Author Topic: Fascism, liberal and tech fascism, progressivism, socialism, crony capitalism  (Read 316715 times)

Crafty_Dog

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Mussolini 1932
« Reply #700 on: November 15, 2019, 10:20:29 PM »
Full paragraph: THE ABSOLUTE PRIMACY OF THE STATE
The keystone of the Fascist doctrine is its conception of the State, of its essence, its functions, and its aims. For Fascism the State is absolute, individuals and groups relative. Individuals and groups are admissible in so far as they come within the State. Instead of directing the game and guiding the material and moral progress of the community, the liberal State restricts its activities to recording results. The Fascist State is wide awake and has a will of its own. For this reason it can be described as " ethical ".
- Benito Mussolini
THE FASCIST TOTALITARIAN VISION OF THE FUTURE.
THE DOCTRINE OF FASCISM (1932)

DougMacG

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Measuring the Impact of 20 Years of Socialism in Venezuela
« Reply #701 on: December 02, 2019, 08:00:14 AM »
This is NOT a story only about Venzuela; these are the policies being proposed here and everywhere.  I understand that Chavez cheated in his elections and that "observers" like then Sec of State Colin Powell and former Pres Jimmy Carter failed us and them, but the central problem in Venezuela comes from the fact that these failed ideas still have attraction to too many people in too many places, including American universities where truth should be taught. 

In a nutshell, confiscating from the capitalists and giving to the government and the people fails the people it purports to help.  The system doesn't work.  I don't know how to shout any louder or clearer, capitalism require capital and capitalists.  We need more people involved in it, not fewer.  The freedom of people and freedom in markets leads to some successes that can be unseemly and seem 'unfair', but all the alternatives are far worse.

Socialism-Lite = failure-lite.  In today's world might be Buttigieg instead of Warren.   Why choose that?  Choose prosperity which increases opportunity for all.  It's that simple and examples are there to be seen around the world and throughout hisotry.
----------------------
https://danieljmitchell.wordpress.com/2019/12/01/measuring-the-impact-of-20-years-of-socialism-in-venezuela/

Measuring the Impact of 20 Years of Socialism in Venezuela
December 1, 2019 by Dan Mitchell

Fifty years ago, Venezuela was ranked #10 for economic liberty and enjoyed the highest living standards in Latin America

Today, the nation is an economic disaster. Hugo Chavez and Nicolas Maduro deserve much of the blame. Their socialist policies have dropped Venezuela to last place according to Economic Freedom of the World.

Predictably, this has resulted in horrific suffering.  And it’s going from bad to worse.  In ways that are unimaginable for those of us living in civilized nations.

For instance, the Associated Press reports that grave-robbing is now a problem in the country.

Even the dead aren’t safe in Maracaibo, a sweltering, suffering city in Venezuela. Thieves have broken into some of the vaults and coffins in El Cuadrado cemetery since late last year, stealing ornaments and sometimes items from corpses as the country sinks to new depths of deprivation. “Starting eight months ago, they even took the gold teeth of the dead,” said José Antonio Ferrer, who is in charge of the cemetery, where a prominent doctor, a university director and other local luminaries are buried. Much of Venezuela is in a state of decay and abandonment, brought on by shortages of things that people need the most: cash, food, water, medicine, power, gasoline. …Many who have the means leave, joining an exodus of more than 4 million Venezuelans who have left the country in recent years. …Some people sift through trash, scavenge for food.

And hyper-inflation is creating a barter economy according to the AP.

…the economy is in such shambles that drivers are now paying for fill-ups with a little food, a candy bar or just a cigarette. Bartering at the pump has taken off as hyperinflation makes Venezuela’s paper currency, the bolivar, hard to find and renders some denominations all but worthless, so that nobody will accept them. Without cash in their wallets, drivers often hand gas station attendants a bag of rice, cooking oil or whatever is within reach. …This barter system…is just another symptom of bedlam in Venezuela. …The International Monetary Fund says inflation is expected to hit a staggering 200,000% this year. Venezuela dropped five zeros from its currency last year in a futile attempt to keep up with inflation. …Venezuela, which sits atop the world’s largest oil reserves, was once rich. But the economy has fallen into ruin because of what critics say has been two decades of corruption and mismanagement under socialist rule.

Mary O’Grady of the Wall Street Journal points out that the poor are being hurt the most.

the gap in living standards between the haves and the have-nots is wider than ever. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. Economic equality is the socialists’ Holy Grail. People are poor, the logic goes, because the rich have too much. Ergo, all it takes to end poverty is the use of state coercion to distribute economic gains evenly. …Tell that to the Venezuelan poor. Not only have their numbers increased under socialism, but the suffering among the most vulnerable has grown more intense. …Venezuela now experiences recurring blackouts and brownouts… in the “ranchos,”…residents now make “lamps” out of mayonnaise jars, diesel taken from vehicles, and pieces of cloth. One local described it to the reporter as going back to “prehistoric” times. With water, sanitation and other public services, the story is the same. …the have-nots are at Mr. Maduro’s mercy.

College students also are suffering, as reported by the Union Journal.

…5 youngsters had fainted and two of them have been whisked away in an ambulance. The faintings on the major college have turn into a daily prevalence as a result of so many college students come to class with out consuming breakfast, or dinner the evening earlier than. In different faculties, youngsters wish to know if there’s any meals earlier than they resolve whether or not to go in… Venezuela’s devastating six-year financial disaster is hollowing out the varsity system… Starvation is simply one of many many issues chipping away at them now. Thousands and thousands of Venezuelans have fled the nation in recent times, depleting the ranks of scholars and academics alike. …Many colleges are shuttering within the once-wealthy nation as malnourished youngsters and academics who earn nearly nothing abandon lecture rooms to scratch out a residing on the streets or flee overseas. It’s a significant embarrassment for the self-proclaimed Socialist authorities.

In a column for the New York Times, Nicholas Kristof shares some sad observations about the consequences of Venezuelan socialism.

This country is a kleptocracy ruled incompetently by thugs who are turning a prosperous oil-exporting nation into a failed state sliding toward starvation. …Serrano, 21, lives in the impoverished, violent slum of La Dolorita, where I met her. The baby was fading from malnutrition in May, so she frantically sought medical help — but three hospitals turned the baby away, saying there were no beds available, no doctors and no supplies. …Daisha…died at home that night. …President Nicolás Maduro’s brutal socialist government is primarily responsible for the suffering, and there are steps Maduro could take to save children’s lives, if he wanted to. …Venezuela may now be sliding toward collapse and mass starvation, while fragmenting into local control by various armed groups. Outbreaks of malaria, diphtheria and measles are spreading, and infant mortality appears to have doubled since 2008.

By the way, Kristof argues that sanctions imposed by Obama and Trump are making a bad situation worse.

That’s true, but it doesn’t change the fact that Venezuela’s awful government deserves the overwhelming share of the blame.

Let’s measure how the people of Venezuela have suffered. Here are the per-capita GDP numbers since Chavez took power in 1999. There’s volatility in the data, presumably because of changes in oil prices. But the trend is unmistakably negative.



The bottom line is that Venezuela’s living standards have collapsed by about 50 percent since the socialists took over.

That makes Greece seem like an economic powerhouse by comparison.

Let’s close, though, by comparing Venezuela to Latin America’s most market-oriented nation.

As you can see, per-capita economic output in Chile (in blue) has soared while per-capita GDP in Venezuela (in red) has collapsed.



In other words, free markets and small government are the right recipe if the goal is broadly shared prosperity.

P.S. I’ve explained on many occasions that lower-income people in Chile have been the biggest beneficiaries of pro-market reforms.



DougMacG

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The Case Against Socialism, John Stossel, Rand Paul
« Reply #704 on: December 18, 2019, 03:43:52 PM »
We need to keep making this case better and better until no one with reason supports socialism.
------------------------------
https://townhall.com/columnists/johnstossel/2019/12/18/the-case-against-socialism-n2558162
Sen. Rand Paul just wrote a book, "The Case Against Socialism."

I thought that case was already decided, since socialist countries failed so spectacularly.

But the idea hasn't died, especially amongst the young.

"Hitler's socialism, Stalin's socialism, Mao's socialism. You would think people would have recognized it by now," says Paul in my latest video.

Paul echoes Orwell in likening socialism to "a boot stamping on the human face forever" and warning that it always leads to violence and corruption.

"You would think that when your economy gets to the point where people are eating their pets," says Paul, contemplating the quick descent of once-rich Venezuela, "people might have second thoughts about what system they've chosen."

That's a reference to the fact that Venezuelans have lost weight because food is so hard to find.

"Contrast that with (the country's) 'Dear Leader' Maduro, who's probably gained 50 pounds," Paul observes. "It really sums up socialism. There's still a well-fed top 1%; they just happen to be the government or cronies or friends of the government."

Naturally, American socialists say our socialism will be different.

"When I talk about democratic socialism," says Sen. Bernie Sanders, "I'm not looking at Venezuela. I'm not looking at Cuba. I'm looking at countries like Denmark and Sweden."

Paul responds, "They all wind up saying, 'The kinder, gentler socialism that we want is Scandinavia ... democratic socialism.' So we do a big chunk of the book about Scandinavia."

Paul's book is different from other politicians' books. Instead of repeating platitudes, he and his co-author did actual research, concluding, "It's not true that the Scandinavian countries are socialist."

Scandinavia did try socialist policies years ago but then turned away from socialism. They privatized industries and repealed regulations.

Denmark's prime minister even came to America and refuted Sanders' claims, pointing out that "Denmark is far from a socialist planned economy."

In fact, in rankings of economic freedom, Scandinavian countries are near the top.

"They have private property, private stock exchanges," says Paul. "We learned that, actually, Bernie is too much of a socialist for Scandinavia!"

Scandinavia did keep some socialist policies, like government-run health care. The media claim that's why Swedes live longer, but Paul says: "This is the trick of statistics. You can say, 'The Swedes live longer, and they have socialized medicine!' Yet if you look hard at the statistics, it started way before socialized medicine."

Scandinavians already lived longer 60 years ago, and they also had lower rates of poverty. That's because of Scandinavian culture's emphasis on self-reliance and hard work. Paul reminded me of an anecdote about economist Milton Friedman.

"This Swedish economist comes up to him and says, 'In Sweden, we have no poverty!' Friedman responds, 'Yeah, in America, we have no poverty among Swedish Americans!'"

In fact, Swedes have 50% higher living standards in the U.S. than when they stay in Sweden. Danish Americans, too. Socialism can't take the credit.

But the most important argument against socialism is that it crushes freedom.

Socialists get elected by promising fairness and equality, but Paul points out: "The only way you can enforce those things is to have an equality police or a fairness police, and ultimately they show up with truncheons. ... The best kind of socialist leader ends up having to be ruthless because you can't be a kinder, gentler socialist leader and get the property."

By contrast, capitalism largely lets individuals make their own choices.

"It's a direct democracy every day," says Paul. "You vote either for Walmart or you vote for Target. You vote with your feet, with your wallet. People who succeed are the people who get the most votes, which are dollars. And as long as there's no coercion, seems to me that that would be the most just way of distributing a nation's economy."

It's not perfect, but look at the track record of the alternative, says Paul: "Stalin, Hitler, Mao, Pol Pot, Castro, Chavez, Maduro. It doesn't work."


Crafty_Dog

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ccp

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swedish ex prime minister

Bernie Trotsky's response:

" i was talking about Denmark!"   :wink:

(in reality china ussr cuba etc.)


Crafty_Dog

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DougMacG

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Socialism: The Failed Idea that Never Dies, Kristian Niemietz
« Reply #713 on: September 08, 2020, 06:39:47 AM »
We can't just call it socialism.  That term has better than 50% popularity within some important voting groups.  We have to explain what's wrong with it, why it doesn't work.  I call it denial of science, denial of math and denial of history, and that still doesn't persuade white, college educated young people.  Some black people are starting to see that the free money promised from the social programs doesn't begin to match the real money of free market prosperity available to anyone who wants to try - if your government will let you.

https://www.intellectualtakeout.org/article/why-socialism-failed-idea-never-dies/?fbclid=IwAR1gRSUfcnXt00En0OO6VVYYAkfRsAKHPS0DqyHOP0xVXCNE9UmtWjbl0yE

What would you say to an amateur chef who baked a cake following a certain recipe only for everyone who ate a slice to fall ill quickly afterward? Being such an enthusiastic baker, they bake the same cake a second time just a few weeks later, again following the same recipe, but this time with one or two slight adjustments. Unfortunately, the result is the same – everyone who eats the cake soon ends up feeling sick.

The cake baker repeats this more than two dozen times, always modifying the recipe a little, but the basic ingredients remain more or less the same despite the fact that their guests throw up every time. Of course, there’s no way such a thing would happen. The cake baker would soon realize that there is a major problem with the recipe and throw it away.

More Than Two Dozen Failed Experiments
Yet this is exactly what socialists have done:

Over the past hundred years, there have been more than two dozen attempts to build a socialist society. It has been tried in the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia, Albania, Poland, Vietnam, Bulgaria, Romania, Czechoslovakia, North Korea, Hungary, China, East Germany, Cuba, Tanzania, Benin, Laos, Algeria, South Yemen, Somalia, the Congo, Ethiopia, Cambodia, Mozambique, Angola, Nicaragua and Venezuela, among others. All of these attempts have ended in varying degrees of failure. How can an idea, which has failed so many times, in so many different variants and so many radically different settings, still be so popular? (p. 21)

This is the central question asked by this extremely important book from economist Kristian Niemietz, who works at the London Institute for Economic Affairs. He manages to provide the answer to his question in one sentence:

It is because socialists have successfully managed to distance themselves from those examples. (p. 55)

As soon as you confront socialists with examples of failed experiments, they always offer the following response: “These examples don’t prove anything at all! In fact, none of these are true socialist models.” During the “heyday” of most of these socialist experiments, however, intellectuals held quite a different view, as Niemietz illustrates with many examples.

Venezuela – “Socialism of the 21st Century”
The latest example of socialism’s failings is Venezuela, which just a few years ago was being hailed by leading intellectuals and left-wing politicians as a model for “Socialism of the 21st Century.” At a demonstration in commemoration of Hugo Chávez in London in March 2013, for example, current British Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn said:

Chávez… showed us that there is a different, and a better way of doing things. It’s called socialism… In his death, we will march on, to that better, just, peaceful and hopeful world. (p. 239)

And even as late as June 2015, when the failure of the socialist experiment in Venezuela was already evident, Corbyn repeated:

When we celebrate – and it is a cause for celebration – the achievements of Venezuela, in jobs, in housing, in health, in education, but above all, its role in the whole world as a completely different place, then we do that because we recognize what they have achieved, and how they’re trying to achieve it. (p. 246)

Just a few weeks later, he enthusiastically declared that “the Bolivarian revolution is in full swing and is providing inspiration across a whole continent.” Venezuela was praised as a successful counter-model to “neo-liberal policies.” (p. 247)

Praises of Stalin
Niemietz shows that even mass murderers such as Josef Stalin and Mao Zedong were enthusiastically celebrated by leading intellectuals of their time. These intellectuals were not outsiders but renowned writers and scholars, as Niemietz demonstrates with numerous examples. Even the concentration camps in the Soviet Union, the Gulags, were admired:

They were presented as places of rehabilitation, not punishment, where inmates were given a chance to engage in useful activities, while reflecting upon their mistakes.

A then-well-known American writer explained:

The labor camps have won high reputation throughout the Soviet Union as places where tens of thousands of men have been reclaimed. (p. 72)

Even journalists and intellectuals who didn’t completely turn a blind eye to the regime’s crimes found arguments to justify what was happening:

But – to put it brutally – you can’t make an omelet without breaking eggs and the Bolshevist leaders are just as indifferent to the casualties that may be involved in their drive toward socialization as any General during the World War who ordered a costly attack. (p. 80)

These sentences were written by The New York Times’ Moscow correspondent, who was head of the newspaper’s office in the Russian capital from 1922 to 1936.

Niemietz concedes that some socialist intellectuals did criticize the Soviet Union. But for many, their antipathy was the result of using utopian standards as a yardstick for judging real-world systems – utopian fantasies that no system in the world would have been able to live up to.

If one’s idea of socialism demands the immediate abolition of the police, the army, the court system, the prison system, etc., if it requires people to voluntarily give up money, private property, exchange, etc., and if one does not accept any compromises, halfway measures or phase-in periods, then yes, such a person would not have been seduced by Leninism. But this is simply because they would have set the bar impossibly high. A lot of early socialist critics of the Soviet Union fall into this category. (p. 98)

Adulation for Mao
Many Western intellectuals were enthusiastic in their support for Mao Zedong and his cultural revolution despite the 45 million lives lost during socialism’s greatest experiment – the Great Leap Forward – at the end of the 1950s alone. After Mao’s death, when Deng Xiaoping’s reform policies liberated hundreds of millions of Chinese from bitter poverty, these same intellectuals were nowhere near as enthusiastic about China as they had been in Mao’s day.

Just as ironically, the enthusiasm of Western intellectuals for China began to fade when the most murderous period was over… Western intellectuals had lavishly heaped praise on China when millions of Chinese people were starving or worked to death in forced labour camps. But when a programme of relative liberalisation lifted millions of people out of poverty, those intellectuals were conspicuous by their silence. Market-based reform programmes, no matter how successful, will never inspire pilgrimages. (p. 110-111)

Even the North Korean dictator Kim Il Sung and the murderous Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia found admirers among Western intellectuals, as Niemietz demonstrates in two chapters of his book. And that’s not to mention Cuba and Che Guevara, who became a pop icon in the West.

When the Experiment Fails: “That Was Never True Socialism”
In his thorough historical analysis, Niemietz shows every socialist experiment to date has gone through three phases.

During the first phase, the honeymoon period (p. 56), intellectuals around the world are enthusiastic about the system and praise it to the heavens. This enthusiasm is always followed by a second phase, disillusionment, or as Niemietz calls it, “the excuses-and-whataboutery period.” (p. 57) During this phase, intellectuals still defend the system and its “achievements” but withdraw their uncritical support and begin to admit deficiencies, although these are often presented as the result of capitalist saboteurs, foreign forces, or boycotts by US imperialists.

Finally, the third phase sees intellectuals deny that it was ever truly a form of socialism, the not-real-socialism stage. (p. 57) This is the stage at which intellectuals line up to state that the country in question – for example, the Soviet Union, China, or Venezuela – was never really a socialist country. According to Niemietz, however, this line of argumentation is rarely presented during the first phase of a new socialist experiment and becomes the dominant view only after the socialist experiment has failed.

Nowadays, Western socialists do not even attempt to oppose real-world capitalism with historical examples of socialism. Instead, they put forward arguments based on the vague utopia of a “just” society. Sometimes, they cite “Nordic socialism” – i.e. the variant of socialism that emerged in countries like Sweden – as an example, although they completely forget that the Nordic countries, having learned from their failed socialist experiments of the 1970s, have long since abandoned the socialist path. Today – despite having higher taxes – they are no less capitalist than, for example, the United States.

In the author’s place, I would have dealt explicitly with “democratic socialism,” which has also always failed miserably. After all, the policies pursued by socialists in Great Britain and some high-profile members of the Democratic Party in the United States, namely very high taxation on the rich and a high level of state regulation of the economy, has certainly also been seen before in democratic countries, including Sweden and Great Britain in the 1970s. But even these experiments, despite not ending in totalitarian rule or even mass murder, were catastrophic for the economy and led to stubborn declines in prosperity.

Socialists who criticize Stalinism and other forms of real-world, historical socialism always fail to analyze the economic reasons for the failures of these systems. (p. 28) Their analyses attack the paucity of democratic rights and freedoms in these systems, but the alternatives they formulate are based on a vague vision of all-encompassing “democratization of the economy” or “worker control.” Niemietz shows that these are the exact same principles that initially underpinned the failed socialist systems in the Soviet Union and other countries.

When contemporary socialists talk about a non-autocratic, non-authoritarian, participatory and humanitarian version of socialism, they are not as original as they think they are. That was always the idea. This is what socialists have always said. It is not for a lack of trying that it has never turned out that way. (p. 42)

This is an incredible book and should be compulsory reading at schools and universities, where today the song sung by anti-capitalists reigns supreme. Niemietz argues with intellectual authority as he weighs, differentiates, and marshals a wealth of historical evidence in support of his thesis. No other author has so far managed to so convincingly explain why socialism has nevertheless continued to remain so attractive to this day despite the sharp lessons of bitter historical experience.

In his Lectures on the Philosophy of History, the German philosopher Hegel observed,

But what experience and history teach is this, – that peoples and governments never have learned anything from history, or acted on principles deduced from it.

It could well be that Hegel’s verdict is too harsh. Nevertheless, it does seem that the majority of people are unable to abstract and draw general conclusions from historical experience. Despite the numerous examples of capitalist economic policies leading to greater prosperity – and the failure of every single variant of socialism that has ever been tested under real-world conditions – many people still seem incapable of learning the most obvious lessons.
----
This article was originally published on FEE.org.
https://fee.org/articles/why-socialism-is-the-failed-idea-that-never-dies/

DougMacG

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Communism, Socialism, PJ O'Rourke, why millennials adore socialism
« Reply #714 on: September 13, 2020, 07:09:27 AM »
Lots of edge and insight here.  Probably not a tone that persuades.

https://nypost.com/2020/09/12/pj-orourke-this-is-why-millennials-adore-socialism/


ccp

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crony capitalism
« Reply #715 on: October 03, 2020, 09:03:38 AM »
whether from the right or left
I just hate this stuff

just so unfair:

Pelosi Feinstein style insider connections:
https://www.yahoo.com/huffpost/kushner-companies-freddie-mac-786-million-terms-111315311.html

DougMacG

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Correction, crony big-governmentism.  It has nothing to do with capitalism which involves free market risk and everything to do with government power dictating results.

I hate it too.  It is something where the far right and the far left can agree. Worst offenders are the 'centrists'.  When they brag about getting things done with public-private partnerships, cringe, run, hide.

See: 1. New London CT took people's homes against their will for a government preferred use which was a parking lot for Pfizer to make viagara.  Project failed.
2. Solyndra, etc. Bankrupt.

It's bad policy, it's immoral and it's cheating to have the refs side with a team. Everyone else loses. It violates equal protection under the law.
« Last Edit: October 03, 2020, 10:55:03 AM by DougMacG »

DougMacG

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Re: Fascism, liberal and tech fascism, progressivism, socialis
« Reply #717 on: January 10, 2021, 08:36:25 AM »
They stole our language.  I warned it was coming when they infiltrated my industry with "affordable housing".

Affordable housing, in reality, is when a person or family, works, saves, invests, then buys or builds a home they can afford.  It's not rocket science; it's freedom, free enterprise, and free will.  Then one day the emerging powers within the Fascist, Leftist, Media, Academia Complex designated that simple and innocent term to mean the opposite.  'Affordable Housing' became the industry of federally subsidized public paid programs forcing their way beyond just inner cities and into all neighborhoods, the suburbs and all communities through HUD, Section 8 and a thousand other programs.  Not just nothing to do with being able to afford all the costs of your house, but to mean exactly the opposite.

So it wasn't surprising that Obamacare became the affordable care act, that minimum wage bans the hiring of hiring of people whose entry level work skills are worth less.  Smart Growth means government planned and controlled.  Peaceful protests can burn a thousand buildings.  Voter suppression is when you ask the voter to identify him or herself. Opposing any of it means you are racist.

Now, if your number one focus is to make certain elections are legal, honest, accurate and fairly administered according to the rules set by the state legislatures as required by the constitution, and want variances from that investigated, you are "undermining democracy". 

[Profanity omitted for how I feel about this.]

DougMacG

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Re: Fascism, liberal and tech fascism, progressivism, socialism
« Reply #718 on: January 13, 2021, 10:34:24 AM »

DougMacG

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Pompeo equates 'wokeness' with totalitarianism
« Reply #719 on: January 21, 2021, 06:15:28 PM »
Was he not supposed to say that out loud?

https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/534892-us-secretary-of-state-on-last-day-in-office-equates-wokeness-with

US secretary of State on last day in office equates 'wokeness' with totalitarianism

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on his final full day in office said that “wokeness” is equivalent with totalitarianism, and that “multiculturalism” is not “who America is.”

“Woke-ism, multiculturalism, all the -isms — they're not who America is. They distort our glorious founding and what this country is all about. Our enemies stoke these divisions because they know they make us weaker,” Pompeo tweeted in what appeared to be a parting shot at the left as he leaves office.

Pompeo, whose ancestors came to the U.S. from Italy, also reupped a past statement saying “Censorship, wokeness, political correctness, it all points in one direction – authoritarianism, cloaked as moral righteousness.”

Woke-ism, multiculturalism, all the -isms — they're not who America is. They distort our glorious founding and what this country is all about. Our enemies stoke these divisions because they know they make us weaker. pic.twitter.com/Mu97xCgxfS

— Secretary Pompeo (@SecPompeo) January 19, 2021


ccp

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why waste time DC for statehood
« Reply #720 on: January 23, 2021, 04:48:38 AM »
https://www.breitbart.com/clips/2021/01/22/d-c-mayor-bowser-dem-led-house-senate-will-pass-d-c-statehood-bring-it-to-bidens-desk/

I am thinking this will eventually go to SCOTUS after Biden, the divider, will sing it.

Is this clearly NOT Constitutional ?

https://www.bostonglobe.com/2020/06/21/opinion/constitution-says-no-dc-statehood/

So effectively the 20th largest city should get 2 senators -  come on man , look at the Constitution



Crafty_Dog

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Camel's nose in the tent for UBI
« Reply #723 on: March 03, 2021, 07:14:27 AM »
Universal basic income is about to arrive in America. Congressional Democrats’ $1.9 trillion stimulus bill provides for no-strings attached checks, limited only to parents of children under 18. This UBI for parents is billed as pandemic relief, but its real purpose is to put a stake in the heart of work-based welfare reform.

Supporters blandly describe their plan as “Child Tax Credit improvements for 2021.” It would replace today’s annual child tax credit, which tops out at $2,000, with more-generous “child allowances,” payable monthly. Those allowances are federal payments of $3,600 (or $300 a month) for each child under 6 and $3,000 ($250 a month) for older children. The current credit increases with income from work; the new one would provide the same large payments to all.

Under the guise of pandemic relief, the federal government would give a nonworking single parent with two preschool-age children and one in grade school $850 a month. This would come on top of other government benefits, including $680 a month in food stamps, amounting to $18,360 in combined annual income. That’s the equivalent, without accounting for taxes, of working 28 hours a week at $12.50 an hour. On top of that, the family would receive health insurance from Medicaid, and it may also receive housing and child-care assistance. Government benefits to nonworking households that are this generous are bound to reduce employment.

The bill would provide the new benefit for only one year, but the Washington Post reports that “congressional Democrats and White House officials have said they would push for the policy to be made permanent later in the year.”


Under current law, federal cash assistance to poor families flows through state social-services agencies, which require recipients to work, look for work, or at least engage in some activity designed to help them become employed. UBI for parents is designed to circumvent these requirements. If enacted it will more than double the government-provided cash assistance to households headed by single mothers, creating a perverse incentive for the unmarried poor to have more children. That would lead to more poverty, not less.


Unlike existing benefits, UBI for parents also avoids efforts to seek and collect child-support payments from parents who don’t live with their kids. That’s unfortunate, because efforts to collect child support have led to increased income for families in need and greater emotional connection between absent dads and their children.

If all this sounds vaguely familiar, it should. Sending monthly checks to nonworking parents was exactly how welfare used to work until 1996, when President Clinton signed the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act, for which Sen. Joe Biden voted. That law requires parents to work or train in exchange for welfare benefits and offered additional child care and other support to help them go to work.

Once UBI for parents is here, calls for UBI for everyone will follow. Democrats’ stimulus bill already includes more checks for adults (and their children), so the mechanics are in place. Last year then- Sen. Kamala Harris introduced legislation calling for $2,000 monthly “pandemic” payments per adult and up to three children. If such a scheme ever started, it would be politically difficult to shut off, despite its high cost.

Some conservatives and libertarians have argued for UBI, but only as a replacement for the rest of the welfare state. That is most definitely not what the Democrats are proposing—they want the UBI, and food stamps and Medicaid and all of the rest.

After the 1996 welfare reform, child poverty declined as single mothers increasingly worked and received benefits that supplemented their earnings. This combination of work plus aid made work pay, as Mr. Clinton used to say, and it allowed people to have the dignity that comes with earning one’s own living. Monthly welfare benefits with no expectation of work would reduce employment and earnings, establish lifelong government dependency for millions of Americans, and increase unwed childbearing. Democratic lawmakers may be happy to pave the way for UBI and finally reverse what Congress and Mr. Clinton did in 1996. It’s a bad bargain for everyone else.

Mr. Doar is president of the American Enterprise Institute. He served as commissioner of social services in New York City, 2007-14. Mr. Weidinger is a resident fellow in poverty studies at AEI and a former deputy staff director of the House Ways and Means Committee.

ccp

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UBI what a disaster and just plain umb
« Reply #724 on: March 03, 2021, 09:00:16 AM »
reward people not to work
and for having babies they cannot afford

this is not fair to those that do work
and only have children they can afford

but that never matters to Democrats

why do we have to sit here and have it stuck to us
repeatedly till we bleed dry


Crafty_Dog

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DougMacG

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Commie Kramer
« Reply #728 on: July 01, 2021, 09:04:46 AM »
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7FPICbO-fWo&t=145s

Kramer from Seinfeld.  Hat tip Instapundit.  Kid calls out the commie.  Those were the days.
« Last Edit: July 01, 2021, 01:30:56 PM by Crafty_Dog »



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« Last Edit: July 13, 2021, 06:27:54 AM by Crafty_Dog »


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Fascism, socialism, VDH: The Revolution
« Reply #736 on: August 17, 2021, 09:55:19 AM »
Thank you to Prof. Victor Davis Hanson for seeing the importance of this.  It's not a bad policy or a policy mistake; it's a [Marxist] revolution.

"...quietly the Biden Administration has already begun systematically to warp the rules of free-market capitalism. In other words, we are apparently all to be socialists now.

By continuing to suspend rental payments to landlords who have no redress to the courts for violations of their contractual leases, the government essentially has redefined private property as we know it. Who really owns an apartment or a room in a house if the occupant has not paid rent since last spring? Is the de facto owner the renter in physical control of the unit, or the increasingly impotent title holder who must still pay the insurance, taxes, and upkeep
?"
https://amgreatness.com/2021/08/15/are-we-in-a-revolution-and-dont-even-know-it/


Then he goes on to put student debt forgiveness in the same category.  If you paid your way through school or didn't go because of the cost, they made you a fool.  A contract isn't a contract.  You don't really owe that money and it's not really money.  It's a government lever.

The Landlord eviction moratorium thing isn't about landlords.  It's about fascism and destroying the private contract and enterprise based economy.  If you paid rent the last 16 months when you could have had it paid for free, you are a sap in 2021 America.  If you gave something of value in exchange for a promise to pay, you are a sucker.  The government, under Leftist control, can come in and cancel that.  Tis isn't about landlords and housing.  They are practicing with landlords and housing.

Sorry, I hate Nazi analogies, but it reminds me of Third Reich Germany.  What's the matter (if you aren't one), they're only coming for the Jews.  Oops, they came for the Jews first, then everyone who did not join the revolution.


G M

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Re: Fascism, socialism, VDH: The Revolution (Color Revolution)
« Reply #737 on: August 17, 2021, 10:29:58 AM »
It's a Color Revolution being run by the deep state.

https://www.conservativedailynews.com/2020/09/what-is-a-color-revolution/

http://williamengdahl.com/englishNEO16Jun2020.php


Thank you to Prof. Victor Davis Hanson for seeing the importance of this.  It's not a bad policy or a policy mistake; it's a [Marxist] revolution.

"...quietly the Biden Administration has already begun systematically to warp the rules of free-market capitalism. In other words, we are apparently all to be socialists now.

By continuing to suspend rental payments to landlords who have no redress to the courts for violations of their contractual leases, the government essentially has redefined private property as we know it. Who really owns an apartment or a room in a house if the occupant has not paid rent since last spring? Is the de facto owner the renter in physical control of the unit, or the increasingly impotent title holder who must still pay the insurance, taxes, and upkeep
?"
https://amgreatness.com/2021/08/15/are-we-in-a-revolution-and-dont-even-know-it/


Then he goes on to put student debt forgiveness in the same category.  If you paid your way through school or didn't go because of the cost, they made you a fool.  A contract isn't a contract.  You don't really owe that money and it's not really money.  It's a government lever.

The Landlord eviction moratorium thing isn't about landlords.  It's about fascism and destroying the private contract and enterprise based economy.  If you paid rent the last 16 months when you could have had it paid for free, you are a sap in 2021 America.  If you gave something of value in exchange for a promise to pay, you are a sucker.  The government, under Leftist control, can come in and cancel that.  Tis isn't about landlords and housing.  They are practicing with landlords and housing.

Sorry, I hate Nazi analogies, but it reminds me of Third Reich Germany.  What's the matter (if you aren't one), they're only coming for the Jews.  Oops, they came for the Jews first, then everyone who did not join the revolution.

Crafty_Dog

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 :-o :-o :-o :-o :-o :-o :-o :-o :-o

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Techfascism, cronyism, Electric cars unreliable, in flames, Subsidize Them!
« Reply #739 on: August 27, 2021, 08:20:00 AM »
GM Recalls All Chevrolet Bolts Due to Fire Concerns
The automaker has expanded an existing recall to include all 2017-2022 models
https://www.consumerreports.org/car-recalls-defects/chevrolet-bolt-recalled-again-due-to-fire-concerns-a3566085147/
---------------------------------------------------------
https://bestlifeonline.com/most-unreliable-car-news/
Reliability score (out of 100): 26

Tesla may be the most well-known electric car company in the country, but according to Edmunds, the 2020 Tesla Model S, which has a 3.2 consumer rating, has its fair share of problems.


DougMacG

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Progressivism = No You Can't, Michael Shellenberger
« Reply #740 on: September 20, 2021, 02:59:16 PM »
https://michaelshellenberger.substack.com/p/why-i-am-not-a-progressive

For all of my adult life I have identified as a progressive. To me, being a progressive meant that I believed in empowerment. In 2002, when I co-founded a labor-environmental coalition to advocate for renewable energy, the symbol we chose to represent us was of Rosie the Riveter, an image of a woman factory worker during World War II flexing her muscle beneath the words, “We Can Do It!”. When President Barack Obama ran for office in 2008, it seemed fitting to me that he chose the slogan, “Yes we can!”

But now, on all the major issues of the day, the message from progressives is “No, you can’t.” No: poor nations like Bangladesh can’t adapt to climate change by becoming rich, insist progressives; rather, rich nations must become poor. No: we can’t prevent the staggering rise of drug deaths in the U.S., from 17,000 in 2000 to 93,000 in 2020, by helping people free themselves from addiction; rather, we must instead provide Safe Injection Sites and Safe Sleeping Sites, in downtown neighborhoods, where homeless addicts can use fentanyl, heroin, and meth safely.

Progressives insist they are offering hope. Many scientists and activists yesterday said that, while we have gone past the point of no return, when it comes to climate change, and that “No one is safe,” we can make the situation less bad by using solar panels, windmills, and electric cars, albeit at a very high cost to the economy. And in California, progressive leaders say that we just need to stick with the progressive agenda of Safe Injection Sites and Safe Sleeping Sites until we can build enough single unit apartments for the state’s 116,000 unsheltered homeless, most of whom are either addicted to hard drugs, suffering from untreated mental illness, or both.

But progressives are talking out of both sides of their mouth. Yesterday I debated a British climate scientist named Richard Betts on television. After I pointed out that he and his colleagues had contributed to one out of four British children having nightmares about climate change he insisted that he was all for optimism and that he agreed with me about nuclear power. But just hours earlier he had told the Guardian that we were “hopelessly unprepared” for extreme weather events, even though deaths from natural disasters are at an all time low and that, objectively speaking, humankind has never been more prepared than we are today.

And on the drug deaths crisis, the consensus view among Democrats in Sacramento is that “the problem is fundamentally unsolvable,” according to one of the Capitol’s leading lobbyists. Facing a recall that is growing in popularity, Governor Gavin Newsom yesterday tried to demonstrate that he believes he can solve the problem. He came to Berkeley California and cleaned up garbage created by an open air drug scene (“homeless encampment”) underneath a freeway underpass. A reporter for Politico posted a picture of Newsom who he said was “looking tired, sweaty and dirty.” But a commenter noted that the video was shot at 12:12 pm and by 12:25 pm Newsom was holding a press conference. The governor hadn’t even bothered changing out of his Hush Puppies into work boots. People close to the governor say that it is Newsom himself who believes homelessness is a problem that cannot be solved.

The reason progressives believe that “No one is safe,” when it comes to climate change, and that the drug death “homelessness” crisis is unsolvable, is because they are in the grip of a victim ideology characterized by safetyism, learned helplessness, and disempowerment. This isn’t really that new. Since the 1960s, the New Left has argued that we can’t solve any of our major problems until we overthrow our racist, sexist, and capitalistic system. But for most of my life, up through the election of Obama, there was still a New Deal, “Yes we can!,” and “We can do it!” optimism that sat side-by-side with the New Left’s fundamentally disempowering critique of the system.

That’s all gone. On climate change, drug deaths, and cultural issues like racism, the message from progressives is that we are doomed unless we dismantle the institutions responsible for our oppressive, racist system. Those of us in Generation X who were raised to believe that racism was something we could overcome have been told in no uncertain terms that we were wrong. Racism is baked into our cultural DNA. Even apparently positive progressive proposals are aimed at fundamentally dismantling institutions. The Democrats’ $1 trillion infrastructure bill, supported by many Republicans, and their $3.5 trillion budget proposal, contain measures that would finance the continuing degradation of our electrical grids by increasing reliance on unreliable, weather-dependent renewables, and establish racial incentives for industries including trucking, where there is already a shortage of drivers in large measure because not enough of them can pass drug tests. And does anyone really believe that, if those bills pass, progressives will abandon their dark vision of the future and return to Rosie the Riveter? 

Meanwhile, at the state and local level, progressive governments faced with worsening racial disparities in education and crime, are attempting to “solve” the problem by eliminating academic standards altogether, and advocating selective enforcement of laws based on who is committing them. Such measures are profoundly cynical. Progressives are effectively giving up on addressing racial disparities by ignoring them. But such is the logical outcome of victim ideology, which holds that we can divide the world into victims and oppressors, that victims are morally superior and even spiritual, and no change is possible until the system that produces victims and oppressors is overthrown.

To some extent none of this is new. After World War II, it was progressives, not conservatives, who led the charge to replace mental hospitals with community-based care. After the community-based care system fell apart, and severely mentally ill people ended up living on the street, addicted to drugs and alcohol, progressives blamed Reagan and Republicans for cutting the budget. But progressive California today spends more than any other state, per capita, on mental health, and yet the number of homeless, many of whom are mentally ill and suffering addiction, increased by 31% in California since 2010 even as they declined by 18 percent in the rest of the US.

Also after World War II, it was progressives, not conservatives, who insisted that the world was coming to an end because too many babies were being born, and because of nuclear energy. The “population bomb” meant that too many people would result in resource scarcity which would result in international conflicts and eventually nuclear war. We were helpless to prevent the situation through technological change and instead had to prevent people from having children and rid the world of nuclear weapons and energy. It took the end of the Cold War, and the overwhelming evidence that parents in poor nations chose to have fewer children, as parents in rich nations had before them, where they no longer needed them to work on the farm, for the discourse to finally fade.

But the will-to-apocalypse only grew stronger. After it became clear that the planet was warming, not cooling, as many scientists had previously feared, opportunistic New Left progressives insisted that climate change would be world-ending. There was never much reason to believe this. A major report by the National Academies of Science in 1982 concluded that abundant natural gas, along with nuclear power, would substitute for coal, and prevent temperatures from rising high enough to threaten civilization. But progressives responded by demonizing the authors of the study and insisting that anybody who disagreed that climate change was apocalyptic was secretly on the take from the fossil fuel industry.

Where there have been relatively straightforward fixes to societal problems, progressives have opposed them. Progressives have opposed the expanded use of natural gas and nuclear energy since the 1970s even though it was those two technologies that caused emissions to peak and decline in Germany, Britain and France during that decade. Progressive climate activists over the last 15 years hotly opposed fracking even though it was the main reason emissions in the US declined 22 percent between 2005 and 2020, which is 5 percentage points more than President Obama proposed to reduce them as part of America’s Paris climate agreement.

The same was the case when it came to drug deaths, addiction, and homelessness. People are shocked when I explain to them that the reason California still lacks enough homeless shelters is because progressives have opposed building them. Indeed, it was Governor Newsom, when he was Mayor of San Francisco, who led the charge opposing the construction of sufficient homeless shelters in favor of instead building single unit apartments for anybody who said they wanted one. While there are financial motivations for such a policy, the main motivation was ideological. Newsom and other progressives believe that simply sheltering people is immoral. The good is the enemy of the perfect.

As a result, progressives have created the apocalypse they feared. In California, there are “homeless encampments,” open drug scenes, in the parks, along the highways, and on the sidewalks. But the problem is no longer limited to San Francisco. A few days ago somebody posted a video and photo on Twitter of people in Philadelphia, high on some drug, looking exactly like Hollywood zombies. The obvious solution is to provide people with shelter, require them to use it, and mandate drug and psychiatric treatment, for people who break laws against camping, public drug use, public defecation, and other laws. But progressives insist the better solution is Safe Sleeping Sites and Safe Injection Sites.

Should we be surprised that an ideology that believes American civilization is fundamentally evil has resulted in the breakdown of that civilization? Most American progressives don’t hold such an extreme ideology. Most progressives want police for their neighborhoods. Most progressives want their own children, when suffering mental illness and addiction, to be mandated care. And most progressives want reliable electrical and water management systems for their neighborhoods.

But most progressives are also voting for candidates who are cutting the number of police for poor neighborhoods, insisting that psychiatric and drug treatment be optional, and that trillions be spent making electricity more expensive so we can harmonize with nature through solar panels made by enslaved Muslims in China, and through industrial wind projects built in the habitat of critically endangered whale species.

Does pointing all of this out make me a conservative? There are certainly things I support that many progressives view as conservative, including nuclear power, a ban on public camping, and mandating drug and psychiatric treatment for people who break the law. But other things I support might be fairly viewed as rather liberal, or even progressive, including universal psychiatric care, shelter-for-all, and the reform of police departments with the aims of reducing homicides, police violence, and improving the treatment of people with behavioral health disorders, whether from addiction or mental illness.

And there is a kind of victim ideology on the Right just as there is on the Left. It says that America is too weak and poor, and that our resources are too scarce, to take on our big challenges. On climate change it suggests that nothing of consequence can be done and that all energy sources, from coal to nuclear to solar panels, are of equal or comparable value. On drug deaths and homelessness it argues that parents must simply do a better job raising their children to not be drug addicts, and that we should lock up people, even the mentally ill, for long sentences in prisons and hospitals, with little regard for rehabilitation. 

The two grassroots movements I have helped to create around energy and homelessness reject the dystopian victim ideologies of Right and Left. There are progressive and conservative members in both coalitions. But what unites us is our commitment to practical policies that are proven to work in the real world. We advocate for the maintenance and construction of nuclear plants that actually exist, or could soon exist, not futuristic reactors that likely never will. We advocate for Shelter First and Housing Earned, universal psychiatric care, and banning the open dealing of deadly drugs because those are the policies that have worked across the U.S. and around the world, and can be implemented right away.

If I had to find a word to describe the politics I am proposing it would be “heroic,” not liberal, conservative, or even moderate. We need a politics of heroism not a politics of victimhood. Yes, Bangladesh can develop and save itself from sea level rise, just as rich nations have; they are not doomed to hurricanes and flooding. Yes, people addicted to fentanyl and meth can recover from their addictions, with our help, and go on to live fulfilling and rewarding lives; they are not doomed to live in tents for the rest of their shortened lives. And yes, we can create an America where people who disagree on many things can nonetheless find common ground on the very issues that most seem to polarize us, including energy, the environment, crime, and drugs. 

On October 12 HarperCollins will publish my second book in two years, San Fransicko, focused on drugs, crime, and homelessnes. It and Apocalypse Never will constitute a comprehensive proposal for saving our civilization from those who would destroy it. What both books have in common is the theme of empowerment. We are not doomed to an apocalyptic future, whether from climate change or homelessness. We can achieve nature, peace, and prosperity for all people because humans are amazing. Our civilization is sacred; we must defend and extend it.

San Fransicko was inspired, in part, by the work of the late psychiatrist, Victor Frankl, who was made famous by a book where he described how he survived the Nazi concentration camps by fixating on a positive vision for his future. During the darkest moments of Covid last year I was struck by how much my mood had improved simply by listening to his 1960s lectures on YouTube. Why, I wondered, had progressives embraced Frankl’s empowering therapy in their personal lives but demonized it in their political lives? Why had progressives, who had done so much to popularize human potential and self-help, claimed that promoting self-help in policies and politics were a form of “blaming the victim?”

Few of my conclusions will surprise anyone, though the agenda, and philosophy, that I am proposing might. It truly is a mix of values, policies, and institutions that one might consider progressive and conservative, not because I set out to make it that way, but because it was that combination that has worked so often in the past. But beyond the policies and values I propose there is a spirit of overcoming, not succumbing; of empowerment, not disempowerment; and of heroism, not victimhood. That spirit comes before, and goes beyond, political ideology and partisan identity. It says, against those who believe that America, and perhaps Western Civilization itself, are doomed: no they’re not. And to those who think we can’t solve big challenges like climate change, drug deaths, and homelessness, it says yes we can.

Crafty_Dog

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Re: Fascism, liberal and tech fascism, progressivism, socialism, crony capitalism
« Reply #741 on: September 20, 2021, 03:47:06 PM »
Very good read!

May I ask you to put it in the Rants thread as well?

ccp

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Black face won
« Reply #742 on: September 21, 2021, 05:42:45 AM »


DougMacG

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Re: Biden Tresasury pick wants to socialize banking itself.
« Reply #744 on: October 02, 2021, 04:43:01 AM »
https://nypost.com/2021/09/30/bidens-pick-for-treasury-post-sought-end-to-banking-as-we-know-it/?fbclid=IwAR1222vNdun1yT-jlYeMN7ISXnJfwxLa6qEJYoi990I8EU8q8HumCdHzr88

Never pay taxes again.  They already have all your money.

Freedom is full of inefficiencies - from the all powerful government's point of view.

Elimination of capitalism and private decision making in every industry and every aspect of life? We're almost there.

At some point very soon we're going to have to articulate why that's a bad idea.
« Last Edit: October 02, 2021, 04:55:17 AM by DougMacG »

G M

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Re: Biden Tresasury pick wants to socialize banking itself.
« Reply #745 on: October 02, 2021, 10:42:49 AM »
To the vote fraud machines?

https://nypost.com/2021/09/30/bidens-pick-for-treasury-post-sought-end-to-banking-as-we-know-it/?fbclid=IwAR1222vNdun1yT-jlYeMN7ISXnJfwxLa6qEJYoi990I8EU8q8HumCdHzr88

Never pay taxes again.  They already have all your money.

Freedom is full of inefficiencies - from the all powerful government's point of view.

Elimination of capitalism and private decision making in every industry and every aspect of life? We're almost there.

At some point very soon we're going to have to articulate why that's a bad idea.

DougMacG

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I'm trying to figure out how to make this argument more persuasively and find out Winston Churchill spoke on the topic 80 years ago.  Is anyone listening?

https://www.realclearhistory.com/articles/2021/09/27/churchill_truly_understood_communism_and_socialism_796439.html

[T]here can be no doubt that Socialism is inseparably interwoven with Totalitarianism and the abject worship of the State. … liberty, in all its forms, is challenged by the fundamental conceptions of Socialism. … there is to be one State to which all are to be obedient in every act of their lives. This State is to be the arch-employer, the arch-planner, the arch-administrator and ruler, and the arch-caucus boss.

A Socialist State once thoroughly completed in all its details and aspects… could not afford opposition. Socialism is, in its essence, an attack upon the right of the ordinary man or woman to breathe freely without having a harsh, clumsy tyrannical hand clapped across their mouths and nostrils.   

But I will go farther. I declare to you, from the bottom of my heart that no Socialist system can be established without a political police. Many of those who are advocating Socialism or voting Socialist today will be horrified at this idea. That is because they are shortsighted, that is because they do not see where their theories are leading them.

No Socialist Government conducting the entire life and industry of the country could afford to allow free, sharp, or violently-worded expressions of public discontent. They would have to fall back on some form of Gestapo, no doubt very humanely directed in the first instance.

And this would nip opinion in the bud; it would stop criticism as it reared its head, and it would gather all the power to the supreme party and the party leaders, rising like stately pinnacles above their vast bureaucracies of Civil servants, no longer servants and no longer civil. And where would the ordinary simple folk — the common people, as they like to call them in America — where would they be, once this mighty organism had got them in its grip?
« Last Edit: October 03, 2021, 06:22:15 AM by DougMacG »

Crafty_Dog

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So of course the first thing His Glibness did was remove Churchill's bust from the White House.