public opinion.<br />
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And in the end what will the product be? Impeachment? No, that’s been taken off the table. What we’re going to find out is that Donald Trump is a loud mouthed boorish braggart. Exactly what we knew three years ago. And in the meantime, democrats have sworn not to work with the President on anything. And so our borders are being overrun by Central Americans and nothing is being done about our broken out dated immigration system. The opioid crisis continues. Suicides are increasing. Life spans are decreasing, and the hysterical Balkanization of our culture continues apace. <br />
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And it should be noted that at any given time, the goal of the Russian government, led by a ruthless former KGB operative, is to undermine American any way it can, either geopolitically, or culturally. And when they sold that opposition research to Christopher Steele that’s just what they did, and why they did it. <br />
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Good job democrats.<br />
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But that’s just what an average guy thinks.<br />
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An Average Guyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01936210902482016775noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2915899542550833230.post-18209778867917075622019-04-14T19:57:00.000-05:002019-04-14T19:57:29.249-05:00Five Stages Of Progressive Grief<br />
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Sometimes it’s enjoyable to sit and think. Today, not least because it’s the last snowy day of the year and it’s comfortable to sit, safe and warm inside, and enjoy the precipitation outside.<br />
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While sitting my mind wandered around to the subject of grief and so before it wandered off again it seemed reasonable to jot a few thoughts down. <br />
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What started it was thinking about how quickly progressives have turned from believing that the Mueller report would finally provide them with the evidence needed to impeach Donald Trump and remove him from office in favor of Vice President Mike Pence and must be accepted as gospel, to claiming that the investigation was a sham and demanding that they not only receive the work product of the Special Counsel, but also all of the materials that went into its making. From demanding that republicans accept the conclusions of the report to loudly proclaiming that the conclusions of the report announced in the Attorney General’s four page letter stating the report’s principle conclusions can’t be trusted and that the public must have all of the materials in order that the matter be tried in the court of public opinion. Of course, the latter isn’t what they say, but that’s clearly their intention.<br />
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It got me to thinking about the five stages of grief. As promulgated by Ms. Kubler Ross those stages are Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, and Acceptance. There is a modified version of the grouping that includes Shock at the beginning of the series and Testing between Depression and Acceptance that implies some rational thought in the later stages of the process, so that might not be applicable in this situation. But it seems to apply easily not only to the progressive reaction to the election of Donald Trump to the presidency, but also to the release of the Mueller report even though that report hasn’t been seen as yet. And anyway, it hardly matters what the report does say, as everyone already knows what it doesn’t say and that’s what’s causing all of the emotional distress. So the devoted are now transitioning from Anger into Bargaining. Chairman Nadler is trying to Bargain for some snippet of information he can use to fulfill his publicly stated promise to impeach the President made just after the 2018 elections. But the courts will leave them unsatisfied, and at some point it seems logical to think that they will have to move on to Depression and then Testing a way forward into Acceptance. But if the past is prologue this will not be the case, partly because of the progressive mindset, and partly because of our perpetual election cycle. <br />
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A more applicable version of the grief progression series is that every stage is Anger, and given the election year shocks of the Trump election and the Mueller Report, one can possibly have some sympathy.<br />
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Anyway, it’s interesting to see them twisting. The anticipation heightened by the soon to be released Department of Justice Inspector General reports regarding conduct of DoJ personnel in the run-up to the 2016 election. <br />
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But that’s just what an average guy thinks<br />
An Average Guyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01936210902482016775noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2915899542550833230.post-48998142838888128182019-02-02T21:31:00.000-06:002019-02-03T14:04:47.242-06:00The Bill Of Rights For Your PleasureThe Bill Of Rights For Your Pleasure<br />
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1. The right to freedom of speech, religion and press.<br />
2. The right to keep and bear arms.<br />
3. The right to refuse quarters to soldiers.<br />
4. Freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures.<br />
5. The right to due process under the law Freedom from self-incrimination, and double jeopardy.<br />
6. The right to a speedy trial.<br />
7. The right to a jury trial in civil cases.<br />
8. Freedom from excessive bail, and cruel and unusual punishment.<br />
9. Other rights of the government enumerated in the Constitution, shall not be construed to deny or disparage<br />
others retained by the people. <br />
10. All powers not explicitly given the federal government revert to the states.<br />
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These are, of course, the first ten amendments to the Constitution, often referred to as the Bill Of Rights of The United States Of America. Some of the framers of the Constitution believed that the document itself spelled these things out clearly enough in the seven Articles of the body, but there were others, more skeptical suspicious of a creeping power hungry bureaucracy, who insisted on an explicit addition of the things they thought fundamental to insure liberty to its citizens, and prosperity to the nation.<br />
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Look down through them again. It’s an admirable list of just about everything a free person could ask for when coupled with the body of the document. Most state Constitutions are similar. These are the rights that each of us has just for being alive and resident in the United States of America and none of them costs anyone a single dime. My right to speak freely costs you nothing, just as yours costs me nothing. That is not to say that freedom is free. There are times when these rights must be defended, sometimes by the force of arms, but this is something we do together, a gift that we give to one another and to our children.<br />
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But now there is talk of adding to the list, of making “healthcare” for every single resident of the nation a “right”. Of course this is just the compassionate bleat du jour. We also hear of free college as a right. A right to a job. A right to “affordable” housing. A right to a dignified minimum level of income. But today the call is for a right to healthcare because people are particularly tuned into it at the moment and easily misled. The details of the system are easily concealed from an ill-informed public by a left leaning media establishment. But I digress.<br />
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The point that I had meant to make was that none of the original “Rights” costs anyone anything. It doesn’t cost the government and/or my fellow citizens a penny to supply me with my freedom to speak or any other of the freedoms listed. But if healthcare, or college, or housing, or good tasting water, or income are considered to be my right which must be guaranteed by the government then the government is obligated to forcefully take the money from my fellow citizens to provide it to me.<br />
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Look away from the cost of Medicare for all as a right for just a moment and think about the implication. Is it the government’s responsibility to provide for a person’s birth, sustenance, education, employment, and retirement? And will the cost and tax structure be so high and restrictive that it disincentivizes achievement? Can we afford to discourage accomplishment?<br />
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And how will these things become Rights? In the recent past, and in a present that nearly became reality, it may have been possible for proponents to have argued in front of a sympathetic Supreme Court that this was the essence of America and they may have gotten a ruling that “yes, this comports with the Commerce Clause”. They may have made it the law of the land out of thin air with no heed to the language of the Constitution as they have other things, but this scenario seems unlikely at present, and for a few decades into the future. Now, the matters will require Constitutional amendments that will not be forthcoming, or they will have to be legislated, and they simply will not be. Experienced legislators know this. There just isn’t the money, even if the rich are butchered as the Kulaks were in the Soviet Union and their possessions and "wealth" confiscated.<br />
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So what you see today in the call for new Rights isn’t about new rights, it’s about expanding the size and scope of government.<br />
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But that’s just what an average guy thinks.<br />
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An Average Guyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01936210902482016775noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2915899542550833230.post-84700615452568456052018-09-17T20:22:00.000-05:002018-09-17T20:22:05.784-05:00American Totalitarians<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjixN9wsa8BA2U20zmHs70uNk6L2nqVGrS4MbxOI8kajGTozDWUJWiqQtLKSadgBnMT-38r90cowAfS1ftjKCoPuA4gFwD9gtqHBIhilw_yTipoQzXAbwiUlwQ1CRHLLuJEwDoyYIxoQrcs/s1600/Google.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjixN9wsa8BA2U20zmHs70uNk6L2nqVGrS4MbxOI8kajGTozDWUJWiqQtLKSadgBnMT-38r90cowAfS1ftjKCoPuA4gFwD9gtqHBIhilw_yTipoQzXAbwiUlwQ1CRHLLuJEwDoyYIxoQrcs/s200/Google.JPG" width="200" height="167" data-original-width="556" data-original-height="463" /></a></div>Google is the face of totalitarianism in the United States. They are collaborating with the Chinese government on the implementation of their “social credit” system that collects data on what people read, what web sites they visit, who they talk too, what programs they watch and listen too, what products they use, where they go, deduces what they think and doles out social rewards in the form of privileges and punishments in the form of housing, travel, product purchasing, and other social restrictions.<br />
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It has been written that Google is being coerced into this arrangement so that they can get a share of the market in China, but this strikes me as piffle. This is Googles MO. They need a practice field on which to develop the expertise necessary to control a large population without the force of arms. As it is now, they only control what you see on line. Soon enough the controls will be more sinsiter.<br />
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Google claims to be the champion of diversity, but this a cruel hoax. If they did value diversity they wouldn’t have shunned and then fired James Damore, who shared their desire for gender diversity, but only suggested that they take another look at how to go about achieving the goal. Instead of welcoming the diversity represented by his input, they called him science denier, accused him of hate speech, and gave him the old heave ho.<br />
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As Google learns more about you, and gains more hungry and corrupt friends in government, don’t be surprised when like Harrison Bergeron you start to hear loud noises in your head every time you come near having a coherent thought.<br />
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But that’s just what an average guy thinks.<br />
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An Average Guyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01936210902482016775noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2915899542550833230.post-64069277387059392702018-09-10T23:31:00.000-05:002018-09-10T23:31:22.811-05:00Obama’s Economy<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1j79rKoqrQ5wBElz4JP5GYZD_Jqhh6vW52ZOpxpruHyIhGFUdenYHMf63gfevMObr6hf39ZqmE2C5yB6OZdouquWooOCjoBbdExYgJonQqGpBXudk_OXAzgFTwDQgfVIEAwzEGswjGfsy/s1600/award.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1j79rKoqrQ5wBElz4JP5GYZD_Jqhh6vW52ZOpxpruHyIhGFUdenYHMf63gfevMObr6hf39ZqmE2C5yB6OZdouquWooOCjoBbdExYgJonQqGpBXudk_OXAzgFTwDQgfVIEAwzEGswjGfsy/s200/award.jpg" width="200" height="126" data-original-width="720" data-original-height="455" /></a></div>Recently former president Barack 0bama has been on the campaign trail trying to take credit for the current economy claiming most of the credit for the currently booming economy. I would point out that improving the economy never seemed to be Barack 0bama’s goal. In support of that claim I would point out 0bama’s 2008 pre-election brag that his carbon plan would cause utility rates to skyrocket. Who would that benefit? Would it benefit the lower and middle classes? No. Would it benefit utilities? No, all of the money would be passed to the government as tax. In the same interview he bragged that his policies would bankrupt any utility that wanted to take advantage of new clean burning coal technologies that the federal government has been financing research on for decades. His Energy Secretary mused publicly that he wished we could have $8/gallon gasoline like they do in Europe. Who would that benefit? Would it benefit the lower and middle classes? No. Would it benefit oil companies? No, all of the money would be passed to the government as tax where it could be redistributed to favored industries unable to find traction in a free market.<br />
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In the attempt to hold oil and gas exploration and thus development and production down in order to limit consumption he limited exploration on federal lands. <br />
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His “Cash for Clunkers” program was said to get old cars off the road, but further examination revealed that the production of a new car uses more energy than is saved by taking an older car off the road. In addition to the fuel inefficiency of the program it lured over a half million people into increased consumer debt. Who benefited from that? Did the lower and middle classes who now had increased financial obligations for years benefit? No. Did taxpayers who financed the program benefit? No. Did the big auto lenders? Yes. Did the automakers and the United Automakers Union benefit? By $3 Billion. <br />
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The single best indicator of a nations standard of living is it’s per capita energy consumption and Barack 0bama did everything he possible could for eight years to reduce America’s standard of living. It was only the advances in horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing that prevented it.<br />
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And now Barack 0bama is claiming that his policies resulted it economy that we feel, and see today. All I can say about that is that the man has a lot of damned nerve.<br />
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But that’s just what an average guy thinks.<br />
An Average Guyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01936210902482016775noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2915899542550833230.post-77070001515095142942018-05-28T18:36:00.000-05:002018-05-28T18:36:01.635-05:00What Other Explanation Could There Be ??<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-dDw5TtddhcTJqh-OLkH-rb2VZ0XfEVfBL10IkIrni2lkaUgeqPDV5_Te05PfUGlviR5Nb5GJkl_euoRE9TOnOw4ua54v4w_v1km8datdRQkgRvy81u9Y_ayJVHgsomVOek4KMs0T-ZZe/s1600/police.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-dDw5TtddhcTJqh-OLkH-rb2VZ0XfEVfBL10IkIrni2lkaUgeqPDV5_Te05PfUGlviR5Nb5GJkl_euoRE9TOnOw4ua54v4w_v1km8datdRQkgRvy81u9Y_ayJVHgsomVOek4KMs0T-ZZe/s320/police.jpg" width="320" height="240" data-original-width="1600" data-original-height="1200" /></a></div>What other explanation can there be besides systemic racism? What other explanation indeed. In fact, the statistics are so obvious there’s no real reason to even suspect that there might be another reason, and certainly no reason to consider the issue and look. People have been taught that the criminal justice system and America itself has been built on racism and so why even bother to look for other possible explanations? <br />
<br />
The claim is that blacks are disproportionately exposed to the justice system, that blacks and whites are treated differently and that systemic racism is the only explanation. Prison statistics are often used to support this argument, with the percentage of black male prison inmates being higher than might be guessed by looking at their distribution in the general population. But a good demonstration of why this may not be the best example is that the prison population is about 94% male and 6% female even though women are close to 50% of the general population. No one is suggesting that sexism is the cause of this, and so there may be other factors involved.<br />
<br />
The evidence of alleged police bias runs all the way from jay walking arrests through police involved shootings. The focus here will be on the more minor transgressions that we are all guilty of. <br />
<br />
Ordinarily at this point, I’d ask someone to get me a piece of paper and pencil so I could produce a really good sketch explaining the example, but since my computer graphic arts talents are limited I’ll have to try prose instead.<br />
<br />
Imagine that you’re the Police Chief of Anytown USA. Anytown is of fair size. It’s in the shape of a square, and five miles on a side. That’s twenty five square miles. The streets are all laid out as a square grid with major streets at each mile. You budget has enough money to allow you to have twenty five officers on duty at any given time. When you first planned out your assignments you put one patrol officer in each grid figuring that they could support each other as necessary.<br />
<br />
But Anytown is just like every other town, and it has a high income side, with the country club and fine gated homes, and it has the industrial side where lower income people live. In between there is a spectrum of neighborhoods roughly laid out by income, from low to high, or from high to low depending on which way you’re driving. <br />
<br />
Now as Police Chief you’ve noticed that there seems to be more property crime in the lower income neighborhoods. This shouldn’t be too surprising. You rarely hear of fights breaking out at the country club bar, but it’s a regular occurrence on the other side of town. So, in order to more effectively protect all of your citizens from the criminal element you shift some of your officers away from the high income part of town and toward the lower income part of town. It makes perfect sense. <br />
<br />
Now, what do police officers do all day? They answer radio calls regarding people who need help, and they hang out at donut shops. They give presentations and provide security in schools. And when they’re not doing those things they’re sort of hanging out waiting, patrolling. And of course while they’re waiting they’re writing tickets. And because there are more police in the low income part of town where people are more likely to be walking, they’re going to see more people jay walking. More jay walking tickets. And since they’re in the lower income part of town there will be more older cars with signal lamps burned out, and owners who don’t have the money to just run down to the auto shop and have them fixed. More minor equipment tickets. They will see and stop more speeders. Simply because there are more police on the low income side of town, they will see there more of every offense that there is. <br />
<br />
This example pretty clearly illustrates how lower income residents of Anytown will have more contact with police, and be issued more citations and it doesn’t involve race in any way. Imagine if you will that all of the residents of Anytown are black, or Asian, or Hispanic. The logic is the same and holds in any case.<br />
<br />
But that’s just what an average guy thinks.<br />
An Average Guyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01936210902482016775noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2915899542550833230.post-79293637373803718592018-05-24T15:21:00.001-05:002018-05-27T15:28:52.627-05:00Munk Political Correctness Debate<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNUvYX92mPWBnUzVX11bes2Ymzhu5dcXxRuRXis0_S9SN9oXSIRs-qgWyA2Qt2c6TTBg29poHE65jju0ca8XaRUJY5B9azq14CuqV6ViAZJJ1-FaCuPaAswtJKJoVWHJ_65yBADqH0cz8B/s1600/munka.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNUvYX92mPWBnUzVX11bes2Ymzhu5dcXxRuRXis0_S9SN9oXSIRs-qgWyA2Qt2c6TTBg29poHE65jju0ca8XaRUJY5B9azq14CuqV6ViAZJJ1-FaCuPaAswtJKJoVWHJ_65yBADqH0cz8B/s320/munka.jpg" width="320" height="149" data-original-width="1600" data-original-height="747" /></a></div>I recently stumbled across the video from one of the “Munk Debates”. You can get more information about what those are here at <a href="http://www.facebook.com/pg/munkdebates/about/?ref=page_internal">Munk Debates Info</a> , and go to the particular debate referred to here at <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=4&v=GxYimeaoea0">Political Correctness Debate</a>.<br />
<br />
In general, the affair was to be a discussion of political correctness, and if or how it stifles open public discussion. The thesis of the debate was “be it resolved, what you call political correctness, I call progress”. There were two teams of two participants who would argue in support of the premise, and against it. The team making the supportive argument was made up of Michael Dyson and Michelle Goldberg, while the opposing team was composed of Stephen Fry, and Jordan Peterson. <br />
<br />
It’s rather long to take in unless you’re in a comfortable chair (I wasn’t) and I have no interest in trying to recount the whole business here. But there is one point that Ms. Goldberg brought up that I’d like to comment on.<br />
<br />
She mentioned that during the 2016 presidential campaign, as a journalist, she had had the opportunity to attend many Trump rallies all over the country and had used that opportunity to ask fellow attendees why they supported Donald Trump. Being tired of all of the political correctness, she said, was often mentioned. However when asked to specify examples most of her subjects could not. I thought about this for a bit and decided that it was quite understandable for an average person talking to a reporter not to be able to recall any specifics. I couldn’t immediately come up with anything myself. So I set myself to thinking, and came up with the idea that political correctness doesn’t produce major wounds. It’s more like a death from a thousand cuts, as it is meant to be. <br />
<br />
The idea, of course, is that if you change the language that people use then you can change their perception. You can actually change the way people think. Linguists, politicians, and social engineers have been aware, and Orwell warned us of this in his book Nineteen Eighty-four. <br />
<br />
In any case, even though people may not be able to easily articulate their feelings on the matter there are many examples. At one point we were told that we were no longer to use the term “Miss” when addressing women of unknown marital status. It was dismissive we were told and there was no masculine analog and so it was inherently sexist. It had to go. And then we were told that we were not to use the word “girl” to refer to young girls either as this was also dismissive. These are women, we were told. At one point we saw a female United States senator berate a high ranking military officer for answering a question “yes ma’am” just as he would have used “yes sir” to her male counterparts. It was stupid and petty, and she pretended to take offence for the benefit of a television audience even though no possible disrespect could have been implied. It was a minor annoyance, but it left a scar. <br />
<br />
In my life time (not that I’m so aged) I have seen the reference go from “colored people” to “Negros” to “blacks” and finally to African – Americans. Of course the National Association For The Advancement Of Colored People (NAACP) won’t change its brand. The very purpose of a hyphen is to associate two things while keeping them separate. It’s an annoyance.<br />
<br />
Mechanics can no longer have “pin up” calendars in their work spaces as it creates a “hostile work environment” for any women that happen to be there. It’s an annoyance.<br />
<br />
Children are sent home from school for having “bubble guns”; for nibbling toaster pastries into the shape of a gun; for pointing their finger at a classmate as if it were a gun; for invoking the powers of a magic ring in a threatening manner; for kissing a classmate; for having the wrong snack or packed lunch, or for picking up a brass shell casing off the ground and taking it to school. It’s an annoyance.<br />
<br />
We don’t refer to homosexuals as homosexuals any longer, now they’re “gay”, and they’re seemingly everywhere. If someone is uneasy seeing public displays of affection between same sex couples, or if they aren’t totally supportive then they’re immediately tagged as homophobes, haters, and bigots. It’s an annoyance.<br />
<br />
I had never heard the term “wet back” until my family moved from the city to a more rural environment in the Midwest. It wasn’t really used as a pejorative, it was just a matter of fact. It described a Mexican citizen who had come to the U.S. without the benefit of passing through the immigration apparatus. No one really cared much that I can remember. They were minding their own business working on local farms and ranches. They weren’t a drain on social services because there weren’t that many social services to drain. Of course all of that has changed in the last few decades. Now “illegal aliens” can apply for and receive a number of social services. Students can receive “resident” status at whatever university they might want to apply to, and have access to well-endowed scholarship funds while citizens have to struggle to pay “out of state” tuition. You see them on the news reports marching, carrying the flags of their native countries, demonstrating against the laws of the country they have chosen to squat in. And the twisting of the language is fairly obvious in this case. The description went from the legally precise illegal alien to illegal immigrant to undocumented immigrant to undocumented citizen in some places. Suffrage for illegals is now being considered in some localities. Rights and privileges which do not exist are demanded. It’s an annoyance.<br />
<br />
We were exposed to the “Piss Christ” and most of us were offended. Even the atheists among us. Even those who routinely worked in and around the offending liquid. Although certainly allowed, it was an unnecessary, provocative insult to Christians everywhere. We were told that we had to accept it as an artistic expression, and begrudgingly we did. Now fast forward thirty years (yes, it’s been that long) and we’re told that we may not criticize Islam. We may not be concerned about a radical minority or Islamists who have sworn to, and do on occasion, kill us. If we do express our concern, we’re labeled as Islamophobic. If we have reservations about supporting unlimited access to the country by and the provision of benefits to economic refugees, political asylum seekers and their extended families we are labeled as hysterical haters and bigots. And if we produce any sort of likeness of the Profit Muhammed we are accused of making an unnecessary, provocative insult to Muslims everywhere and we have no right to be surprised and no redress if someone tries to kill us for that. It’s an annoyance.<br />
<br />
Free speech and expression are under attack. On many college campuses you can’t pass out copies of the Constitution on Constitution Day without a permit, and then only from the confines of the designated “Free Speech Zone”. Students require “trigger warnings” so that they can cover their ears or get up and leave before they hear anything that would make them feel uncomfortable, regardless if they have a need to know it or not. They need puppy rooms to help them cope with the stress of a pampered life. They are excused from exams and passed regardless so that they may participate in social activism. Some of this activism is spent protesting the high cost, and low value of a college education. The irony here is almost too rich. They borrow money (essentially from the government) fail to learn anything useful because they spend too much time out of class and then protest that they should owe so much and have no useful skills to sell in order to pay back the cost. That they fail to see the irony is pathetic. It’s an annoyance.<br />
<br />
Halloween costumes are no longer allowed as they require too much thought. Animals and inanimate objects are all that’s really left. You virtually cannot fart without culturally appropriating someone’s culture, or micro aggressing someone. Any sufficiently imaginative plaintiff can find fault with anything you say or do. It’s an annoyance.<br />
<br />
We are told, and expected to believe, that men and women are interchangeable and that any perceived differences are the result of cultural indoctrination by the male patriarchy. Outside of their biological differences that have developed over five million years they’re exactly the same. As if you could swap men and women’s brains en masse and expect a good outcome. People know this intuitively to be false even if they can’t quite express it. And yet we are still bombarded with the idea that it has been the “patriarchy” and not five million years of evolution that has shaped our existence. It’s an annoyance. <br />
<br />
In short, the complaint about political correctness isn’t about one word, or two, or even a list of words. Political correctness is an assault on our rationality. It’s a progressive attempt to tear the fabric of our lives so that it can be resewn in a form more to the liking of some academic and political elite. It’s an attempt, through language, to control the way we speak and thus think. People can feel this in their guts. Taken one at a time these things are just annoying. Added over a lifetime they have become a potent political issue. <br />
<br />
But that’s just what an average guy thinks.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
An Average Guyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01936210902482016775noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2915899542550833230.post-2913350195741263112018-05-17T22:44:00.000-05:002018-05-17T22:44:23.186-05:00 The Two Minutes Hate (George Orwell)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeZXSMmYimzDOr53qe8y_ESVjAbPT-qodAlT5otFg4FCOqP3GMW-ouI-8fyTQlgeD3Gezd_RdtpoMIBL5oz07fyGalXf24lyQ0WruXky8PkMtdot1tRyzrpTrbjqzI1Qeq9O04Bc9F3EE1/s1600/hate.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeZXSMmYimzDOr53qe8y_ESVjAbPT-qodAlT5otFg4FCOqP3GMW-ouI-8fyTQlgeD3Gezd_RdtpoMIBL5oz07fyGalXf24lyQ0WruXky8PkMtdot1tRyzrpTrbjqzI1Qeq9O04Bc9F3EE1/s320/hate.jpg" width="320" height="176" data-original-width="300" data-original-height="165" /></a></div>“The next moment a hideous, grinding speech, as of some monstrous machine running without oil, burst from the big telescreen at the end of the room. It was a noise that set one’s teeth on edge and bristled the hair at the back of one’s neck. The Hate had started.<br />
<br />
As usual, the face of Emmanuel Goldstein, the Enemy of the People, had flashed on to the screen. There were hisses here and there among the audience. The little sandy-haired woman gave a squeak of mingled fear and disgust. Goldstein was the renegade and backslider who once, long ago (how long ago, nobody quite remembered), had been one of the leading figures of the Party, almost on a level with Big Brother himself, and then had engaged in counter-revolutionary activities, had been condemned to death, and had mysteriously escaped and disappeared. The programmes of the Two Minutes Hate varied from day to day, but there was none in which Goldstein was not the principal figure…<br />
<br />
Winston’s diaphragm was constricted. He could never see the face of Goldstein without a painful mixture of emotions. It was a lean Jewish face, with a great fuzzy aureole of white hair and a small goatee beard — a clever face, and yet somehow inherently despicable, with a kind of senile silliness in the long thin nose, near the end of which a pair of spectacles was perched. It resembled the face of a sheep, and the voice, too, had a sheep-like quality. Goldstein was delivering his usual venomous attack upon the doctrines of the Party — an attack so exaggerated and perverse that a child should have been able to see through it, and yet just plausible enough to fill one with an alarmed feeling that other people, less level-headed than oneself, might be taken in by it. He was abusing Big Brother, he was denouncing the dictatorship of the Party, he was demanding the immediate conclusion of peace with Eurasia, he was advocating freedom of speech, freedom of the Press, freedom of assembly, freedom of thought, he was crying hysterically that the revolution had been betrayed — and all this in rapid polysyllabic speech which was a sort of parody of the habitual style of the orators of the Party, and even contained Newspeak words: more Newspeak words, indeed, than any Party member would normally use in real life…<br />
<br />
Before the Hate had proceeded for thirty seconds, uncontrollable exclamations of rage were breaking out from half the people in the room. The self-satisfied sheep-like face on the screen, and the terrifying power of the Eurasian army behind it, were too much to be borne: besides, the sight or even the thought of Goldstein produced fear and anger automatically. … But what was strange was that although Goldstein was hated and despised by everybody, although every day and a thousand times a day, on platforms, on the telescreen, in newspapers, in books, his theories were refuted, smashed, ridiculed, held up to the general gaze for the pitiful rubbish that they were — in spite of all this, his influence never seemed to grow less. Always there were fresh dupes waiting to be seduced by him. A day never passed when spies and saboteurs acting under his directions were not unmasked by the Thought Police. He was the commander of a vast shadowy army, an underground network of conspirators dedicated to the overthrow of the State…<br />
<br />
In its second minute the Hate rose to a frenzy. People were leaping up and down in their places and shouting at the tops of their voices in an effort to drown the maddening bleating voice that came from the screen. The little sandy-haired woman had turned bright pink, and her mouth was opening and shutting like that of a landed fish. Even O’Brien’s heavy face was flushed. He was sitting very straight in his chair, his powerful chest swelling and quivering as though he were standing up to the assault of a wave. The dark-haired girl behind Winston had begun crying out ‘Swine! Swine! Swine!’ and suddenly she picked up a heavy Newspeak dictionary and flung it at the screen. It struck Goldstein’s nose and bounced off; the voice continued inexorably. In a lucid moment Winston found that he was shouting with the others and kicking his heel violently against the rung of his chair. The horrible thing about the Two Minutes Hate was not that one was obliged to act a part, but, on the contrary, that it was impossible to avoid joining in. Within thirty seconds any pretense was always unnecessary. A hideous ecstasy of fear and vindictiveness, a desire to kill, to torture, to smash faces in with a sledge-hammer, seemed to flow through the whole group of people like an electric current, turning one even against one’s will into a grimacing, screaming lunatic. And yet the rage that one felt was an abstract, undirected emotion which could be switched from one object to another like the flame of a blowlamp. Thus, at one moment Winston’s hatred was not turned against Goldstein at all, but, on the contrary, against Big Brother, the Party, and the Thought Police; and at such moments his heart went out to the lonely, derided heretic on the screen, sole guardian of truth and sanity in a world of lies. And yet the very next instant he was at one with the people about him, and all that was said of Goldstein seemed to him to be true. At those moments his secret loathing of Big Brother changed into adoration, and Big Brother seemed to tower up, an invincible, fearless protector, standing like a rock…<br />
<br />
…<br />
<br />
The Hate rose to its climax. The voice of Goldstein had become an actual sheep’s bleat, and for an instant the face changed into that of a sheep. Then the sheep-face melted into the figure of a Eurasian soldier who seemed to be advancing, huge and terrible, his sub-machine gun roaring, and seeming to spring out of the surface of the screen, so that some of the people in the front row actually flinched backwards in their seats. But in the same moment, drawing a deep sigh of relief from everybody, the hostile figure melted into the face of Big Brother, black-haired, black-moustachio’d, full of power and mysterious calm, and so vast that it almost filled up the screen. Nobody heard what Big Brother was saying. It was merely a few words of encouragement, the sort of words that are uttered in the din of battle, not distinguishable individually but restoring confidence by the fact of being spoken. Then the face of Big Brother faded away again, and instead the three slogans of the Party stood out in bold capitals:<br />
<br />
WAR IS PEACE<br />
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY<br />
IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH"<br />
<br />
George OrwellAn Average Guyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01936210902482016775noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2915899542550833230.post-61710056183206128062018-02-08T19:02:00.000-06:002018-02-08T19:02:11.114-06:00Why NOT Lock Her Up ??<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtntee19T_5UPSEw5sO9QIkT_L7b7tTMzWmES36hEYZUos1xSglBLawvgB11nAJ_IMKG33v4UAQAysZvJcSd89D8wDNOMt-5sQLQqSjHxfpZm5T1ppQGUkFfXotHmAkXR1gyG0YuNOgjv8/s1600/lhu.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtntee19T_5UPSEw5sO9QIkT_L7b7tTMzWmES36hEYZUos1xSglBLawvgB11nAJ_IMKG33v4UAQAysZvJcSd89D8wDNOMt-5sQLQqSjHxfpZm5T1ppQGUkFfXotHmAkXR1gyG0YuNOgjv8/s320/lhu.jpg" width="320" height="171" data-original-width="655" data-original-height="350" /></a></div>So I’m wondering, see? Because that’s all I can do is to wonder. And I’m wondering about how bad it would be to “Lock Her Up”. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not “one of those” people. Actually I’m one of those other people but that’s a subject for a post on that private page. No, this isn’t about that. This also isn’t about the so called “third world” practice of using ex post facto laws to go after and or persecute or prosecute former political opponents for the “crime” of opposition. This is about the law and how far the rich and powerful are allowed to go in pursuit of their goals before they are held to the same legal standards as the rest of us.<br />
<br />
Specifically, Hillary Clinton violated the Espionage Act when she received, retained, and resent classified information from the boot leg server that she set up for herself as Secretary of State in her basement. Many Information Technology professionals believe that network was less secure than google mail, and was almost certainly penetrated by the hostile foreign governments.<br />
<br />
The server was set up immediately upon her appointment and inarguably to thwart Freedom Of Information Act (FOIA) requests for records, another violation of law.<br />
<br />
The improprieties that took place during the FBI investigation are bad enough as to make J Edgar Hoover look good in a calf length silk skirt and a midriff halter top, five o’clock shadow and all. But this isn’t about the particulars, or whether or not James Comey predetermined the outcome of the investigation because he knew that because everyone in the White House including the President knew that the Secretary of State, the future president, was acting illegally and that they were complicit in the crime. They were as guilty as she was.<br />
<br />
So. What of the law? Were they just political crimes? Crimes that only mattered in the context of an election, or were they real crimes. Right now, there is a former Navy submarine sailor in the federal penitentiary at Leavenworth, Kansas, his life ruined, for the crime of having a few photos of piping on a nuclear submarine on his phone. He mishandled classified information. Why is it that Hillary Clinton, who operated a boot leg email server in the basement of her home, and who trafficked in classified government documents is on a book tour explaining to everyone that it’s the racists, misogynists, and Russians that kept her from being elected president?<br />
<br />
Is it excusable because it was just politics? And if that’s the case, how serious would a crime have had to have been before she was liable for prosecution. Armed robbery? BANK robbery? Kidnapping? Murder? What crime could Hillary Clinton and her minions have committed that would have exposed them to the same jeopardy that the rest of us face every day, and why would it be improper, unseemly, or “third world” for her to be held accountable for violating federal law?<br />
<br />
But that's just what an average guy thinks. <br />
An Average Guyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01936210902482016775noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2915899542550833230.post-37895943613666244922018-01-11T20:56:00.000-06:002019-08-26T19:24:33.660-05:00Rehabilitation<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmz7SFALzbAZadLR-3uNiKuRKdwncefnB1qgKMBq1ivzxY-_5I7FSJP0r7bNl-bVnNDqLgYFTtikfjdnMUO2YfARSXVJz11TYDv-GoqaDpcWAHAhwpERjufKy8weSiftdoGR39sFVPbz8F/s1600/chaingang1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmz7SFALzbAZadLR-3uNiKuRKdwncefnB1qgKMBq1ivzxY-_5I7FSJP0r7bNl-bVnNDqLgYFTtikfjdnMUO2YfARSXVJz11TYDv-GoqaDpcWAHAhwpERjufKy8weSiftdoGR39sFVPbz8F/s200/chaingang1.jpg" width="200" height="200" data-original-width="800" data-original-height="800" /></a></div>So. I just turned around and heard some republican lawmaker or other, but it doesn’t really matter who, saying that our criminal justice system is good at removing criminals from society but that we need to do a better job at making sure that when inmates are released from prison that they have been rehabilitated and can be reassimilated back into society. Well. Allow me to express an alternative opinion. <br />
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To begin, according to the United States Sentencing Commission in 2014 fully 36% of the federal prison population was made up of illegal aliens. Or, if I need to be more sensitive and tolerant, they were citizens of foreign countries who are in the United States illegally and have been convicted of violating our laws. These men and women don’t need to be rehabilitated so that they can be reassimilated back into society because they need to be biometrically identified and deported immediately upon the completion of their sentences. In fact, since they are to be deported back to their country of origin, there is no benefit for us to rehabilitate them at all as their reassimilation back into society is none of our concern. We don’t need to provide them with psychological or career counselling or educational services. We can apprehend them, try them, incarcerate them to extract the payment to our society prescribed by our laws and then hand them over to the civil authorities in their home countries to do with as they see fit.<br />
<br />
Next is the term “rehabilitate”. As defined by the Cambridge dictionary the word means: to return someone to a good, healthy, or normal life or condition after they have been in prison, or been very ill. So to rehabilitate someone presumes that they were good, normal, and or healthy to begin with and just made a thoughtless mistake in a moment of haste. In the culture we live in today this is clearly not the case. Many, if not most of the men and women who currently inhabit our prisons were never good, or normal to begin with. And again, to exhibit at least a little compassion, I’m willing to admit that this may not be entirely their fault although it hardly matters whose fault it is.<br />
<br />
Since it is well known that 40% of children are now raised in homes without father present it is logical to assume that the condition of having been raised by a single mother is at least as common in the prison population and is likely higher. It is also well established that the presence of a father in the home is where children learn to respect authority and to understand how men and women properly interact with one another. This familial socialization takes many years and is generally taught to children by those who have a genetic stake in their safety, and wellbeing, starting when an infant’s brain is not fully formed and connected and they know nothing. How is the prison system supposed to raise a child who comes to it as a disrespectful adult? How is the prison system supposed to make whole again that which was never whole to begin with?<br />
<br />
Lastly, the words Criminal Justice System sort of hung in my mind. The phrase implies that society has laws, that if you determined to have violated one or more of those laws you are a criminal and that society has the right to mete out to you whatever justice is specified by the law. Now when a child violates some rule of family behavior they may be subject to a timeout or some other form of punishment. But this isn’t referred to as “unruly child justice”. Children who behave badly aren’t rehabilitated. It’s referred to as punishment, and it's employed as negative reinforcement. It is administered in order to reaffirm where the authority in the family unit lies, and to help a child to understand that if they violate family norms (laws) that there will be unpleasant consequences. The severity and nature of those negative consequences have changed over the years, some would say for the better, some would say for the worse, but the principle is still the same: bad behavior equals swift and unpleasant consequences. But it does no good to send a child to his or her room if they enjoy being there alone in there with all of their devices and wifi. <br />
<br />
One has to wonder if hard labor were put back into prison sentences, if prison were made to be a really uncomfortable place to be, if people wouldn’t be a little more careful to avoid the sorts of behavior that were likely to get them sent there. <br />
<br />
But that’s just what an average guy thinks<br />
An Average Guyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01936210902482016775noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2915899542550833230.post-9188160232455189812017-12-29T14:32:00.001-06:002017-12-29T14:32:12.978-06:00GenerationsIf you think back far enough you can maybe remember a time when they sometimes talked about the “baby boom”. Of course that referred to the crop of children that resulted from the end of World War II and the patriarchal disregard for the reproductive rights of women held by most men returning from the various theaters of war after nearly, or actually, having their asses shot off saving the world from tyrannical domination. But those kids, those boomers, weren’t really referred to as belonging to the baby boom generation.<br />
<br />
Then you started to hear about the “Beat” generation. Artists with a dark view of just about everything. They smoked all the time, drank lots of coffee and snapped their fingers as a rebellious substitute for bourgeois applause. They gifted us stream of consciousness poetry, citified folk music, the goatee beard, and Maynard G. Krebs, but of course hardly anyone alive today remembers any of it. <br />
<br />
It seems that it was about then that things started to fracture. Men born before the war (again, always the men) started experimenting with drugs (one wonders if the Soviets may not have been behind it based on the affect they’ve had on our society) to expand human consciousness or for use as weapons, or whatever and then they crept into youth culture and we gave birth to the Hippy movement. At last, we were free to do our own thing. And what we did was disco. <br />
<br />
During those years there were, of course, Yuppies. They were young, upwardly mobile professionals. In contrast to the hippies, yuppies kept their appearance neat. They wore nice clothes, drove nice cars, got MBA degrees and pretty much rule over us now, but then they were the object of attempted ridicule. No one was talking of generations yet. <br />
<br />
Then we got glam rock in the eighties and people started talking about generational splits. Maybe it was the sociologists, but I’ve always suspected that the concept was cooked up by marketers as a way to better target product promotion. And so in the ‘80s we started to hear about “Generation X”. The Gen Xers. The slogan may have been “Aqua Net For All”. (which is a jab at big hair in case you weren’t around for it). <br />
<br />
Next, of course, came the Nineties and Generation (you guessed it) “Y”. Generation Y is so cool that they get several nick names, sometimes being called “echo boomers” or the more plebeian “millennials”. But the hits just keep on coming. In a plot twist worthy of Tarantino, or Vonnegut, and not patient enough to continue waiting for the next generation, Tom Brokaw took a trip down memory lane, and wrote a book about the parents of the boomers and gave them the auspicious title of “The Greatest Generation”. Like the Stones going on after James Brown at the TAMI show, it’s a tough act to follow.<br />
<br />
At the current end of this rather predictable progression is Generation (you guessed it again) “Z”. But are members of this crop of younglings that much different than those that came before, the echo booming millennials? And are they different in any substantial way (save age, as if age and the education, insight, and experience that come with it are trivial) from their older siblings? <br />
<br />
And now, by some accounts, we’re already years into the as yet unnamed next generation. The fact that they’ve run out of letters so soon in this process doesn’t speak too well of thought processes of the people who thought the whole thing up. One has to wonder if all of this division and categorization is really helpful. <br />
<br />
But, that’s just what an average guy thinks<br />
An Average Guyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01936210902482016775noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2915899542550833230.post-79307012415136350682017-12-16T22:38:00.000-06:002017-12-16T22:38:40.887-06:00Echo<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQkciU3u02G-i6wsfeqLWfdc4IhohFn5r7J8e7j0FTQEBbyYqpUlO1Rpg_hyphenhyphenTlsWF-YynNHLxxUSmnW-z94BfQFSepQCHFx2VtcvJ9J7qRHbQpbRVubgBr0l8HTQkSDthsCsUjLFRdTzCv/s1600/Echo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQkciU3u02G-i6wsfeqLWfdc4IhohFn5r7J8e7j0FTQEBbyYqpUlO1Rpg_hyphenhyphenTlsWF-YynNHLxxUSmnW-z94BfQFSepQCHFx2VtcvJ9J7qRHbQpbRVubgBr0l8HTQkSDthsCsUjLFRdTzCv/s200/Echo.jpg" width="200" height="170" data-original-width="227" data-original-height="193" /></a></div>For centuries, to buy something took a combination of three things. First you had to have the desire to own whatever it was. Next, you had to have the funds available to buy it with, and lastly you had to have the time and the means with which to go get it and you had to have all three of those things simultaneously. It’s one of the reasons my hair has been so long at some times during my life. One day I might have the desire to get my hair cut, but not the time. Weeks later I might have the desire and the time, but not the cash. It’s one of the reasons I will often have no beer or fresh vegetables in the house during the winter months. It’s not that I don’t want them, or can’t afford them. It’s mostly that I don’t want to go out in the cold to get them.<br />
<br />
But now, desire can be triggered by a television commercial much like the candy display at the grocery checkout, electronic banking has disconnected us from our money, electronic domestic assistants can order things for us at a mere vocal suggestion, and online delivery services will bring our goods to our doors for only a modest fee.<br />
<br />
All that’s left to protect us from over indulgence and over-extension is our innate sense of self-restraint which has been under constant bombardment by the purveyors of everything for decades. “Buy it now”. “Enjoy it now”. “You deserve it” we are constantly told with nary a whisper of the payment that will later be required.<br />
<br />
Echo. Order peperoni pizza, Sham Wow, and a valentine Snuggy.<br />
<br />
We’re doomed.<br />
<br />
But that’s just what an average guy thinks<br />
An Average Guyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01936210902482016775noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2915899542550833230.post-83910089307579325092017-12-16T20:29:00.000-06:002017-12-16T20:53:34.133-06:00I Know This Much Is True<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEwecBGWxlQ89NyR8kckEFh6sYEfdnMXZyC5MvqDeOpjHWzp3lqXAFB4Xz5QDnUygj6mxYYuk5P80D-CA-O_XlYKsDWvbTb9EFEpNi0s8mj2I1RwTNmY19p2QMh0zYiGEFlueMPpLWjiqM/s1600/NDT.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEwecBGWxlQ89NyR8kckEFh6sYEfdnMXZyC5MvqDeOpjHWzp3lqXAFB4Xz5QDnUygj6mxYYuk5P80D-CA-O_XlYKsDWvbTb9EFEpNi0s8mj2I1RwTNmY19p2QMh0zYiGEFlueMPpLWjiqM/s200/NDT.jpg" width="200" height="146" data-original-width="284" data-original-height="208" /></a></div>I was reading an article recently that happened to mention Neil de Grasse Tyson (NDT). For those of you who may not know, he’s an astrophysicist, a real smart guy, a scientific bon vivant, and unlike Bill Nye, a real science guy.<br />
<br />
Now, I will stipulate that NDT likely has a higher IQ than I do, even though I’m no slouch. But I suspect that, just like Barack Obama, he benefits rather than suffers from what George W. Bush referred to as the “soft bigotry of low expectations” because of his heritage. What I mean by that is what has already been said, that if Barack Obama had been white, he never would have been elected president. He was just another bright young graduate of the Harvard Law school. But he was the cool young black guy that young progressives and even establishment democrats couldn’t resist with Joe Biden referring to him as being “clean cut” and Harry Reid commenting that he was electable because he was “light skinned” and that he spoke without any “negro dialect unless he wanted to”. In short, it was his skin tone that made him a stand out. People were willing to overlook his black liberation theology, his intolerance toward the LGBT community, and the lack of any personal information about his education being available. <br />
<br />
Similarly, is NDT the most gifted, glib, interesting, telegenic, or most accomplished member of the American Astronomical Society, or has his elevation to the status of cultural icon been based simply on his being an academic novelty?<br />
<br />
Anyway, what caught my eye was something that he said on Bill Maher’s HBO program “Real Time with Bill Maher”. What he said was "The good thing about science is that it's true whether or not you believe in it." Now, of course, he was prattling on about global warming, extreme weather, and climate and environmental studies and you can argue that any way you like. But he and Bill were having a great time mocking catastrophe skeptics and the president as ignorant rubes and congratulating themselves for being members of the enlightened. It caught my eye because it always amazes me when someone who should (and quite probably does) know better, says something so profoundly misleading and stupid. The scientific method is a way of learning, a process of increasing knowledge, not something that is provably true or false. At one point not so long ago science said that heavier than air flight was impossible, and then that supersonic flight was impossible, something we know now not to be true. The molecule was the smallest particle, then the atom, then sub atomic particles. We were told that scientists couldn’t explain why bumble bees can fly. As an astrophysicist, Tyson knows well how Copernicus, Galeleio and others suffered at the hands of their contemporaries whose “truths” were rooted in the earth centric theory of the solar system which allowed Mars to mysteriously move backward in its celestial travels.<br />
<br />
To imply that science says that something is true or false is to assert that our knowledge of the world and the universe is now complete, and that we are now masters of the universe instead of insignificant actors.<br />
<br />
But that’s just what an average guy thinks<br />
An Average Guyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01936210902482016775noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2915899542550833230.post-7925625903704453112017-09-23T22:18:00.000-05:002017-09-23T22:18:13.975-05:00The Little Room<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVLw4DkWNo-cTJsZ5TlOEkbh_Yq6Op3np8JGh7o3zqgnE59BCvEoXYyXt8l6EDpjpMbL5iuPiAp3_9HQpjL52EWBUaxOUHRMAalxgii17kvUKtT0S744rYHvKXlcLML4lZm24lvaEqs6kb/s1600/The+Little+Room.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVLw4DkWNo-cTJsZ5TlOEkbh_Yq6Op3np8JGh7o3zqgnE59BCvEoXYyXt8l6EDpjpMbL5iuPiAp3_9HQpjL52EWBUaxOUHRMAalxgii17kvUKtT0S744rYHvKXlcLML4lZm24lvaEqs6kb/s200/The+Little+Room.jpg" width="200" height="158" data-original-width="714" data-original-height="564" /></a></div>The little room was uncomfortably warm in the heat of the afternoon. The Sun had streamed through the window and made it’s daily march across the bare, unfinished wooden floor from the door to the back wall and for a few short minutes would linger on the chair.<br />
<br />
He stared at it mindlessly as a drop of sweat formed beneath his eye and ran down to his jaw, hesitated for a moment, gathering mass, and then continued to his chin and dripped to the table. His mind was weary and he felt like lying down, but the bed was still made up and since there would be no meaningful rest before the cool evening breeze came he decided to leave it. The neat simplicity of it comforted him somehow.<br />
<br />
Finishing the glass of wine he’d poured for himself he rose and took the few steps across the room to the window. It was quiet and peaceful looking across the red tile roofs that stretched down the hill toward the sea, the reddish buildings and their blue window frames that may have once been the color of the sky itself. But he couldn’t help himself from thinking the scene was even more peaceful when it was cooler as more sweat dripped from his chin, quickly evaporating from the window sill.<br />
<br />
He turned back toward the room, his eyes still narrowed by the bright sun, and for an instant the room looked the same as it had that day so long ago. The table, the chairs, the cupboard, the neatly made bed, the chair and the yellow summer dress lying on it glowing in the sunlight as if it were made of some magical material, thrown there in a moment of haste. <br />
<br />
He clenched his eyes in a longing, hopeful moment and more sweat ran down his cheeks. When he looked again, his eyes cleared, and the dress was gone. He had known it would be. It always was, but each time there was the memory, and the hope. But for now there was only the wine, the empty glass, the bookshelf, the heat, and the slow rhythm of the passing days.<br />
<br />
An Average Guyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01936210902482016775noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2915899542550833230.post-59905072896834467612017-09-03T23:57:00.002-05:002017-09-03T23:57:59.967-05:00Captain America<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7uUQHSHzllSOpGsNZFlv0YCFBatWbqLy9Q2AJkDvH2fg6gOIr_FgcLyB8eQwrJqQYBTx3jGWB49STUuQNXgL6-uhyGsATe2gYCWUHvfJoTDQGbPl7m3tglaLUTiOMx15Td6PoDwPn88uw/s1600/CA.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7uUQHSHzllSOpGsNZFlv0YCFBatWbqLy9Q2AJkDvH2fg6gOIr_FgcLyB8eQwrJqQYBTx3jGWB49STUuQNXgL6-uhyGsATe2gYCWUHvfJoTDQGbPl7m3tglaLUTiOMx15Td6PoDwPn88uw/s200/CA.jpg" width="200" height="142" data-original-width="266" data-original-height="189" /></a></div>In an effort to seem less *better than you* Marvel Comics announced that Captain America would no longer be referred to in that manner. His stars and stripes motif will be replaced with an "autumn" colored ensem de-emfasising his nationality as much as possible. His new persona will be more international and not emphasize American exceptionalism or values in any way.<br />
<br />
Since Captain America is out, as is any reference to America the first choice for a new name was just "The Captain"..... alas Captain Morgan now has that copyright protected...... "The Guy" was ruled out because Comedy Central now has ownership of the "guy" thing, and obvious gender implications...... so what Marvel was left with is just "The Man From That Country Between Mexico and Canada". His job, although less exciting than thwarting international bad actors is more satisfying. He now travels on UN paid private jets to international capitols counseling would be dictators on the distastefulness of world domination and the disadvantages of luxurious retirement on the Riviera or the horn of Africa. So adios Captain America... and Hola Man From That Country Between Mexico and Canada.<br />
<br />
But that's just what an average guy thinksAn Average Guyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01936210902482016775noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2915899542550833230.post-45566334632085368702017-08-12T22:09:00.000-05:002017-08-12T22:18:58.748-05:00Charlottesville<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgne9zdopJ3gDs1_TBW7Tb5Ec8arHg5af8ld2salkjoifoGADKeACEaVp58IEIiFeWCxqea_P9ybglmusK6WLhEP6qXutY5aKnpqk_-_BnhlUykOkzk9-hUg3IsBQygpBc_X9MuwPCxPXa5/s1600/Lee_statuec.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgne9zdopJ3gDs1_TBW7Tb5Ec8arHg5af8ld2salkjoifoGADKeACEaVp58IEIiFeWCxqea_P9ybglmusK6WLhEP6qXutY5aKnpqk_-_BnhlUykOkzk9-hUg3IsBQygpBc_X9MuwPCxPXa5/s200/Lee_statuec.jpg" width="150" height="200" data-original-width="404" data-original-height="539" /></a></div>In regard to the violence in Charlottesville, Virginia:In regard to the violence in Charlottesville, Virginia: I think it’s worth taking a moment to reflect on why this terrible thing has happened. <br />
Apparently it all began in the 1860s when a prominent Virginian (Robert E. Lee) who was a graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point, and a decorated Army officer was offered command of the Army of the United States, but instead opted for great personal sacrifice and stood with his home state of Virginia We should remember that at that time the federation was young and people still viewed it as a collection of sovereign states.<br />
The history of the war is clear enough. The Confederacy lost, and it was a very a well-known and venerated Robert E. Lee that publicly supported President Andrew Johnson’s plan for reconciliation and reconstruction. There could have been no better voice for peaceful reconciliation.<br />
So what was the motivation of the City of Charlottesville in declaring that the statue of Lee was to be removed? Was it in reaction to Lee’s position as Confederate soldier, or of his later position regarding the reconciliation and reconstruction including the education and integration of the Freedmen into the fabric of society? Was it perhaps “value signaling”? Or was it a more nakedly political and cynical effort to further divide the electorate along racial and ideological lines. By associating Lee with, slavery and the KKK, ignoring the fact that these were institutions he worked against during the reconstruction up until the time of his death? Or was it a way for them to strike out at Donald Trump, the new president, without regard for what the consequences might be? Is anyone surprised by today’s events? <br />
<br />
I have no sympathy for ANY people who go to demonstrations with the motive of venting their anger. I’ve been watching these things since I was young, and the only time they ever have a positive outcome is when one side or the other is committed to non-violence. In this case both sides came armed and spoiling for a fight and that’s exactly what they got. <br />
<br />
And now democrat politicians will lean back in their leather chairs, puff on their fat Cuban cigars and laugh like Jaba while republican politicians race to see who can condemn the violence in the shrillest terms and at the highest volume level. Lord knows that they HAVE to be on record as being against racism and the KKK. <br />
<br />
But again, follow this back. What was the motivation of the politicians in Charlottesville that set this whole thing in motion? Are they so ignorant of history that they weren’t aware that Lee strove to prevent such strife? Were they so short sighted that they couldn’t imagine what would happen? Or were they so keen to get back at Donald Trump after the election that they simply couldn’t think of any other way to do it? My suspicion was previously stated. They planned this out purely for the political gain that they can harvest by fomenting racial tension.<br />
<br />
But that’s just what an average guy thinks.<br />
An Average Guyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01936210902482016775noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2915899542550833230.post-41147298139908731472017-08-08T12:12:00.000-05:002017-08-08T12:12:06.000-05:00James Damore's Memo""Reply to public response and misrepresentation<br />
I value diversity and inclusion, am not denying that sexism exists, and don’t endorse using stereotypes. When addressing the gap in representation in the population, we need to look at population level differences in distributions. If we can’t have an honest discussion about this, then we can never truly solve the problem. Psychological safety is built on mutual respect and acceptance, but unfortunately our culture of shaming and misrepresentation is disrespectful and unaccepting of anyone outside its echo chamber. Despite what the public response seems to have been, I’ve gotten many personal messages from fellow Googlers expressing their gratitude for bringing up these very important issues which they agree with but would never have the courage to say or defend because of our shaming culture and the possibility of being fired. This needs to change.<br />
TL:DR<br />
• Google’s political bias has equated the freedom from offense with psychological safety, but shaming into silence is the antithesis of psychological safety.<br />
• This silencing has created an ideological echo chamber where some ideas are too sacred to be honestly discussed.<br />
• The lack of discussion fosters the most extreme and authoritarian elements of this ideology. <br />
• Extreme: all disparities in representation are due to oppression<br />
• Authoritarian: we should discriminate to correct for this oppression<br />
• Differences in distributions of traits between men and women may in part explain why we don’t have 50% representation of women in tech and leadership. Discrimination to reach equal representation is unfair, divisive, and bad for business. <br />
Background [1]<br />
People generally have good intentions, but we all have biases which are invisible to us. Thankfully, open and honest discussion with those who disagree can highlight our blind spots and help us grow, which is why I wrote this document.[2] Google has several biases and honest discussion about these biases is being silenced by the dominant ideology. What follows is by no means the complete story, but it’s a perspective that desperately needs to be told at Google.<br />
Google’s biases<br />
At Google, we talk so much about unconscious bias as it applies to race and gender, but we rarely discuss our moral biases. Political orientation is actually a result of deep moral preferences and thus biases. Considering that the overwhelming majority of the social sciences, media, and Google lean left, we should critically examine these prejudices. <br />
Left Biases<br />
• Compassion for the weak<br />
• Disparities are due to injustices<br />
• Humans are inherently cooperative<br />
• Change is good (unstable) <br />
• Open<br />
• Idealist<br />
Right Biases<br />
• Respect for the strong/authority<br />
• Disparities are natural and just<br />
• Humans are inherently competitive<br />
• Change is dangerous (stable)<br />
• Closed<br />
• Pragmatic<br />
Neither side is 100% correct and both viewpoints are necessary for a functioning society or, in this case, company. A company too far to the right may be slow to react, overly hierarchical, and untrusting of others. In contrast, a company too far to the left will constantly be changing (deprecating much loved services), over diversify its interests (ignoring or being ashamed of its core business), and overly trust its employees and competitors. <br />
Only facts and reason can shed light on these biases, but when it comes to diversity and inclusion, Google’s left bias has created a politically correct monoculture that maintains its hold by shaming dissenters into silence. This silence removes any checks against encroaching extremist and authoritarian policies. For the rest of this document, I’ll concentrate on the extreme stance that all differences in outcome are due to differential treatment and the authoritarian element that’s required to actually discriminate to create equal representation.<br />
Possible non-bias causes of the gender gap in tech [3]<br />
At Google, we’re regularly told that implicit (unconscious) and explicit biases are holding women back in tech and leadership. Of course, men and women experience bias, tech, and the workplace differently and we should be cognizant of this, but it’s far from the whole story. <br />
On average, men and women biologically differ in many ways. These differences aren’t just socially constructed because:<br />
• They’re universal across human cultures<br />
• They often have clear biological causes and links to prenatal testosterone<br />
• Biological males that were castrated at birth and raised as females often still identify and act like males<br />
• The underlying traits are highly heritable<br />
• They’re exactly what we would predict from an evolutionary psychology perspective<br />
Note, I’m not saying that all men differ from women in the following ways or that these differences are “just.” I’m simply stating that the distribution of preferences and abilities of men and women differ in part due to biological causes and that these differences may explain why we don’t see equal representation of women in tech and leadership. Many of these differences are small and there’s significant overlap between men and women, so you can’t say anything about an individual given these population level distributions. <br />
Personality differences<br />
Women, on average, have more:<br />
• Openness directed towards feelings and aesthetics rather than ideas. Women generally also have a stronger interest in people rather than things, relative to men (also interpreted as empathizing vs. systemizing).<br />
• These two differences in part explain why women relatively prefer jobs in social or artistic areas. More men may like coding because it requires systemizing and even within SWEs, comparatively more women work on front end, which deals with both people and aesthetics.<br />
• Extraversion expressed as gregariousness rather than assertiveness. Also, higher agreeableness.<br />
• This leads to women generally having a harder time negotiating salary, asking for raises, speaking up, and leading. Note that these are just average differences and there’s overlap between men and women, but this is seen solely as a women’s issue. This leads to exclusory programs like Stretch and swaths of men without support.<br />
• Neuroticism (higher anxiety, lower stress tolerance).This may contribute to the higher levels of anxiety women report on Googlegeist and to the lower number of women in high stress jobs. <br />
Note that contrary to what a social constructionist would argue, research suggests that “greater nation-level gender equality leads to psychological dissimilarity in men’s and women’s personality traits.” Because as “society becomes more prosperous and more egalitarian, innate dispositional differences between men and women have more space to develop and the gap that exists between men and women in their personality becomes wider.” We need to stop assuming that gender gaps imply sexism. <br />
Men’s higher drive for status<br />
We always ask why we don’t see women in top leadership positions, but we never ask why we see so many men in these jobs. These positions often require long, stressful hours that may not be worth it if you want a balanced and fulfilling life.<br />
Status is the primary metric that men are judged on[4], pushing many men into these higher paying, less satisfying jobs for the status that they entail. Note, the same forces that lead men into high pay/high stress jobs in tech and leadership cause men to take undesirable and dangerous jobs like coal mining, garbage collection, and firefighting, and suffer 93% of work-related deaths. <br />
Non-discriminatory ways to reduce the gender gap<br />
Below I’ll go over some of the differences in distribution of traits between men and women that I outlined in the previous section and suggest ways to address them to increase women’s representation in tech and without resorting to discrimination. Google is already making strides in many of these areas, but I think it’s still instructive to list them:<br />
• Women on average show a higher interest in people and men in things<br />
• We can make software engineering more people-oriented with pair programming and more collaboration. Unfortunately, there may be limits to how people-oriented certain roles and Google can be and we shouldn’t deceive ourselves or students into thinking otherwise (some of our programs to get female students into coding might be doing this).<br />
• Women on average are more cooperative<br />
• Allow those exhibiting cooperative behavior to thrive. Recent updates to Perf may be doing this to an extent, but maybe there’s more we can do. This doesn’t mean that we should remove all competitiveness from Google. Competitiveness and self reliance can be valuable traits and we shouldn’t necessarily disadvantage those that have them, like what’s been done in education. Women on average are more prone to anxiety. Make tech and leadership less stressful. Google already partly does this with its many stress reduction courses and benefits.<br />
• Women on average look for more work-life balance while men have a higher drive for status on average<br />
• Unfortunately, as long as tech and leadership remain high status, lucrative careers, men may disproportionately want to be in them. Allowing and truly endorsing (as part of our culture) part time work though can keep more women in tech.<br />
• The male gender role is currently inflexible<br />
• Feminism has made great progress in freeing women from the female gender role, but men are still very much tied to the male gender role. If we, as a society, allow men to be more “feminine,” then the gender gap will shrink, although probably because men will leave tech and leadership for traditionally feminine roles. <br />
Philosophically, I don’t think we should do arbitrary social engineering of tech just to make it appealing to equal portions of both men and women. For each of these changes, we need principles reasons for why it helps Google; that is, we should be optimizing for Google—with Google’s diversity being a component of that. For example currently those trying to work extra hours or take extra stress will inevitably get ahead and if we try to change that too much, it may have disastrous consequences. Also, when considering the costs and benefits, we should keep in mind that Google’s funding is finite so its allocation is more zero-sum than is generally acknowledged.<br />
The Harm of Google’s biases<br />
I strongly believe in gender and racial diversity, and I think we should strive for more. However, to achieve a more equal gender and race representation, Google has created several discriminatory practices:<br />
• Programs, mentoring, and classes only for people with a certain gender or race [5]<br />
• A high priority queue and special treatment for “diversity” candidates<br />
• Hiring practices which can effectively lower the bar for “diversity” candidates by decreasing the false negative rate<br />
• Reconsidering any set of people if it’s not “diverse” enough, but not showing that same scrutiny in the reverse direction (clear confirmation bias)<br />
• Setting org level OKRs for increased representation which can incentivize illegal discrimination [6]<br />
These practices are based on false assumptions generated by our biases and can actually increase race and gender tensions. We’re told by senior leadership that what we’re doing is both the morally and economically correct thing to do, but without evidence this is just veiled left ideology[7] that can irreparably harm Google.<br />
Why we’re blind<br />
We all have biases and use motivated reasoning to dismiss ideas that run counter to our internal values. Just as some on the Right deny science that runs counter to the “God > humans > environment” hierarchy (e.g., evolution and climate change) the Left tends to deny science concerning biological differences between people (e.g., IQ[8] and sex differences). Thankfully, climate scientists and evolutionary biologists generally aren’t on the right. Unfortunately, the overwhelming majority of humanities and social scientists learn left (about 95%), which creates enormous confirmation bias, changes what’s being studied, and maintains myths like social constructionism and the gender wage gap[9]. Google’s left leaning makes us blind to this bias and uncritical of its results, which we’re using to justify highly politicized programs. <br />
In addition to the Left’s affinity for those it sees as weak, humans are generally biased towards protecting females. As mentioned before, this likely evolved because males are biologically disposable and because women are generally more cooperative and areeable than men. We have extensive government and Google programs, fields of study, and legal and social norms to protect women, but when a man complains about a gender issue issue [sic] affecting men, he’s labelled as a misogynist and whiner[10]. Nearly every difference between men and women is interpreted as a form of women’s oppression. As with many things in life, gender differences are often a case of “grass being greener on the other side”; unfortunately, taxpayer and Google money is spent to water only one side of the lawn.<br />
The same compassion for those seen as weak creates political correctness[11], which constrains discourse and is complacent to the extremely sensitive PC-authoritarians that use violence and shaming to advance their cause. While Google hasn’t harbored the violent leftists protests that we’re seeing at universities, the frequent shaming in TGIF and in our culture has created the same silence, psychologically unsafe environment.<br />
Suggestions<br />
I hope it’s clear that I’m not saying that diversity is bad, that Google or society is 100% fair, that we shouldn’t try to correct for existing biases, or that minorities have the same experience of those in the majority. My larger point is that we have an intolerance for ideas and evidence that don’t fit a certain ideology. I’m also not saying that we should restrict people to certain gender roles; I’m advocating for quite the opposite: treat people as individuals, not as just another member of their group (tribalism).<br />
My concrete suggestions are to:<br />
De-moralize diversity.<br />
• As soon as we start to moralize an issue, we stop thinking about it in terms of costs and benefits, dismiss anyone that disagrees as immoral, and harshly punish those we see as villains to protect the “victims.”<br />
Stop alienating conservatives. <br />
• Viewpoint diversity is arguably the most important type of diversity and political orientation is one of the most fundamental and significant ways in which people view things differently.<br />
• In highly progressive environments, conservatives are a minority that feel like they need to stay in the closet to avoid open hostility. We should empower those with different ideologies to be able to express themselves.<br />
• Alienating conservatives is both non-inclusive and generally bad business because conservatives tend to be higher in conscientiousness, which is require for much of the drudgery and maintenance work characteristic of a mature company.<br />
Confront Google’s biases.<br />
• I’ve mostly concentrated on how our biases cloud our thinking about diversity and inclusion, but our moral biases are farther reaching than that. <br />
• I would start by breaking down Googlegeist scores by political orientation and personality to give a fuller picture into how our biases are affecting our culture.<br />
Stop restricting programs and classes to certain genders or races.<br />
• These discriminatory practices are both unfair and divisive. Instead focus on some of the non-discriminatory practices I outlined.<br />
Have an open and honest discussion about the costs and benefits of our diversity programs.<br />
• Discriminating just to increase the representation of women in tech is as misguided and biased as mandating increases for women’s representation in the homeless, work-related and violent deaths, prisons, and school dropouts. <br />
• There’s currently very little transparency into the extend of our diversity programs which keeps it immune to criticism from those outside its ideological echo chamber. <br />
• These programs are highly politicized which further alienates non-progressives.<br />
• I realize that some of our programs may be precautions against government accusations of discrimination, but that can easily backfire since they incentivize illegal discrimination.<br />
Focus on psychological safety, not just race/gender diversity.<br />
• We should focus on psychological safety, which has shown positive effects and should (hopefully) not lead to unfair discrimination.<br />
• We need psychological safety and shared values to gain the benefits of diversity<br />
• Having representative viewpoints is important for those designing and testing our products, but the benefits are less clear for those more removed from UX.<br />
De-emphasize empathy.<br />
• I’ve heard several calls for increased empathy on diversity issues. While I strongly support trying to understand how and why people think the way they do, relying on affective empathy—feeling another’s pain—causes us to focus on anecdotes, favor individuals similar to us, and harbor other irrational and dangerous biases. Being emotionally unengaged helps us better reason about the facts.<br />
Prioritize intention.<br />
• Our focus on microaggressions and other unintentional transgressions increases our sensitivity, which is not universally positive: sensitivity increases both our tendency to take offense and our self censorship, leading to authoritarian policies. Speaking up without the fear of being harshly judged is central to psychological safety, but these practices can remove that safety by judging unintentional transgressions. <br />
• Microaggression training incorrectly and dangerously equates speech with violence and isn’t backed by evidence.<br />
Be open about the science of human nature. <br />
• Once we acknowledge that not all differences are socially constructed or due to discrimination, we open our eyes to a more accurate view of the human condition which is necessary if we actually want to solve problems. <br />
Reconsider making Unconscious Bias training mandatory for promo committees.<br />
• We haven’t been able to measure any effect of our Unconscious Bias training and it has the potential for overcorrecting or backlash, especially if made mandatory.<br />
• Some of the suggested methods of the current training (v2.3) are likely useful, but the political bias of the presentation is clear from the factual inaccuracies and the examples shown.<br />
• Spend more time on the many other types of biases besides stereotypes. Stereotypes are much more accurate and responsive to new information than the training suggests (I’m not advocating for using stereotypes, I [sic] just pointing out the factual inaccuracy of what’s said in the training).<br />
[1] This document is mostly written from the perspective of Google’s Mountain View campus, I can’t speak about other offices or countries.<br />
[2] Of course, I may be biased and only see evidence that supports my viewpoint. In terms of political biases, I consider myself a classical liberal and strongly value individualism and reason. I’d be very happy to discuss any of the document further and provide more citations.<br />
[3] Throughout the document, by “tech”, I mostly mean software engineering.<br />
[4] For heterosexual romantic relationships, men are more strongly judged by status and women by beauty. Again, this has biological origins and is culturally universal. <br />
[5] Stretch, BOLD, CSSI, Engineering Practicum (to an extent), and several other Google funded internal and external programs are for people with a certain gender or race.<br />
[6] Instead set Googlegeist OKRs, potentially for certain demographics. We can increase representation at an org level by either making it a better environment for certain groups (which would be seen in survey scores) or discriminating based on a protected status (which is illegal and I’ve seen it done). Increased representation OKRs can incentivize the latter and create zero-sum struggles between orgs.<br />
[7] Communism promised to be both morally and economically superior to capitalism, but every attempt became morally corrupt and an economic failure. As it became clear that the working class of the liberal democracies wasn’t going to overthrow their “capitalist oppressors,” the Marxist intellectuals transitioned from class warfare to gender and race politics. The core oppressor-oppressed dynamics remained, but now the oppressor is the “white, straight, cis-gendered patriarchy.”<br />
[8] Ironically, IQ tests were initially championed by the Left when meritocracy meant helping the victims of the aristocracy.<br />
[9] Yes, in a national aggregate, women have lower salaries than men for a variety of reasons. For the same work though, women get paid just as much as men. Considering women spend more money than men and that salary represents how much the employees sacrifices (e.g. more hours, stress, and danger), we really need to rethink our stereotypes around power.<br />
[10] “The traditionalist system of gender does not deal well with the idea of men needing support. Men are expected to be strong, to not complain, and to deal with problems on their own. Men’s problems are more often seen as personal failings rather than victimhood,, due to our gendered idea of agency. This discourages men from bringing attention to their issues (whether individual or group-wide issues), for fear of being seen as whiners, complainers, or weak.”<br />
[11] Political correctness is defined as “the avoidance of forms of expression or action that are perceived to exclude, marginalize, or insult groups of people who are socially disadvantaged or discriminated against,” which makes it clear why it’s a phenomenon of the Left and a tool of authoritarians.<br />
Update 7:25pm ET: Google’s new Vice President of Diversity, Integrity & Governance, Danielle Brown, issued the following statement in response to the internal employee memo:""<br />
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An Average Guyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01936210902482016775noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2915899542550833230.post-74824996330629270192017-07-13T23:56:00.000-05:002017-07-14T10:36:55.855-05:00The Religeous Freedom Restoration Act of 1993<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMqJPEq9IOzCzhRgTye1GeGk7fLU11T2bhB-P-JrObyx0YtPjbJ84HpnhsNUrgifB52499uXvS5y392UQ2yxDJyEAG9dbiRTRdhbWqjV1DVUZyLxq_nNmr2Z8QzXjE0vJrNlwKp52OXDhE/s1600/RFRA.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMqJPEq9IOzCzhRgTye1GeGk7fLU11T2bhB-P-JrObyx0YtPjbJ84HpnhsNUrgifB52499uXvS5y392UQ2yxDJyEAG9dbiRTRdhbWqjV1DVUZyLxq_nNmr2Z8QzXjE0vJrNlwKp52OXDhE/s320/RFRA.jpg" width="320" height="179" data-original-width="301" data-original-height="168" /></a></div>The Religious Freedom Restoration Act was proposed as H.R. 1308 to the 103rd Congress of The United States in 1993 by Representative Chuck Shumer (D, NY). He had 170 cosponsors, 135 of them Democrat. At that time, the House of Representatives was composed of 258 Democrats, and 176 Republicans (59%D, 41%R), only 35 of whom had co-sponsored the bill. Ultimately, it passed by a UNANIMOUS vote.<br />
<br />
The Senate, at the time, was composed of 57 Democrats, and 43 Republicans. The bill was approved in the Senate by a vote of 97 to 3, with two Democrats, and Jesse Helms (R,NC) voting NO, and then of course it was signed into law by then President Bill Clinton.<br />
<br />
The Hobby Lobby case before the Supreme Court (Burwell v. Hobby Lobby) was decided the way it was because mandated elements of the Affordable Care Act contradicted the language of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act and of course the purpose of the Supreme Court is to insure that the law is consistent.<br />
<br />
So when anti-Christian zealots start to shriek hysterically about how Donald Trump and religiously fanatical conservatives are working to install a theocracy in Washington based on a closed door policy guidance speech that Jeff Sessions made, take a moment to re-visit history for just a half a mo and remind them that they have Chuck Shumer and the solidly Democrat 103rd Congress and Democrat elder statesman Bill Clinton to thank for the RFRA.<br />
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But that's just what an average guy thinks.An Average Guyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01936210902482016775noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2915899542550833230.post-29428330753722640442017-07-12T21:21:00.000-05:002017-07-12T21:21:50.831-05:00Russian Influence<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGhtExkzeXVGf90Z0Jn7RJ2kI1pDVPeCsCJWeUyfqf7BcK1hJNEz4ARXsyvkZ53xLHi2ZiX7e9EY9LlTWHP9ZA7LoA9eLH4mPUww5azIvAqJZiBT3dkrpSqbfQjwPwhYHkMtEAL1Ap35cR/s1600/putinbear.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGhtExkzeXVGf90Z0Jn7RJ2kI1pDVPeCsCJWeUyfqf7BcK1hJNEz4ARXsyvkZ53xLHi2ZiX7e9EY9LlTWHP9ZA7LoA9eLH4mPUww5azIvAqJZiBT3dkrpSqbfQjwPwhYHkMtEAL1Ap35cR/s200/putinbear.jpg" width="200" height="184" data-original-width="500" data-original-height="461" /></a></div>I’d like to take a brief look at this whole Russian collusion thing. As was written in a whatanaverageguythings blog entry entitled “Special Counsel”, Russian interference and participation in U.S. policy and politics is nothing new. It’s been going on since the Bolshevik Revolution. What’s interesting is that in this case, the traditional allies of the communist Russians, progressive democrats, are now up in arms and consumed with false indignation about what has been going on for years. And of course the only reason they’re up in arms is because HRC lost the election because America didn’t believe her when she asserted that it was her turn. <br />
<br />
But let’s just take a look. Russia is a big place. They have a LOT of proven energy reserves. Energy is their biggest export. It’s one of the ways they exert power over Europe. Those pipelines that move petroleum products and natural gas across Ukraine and Poland into The Czech Republic, the Baltic States, and Germany do more than carry energy, the extend Russia’s power to influence domestic European politics. What European politician wants to face a population unable to heat its homes in the winter, or unable to afford gasoline? <br />
<br />
So. When the price of energy is high, the Russian economy does well, and when the market is limited the Kremlin can argue more persuasively for concessions from European governments eager for cheaper energy and stability. <br />
<br />
Now let’s examine the U.S. 2016 election from an energy perspective. Barack 0bama had shut down the Keystone XL Pipeline after years of uncertainty (wink, wink), as well as the Dakota Access Pipeline. Hillary Clinton was unlikely to reverse those decisions. She had also promised………. PROMISED to put a lot of coal miners out of work. In an effort to keep world energy prices from falling too far, environmentalists and their allies in the Congress and regulatory agencies had for years opposed the construction of new energy export facilities making it harder for American producers to sell their products abroad, and making it harder for those dependent on Russia to obtain energy at market prices that didn’t come with social strings attached. <br />
<br />
Donald Trump on the other hand, promised to reconsider and approve the Keystone XL pipeline, as well to overturn the decision halting construction and activation of the Dakota Access Pipeline. In addition to that permits to build export facilities for coal and LNG are being approved at an increased rate, and the climate for energy export is positive. <br />
<br />
Now, if you were Vladimir Putin and you had to pick a candidate and energy policy for the United States, which one would you choose: A) Hillary Clinton who promised to kowtow to her environmental lobby and keep energy production as low and prices as high as possible, or B) Donald Trump who promised to cut energy producers and exporters loose so that energy prices would be driven down and Russian influence in Europe would be lessened?<br />
<br />
Clearly, Russia had a financial interest in Clinton’s election and they had every right to expect it just the same as everyone else. What they were doing is what they have always done, and that’s sowing the seeds of mayhem and distrust within the United States. It’s a pity that our educational system and progressive politicians have prepared the soil so well for them.<br />
<br />
But that’s just what an average guy thinks. <br />
An Average Guyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01936210902482016775noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2915899542550833230.post-8562244882152130292017-05-17T23:04:00.000-05:002018-02-04T17:53:22.712-06:00Special Counsel<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3G5pLedRbZ08ZdtSNFg0e_BHhjdpS4VNeuOMKcEdiekn8Q6YG8oJQqDFqLfhe28T_AqpYfxcLP4oXtpJxOZ1y4RNSMoUF8D0ai2Bwv_3oc7AB1F4wayT77pb4E_wn7bCNJmC73Sps7Pf2/s1600/Mueller.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3G5pLedRbZ08ZdtSNFg0e_BHhjdpS4VNeuOMKcEdiekn8Q6YG8oJQqDFqLfhe28T_AqpYfxcLP4oXtpJxOZ1y4RNSMoUF8D0ai2Bwv_3oc7AB1F4wayT77pb4E_wn7bCNJmC73Sps7Pf2/s200/Mueller.JPG" width="200" height="150" /></a></div>Now, I’m just an average guy, but it seems to me that we have known for years, decades even, nigh on a century that the Russians have been meddling in electoral processes around the globe when it was impossible or too obvious for them to act overtly. It has been acknowledged that even though Senator Joseph McCarthy was an unscrupulous grandstander, he was also correct that there were communist sympathizers operating at the highest levels of the U.S. Government. So barely covert Russian meddling in U.S. politics is nothing new. <br />
<br />
The view from here is that rather than aid one candidate or another (HRC was a shoo in remember) the goal was simply to undermine American confidence in its public institutions. Or perhaps the Russians have better polling in the U.S. than any of the companies that do that sort of thing. It was said (I said it myself) that it would be impossible for Trump to overcome the built in lead that HRC had in the Electoral College, and the Big Blue Wall across the upper mid-West into Pennsylvania could never be breached. How did the Russians know what no one else knew? <br />
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The answer is, it seems to me, that they didn’t care who won. My belief is that they have four years’ worth of damning emails linking Hillary and Bill Clinton to corruption at the Clinton Foundation that would make Hugo Chavez blush. They also knew and still know that the Clinton’s primary motivator is monetary gain, so they knew how to deal with that. Trump is a different story, but compared to Vladimir Putin or the other dictators of the world, he’s a Boy Scout. So, if HRC wins, they can control her with her emails and cash, and if Trump wins they can cripple his presidency with clever manipulation of misleading and fraudulent news stories and promotion of public unrest. There was no way for the Russians to lose.<br />
<br />
However, now there’s a special counsel, who has been give broad investigative powers to investigate “the Russian government’s efforts to interfere in the 2016 presidential election”. That is a much larger picture than is being focused on, because it includes the hacking and release of the Podesta emails which conceivably contain huge as yet unopened cans of worms. Releases by WikiLeaks, and a whole host of other information sources. <br />
<br />
People are seeing “going after the Trump campaign”. What actually turns up may be a bit more interesting.<br />
<br />
But that’s just what an average guy thinks. <br />
An Average Guyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01936210902482016775noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2915899542550833230.post-53506387537547996762017-04-26T20:08:00.000-05:002017-04-26T20:08:10.932-05:00A Liberal Book Burning<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpb99BaxqJoax0mamKpuw5ozfjxUDUgiLV4nUpMeUeaFu-TPtSLjLsEz8ZezbZpOywrfUDzyKndY9qNu-i0rCwkO7hKmvIQO-Y3tUtycI1wZcaEKK2EmNY4_x-431BltWyo6gueOezdh5h/s1600/fahrenheit451.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpb99BaxqJoax0mamKpuw5ozfjxUDUgiLV4nUpMeUeaFu-TPtSLjLsEz8ZezbZpOywrfUDzyKndY9qNu-i0rCwkO7hKmvIQO-Y3tUtycI1wZcaEKK2EmNY4_x-431BltWyo6gueOezdh5h/s200/fahrenheit451.jpg" width="200" height="155" /></a></div>I would like to take a few moments to call out HBO “comedian” Bill Maher in regards to the fascist mobs that he has rather belatedly referred to as a “liberal book burning”. I’ll include in this all of the other “comedic” types along with pretty nearly all of the on air talent at CNN and MSNBC, and pretty nearly all of the politicians who have let this condition fester over the last few years. Where were they all when this business started?<br />
<br />
Now Maher seems to have wakened anew along with a smattering of well-known college professors to complain about the inarguable fascistic behavior of the “anti-fa” movement that aims to silence conservative voices that they don’t agree with. One suspects that most time the black clad goons aren’t even aware of the views they’re fighting against, or that they have the vocabulary, knowledge of history, or intellect to discuss them rationally. One suspects that they are simply taking cues from radically progressive and equally fascistic and totalitarian faculty members. Maher worries that the fascists are trying to shut down open discussion and debate. One wonders where he’s been hiding.<br />
But let’s us take a look for just a moment at the comedy stylings of Bill Maher; John Stewart; John Oliver; Trevor Noah; Stephen Colbert; Samantha Bee; Chelsea Handler; Amy Schumer, and then all of the political “analysts” who are too many in number to remember or name. They have spent the last sixteen years relentlessly mocking every conservative (no need to be a politician) and or traditional or conservative belief, and policy in sight.<br />
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Now let’s look at why we mock, and why we participate in mockery. In its most primal form, on the grade school playground, mockery is a form of bullying. It’s a way to ostracize and exclude. It’s a way to have pleasure at the expense of others. It’s a way to shut someone up. You make a funny joke about someone you don’t like and you try to get others to join with you. It's a way to let us feel better about ourselves. It’s why Maher’s studio audience is always full of kindred spirits. If your target won’t or can’t verbally defend themselves or has a smaller, better mannered group of friends than you then you win. You have effectively discounted everything they might have had to say without having to have had a rational thought. You have completely shut them off. You only have to be glib, and loud.<br />
<br />
Now how is that different from the black clad fascists spoiling for a fight at Berkeley, or the campus dwellers who prefer to spend their parent’s money on safe spaces in lieu of an education? The goals are exactly the same: to shut off all discussion by any means other than rational debate.<br />
<br />
But that’s just what an average guy thinks.<br />
An Average Guyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01936210902482016775noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2915899542550833230.post-3649560139701078532017-04-26T19:49:00.001-05:002017-04-26T19:49:40.351-05:00An Inescapable Tragedy<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhP-b-hEZpXgh5mgpIW2XP28-gg4DB5lT14bez2PGZwGCgFxAsOXEpOpmsbjp6t4e63FzbsqlBKuy5rxabBaOrsR566QhuTN8YTBXfBRTOprfpw4Pt29WUgP4GjUb16tIdz2uJziDqvrEOZ/s1600/operation-teapot-met-burst.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhP-b-hEZpXgh5mgpIW2XP28-gg4DB5lT14bez2PGZwGCgFxAsOXEpOpmsbjp6t4e63FzbsqlBKuy5rxabBaOrsR566QhuTN8YTBXfBRTOprfpw4Pt29WUgP4GjUb16tIdz2uJziDqvrEOZ/s200/operation-teapot-met-burst.jpg" width="200" height="150" /></a></div>I heard today (again) that the conflict in in North Korea brings us to the brink of World War III. But I wonder. Does North Korea have any allies that would be willing to go to war in order to protect it? China obviously doesn't care that much for Korea, or Koreans as witnessed by the fact that they allow them to wallow in poverty. Russia? It doesn't seem so. Iran perhaps. The two nations, both working on development of nuclear weapons and the ballistic missiles to deliver them with. <br />
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The world IS in a precarious position to be sure, having allowed two rogue states to develop these two technologies. North Korea, the ultimate authoritarian thug state and Iran, the world's leading state sponsor of terrorism sworn to the elimination of Israel, and one would presume all of the Jews residing there. An authoritarian theocracy that celebrates the idea of a "final battle" where it will prevail over its enemies. Both nations scofflaws that ignore United Nations resolutions. <br />
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At some point we will need to collectively ask ourselves how and why we let this happen, but a more pressing matter is what course of action can we take right now that will have the least tragic consequences. Because no matter what we do now, if we take military action, or if we postpone action until one or both of them marry nuclear weapons to a medium range, or intercontinental delivery system, it will end in tragedy.<br />
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But that's just what an average guy thinks.An Average Guyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01936210902482016775noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2915899542550833230.post-83943658401972717602017-03-08T19:17:00.000-06:002017-03-08T19:17:31.998-06:00More On Comprehensive Immigration Reform<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJZRUQuwKKI7e_JChWIcfxDWXelKNOLw8T5a9icLBzogW2OyfLjmUJ3L8VnEs89dnjw66kmgxIJw1k-yTTEBE8xnd0b2f4P1R5PuJl6G5YjRBg6NhmqwksQQKf14maFc_b_goZQixkjbca/s1600/Just+a+Bill.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJZRUQuwKKI7e_JChWIcfxDWXelKNOLw8T5a9icLBzogW2OyfLjmUJ3L8VnEs89dnjw66kmgxIJw1k-yTTEBE8xnd0b2f4P1R5PuJl6G5YjRBg6NhmqwksQQKf14maFc_b_goZQixkjbca/s200/Just+a+Bill.jpg" width="200" height="185" /></a></div>It is a logical position to oppose ANY compromise with progressives on fiscal matters that apply to additional government spending and tax increases. It is also logical to worry about the nation’s $1.x Trillion deficit which is of course the amount of money we spend as a nation each year in excess of what is collected in tax revenue. Each year it gets added to the national debt which now stands above $19 Trillion, which is in turn dwarfed by our unfunded liabilities (promises we have made to pay in the future) which now are approaching or exceed $105 Trillion ( It’s hard to keep up). Additional government spending and taxes simply takes money out of the private sector where it could find its most efficient use and puts it in the hands of government bureaucrats who first take out the government cut and then spend the rest on whatever THEY think would be best. The list of beneficiaries always seems to be topped by the “Friends Of The Party In Power Benevolent Association”. It’s funny how that seems to work, but back to fiscal compromise.<br />
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Fiscal compromise is one reason why the world economy is in the shape it’s in. For many decades, the path to success in the U.S. congress was to “go along and get along”. You scratch my back, and I’ll scratch yours. The secret to a long career was to bring home the bacon for your constituents so that when election time rolled around there would be no room for an opponent to criticize. This was done by agreeing to help your colleagues take home their own bacon. We’ve all seen “Mr. Smith Goes To Washington”. We all know how it works, but we also know that there isn’t really a crooked politician out there with the sense of decency to put a gun to his or her head.<br />
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But what’s the harm? A Billion dollars here a Billion dollars there. The government spends a Billion dollars every two hours and fifteen minutes. Who’s going to miss another Billion? Only they don’t get spent in single Billions generally. Generally they get spent by the hundreds of Billions and not for one time purchases….. but ongoing programs that now have managers who have a personal interest in continuing and growing the expenditure. Did you ever hear of a federal bureaucrat who advocated for the dissolution of his or her department?<br />
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So the spending and debt go up and up and everything seems cool. Everyone seems to be having a good time, and then something unexpected happens: Unexpected, but predictable, AND predicted. A policy of increasingly easy home mortgage financing promoted and then aggressively pushed by the federal government created the “housing bubble” which finally burst and crashed the whole world economy.<br />
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Compromise reaches its frenzied climax during the assembly of “Omnibus”, and “Comprehensive” legislation. <br />
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Omnibus legislation is just a hodgepodge of measures that legislators didn’t have time to deal with or didn’t want to talk about openly and so they wait until the very end of the session and throw them all into one big “anthology of pork”. Everybody gets something. Sort of like the Christmas party at school, only at this party there isn’t any limit to the amount of money that can be spent. The bills will contain legitimate amendments to existing law and other bureaucratic necessities, but way back in the back, neatly tucked in between substantive matters there will be more fiscal hijinks than you can possibly imagine. All of the things that legislators would be embarrassed to stand and openly argue for, or support are here, and the reason they’re here is because it’s where everyone is allowed a pass for voting in favor of all of their colleague’s corruption. The bills are long, and hard to read. Who’s going to know? And if someone does find out next year, who’s going to care? It’s a win/win.<br />
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Comprehensive legislation at least has a stated purpose which is to take a large general problem which is the sum of several, or many related problems and solve them all in one fell swoop. A problem with comprehensive legislation is that it requires a fair measure of arrogance to believe that one fully understands all of the moving parts of a situation and how they interact with one another. Yesterday’s comprehensive legislation was the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. The Congress is now digging its way out from under that pile of rubble, and will be for a long time. Another problem with this sort of legislation is that it allows the executive authority the option of allowing the passage of complex legislation and then non-enforcement of parts of the law it deems unnecessary.<br />
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They are beginning again to speak of comprehensive “Immigration Reform”, which is only one of the three major problems that it purports to solve, the other two being border security, and what to do with the 12 to 14 million immigrants who are already here illegally. Tied together, these three separate but interacting problems will generate another 1500 page monstrosity of a bill, the exact contents of which no one will know until the provisions begin to be selectively administered. Its stated purpose will be the solution, in one package, of three pressing national problems. 1) Border security and control. 2) Reform of an antiquated visa system. 3) Dealing with the many many millions of immigrants currently living in the United States illegally.<br />
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The attempt to combine the solutions to these problems in one piece of legislation will result in at least one, and perhaps all three of the problems going unsolved and perhaps made even worse. And there will be the requisite lies. If you liked “If you like your plan, you can keep your plan” you’ll LOVE “this bill does not give blanket amnesty to 14 Million illegals”.<br />
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The solution to the immigration problem is simple and can be accomplished by separate actions. First) Secure the border. Everyone else does it, including all of those industrialized nations progressives like to trot out when speaking about nationalized health care. Securing the borders is not a small thing, but we landed a man on the moon in 1969. We can secure the borders. And those attempting border violation need to be immediately deported to the country that they just came from, not given a bus ticket to the U.S. city of their choice, and released on their own recognizance pending a hearing in six months. Simple. Except smugglers of course. They can stay. In prison, and THEN deported.<br />
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Next) While the borders are being secured, we can be reforming the immigration system to efficiently handle the volumes of applicants expected, and establish a status for guest workers who have no intention or desire to becoming Americans. We, as a nation, have a right, and responsibility to know who is coming to and leaving our country.<br />
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And Finally) Deal with the 12 to 14 Million “extralegals” already in the country. Separately, the issue is just as simple as the other two. With the borders secure the problem practically solves itself. People live their lives and eventually die. People move away. If no more illegals arrive then the number present will decrease all by itself. In the mean time some legal status needs to be provided with no voting rights, and no social safety net. No logistically minded serious person suggests the involuntary deportation of 12 Million people. It won’t be necessary to talk about, or establish a special PATHWAY to citizenship. Immigrants can apply for permanent resident status and then for citizenship, just as they always could have, and once they have satisfied the requirements they can stand in front of a judge, raise their right hand, and recite the pledge of allegiance.<br />
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In separate pieces of legislation these three steps are straight forward and simple to execute. Trying to connect them would create a sort of Rube Goldberg contraption with so many moving parts that it would from the outset become impossible to operate or maintain. Our continuing experience with Healthcare.gov should have red flags going up on every pole.<br />
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Comprehensive legislation of ANY kind is the enemy of average Americans.<br />
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But that’s just what an average guy thinks.<br />
An Average Guyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01936210902482016775noreply@blogger.com0